said the bleach-blonde, iphone holding, Gucci wearing dog owner to the master of the unsuspecting victim. “but don’t worry, I don’t think he had much left” Sitting in the park is a favourite thing for me to do; preferably, as is the case today, with a few beers in the old backpack. It has been hot in Toronto recently and I cannot afford to get dehydrated.
I like sitting in the park, especially after work hours, because it produces an endless assortment of entertainment. From my spot on the bench I can simultaneously see not one but two “boot camps” going on. BC1 is taught by an astonishingly muscular black man who not only yells at his customers as though they were in basic training -- “give me more curls! 5!4!3!2!1!” but who wears a little hat with a camo pattern on it. BC2 is taught about 50 yards away, by a fit-looking -- but not ridiculously so -- white woman in her 20s. Hers looks like the camp for those who (I have no idea why) don’t like the idea of paying to have someone yell at them for an hour. BC2 woman likes to make her customers run a 5 minute circuit every once and a while and it so happens that their course goes right past me. The look on their faces -- their sweaty, somewhat uncomfortable, 20-something faces -- makes me feel bad for them. I make sure to take a deep drink of beer as they run by in an effort to make myself feel better. See the video below for an example.
Then there are the non-paying exercisers -- they usually operate on their own or with no more than one partner. While many just jog, these are also the ones who do sprints and leaps, crunches and push-ups, lunges and burpees. My enjoyment of them is derived primarily by their variety in technique and their gear. My favourite is the water bottle belt. I can hardly think of anything more uncomfortable than running with a bottle -- or several -- of liquid around my waist.
I can also see the ultimate frisbee players -- another post on them to come someday -- the dog-walkers, the tennis players and those who are just out for a walk. With the odd exception (besides the BC1 guy), everyone is white. I wonder why? While not a terribly diverse neighbourhhod, I don’t think it is this homo-G. Hmmm. Is there something about public parks that is more appealing to white people? Certainly we do a race-class analysis of this. Thoughts?
firstly, i love that you notice lack of diversity.
ReplyDeletesecondly, i have a few possible explanations why the BC crowd is non-diverse:
1. non-white people hate exercise (and would definitely never pay to get sweaty)
2. non-white people hate parks
3. non-white people don't wear lululemon
4. non-white people don't really live there - you're not going to trek out there to use the park, particularly if it means you're going to be surrounded by white people who look like they own it
5. non-white people get their sweat on through work. eg - labouring (there's a little old extremely muscly guy who makes his living here hauling about probably three hundred pounds of these charcoaly things used for burning here everyday, all day). big generalisation of course for TO.
6. non-white people get their sweat on somewhere where there is no grass, eg bball. (Grass is a luxury here!)