One Person's View On Injustice Is Another Persons View On Reality

Bottom line is that The Star's campaigns sell newspapers but do they solve the problems......poverty is still with us; racial profiling claims continue to put the bad guys back on the street; more and more people are seeing the downside of multi-culturalism; etc.

We're not resting on our laurels
TheStar.com - News - We're not resting on our laurels

October 26, 2007
Royson James

In July 1994 I wrote a small story declaring that a group of Torontonians had started the Harmony Movement to combat intolerant acts against minorities. This week the group honoured the Toronto Star for being an agent of harmony; and publisher Jagoda Pike asked me to recall changes I'd seen over the years. This is most of what I told the awards banquet:

I tell stories.. That's what we journalists do. The Toronto Star publishes stories. That's what newspapers do. I tell stories about stalled waterfront development, fiscal crises at city hall, traffic jams and transit fares, Olympic bids, property tax assessments and the arcane, inner workings of city hall.

For years you accepted most of my stories like some anonymous dispatch from an unknown correspondent. My slave name, James, provided ample cover.

Then in 1998, my cover was blown. John Honderich put my picture above my words, designated me a columnist. Suddenly you expected more, demanded more. So, now, I tell other stories as well.

Earlier this year I returned from Ghana to hundreds of emails and voicemails from readers. Some were in tears. Ninety-nine per cent just wanted to say "Thanks," for telling their story, recalling their horrendous and underexposed history of enslavement, on the bicentenary of the ending of the transatlantic slave trade. For those readers, the Star is forever their newspaper. It had embraced their story and, by so doing, affirmed their presence in the Canadian mosaic.

That's what the Harmony Movement is about. That's all your organization asks. It's the least the Star can deliver.

Phinjo Gombu has different stories to tell. So do Haroon Siddiqui, Madhavi Acharya-Tom Yew, Prithi Yelaja, Vinay Menon, Nicholas Keung, Vanessa Lu. And the absolute genius of this conglomeration of talented story-tellers is they know your stories and you can read them in the Toronto Star.

Long before Citytv became the television station that best reflects Toronto; long before CBC's Metro Morning became the radio program of choice for all races and groups; long before that, the Star was embraced as our newspaper – yours and mine, because it never shirked from attempting to tell our stories, even if the newspaper lacked the authentic voices to frame the sentiments.

Oh, the Star failed many times. But we got through the door. We received a hearing.

If Carole Bell waxed idiotically about too many Chinese moving to Markham, we knew the Star would call her on it.

If racial profiling unfairly targeted young black males – and it does – we could count on the Star using its corporate muscle to challenge the police, even in the face of boycotts and billion-dollar lawsuits.

If Legion halls wanted to ban turban-wearing Sikhs on the Prairies, we knew the Star would rail against the injustice.

MORE