Caribana festival neatly packaged to misrepresent social inequality

"It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept and celebrate those differences." - Audre Lorde

Reflecting on the past Caribana parades (renamed Scotia Caribbean Carnival in 2011, but still affectionately called “Caribana” by the people) has led me to view the festival as just another way for Canada to “masquerade” our cultural differences.

Educator and social activist Ajamu Nangwaya’s 2010 article “Caribana, exploitation and disrespect of a cultural resource” thoroughly explains the huge amount of profit that the annual Caribana parade generates for the City of Toronto compared to other Canadian festivals held annually. Nangwaya’s commentary also points out the inadequate level of funding that has been distributed to this yearly festival by the three levels of government, and more significantly the non-beneficiaries of this festival, the Black community who have been instrumental in the festival’s creation and development. The parade was a gift given to the country by the Caribbean community in 1967 to celebrate a century of Canada’s independence as a settler-colonial state.

It is not surprising that Caribana has been treated as the “Cinderella of Canadian festival”, as Nangwaya calls it. The Black Caribbean community has always been socially/economically excluded from mainstream Canadian society and subjected to all forms of institutionalized racism (underemployment, racial profiling, etc.). Despite the community’s continued struggle for equality, the festival has been exploited and co-opted to promote Canada’s multicultural agenda that pushes an illusion of social cohesion and equal opportunity.

Over the summer, a reporter on the popular television station CP24 dubbed the festival as one of the most culturally diverse festival in North America. Similarly, the Scotiabank Toronto Caribbean Carnival official webpage boasts that the festival is “an expression of Toronto's multicultural and multiracial society”. The Toronto Star’s article, “Toronto Brings out…the Best”, speaks volumes to the ways in which the Caribana festival has been neatly packaged to misrepresent the social inequality racialized communities face daily.

Here are a few of the comments:

“I love Toronto because of its diversity and because of our ability to be tolerant and inclusive at the same time. We respect each other and allow each other to thrive. We allow each other to just be whoever they are, and you can’t beat Toronto.”

“I love the multiculturalism. There’s every race and we mesh well together here. Plus, Caribana is my favourite time of year.”

“If you’re up, 24 hours in a day there is always something to do, something is always going on. You can never be bored in Toronto. It’s multicultural and everyone is so accepting of different cultures.”

My intention is not to rain on anyone’s parade. In the past, I have enjoyed and appreciated the diverse Caribbean cultural festivities Caribana offers to the Black community and the wider Canadian society. However, the selective comments found throughout the various media houses paint a romanticised, if not a disturbing, narrative about the City of Toronto and Canada.

Indeed, Toronto is a diverse city that is not substantively different from other major metropolis that host immigrant populations searching for a better life. Let us not ignore the fact that this diversity is ghettoised in small pockets of the city. Therefore, how realistically do people of different races and ethnic groups co-exist harmoniously and get together to revel?

Besides, many of these racialized communities are socially deprived of adequate housing, adequate transportation services, anti-racist and biased policing, job opportunities, education, and culturally appropriate health care. Their representation as elected officials at all levels of government also remains very low, and we very rarely hear politicians addressing the real concerns of disenfranchised communities.

It is also questionable to what extent “we allow each other to just be whoever they are”. We could survey racialized youth who wear saggy pants and cornrows on how they are treated on a daily basis within the educational and judicial system, the labour market, and on the street by the police. A recent statistic indicates that African Canadians represents 2.5 percent of Canada’s population, yet they are overrepresented in federal prisons at 9%.

Most Canadians tend to be oblivious of these figures or often associate them with the United States. The U.S., being a major site of the slave trade, civil rights struggle, and more high profile racially motivated cases of racial oppression, has come to represent the epitome of race relations gone wrong.

Statistics on the education system and the African Canadian children are of equal concern, leading to what has been coined the “school-to-prison pipeline”. The Toronto Star 2009 article, “Suspended Sentence ....”, traced a prison to school cycle in Ontario where racialized youths particularly Blacks, were most affected from the TDSB “Safe School Act”. Other articles have also underscored the disproportionate number of suspension rates among the said groups.

When confronted with such alarming figures, it is very difficult to sit and listen to overzealous reporters using Caribana to mask Toronto’s social inequalities, and to overlook how very little of the monies generated from the festival are even channelled back into the community to create better social and economic opportunities. As expected, some of the 2014 mayoral candidates for the upcoming election wasted no time in capitalizing on the Caribana festival and its flagship parade to promote Toronto’s diversity and their respective political campaigns.

We should not become trapped in the euphoria of colourful costumes, vibrant dance and music to the point of developing an inability to see the persistent systemic racism and class inequalities in Canada. Perhaps we were too critical of Whoopi Goldberg for assuming that the word “nigger” means nothing in Canada.

Goldberg’s perception of Black Canadians not sharing the same historical racial reality as their African American counterparts is an honest response. Canada has successfully concealed its racial challenges to the extent that many Canadians also hold Whoopi Goldberg’s ideas of race relations in Canadian cities like Toronto.

It is this misconstrued perception of diversity, and the once a year opportunity to jump up in Toronto’s streets that have caused many of us to be unaware of the level of race, gender, and class inequality. This ignorance makes it easier for us to be misled by politicians, and mass media…the wickedly wise!

* THE VIEWS OF THE ABOVE ARTICLE ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR/S AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE PAMBAZUKA NEWS EDITORIAL TEAM

* BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Please do not take Pambazuka for granted! Become a Friend of Pambazuka and make a donation NOW to help keep Pambazuka FREE and INDEPENDENT!

* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.