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Volume 107, Issue 19 | Monday, February 26, 2018 | mcgilldaily.com ʕ ʕ·͡ᴥ·ʔ ʔsince 1911
The McGill Daily is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory.
All Lez’d up and nowhere to go Page 13
Contents 4 EDITORIAL
Pierre Coriolan’s murder and police violence
5 NEWS International News Briefs Ahed Tamimi trial triggers protests Freedom Flotilla Coalition Failures of Reconciliation Tina Fontaine’s murderer found not-guilty
11 Commentary Death and racialization Eccentic or artistic?
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Literary Supplement
13 Features Lesbian Cruising
17 SPORTS A love letter to ice dance North and South Korea at the Olympics
19 Culture Reflecting on Aldarondo’s ‘Memories of a Penitent Heart’
20 Compendium! Comics and memes!
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EDITORIAL
Volume 108 Issue 19
February 26, 2018 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily
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editorial board
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The McGill Daily is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory. coordinating editor
Inori Roy
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Piere Coriolan’s murder is part of a pattern of police violence
managing editor
Xavier Richer Vis coordinating news editor
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news editors
Rayleigh Lee Yasmeen Safaie Victor Dépois commentary + compendium! editors
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web + social media editor Gloria François le délit
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n June 27 2017, Pierre Coriolan, a 58-year-old Black man from Haiti with a history of mental illness, was killed by Service de Police de la Ville de Montreal (SPVM) officers in the hallway of his apartment building. The police officers had received calls from Coriolan’s neighbors claiming he was damaging his apartment and breaking windows. Upon their arrival, officers discovered Coriolan holding a screwdriver. Footage released by Coriolan’s family on February 7, as evidence in the trial against the SPVM for abuse of power, shows the moments of Coriolan’s death. In one minute and 10 seconds, the officers used four different weapons, going from rubber bullets, to taser, to live ammunition, to baton, which was used to beat Coriolan even after he had been shot. The violent force used to attack and murder Coriolan sparked public outrage within the Montreal community. A vigil was held at his apartment building, and Black Lives Matter Montreal subsequently took over a stage at the Jazz Music Festival to demand that police officers change their methods of responding to racialized people in distress. Coriolan’s death is part of a greater pattern in which the SPVM consistently fails to serve racialized and mentally ill people in distress; instead of offering support, police react violently, often killing civilians. Similar incidents include Alain Magloire, who was killed after being shot by the police four times for refusing to drop a hammer he was holding. Only two months earlier, Magloire had sought medical treatment at Sacre-Coeur Hospital, fearing he was going to kill someone. Farshad
Mohammadi, a mentally ill homeless man, was shot in the back as he attempted to evade two officers whom he had attacked with an X-acto knife following a verbal confrontation. Mario Hamel, a man with a history of mental illness, was killed by police officers trying to subdue him after he had threatened them with a knife. As of now, none of the police officers involved in these killings have been convicted of crimes. The coroners performing the autopsies of these men have called not only for better provincial mental health services, but also for the SPVM to receive more comprehensive training in how to aid people suffering from mental illness. The SPVM has acknowledged coroners’ recommendations and admitted that very few of its officers are trained in mental health crisis intervention. In response, they have increased the number of stun guns and plastic bullets in downtown stations and airports rather than following these recommendations. The SPVM, like policing systems across the continent, and the world, is a tool of state violence, and is built on racial profiling which especially targets Black and Indigenous people. The dismantling of the police state is crucial; however, while it continues to exist, de-escalation training and an informed approach to mental illness is imperative. Further violence, even non-lethal violence, is not an acceptable response. When the SPVM harms and murders civilians, they must be held accountable for the harm they cause. —The McGill Daily Editorial Board
Mahaut Engérant
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Nouédyn Baspin, Yves Boju, Marc Cataford (Chair), Julia Denis, Mahaut Engérant, Antoine Jourdain, Caroline Macari, Ikram Mecheri, Taylor Mitchell, Inori Roy, Boris Shedov, All contents © 2018 Daily Publications Society. All rights reserved. The content of this newspaper is the responsibility of The McGill Daily and does not necessarily represent the views of McGill University. Products or companies advertised in this newspaper are not necessarily endorsed by Daily staff. Printed by Imprimerie Transcontinental Transmag. Anjou, Quebec. ISSN 1192-4608.
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International News Victor Dépois The McGill Daily
Astana, Kazakhstan – Monday, February 19
Victoria, Seychelles – Thursday, February 22
azakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev approved on a decree concerning an alphabet switchover without warning last Monday, likely in response to the unpopularity of the new apostrophe-heavy alphabet adopted last October. Nazarbayev signed off on a 32-letter version of the alphabet that almost nobody has seen before, and ordered officials to ensure that the alphabet be implemented within the next seven years. The new alphabet contains fewer apostrophes, which have been replaced in favour of accents. Prior to the decree, Kazakhstan used a 42-letter Cyrillic alphabet. The government has advocated for the new alphabet which they claim will be better suited for typing on computers, in order to boost to country’s modernization. Prior to the most recent alphabetical switch, one Kazakh newspaper, Arqalyq Habary, was already publishing with the new alphabet. In the Gabit Musirepov district of the North Kazakhstan region, authoritieshave already began issuing letters to residents in the new 32-letter script. They will now have to change their alphabet again.
new marine protected area has been created in the Indian Ocean around the Seychelle islands. The zone is 210,000-square kilometres wide, an area equivalent to nearly half of the Black Sea. The government’s goal in creating this sanctuary is to protect the sea and the archipelago’s economy, which is heavily reliant on fishing and tourism. The new zone is the result of a financial deal brokered by American NGO The Nature Conservancy. The NGO levied $21 million to pay off an outstanding sovereign debt, in exchange for conservation funding to protect this ocean-dependent nation. Environment minister Didier Dogley said that by 2020, close to a third of Seychelles waters will be protected against deep-sea mining, dredging, oil and gas exploration, and unregulated and illegal fishing. Like many other oceanic nations, Seychelles is one of the nations most vulnerable to climate change, rising sea levels, and ocean acidification, as its economy is almost totally reliant on marine resources.
K
A
Written with material from AFP. Written with material from the official website of the President of Kazakhstan, and Eurasianet.
Lima, Peru – Wednesday, February 21
Juba, South Sudan – Friday, February 23
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t least 44 people are dead after a bus fell approximately 200 meters into a ravine in Ocoña District of the Arequipa region in southern Peru. The operator Rey Latino stated that the bus was carrying around 45 people, but police stated that there were probably more passengers on the bus because additional passengers boarded en route and did not appear in the initial register, suggesting the official death toll with increase. The bus also did not have permission to drive on the Panamericana Sur highway, its permit having expired in 2016 according to the Regional Management of Transportation of Arequipa. Road accidents are common in Peru, where roads are not considered to be safe, and bus drivers lack training. Nevertheless, Peruvian judicial authorities and police claim that these high crash rates are due to the speeding and imprudence of drivers. This is the second most deadly crash of the year, however: in early January, a bus collided with a truck careened off a cliff, killing 48.
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outh Sudan’s northern state of Tonj was recently the site of brutal clashes that caused the death of at least 30 people. The new governor of the state, appointed two days earlier, blamed tribal clashes between two Dinka tribes subclans, but also vengeance following cattle raids. These conflicts remain, according to the politician, “the major challenges in the state.” On the same day, UN investigators said they had identified more than 40 South Sudanese officials and military officers alledgedly responsible of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The civil war started five years ago in 2013, following a split between President Kiir and his former Vice President, Riek Machar. Tens of thousands of people have died, and between 2.5 and 4 million people have been displaced. Written with material from IOL.
Written with material from El Mercurio.
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NEws
February 26, 2018 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily
Public expresses outrage at Ahed Tamimi trial
Rally participants discuss systemic incarceration of child prisoners Yasmeen Safaie, Jude Khashman, Rayleigh Lee, and Victor Depois The McGill Daily
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n Sunday, February 18, around 50 people gathered to protest against the trial of Ahed Tamimi and the treatment of other Palestinian political prisoners at Norman Bethune Square. The rally was organized by Solidarité pour les droits humains des Palestiniennes et Palestiniens in coalition with five other groups as part of Free the Tamimis Global Day of Action, an international campaign organized in response to the arrest and detainment of the 17-year-old activist, Ahed Tamimi. The ongoing imprisonment of the Tamimi family has sparked public outrage, in response to the military court’s ruling last month to keep Tamimi and her mother in custody during closed-door trials. They, allegedly, do not have a clear timeline. Various speakers at the event denounced the prosecution of child prisoners, as participants held banners reading “End apartheid,” and “Stand with Gaza.” Two police vehicles were present at the rally. Treatment of child prisoners “Israel does not differentiate between the child, the elderly, the women,” said Omar Ben Ali, a speaker and Palestinian refugee participating in the event. “In the eyes of the Israeli occupation, every Palestinian is an enemy. Every Palestinian must be punished.” Ali, who is from the Jenin region of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, is currently stateless because of the Canadian government’s refusal to recognize his claimed refugee status. Ali emphasized that the Ahed Tamimi case is not an isolated incident, as all Palestinians under occupation, including his wife and children in Palestine, are at risk of violence. “When I see Ahed al-Tamimi, I see five daughters of mine”, said Ali. “Every second, I have a fear that my daughter will be subjected to what Ahed al-Tamimi is subjected to. Not just my daughters, but [...] all Palestinian children.” According to the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, approximately 700 children are put on trial in military courts each year. Recent cases include the detainment of Abdel-Raouf al-Bilawi and Razan Abu Sal, two
13-year-olds, who were sentenced to four months in prison in January this year for throwing stones at occupation forces. They are reportedly the youngest Palestinian prisoners to date, and the youngest prisoners in the world. Both al-Bilawi and Abu Sal live in the occupied West Bank, like the Tamimi family members, where Human Rights Watch have documented multiple cases of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) being physically abusive, and where the Tel Aviv based Haaretz has reported on allegations of IDF officers purposefully disabling Palestinian youth.
“With Ahed Tamimi we have a young person who happened to be born Palestinian, who happened to be born into occupation of her land, who happened to be born into the resistance struggle of her people for freedom and justice,” — Dolores Chew, Speaker “With Ahed Tamimi we have a young person who happened to be born Palestinian, who happened to be born into occupation of her land, who happened to be born into the resistance struggle of her people for freedom and justice,” said Dolores Chew, another speaker at the event told the audience. In Israel, there are two distinct legal systems in operation: the civilian legal system applied to Israeli citizens and a military court system applied to the Palestinian population. According to the prisoners rights group Addameer, there are currently 350 Palestinian children
Laura Brennan | The McGill Daily in Israeli detention. According to a study published on October 2017 by Israeli rights groups HaMoked and B’tselem, the Israel Prison Service (IPS) incarcerates Palestinian youth under harsh conditions, such as night interrogations without the presence of a guardian or a legal counsellor. The report states that 91 per cent of interviewed minors were arrested at night, and minors were not made aware of their right to remain silent, or their rights to counsel. Such detainment is unlawful, as Israeli law prohibits night interrogations. Moreover, Israel, as a signatory of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991, is obliged to uphold international juvenile justice standards which mandates that “[t]he arrest, detention, or imprisonment of a child [...] shall be used only as a measure of last resort.” Chew noted that while minors are unlawfully arrested and interrogated, “soldiers [...] have authority from the Israeli state to invade homes regularly, vandalize the contents, destroy food, terrorize children asleep in their beds and shoot them in the head. All this with absolute impunity.”
A report published by Breaking the Silence, a non governmental organization (NGO) run by former Israeli soldiers, mentioned the discretion given to soldiers to open-fire and identify targets, which led to massive casualties of unarmed Palestinians. “It is the Israeli state declaring ‘we can do this to you and get away with it’,” said Chew. Right to resist This state-sponsored military campaign on Gaza operates in areas which are legally under Palestinian authority. Most of the attacks perpetuate the persecution of Palestinian children in villages within the West Bank. The Palestinian West Bank is currently separated into three administrative divisions: Areas A, B, and C. Each division operates under varied levels of civil control by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israeli occupation forces. Areas A and B comprise respectively of only 18 and 22 percent of the West Bank, and are supposed to be administered under the PA. The remaining 60 per cent, Area C, is occupied by Israeli forces,
Israel, as a signatory of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991, is obliged to uphold international juvenile justice standards which mandates that “[t]he arrest, detention, or imprisonment of a child [...] shall be used only as a measure of last resort.
February 26, 2018 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily
News and is considered to be illegally administered under international law. Nabi Saleh, the village where the Tamimi family resides, is part of the former division under PA control. However, the Israeli state maintains de facto authority and governance through raids conducted by Israeli soldiers to arrest and detain Palestinians. In her speech, Chew stated that Palestinians have a right to resist Israeli occupation for the sake of this self-determination. “The [...] Zionist state of Israel flagrantly violates international law,” she said. “The occupation of Palestine is the longest military occupation in modern history. Under international law, people under occupation have a right to resist. Therefore what Ahed and other Palestinians do to resist occupation is their legitimate right under international law.”
“You are the ones who have to stand for the Palestinians [...] because even Palestine’s children no longer trust in these [Western] governments.” *Anna, a Palestinian student
— Omar Ben Ali, Speaker present at the rally told the Daily in an interview, “International law grants Tamimi, and many other Palestinian activists placed under PA division control the right to legally resist the presence of Israeli soldiers [...] on their land. It is important to distinguish ‘aggression’ from ‘legal resistance against colonialism.’” According to the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3314, the definition of aggression does not “prejudice the right to self-determination, freedom, and independence [...] particularly [of ] peoples under colonials and racist regimes [...] nor the right of these peoples to struggle to that end and to seek and receive support.” Moreover, the UN has recognised the right for occupied populations to use legitimate armed force to see “liberation from colonial and foreign domination” in numerous occasions. “The Israeli occupation of Palestine is illegal, and has always been colonial,” said Anna, referring to the Israeli state’s decision not to withdraw from Palestine in 1967
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despite a unanimous decree of the UN Security Council to adopt Resolution 242, which called for the “withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied.” Inaction from the international community “As Western governments are supporting the Israeli occupation, what will become of us?” asked Ali. Ali claimed refugee status on arrival in Canada almost ten years ago, a status which has been denied despite being unable to return to Palestine due to the occupation. He subsequently applied for immigration status under humanitarian and compassionate grounds, but that however was too refused. One of the speakers, Andrew Welsh pointed out that Canada currently does not recognize the existence of a Palestinian state. “It is not a coincidence that in 2016, the Trudeau government passed a motion condemning the BDS [Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions] movement,” said Welsh. “We need to be in solidarity, with those that are fed up,” said Welsh in French. “Fed up by the lies of the government, that claims to have no money to finance the creation of jobs, but has the money to build new weapons. Canada is going to increase its military budget by 70 percent. A part of this budget will go in the support of the Zionist occupation of Palestine.” Anna explained in an interview to The Daily how the extent of apathy of Palestinian human rights is reflected in the international responses towards cases like Tamimi’s. Anna stated that the content and amount of information, or lack thereof, published in Western news sources such as the New York Times and Newsweek further reflects the inaction of the international community. She explained how, for example, Tamimi’s trial was postponed from January 31 to February 6 and finally to February 13, but “Western news sources have, for the most part, refrained from publishing the news of this postponement.” Anna illustrated her point by noting how an article published by the New York Times (NYT) on February 4 regarding the change of date of the trial was taken down. In an article published in December 22, 2017, the NYT included the perspectives of several Israeli figures, such as Yossi Klein Halevi, a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, a Jewish research and education institute, who stated that “when you see yourself as under permanent siege, your greatest fear is the loss of deterrence.” However, Anna told the Daily that this statement does not reflect the
Yasmeen Safaie| The McGill Daily experiences of Palestinians because “Israeli occupation forces control the movement of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank, and Palestinians are thus the people under siege.” Active support and worldwide protest “For those of us living at a great physical distance from Palestine where we don’t experience the heel of a military boot on our necks,” stated Chew, “it might have seemed that things were relatively quiet, relatively peaceful but the [...] [Israeli airstrikes] on Gaza just a few hours ago are a reminder that this is a state of continuing war and civilians including children are the targets.” On the day of the rally, the Israeli military carried out multiple strikes overnight in the Gaza strip, killing two
Palestinians in an Israeli tank fire. The same day, two Palestinian teenagers were killed near Rafah, the southern region of the border, for approaching the border in an allegedly “suspicious manner.” “We need to make people aware that even when Palestine drops out of the news for us over here, Palestinian people have to live the daily indignities of occupation,” continued Chew. “You are the ones who have to stand for the Palestinians,” continued Ali, echoing Chew’s words and stressing the importance of international solidarity. “Because even Palestine’s children no longer trust in these [Western] governments.” “Palestine’s children only call for the people, those who are free all over the world,” said Chew,
quoting resistance movements such as “Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS),” which have been “called for by the people of Palestine.” BDS was formally nominated for the a Nobel Peace Prize by the Norwegian parliamentarian Bjornar Moxnes, backed by the support of his party, the Rødt (Red) Party. BDS is also currently active in Montreal among other resistance groups such as Tadamon, an organization in support of Palestinian human rights. “We must continue the pressure, there is an end in sight. [...] Ahed, we send you our love and deepest solidarity,” concluded Chew. *Names changed anonymity.
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February 26, 2018 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily
SPHR hosts discussion on the Freedom Flotilla Coalition
Omar Arafeh The McGill Daily
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NEws
David Heap discusses breaking the blockade on Gaza
n February 20, McGill Students in Solidarity for Palestine Human Rights (SPHR) hosted David Heap, a communitybased activist for peace and human rights, and media coordinator of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), a self-described “grassroots people-to-people solidarity movement composed of campaigns and initiatives from all over the world working together to end the blockade of Gaza.” Heap discussed the important role the FFC plays in defying the illegal blockade of Gaza, detailing how the movement raises international solidarity with Gazans who experience the ongoing siege from the Israeli occupation. The FFC also provides a platform for international civil societies to mobilize and discuss the Gaza situation. Several missions organized by the FFC attempted to reach the shores of Gaza to distribute much-needed supplies to Gazan residents; however, all were either stopped or assaulted by the occupation’s navy. Missions to break the siege did not begin with the FFC, but with the Free Gaza Movement. Heap clarified: “two voyages in [August and October] 2008 sailed to and from Gaza and brought medical supplies without any security risks, and without any harm to anyone.” But when the occupation’s military carried out operation “Cast Lead” from December 2008 to January 2009, Heap explained, “free Gaza voyages arriving during the operation came under attack, […] the navy began shooting and ramming boats, and it became very difficult and dangerous.” The Israeli occupation is responsible for putting activists in danger, Heap stressed. “The only thing that makes [the voyages] difficult is the occupier’s violence.” This hostility is exemplified in the FCC’s first voyage in 2010, organized by the Free Gaza Movement and the Turkish Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (IHH). Of the six ships sailing to Gaza, “the largest, the Mavi Marmara, was attacked and boarded in international waters by the occupation’s commandos, killing nine activists and injuring several others,” stated Heap. The attack received extensive media attention generating an international public outcry, and caused the occupation to temporarily ease the blockade on Gaza. Heap then described Israeli tactics to intercept humanitarian boats en route to Gaza. “Before
we encountered the occupation’s navy, we lost contact with satellite radio […] the satellite phones all got blocked. This is in itself an admission of guilt, the occupiers are saying they’re about to do something they don’t want the world to see, so they have to cut off all channels of communication to control the narrative. They boarded with armed commandos, but we are committed to non-violent resistance. They are not committed to nonviolence.” Heap was detained along with the other activists present onboard, spending six days in jail. Heap explained that “typically flotilla participants are deported after 24 to 48 hours because it’s a media liability to keep [Western] internationals in prison.”
“Before we encountered the occupation’s navy, […] the satellite phones all got blocked. This is in itself an admission of guilt, the occupiers are saying they’re about to do something they don’t want the world to see.” – David Heap, media coordinator of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition Heap went on to say that the most important thing was that “we were not forgotten, [however] the dangers for the Palestinians in Gaza [are] being forgotten. If nothing else, these actions serve to remind the world that they are not forgotten. They may be forgotten by the governments of the world, but they are not forgotten by the people of the world.” With this, Heap underlined one of the main goals of the flotilla, “this is one of the reasons to sail, it reminds a captive people that they in their international prison are not forgotten.” He also reminded the attendees that the “blockade itself remains
Abby Couture | The McGill Daily illegal under international law […] the special Rapporteur for Human Rights in September 2011 said that there is no way the blockade of Gaza could be legal because it deprives a civilian population from the right of freedom of movement […] which is considered collective punishment under International Law and the Geneva Conventions, guaranteeing the freedom of movement for all people within their state.” Heap then described the Estelle Flotilla in 2012 which stopped at various European ports, raising awareness in the cities. He explained, “we learned in that case about the importance of the pre-voyage. The last part of the voyage can be predictable when we’re intercepted by the occupier’s navy. When we meet people in a European communities we have an impact on that community.” An alternative tactic to the flotillas was the Gaza’s Ark campaign from 2012-2015, which sought to challenge the blockade from the inside out. Heap explained, “Gaza’s Ark was a project to sail from inside Gaza out, to emphasize the fact that it’s not about us bringing stuff to Gaza, it’s about freedom of movement for Palestinians in Gaza.” Heap and his colleagues would “rebuild a fishing boat in Gaza, buy trade goods from Palestinians who wanted to trade with the world, and sail out to challenge the blockade. [We were] demanding freedom of movement and freedom of commerce […] and the project sold about $25,000 worth of export goods.”
The Gaza’s Ark campaign addressed the plight of Gaza’s fishermen, who “since 2012 and in fact earlier, suffered from the occupier pushing back the very narrow band of waters where Palestinians are allowed to fish. Sometimes it’s six nautical miles, sometimes it’s as little as four nautical miles. Keep in mind that any other coastal people in the world has a minimum of 12 nautical miles of territorial waters and normally a 20 nautical mile economic zone.” Heap stated “many end up in the occupation’s prisons for the crime of fishing. For the crime of trying to feed their families.” Heap went on to express his support for the Women’s Flotilla which sailed in 2016 that “underlined the aspects of the blockade which particularly affect women […] and the role women play in the resistance and the survival of their societies.” George Ghabrial, a member of SPHR, said “it’s important to remind the McGill community at large that [the struggle for Palestinian liberation] is bigger than just McGill or a campus. We have a room full of people who are relatively aware of the issue today thinking about the occupation of Gaza. It inspires people to think a little bit differently and maybe empowers them to take action in different ways they hadn’t done so before in their communities and in that way spread more internationally.” Regarding future flotilla plans, Heap stated that “this year, we’re
planning a sail called ‘A Just Future for Palestine’ and the flotilla will be called ‘Al Awdah’ [The Return] with representatives from all over Europe, Malaysia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States as well as several [representatives from] international organizations. We need to continue to spread the international nature of this. The purpose is to break the media blockade and to reach people with the story of what’s happening in Gaza.”
“It inspires people to think a little bit differently and maybe empowers them to take action in different ways [..] and in that way spread more internationally.” – George Ghabrial, SPHR member
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February 26, 2018 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily
news
Panel addreses failures of Reconciliation
There is still a long way to go before we can overcome the history of colonialism
Arvaa Balsara The McGill Daily
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n Tuesday February 20, an interactive discussion session titled “Betraying Reconciliation: Indigenization or Pacification?” was held at the Madeleine Parent room. The event, organized by the Students’ Society of McGill University’s (SSMU) Indigenous Affairs office, featured Chelsea Vowel, a writer and educator from Manitowsâkahikan territory (Lac Ste. Anne, Alberta) who is currently a language coordinator at the Faculty of Native studies at the University of Alberta. The event started with a territorial acknowledgement, followed by a discussion of a diverse range of topics including Indigenizing academic environments and a critique of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC). Vowel aimed to answer the following questions: ‘how can we be better guests in the land that we occupy?’ and ‘how can we address our personal behavior without putting the onus on Indigenous people to tell us when we are doing something wrong?’, as well as how academic spaces can be more accessible to Indigenous communities. Attendees then brainstormed possible solutions addressing to the inaction of upperlevel bureaucracy to address the systemic imbalances that make public spaces inaccessible to Indigenous people. Beyond Land acknowledgments Vowel challenged a diverse range of practices that are thought to contribute to the Indigenization of our societies, such as a land acknowledgement. Such acknowledgments date back centuries for Indigenous people, but for many non-Indigenous Canadian settlers,
this is a relatively new concept. Vowel problematized how the notion of territorial acknowledgment can become a way of ‘indigenizing’ without concretely addressing systemic causes. She argues that the initial practice of territorial acknowledgments seemed promising, but now they are sometimes used to diffuse the responsibility for structural change. “[Land acknowledgements] are something that’s done all the time now, particularly in institutional spaces,” said Vowel, emphasizing that they adress the colonial history of Canada and our own complicity in institutions that perpetuate the occupation. Vowel mentioned that while acknowledgements have become the easiest and most non-disruptive way to engage in reconciliation, the occupation of Indigenous land is still not recognized in certain spaces, “it’s not being done in rural courtrooms where white men are murdering visibly Native Cree men,” they said, referring to the recent acquittal of Gerald Stanley, a 56 yearold Saskatchewan farmer who shot Colten Boushie, a 22 year-old Cree man on August 9, 2016. “It was really exciting when [land acknowledgements] first started happening, it made people [settlers] feel uncomfortable. It was being made aware of a presence that was unwelcome. But now it’s really easy to say and listen to and move on. It’s become so rote,” said Vowel. It is easy to make surfacelevel commitments like land acknowledgements, but Vowel stressed the lack of action by the government of Canada in the postTRC period to enact tangible change in policies. Although the TRC began the Personal Ribbon Campaign and the It Matters To Me campaign, the
federal government has yet to take action on important matters such as the systemic impoverishment of Indigenous people.
What is indigenization? Vowel mentioned that the process of indigenization in the context of Canada specifically refers to a “set of practices that are geared to making spaces more accessible to Indigenous people.” Vowel mentioned that this can involve the incorporation of Indigenous languages in schools and daycares, and establishing spaces for ceremonies on campuses. She emphasized that the process should include the hiring and retaining Indigenous workers and students, and including their voices. “The underlying principle to the process is that Indigenous voices are heard, respected and acted upon,” said Vowel. Vowel discussed the constant battles she faced with the administration at the University of Alberta, where she is currently registered in a Master’s program. She mentioned that administrations often stand alongside intolerance, ignorance and bigotry as challenges to indigenization. Recent efforts towards inclusivity and indigenization at McGill include the establishment of the First People’s House, the inclusion of a land acknowledgement on the universities website, and the Provost’s Task Force on Indigenous Studies and Indigenous Education, which published a report on its findings. However, Vowel pointed out that while these initiatives provide a call to action, they run the risk of excusing more widespread inaction and lack of concrete structural change at our university Participants concluded the event by discussing the micro-level changes
Claire Grenier | The McGill Daily that may contribute to creating more accessible spaces. A participant discussed an Indigenous Education Program taking place at the Collège d’enseignement général et professionnel (CEGEP) level, geared towards providing education on the issue and cultural sensitivity training. “The point was to help teachers and employees who had good intentions but felt disempowered around dealing with Indigenous issues or helping Indigenous students,” said Jacky Vallée, a teacher from Vanier College. According to Vallêe, the program is the first of its kind, and offers an avenue for non-Indigenous people to learn more about Indigenous culture. The program currently is facilitated by Indigenous speakers who are hired to discuss specific issues in each session. A three-day learning session was hosted in December of last year, which included discussions of the history of Canada, settler interactions with Indigenous communities and a trip to Kahnawake to learn more about Indigenous worldviews. “It was way to help people start
the process of learning. We made it very clear from the start that it wasn’t about making people experts because Indigenous learning isn’t about expertise, it’s a lifelong process,” said Vallêe. “Too often institutions seek to maintain the system and sprinkle in some culture,” said Vowel. “They don’t understand the specific needs and expect the one Indigenous person in the room to be the spokesperson [for all Indigenous people] […] Advising and consulting becomes extractive when there is no change,” she concluded.
“Too often, institutions seek to maintain the system and sprinkle in some culture.” -Chelsea Vowel, speaker
Raymond Cormier found not guilty Trial prompts inquiry into murdered and missing Indigenous women
Rayleigh Lee The McGill Daily Content warning: sexual assault of a minor, anti-Indigenous racism
O
n February 22, Raymond Cormier was found not-guilty of the murder of 15-year old Tina Fontaine, an Indigenous teenager whose body was found in
a river in August 2014. The jury, composed of seven women and four men, deliberated for 13 hours and announced the verdict thursday around five in the afternoon. The acquittal of Cormier for second-degree murder comes two weeks after Gerald Stanley was cleared of charges for the murder of Colten Boushie. Cormier, 56, arrested in 2015,
went to trial without a preliminary hearing. The spokesperson for the Criminal Defence Lawyers’ Association of Manitoba described the case as “thin,” as no incriminating forensic evidence or eyewitnesses had been produced by the prosecution. However, according to the Crown Prosecutor, Cormier admitted to sexually exploiting the
teen, then murdering her when he found out that she was a minor. The transcription of Cormier’s recorded conversation states, “15 year old girl fuck. I drew the line, and that’s why she got killed. [...] It’s right on the shore. So what do I do? Threw her in.” In response to the evidence, Cormier’s defence lawyers argued that the statements in the transcripts
could not be verified, suggesting the possibility for other suspects. The decision has sparked public outrage, prompting multiple marches and vigils across Canada, as well as continued calls for a national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Written with material from CBC news and CTV news.
The TRIBUNE PUBLICATION SOCIETY AND DAILY PUBLICATIONS SOCIETY
JOURNALISM AND MEDIA CONFERENCE MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 27
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28
4:00 PM - INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM
4:00 PM - FAKE NEWS
4:00 PM - EDITORS-IN-CHIEF OF STUDENT NEWSPAPERS (BILINGUAL)
Julian Sher (Investigative journalist – CBC, Toronto star)
Katherine Hanz (Liaison Librarian– McGill University)
Madeleine Parent Room, SSMU Nicholas Jasinski (The McGill Tribune)
4:00 PM - SPORTS PANEL
Emily Kingsland (Liaison Librarian – Department of Psychology, Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Human Geography at McGill University)
Madeleine Parent Room, SSMU
Lev Bukhman Room, SSMU
Bob Babinski (Sportscaster, producer – CBC, City Montreal) Brendan Kelly (Columnist – Montreal Gazette)
5:00 PM - Q&A
Madeleine Parent Room, SSMU Hubert Lacroix (President and CEO – CBC)
6:00 PM - KEYNOTE
Madeleine Parent Room, SSMU Deidre Depke (New York Bureau Chief - NPR Marketplace) Adrienne Arsenault (News anchor – CBC)
7:00 PM - ACTIVISM
Madeleine Parent Room, SSMU Yasmin Jiwani (Professor – Concordia University) Syrus Marcus Ware (Radio host/activist – Various) Natalie Childs (GUTS magazine)
8:00 PM - LECTURE
Madeleine Parent Room, SSMU Ciro Scotti (Former Managing Editor at Bloomberg Businessweek and Deputy Editor at The Americas - Reuters)
Lev Bukhman Room, SSMU
4:00 PM - LES FEMMES ET LES MÉDIAS Madeleine Parent Room, SSMU Marie-Ève Tremblay (ICI Radio-Canada)
Mahaut Engérant (Le Délit) Inori Roy (The McGill Daily)
4:00 PM - STORYTELLING WORKSHOP TPS Office (110 SSMU) Christine Crowther (Reporter – CBC News)
Eugénie Lépine Blondeau (ICI Radio-Canada)
5:00 PM - INDIGENOUS REPORTING 5:00 PM - THE BEAVERTON
Madeleine Parent Room, SSMU
Lev Bukhman Room, SSMU
Daniel Rowe (The Eastern Door)
Emma Overton (Satirist – The Beaverton)
Christine Lussier (Concordia University)
6:00 PM - FOOD REVIEW WORKSHOP
6:00 PM - JOURNALISME DE TERRAIN vs. JOURNALISME DE DONNÉES
DPS Office (B-24 SSMU)
Lesley Chesterman (Food Critic – Various)
Madeleine Parent Room, SSMU Simon Coutu (VICE)
6:00 PM - KEYNOTE
Roberto Rocha (Montreal Gazette)
Dan Bilefsky (Foreign Correspondent - The New York Times)
7:00 PM - SOCIAL MEDIA REPORTING
Lev Bukhman Room, SSMU
Madeleine Parent Room, SSMU
7:00 PM - FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE Lev Bukhman Room, SSMU
Mayaz Alam (Digital editor – Globe and Mail) Brigitte Noel (VICE)
Michel Cormier (Executive director of news and currents affairs – CBC)
8:00 PM - SOCIAL MEDIA PANEL Lev Bukhman Room, SSMU
8:00 PM - NETWORKING MIXER Gerts, SSMU
Gothshakira (Instagram @gothshakira) Edward Row (Freelance photographer) Martin Reisch (Freelance photographer)
For more information:
https://journalismredefined.com/
Commentary
11
February 26, 2018 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily
Tingnan mo yung palengke! / Look at the life A look at the racialized life in death
Nelly Wat | The McGill Daily Kathryn Laura Gamboa Commentary Writer Content warning: explicit mentions of violence, death, racism
I
am disoriented by the bleakness and finitude of death. I am suffocated by the thought of bodies and bodies and bodies lying dead. I neither know where my life begins, nor where it ends in the face of death. Death affronts— pulls you in—takes you by the nape of your neck—forces you to face it. There is no (more) life. I cannot begin to conceive of the weight of my mother’s body, my father’s body, my sister’s body—limp. I cannot begin to understand the loss of words to form coherent phrases, the phrases soon muddled into incoherent sounds. And yet. We live in death. October 2013, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit the island of Bohol, Philippines, killing 222 people. December 2012, a category five typhoon killed over 600 people in Mindanao, Philippines. January 2012, a landslide killed 25 people in the mining town of Pantukan, Mindanao, Philippines. December 2011 and June 2008 and November 2006 and February 2006 and November 2004, and all in the Philippines. I did not know the children or the parents who died. I did not know which families these people belonged to. I never did, and I never will. And yet. I know of them, because I saw the disaster on TV and I watched a video on Facebook and I saw a picture on Twitter. I know that the country I was born in, the one I emigrated from, is the host of natural disasters that have resulted in countless dead bodies. I know it is the host
of the war on drugs, a war that triumphs the on-going murder of innocent people. I know it is the host of the rampant disease and poverty that leave people dead. And yet . To know this is to know nothing about the Philippines. I only know its death. Death defines the racialized body. In a world dominated by colonialism, our racialized bodies are only allowed to exist in death. Colonialism shapes the world into a home for the white body; these bodies are the only ones that truly fit into our white-shaped world. White bodies are the ones allowed to build this home, the ones entitled to life in this home. The racialized body cannot fit into the mold, cannot inhabit the same home. The racialized body (my own body) doesn’t have the same entitlement to live in this world. The racialized body, unable to fit, unable to settle into a place called home, dies. Death is the only state in which colonizers can perceive of the racialized body. Death makes the racialized body legible, life does not.
Death defines the racialized body. The news reports, the Twitter pictures, the Facebook videos all become a microcosm of the world in which we live, in which we attempt to forge a home. We see white bodies live animated lives with ease: the pictures and videos and articles detailing the feats made in films, sports, and academia — all produced by white bodies. We see white bodies live because to be seen living and taking up space in a world in which you are at home is natural. We only see racialized bodies in death because to be seen alive, inhabiting the home shaped for white bodies, is
somehow unnatural. We only see racialized bodies in death because, for us, life in the face of death has become natural. Only in death do we see racialized bodies live. Only in the mass of flesh, the blood, the destruction do we see our bodies. Our homes are forged in this death, blood, destruction — a physical container. Only in death are marginalized people allowed to be alive. And yet. I know we are more. I know my Tia — who lives in the Philippines, who goes to the palengke, the large, tumultuous, seemingly unending market where children run around, where vendors sell meat, fish, and produce, where people go to buy food and miscellaneous things every day — is more. I know my uncles — who work and harvest their fields, and their children who go to school to read, and write, and play, and laugh — are more. I know that the Philippines is alive. Ignoring racialized people as they live only naturalizes the institutional oppression they endure — an oppression that determines what they can do, what they can be, and how they are allowed to live their lives. The paradox of living life in death is a negation of life itself. To untangle racialized people from this, we must make them visible in life. The colonizer must acknowledge both their humanity and their mortality. You must demand to see racialized people beyond the lens of what the colonizer lets you see. You must demand to see the work of racialized people. You must demand to see the accomplishments of racialized people. You must demand to see racialized people living and alive. We are more than the monotonous lull of the rising fatality count. Let us live, let us live, let us live. Then watch us live. And then — look at the life: Tingnan mo yung palengke!
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February 26, 2018 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily
Commentary
Eccentric or artistic? Prioritizing creatives’ mental health
Sonia Ionescu The McGill Daily
school further complicated this, as I felt that being healthy and happy would detract from the valorized “interesting” persona. This took multiple years of therapy to overcome, and is a thought that still plagues me during particularly difficult times. In therapy, I now discuss how to do things that are both “good” and “right.” Often we do things that are good — they make us feel better, they bring us comfort — and wrong. Things at this intersection can include anything that goes against one’s own set of morals. For me, this has included self-harm and substance abuse. Art can be good and right, or good and wrong, or even bad and wrong. Art therapy exists for a reason, and the simple act of creation can be transformative. Countless artists, myself included, take this to an unhealthy extent, torturing themselves for art, because it is said that the best art makes you feel something, and it is often easier to put pain on paper than joy. It is my contention that it is not necessary to feel this pain in order to create something meaningful, and that the world (and art) would be better off if more people believed that happy people can still make eloquent, even sad, art.
Content warning: suicide, mental illness, self harm, substance abuse
W
hen I’m prescribed a new medication, one of the first things I do (besides going to the pharmacy to fill the prescription) is look on forums and websites to see potential side effects of the medication — places like the r/bipolar subreddit, patientslikeme.com, and the section of the medication’s Wikipedia page dedicated to the possible side effects, how frequent they are, and their severity. The most common side effects tend to be drowsiness and weight gain, but something that is perhaps more concering than clinicized symptoms is the continuous mention, over and over again, of a stifling of creativity due to medications. Many people worry that medications made to treat mental illness will drain their creative juices, leaving them unable to create or perform the way they once did. This is something that I have struggled with, as well. Prior to my diagnosis and the chaos that is university life, my camera was basically attached to my hand; I wrote fairly frequently; I listened to music almost nonstop. But between a lack of time and a lack of inspiration, the things that I once considered integral to who I was became little more than a passing thought on most days. However, after finding a medication which works for me, along with a regular regimen of cognitive behavioural therapy, my love of art and creation began to come back. Without the debilitating exhaustion caused by depressive episodes and the whiplashinducing speed with which I veer from topic to topic while hypomanic, I am able to create much more consistently. Why, then, do I occasionally wish for just a little bit of heartbreak, a little extra sadness?
The things that I once considered integral to who I was became a little more than a passing thought on most days.
There are plenty of cultural references, both modern and historical, to feed the “tortured artist” trope. Many accomplished artists led lives shrouded in sadness: Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, and the rest of the members of the “27 club,” for example, which have been a topic of discussion since Kurt Cobain’s death in 1994. Over the past several years, the suicides of Robin Williams and Chester Bennington have caused increased discussion surrounding the treatment of mental illness. This is not, however, a modern invention. The phrase poète maudit, meaning accursed poet and associated with writers living “outside society,” often resulting in early death, was popularized in the 1800s. Edvard Munch, who painted “The Scream” in 1893, suffered from anxiety and hallucinations. Vincent Van Gogh was known for his attempts to poison himself by eating paint and drinking turpentine. Virginia Woolf filled her overcoat
Laura Brennan | The McGill Daily pockets with stones and walked into the River Ouse. Lord Byron once said, “We of the craft are all crazy. Some are affected by gaiety, others by melancholy, but all are more or less touched.” Popular science has elaborated on this correlation: there are countless articles, and even books, about the relationship between mental illness and creativity. A 2012 study from researchers at the Karolisnka Institutet claims that creative professionals are eight per cent more likely than the general population to be bipolar, and writers in particular are 120 per cent more likely to be bipolar. A 2015 study by researchers from a biological research company called deCODE genetics claims that “creatives” are 17 per cent more likely to carry genetic variants that increase the risk of bipolar disorder or schizophrenia than noncreative types. However, others question these claims: Scott Barry Kaufman, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, says that “any particular set of genes is only going to explain a very small part of variation in any psychological trait.” Research shows that there may also be a link between an artist’s personal life and how their art is evaluated. This has been coined the “eccentricity effect” by Wijnant A. P. Van Tilburg, a researcher at King’s College London. In a 2014 study, Tilburg et. al. found that when they created a fictional Icelandic artist named Jón Stefánsson, evaluation of Stefánsson’s art was more positive when a short introduction noted that “on the personal level, Jón Stefánsson is often described as very eccentric.” In a separate cohort of the same study, Tilburg showed photos of Jón Stefánsson — in the “low eccentricity condition,” the man is dressed ordinarily and has short hair; in
the “high eccentricity condition,” the man is skinny, with half-long hair combed over one side of his head, wearing a black shirt and vest. The perceived eccentricity had a significant positive effect on the evaluation of Stefánsson’s art.
I found that so much of my sense of self was wrapped in self-destruction and mental illness, that I did not know who I was or who I could become. The pressure to appear interesting in order to be taken seriously as an artist, or even as a person, can be overwhelming to anyone attempting to form a sense of style — in my experience, this is compounded when trying to recover from mental illness. In my teen years, while my peers were developing a constructive sense of self, I was frankly struggling to stay alive. There is a phenomenon known as “identity moratorium,” where an adolescent in crisis is unable to make a commitment to roles or values which form an identity, and this was definitely true for me. When entering treatment, I found that so much of my sense of self was wrapped in self-destruction and mental illness that I did not know who I was or who I could become. A desire to go to art
Countless artists, myself included, take this to an unhealthy extent, torturing themselves for art, because it is said that the best art makes you feel something. A 2009 meta-analysis by Mark Davis, a researcher at the University of North Texas, found that a “positive mood enhances creativity.” In addition, “those in the creative professions [are] no more likely to suffer from psychiatric disorders that other people.” In my experience, happiness (or even just contentedness) and creation can and do overlap. When I think of the years that I lost to mental illness, I mourn the me that could have been — a me that was more able to take and edit photographs, rather than laying in bed for days on end, a me unafraid to try new media (I’ve always wanted to try sculpting), a me with more harnessable energy, rather than energy that seems to only channel itself into destruction. In periods of stability, I am infinitely more able to create, and I wonder how my art could have grown if I had had the consistency that untreated bipolar disorder has stolen from me. If I had been more confident that recovery was the right direction for me, I could’ve avoided so much pain and suffering. My greatest fear about this discussion is that the trope of the tortured artist leads to the creation of real tortured artists, as it has become so deeply ingrained in popular discourse that artists just aren’t happy. If they are happy, they’re not just happy, they’re eccentric; there’s no room to be both a regular, well-adjusted person and an artist. I’m not saying that artists should be forced to happiness. I am saying that they should have the option to do so, and still be taken seriously as an artist.
Hues
Every year, the Daily publishes a selection of your poetry and prose — by the students, for the students, to showcase the talent and creativity on campus. This year, our theme is Hues: we asked that you tell us what colour your submissions evoke in you. In the following pages, you will find writing on love, loss, and the world around us. Content warning—some of the work in this year’s literary supplement deals with sensitive subject matter, which may be difficult for some readers.
the Literary Supplement Visuals by: Nelly Wat Krysten Krulik Inori Roy
Frosted, falling flakes, shape a sea of shimmering, white silky dust.
-Joachim Dos Santos
2
Literary I am also Innocent Tier moves closer to his cousin. Caked in white, she’s painted in white, dusted, powdered, round the tips of her dainty breasts she’s traced a fine line of white on white. She leans into the mirror, reflecting light onto herself, and she rubs another layer on her collarbones: fine powder. Mad, they told Tier, or, later — weird, with that widening of the eyes, you know. A speck of white floats to land on his suit. He brushes it away, it leaves a stripe. In the mirror, her face makes a smile: very sad, very pensive. She stands up, and a small aura of dust lifts and settles around her. Her breasts are small and round and painted. “Technically, I have a right,” she says, again. She’s already told him, in stilted, jumping words. He knows some of them. The rest, he thinks, she’s learned somewhere: maybe at her school, which is in the city, or from those new friends of hers. In the end her mother is startled, and then sad. The guests are surprised, but they’ve heard of the daughter, and they turn their eyes away. She wonders if they will whisper about her, but this evening, they only continue, in their plodding rhythm, to speak of discounts and donations and charity marathons, fundraisers and petitions and the handsome groom. Forty-six minutes (on her leather watch, a gift) into the reception, and she wanders over to her mother, who is trembling in her white gown. Two lilies, thinks Tier, across the room, or ghosts. Her eyes flick quickly: up down, up down. “Technically, you have a right,” she whispers, before her daughter can say it. There is a silence. Her breasts are cold. “Am I hurting you?” asks her daughter. Her mother nods, softly. Her daughter returns downstairs in one of her father’s old suits, which is even more painful for her mother, for different reasons, but she doesn’t know. “I can’t wear dresses,” she has said, many times, and this is her way of joining the ceremony. —Maya Keshav Maya is a U3 Linguistics and Classics student at McGill. —
Supplement
heaven was white everything else was grey empty, endless, cold like her grey eyes unfocused she cannot recognize me anymore her hair aging with streaks of grey she cannot recognize me anymore her bones withering into grey ash she cannot recognize me anymore her mind turning into stone she cannot recognize me anymore i never found comfort in the hues of grey i’ve found the weeping sky instead as i turn to cigarette ash with shaking hands and earnest smiles i never found comfort i’ve found my motionless being instead as it lies somewhere between black and white never one or the other i see the specks of grey as i look at my reflection the same ones in her eyes i see her greying memory of what i used to be of what i should be and i weep. for my tears, too, have become grey. —Sarah Shamy Content warning: suicide
I couldn’t turn you into a metaphor that wasn’t a burning building you who were home you whose walls I grew up in you who kept me warm you are dying your walls are burning and I can’t stop running back inside to try and save the things I left: the denim jacket I lent you your smile that time, sitting in the parking lot, when I looked into your eyes in pure awe and said “I love you, I love you, I love you” — Eliza Prestley is a poet, student, and doggy dayall of the times you loved me back care teacher based in Philadelphia and Montreal. those can’t burn too She produces both spoken word and written work I need them but every second I’m with you focusing on all things weird and somewhat angsty.
Smoke Alarms
I choke on smoke Currently, Eliza studies Cultural Studies at McGill I start burning too University and participates in the school’s spoken skin so warped word association, McSWAY, as VP CommunicaI can’t recognize my own face tions. in a new house in a new mirror you scarred me or I scarred me because all you did was burn I’m the one who chose to run back inside I tried to sleep through all your smoke alarms tried to turn threats of suicide into lullabies tried to pretend suffocation was an okay way to practice love but love is not standing in a burning building with a watering can love is not ripping off the wallpaper hauling out the kitchen sink dissecting you for the parts I wanted and leaving the ones I didn’t to burn pretending they weren’t yours to begin with love is standing outside sometimes love is calling 911 love is caring for you enough to let someone else do it better
4
Literary
We are the Idols I Come forth and bear witness to my great stone funnel!
So said the goddess when I passed through the gates. Each building before me was an amalgamation of rocks and concrete. All were lone and separate and yet I could not help but recognize the insular field that connected them all. I was not trapped here, quite the contrary. I had been invited, the term they used was accepted. So as to not dwell on vernacular and risk understating the power of double meanings, this institution was indeed insular but it was far from warm. Its strength lay in its power of separation. I was in, they were out and it was time to sift. On my first day, I strutted the streets and launched into embrace with all those who had joined me. Kinetic energy flowed through our erratic movements and one word occupied our every thought – accepted. On my tenth day, I walked the path alone amidst a sea of faces. It was on this day that an implicit epiphany struck, a tug on my body that meant to drag me out the way I had come, screaming with all the wind: please leave this place. I pushed through it, this force that would never dissipate. II I sat in the great chamber, shielded from the chaotic exterior. The thousands of us who had made it in were positioned to form an inverted cone and at the bottom center was one of the goddesses’ disciples. We didn’t know any better and revered him as a divine being, we clung to his every word and when we ran out of papers on which to transcribe his teachings, we carved them into our flesh and bones. Some could withstand the pain; we were chosen to remain. We knew to mock those dregs who could not, those who got sucked out through the exits and flapped about like flakes in the wind. This was one of the disciple’s teachings. And then we leaned forward, we created blinders so as to focus on the great being who promised immortality. It’s just you and me and now, we thought. In this respect, we were a synchronous beast. We had shed our horizontal connections in favour of a false personal relationship with Him in the center. Those who lost balance and fell forward were swept up by the wind before their face could ever hit the ground. Where every penalty was absolute we became hypersensitive to every weakness, both our own and those of others. When that evil and frigid wind wasn’t powerful enough to send a weakling off of their feet, we were eager to give them a push and send them tumbling out of the warmth afforded to those who deserved it. The divine one appreciated our efforts and we salivated at his every acknowledgement. III By my second year I was hardened, made of the same stone that surrounded me. My skin was both smooth and heavy, I had become aerodynamic and solid as I now effortlessly navigated my way through the belligerent wind. The divine ones had shaped me into a being without pores, impenetrable and foreign to all those who stood with me. We were the few. Those whose skin eroded or fractured were lost to the wind, much like those flakes of earlier days. As fewer of us remained, pillars began to grow along the paths I routinely climbed. The divine ones encouraged us to examine them. I approached one and brushed its surface. Engraved into the marble was a collection of names. And they made me furious. Even in their impermanence, the fallen had somehow found a way to infect the purity of our institution by immortalizing themselves in these ugly protrusions. They were weeds to be uprooted. My fingers scraped against each other as I clenched my hand into a fist. One blow was enough to shatter the pillar, the brittle structure created by the collaboration of inferiors was no match for my singular strength. Those who shared my disdain followed in my footsteps. The broken pillars blanketed us in crystalline snow but they were not the sole objects to crumble. We were sure to notice the marble that covered us but also the stone. And so we became the last. At the top of the hill, the divine ones grouped together. Come forth and journey to the end of the funnel, idols of the goddess. IV My limbs are heavy now and my joints are stiff. The floor beneath me, as stone as my heart and lungs, shakes and shudders under the cantankerous energy of the goddess. She dances in front of me, she is the epitome of fluid motion. Her every movement creates the concussive wind against which we have had to prosper in order to witness this pristine sight. Millions of us surround her, we have all been sculpted in her image and yet we are immobile. She will never grow stiff and so we shall watch her for all of eternity. We shall stand when the oceans dry. We shall stand when the sun decays. And all the while, we shall translate her dance into speech, calling out to those worthy of acceptance: Come forth and bear witness to my great stone funnel!
— Jonathan Giammaria is a U2 B.Sc. Psychology student. The inspiration for this story came from some of Jonathan’s frustrations with academic competition at McGill (or academia in general).
Supplement I am a pot calling you/the kettle black It was not very long for us; In an orchard full of ash-turned roses, All things bright and beautiful – we had loved them to dust And you whispered to me that we would be ablaze, Be as dark as the pubescent sun, as bright as charcoal tar... Well, the truth is that, it was not a very long time ago; I was chasing rainbows at dusk and blacking out at dawn, And I fell in love with a blue-eyed girl just like that, out of the blue... Under the green string lights of bewitching enchantment she gave me the green light, Gave me the rose-coloured glasses and painted my town bright! Had sleep never existed, I would not have been damned, For the gravity of my love for her could never bar my eyelids shut; “Am I seeing pink elephants?” – I would ask her, And although the menace of monochromatic Black Hole would dilute this image of hers, I wished I had been hallucinating when I was hers, But then my life would have been an illusion all along, too, And so would she, a dusted silhouette that had tarred my arms, Turned my heart as black as skillet, sold my soul on the black market! Oh, dear, my Time Keeper, my Time Destroyer, my Magical Muse! I am a scarlet woman for phantom touches of your hues and brushes of your love, Yet, my beloved, the shades and contour of your ghost are just not enough... You were a daydream away, you were a blink-of-an-eye away, You were my addiction, my everything, the object of my veneration; I had put you down in black and white and lent colour to your tale in my myths and legends, Just to tickle myself pink to the point of nurturing a colourless flag, Just to become as white as a sheet whilst offering you a silver platter, Just to be blindfolded by a shadowy figure with a blank face, Another daydream in my sobering moment and mourning phase... You know, I am still wandering this Earth feeling the blue, Carrying my heavily egged heart whisked with black and blue; But I made you sail under false colours at the tempestuous sea of delusions, too, Unveiling my true colours in the process as our pain had dyed the wounds of our wool, I will always remember those red-letter days kept in the dark from everyone And your silhouette. — Mercure à la mer “I enjoy writing unsent letters to my past lover, because writing helps me remember, challenge, and contest myself, my portrayal of her, my representation of others. It is akin to building sand castles on the shore, just to see them being washed away by the waves, so you will have to build new ones again, but they are no longer the same as the previous ones. The acts of building and rebuilding, just like writing and rewriting, are quite similar to the processes of remembering and forgetting. Each time, nothing is ever the same. Perhaps, nostalgia and amnesia are not that bad; they are just part of the process of reinventing ourselves. And, perhaps, I write to be loved, and rewrite to be loved again.”
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The Colour Of My Soul Is Purple
Literary
Impassioned crimson contends its presence in the battle for attention, this center will not hold. Yellow and green naively play with a mind that will not stay this psyche cannot fold. Blue will sigh as orange cries to the kingdom of my consciousness, this ground is feeling cold. It’s black and grey that lament the day when all is lost in love and war, this protest is getting old. And just as white has raised its flag in surrender to my woes, this bell will start to toll. It is purple she who does not flee and embraces life as whole. — Abby Couture is a U1 Arts& Science student majoring in psychology and sociology. She advocates for mental health and animal rights, as a member of the McGill Herbivore society and enjoys writing for her blog, the girl who’s still talking.
Scars
I saw a tall man With a crimson scar stretching from his ear to his chin On the metro. I wanted to say to him “Me too! Me too! Me too!” My face has also been marked. Though my scar was forged in the insecurity terminal of the cosmetic surgery ward And adorns my cheek, And yours may have been from: Accident Abuse Combat Grief Or none of the above, We have been entwined to meet on this random train car To gaze at each other’s scars and think “Do they know they’re still beautiful?” — Tali Ioselevich is a student of environment and history who likes to talk a lot and write sometimes.
Supplement pieces of sky sometimes i find little pieces of sky stuck in my hair. blue. tangled. it makes me remember when it was summer and our sweaty legs clung to shorts and we could eat pancakes and it was all good. envelope sealing off my insides knife sliding over paper we plugged our wounds with redemption instead. instead of dirt, dirt i scavenge for now to fill the hurting parts of me, parts loneliness likes to come and attack and get off on. remember when i wore double denim and kept your name like a promise in my jeans pocket. remember all the photos of me smiling and looking beautiful and looking young, god, and looking young. i crave cities and your smoggy existence. god, looking young. something has twisted and broken inside me. i try to measure the torque. radius doesn’t make sense. i put up a glass wall made from the lenses of all the eyes that have looked at me. i sit behind it i try to reconcile with everyone on the other side. i evade touch. i smile. there’s some kind of force that pushes and pulls at me without permission. there’s some voice begging for omission, people i can never write about because i wouldn’t want them to know i care. there’s days i still think about, pieces of sky that i’ve saved in my head in my hair in my hands. there’s happiness somewhere out there. there’s people in the window across from me. we try to understand each other. god, so young. — Alana Dunlop is a U0 life science student. She has written four books of poetry. She loves deep fried pickles, her leopard print coat, and having more shoes than anybody.
The Meteor PART I. A pilgrimage above the cityscape, t’where chaos forms illusive waterfall. We searched for Meaning (our naïve mistake) and sought to find it in the stars to fall. In fleeting moments, we almost forgot The Solipsistic Law: our foe, our war. Much wine and time and silence passed (though fraught) … then forthwith I beheld my Meteor! Deaf, dumb and blind yet inching ever nigh, as stolid as it’d been since I was born, my memories and hopes would make it writhe, yet to our fate it would again return… It landed ‘pon my brow; I did succumb and wept, as if “untimely,” I’d become PART II. a paradox of swelling adipose, in dull dispute with gray rhytidal lay’rs. Eventually, edentulated bones would barely grasp my relocated hairs. I close my eyes; we interdigitate, confused and scared and lost in frantic thought. It marches on to cruelly penetrate the Lonely Fortress “I”… the echoes stop! It floats through where I thought my Self to be, neither inflicting nor enduring harm. And all this time, I’d suffered needlessly, but fear gave way to trust and then to calm… Beyond the walls, in brilliant light, we gather where we were torn, incompletely, from each other. —Lucas Paulson: Confused and Frustrated
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Literary Spider O, poorest creature, thine existence woes, With thy bed of darkness, and sky of web, Wherefore should I fear thee? For so it goes— “Thine image—beautiful,” thy maker said Dost thou fear me, a creature of light? Who leaps to fear from thy home, and thy sight? For I too am strange; though our maker knows, Neither bode ill, yet by nature oppose Is beauty not but a trick, played on all? Man and nature, resplendent to behold, Please us alone, blind, as our maker drawls, Likeness and familiarity, so mould Wherefore should thee, whose likeness I share not, Be outcast and damned, your feelings forgot, When existence, thine only crime to see, And more than that, which can be said of me Who art we mortals to condemn thee so? Thou art divine product, as much as I, O, creature, whose name sickens and revolts, Forgive; my eyes see not the beauty in thine
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Supplement The Topaz The topaz in your morning sickness matches the ornaments clinging desperately to your neck will you promise away your fire if he brings you a topaz necklace and a jora to match? His endless water putting all your flame to rest. The girl coming home after a long flight, the final train after a long day spent at the railway station. Remember when you drank wine and went treading on railway tracks smoking away death, quitting work uprooting entire lives in seconds? You can’t do that anymore. The baby smiles back at you in his brand new womb of designer topaz. He drowns you in money fill your bed with thousands of thousand rupee notes both you and your baby have pacifiers one is love and the other is a two-hundred rupees knock-off you got at the flee market but everywhere you go they think it’s limited edition Gucci but only in the fine print and only the finest connoisseurs can tell a Jackie bag from a shopping hamper, love from a liability, brazen displays of affection or a deferred business arrangement real, like the contract made of thin white paper you signed away with those cheap ball pointers in that faded topaz ink —Alainah Aamir
the queen of cold leaning on the wall, I feel the grain of it a blue wall on which my back, hesitant, tests the water, touches, a first circle of skin lands, the wall was lonely, and cold, it infuses the skin at contact the circle retracts comes back this time bigger the edges meet the cold, now known by the center the wall sinks in the skin i greet the guest on the red carpet a queen of cold walks in, she is wearing a silk robe, coloured of the night, she holds her look up, she walks in my body the queen of cold has a story in her young years she would gather curious listeners and from her lips told of a feeling, but its heat was insufferable for the audience was cold, and had stories of their own like water of melting ice people leaked away from her, till of her thawed story remained a shard frosted, blue the shard would not melt, and remained cold so did the queen became the shard rests on the ring on her right hand some say one night she was leaving a club when three men attacked her she put her hand to protect herself from their hands the shard pierced the palm of the first man who tried to touched her the blue shard turned red and grew a sword now, she was cutting the second man through his chest with it the third, frightened, turned back to run she looked at her hands, from the shard the blood leaking reminded her of her story alone in that alley she bathed it was the night of yalda on the field between darkness and light she was crying in the blood of soldiers her tears turned the pool into silk and her robe stole the colour of the night the wall grain is the shard on her ring and she gave me her robe to wear —lambda.velorum
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Literary In the old forest whose palm leaves wuther, the razor roars.
In the starry night, lights shining bright have unveiled, my solitude’s shade.
—Joachim Dos Santos “There is such an incredible beauty to the art of writing. My relationship with this art is rooted in both my wish to express exactly how I feel about what I experience with my senses as well as being a form of therapy for me. Putting words to emotions, to thoughts, with such freedom is a feeling that drives me to write more & more. It is a feeling that drives me to observe all that there is around me. It is a feeling that drives me to to be one with myself. It is a unique feeling. Whether sad, happy, scared, anxious, excited- writing can allow oneself to be at peace with their own sensations. It is a beautiful art.”
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Supplement Yellow The wrinkled spots behind folded eyelids after standing up too quickly from sitting down too long. A bee, a pebble, a lemon lollipop and the sun’s egg wash on bleached hair tips. Searing burn from morning’s dawn, raging reckoning greeted with a yawn and glowing nightlight, iridescent dragonfly, soft butter hues the dream’s sweet muse. And fingers mottled, leathery and curved turn pages much stiffer, senescence besmirched. Their scent is flaxen, like tree’s tender custard like a dusting of cinnamon, browning of sugar. The mellow of yellow, pale shrug, ghostly sigh, the lightening sky tenfold in my eyes which water of Autumn’s golden rainfall the hazy mist-veil of baked cobblestoned roads and a lady’s faux coat the shade of which is imposing, and welcome, liquid gold spell of wild wind’s faintness to ground the buoyant breeze of familiar fire, hiding heat, fingertips ghosting the spine’s rugged plane. A sensory symphony. — Natasha Carr-Harris is a third year student of English literature at McGill University. She is currently an editor for The Channel, the McGill English Department’s academic journal. As a result, she never really stops reading and writing.
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Literary Supplement
gold flecks when i finally spread my legs for you there will be gold flecks between your teeth there will be prussian blue seas running down your back there will be dopamine dripping from your fingertips there will be heat coming from your chest, just above your ribcage there will be vestigial forms of glitter glue you used when you were a kid to make christmas decorations. there will be low density polyethylene chains around your neck. there will be music coming from every lobe in your brain. head-rush, mad symphonies of different voices melding into one swirling in your stream of consciousness. you will be reincarnated as the man in the moon looking down on the smallest of all suns. —Alana Dunlop
Features
February 26, 2018 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily
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All Lez'd Up and Nowhere To Go
Why are there no lesbian bars in Montreal? Laura Brennan | The McGill Daily Meara Bernadette Kirwin Features Writer
I
was at a party a while ago which was exclusively populated, more or less intentionally, by queer women and nonbinary folks. A side conversation caught one of those collective silences and the question broke through to the whole room — “Seriously, where do all the queer woman hang out? Like gay men have their bars, but where are the lesbians?” Everyone kind of laughed and echoed the question until someone answered, “We’re all in living rooms like these!” That also got a laugh, but a bit of a sad one. There are no lesbian bars in Montreal. That is, there aren’t any right now. There certainly have been — Julia A. Podmore notes that approximately thirty bars, cafés, and restaurants, four bookstores, and nine community offices existed for lesbians between 1973 and 1995. There are currently a few recurring lesbian parties each month, including L Nights put on by the L News, Où sont les femmes? from Lez Spread the Word (LSTW), and some more low-key events at NDQ such as Jeudi Velvet and LSD: Lesbian Speed Dating. The Montreal “golden age” of lesbian nightlife in the eighties and nineties feels very far away from our current social landscape. In a city with a solid track record for lesbian nightlife, and a large lesbian population, it’s
worth asking — why are there no lesbian bars in Montreal? What is our social history? What kind of social spaces do we want and need right now? Drawing from interviews, articles, and a thick stack of comments on a post I made in a queer facebook group, I make the following calls to lesbian action: to claim lesbian space, host more chill parties, make more lesbian friends, find a butch mentor, read more queer history, and please someone open a lesbian bathhouse in Montreal.
Intro to contemporary queer lesbianism Before delving in, I should clarify what exactly I mean by “lesbian.” The traditional answer is “homosexual women,” but lesbian is and has been a contested identity category for decades. There is a certain strand of lesbian culture that flourished in the 1960s-80s which was, and continues to be, mostly white, cis-normative and sometimes blatantly transphobic, and which therefore left many queer women and trans and non-binary people out of its communities and political movements. As a result of this, and other changes in queer politics and theory, there has been a move away from the term in the past few decades, towards an embrace of queer identity as a whole. However, there seems to be a recent reclamation of lesbian identity that remem-
bers the good and ditches the bad, considering and welcoming difference and fluidity within itself while maintaining some meaningful distinction from a broader category of queerness. These words also have different meaning in anglophone and francophone circles — Florence Gagnon from LSTW suggested to me that while ‘queer’ is a popular term in English, francophone women and non binary folks still tend to identify as ‘lesbian.’ “Lesbian,” as used by myself and everyone I quote or whose work I cite here, refers to any woman or non-binary person who is interested in dating other women and non-binary people, regardless of who else they are interested in dating. In light of the transphobic views on the word lesbian that exist, I would like to state clearly that trans women are women, and that when I use the word woman throughout this article I am referring to trans women as well as cisgender women. Lesbian is a self-claimed identity which can be claimed along with a variety of others, and many people choose not to use it. To position my sexuality as the author, briefly — I am a queer woman who also identifies often as butch, bi, and lesbian. Lesbianism is explained and felt differently by different lesbians — who might also identify as queer, bisexual, trans, non-binary, two-spirit, genderfluid, asexual, etc. — but it exists, persists, and motivates a common
desire for lesbian-specific gatherings and spaces. “Dyke Drama,” a post by Estelle Davis on the Cosmic Wyrm Rat blog, was written in direct response to lesbophobia within the Montreal queer scene last year. I’ll quote her here, but you should just read the full piece: “Lesbianism is, as far as I understand, a catch-all term for diverse sets of social, political, and sexual practices of love amongst women. […] How the fuck did TERFs [transexclusionary radical feminists] make us forget about the Combahee River Collective? Or Audre Lorde? Or Gays and Lesbians support the Miners? Or Act UP? Or Julia Serano? Monique Wittig? Or the countless marginalized women organizing everyday for our lives?” Lesbianism invokes diverse histories, practices, and desires. It can be powerful if we allow it to be, a means of calling up radical solidarity among queer women and non-binary folks; a generative branch of queer thought, culture, history and politics.
A brief history of public lesbian space in Montreal It might seem strange to focus on bars as a site of lesbian identity formation and community building, especially considering that there are literally none in the city right now. However, looking back at the lesbian history of Montreal, it is clear that bars have been
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February 26, 2018 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily
Features sion for trans lesbians in women-only bars at this time, which demonstrates the importance of these early mixed queer spaces.
Eighties: The ™golden age∫ of lesbian bars The 1980s were the “golden age” of lesbian bars in Montreal. These bars were women-owned, women-only, and closely linked with the second-wave lesbian feminism that was gaining popularity at the time. One tactic in protecting lesbian space was a high level of gender segregation, though I am not certain to what extent this resulted in trans exclusion and gender essentialism. These bars, including Labyris, Lilith, and L’Exit, were surrounded by lesbian bookstores, cafes, community organizations, and households in the Plateau Mont Royal. Podmore argues that this conscious development of a lesbian neighbourhood enabled a lesbian culture to thrive throughout the decade. There were lesbian magazines for sale in local grocery stores, and multiple bars within walking distance.
Nineties: Emergence of the queer scene
Photo from a queer gathering in 1995 from Lez Spread the Word a critical component of lesbian culture for decades, intimately linked with the political, personal, and social projects of lesbians in all their transformations through history. Julie Podmore and Line Chamberland are two scholars who have documented this history extensively, and I draw mainly on Podmore’s 2006 article “Gone ‘underground’? Lesbian visibility and the consolidation of queer space in Montréal” as well as my Skype interview with her, and Chamberland’s 1993 article “Remembering Lesbian Bars: Montreal, 1955-1975,” in the next few sections. Podmore argues that while bars have been a controversial site of lesbian identity formation, they are anchors around which lesbian communities form. Conversations I had with folks about the current lesbian landscape confirm this idea: if we want lesbian solidarity and identity to exist, we need gathering places. We also need places to make out, hook up, and dance the ways we want to. I hope this small historical review can give a bit of background to what lesbian space is, has been, and could be in the future.
In a city with a solid track record for lesbian nightlife, and a large lesbian population, it’s worth asking — why are there no lesbian bars in Montreal? What is our social history? What kind of social spaces do we want and need right now?
A discussion of racial dynamics and the experiences of trans women are noticeably absent in the research I did on the history of lesbian space in Montreal, and I do not have the personal experience to speak to these realities. This is also part of the systemic whitewashing and trans erasure within queer and lesbian discourse and history in Quebec and Canada. This erasure does not mean that those histories do not exist. I intend to pursue further research in these areas, and apologize for their absence here.
Fifties and sixties: Butch/femme lesbians and the early bar scene In the 1950s, the heart of lesbian social life in Montreal were the bars, pool halls, and cabarets of the Red Light District. These spaces, such as the cabaret Ponts de Paris, were mixed — mainly heterosexual spaces which mainly francophone, working class lesbians appropriated for their own use. Lesbians would claim sections of the space for themselves, either according to venue policies or wherever they could find it. They were often rough, harmful spaces for lesbians, who were under threat of voyeurism and violence from both police and heterosexual men. As a result, many lesbians, particularly those disinterested in claiming butch/femme identities and those outside the working class, did not visit these spaces. Still, they were the first spaces of lesbian social visibility, and a critical space of empowerment and collective identity building for working class lesbians. In the 1992 documentary Forbidden Love by Lynne Fernie & Aerlyn Weissman, interviewee Nairobi recalls being one of the only black women (and indeed women of colour) in lesbian bars at this time, while there were many more black women in straight clubs. While she does not mention racism directed towards her in these spaces, the absence of women of colour suggests that racism limited access
to lesbian spaces, and points to the whiteness of lesbian bar culture at this time. Chamberland notes that this lesbian ‘bar scene’ continued to exist into the 1960s.
Seventies: The lesbian underground In 1969, homosexuality was decriminalized in Canada and in the late 1960s, BabyFace Disco, the first lesbians-only bar, opened in what is now the Simone de Beauvoir institute of Concordia University. Lesbian bars in this era established dress and etiquette codes, trying to make the places ‘respectable’ enough to avoid trouble with the police. Chamberland describes lesbian bars of this era as being unofficially segregated by class. In Quebec at the time, this also meant segregation by language, with anglophones dominating the upper class. Furthermore, there was tension between younger, second-wave feminist lesbians and older butch/femme lesbians, even as they shared social space. Despite these differences, the increase in social space available to lesbians of all backgrounds meant that lesbians could now begin to cross these divides. This facilitated greater political engagement, as lesbians united to boycott lesbian bar Chez Madame Arthur to protest harassment by bar staff in 1974, and to protest the police raid of the nearby Chez Jilly in 1976. However, as Gregorio Paulo explains in his unpublished dissertation on lesbian feminist organizing in the 1970s, organizations such as Montreal Gay Women were opposed to this ‘bar scene’ altogether, viewing it as a site of continued patriarchal oppression. This group was active in the boycott of Chez Madame Arthur. Mixed gay and lesbian clubs also started opening during the 1970s. In an interview with Viviane Namaste, Michelle de Ville, a trans woman and “the first door bitch of Montréal,” described her exclusion from gay male clubs in the 1970s, but the freedom of the Lime Light Disco, and later The Glace; both spaces were open to all genders and to both people of colour and white people. I am not sure of the level of inclu-
The nineties again marked a period of great change for lesbians and queers in Montreal. The AIDS/HIV crisis and ongoing police raids of queer spaces led previously segregated queer populations to come together in solidarity. Of particular significance was the Sex Garage raid of 1990. One in a series of mixed queer parties — which were still rare at this point — the Sex Garage party was raided by police, who then beat and arrested many partygoers. In response, queers performed a sit-in in front of Beaudry metro station, and later a kiss-in in front of SPVM station 25. The kiss-in was intended to pressure police into discussing police brutality and dropping charges, but resulted in even greater brutality. Later, an internal investigation of the police’s actions was launched and most charges were dropped. The events united and politicized the queer community in the city. At the same time, the geography of queer territory was shifting in Montreal. Gay bars, pushed out of the downtown core, started settling into what is now the Gay Village. This area developed as the site of growing queer consciousness, commerce, and political organizing, and as the Plateau began to rapidly gentrify, lesbian bars started closing on St. Denis and opening in the Village. An article in the first issue of LSTW magazine lists over a dozen bars which opened during this decade, many with truly excellent names such as Tabou, Klytz, and G-Spot. Magnolia is remembered as one of the greats. However, most of these spaces were very short-lived, and the number declined steadily over time. This period also saw a rise in popularity of ‘women’s nights’ in gay male and mixed queer spaces (including gay bathhouses), and sporadic parties for queer women in other venues. Lesbian and mixed bars in the Village were more like nightclubs than sit-down spaces, encouraging a different kind of lesbian sociality.
The new millenium In 1998, an article was published in the local queer Fugues magazine with a very similar question as the one this article poses — where have all the lesbian bars gone? Since the early 2000s there has been an explosion of queer party series, including Cruise Contrôle, Faggity
February 26, 2018 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily
Features Ass Fridays, No Pants No Problem, LIP, and QTeam, and a few geared more toward lesbians, including POMPe and Meow Mix. The Village continued to represent a primarily gay male space, with Mile End increasingly becoming a queer residential and social space. That being said, the Village was home to le Drugstore, a vital lesbian party spot until 2014. Royal Phoenix, open from 2011-2014, was located in the Mile End and was a beloved queer bar despite its short lifespan. From what I’ve heard, its closure was due to runof-the-mill managerial changes rather than signifying a greater change in the queer social scene. The closure of both of these bars at the same time was a loss that still echoes through Montreal’s lesbian communities.
“How the fuck did TERFs [transexclusionary radical feminists] make us forget about the Combahee River Collective? Or Audre Lorde? Or Gays and Lesbians support the Miners? Or Act UP? Or Julia Serano? Monique Wittig? Or the countless marginalized women organizing everyday for our lives?”
“Online media is important, but you need parties to keep any sense of community,” Florence says, “They’re my favourite part of what we do.” LSTW also uses their events to lend visibility to new collectives, artists and projects, such as next month’s party featuring “The Woman Power” collective. While Montreal has no ‘official’ lesbian bars, Notre Dame des Quilles, popularly known as NDQ, is about as close as we get. An unassuming neighbourhood bar in Little Italy, its owners and staff have turned it into an “unofficial queer bar” which hosts a variety of DJ sets and events throughout the month. I spoke to Tasha, the bar’s manager, about Montreal’s “lesbian renaissance” and how NDQ fits into it. Regarding its unofficial queer status, Tasha explained that it comes down to the priorities and attitudes of the staff. They keep prices low, kick out anyone who’s harassing customers, prioritize queer artists and event hosts, and generally “make the bar the sort of place we’d want to go to.” They are also committed to the “queer women/lesbian renaissance,” and always looking (!!) for new event ideas, artists, and DJs. They host the weekly happy hour event Jeudi velvet, “a night celebrating gay, lesbian, bisexual and queer sisterhood,” open to all, which offers a relaxed alternative to the dance
party set. They also host Lesbian Speed Dating nights, organized by Catherine Colas. Colas spent years organizing queer dance parties before realizing that half the people present were straight, no one was getting to know each other outside of aggressive sexual encounters, and that this is not the kind of queer social space she wanted to foster. And as a recent transplant to Montreal, she remembers that “it’s hard to find queers when you move to the city… Our communities tend to be closed off and you have to look certain ways and go to certain places to be visible as a queer woman.” You have to register in advance to attend LSD, and its likely that no one is going to register that isn’t lesbian, so “you don’t have to exhaust yourself trying to figure out if people are straight or not.” Colas explained to me that she pays attention to who signs up, and actively prioritizes the participation of people of colour. “It’s important that everyone can find people that they identify with,” and this includes sharing racial, gendered, and linguistic identities. I asked if there were any events she knew of that were specifically for lesbian people of colour, and while she raved about the Vogue Balls, Cousins parties, and other queer events which celebrate and center queer people of colour, neither she nor any other interviewees knew of
— Estelle Davis, in a post on on Cosmic Wyrm Rat Blog
any geared toward lesbians. In the meantime, LSD is wildly successful as a place to both find dates and make new friendships. Colas says that it’s basically her lesbian event dream come true. She doesn’t take part in the dating but meets cool new local lesbians every time. Most of the queer and lesbian event series listed in this article were or are organized by individuals or by small, informal collectives. Laura Boo hosted POMPe monthly for five years, and now holds the parties just twice a year. She said that “throwing queer parties is not particularly profitable but it is very labour-intensive. And Montreal is always a bit of a hustle if you want to survive. Eventually my other hustles took more and more time and the parties had to take a back seat.” The work of organizing rotating events is very different from than the work of managing a bar or club, both much more fluid and much less stable. Finding space for these events is another obstacle. Every organizer I spoke to emphasized that in creating a lesbian social space, prioritizing the safety of their guests is critical. This means, primarily, having the ability to kick people out if they’re harassing or harming other attendees. Ensuring the right to control access to the space often requires renting out the venue, and of course, this costs money. As a result, some lesbian events have cover fees for entry; the cover for LSTW events has been noted as a major barrier to access. Colas half-joked that “it’s fucked up that we need to pay to make connections with people. Like, people should pay us to come to their parties.” As Boo explained, with increasing gentrification, “bars are under so much pressure from new condo neighbors to be quiet, which in turn causes more police presence and city crackdown on liquor licenses. […] Venues get priced out of neighbourhoods the same way that residents do.” The lack of safe, accessible physical spaces available for lesbians and other queer people to occupy is a systemic problem, highlighting the continued economic precarity of queer people, both individually and collectively, in the city.
Conversations I had with folks about the current lesbian landscape confirm this idea: if we want lesbian solidarity and identity to exist, we need gathering places. We also need places to make out, hook up, and dance the ways we want to.
Where are the lesbians now? Along with the history sketched above, there are two big trends over the past 20 years that have had an effect on the current lesbian social landscape: first, the increasing acceptance of lesbians within straight social space, and second, the growth of online communication, media production, and dating apps as means of lesbian socializing. Other things have stayed the same — ‘lesbian’ is still a useful, powerful, and generative word for us to claim and mobilize around, and gentrification is still a problem. I recently had the opportunity to interview Florence Gagnon, the founder of Lez Spread the Word (LSTW), a Montreal-based collective which produces and promotes lesbian culture and events across the country. Gagnon was inspired to start LSTW in 2013, upon realizing that most of the lesbian culture she consumed was coming from the United States. While there were a number of parties at the time, there was no lesbian media production or popular cultural icons from Quebec. After a few successful years of online community building, they noticed that the party scene was beginning to run thin. LSTW decided to try to fill the gap, and started their Ou sont les femmes? event series, which is ongoing and consistently well-attended by a diverse age set.
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Visibility and the glitchy gaydar
Photo of BabyFace Disco from Lez Spread the Word
So gentrification pushed lesbian bars out of the Plateau and into the Village, and then gentrification pushed them out of the Village, and continues to limit their existence. It’s worth noting, however, that many bars which cater to gay men have remained open through this gentrification process. Podmore spoke to me about some of the common explanations
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February 26, 2018 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily
for this. There’s the simple answer that men still collectively have more disposable income than women and non-binary people, and can keep their bars afloat more easily. There’s also the argument that many queer women and non-binary people are caring for children or taking on other responsibilities, and cannot go out as frequently. So, while queer culture becomes more accepted in the mainstream, the effects of gentrification still negatively impact queer women and non-binary people more than men, as they continue to struggle against patriarchal labour inequalities.
Colas spent years organizing queer dance parties before realizing that half the people present were straight, no one was getting to know each other outside of aggressive sexual encounters, and that this is not the kind of queer social space she wanted to foster. Others argue that maybe lesbians aren’t looking for bars as social spaces, and are rather seeking out some other type of gathering space. The LSTW collective nearly opened a lesbian bar in Montréal just a few years ago. Gagnon explained that the collective was concerned that with a specifically lesbian target clientele, there wouldn’t be enough demand to keep a bar open through
Features long Montréal winters. In her experience as an organizer, “women just can’t go out every night of the week.” Podmore suggests that gay men have a collective sexual culture that keeps the bar scene relevant across boundaries of age, race, and class, while lesbians form community in more diverse and separate ways. Tasha from NDQ pointed out that “bars have never really been welcoming spaces for women,” suggesting that it’s no big surprise that lesbian bars aren’t so popular. There are many stereotypes about the domesticity of lesbians, yet as made clear by the experiences of organisers, it is evident that lesbians do have a different relationship to public spaces than gay men. Perhaps women and non-binary folks have been socialised not to see the public as inherently theirs, as it is so often an unsafe space for them, irrespective of their sexuality. In thinking about lesbian spaces it is worth considering the ways in which different spaces are set up to meet different goals. The events I’ve addressed so far in this piece are centred on meeting other lesbians, on forming connections. The lines between wanting to build community and wanting a place to express lesbian sexuality seem blurred. Can we not have it all? Part of the stereotype about the domesticity of lesbians is the idea that they are less likely to pursue casual encounters in an intentional and recurring manner, yet many of the lesbians I spoke to for this piece expressed frustration over the lack of a lesbian bathhouse or cruising space. Within gay male culture the practice of cruising, i.e. engaging with strangers in public spaces for casual sex, is widely established and actively promoted. Bathhouses have long existed as spaces for gay men to have casual encounters, yet how to arrange the same for lesbians? The same questions as event organising come up: who has the time and resources to organise such an event? How to ensure that such a space is safe? Would enough lesbians go?
Visual for Lesbian Speed Dating night by Samantha Garritano Of course, other important spaces of lesbian community building exist outside of bars, parties, cafes, or hypothetical bathhouses. Podmore told me stories about women’s sports teams as lesbian spaces, which exist both formally and informally. Queer clubs at universities facilitate lesbian meetups. Intergenerational relationships form through archive work, networks such as Lesbians Who Tech, and artistic communities and events like the Massimadi Montreal Festival des filmes et des arts LGBTQ afro. I have certainly only scratched the surface of a wide variety of means through which people build lesbian relationships, friend-
Visual for Lesbian Speed Dating night by Samantha Garritano
ships, communities and collective identities. So, there are no lesbian bars in Montreal. We exist in a different lesbian moment from the butch/femme era, the eighties’ golden age, and the queer activism of the nineties. Looking at this history, the fluidity of lesbian identity and space is apparent. The lack of bars is not necessarily a crisis, but we need to consider the effects of this lack of permanent, claimed, accessible social space. Podmore echoed the thoughts of many lonely lesbians with bad gaydar when she pointed out that lesbian spaces are critical in order for us to be “visible to each other.” As Colas argues, lesbians are not always “visible” by their appearance — not every lesbian wants to get an undercut and a septum piercing. The act of carving out and holding that space is also significant, and Colas is proud and a little protective of her role as host of LSD. “Years in the music community have me tired of white men, and women, taking over spaces that I have a right to.” Lesbian social space exists within a shifting and messy network of queer spaces, women’s spaces, gay spaces, and straight spaces. Podmore and others I’ve spoken to have noted the ease with which lesbian space is appropriated by others. Fanie De La Fresne mentioned on Facebook that “it seems like queer/lesbian spaces are much more frequented by straight people than are the gay spaces (is it just me?), and tend to lose their lesbian and/or queer specificity more quickly.” There’s a careful balance between being inclusive and losing the specificity and safety of the space. My conversations with Tasha, Colas, and Gagnon suggest that we can create lesbian space in a way which welcomes anyone who wants to claim, celebrate, embody, and support lesbianism, while requesting that those who do not claim this identity do their partying elsewhere. There is room for fluid difference, separate space, and multiple cultures within queer scenes and communities. Besides, it’s really very nice to be able to turn off your glitchy gaydar and assume that everyone around you is lesbian sometimes.
SPORTS
February 26, 2018 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily
Where theatre and sport meet
Hannah Murray Sports Writer
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Why ice dance is the best olympic sport of all
D
uring the winter of the sixth grade, I found myself at a crossroads unlike any other: it was the first year students at my school could both audition for the school play and try out for the volleyball team—two highly coveted after-school activities. Assuming I could do both, I tried out for each, only to find that the volleyball coach prohibited us from being in the play, claiming it was “too big of a time commitment,” and that the two “didn’t go together.” This rattled me. What was I going to do? I discussed it with all my classmates, but deep down I knew my path. While every other girl chose to bump and spike, I chose to dance and sing. This set the tone for the rest of my secondary school career. While my friends pursued athletics, I pursued acting, eventually leading me to attending an arts-focussed high school, and ostensibly leaving my passion for sports in the past. The winter of grade six, however, also introduced me to what is now my favourite winter sport—ice dance. While it is similar to pairs figure skating, ice dance is derived from ballroom dancing. Quite literally, it is a couples’ dance routine on ice. This, of course, filled my 12-year-old theatrical heart with a newfound love. Ice dance is divided into two events: short dance and free dance. They are differentiated by their use of dance patterns and rhythms—another aspect I loved. In short dance, routines include a required dance pattern and a required rhythm (such as samba, rhumba, waltz, cha cha etc.), while free dance allows dancers to choose their own routine, encouraging creativity. Additionally, in all programs, the skating move of a ‘twizzle’ (a one-footed spin, done in unison and travelling across the ice) is mandatory, while throws or jumps are replaced by lifts. Dancers must also remain relatively close to one another throughout the program. On top of all this, there is typically an emphasis placed on the theatrical narrative and the characters portrayed throughout the dance in the dancer’s moves and their facial expressions. This means many skaters chose to dance to musical theatre standards. It also means the costumes are designed to evoke a program’s theme, plot and characters. This sets the stage, or rather, the ice, for absolute drama—a show, if you will. In many ways, ice dance is musical theatre on skates.
While it is similar to pairs figure skating, ice dance is derived from ballroom dancing. Quite literally, it is a couples’ dance routine on ice. This, of course, filled my 12-year-old theatrical heart with a newfound love.
I can vividly remember Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir winning their first Olympic gold medal at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics in my hometown. Here they were, two athletes with a passion for the theatrical. I had chosen theatre over athletics, but here was a whole olympic event full of people who had done both. I was speechless. No other sport filled me with the same sense of beauty, made me tear up, and wowed me both physically and artistically. After 2010, I was hooked. I followed Virtue and Moir’s 2013-2014 season leading up to the 2014 Sochi Olympics. I watched their television show Tessa and Scott, researched ice dance, and familiarized myself with their (and their competitors’) programs. Their silver medals in 2014 broke my heart. The first time I ever skipped school was in grade ten, after watching them miss out on gold. My best friend and I headed to Starbucks after lunch period, bought hot chocolates and scones, and (with tears streaming down my face) we re-watched their programs. Thinking they were retiring, I too, retired my fandom for the next four years.
In many ways, ice dance is musical theatre on skates. Upon learning Virtue and Moir would return to PyeongChang, I immediately began doing catch up research. Yes, they are fan and judge favourites, but something about their presence on ice keeps their fans on our toes. In their PyeongChang 2018 Olympic performance, they set a world record (on International Skating Union grading scales), scoring 83.67 with their short dance. Their free dance, however, did not score as high as the French dancer’s Gabriella Papidakis and Guillaume Cizeron’s program to Moonlight Sonata (a score of 123.35, also a world record). Despite earning a secondbest score in the free dance, Virtue and Moir won their second gold medals because of their combined score. Virtue and Moir’s free dance was, in my opinion, the most innovative and captivating skate of the night. Their free dance routine this 2017-2018 season has it all: the music is from Moulin Rouge, an acclaimed modern musical, the dancing is feverish, and it is extremely sexually charged—one lift needed to be toned down before the Olympics, as it was too ‘suggestive.’ Their record-breaking combined score of 206.07 (short and free dance scores together) has made them not only the most decorated ice dance team of all time, but a source of inspiration for athletes and artists everywhere. Ice dance is one of those rare places where art and sport intertwine. Covered in sequins, dolled up in stage makeup, ice dancers bring together athletics and theatre in a way that is gold medal—and Tony Award—winning. Never in my life did I expect that my knowledge of musical theatre would be an asset in watching a sporting event, and yet, somehow, dreams have come true. If stage presence gets you to the Olympics, never again let your grade six volleyball coach tell you sports and theatre don’t ‘go together’—ice dance proves that wrong.
Cassandra Ryan | The McGill Daily
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SPORTS
February 26, 2018 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily
Diplomacy at the Olympics
North Korea’s participation at PyeongChang 2018 may be a step toward integration
Dorothy Yip Sports Writer
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n January 9, 2018, teams representing North and South Korea entered the 2018 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony marching under the Korean Unification Flag. Among the athletes were North and South Korean ice hockey players who played on a unified women’s team. The team ended its historic run with five straight losses on January 20. This is not the first time there has been a North-South collaboration in the Olympics. At the 2000 and 2004 Olympics, North Korea and South Korea marched as one nation at the opening ceremonies, but competed separately. North Korea’s partnership with South Korea in the Winter Olympics has been perceived as a possible détente between the two Koreas amidst escalating tensions. Michelle Cho, a Korea Foundation Assistant Professor in the Department of East Asian Studies at McGill University, interprets North Korea’s participation as an attempt to step away from isolation towards integration with the international community. “The motives for joining this Winter Olympics are pretty straightforwardly to reduce tensions. […] It’s an effort on the part of North Korea to maintain its autonomy but still integrate itself a bit more. The image [of North Korea as an isolated country] is overstated, [and comes] from the North American perspective,” said Cho. Among the North Korea delegation was supreme leader Kim Jongun’s younger sister Kim Yo-jong, and North Korea’s elder figurehead Kim Yong-nam. Cho believes that North Korea made an important gesture in choosing a delegation of officials that spanned old and new generations. “I think [Kim Yong-nam’s] presence is meant to inspire feelings
of fraternity, and [cater to] the older generation in South Korea, who care more about reunification because they have memories of a unified Korea, or they have family members [in North Korea],” said Cho. However, North Korea’s participation in the Olympics could also be interpreted as an attempt at political gymnastics to increase international approval for its regime, according to T. V. Paul, a McGill University professor of International Relations: “North Korea did a very smart thing […] [It] did what other countries have done, which is charm offensive, diplomatic offensive, soft power […] so it’s a very clever, calculated move. But it may not last long.” He added that another important aspect of the Olympics is personal contact: “It is an extraordinary show, because here you have people-to-people contact, [which is usually] very poor; you don’t have families visiting [..] so it’s an extraordinary symbolic act.” Responses to the North Korean delegation are mixed among the people of the host country. Although many enthusiastically welcomed the hundreds of performers, athletes, and cheerleaders in the North Korean delegation, some were wary of possible hidden motives and remain unconvinced of a North-South rapprochement. A reason for such jadedness could be that North-South relations have always been dependent on the political climate. In 1998, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung announced the Sunshine Policy towards North Korea, which aimed to mitigate the gap in economic power and to restore lost communication between the two nations. However, some criticised South Korea for maintaining a cooperative policy towards the North while provocative acts such as nuclear and missile tests occurred.
The Sunshine Policy was formally abandoned by South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in 2010, and throughout his and Park Geunhye’s presidency, North-South tensions deteriorated to those of the Cold War-era. Since the 2017 presidential election, newly elected President Moon Jae-In has been actively pushing for denuclearization by conducting joint US-Korea military exercises and supporting United Nations Security Council sanctions against North Korea for its nuclear program. At the same time, he has promised reconciliation and dialogue with the North. His decision to allow athletes from both sides of the border to march under the Korean Unification Flag and to play as a joint women’s ice hockey team has been criticized as “pandering” to North Korea. North Korea’s participation in the Winter Olympics has been controversial from the start. Initially, international news outlets such as CNN, BBC, and ABC reacted positively to the arrival of the North Korean delegation, but that reaction was immediately met with backlash from other media outlets, who accused them of adding fuel to North Korea’s media campaign. Others have criticized the International Olympic Committee for allowing a nation rife with human rights abuses to compete. “I think that it’s pretty characteristic of the function that North Korea plays in Western media because they’re always being reported on in these extreme terms. It’s very hard to find a moderate perspective on North Korea; although those kinds of stories exist, [they’re] in specialist papers or in academia. So if you just go by North American mass media, it’s very polarized,” said Cho. Historical amnesia also plays a part in the common depiction of
North Korea as the ultimate evil in media, without regard for the responsibilities of other countries in creating this standstill. According to Cho, those who see the United States as a benevolent superpower forget that the United States’ previous attempts to contain North Korea had left behind a blazing trail of problems, including great loss of Korean civilian lives and the creation of a military dictatorship in South Korea. She explains, “A lot of Americans think of North Korea as fickle; or they don’t understand the motivations behind North Koreans’ animosity towards the U.S. And it’s because they don’t know anything about the Korean War; they don’t realize that the American military […] bombed North Korea for three years and destroyed everything and all the existing infrastructure, and killed many people.”
One-off events like the Olympics can only benefit international relations if countries are willing to follow up with peacemaking efforts.
Recent North Korean diplomatic relations have been as unpredictable as before the Olympic Games, if not moreso. In his New Year’s Day speech, Kim Jong-un announced suddenly that he was ready to “melt the frozen North-South relations.” However, this in no way suggests
a positive development in international relations. The Trump administration’s lack of commitment to diplomacy is also not conducive to building a trusting relationship. Threats of military strikes, isolation tactics, and diplomacy often come at the same time, sending mixed messages to North Korea. Paul believes that there is no quick solution to rising tensions. Sports events have long been an outlet for international relations. From serving as propaganda for the Nazis in 1936 Germany, to playing a part in dismantling apartheid in post-war Africa, to fostering diplomacy between the U.S. and China through ping-pong, major sports events have been an important diplomatic tool, for better or for worse. Cho believes the Winter Olympics have been beneficial in alleviating international tensions. “I think that it’s been very helpful to have this event to occur at this moment of escalating tensions. Who knows what will happen with the U.S., but I think the U.S. needs to step back a bit because the global public opinion has been swayed a bit, even though there are still a lot of skeptics […] It happened at a good time, and it has been reassuring for a lot of people, myself included, that North Korea is interested in deescalating,” said Cho. While a thaw in relations can be encouraging, one-off events like the Olympics can only benefit international relations if countries are willing to follow up with peacemaking efforts, according to Paul: “It is an important step, if it is followed through, so that is the sub-clause you have to put there. It has to be followed through with steps, concrete steps, which will mean more engagement with other forms of official and non-official NGOs, peopleto-people contacts, and trying to have a diplomatic engagement.”
Jen Gahrns | The McGill Daily
culture
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February 26, 2018 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily
Remains of a forgotten life
Reflecting on Cecilia Aldarondo’s Memories of a Penitent Heart
Athina Khalid Culture Writer
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n February 15, Cinema Politica Concordia and Concordia University Community Lecture Series on HIV/AIDS partnered to screen Cecilia Aldarondo’s documentary Memories of a Penitent Heart. The movie stems from Aldarondo’s questions about the way her late uncle, Miguel, was talked about in her family. Noticing the underlying contradictory emotions conveyed in the bits and pieces she learnt about his life, Aldarondo realized that there was more to his untimely death than a battle with cancer. Her exploration of Miguel’s life — and death — in Memories of a Penitent Heart unearths unresolved grief, complicating our understandings of family, queerness, and faith. While the film is in part about queerness in 1970s and 1980s New York, it is mainly about how we remember and hold on to the lives of the dead. “Everyone wanted to leave—everyone wishing they’d stayed.” Aldarondo explores the two identities of her uncle: Miguel and Michael. Miguel grew up in a strictly Catholic household in Puerto Rico, while Michael — the name he adopted in New York City — was a lover of theatre, an actor, and a frequent partier. Michael lived with his partner, a man named Aquin, living his queerness that was muted
Nelly Wat| The McGill Daily by his Catholic upbringing. When he developed AIDS, Miguel’s conflicting identities converged; his health condition meant that his family and Aquin came into direct contact in ways that had been previously avoided. Miguel’s mother, Carmen, saw his sexuality as sinful and tried to push Aquin out, while Aquin felt strongly about remaining close to his partner of twelve years through his illness. Carmen and Aquin, and thus Miguel’s two identities of Catholic and queer, were at odds, seemingly irreconcilable.
[The film] unearths unresolved grief, complicating our understandings of family, queerness, and faith. Not only did this duality exist in terms of Miguel’s identity; it also existed in terms of his sense of belonging. He found a community of friends who became his chosen family in New York, while remaining tied to — and in love with — his birth family. Similarly, Aldarondo says that, often, Puerto Ricans want to leave the island, but once they do, they wish they had stayed. As much as we may think we are mobile — that we are
free to pick up, leave, and reinvent ourselves — Aldarondo seems to argue that we are messily tied to our places of origin.
situation in radically different ways; she examines the messiness of human interactions, aggravated by death and grief.
“She didn’t hate him.” “They hated me.” Aldarondo’s film exposed the contradictions in the narratives of those who survived Miguel. Nylda, Aldarondo’s mother and Miguel’s sister, says that her mother, Carmen, did not hate Aquin. Nylda’s casual interview cuts to Aquin, where he says, “they hated me.” Like Aldarondo, the viewer does not know what to make of this. Nylda presents a soft and forgiving image of Carmen, while Aquin describes her as resentful and hateful. Nylda apologises for her absence during her brother’s treatment, time and time again. Nevertheless, Aquin’s testimonies and letters from Miguel himself reveal that Nylda seemingly made a conscious decision to turn away from her little brother. Nylda and Aquin later come together, nominally making peace, but both feel that this resolution did little to change how they felt about each other or Miguel. By the end of the film, Aldarondo realizes that she had come to see her film as a way of providing justice for her late uncle, and has been making the film through her own rectifying lens. She explores how different people can perceive the same
“Who are you to bring this up now?” When asked about rumours that Jorge Dieppe (Aldarondo’s grandfather; Miguel’s father) was gay himself, a close friend of Carmen Dieppe, incredulous, berates Aldarondo: she asks, “who are you to bring this up now?” Through this film, Aldarondo publicly airs her family’s dirty laundry. While Aldarondo is not particularly concerned with her family’s reputation in Puerto Rico, she does concern herself with the task of remembering a loved one. The viewer follows Aldarondo’s own process of discovering the pain that had been suppressed since her uncle’s death throughout the documentary. A quiet scene, showing hands spreading a quilt Carmen made for Miguel when he was sick, gives viewers a moment to pause and feel the weight of Miguel’s death. “Miguel did whatever he needed to do to die in peace.” According to his mother, Miguel repented before he died. Aquin repeatedly scoffs at mentions of his penitence, but Nylda tells her daughter that “Miguel did whatever he needed to do to die in peace.” Miguel is dead; he is the one person Aldarondo “could
not interview.” We cannot know what he did, thought, or felt at the end of his life, but this incompleteness is what makes the film thought provoking. Aldarondo did not include footage of herself in her first-person documentaries, but her voice was omnipresent; we saw her uncle’s complicated story unfold through the camera acting as her eyes. This technique drew viewers in, inviting them to feel the complex emotions that accompanied her discoveries while putting together the film. The Gravity of Life and Death I was drawn to the screening in part by a desire to learn more about the HIV/AIDS crisis, but I found myself moved by the film’s exploration of an individual life. Miguel died at the height of the AIDS crisis, and while it is important to discuss the political aspects of the AIDS crisis — the state’s shameful response, the activists and activism that pushed back — Aldarondo is concerned with exploring the gravity of the life and death of one man. The story of Miguel is as reflective of AIDS’ millions of victims as it remains his own unique story. He doesn’t have to be reduced to a victim for his story to be powerfully emotive. The film was screened as part of Concordia University’s Lecture Series on HIV/AIDS.
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February 26, 2018 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily
Compendium!
Accountability
AUS BRO | The McGallWeekly Pancake
Josh Dimakakos & Hannah Louisy | Illustrators