Does violence in your community offend you?

There seems to be something that Black Lives Matters are getting  that I'm not sure that the rest of us are.And that is that police violence deeply offends in the communities where it happens.I'm not sure yet if they are equally offended by non-police violence,or by violence among blacks,or violence perpetrated by blacks on others,but they've nonetheless taken the time to be offended.Being offended seems reasonable and it matters.

I now live in Toronto,which is Canada's largest city.I love it here.It's my second stint living here and for the most part I feel very safe in any community where I venture.I might feel differently were my skin black.Who's to say? Toronto may well be the most diverse city in the world,and while it has it's share of problems,some of related to race and violence,for the most part we get along amazingly well here.

When I lived here from 2010-2012,I lived in the west end,in a Portuguese enclave near Bloor and Lansdowne.While the Portuguese community can be a bit insular,they really are good neighbors.Their children don't hang out on the street corners spewing profanity and looking for petty crimes to commit.Their houses and yards are well kept.If there is a crime in progress you can be assured that someone will call the police.You see,they care about their community.And if the stories of my friends are true,most of the ethnic communities about town are similar in that respect,with  few notable exceptions.Most of the time I'm glad I live here.But police violence when it occurs in my community offends me.Not just police violence,but all violence offends me.Police violence though is especially offensive because it is a corruption of an agency that was meant to serve and protect us.Later this week,I will have more to say about a particular case here in Toronto that happened five years ago this week-end.It did not involve a black man,but it was nevertheless at least as disturbing to me as anything  in the news recently.

Bloor Street is one of the busiest streets in Toronto.It runs east and west through the city for a long distance.In the east end,it's called Danforth,but it's the same street.There are shops of any kind you might imagine along Bloor including many open air markets.You can purchase food at very reasonable prices at these markets.A walking trip down Bloor is always a unique and wonderful experience.You can purchase all manner of things at Honest Ed's ,at the corner of Bloor and Bathurst Streets.It's a large,very cheesy and cheap place to shop for nearly anything.Iconic here in Toronto.It's part of the Toronto experience,at least for the next few months.There is the lady that sells samosas at the corner of Lansdowne and Bloor as well.They are Hindu ans serve only vegetable samosas.I was looking for the chicken samosas I prefer when I first went into her shop,which she explained they didn't make.But she really was such a sweet woman that I often found myself going back for a vegetable samosa every once in a while just so I could say hi.Such is Toronto.I recall too the fall of 2011,walking down Bloor Street and seeing the hugest pumpkins I've ever seen, at a fruit stand in Korea town.Nobody bought them,they were just too large to move,so they just sat there adding to the charm of the city.

I remember a pizza party too,one August night at the corner of Bloor and Christie.That all came about because of that incident of police violence that so disturbed me.We all gathered around,maybe about eighty of us and laid out candles and slices of pizza at a memorial for Charlie McGillvary. Charlie was a disabled man that had been killed by police at that intersection a few nights before,in a case of mistaken identity.Charlie loved pizza.His story pointed out,and continues to point out the need to find a way to enforce the law without resorting to the same old business as usual approach.As the fifth anniversary of that event approaches,you may not here much about it in the mainstream media.In fact,I was hard pressed to find a lot about it on the internet.But you will hear about it here.Because it happened in my old hood,a part of town I love.And it offended the hell out of me.