From the Desk of Rosetta Springer

Intercultural Community Dialogue —
the Reverend Eugene Rivers' Way

Like many other middle-class residents of Toronto, I watched the events of 2005 aghast and stunned. Young people, (overwhelmingly black) were killed on a weekly basis, gang warfare was escalating, and gunfire was ringing out on our streets. The first murmurs about 'Black-on-Black crime' an apartheid South African turn-of-phrase, were being heard at dinners and parties.

What had happened to our quiet, peaceful Toronto?

Prior to 2005 I remember returning from visits south to cities like New York, Washington D.C., or Philadelphia and feeling relief with a touch of superiority as my plane arrived at Pearson Airport… thank God I live here, not there. Toronto may not be as exciting or vibrant as New York I would say to myself, but here I could walk down all the streets without the simmering fear of thugs, of hearing gunfire.

Last year, all of a sudden, my comfortable feeling of living in a world of civilized quiet was shattered.

Now to be honest, I never felt that Greater Toronto was free of crime — what urban area is? Neither did I think that life was nirvana for my brothers and sisters in the morass of dissatisfaction and hopelessness that is "Black Toronto". In fact, as a social commentator and analyst who provides Diversity and Cultural Awareness consulting services to mainstream organizations, I am, and long have been, aware of the growing socio-economic divide. I have been agonizing over the growth in black youth violence, the serious income-inequality and dearth of social supports for segments of the black community referred to as members of the 'Disadvantaged Communities'. As I made speeches about 'Thinking Outside the Box', gave workshops and congregated friends and colleagues to discuss 'solutions', I wondered what would happen to these kids dropping out, or being pushed out of school.

In my head, I was still approaching the problems of marginalization and exclusion in the Canadian way; with quiet discussion; muted anger and outrage; believing that sooner or later political leaders would come up with solutions. Perhaps they would find the will to outlaw non-hunting guns I thought, or to stem the flow of American guns over the border. Perhaps all the multicultural advocacy groups could form a coalition to pressure the establishment to re-visit the 'Safe School Act' — surely it was obvious that this policy and 'zero tolerance' of bad behaviour in the schools was being used by some to leave our Black kids in the streets, excluded, disenfranchised and angry, while their bewildered parents watched as their dreams and ambitions evaporated. I would fume about how the Harris Government eliminated many community programs providing recreational and leisure activities, and that no funds had been found to replace them.

If only my community would become engaged in the political process and turn up in huge numbers at the ballot box, then we could exercise some clout with the political establishment, I thought to myself, and said often to others.

But until I sat in the Seventh Day Adventist Church at Martingrove and Albion recently and listened to Dr. Eugene Rivers speak with his American bluntness, I had ignored the most obvious solutions. The government and the politicians were not going to solve these problems. The Black Community and its multi-faith leaders were going to have to buckle down and attack the root problems of individual violence and gang warfare. We were going to have to focus on the various facets of the issue and save our children ourselves. They needed to be reclaimed from the streets and drugs and thugs, and we were going to have to do it.

What Reverend Eugene Rivers did in the few days he spent in Toronto, was to remind us that for the Black community, the centre of family and community life has always been organized around religion. The list of Black Christian pastors who have provided moral, spiritual and political compass for Black communities is remarkable:

In the United States — Martin Luther King, Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Malcolm X, Elijah Mohammed, Joseph Lowery and other members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference

In Canada — David George, John Marrant and John Ball of Nova Scotia, Moses Wilkinson of Birchtown.

In the cities, towns and villages from which we come in the Caribbean, Africa, and in South America, our lives are shaped and formed by the church. The major social events that allowed us to congregate and share experiences are the christenings, communion and confirmation services, weddings and funerals, Easter Sunday, Palm Sunday, Watch Night, Eid al-Fitr, Ed al-Adha, Christmas, New Years. Our lives in the diaspora have led us away from our spiritual centre in a major way, because although some of us go to church, declare ourselves Christian (or Muslim), we forgot the central theme of religious teachings: To minister and to care for God's flock; to lead them in the path of righteousness.

Reverend Rivers declared, "The middle class, the political leadership and the middle-class church have turned their backs on the poor."

Are the Black upper and middle classes in Toronto really involved with the so-called under class? When we escaped from Jane Finch, Malvern, or the other neighbourhoods to which racial minorities emigrate, did we not feel relief along with a sense of "well-deserved accomplishment"? As our lives got busier and busier with lawn mowings, interior decorators, musical recitals, tennis, swimming, ice skating classes, etc., the memory of the poverty, alienation and isolation of the lower-income neighbourhoods we once inhabited retreated.

So when Reverend Rivers called for "a new partnership of law enforcement, faith communities and community groups to provide wraparound care, seven days a week especially after schools let out on weekdays", I was thinking this is turbo-war on crime.

What he called for was a true multi-racial, multi-faith coalition — an all-pervasive war that would have all parts of the multi-faith community mobilizing and uniting to act as spokespeople, negotiators, mediators between the disenfranchised, the secular world and the political establishment. Each player would bring different strengths to the table: the Black church to tell unpleasant truths and realities to the black communities; the Roman Catholics to use their social clout and money; the Pentecostals with their passion for repentance and ministry; the Salvation Army to mobilize on the ground; and white congregations and ministers to negotiate with "political leaders in a language and tone, directness and facility that's not available to the powerless black community," Rivers said.

He did not mention outreach to Muslim leaders; perhaps he did not know about the growing immigrant population from the Horn of Africa and how many Sudanese and Somali kids are now in trouble. But never mind, "The Boston Miracle" is a road map. Before he started his whirlwind tour of Toronto, we did not have one. We were not talking openly about 'missing fathers', 'young girls turning to prostitution', or 'multi-racial ecumenical coalitions'.

Even if we cannot impose his American blueprint on our Canadian tundra, we now have a roadmap, which we can redesign to suit, I hope.