Culture of harmony stifles debate
Is our distaste for conflict stopping us from having a difficult but necessary conversation about systemic bigotry?
Last week, a group of Black Lives Matter protesters blocked Allen Road during the evening commute. The protesters demanded justice for Andrew Loku, a black man who was recently shot dead by Toronto police. Racial disparities and police brutality are not limited to our American neighbours. Given that race is a political problem, it is vital to ask how our politicians discuss it. Findings from a new study I conducted at the University of Toronto’s Martin Prosperity Institute lead me to conclude that the dominant culture of multicultural harmony in Toronto may stifle political debate about the city’s racial problems.
For this study, I examined how candidates for city council addressed race and ethnicity during the 2014 Toronto and 2015 Chicago municipal elections. Comparing Toronto and Chicago offers a fascinating contrast. Although the two are often called “sister cities,” their ethnic and racial politics could not be more different. Toronto is a world-famous model of multiculturalism, while Chicago is one of the most segregated and divided cities in the U.S.
In analyzing printed campaign material — those brochures and flyers that cluttered your mailboxes just a few months ago — the study reveals that candidates in Toronto overwhelmingly emphasized their commitment to ethnic and racial harmony. Their messages encouraged inclusion and participation, but did not highlight the important racial challenges that Toronto faces.
Contentious ethnic or racial messages were practically absent in campaign material in Toronto. Candidates did not invoke ethnic or racial tensions and problems. In Chicago, campaign material was a lot more confrontational. African-American and Latino candidates vigorously attacked school closings in minority neighbourhoods, highlighted racist police abuse, and vowed to increase the share of minority contractors working on city projects. Racial politics in Chicago revolved around exposing racial injustice and exclusion.
The most striking feature of campaign material in Toronto was its focus on multicultural harmony and inclusivity. Candidates reliably portrayed members of visible minority groups in photographs. Additionally, the campaign material was full of passages in a multitude of languages other than English: a message of racial and ethnic unity.
There is much to celebrate about Toronto’s style of ethnic and racial politics. Photographs showig diversity and token statements in immigrant languages may seem hollow, devoid of any political substance. But they have symbolic implications for how we think about Canadian citizenship. Including visible minority groups in this way confirms that politicians regard them as legitimate participants in the democratic process. As Berkeley sociologist Irene Bloemraad has found, such messages effectively encourage immigrants to seek citizenship and to become more involved in politics.
Another upside of Toronto’s harmonious culture is that divisive tactics tend to backfire. Neither racism nor charges of racism bore electoral fruit during the 2014 elections. A smear campaign against Ausma Malik, who successfully ran for TDSB trustee, ignited outrage and, as ugly and hurtful as it was, probably ended up rallying support rather than undermining her campaign. Conversely, mayoral candidate Olivia Chow had to dissociate herself from political consultant Warren Kinsella after he described John Tory’s transit plan as “segregationist” because it ignored neighbourhoods with large black populations.
Nonetheless, this robust culture of harmony runs the risk of stifling debate around the ethnic and racial challenges that do exist. The issue of carding and its racial implications were well known in 2014. Yet I found only one candidate for councillor who explicitly took a stand on this issue in his campaign material (Nick Dominelli, who finished third in Ward 12). John Tory has now resolved to end carding, but an opportunity for political debate on this issue during the election was missed — presumably because candidates considered the issue too divisive. This is very disappointing.
Moreover, while it is true that Kinsella’s charge of segregationism was aggressive, it pointed to a significant question that was drowned out by the exasperated response to his accusation. Does Tory’s SmartTrack plan do enough to address the fact that many lowincome parts of the city, where many of Toronto’s visible minorities live, have limited access to efficient public transit? In Chicago, this question would be discussed as a racial issue.
Toronto’s inclusive and harmonious political culture may actually act to silence legitimate racial and ethnic grievances that we should openly confront through public discourse, even if the debate becomes heated or uncomfortable. Our apparent preference for harmony is something we should keep in mind as the federal election approaches. Electoral campaigning has the crucial democratic function of bringing issues to the attention of the public. Are the people who want to serve as our political representatives gamely addressing the most important public issues — including race and ethnicity, but also many others — or are they dodging them in favour of feel-good politics?