“What? Nobody got shot?”: Representations of Caribana violence
Caribana: Problems and the Party
Cecil Foster writing in his book “A Place Called Heaven: The Meaning of Being Black in Canada” speaks of the inauspicious beginnings of the Caribana parade, he says that
“in 1966, a small group of Caribbean expatriates met in a now-demolished Toronto fire hall to talk about how they could show that Caribbean and black people have pride of place in Canada.” (Foster “Heaven”, 252)
The first Caribana was only a part of the year long Canadian centennial celebrations in 1967, but it is the only part of those celebrations that have continued to this day. Over the years Caribana has not escaped controversy, for instance there is a sizable component of the Black community that believes that the parade highlights everything that is wrong with “Multiculturalism”, and that through the parade Black people are reduced to “inferior” actors on the stage (Fleras 47). The infighting and endemic rivalry within the Caribbean Cultural Committee (CCC), the organization that owns the rights to the name ‘Caribana’ and has organized the majority of parades, has led the city to take over the management of the festival in recent years (Foster “Heaven” 22; Trotman 194).
Undisputedly the central feature of Caribana is the parade. The most dominant music forms within the parade are calypso, and steel bands. Calypso is a style of Afro-Caribbean music, which originated in Trinidad at about the start of the 20th century. Steel bands also originated in Trinidad, they play instruments made from the heads of oil drums called steel pan. There is also the bouncing rhythm of soca, reggae and gospel, any music with a touch of African beat. We interviewed Mr. Gomez, the current vice-chair of the CCC, regarding his impressions of Caribana, and like many others that have been around from the beginning of the festival, he would like to see every float with a live band. There used to be live musicians playing on the floats, today, he says that part of the festival is missing. Each year the speaker boxes get higher with the DJ’s competing against each other to be the best float in the parade. There have been ongoing attempts to bring hip-hop and rap into the parade, and while there has never been a hip-hop band at Caribana, some of the floats have played some hip-hop music. It is the music that animates the event and the recorded music can go nonstop, only a power outage could stop it.
August 2nd, 2009 at 8:29 am
Pride has never has a homocide where millions of people gather each – just like Caribana – but unlike Pride looking at pure stats, statistically Caribana party-goers are more prone to be violent.
August 4th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
@ Seth. You missed the point. (or proved the point) Completely. We are talking about representations of violence.
The gay pride parade is used as a counter point to highlight how violence is portrayed in the media. It is pointless to compare the two as festivals because they are different kinds of events.
The point is not which festival attracts a more violent crowd, the point is how ‘the story’ of Caribana can not be told without some mention of violence, whether or not any violence even took place.
The question is why does the media work to portray Caribana as inherently violent even when nothing happens?