Why Does Toronto’s Caribana Parade Excludes Caribbean Gays & Lesbians?
This weekend the city of Toronto’s Caribbean community will be “jumping up” and celebrating Caribana. Caribana is big business because the city of Toronto makes millions of dollars due to tourism. However, I certainly won’t be at the Caribana Parade for a variety of reasons.
First, Caribana has now gone corporate the event’s new name is the Scotiabank Caribana Festival. I understand the Caribana committee needs to make money but having a bank as a sponsor. However, I believe takes away from the political importance of the parade. The Caribana Parade started in the year 1967 to celebrate Caribbean culture in Toronto. Caribbean immigrants moved to Canada in large numbers during the late 1960s and early 1970s. My parents immigrated to Canada in 1972 and 1973.
Although I wasn’t alive in the early 1970s, my parents told me stories of incredible racism that was just shocking when they described how Caribbean people were treated in Toronto. The Caribana parade was a sense of community, a sense of pride for the West Indian immigrants to build and celebrate our culture.
However, one community the Caribbean parade organizers don’t give a damn about is gays and lesbians of Caribbean heritage!
Of course, the organizers of Caribana are not going to say gays and lesbians are “excluded” from the parade but we aren’t “included” either. N
Why is Caribana just for heterosexuals? Recently, at the Toronto gay pride parade a few weeks ago, there were floats with heterosexuals, transsexuals, drag queens, gays and lesbians of all races. However, at Caribana the event is definitely just for heterosexuals. The half naked women, the heterosexual men’s eyes will be bulging out of their heads this weekend checking out the women. The Caribbean music is also very sex obsessed and drenched with overt heterosexuality.
Not all my memories of Caribana are bad though. I remember when I was a young boy in the 1980s, and my parents brought my siblings and I to the Caribana parade. I loved looking at the beautiful, bright coloured costumes, and eating the Caribbean food. My father would bring his picket basket with bun and cheese, ox tail, patties, fried dumplings, with ackee & saltfish. I have fond memories of my childhood watching the Caribana parade. My parents wanted my siblings and i to be proud of our Caribbean heritage.
When I grew up and became an adult, I realized that there is so much hostility towards gays and lesbians in my community. Can you imagine what would happen if Caribbean gays and lesbians had a float at the Caribana parade? I don’t even want to know what would happen. I think the homophobia in the Caribbean is not only deleterious it is also so disappointing. I am cognizant of the fact some gays and lesbians of Caribbean heritage will be having private parties or there are some events at gay bars. My argument is, the gays and lesbians of Caribbean hertiage events are still “underground” and the homophobia in our community is not being addressed.
Another reason I won’t be attending the Caribana parade is due to the violence. I remember the horrible news when the nurse was shot a few years ago.
I am aware that the Toronto police have done an amazing job cracking down on the nonsense but I am not interested in taking a bullet for anybody! Some Caribbean people feel the police force is racist and there are hostile feelings in the community about the cops. However, I feel the baricades at the Caribana parade are necessary in order to maintain some sense of stability. I am tired of trouble makers that cause trouble at Caribana! The police presence is necessary because the crowd is so large.
Vancouver Sun Article: Do Gay Couples Understand The Serious Financial Burdens Of Marriage?
It’s Pride week, a time to recognize the strides that have been made by Canada’s LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community over the years. One victory was the right for same-sex couples to get married, which they’ve been legally allowed to do in British Columbia since 2003.
But just because you can, should you?
Getting married, or choosing not to, can be one of the biggest financial decisions made in a lifetime, yet many people don’t even think about how taking that step, or choosing not to, affects their financial future.
“I think it’s kind of ironic that same-sex couples fought for so many years for the right to get married when so many opposite-sex couples just don’t even understand what that really means from a legal perspective,” said Christine Van Cauwenberghe, director of tax and estate planning at Investors Group. “And I’m sure a lot of the reason for the fight was symbolic and philosophical, but same-sex couples also do in many cases seem to be a little bit more familiar with what it means from a property perspective.”
In most provinces, getting married brings with it additional property rights and obligations, rights and obligations that may not kick in when a couple chooses to live together instead, Van Cauwenberghe said.
Earlier this month the B.C. government released its White Paper on Family Relations Act Reform proposing that couples who have lived together for two years, or less time if they are raising a child together, be treated the same as married couples.
“But who knows how long it could take before those proposals are enacted, if ever,” Van Cauwenberghe said.
As it stands now, being married and living common-law mean different rules about what happens to family property when the couple splits up.
In B.C. — and each province is different — common-law couples can’t apply for a division of family assets under family law legislation like they can if they were married, Van Cauwenberghe said.
So if you have a situation where one person works and earns all the income, builds up all the savings and acquires all the property in his or her name and the other stays at home and hasn’t any assets in their own name, that person needs to understand that if the relationship ends, they will not be entitled to half the other person’s assets like they would be if they were married, she said.
While the partner can go to court to seek a share of property using what’s called a constructive trust claim, the government’s White Paper called these claims “complex, expensive and often unsuccessful.”
“That still seems to come as a surprise to many people,” Van Cauwenberghe said.
One reason for the confusion may be that some laws treat common-law couples like married couples, while others don’t. For example, under the Income Tax Act, couples living together for 12 months have to file income tax returns as a couple, Van Cauwenberghe said. So many people are under the false impression that since they are treated as married for income tax purposes they must be treated as married for all purposes. “And that is not at all the case,” she said.
People who choose to get married should also understand their rights and obligations, especially if it’s a later-in-life marriage where both parties have assets of their own, Van Cauwenberghe said. For example, if one party owns the house that becomes the family home after marriage, that could be considered family property that gets split 50-50 upon divorce.
“And that’s a huge impact on the person who brought in the home,” she said. “That’s just one example of what a huge impact marriage can have.”
Because it’s complicated and different rules apply in different cases, Van Cauwenberghe believes it’s important for all couples to seek advice — financial or legal — when they are starting a relationship.
“Because a lot of people are just making very dangerous assumptions [about their rights],” Van Cauwenberghe said.
Next week: What happens if one partner dies and other things to think about.
USA Today Article: Inception Star Tom Hardy Talks About His Sexual Flings With Other Men.
‘Inception’ actor Tom Hardy: ‘Of course’ I’ve had sex with men
It’s not often that you hear an actor admit he used to have flings with men.
But London-born Inception star Tom Hardy, 32, who is engaged to British actress Charlotte Riley, 28, and also has a 2-year-old son with a former girlfriend, Rachel Speed, doesn’t mind sharing the info.
He was apparently asked by England’s Now magazine in an interview if he’d ever had any sexual relations with men and he replied: “‘As a boy? Of course I have. I’m an actor … I’ve played with everything and everyone. I love the form and the physicality, but now that I’m in my thirties, it doesn’t do it for me.”
Hardy went on to explain that he’s “not into men sexually.” He added, “I’m done experimenting.”
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