There are a lot of things I don't like about Toronto. Or more accurately, it's not that I dislike Toronto so much as the fact that, at the heart of it all, I'm a Montreal girl; even after all of these years of residing here, I still don't feel quite at home in Toronto. Something about the atmosphere being more Anglophone perhaps?
i was downtown today and found myself in the centre of the Pride Week Parade. It was an awesome experience and I was glad to be a part of it. It is pretty amazing and wonderful that Toronto hosts this kind of an event on an annual basis.
When I first moved to Toronto, I was struck by the amount of uptight and close-minded people I met. I encountered more racism, sexism, homophobia and open ignorance and intolerance here than I had back home. But maybe it's just that the biases are different. Quebec residents have their own set of prejudices and I suppose since I've grown up surrounded by them, I don't give it a second thought.
As I stood amidst the throng of people this afternoon, I wondered why Montreal doesn't host its own Gay Pride week. We bill ourselves as being European, liberal and cosmopolitan in our beliefs and yet, we don't celebrate the wide spectrum of sexuality. Are we really not as open-minded as I liked to give us credit as being, or is it that we are just too pre-occupied with the whole Quebecois identity to even think about anything else?
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4 comments:
Montreal does have a Pride week. It's usually later in the summer than Toronto's, but as far as I can tell, if anything it's more encompassing than Toronto's [or this might just be the opinion of the friends I was speaking to, but three of them skipped Toronto's Pride this year and are going to Montreal's]
Snooze: Wow ... how out of it I am then! Glad to hear that my hometown does celebrate Pride week in a big way. I must make a note to get there for the big event! Thanks for setting me straight (no pun intended).
I've never noticed Toronto's uptightedness. Maybe coming from a unicultural wasteland, the diversity of the city masked it, but I loved that you can see all cultures living relatively peacefully in one place.
Dickey: Maybe I'm just overly sensitive then? Could be because I'm a "visible minority" (asses!) that my experience is different?
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