{"id":2473,"date":"2014-10-27T08:44:35","date_gmt":"2014-10-27T15:44:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/?p=2473"},"modified":"2014-10-27T08:44:35","modified_gmt":"2014-10-27T15:44:35","slug":"guardian-cities-old-white-guy-for-mayor-in-toronto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/?p=2473","title":{"rendered":"Guardian Cities: Old White Guy for Mayor in Toronto"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/static.guim.co.uk\/sys-images\/Guardian\/Pix\/pictures\/2014\/10\/24\/1414167120138\/8a30609e-f731-4359-aa83-9b1a244e9cf2-460x276.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"460\" height=\"276\" \/><\/p>\n<p>If I entered Toronto\u2019s heated mayoral race, I would pledge to ban the\u00a0<a style=\"color: #005689;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.benetton.com\/\">United Colors of Benetton<\/a>\u00a0from the city. While I have no objection to the company\u2019s shirts, coats or knitwear, their advertising, with its image of glossy diversity, must feed the insecurity Toronto feels about its own. As a white male (albeit a non-Canadian one), I bet I\u2019d even do quite well in the election, given the stultifyingly un-diverse leaders that this city of immigrants \u2013 its population is 48.6% foreign-born \u2013 always seems to vote in as mayor.<\/p>\n<p>Toronto will\u00a0<a style=\"color: #005689;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.threehundredeight.com\/p\/municipal.html\">almost certainly do the same again<\/a>\u00a0today, when the third most multicultural city on the planet (after Luxembourg City and Dubai) will likely vote to replace the white, middle-aged, disgraced\u00a0<a style=\"color: #005689;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thestar.com\/news\/city_hall\/toronto2014election\/2014\/10\/17\/rob_ford_asked_to_leave_polling_station_after_illegal_campaigning.html\">Rob Ford<\/a>\u00a0with the white, middle-aged, as-yet-undisgraced\u00a0<a style=\"color: #005689;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.johntory.ca\/\">John Tory<\/a>. It\u2019s not for lack of options: a reasonably varied range of candidates have entered the running. And although many urbanites I spoke to declared an intention to vote for the Chinese-Canadian\u00a0<a style=\"color: #005689;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thestar.com\/news\/city_hall\/toronto2014election\/2014\/10\/16\/olivia_chows_damning_financial_model_suggests_john_torys_transit_funding_plan_will_fail.html\">Olivia Chow<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 widow of leftwing icon\u00a0<a style=\"color: #005689;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca\/en\/article\/jack-layton\/\">Jack Layton<\/a>\u00a0and lately the subject of some racially charged abuse \u2013 they also admit to having little confidence in her ability to do the job.<\/p>\n<p>So Tory it probably is for Toronto, a city that proclaims itself the zenith of multiculturalism. It\u2019s a concept that has come to represent the city more than anything else \u2013 more, even, than the\u00a0<a style=\"color: #005689;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cntower.ca\/intro.html\">similar-vintage CN Tower<\/a>, which for 34 years stood unchallenged as the world\u2019s tallest freestanding structure. \u201cMulticulturalism!\u201d exclaimed\u00a0<a style=\"color: #005689;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.scotsman.com\/lifestyle\/books\/interview-jan-morris-travel-writer-1-2553980\">Jan Morris<\/a>\u00a0in a 1984 essay. \u201cI had never heard the word before, but I was certain to hear it again, for it turned out to be the key word, so to speak, to contemporary Toronto.\u201d It was a city, she wrote, that ostensibly offered \u201call things to all ethnicities\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Read the whole thing at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/cities\/2014\/oct\/27\/toronto-election-mayor-john-tory-rob-ford-multicultural-project-failed\">the <em>Guardian<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If I entered Toronto\u2019s heated mayoral race, I would pledge to ban the\u00a0United Colors of Benetton\u00a0from the city. While I have no objection to the company\u2019s shirts, coats or knitwear, their advertising, with its image of glossy diversity, must feed the insecurity Toronto feels about its own. As a white male (albeit a non-Canadian one), [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2473"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2474,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2473\/revisions\/2474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}