Letters

CROSSWORD CLARIFICATION

In two issues of Eye Weekly, we printed the incorrect solutions to previous crossword puzzles and, in last week's issue, a production error cut one column from the puzzle grid, making it unsolvable. Eye Weekly regrets those errors and any frustration they have caused. Last week's puzzle is still available online. Anyone wanting to receive that puzzle or the solutions to previous puzzles by mail should contact us at letters@eyeweekly.com or by telephone at 416-596-4389.

DIVERSITY DISCUSSION

While I enjoyed and agreed with the bulk of Denise Balkissoon's article “Torontopia's white-guy syndrome” (City, June 7), the first quotation from me, on the David Miller event at Trampoline Hall in 2003, is taken somewhat out of context.

The reporter asked if it weren't the case that he'd come because this was a privileged, educated group of young middle-class white people. And I said, sure, that was part of it. But he was also there because Trampoline Hall invited him, and because the event was self-consciously an exercise in talking about the city in an unconventional way that he apparently liked, and because he wanted to recognize his support in the arts community.

I added that I was sure he spent much more time in the campaign giving speeches at community centres outside downtown and with diverse ethnic constituencies than he did talking to downtown, white, arts nerds – otherwise there's no way he would have won an election. I sympathize with what the reporter was getting at, but the way my statement was framed is quite a bit more insulting to both David Miller and Trampoline Hall than I can let pass.

Also, I'm misleadingly referred to as a Trampoline Hall founder. The only founder of Trampoline Hall is Sheila Heti. I've always been the doorman.

Otherwise the piece is a very worthwhile discussion of the barriers to a more diverse scene as well as the dangers of unexamined bias. But there's always a risk of oversimplification, as the headline shows: The word “Torontopia” was first popularized by musician Steve Kado who, as his name suggests, is a guy, but not a white guy. CARL WILSON

Odd that the Latin diaspora was referenced as being alienated from PS Kensington when it is precisely that part of the world that has informed our direction. There's plenty of room for the diaspora to access their groceries on Pedestrian Sundays as they stroll past empanada vendors and stop to watch capoeira or tango. On the evening of the first PS Kensington this year (May 27) you could see an old Chinese man shaking it beside an indie hipster beside a white schoolteacher beside a Nigerian folk dancer. All to the sound of the Community Arkestra that fused Chris Bottomley's funk with Samba Elegua, Ainike's Afrobeats and Richard Underhill's pan-cultural jazz.

Your article makes a great point about the lack of colour and diversity in Toronto's bohemian core. It hasn't been a cakewalk building the inclusive free franchise that is Pedestrian Sundays, but it has certainly fared better in representing diversity of culture, age and interest than Eye Weekly. Shame on you for not coming out to see it yourself – so many white people with white guilt and so many brown people with brown chips on their shoulder, how about putting those grudges aside and enjoying a good thing when it comes along? SHAMEZ (NOT-A-WHITE-GUY) AMLANI, PEDESTRIAN SUNDAYS KENSINGTON

Many more letters on DENISE BALKISSOON's article and other subjects are online now at eyeweekly.com/daily.

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