The system, it turns out, was a terrifying fail, and as a result of this the government has decided to refine the system before launching it anew in a few months. I, along with a number of other writers, have been hired to help write clear, effective messages for the probable alert scenarios the government is most concerned about. These are some of the alerts we have been working on:
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Emergency Alert #1
Emergency Alert #2
Emergency Alert #3
Emergency Alert #4
Emergency Alert #5
Emergency Alert #6
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However, I was curious to see how it might actually unfold in the real world and so I went out to a bunch of Starbuck’s in the Toronto area and tried to engage the staff in conversations about race.
Starbucks
10 Dundas Street East
8:30 pm
Me: Hi.
Barista: Hi.
Me: Are you a fan of the TV show Empire?
Barista: Don’t think I know that one.
Me: Oh. Well, it has an all black cast. Not a single white person on it. After a few episodes you don’t even notice how weird that is. It says a lot about race, I think, and the gritty world of Hip Hop. Very topical considering Ferguson and everything.
Barista: You seem very authentically informed.
Me: Well, I’m a part of Black Twitter, so I feel pretty plugged in.
Barista: I see. What can I get you?
Me: Decaf green tea. Grande.
Barista: I bet you like being white, don’t you?
Me: I don’t really see race.
Starbucks
407 Yonge Street
11:30 am
Me: Hey, anyone interested in rapping about race?
Barista: (foams milk)
Me: (Turning around and facing the customers in the lineup behind me) Anyone?
Guy with an eye patch: This might not be “politically correct” or anything, but I hate the Irish.
Me: Really, the Irish? But they have Leprechauns!
Guy with an eye patch: Exactly, Leprechauns are just about the creepiest thing in the world.
Me: What happened, did you lose your eye to a Leprechaun?
Guy with an eye patch: No, I lost it in a fire. The Irish also cheat at cards, and on their husbands.
Girl in denim jacket: And I have to add that the Muzzies got no business taking over this country, if they want to live here, they should damn well dress like everyone else, am I right?
Me: Hey, this is great, now we’re really starting to get into the hard stuff! How about you, (pointing at a woman on her phone) what do you think?
Woman on her phone: (Gives me the finger)
Me: (To Barista) People are still very uncomfortable talking about race. It’s a real shame, because as painful as it is, we really have so much to learn from one another. We need to be brave.
Barista: You do know that the campaign isn’t taking place in Canada, right?
Starbucks
585 University Avenue
2:00 pm
Me: (To Barista) So, who is your favourite black actor or actress? Supermodels count.
Barista: Why are you asking me this?
Me: I’m trying to start a dialogue about race. I want to find out about your lived experience. Have you ever written a letter to a black celebrity, and if so, was it a hate letter or a love letter?
Barista: It’s never occurred to me to write a celebrity a letter.
Me: Any celebrity, or just black celebrities in particular?
Barista: Any celebrity.
Me: Weird. Not even Pam Grier??
Barista: Look, I got to keep the line moving here, are you going to take that cookie or not?
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He’s receded from public life and many have been wondering what he’s been doing. As it turns out, one of the things he’s been doing is applying to attend an Icelandic Writer’s Retreat in April. The application required that you write a short story or essay based on the following photograph of the Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Center:
This is Doug Ford’s entry:
Sometimes a guy can go to a pretty black place. That can happen after you lose an election. When your whole life has been about winning, and winning hard, losing feels like a sucker punch to the gut. Not even football or pornography or yelling at people can fill the hole. Sometimes a guy has to go to therapy.
Therapy is for the weak, and Ron Ice, a very successful businessman and philanthropist, was not a weak man. He was a powerful man, a man who was a shot put champion at his high school.
Girls used to gather around to watch him throw the shot put. Ron was like a Nordic god and he did very well with the ladies, thank you very much. Those were good times for Ron, but now, with all the critics and small people yammering away at him after the election, all the people who don’t understand how to run a business, he realized he needed to clear his head, even if it was the weak thing to do.
Ron looked deep into his soul and realized that he wanted to broaden his horizons.
Iceland.
Iceland was the territory that Ron always started in when he was playing Risk.
It had access to markets in both the east and west, had plenty of challenging terrain to hide in and there was little pollution. Ron would move to Iceland and start his empire there!
People loved Doug Ford in Iceland. He stood a good six inches taller than the rest of the population, and as he still looked like a Nordic god, people began to worship him, “Look!” the villagers would cry, “The prophecy is true and the Ice King now walks amongst us! Ron Ice took the country by goddamn storm.
One day ISIS terrorists took over the Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Center where they planned to burn Christians in cages. Ron Ice would have none of that. Ron drove down there in his jeep, got out and just walked into the place. People were in awe of what big balls he had. When the terrorists saw him they all started yelling and getting excited in that language of theirs. They waved machine guns around, but Ron was as cool as ice.
He just stared at them, a penetrating hate stare, and then he began to yell, his mighty eyes bulging, and when he did they all put down their weapons like subservient kittens and were arrested.
Ron Ice walked out of there, got back in his jeep and drove up to the misty green hills of Norðurland vestra, where he had some property and a condo, and from where he would soon launch his internationally successful printing business Ice King Labels and Tags.
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