50. Black musics and audience demographies

Unpublished
11 April 1997

Given your editorial history of opposing cultural “affirmative action” initiatives it was enjoyable to read a lead editorial arguing — in the name of righting a cultural “disfranchisement” no less —that a “black music” radio station, its applicants and their supporters deserves a Toronto FM license over and above the transmitting needs of CBC Radio (Editorial—April 11). The editorial was correct to affirm the need for “serious reggae and house” and black (author) owner-ship alongside so-called “white” jazz radio as a necessary action towards the “public airwaves for the public at large”. How might The Globe and Mail further address what FM radio license-hopeful and onetime black community newspaper publisher, Denham Jolly, calls the absence of “...reflection of the actual demographic reality...? ” (Toronto—John Barber—March 12)
The death of Jamaican leader Michael Manley on March 6 resulted in the The Globe publishing two similar obituaries. The second from The Economist, printed three weeks after Manley’s death, was paired with a life summary of Guyana political leader, Cheddi Jagan. (Lives Lived—March 28) . In comparison to the local knowledges of many Caribbean-Canadian writers, activists and cultural critics, The Economist — forever performing as a gazette of global policing — mapped an unrevised history of Manley’s times. There was no mention of Manley’s book on the North-South dilemma, “Jamaica: Struggle in The Periphery” and no hint of how prolonged exposure to black musics and an overdue appreciation of shifts in local audience demographics apparently is helping sharpen serious editorial minds.