Re-post of a Toronto Star article when they interviewed me and my best friend who ran against Rob Ford for city councillor in Ward 2.
Toronto nightclub promoter Ken Bryan thought it was hilarious and “refreshing” to hear , “a rich, white” politician, speaking Jamaican patois.
“He spoke Jamaican really well (and used) Jamaican colloquialisms that you have to be around Jamaicans to understand,” Bryan said of the mayor’s appearance in the infamous cellphone video recorded at an all-night Rexdale diner.
“If anything, that increases his appeal; that increased it to me, but then I’m, ‘What am I doing — it’s Rob Ford.’”
Bryan does not belong to Ford Nation. But Ford’s continuing cachet with some black Torontonians — who see him as a sort of “Robin Hood of the ’hood” — is a phenomenon Bryan has thought a lot about and explored in his blog.