David M. K. Sheinin

This is the fourth in a series of articles on Toronto public housing in the late 1980s. All entries in the series will be collected here.
In January 1988, long-time housing activist and president of the Jane-Finch Concerned Citizens Organization, Sheila Mascoll, wrote a letter of complaint to the editors of T.O. Magazine. A recent article had advanced the worst sorts of false stereotypes about the Jane-Finch community. The supposed normalization of drug trafficking in the area was cast simply as an alternative economy. “One of the very grave results of the article,” she argued, “is that it serves to paint a picture of a community divided against itself.” The article quoted a South Asian cab driver as having used the term “N” to describe African Canadians. “Such comments are irresponsible,” Mascoll noted, “and serve as fuel for those wishing to fan the flames of intra-community racial discontent.” The article was one in a long line of media pieces that helped reinforce popular notions of Jane-Finch as a place Torontonians would not wish to live, inundated with drug trafficking, violent crime, and “welfare recipients suffering from learned helplessness.” What most troubled Mascoll was that the magazine had been supplied with information on a wide range of events and programs that made Jane-Finch a vibrant community. All of that was ignored. Mascoll wasn’t finished. In correspondence with North York Mayor Mel Lastman about the article, she accused the mayor of the sort of neglect of and insensitivity toward Jane-Finch that had cast an unreasonable racist pall on a neighborhood where thousands lived, worked, and played.
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