Regent Park Focus

On tonight’s Catch da Flava, we talked about the recent string of violence that has hit Toronto in the past week and a half; there have been incidents ranging from stabbings, shootings and bodies being found in places of worship. It is still early in 2016, at least in my opinion it is, I personally thought the violence in Toronto had slowed down since the huge burst earlier in January, where Toronto saw over 20 gun related incidents take place which resulted in 10 deaths. On a similar topic, we talked about the Toronto Police’s plan to ban random instances of carding. The plan is to make sure every civilian is informed of the situation before being carded, and to ensure that Police Officers write a report about the reason for carding. Many of us at Catch da Flava have had incidents where we were carded without reason so naturally we would be in favour of this. However there is always a downside because it makes the police officers job a little more difficult and some real criminals

This past week was probably one of the most sad and violent weeks of 2016. First off, there were the bombings in Brussels, which is a city in Belgium, which claimed the lives of 35 people and injured over 250. ISIS claimed responsibility and it was linked to the same group that carried out the Paris attacks. Secondly there was the death of Toronto mayor Rob Ford after his long battle with cancer. Personally it affected me greatly because I’ve met him before he became mayor and got to see what a kind person he is. He had done great things for the city of Toronto and the citizens who do not have a voice. Sadly during his term as mayor, he got more attention for the wrongs in his life rather than the good things he had done but he will always be appreciated as a down to earth and fearless person who just wanted fairness and equality. We talked about culture appropriation and culture vultures in popular media. We talked about the difference between being inspired by other cultures or art