“What? Nobody got shot?”: Representations of Caribana violence
Caribana as a “violent” event
An enduring symbol, according to Mr. Gomez, of the type of co-operation that now exists between the Police and the Caribana community is the often seen ‘winin’ white police’ man or woman getting down to the lively Caribbean music (Foster “Greatest” 93; Gomez). This image is given as a symbol that the police have now accepted the fact that Caribana is not and will never be a ‘parade’ that marches along with military precision and, more importantly, that they are loosening up (Foster “Greatest” 36; Gomez). This winin’ with the audience / participants of Caribana, it is said, is something that could not have happened in years gone by, but now is almost common place. While this may indicate a certain loosening up, it does not account for the great deal of tightening up of the police presence as time goes on. Through our research we were able to find evidence of four Caribana festivals that were marred by some significant violent incident,
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In 1985 “A police constable was stabbed while trying to question a man who was suspected of possessing marijuana. In the melee which ensued, four police officers and dozens of revellers were injured.” (Jackson 135)
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In 1992, a “19-year-old man was shot in the back, up to 30 other shots were reported fired over a small park and a man was stabbed in the throat with a broken beer bottle.” (MacGowan A9)
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In 1996, A 23 year old man of Scarborough was shot dead and three other people – including, a 54-year-old nurse from London, England, were wounded in the same shooting. (Van Rijn A1)
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Finally in 2002 a 19-year-old was gunned down in the area of Eglinton Avenue West and Dufferin Street in the vacinity of the Junior Caribana Parade. (Abbate A15)
All of these violent events, save the first, were described by both police and the festival organizers as ‘unrelated’ to the actual Festival. But even if we choose to label them all as ‘Caribana violence’, that gives a total of one violent incident per decade. For a festival that has been gathering crowds of over half a million people since 1988 and now draws close to two million, this surely makes it “one of the safest festivals in North America” (Bushaija C6; Trotman 177; Burman 224).
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?