[URBAN NOTE] "Bonnie Crombie vs Mississauga’s race-baiters: Are symbolic gestures enough?"

[rfmcdonald]

Spacing Toronto's Fatima Syed looks at how a spat involving online racism and Mississauga's mayor illustrates failings in that city's multiculturalism/

Earlier this month, Mississauga mayor Bonnie Crombie was lauded for standing up against racism for the second time in a year. On Sunday Oct. 9, she filed a hate hate-crime complaint with Peel police after a local website published an article claiming she “is converting Mississauga into a dangerous Islamic war zone” so “they can kill her son just for being gay.”

The article comes a year after Mississauga council approved the zoning application for the Meadowvale Islamic Centre. During one council committee meeting, Crombie shamed Kevin Johnston, owner of the website that published the article, for distributing flyers denigrating the Muslim community and strongly petitioning against the construction of a mosque.

“Racism and flat-out lies have no place in Mississauga,” Crombie told the Toronto Star, in a statement that was widely celebrated as strong leadership.

Denouncing racism, however, is a reaction that occurs only after it has reared its ugly head. Crombie’s moves, both times, outwardly demonstrate her intention to tackle racism head-on. But they are little more than symbolic gestures, underscoring Mississauga’s preferred image of itself as a seemingly open and welcoming multicultural city. The fact is that her denunciations don’t address the reality that the Mississauga council continues to both govern and plan in a way that marginalizes its new immigrant communities, explicitly creating political spaces for racism to exist.

Like most multicultural cities, Mississauga embodies a great display of urban diversity, with 47% of residents reporting a mother language other than English. For many, it is an advertisement for global urbanism, where ethno-cultural pockets exist side by side, each with their own sounds, smells and signs.

But the city’s social diversity isn’t working as well as it may outward appear.