By RON FANFAIR
The African Canadian community in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) has become toothless and voiceless, says a University of Toronto French professor. Dr. Fred Case said he reached that conclusion last month after returning from a one-week business trip to Central Asia.
“Upon my return, I found out that Julian Fantino was appointed the new Police Chief in Toronto,” Dr. Case told a community forum at the Toronto Board of Education last week.
“There was a time when I would have picked up about half-a-dozen messages from my answering machine alerting to me to a strategy meeting to stimulate a united response to the threat this appointment poses.
“There were no calls this time.”
He said that Fantino’s appointment must be viewed with apprehension since the Police Chief-designate has previously demonstrated an antipathy for certain North York residents. The 57-year-old Fantino has had an uneasy relationship with some segments of the Black community. He also created a furor over the release of race-based crime statistics in 1988 when he was in command of 31 Division in the Jane and Finch area of North York.
Dr. Case believes that many members of the Black community have been lulled to sleep well wrapped in “that great middle-class dream of cars, homes and barbecue sets.” He also suggested that many Blacks still endure crises of identity, which has led them to be selective in the fight against racism.
“It seems to me that we have become less conscious of community and less effective as we have moved away from being African-Canadians and have increasingly become people of colour. If we truly define ourselves as African-Canadians, then that African part of us would have responded far more actively to the arrival of refugees from East Africa. But we hardly lifted a finger.”
Dr. Case challenged the Organization of Parents of Black Children (OPBC) — the organizers of the forum which was held to celebrate Black History Month — to collaborate with organizations that represent refugees who have arrived here in the past two decades.
“You should be in a state of readiness for crisis intervention on the arrival of refugees from Africa and the Caribbean,” he charged the OPBC.
In his wide-ranging address, Dr. Case — a former principal of New College — attacked the provincial educational system, noting that many teachers are seeking alternative career options because they are insecure in their current employment.
“The educational system in this province has become an inefficient chaos in which permanent teachers are laid off and supply teachers hired,” he said. “Perhaps the day will soon come when supply teachers will congregate outside schools of their choice early in the mornings and principals will come along and take bids for a day’s work.”
Dr. Case has been closely associated with the OPBC since its emergence in May 1980. He was the keynote speaker at the launch of the organization which has worked tirelessly in the past 20 years to help make the school system more nurturing to the legitimate hopes, ambitions and aspirations of Black children.
Courtesy of the Share
mARCH 02, 2000