Jamil Jivani is an interesting guy. He has one of those back-stories that the media and politicians love to quote: a Black man raised by a Scottish-Irish mother in Brampton after his Kenyan immigrant father disappeared; streamed into applied courses at school and not expected to succeed; pulled himself up by his own bootstraps, attended Humber College, then York University, and then Yale law school; followed this with a coveted internship at Tory's law firm, and a teaching job at Osgoode Hall law school; awarded Young Lawyer of the Year by the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers; campaigned to increase voting in the poor black Jane and Finch neighbourhood; etc, etc.
But then, his detractors argue, he sold out and went over to the dark (white?) side, and had the temerity to criticize the Black Live Matter organization, argued that hip hop needs to clean up its act and move away from its gangster image, and even cast skepticism on the concept of "systemic racism" (which I have also dared to discuss), and downplayed the popularity and importance of the movement to defund the police (also discussed). And most recently, he has been acting as a community opportunities advocate with the Ontario government, and an advisor in Conservative Premier Doug Ford's just-announced elimination of Grade 9 school streaming, and changes to the system for suspension of young students in Ontario.
His credentials as a poor-Black-boy-made-good are impeccable but, because he is outspoken and critical of some aspects of radical black thought, he is derided and castigated by many Black activists. But this is just another example of the kind of inflexible thinking so common these days, and highlighted by the recent Letter on Justice and Open Debate, which I have discussed elsewhere.
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