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Caribana Chaos
Things are getting ugly between the city and the Carribean Cultural Committee, the organizers of the huge Caribana festival. Citing the lack of a clean audit, the city is refusing to give $400,000 or so of funding and asked another group, the Toronto Mas Band Association, to take the reins of the festival.
TMBA won’t be able to use the name though, the CCC owns that, and CCC organizers have vowed they’ll put the fest on with or without city funding. But it doesn’t end there. According to the Sun, CCC member Nkem Anizor accused councillor Mihevc, the city’s Caribana liaison of being a racist.
“In our opinion, Councillor Mihevc is a racist who’s convinced that black youth will sit back and continue to be exploited, jumping up and dancing, generating millions of dollars for the city,” charged Anizor, “while council continues to: Number one, raise taxes to award record budgets to a police force that racially profiles black youth; two, ignores the deplorable conditions of affordable housing; and three, cuts funding from social supports that help protect black youth from murdering one another.”
We’ll take a page from Councillor Mihevc’s book here and not dignify the comments with a response. The CCC’s disarray is a well known fact around the city and while we certainly hope that recent events don’t mean the death of a beloved festival, we certainly don’t think smear tactics and hostile language will smooth any feathers.