It was polite, even deferential, but unmistakably critical. Early this week, after the city met its new police chief in Mark Saunders, unsolicited advice came from the back of a packed media gallery during the soon-to-be top cop’s inaugural news conference.

“If I may suggest, sir,” offered Anthony Morgan, a lawyer who has emerged as a prominent figure in the city’s black community, his voice rising above a phalanx of TV cameras and reporters. “Referring to individuals as ‘collateral damage’ may not go over so well in the community.”

News this week that Saunders will become Toronto’s first black police chief was rightly hailed as a history-making event. With 52-year-old Saunders, well-liked within the force and widely known as a bridge-building leader, the Toronto Police Services Board felt assured it was hiring a force for transformative change.

But as Morgan said, the appointment, for some in the black community, is “bittersweet.”

Saunders’ “collateral damage” comment was in reference to the racially charged topic of carding, the police practice of stopping and documenting citizens not suspected of a crime. The stops disproportionately affect black and brown young men, making them feel targeted and harassed.

Asked at the news conference about his stance on carding, Saunders said he wants to discuss ways to minimize the “collateral damage” it causes.

“People have lost opportunities. People have been physically hurt by police interactions related to carding,” Morgan said moments after the news conference. “I think if you start the dialogue by saying these people as a group, nameless and faceless, are ‘collateral damage’ … that is not the most progressive way to approach the humanity and dignity of people.”

The reason Toronto’s black community is divided on Saunders’ appointment centres on how progressive its members can expect the new chief to be. It enters the messy arena of identity politics: Is Saunders, a 32-year veteran of the force, a police officer above all else? Can he be the true agent of change to end practices considered by many to be racist, when he has such a deep connection to the force?

Chris Williams, a member of the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition, says the split within the city’s black community boils down to symbolism versus substance. Too many people, he said, have been seduced by the symbolism, and “we need to be critical of the assumption that being black means that you are necessarily progressive.”

Diversity in the force, he said, can sometimes function as a “fig leaf for racially discriminatory institutions.” He points to the case of “B.J.” Sandhu, a veteran Punjabi officer with the Peel Regional Police who last year filed a complaint to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, alleging harassment and discrimination in the force.

Sandhu had been given a key role with the service’s Diversity Relations Unit by former police chief Mike Metcalf. Sandhu alleged in his complaint that Metcalf, who had hand-picked him for the job, was “actually taking advantage” of his ethnicity, knowing the service would look good and Metcalf would not have to be “bothered.”

Sandhu alleges in his complaint that superiors told him they would not endorse his application for a promotion and advised him to withdraw from the process. His complaint proceeds to a hearing in June.

Asked about the lawsuit shortly after it was filed, a Peel police spokesperson said, “it’s not something we would comment on” until the human-rights tribunal process is finished.

“Sandhu was a racially convenient buffer interposed between a police force known for its racism and communities known for being deeply troubled in response to police racism,” Williams said in his keynote speech at a recent ceremony for the Lincoln Alexander Memorial Award, which honours youth working to eliminate racial discrimination in Ontario.

But symbols “still mean a lot … regardless of whether they measure up to the portrayed symbolism,” wrote Munyonzwe Hamalengwa in Share, a newspaper targeted at a Caribbean audience.

“The bottom line is that the appointment of Chief Mark Saunders is a great step for man (Saunders) and a giant step for diversity. This is regardless of how the leadership of Saunders augers for blacks. He will be an example of how to do things or how not to do things,” Hamalengwa wrote.

High up on the list of outgoing chief Bill Blair’s accomplishments is a diversification of the force; today, nearly one in four uniformed officers is part of a visible minority. But research out of the United States suggests having more black police officers may not lead to more equitable treatment of suspects or citizens.

One study examining police officers in St. Petersburg, Fla., and Indianapolis, Ind., found black officers were actually “more likely to conduct coercive actions” — ranging from verbal orders to physical confinement — than their white counterparts.

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David Tanovich, a University of Windsor law professor and author of The Colour of Justice: Policing Race in Canada said the phenomenon could be explained by the fact that personal identity can sometimes be eclipsed by broader institutional culture.

“And the desire to conform to that culture, consciously or unconsciously, often does overwhelm any individual identity, and the ability of that identity to want to steer a different course,” he said.

Winnipeg Police Chief Devon Clunis, who became Canada’s first black police chief in 2012, disagrees. The Jamaican-born police-chaplain-turned-chief says his black identity features prominently in his leadership, and is a significant asset in a racially divided city.

Winnipeg is often the focus of national criticism for the high level of violence involving the city’s First Nations population; earlier this year, Maclean’s magazine said Winnipeg was “arguably Canada’s most racist city.”

Clunis believes his heritage allows him to identify with some of the challenges facing aboriginal residents.

“Cultural understanding is what you can help to build into your community as a chief of police, because you do have that perspective,” he said in an interview this week. “Sometimes it’s very difficult to understand something unless you’ve actually experienced or walked in that particular shoe yourself.”

Clunis, who knows Saunders well and calls him a “fantastic guy,” said he will bring to the job a greater understanding of the black community and what its members experience — “he understands what it means to walk in that skin as he goes up and down the street.”

Asked in 2011 if the homicide squad needed more black officers to help solve the high number of shooting deaths among black men, Saunders — then head of homicide and the only black officer in the unit — said it was not necessary. The colour of his skin did not give him an advantage, he said.

“When I walk into the room, I am a police officer first,” he said at the time.

Asked this week if he felt there was a heightened expectation he would be able to ease racial tensions in the city because he is black, Saunders gave an honest response. It is also one that should be promising, considering that his legion of supporters within the force all point to one major strength: the man listens.

“Being black is fantastic. It doesn’t give me superpowers,” he said. “What will happen is there will be lots of open dialogue, lots of talking. More so than ever before.”

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