{"id":1482,"date":"2007-01-25T03:55:29","date_gmt":"2007-01-25T07:55:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=1482"},"modified":"2013-01-21T13:04:57","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T18:04:57","slug":"southern-man-vs-fugees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/01\/25\/southern-man-vs-fugees\/","title":{"rendered":"Southern Man vs. Fugees"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

At first glance you could file this next story with those comic tales Canadians like to share about how weird and out-of-whack America can get — like calling french fries “freedom fries” — but the more you read about this the more complicated it becomes. There are a bunch of kids on a soccer team called The Fugees who are struggling to be allowed to play their sport in Clarkston, Georgia because the tension over immigration and refugees is pouring out into the public parks of this town. The NY Times has a good long article about all this<\/a> (be sure check out the multi-media section too):<\/p>\n

Early last summer the mayor of this small town east of Atlanta issued a decree: no more soccer in the town park.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153There will be nothing but baseball and football down there as long as I am mayor,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Lee Swaney, a retired owner of a heating and air-conditioning business, told the local paper. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Those fields weren’t made for soccer.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/em><\/p>\n

In Clarkston, soccer means something different than in most places. As many as half the residents are refugees from war-torn countries around the world. Placed by resettlement agencies in a once mostly white town, they receive 90 days of assistance from the government and then are left to fend for themselves. Soccer is their game.<\/em><\/p>\n

But to many longtime residents, soccer is a sign of unwanted change, as unfamiliar and threatening as the hijabs worn by the Muslim women in town. It’s not football. It’s not baseball. The fields weren’t made for it. Mayor Swaney even has a name for the sort of folks who play the game: the soccer people.<\/em><\/p>\n

Caught in the middle is a boys soccer program called the Fugees — short for refugees, though most opponents guess the name refers to the hip-hop band.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In 2002 I was at some kind of Film or TV industry conference here in Toronto, the name, purpose and why I was there I have long forgotten, but I remember one thing an American speaker said when asked how Canadian content could be successful in the U.S. (paraphrased via 4 year deteriorating memory): “Toronto should export what it’s doing here. You should tell stories about the stuff you might take for granted, but that a lot of other places can’t seem to pull off without conflict.” He was of course talking about this city’s multiculturalism.<\/p>\n

Since then, when a story like this one comes up, I wonder if there is a way to do just that. And do it while not pretending there aren’t actual and real problems in Toronto, and without coming off as too earnest or overly-Pollyanna like our city’s motto: “Diversity – our – strength<\/a>.” Though maybe being completely earnest is the way to go, and the motto’s fine. Either way, maybe people worried about how World Class Toronto is should stop fretting about failed World’s Fair bids and look at this stuff we do better than most places. How is it that an uptight, WASP fortress like Toronto was up to the 1950s, where the Jews weren’t even allowed to work at Eatons, could get over all that and become what it is today, so quickly and without such conflict? <\/p>\n

(Thanks to Mita at New Jack Almanac — who wrote her own letter<\/a> to the Clarkston mayor — for the heads up)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At first glance you could file this next story with those comic tales Canadians like to share about how weird and out-of-whack America can get — like calling french fries “freedom fries” — but the more you read about this the more complicated it becomes. There are a bunch of kids on a soccer teamContinue reading “Southern Man vs. Fugees”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21758],"tags":[810,630,28,4409,4411,4407,4408,426,4412,21,2390,1213,19,506,4410],"class_list":["post-1482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","tag-america","tag-atlanta","tag-behaviour","tag-clarkston","tag-georgia","tag-jack-almanac","tag-lee-swaney","tag-mayor","tag-multi-media-section","tag-other-cities","tag-speaker","tag-the-ny-times","tag-toronto","tag-united-states","tag-wasp-fortress"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSouthern Man vs. Fugees - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/01\/25\/southern-man-vs-fugees\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Southern Man vs. Fugees - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"At first glance you could file this next story with those comic tales Canadians like to share about how weird and out-of-whack America can get — like calling french fries “freedom fries” — but the more you read about this the more complicated it becomes. 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