![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Actually, I like the vuvuzelas.
There are a surprising number of German soccer fans in Toronto; that's the great thing about watching the World Cup in here. We all know the city is multicultural. We're pleased to call ourselves the most multicultural city in the world (it's probably even true) and we note that over 100 languages and dialects are spoken in our city. No matter what political narrative we follow, Torontonians are proud that so many people from around the world have chosen to call our city home. But it's not until you see Brazil supporters throwing an impromptu dance party in Little Italy after a victory that you can appreciate how far we've come from white, anglo, protestant Toronto of the 1960s and 70s.
When we talk about diversity and multiculturalism in Toronto, we tend to focus on what holds us apart from each other - language, ethnicity, belief - as things that must somehow be managed. We so rarely take the opportunity to celebrate our differences as one big flag-waving, horn-honking, patio-filling, traffic-stalling mass of common humanity, to recognize the value in difference and of difference and celebrate it without fear. In our jerseys and scarves, flying our World Cup flags, we are all soccer fans (or soccer-haters) - unique and the same, tribal and united by sport.
There are a lot of German soccer fans around here though.
Who knew?
There are a surprising number of German soccer fans in Toronto; that's the great thing about watching the World Cup in here. We all know the city is multicultural. We're pleased to call ourselves the most multicultural city in the world (it's probably even true) and we note that over 100 languages and dialects are spoken in our city. No matter what political narrative we follow, Torontonians are proud that so many people from around the world have chosen to call our city home. But it's not until you see Brazil supporters throwing an impromptu dance party in Little Italy after a victory that you can appreciate how far we've come from white, anglo, protestant Toronto of the 1960s and 70s.
When we talk about diversity and multiculturalism in Toronto, we tend to focus on what holds us apart from each other - language, ethnicity, belief - as things that must somehow be managed. We so rarely take the opportunity to celebrate our differences as one big flag-waving, horn-honking, patio-filling, traffic-stalling mass of common humanity, to recognize the value in difference and of difference and celebrate it without fear. In our jerseys and scarves, flying our World Cup flags, we are all soccer fans (or soccer-haters) - unique and the same, tribal and united by sport.
There are a lot of German soccer fans around here though.
Who knew?
Tags:
no subject