Let's stop talking about Adam Giambrone

David Miller would prefer it if the media didn't talk about Adam Giambrone and his sex life. I agree. This city has more important things to talk about than Mr. Miller's former successor.

We could start by talking about the nature of political campaigns in this city. We can talk about all of the competent, intelligent, and personable men and women of colour who contribute to political life. We can talk about why, with so many such people around, our extravagantly white mayor gets to anoint a successor of almost the same complexion as himself, and why so many (supposedly) progressive insiders go along with this. We can talk about who gets ballots dropped in boxes for them, and who gets police contact cards filled out, and why. We can talk about why the supposed progressives in this city have so much to say about streetcars and rights of way, and so very little about justice, and fair treatment, and human dignity.

We can talk about the press description of Downsview and Jane-Finch as places where the jets descending to Pearson fly past the windows of tower blocks where the police regularly stop young men, and we can talk about the calls to shut down Billy Bishop Toronto City Centre Airport based on the status of the downtown waterfront as a "premium" residential area. And we can talk about how the media reports these things but never quite draws the connections between the people viewed as worthy of deference and political office, and the people who urgently need their whereabouts recorded by the police at all possible opportunities.

These things go on, in part at least, precisely because nobody talks about them. So let's talk about them.