14 January 2013

Only in Canada, revisited, with an assignment

I revisited the video I posted below- the one with the seniors barbershop choir singing in a Tim Horton's- on YouTube to see how many hits it has, and what people are saying about it.  A fairly large number of comments centred on the fact that there was one black man in the choir.  Some people are saying he must be the only black man in Canada, and other kinds of comments of that ilk.  One even called him a "token". 

The man deserves better than that.  Judging from what I can see of the man, and guessing his age, I would guess that he probably has faced a kind of racism that the young kids today- the ones calling him a token- could not imagine.  At this stage of life, if he wants to sing with a group of white guys and have coffee with them afterwards, more power and joy to him.

And now the assignment:  If you are one of those clowns, you are to go to this elderly gentleman, (they should be at that Tim's tonight) and inform him that he is a token.  And you are to film his response and post it on YouTube, because there are few things I like better than watching a senior citizen smack around some young punk who thinks they have it all figured out.

And by the way: to those commenters who thought he must be the only black guy in Canada, look at the photo of the original poster.  He's black too.  So we have two of them, and now you've seen them both.

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