Anyone is welcome to submit a Guest Blog Entry to torontomike.com. I received the following entry earlier today.
So let's all STOP it now. We are to a degree to blame. We Liberals who cherish some of what that party stands for might have to stop and look more seriously at other issues. I for one have been a liberal all my life and have never considered the Conservative party. But now I am revisiting this party's philosophy. We have to feel safe in our streets. We have to have peace of mind that when our children go downtown, which is the perogative of every young child to get to know the downtown district of their fair city, that they are safe. We cannot live in fear. We do NOT want to become like American Cities where whites to not venture to a black area and blacks do not venture to a white area. We have built our city on multiculturalism and until now have felt secure that this was the right thing to do. Harsher penalties have to become the norm for these crimes. There are individuals walking those downtown streets with a crime rate as long as my arm and they are on the streets. Why? Why? Why?
Anonymous
I see somebody brought race into this discussion, but they're hiding behind the Anonymous tag. Are you, Anonymous, suggesting that we white people (assuming you're white... I suspect you are) may no longer feel safe in "black areas" because 52 people have died from gunshot wounds in our city in 2005? Would Prime Minister Stephen Harper (perish the thought) come down hard on those with criminal records thereby making "black areas" safer for white people to visit?
I don't mean to be snarky, I actually want to hear what others are thinking about all this, but I'm a bigger fan of Jill's suggestion. I'm also uncomfortable with labelling this a black problem. It's more of a self respect problem. I hope it doesn't appear as if I only took notice of this once an innocent young white girl got shot. When I wrote this I didn't know if she was black, white, yellow, brown, green or purple. All I knew is a 15-year old girl, shopping with her family at Yonge and Dundas on Boxing Day, was dead.
Enough is enough.
