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Sometimes, The Elephant Is Just An Ignorant White Guy

By David Topping

elephantinwhatroom.jpg
Photo by blainekendall.com in the Torontoist Flickr Pool.
Earlier this afternoon, an anonymous tipster sent us a link to AM640 host John Oakley’s rant on the National Post‘s blog. The article is about what Oakley calls “the bigger elephant in the room” when it comes to Toronto gun violence. You’ll never guess what it is! (Here’s a hint: it’s women!)
The entirety of Oakley’s rant, and our beef with it, after the break.

Another kid gunned down in the ongoing plague of violence that grips Toronto and we trundle out all the familiar talking points: it’s the gangsta lifestyle, lax gun laws, lax sentencing, and a whole slew of socio-economic reasons that give rise to the problem.

Any time that someone talks, in such exaggerated terms, about a “ongoing plague of violence grip[ping]” an abnormally safe city like Toronto, you know that the rest of what they’re going to say shouldn’t be taken seriously. And “gangsta lifestyle” used non-ironically by a white columnist? This probably isn’t going to go well…

Pick any, or all of the above; there’s a chance you’re at least part right. Add absentee fathers to the list and you’d have an equally compelling case. More often than not these tragic episodes carry, somewhere in their baggage, a deadbeat, itinerant loser whose contribution to fatherhood and the duties it implies is better likened to a drive-by sperm-donation.

Yes, “deadbeat, itinerant loser[s]” are probably part of the problem (male and female), but as Oakley says, it’s a list of problems; isolating one cause is a bad idea. The majority of violent crime in our city, most cities, comes from poor people; that “whole slew of socio-economic reasons” is probably a big, big part of the problem.

But no one wants to confront the bigger elephant in the room; Who are these women, the ones who, invariably, show up grieving on the six o’clock news, who are so readily seduced by these no-accounts as to set themselves, and practically speaking, the rest of us, up for a lifetime of victimization?

Yes! Let’s blame the victim!
Victimization, as anyone who has experienced it could tell you, is a lot more complex than Oakley is making it out to be. And as anyone who’s taken sociology could tell you, blaming the victim is a terrible way to solve social problems, barely even working as a band-aid solution.
Not offended yet? Wait for it…

Couldn’t they be a little more discerning and vigilant in their choice of partners? Gloria Steinem, the feminist icon, in this regard at least, got it right; biology is destiny. You lie down with dogs, we all wake up with fleas.

And here is where we reach the pinnacle of Oakley’s douchebaggery.
The man simply doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Steinem was opposed to the maxim that “biology is destiny” (she recently wrote just the opposite, that “biology isn’t destiny, and it isn’t a free pass either”). “He that lies down with dogs, shall rise up with fleas” is a proverb, made popular in America by Ben Franklin in the eighteenth century; we’re having some trouble finding any backup that Steinem ever said anything like it herself. Plus, check out Oakley’s dig at her, even as he misquotes her: “Steinem…in this regard at least, got it right.”
Really, is there anything finer than a rich white man incorrectly quoting Gloria Steinem to insult poor black women? John, do you need a hug or something?

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Comments

  • Amanda Buckiewicz

    Cause, you know, we can’t blame the morons who up and leave these women. We can’t blame the deadbeats who lie to these women, tell them they’re special, that they love them and that they’ll be there for them forever, and then take the cowards way out once they learn they’ve brought another life into this world.
    No no, because they’re men, silly. Men don’t know that their actions are wrong, and it’s up to the women to predict the future and deny their feelings and know instinctively that they will be abandoned at the first sight of a missed period.
    So basically, what he’s saying is that men aren’t accountable for their actions, and women in turn have to be accountable for the actions of both genders, and no matter what, it’s all the chick’s fault.

  • Neil Sanderson

    David: John Oakley works at Corus-owned radio station AM640 (you know, the one that prides itself for being “brutally honest”), not at Rogers’ 680 News as you state.

  • David Topping

    Pardon, Neil, my mistake — I’ll fix that right now.

  • Alex G

    The whole media orgy around this story is pretty sickening.

  • http://www.newmindspace.com Kevin Bracken

    Wow, what a douchebag!
    But I do have this to say: economists, epidemiologists and sociologists all seem to agree: legal abortion is perhaps the single largest contributing factor to the major fall in US violence over the last 30 years, and it makes a lot of sense.
    Fewer unwanted pregnancies equals less crime, period.
    In our multicultural city, it is possible that newcomers still retain their home culture’s stigmas about birth control, family planning and abortion.

  • David E

    No wonder John Oakley is at radio 640. It’s the bottom of the barrel–even lower than CFRB where he once worked.
    Michael Coren once worked there for several months as the early morning man but he tanked terribly and went on to CFRB.
    Oakley has a laddie style program on either the Man Channel or Global. Same ownership, so it may be shown on both.
    By the way, Michael Coren said roughly the same thing on CFRB Thursday night. Is the Christian Right feeding both of them the same talking points?

  • Marc Lostracco

    I see that Rosie DiManno dropped another melodramatic, true-crime pulp novel column on Jordan.
    “His eyes were wide open but unseeing. His body shook violently, as if in convulsions. The death tremor—but Shane Walters didn’t know that then…”
    Ugh.

  • Tom

    Kevin,
    The theory you mentioned was by the economist Stephen D. Levitt and popularized in his book Freakonomics, but it’s by no means unanimous. In fact, his theory has been heavily criticized by many in his field as well as other academics.
    It’s an interesting theory to consider, but even Levitt concedes that it’s just one small reason, and that there were numerous others, including the crack-down on crack in poor communities. Crime’s a complex thing – there’s no magic bullet explanation.

  • Roxanne

    I lived in Jane/Finch for 20-some-odd years, and as soon as I heard that this happened at Jeffrey’s, I thought, “dammit!” because I KNEW the Oakleys and whatever other pundits would start crawling out of their dens to start condemning this already much-maligned neighbourhood for their thinly veiled racist and classist agendas.
    What is “biology is destiny” supposed to mean here? Black kids will be violent? Poverty is in one’s genes? If there’s a subtlety, I’m missing
    it.
    I can tell John Oakley exactly how “these women” end up with scumbag deadbeats — it’s because, simply put, that is who is there. And that is likely who you grow up with, and who your friends are, and who you come to love and to trust, and because you always will think you are somehow different from everyone else, that something terrible can’t happen to you. It is true that in Jane/Finch there is a HIGH percentage of absentee fathers (like, oh, my own). For Father’s Day, we’d make crafts for our mothers at school. But what remains in the wake of an absent father is usually an abnormally strong mother, who is like a doberman defending her kids. I knew more of this kind of mom than the stereotypical welfare-cheating-here’s-your-daddy-this-week mom (though I met a few of her in my life, too). It’s brutal to see women who stick to something as terrifying and difficult as raising a child alone being dragged through shit by such a douchebag.

  • Paul Kishimoto

    Marc, that’s why they put the byline at the top of the article—so you can skip her columns entirely. Likewise, I’ve never availed myself of AM640′s “brutal honesty.”

  • dave

    The title to this story “…Ignorant White Guy” is racist and unnecessarily provocative. Who cares if the guy who said this is white. I don’t know if he is, but does it matter?

  • chris

    Yes, it does matter. Every “…Ignorant White Guy” should be pointed out, laughed at, and have tomatoes thrown on them for being such putzes. “…Ignorant White Guy”s are the reason this whole socio-economic situation exists in the first place (for the most part), and the rich dumbfuck white man thinking he knows all the answers to the problems that exist amongst the poor and under-priveliged IS racist to start with. so, i say call em as you see em….

  • GH

    Kevin, aren’t you almost saying immigrants beget criminals (i.e., they should learn to have more abortions so that we can reduce violence)?

  • dave

    Chris, I would say every ignorant person (white/black, man/woman) should be pointed at and have their views exposed. Ignorance is not confined to one race and one sex.
    I would also say as Canada is a rich and prosperous country that attracts people from all over the world, blaming the “socio-economic situation” here is praise and not an insult as you imply.

  • David Topping

    Dave, there is a whole undercurrent of racism throughout his entire piece. Even independent of that undercurrent (it’s hard to prove subtext), I think it’s significant that a rant about the victims and perpetrators of violent crime — most of them poor minorities — is coming from someone who’s in such a privileged majority position in our society. Race is not irrelevant in Oakley’s rant.
    (Mind you, there are rich white men who do know what they’re talking about when it comes to poverty, feminism, sociology, etc., but there are plenty who don’t. Oakley’s in the latter camp.)

  • Gibson Block

    Dave,
    You seem to be saying that people are perfectly justified in not being able to figure out that having kids without getting married is not a good idea.
    I know, they’re poor. But is it possible that they’re poor because they can’t realize this?
    And what if there’s a second child?

  • David Topping

    I’m not sure if you’re talking to me, Gibson, or Dave, but I can tell you that blaming the moms for having kids outside of wedlock doesn’t really make any sense.
    “…having kids without getting married is not a good idea.”
    Whaaaa? Poor people shouldn’t be allowed to have children now? But it’s okay if they’re married to another poor person?
    Single parents should be given the opportunity to be able to raise their children properly; in the poorer areas of the city, they don’t. But it’s not their fault that they don’t have the means to do it, and I don’t think it’s fair to blame their lack of a wedding ring for their poverty.

  • Gibson Block

    Dave, the issue isn’t a wedding ring.
    A. If you don’t have enough money to raise a kid you shouldn’t have one. It’s not fair to the child.
    B. But the real issue is not about poor people having kids.
    What makes a person poor is becoming a single parent at a young age. And then having more kids when you are already having trouble supporting one.
    A two parent home will at the very least have two people to share the workload of raising the children. And, these days a two parent home will also have the benefit of two incomes.

  • David Topping

    Gibson, dude, I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I don’t think that you do either.
    Your pseudo-Malthusian logic is that having kids is what makes poor people poor (not, ya know, being economically disadvantaged long before they have ‘em)? What? So should poor people just not be allowed to have kids? Would that, then, solve the world’s class problems?
    The solution to economic disparity is not, I repeat, to blame the victim for the situation they’re in; to say something like “well, they should just stop having kids, or they should get married if they’re going to” is just ignorant since it doesn’t actually deal with the problem.

  • Gibson Block

    Dave, dude.
    If you have access to a high school and community college education, you can get a half decent job.
    But if you have a kid in your late teens that makes it harder to get an education — which makes it harder to get a job that pays well.
    And if you don’t have a spouse or partner of some sort, then that is another limit to your income.
    That’s why young single motherhood makes you poor rather than the other way around.

  • Gibson Block

    Sorry Dave, I should have asked how should we deal with the problem of people having kids they can’t afford. Before they can complete their education. And without any intention of the father taking responsibility for his child?
    The second question is: once a young woman has one child on her own, how can we help her realize that it is not wise to have another on the same terms? (I can also ask: why isn’t this obvious to the woman herself?)

  • David Topping

    Ah, okay, I’m making some more sense of your argument now.
    I certainly agree with you that kids aren’t cheap, but I think it’s kind of an irrelevant argument; people in this city, regardless of their class, should have enough money to be able to raise a child. I think that it’s not really fair to say to a poor family that “you can’t have a kid, because you’re too poor.”
    In response to your questions, I don’t want to pretend that I know what goes through the mind of a poor pregnant woman, but I don’t think that it’s something like “I’m not going to be able to raise this kid, but whatever, I’ll do it anyway,” nor do I think that it’s “When I have this baby all my problems will disappear.” I think there’s a whole bunch of extenuating circumstances — and I don’t think they can be blamed on the lack of an additional parent, necessarily; strong communities can raise children as well as strong households can.
    My big problem, though, is why we’re not doing more to try to help poor people not be poor. You can say something like “it’s their job to help themselves,” but it’s not so easy when you’re born into a vastly inferior economic climate to pull yourself out of it by yourself.

  • http://undefined Majken

    So, you’re right and you’re wrong. Obviously the men in question are fully responsible for their own actions. However, to imply that the women couldn’t possibly have made better decisions is wrong, too. And both are victims of a culture that allows men to be deadbeats – being a deadbeat certainly isn’t a badge of honour.
    You talk about what the men _say_ they’ll do. This is a huge problem. We’re not taught enough about human behaviour and we make mistakes like judging people based on what they say and not what they do. Certainly it’s a mistake I’ve made – well he obviously loves me so of course he’s going to change this behaviour – but that’s not how it works.
    Yes, the deadbeats need to be held accountable, part of how we do that is by teaching people not to take any shit. Loving someone shouldn’t mean that you can’t look out for yourself at the same time. Having the power to solve a problem doesn’t mean you had anything to do with causing it.

  • http://undefined Majken

    Thank you! I was, and am again, a single mom with a 10 year marriage in between. Being a single mom can happen to anyone with kids, whether they had those children in wedlock or not. Even as a couple, if you have zero outside support it’s freakin HARD, and I bet more than a few marriages get destroyed when people try.
    I’ve been a single mom, a teen mom, a welfare mom and a married mom and a well off mom. Whether or not it’s a good idea to have kids really doesn’t depend on any demographic factors and more on whether or not you have the patience, determination and support to pull it off. BTW being a married mom was the hardest. Trying to raise kids with the wrong person is harder than doing it yourself.

  • http://undefined Majken

    There are already a lot of solutions in place. There are a lot of programs geared towards helping mothers educate themselves, and btw this isn’t a problem limited to young single mothers. In generations past it was a situation many formerly married women found themselves in when left by their husbands. Lots of things make getting an education hard. The children thing is actually pretty easy to solve with day-care. Of course there are also lots of working poor, you do realize that. A job isn’t a guarantee.

  • http://undefined JC Legends

    I’m surprised no one has mentioned the comment from one of the most respected men in Canadian football, Mike “Pinball” Clemons, after a “incident” involving a black youth being shot and killed. It was mentioned that the youth was from a absentee father home.Mike Clemons spoke out to the black male population, urging them to take responsibility for the life (lives) they bring into the world.If I’m misquoting or my facts are in error, I’m sure someone will let me know

  • Hepley

    Oakley was correct in everything he wrote.

    Rejoinders that argue he's a 'douchebag' and that he 'sucks' merely confirm that he is right, and all you have to fling at him are names.

    Yeah, he's a rich white guy. And you're a white guy. One out of two is bad.

    You think we're not doing enough for poor people?

    Our taxes fund high schools, community colleges, and universities.

    School is a youth opportunities program. Finish it.

  • Hepley

    Oakley was correct in everything he wrote.

    Rejoinders that argue he's a 'douchebag' and that he 'sucks' merely confirm that he is right, and all you have to fling at him are names.

    Yeah, he's a rich white guy. And you're a white guy. One out of two is bad.

    You think we're not doing enough for poor people?

    Our taxes fund high schools, community colleges, and universities.

    School is a youth opportunities program. Finish it.

  • Asda

    This is great. I have listened to him a few times. I am convinced he is racist, homophobic and hates children as he always refers to them as the lazy video game generation and that his was/is the best.