Rap Culture In Regent Park Is Perceived To Make Regent Park Unsafe. How True Is This? And In What Ways Does This Change Or Not Change With Revitalization?
“You can put up new buildings, you can make things look beautiful but the reality is the issues are not being dealt with,” - Catherina Perez, Toronto City Council Candidate.
The On Air Police was created as a lens through which Policing and Safety, especially in Regent Park, can be critically addressed. Often times, the terms “to police” or “policing” is loosely understood as the laws and orders in the city as enforced by the police force within the boundaries of an agreement or civic regulation. With the recent shootings of the Regent rapper Smoke Dawg and the fifteen year old teen Mackai Bishop Jackson in the summer of the year 2018; Toronto’s 81st homicide within the year, one would think that in order to curb homicides in the city, city officials should result to gun bans and restrictions on firearms. In fact it should be much more than just bans and restrictions bound by city laws and orders because social policies can contribute to the solution. The On Air Police seeks to address the tension between Rap Culture and the ongoing revitalization in Regent Park and how these conflicts have increased safety concerns in the neighbourhood. It was important to understand the different perspectives of the players involved. Which are the Rappers and/or the Regent Park residents who are also consumers of Regent Park rap culture and that of the neighbourhood police to get their view on how the revitalization changes have crippled the social networks and social capital that once existed as a form of individual and community expression which in turn has affected safety for the residents. We use rap as a tool and an example of a culture with strong ties that functions as a form of social network and social capital. The significance of these social ties does not go unnoticed and is part of what undoubtedly puts Regent Park on the map. We first look at Rap Culture, the history of Rap culture in Regent Park, its significance, contributions and various roles it has played in the community till date. Secondly we uncover the rap scene before and after revitalization. Thirdly, we explore how rap is an example of how social ties as a whole can be interrupted with intervention and revitalization and what this breakdown of social ties means for safety.
In terms of accessibility, the components involved in creating a podcast was readily accessible and available to us. Each one of us was able to bring a necessary skill set into production which enabled us to not only become more efficient but also to learn from one another. It was a platform where our various literacies could converge. With converged literacy, like the words individually suggests, the processes of creating content, which include the processes of either making, understanding, reading and interpreting text, is housed in one platform but yet still distributed across other platforms and is distributed in different forms from that single location, or the said content is distributed across a wide range of platforms. With “converged literacy,” we create a way for a hybrid social justice pedagogy. In using the medium of a Podcast, we wanted a platform where the content created and shared maintains its relevance over time, because by posting our content on the internet, it will be able to reach a diverse audience in a diverse geography. More so, for a podcast listener, the content can be consumed indirectly and passively. The listener is able to remain engaged with the content while doing other things. A podcast is a suitable platform for us to have a “point of view.” This way, we are able to clarify our knowledge and perspectives within a larger social context to strategically express ourselves better. In doing so, we are able to challenge and reinvent the archaic principles of journalism and that by doing this, we intend to tell a different story, “a story no one is telling,” as long as it further emphasizes and maintains the point. In fact, a podcast promotes the need for a less rigid structure in media, to reach a more targeted, relatable and marginalized audience, especially the marginalized youth. This way, both the hosts and the marginalized youth audience can effectively engage with the digital realm through our deeply shared convictions and similar experiences. The youth will be encouraged to share more stories that challenge the status quo. And the narratives used by mass media to brainwash the audience.
The strategic goal for our podcast is to show that although there is a rise in securitization as urban renewal and revitalization is ongoing, mistrust and fear become a consequence of an unintegrated and unjust city created from such revitalization. Firstly, through research and interviewing both parties with our podcast, we aim to help both parties and our listeners understand the conditions with which rap culture and gang violence was born. In doing so, we are able to provide a space void of stereotypes and misperceptions to create a normalized “level playing field.” Secondly, we would explore real life stories experiences and perspectives from both parties on their different encounters with different scenarios. Our target audience extends beyond the Regent Park listeners and includes listeners in Toronto and the diaspora. Lastly, we aim to provide an alternative to the different ways to improve safety in the community and how both the newcomers and local residents can contribute to improving safety in the community irrespective of the insecure tensions caused by revitalization. The alternative we propose is to build on existing social networks in the community. This is particularly important given that we argue revitalization played a role in dissolving some social networks the community had prior. Our final goal is to promote Regent Park rap culture to be able to normalize the possibilities that rap has as a form of creative expression to possibly reduce the casualties of gun violence.
Residents of similar communities like Regent Park are dense with social housing that houses the marginally disenfranchised neighbourhoods where a large population of immigrant families, experience intensified policing and supervision due to the heavy gang violence witnessed in such communities. The over securitization and aggressive police response to neighbourhoods like these due to revitalization has made the residents question their confidence in their neighbourhood police. There seems to be a lack of relationship between the residents and the police. Rap was a reaction to the violence from poverty, segregation and neglect experienced in social housing, and in turn was an escape on a search for social justice. The rap culture as an interdisciplinary mission that created the “other community” that provides a sense of safety and youth literary and lyrical engagement. On the other hand, we learned that in engaging with the youth of Regent Park, they equally have a right to the city. They can secure this right through engagement in a collective understanding of network of social sub-movements. One simple yet innovative way in which the Regent Park residents suggest as ways to improve safety, is for newcomers to make an effort in knowing their neighbours. This way, feelings of safety is increased and crime rates are reduced. In Regent Park safety and gender intersect. The residents we interviewed claimed that as females, they feel more secure in the neighbourhood than the male youth, which was surprisingly the norm. This is because of the history of existing gang violence in the area, and the tendency for young women to not be involved in said violence.
In conclusion, the main message we learned and the one we want to spread to our listeners is the following: know your neighbours. This was the critical element which hindered resident’s feelings of safety and trust. This concern of not knowing others in the community was echoed in the interview with police that work in the neighborhood as well as the interview with the Regent Park residents. We hope the discussion in our podcast encourages those affiliated with the community to work on not just building new buildings and making things that look beautiful but also, rebuilding social networks and trust that were lost in revitalization, and to build them bigger than ever before.
Listen to our podcast here:
References
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The On Air Police is comprised of Faduma Hagi, Anita Ifeadi, Marwa Hassan, and Katie Glancy
Instagram: @onairpolice
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Email: onairpolice@gmail.com
Phone: +1 437 217 7302