“So Deep, So Vicious, So Brutal”

There was a time, two decades gone, when I had to muster every ounce of optimism about job prospects for blacks in the media. During career days and black history month celebrations, I would tell black students that it was okay to pursue a career in journalism—despite the all-white cast that delivered the evening news on television and the morning news in the newspaper. Change would come, I enthused.

There has been a little pigment mixed into the white palette since those days, but a huge amount remains to be done in the way Toronto, billed as the world’s most diverse city, is portrayed in the media.

And maybe there will be a time when I can tell my grandkids, truthfully, that police won’t pay them special attention and stop their car for no apparent reason other than the benign offence of Driving While Black (DWB). Or that Travelling While Arab (TWA) is not a cause for delays, embarrassing searches, maybe imprisonment. That day is certainly not yet...