The gorillas in our midst

I was born in Toronto. (Long before the earth's crust cooled? ed.) I spent several years of my life there. But I've left, along with 1000s of others like me, because the Toronto of today more closely resembles Kingston... Kingston, Jamaica, that is, not Kingston, Ontario.

Toronto today is a collection of ghettos. There's Little Italy, Little Portugal, Greek Town, Old Chinatown -- the new Chinatowns being sensibly located in neighbouring cities. And there are other ghettos of Russians, Tamils, Somalis and just about every nationality on earth. Then there are the black ghettos.

I refer to York South-Weston, the area bounded by Lawrence Avenue, Caledonia Road, Dundas Street West and the Humber River. An article in Saturday's Globe and Mail describes it as "the new epicentre of gang activity". It is stuck between four other typically high-crime areas. There are the fabled Rexdale and Jane-Finch neighbourhoods to the northwest and north, the Lawrence Heights “jungle” to the northeast and Parkdale to the southeast.

What these areas have in common is that the majority of residents are black -- immigrants from Jamaica and other islands in the sun, and latterly "refugees" from the Horn of Africa. This is hardly news. It is a fact visible to anyone who drives along, say, Eglinton Avenue West, or who waits for a bus at the corner of Jane and Finch. (Get real! ed.) Anyone who watches the TV news reports of shootings in Toronto need only watch the video clips to know that the majority by far of victims of gang violence are black, as are the majority, again by far, of perpetrators.

Surprisingly though (I said, get real! ed.) this fact is not mentioned even once in the 2000-plus words of the Globe and Mail article. Nor is it mentioned in "Learning to cope in the city's new crime 'hot spot'", which appeared in Saturday's Toronto Star.

Why is this? Why will the media not acknowledge or even mention what everyone with his eyes even half-open knows?

How can one have any kind of meaningful analysis or discussion of what must be done to curb rising gang activity and gun violence without talking about one of the key issues which needs to be addressed?

It seems that political correctness prevents us from calling a spade a spade. Until the silent majority finds a voice, we can look forward to ever-increasing crime statistics and an ever higher cost to our (?) society.