The McGill Daily: Vol. 112, Issue 19

Art by Randa Mohamed

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Hyeyoon Cho, Allie Harrison, Eliana Freelund, Randa Mohamed, India Mosca, Frida Morales Mora, Liz Singh, Genevieve Quinn le délit

Léonard

Smith

Celebrating Black Excellence And Achievement

content warning: anti-Black racism, police brutality

We acknowledge that our editorial board is currently composed of non-Black members. Due to this, we cannot speak for Black individuals and communities or their experiences.Asanalliedorganization, the Daily must strive to platform and highlight Black voices and perspectives.

This year, Black History Month in Canada is centred around the theme “Ours to tell.” This theme highlights the need to engage in open dialogue about the histories, successes, sacrifices, and triumphs of Black communities across Canada. The Daily acknowledges that, in publications like ours, these dialogues are too often overshadowed by those of anti-Black racism, violence, and suffering. This Black History Month, the Daily would like to celebrate Black achievements and Black excellence at McGill, in Montreal, and across Canada.

It is indeed important to recognize the impact of antiBlack racism and violence. Recent events in Montreal have made the prevalence of the city’s anti-Black policing all too clear. In December, Nicous D’Andre Spring, a young Black man, was killed by officers while illegally detained at the Bordeaux Detention Centre. “His life was taken for no reason, absolutely no reason and we’re really tired [of being] treated really messed up in Quebec by the police,” says Sarafina Dennie, Spring’s sister. This is only one recent example of anti-Black policing in Montreal, yet the city refuses to make any meaningful attempt to prevent future harm. In a defense testimony against the Black Coalition of Quebec, Yves Francouer, president of the police brotherhood, spewed pure copaganda, negating valid concerns and lived experiences by implying that cops “protect society.” Furthermore, despite widespread public support for reallocating police funds following the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in 2020, police budgets have continued to rise exorbitantly in Montreal and across Canada.

Anti-Blackness is systemic. It can be found in both the histories and present-day operations of our schools, workplaces, and government institutions. McGill is no exception: James McGill acquired the university through wealth obtained by the exploitation of enslaved Black and Indigenous individuals, and the university has failed to adequately redress this. For example, a statue of James McGill was only removed in July 2021 after being vandalized, despite Black students and allies demanding its removal since at least June 2020. McGill only started observing Black History Month in 2017 – almost ten years after it became recognized in Canada. The Black community is also severely underrepresented in McGill’s faculty. In 2020, research from the Black Students Network (BSN) revealed that there were only around 12 Black professors and assistant professors out of the 1,707 faculty employed by the university at the time. And despite calls for the creation of an Africana Studies program (which would have a greater focus on diasporic African communities than the already existing African Studies program) since the 1990s, it still does not exist.

understanding the oppressive forces we navigate through as a means to imagine and create a world free of them.”

At McGill, Black advocacy groups have done essential and groundbreaking work at the university and beyond. The development of McGill’s original Action Plan to Address Anti-Black racism in September 2020 was due in large part to the work of the Take James Down initiative, the BSN, and other Black students, activists, academics, and organizations. From organizing conferences on the subject of decolonization as early as the 1950s, helping to create the Congress of Black Writers in 1968, and advocating for complete divestment of university funds in apartheid South Africa in the 1980s, Black McGillians have shaped the university’s history and policies for a long time. Today, advocacy and community organizing by Black students and faculty can be seen across campus. The BSN hosts events such as Black Frosh, Hair Day, and Soul Food Friday for the Black community. They also host a podcast called “Soul Talks” and frequently post about scholarships for eligible Black students on their Instagram. The Black Law Students’ Association at McGill likewise does important work for the community; for example, they recently participated in a survey conducted by the national Black Law Students’ Association of Canadian law schools to compile a ranking of law schools for Black students. Black faculty at McGill have done invaluable work for the university community and for scholarship as a whole. Terri Givens of the Department of Political Science, for instance, has been a leader in McGill’s anti-Black racism efforts, while David Austin of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada has published several important texts on Black history in Montreal and across Canada.

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Talking about Black history without acknowledging Black excellence is misleading and inaccurate. Founder of the Black Joy Project Kleaver Cruz explains: “Amplifying Black joy is not about dismissing or creating an ‘alternative’ Black narrative that ignores the realities of our collective pain; rather, it is about holding the pain and injustices we experience as Black folks around the world in tension with the joy we experience in pain’s midst. It’s about using that joy as an entry into

Black achievement and success has profoundly shaped the Montreal that we know and love today. The city’s nightlife would be nothing without Black pioneers like Oscar Peterson, who helped establish a jazz scene in the early 20th century that attracted the best and brightest in the genre. He was just one influential figure to come out of Little Burgundy, a neighbourhood with a rich history and the historical home of the city’s Black anglophone community.. Legendary pianists like Peterson and Oliver Jones, the first Black trade union in North America, and the Union United Church were all born in Little Burgundy. Peterson, Jones, and other Black pioneers laid the foundations for the creation of the Montreal Jazz Festival in the 1980s – one of the largest events in the city and one of the most important jazz events worldwide. This month and every month, the Daily invites you to celebrate Black excellence and achievement. You can support and get involved with organizations advocating on behalf of the Black communities in Montreal, including the Black Coalition of Quebec, the Black Community Resource Centre, and the Black Theatre Workshop. Black History Month events in Montreal can be found at mtl.org. You can find a list of Black-owned restaurants in and around Montreal from a non-comprehensive list by Tastet. At McGill, you can find ongoing Black History Month events to attend on the equity webpage. BSN has compiled a list of resources for Black students, including professors, hairdressers and barbers, and additional resources. In addition, there are many organizations and initiatives at McGill supporting Black students and faculty year-round, such as the McGill Black Mentorship Program, the McGill African Students’ Society, and the McGill Black Faculty Caucus.

Published by the Daily Publications Society, a student society of McGill University. The views and opinions expressed in the Daily are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of McGill University. The McGill Daily is not affiliated with McGill University.

“I Am Just Looking for Justice”

Justice for Nicous Action Committee demands that over-policing of Black communities stop

India Mosca Staff Writer

content warning: anti-Black racism, police brutality, death

On Friday, February 10, family, friends, and supporters gathered in front of Roddick Gates for the Justice for Nicous March and Rally, organized by the Justice for Nicous Action Committee.

“We are here today to ask Justice for Nicous because the system failed him!” These were the words used by one of Nicous D’Andre Spring’s close friends to introduce last Friday’s protest.

Spring died after being transported to a hospital on December 24, 2022, following an altercation with detention guards the day prior in the Montreal Detention Centre Bordeaux. He was 21 years old. Officers used pepper spray and a restraining device called a spit hood on him, resulting in serious injury. In a recent interview conducted by CBC, Michael Arruda, a specialist in crisis interventions said he was “very concerned” about the simultaneous use of these two instruments. Used together, they can result in a choking sensation, and they were the cause of Spring’s cardiac arrest. The unnecessary nature of these injuries was highlighted at the march. At the time of his death, Spring was being illegally detained, as a judge had ordered his release on December 23.

After his death, Quebec’s Public Security Department recognized that Spring was illegally detained. Spring wasn’t the only one from whom bail was broken on that day; two other people should have also been released before December 24.

At the beginning of the march, one of the speakers called out institutional racism in Canada, underlining the importance of solidarity within the Black community and the loss of trust in the judicial system due to abuses of law enforcement.

“He was a good man, but our presence today goes beyond this [...] Too many times a Black man is killed. Too many times are families left to grieve. And too many times these actions are left unanswered!,” said one of Spring’s close friends. Indeed, this is far from a single occurrence. There have been numerous other instances where police in Montreal and across Canada have harmed Black people.

“I am just looking for justice,” said Spring’s mother to the crowd. “I brought my kids here for a better life and now I had to bury my son.”

Among the demands of the action committee and his relatives is a full acknowledgment and apology from the city of Montreal, the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM), and the department of correction. They additionally ask that the footage of Spring’s death be fully released and placed in the possession of his family, and to put an end to the use of spit hoods. They then demand that the officers involved in Spring’s death and the supervisor responsible for overseeing them be fired and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The committee further demands that over-policing of Black, Indigenous, and racialized immigrant communities in Montreal be stopped immediately and that funds directed to this over-policing be re-directed to community services such as youth centres, rape crisis centres, housing services, food security initiatives, and infrastructure.

Before the attendees started the march, Marilyn, an Indigenous woman, spoke to the crowd. To the sound of her teueikan, a traditional Innu drum imitating the sound of a beating heart, she illustrated the necessity of the “support of the community” and the strength of

unity. She said, “This is supposed to be a month of celebration, and it is going to be a month of celebration because we are going to celebrate the beautiful life of Nicous and we will unify for him [...] Today is not about going to the government, it is about being unified. Unity shall work. We have done it before.”

This initiated the march from Roddick Gates to the Montreal courthouse, which was joined by supporters, organizers, relatives, and students, including members of the Black Students’ Network and the Black Law Students’ Association of McGill. The Daily spoke to Danni, a McGill student, who explained that “as a student, it is important to be here because we are part of the next generation and fight injustice.” She then, however, acknowledged that “students take on a lot of the responsibility, but McGill should officially recognize these injustices.”

As attendees marched, they sang in the streets of downtown Montreal, “What do we want? Justice for Nicous! When do we want it? Now!” They also chanted “Black Lives Matter” and “Release the tapes now!”

Then, Sarafina Dennie, Spring’s sister, spoke to the crowd, saying,

“I need justice for my brother, his life was taken for no reason, and we’re really tired of being treated really messed up in Quebec by the police [...] We are not stopping.”

During the march, the Daily spoke with Blain Haile, one of the organizers of the march and a member of Head and Hands, a community centre that seeks to promote physical and mental well-being for youth experiencing marginalization(s). She explained that she “was here today because we are done, we are not waiting anymore [...] we are not heard enough and this is our way of saying that we will be heard.” She concluded that “we want justice for every other Black life lost in the system.”

Since Spring’s death, a manager and an officer at Bordeaux have been suspended pending the results of investigations into the matter. The Red Coalition, a nonprofit lobbying organization, has been assisting Spring’s family to file a complaint with the Quebec Ombudsman and requested that they lead an investigation into whether systemic discrimination played a role in Spring’s death.

“People seem to forget that this fight also concerns Canada,” Danni

told the Daily. Institutional racism and abuses in Canadian prisons have been well documented in different research and reports, and they seem to have increased since the beginning of the pandemic. Deaths in federal prisons have doubled across the country since 2019, and the majority of these victims have been Black and Indigenous people. A report released in 2022 found that while Black people represent 3.5 per cent of the Canadian population, they make up to 9.5 per cent of the federal prison population. They are also more likely to be involved in “use of force incidents.” Another report from 2021 by researcher Guillaume Herbert revealed that Quebec’s correctional facilities categorized inmates by skin colour. Spring’s experience demonstrates the problem of illegal detention and the consequences of “pretrial detention.” Like 40 per cent of the prison population in Canada and 67 per cent of inmates in provincial detention centres, Nicous D’Andre Spring was detained while awaiting his bail hearing, also known as pretrial detention.

The demonstration ended with different statements from the organizers and those close to Spring’s family. They highlighted the importance of solidarity and unity but also that it is necessary for solutions to be implemented – that justice be rendered and reforms established to avoid having to respond to another similar event. “This passes through education,” said one of the speakers, because “education is political.”

To support the Spring family, you can donate using the following link: https:// www.gofundme.com/f/in-honour-ofnicous-yk-lyrical-spring.

“I need justice for my brother, his life was taken for no reason, and we’re really tired of being treated really messed up in Quebec by the police [...] we are not stopping.”

- Sarafina Dennie

India Mosca | Staff Writer

The 2023 MASS Africa Speaks Conference

An interactive and educational opportunity to learn about the importance of African languages

Harrison

News Contributor

Over February 10 and 11, McGill students, community members, and Montrealers joined on campus at the McGill University’s Faculty Club for the yearly Africa Speaks Conference (ASC) directed by the McGill African Students Society (MASS), and supported by the McGill African Studies Program and SSMU. Following the topic on how to “create an Africa for all Africans through the promotion of African languages,” the free and open-to-all interactive conference was divided into three panels: “Languages and Power,” “Language and the Arts,”and “Philosophies of Language,” accompanied by various Q&A sessions. Mediators and panelists including MASS members, professors, and experts created an enthusiastic, engaging, and educational atmosphere for attendees. Opinions and interests were shared over drinks and food at the end of each day.

Following the mandate to “promote and present the diverse and rich African cultures to the McGill community and the greater Montreal area,” MASS is a student-run club dedicated to spreading knowledge and promoting different topics pertaining to African people on the continent and across the diaspora. Members are brought together in a welcoming and educational environment through the organization of events around different aspects of African culture, including conferences, parties, Thanksgiving potlucks, and annual galas.

Mouhamadou Sy, mathematician at Johns Hopkins University and activist for African languages and cultures, was the keynote speaker of the “Languages and Power” panel. Sy explained the political power of language, specifically how languages in which policies are written have more power and influence. He stressed that languages must play a fundamental political, economic, educational, social and cultural role in civilization. Only through this can they be revitalized.

“Today we think that African languages must serve [communities], but in my opinion African languages will never be able to serve communities if we think that they must only serve [communities]. All powers linked with languages must be restituted,” said Sy.*

With such a multitude of African languages – e.g., Nigeria and Cameroon have 520 and 277 living languages respectively – many may be threatened. For instance, in times of conflict, languages with stronger political powers can dominate and threaten minority languages. Throughout the conference, examples for this were drawn from past colonization of the French and English in areas of Africa where colonial languages were imposed upon local African communities.

Ibrahima Abdoul Hayou Cissé, head of the Education sector and Focal point for the Social and Human Sciences sector at UNESCO, then discussed the ways in which language can be used and abused. Cissé spoke about how “it is with words that conflicts are born, [and] it is with words that we must build the defenses of peace.”* He then brought up the consequences of hate speech, including how words insulting religion and the use of animal terms to dehumanize people can be weapons of power. He recognized social media as a major driver in encouraging these acts.

Associate Professor Khalid Mustafa Medani, Chair of the African Studies Program at McGill, then expressed his

expert opinion on how the influence of African languages goes beyond what is said and written, and how language is an essential part of Africa’s rich and diverse identity. In addition, conversations about current global difficulties of reaching the goal of multilingualism, including in Canada where language has divided parts of the country, were an important part of the discussions. This ultimately led to the acknowledgment that Africa presents real promise of encouraging multiple languages to be officially accepted. “The multiplicity of languages is what makes Africans unique in the sense that it is the continent that leads the way to a true multilingualism,” said Medani.

The following day started off with the “Language and the Arts” panel centered around African artists and their role in the promotion of language. Among the panelists were Bojana Coulibaly from Harvard University and Mathias Ohrero from McGill, who partook in a lively discussion about the feasibility of writing in a native language and how artistic work can remain limited to a certain audience. In response, panelists brought up ways to achieve balance between authenticity and accessibility

to a wider local audience. However, this discussion remained unresolved, as panelists discussed that the use of native languages is required to capture certain theories of language, which in turn sacrifices broader accessibility to those who do not speak the language.

The conference closed with the third and final panel, “Philosophies of Language,” about African theories of language and worldviews. Panelists talked about what happens socially and cognitively when a child receives education in a language other than their mother tongue. Panelists then discussed the hegemony of language – specifically how the English and French imposed their languages on African societies during periods of colonization – as well as potential ways to promote African languages. The first option explained was to maintain these “colonial” tongues as the official languages, whilst including Indigenous languages in education, business, politics, law, and health. Another option –often informally done – involves making a native lingua franca the official language.

Hyeyoon Cho | Design Editor

In an interview with the Daily, MASS Vice President of Education Aïché Danioko, expressed what she hopes will come out of the conference and enthusiastically invites everyone to come to future MASS events. “I hope that what people will remember at the end of this, is that the African languages are worth struggling for. That the questions we addressed tonight are worth considering seriously and taking the time to stop and struggle with to ultimately reach conclusions that bring us closer to our goal of a good life for Africans,” said Danioko.

By the end of the conference, the importance of African language diversity was reaffirmed and that embracing the many languages within a single country has allowed many regions in Africa to use a local lingua franca while maintaining their ethnic languages. Thus, the conference asserted that multilingualism in Africa is in fact productive, practical, and feasible. “[...] what makes Africa African is its true diversity,” concluded Medani.

*Quotes have been translated from French.

Allie

Just How Prophetic was Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower?

The effects of environmental racism on Black communities today

Editor

cw: anti-Black racism, environmental racism

It’s been 30 years since Octavia Butler published her dystopian novel Parable of the Sower. Known for her masterful use of Afrofuturism and sociopolitical commentary, Butler’s body of work focuses mainly on the positionality of Black communities in the future. Parable of the Sower is no exception. Set only a year away, Parable is a coming-ofage story that takes place in 2024. Lauren Oya Olamina, a 15-year-old Black girl growing up in the fictional town of Robledo, California, lives in a world where climate crises, wealth inequality, and systemic racism have risen to dystopian extremes. Lauren and her family are at the mercy of corrupt politicians for basic necessities such as clean water, clean air, and access to medicine. Climate change and corporate greed have accelerated to inhumane levels, and it is ultimately Black

civilians who pay the price. You might be thinking: “Surely this is nothing more than speculative science fiction. How could such a world exist in real life?” Unfortunately, many of Butler’s predictions are coming true.

According to Tarshia L. Stanley, Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts and Sciences at St. Catherine University, much of the appeal of Butler’s novels stems from her approach to worldbuilding. Butler grounds her faraway science fiction worlds in our current lived reality. She takes a deep systemic problem that is often overlooked and follows it to its logical extreme. Stanley argues that “she’[s] been trying to tell us that if we do not make changes, this is what’s going to happen. She constantly [gives] that message: ‘this is the logical conclusion if we keep treading down this path.’” Butler’s novels frequently act as cautionary tales that warn us against allowing latent systemic issues to grow and eventually fester. In

Parable of the Sower, this issue is environmental racism.

Environmental Racism

Today

What exactly is environmental racism? Civil rights leader

Genevieve Quinn | Photos Editor

People (NAACP) in response to the local government’s decision to dispose of 40,000 cubic yards of soil laced with carcinogenic chemicals in the Black farming community of Warren County. Pushback from police was extreme, and over 500 arrests

of communities of colour for toxic waste facilities, the official sanctioning of the life-threatening presence of poisons and pollutants in our communities, and the history of excluding people of colour from leadership of the ecology movements.”

Benjamin Chavis coined the term in 1982 following an eruption of protests in North Carolina that same year. Several nonviolent protests had been organized by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored

were made, including of Chavis himself. Chavis subsequently defined environmental racism as “racial discrimination in environmental policy-making, the enforcement of regulations and laws, the deliberate targeting

Although the term was coined over 40 years ago, environmental racism still exists today. Polluted air and water has disproportionately affected Black communities for decades – and it only seems to

Eliana Freelund Culture

Chavis [...] defined environmental racism as “racial discrimination in environmental policymaking, the enforcement of regulations and laws, the deliberate targeting of communities of colour for toxic waste facilities, the official sanctioning of the life-threatening presence of poisons and pollutants in our communities, and the history of excluding people of colour from leadership of the ecology movements.”

be getting worse. According to a 2017 study by the Clean Air Task Force, “Fumes Across the Fence Line,” Black Americans “are exposed to 38 per cent more polluted air” than white Americans, and are “75 per cent more likel to live in communities that border a plant or factory.”

In a shocking 2021 study from Science Advances, it was found that Black Americans are exposed to more air pollution than white Americans from every possible source: industry and agriculture, emissions from vehicles, residential sources, and even some restaurants. And as of 2021, Black Americans are roughly four times more likely to die from pollution exposure than white Americans. Exposure to polluted air wildly escalated health problems in Black communities during the pandemic. According to research from Duke and Stanford University, from the start of the pandemic in 2019 through July 2020, over half of all in-hospital deaths from COVID-19 were Black and Latino patients. In addition, it was found that Black patients were far more likely to need ventilation than white patients. According to Robert D. Bullard, a professor at Texas Southern University and the author of Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class and Environmental Quality, the culprit here is none other than environmental racism. “If your Zip code is buried with garbage, chemical plants, pollution,” he argues, “you’ll find there are more people that are sick, more diabetes and heart disease.”

Environmental Racism in Canada

Environmental racism is not unique to the United States. Although Canada has made attempts in recent

years to become a leader in climate action, not all of its promises have been fruitful, as detailed in the Daily’s article “Justin

Trudeau’s

PseudoEnvironmentalist Agenda.” There have even been attempts to address environmental racism directly, but not much progress has been made. The National Strategy Respecting Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice Act, or Bill C-230, was first presented to the House of Commons in June 2021. It proposed “a requirement for the federal minister of environment and climate change to examine the link between race, socio-economic status and environmental risk, and develop a national strategy to prevent environmental racism and advance environmental justice.” The bill had support from four out of five parties in Parliament but never came to a final vote. Attempts have been made to bring Bill C-230 back to Parliament, but as of 2023, the bill still remains at a standstill.

In the end, legislation such as Bill C-230 is a response to historic wrongs. To look forward, we must first look at our past.

The legacy of environmental racism today ultimately stands on the shoulders of historic segregation and institutional oppression. Although laws explicitly decreeing segregation were never passed in Canada, separating communities on the basis of race persisted well into the 20th century. The provinces of Ontario and Nova Scotia had segregated schools for almost a century; the last segregated school in Nova Scotia was closed in 1983. The Maritime provinces commonly had designated areas for white and non-white people.

In 1946, the Canadian civil rights activist Viola Desmond made headlines when she was arrested for refusing to sit in the section of a Nova Scotia movie theatre designated for Black audience members. These practices produced effects that would be felt for many generations, and they have lasting effects today when it comes to environmental racism.

The effects of redlining – what Cornell Law School defines as “the systemic denial

of services such as mortgages, insurance loans, and other financial services to residents of certain areas, based on their race or ethnicity” – persist today. In the U.S. and in Canada, redlining has resulted in majority-Black communities being historically relegated to “less-desirable” areas. In 2016, the Neighbourhood Change Research Partnership (NCRP) conducted an analysis of Black rental and homeownership concentration in Toronto and found that “Black communities are largely concentrated to the city’s suburban ends, to the west in Etobicoke and to the east in Scarborough. By contrast, Black people only represent 2% of the homeowners in the city’s downtown core.” These neighbourhoods then become first in the running when local governments must decide where to dispose of toxic waste. Additionally, a 2007 report from York University found that in Toronto, predominantly racialized neighbourhoods were much more impacted by pollution caused by soil contamination, industrial land use, and waste sites than were white neighbourhoods. This practice leads to a vicious cycle in which “less-desirable” areas are essentially created by whitemajority governments and imposed on Black communities. And once an area is considered “less-desirable,” it is almost impossible to recover.

Perhaps the most notorious and disturbing instance of environmental racism in Canada is the story of Africville. Africville was a majority-Black community located in Halifax, Nova Scotia, that existed from the 1800s until its destruction in the 1960s. The town was originally composed of formerly enslaved peoples and their descendents as well as Black refugees from the War of 1812. The Canadian Museum for Human Rights describes Africville as a “self-sufficient […] thriving, close-knit community.” Yet for the entirety of its existence, the City of Halifax refused to provide Africville with such basic necessities as clean water, sewage systems, and garbage disposal, despite the fact that Africville residents

were required to pay taxes to the local government. Conditions in Africville only worsened throughout the early 20th century. The City of Halifax began to place “undesirable services” in the community, including “a fertilizer plant, slaughterhouses, and human waste ‘disposal pits.’” In the 1950s, a massive garbage dump was placed in the community after white residents of Halifax refused to allow it to be located in their neighbourhoods on account of “public health concerns.” Environmental racism also exists right here in Montreal.

According to the David Suzuki Foundation (DSF), Montreal North “has the fourth highest percentage of people identifying as members of a visible minority” of all the city’s boroughs and experiences some of the most extreme environmental challenges. The DSF’s Albert Lalonde reports that Montreal North’s AdélardDesrosiers Elementary School has the highest poverty rate of all the elementary schools in Quebec and is “bordered on

form of oppression; it places restrictions on simply existing in your own body. The effects of pollution alone are devastating. In recent years, studies from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have drawn a concrete connection between air pollution and a whole host of heart and lung diseases.

And as we all know by now, any preexisting heart or lung condition that impairs breathing in any way greatly increases one’s risk of becoming very sick or even dying from COVID-19. In response to a similar study done by Environmental Science and Technology Letters, Professor Robert D. Bullard said: “This groundbreaking study builds on the solid empirical evidence that systemic racism is killing and making people of color sick, it’s just that simple.”

Breathing is synonymous with being human – with being alive. By selecting which communities should or should not have access to clean air, we are actively dehumanizing one another. And, unfortunately, Black communities bear the

two sides by two underground oil pipelines.” It was reported back in 2017 that these pipelines pose a direct threat to safe drinking water for the entirety of Montreal North, yet no efforts have been made to remedy the situation since then.

Albert Lalonde asserts that “Montreal North is living under environmental risks that would likely not be tolerated by the public and institutions if they were experienced elsewhere.”

Dalila Awada, a prominent Quebecois anti-racist activist, adds to Lalonde’s claim, arguing that “it’s racism […] because when the risks of pipelines on human health and the environment affect devalued, dehumanized populations, they are tolerated.”

Conclusion

Clearly, Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower is not a piece of science fiction rooted in groundless speculation. Its predictions on how environmental racism might progress into the 2020s are eerily relevant to our world today. Butler’s novel raises the same question that drives many of her other stories; if we continue this, then what? However, unlike her other works, the foundation of environmental racism upon which Parable’s dystopia stands is not so far removed from our own world today. Environmental racism is an incredibly insidious

brunt of this dehumanization. Although the plea “I can’t breathe” has become emblematic of the Black Lives Matter movement, Benjamin Chavis adds that it “echoes generations of environmental activists of colour.” At 73, Chavis recalls that this cry was also made by the North Carolina protestors fighting against the toxic waste dump back in 1982. “There were public outcries of ‘We can’t breathe’ and ‘I can’t breathe’ by African American environmental justice protesters in Warren County.”

Today’s parallels to Parable are horrifying. We must continue to fight for a better future and honour the memory of Octavia Butler by not succumbing to her fears for the 2020s. Consider supporting the following organizations fighting against environmental racism in Canada: Ecojustice Canada, Environmental Defense Canada (EDF), and MiningWatch Canada. We have the power to create change. As Octavia Butler says in Parable of the Sower, “All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth is Change.”

Black Americans are exposed to more air pollution than white Americans from every possible source: industry and agriculture, emissions from vehicles, residential sources, and even some restaurants.

Breathing is synonymous with being human – with being alive. By selecting which communities should or should not have access to clean air, we are actively dehumanizing one another.

To look forward, we must first look at our past. The legacy of environmental racism today ultimately stands on the shoulders of historic segregation and institutional oppression [...] These practices have inevitably impacted generations to come and have lasting effects today when it comes to environmental racism.

More Policing Does Not Address the Rise of Violent Crime in Canada

Band-aid solutions don’t protect our communities

Liz Singh | Contributor

cw: racism, police brutality, hate crimes, sexual violence

A Nation-Wide Increase in Municipal Police Budgets

The murder of George Floyd in 2020 by two Minneapolis police officers sparked a wave of protests across Canada and around the world. The outcry from protestors demanded that municipal governments “defund the police” — referring to a process whereby police budgets would be cut and the funds reallocated to other forms of social services and intervention that would prevent the occurrence of crime in the first place. New research reveals that the “defund the police” protests do not appear to have reduced funding for municipal law enforcement.

On the contrary, Canadian mayors have steadily increased municipal police budgets over the past two years. Municipal leaders have justified the expansion of their police forces by citing an increase in the rates of violent crime, which according to Statistics Canada includes homicide, sexual assault, and hate crimes. Greater police presence, they argue, will lead to greater community safety. However, the available evidence suggests that expanded police presence is an ineffective way to reduce community violence. The evidence we see instead points to how mayors should have listened to protestors – that cities should invest in people rather than police.

Ken Sim, Valerie Plante, and John Tory – the mayors of Vancouver, Montreal, and the former mayor of Toronto, respectively – have all committed to expanding police budgets in the name of promoting public safety. Sim, whose candidacy was endorsed by the Vancouver Police Union, campaigned and won his bid for mayor on the promise of adding 100 police officers to the Vancouver Police Department. Meanwhile, Plante has called for Montreal to hire an additional 250 new police officers in an effort to reduce an increase in “gang violence” in the suburbs of Montreal. Montreal chose to increase funding at a greater rate than any other city in Canada. Not only did the SPVM receive an increased budget last year but they spent more than was allocated, going over their budget by nearly 30 million dollars. This year, they will receive a 63 million dollar increase bringing the total Montreal police budget to 787 million funded in part by an increase in municipal taxes. Whether Toronto will follow suit remains to be seen. At a recent special budget meeting of the police board in Toronto, Chief

Demkiw requested an additional 50 million dollar increase to the Toronto Police Services current budget of $1.1 billion claiming a lack of funding has made it difficult to meet their service goals. Mayor John Tory was poised to approve the request, which he believed was the only way to address violent crime in the city.

Across the country, in 2021, Canada saw a five per cent increase in the rate of violent crime as measured by the Crime Severity Index compiled by Statistics Canada. The Crime Severity Index measures several different kinds of crime including assault, homicide, sexual assault, and hate crimes. The recent increase of violent crime has been driven primarily by two factors: an 18 per cent increase in the rate of sexual assault cases reported to police and a 27 per cent increase in the number of hate crimes. There was also a three per cent increase in the homicide rate. The messages that municipal politicians create from crime statistics are incredibly pliable.

Tamara Nopper, abolitionist and professor at Rhode Island College notes that “In the end, crime data is always a tool of police propaganda. If crime is low, the police are doing their jobs. If crime is high, we need to give more money to the police. The police always win.”

There are three important questions to ask in order to determine whether investing in expanded police presence is the best response to the increase in violent crime in Canada:

1. Does expanded police presence effectively address the increase in different types of violent crime (homicide, sexual assault, hates crimes)?

2. What are the social ramifications – especially for BIPOC communities – of expanded police presence?

3. How does policing compare to other options when it comes to addressing violent crime?

Homicide

Although the National Post claimed that, “Canada’s rising murder rate is the most reliable indicator yet of a Canada that is continuing to experience an acrossthe-board surge in violent crime,” homicide in Canada is relatively uncommon. While the homicide rate did indeed increase by 3 per cent, it accounted for only less than 0.2 per cent of all police-reported violent crimes in 2021. In the same article, the National Post concedes that despite the increase, Canada’s homicide rate is amongst the lowest in the Western hemisphere. This

ultimately undermines the extent to which the country’s homicide rates may constitute a “reliable indicator” for a “surge” in violence.

The National Post article goes on to raise the alarm regarding gang violence. According to the summary of the Statistics Canada report on crime in 2021, gang violence accounted for one quarter of the 788 homicides in Canada last year. In the same year, Mayor Plante allocated funding to hire 28 new police officers working specifically to address “gang violence.” The term “gang violence” itself is worthy of further examination. First of all, there is no clear and consistent Canadawide definition of the term “gang.” Secondly, mobilizing policing on the basis of “gang violence” moves focus away from other factors that contribute to the homicide rate – such as domestic violence and poverty – and risks contributing to racial profiling of Black and Brown youth. Some have questioned whether the term is a dog whistle, much like the phrase “inner city crime” before it. Benoit DécarySecours, a researcher at the Centre de recherche sur les inégalités sociales à Montréal (CREMIS) found that “for the past 30 years in Quebec, the ‘street gang’ has been used as a type of scapegoat to justify police spending and intensive and aggressive policing of minorities living in poor urban areas.” Finally, the scale of “gang violence” in Canada has not been firmly established. The statistics on gang violence in the Statistics Canada report are inconsistent. While some sections of the report indicate that almost a quarter of all homicides in 2021 were gang related, another table of the same report shows that homicides linked to “criminal relationships,” which includes gang violence, accounted for only 10% of all homicides in 2021. The reason for the discrepancy is unclear.

The vast majority of homicides are interpersonal or the result of domestic violence — committed by either family members or acquaintances, rather than someone with whom they had

a criminal relationship. It is therefore not surprising that evidence is mixed regarding the effectiveness of reducing the homicide rate by expanding police presence on the streets. A 2020 study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that adding more police officers can reduce the homicide rate, not because of increased arrests, but because police presence acts as a deterrence to street based violence. That said, the research added several caveats. Amongst other things, researchers concluded that their findings did not hold true in cities with large Black populations. When it comes to preventing street-based crime, police presence is only impactful when “vigilance is linked to articulable behaviors of suspected crimes occurring.” This is to say that crime rates do not go down when police look to scan civilian populations for something specific and identifiable instead of simply patrolling a given area. Stops that were effective were those possessing “probable cause:” where officers observed actions indicative of individuals engaging in drug transactions or violent crimes. Stops were not effective when based on furtive movements, objects carried in plain view, evasive actions, suspicious bulges, or crucially, someone “fitting the description.” The phrase “fits the description” has become shorthand for racial profiling because of the frequency with which it is used by police officers as an excuse to stop Black men in particular.

Hate Crimes

Compared to the homicide rate, according to Statistics Canada, the rate of hate crimes in Canada rose significantly last year, increasing by 27 per cent. The definition of hate crimes in Canada includes both physical and non-physical aggression aimed on the basis of race, religion, ethnic origin or sexual orientation. Mayor Ken Sim referred specifically to the increase in hate crimes against Asian Canadians in his bid to expand Vancouver’s police force.

A survey by the Chinese Canadian National Council Toronto Chapter (CCNCTO) and a grassroots organization called Project 1907 found that anti-Asian hate crimes overall went up 47 per cent in 2021. Black Canadians remain the community most likely to be the victims of hate crimes and are targeted more often than any other racial or religious group.

Regarding hate crimes, analysis done by Arizona State University concluded that law enforcement responses alone do not constitute an effective response. They found that the most effective approaches included a combination of increased police presence and public education but also changes within police departments such as prioritizing hate crimes and offering special training to police officers. Simply deploying more police officers has a limited impact on the prevalence of hate crimes given that they are motivated by complex social power dynamics rather than financial gain or interpersonal conflict. A police officer in the right place at the right time might be well situated to interrupt public hate-related assaults, but will be ineffective in preventing other types of hate crimes such as workplace harassment. Hate crime prevention is another question altogether requiring a solution that addresses the root causes of these complex crimes.

Sexual Assault

The single largest contributing factor to the rise in violent crime in 2021 was the increase in the rate of sexual assault. The rate of sexual assault reported to police increased by 18 per cent in 2021. That said, it is only 7% higher than in 2019. Women account for 80 per cent of those reporting sexual assault and domestic violence in Canada. Indigenous women, disabled women, queer women and immigrant women are especially likely to experience domestic violence.

Evidence for the effectiveness of policing as a method of reducing rates of sexual assaults is also mixed. Of sexual assaults reported to police, only 1 in 9 are likely to result in a conviction. Additionally, sexual assault is most often committed indoors and by someone known to the victim in contrast to other crimes which might be deterred by increased police patrols. Whereas a burglary or robbery might be interrupted as part of a probable cause stop, whatever “articulable behaviors” might precede a sexual assault are likely to happen out of public view.

“In the end, crime data is always a tool of police propaganda. If crime is low, the police are doing their jobs.

If crime is high, we need to give more money to the police. The police always win.”

– Tamara Nopper

The relational context in which sexual assault generally occurs further muddies the water. Eight out of ten sexual assault victims are acquainted with their attackers. In a third of all cases, their attacker is a current or former romantic or sexual partner.

Additionally, the increase in sexual assault rates may be attributable to police behaviour rather than an actual increase in violence. Over the last five years, the number of reports of sexual assault dismissed by police as “unfounded and baseless” (as opposed to “unfounded and false”) has dropped by half. A claim of sexual assault is dismissed as unfounded when police believe a case does not meet the elements of a crime or was improperly coded as a sexual assault. Cases dismissed as unfounded are not included in Statistics Canada reports, meaning that the statistics may not reflect the total number of sexual assaults reported to police but rather the total number of sexual assaults reports that the police agreed to investigate. Therefore, increases in the rate of sexual assault according to Statistics Canada could reflect an actual increase in sexual violence but may also reflect the increase in the number of cases which were not dismissed by police.

The Potential Ramifications of Increased Police Presence

In determining the effectiveness of increased police presence to address the rise in violent crime, it is important to consider the impact of expanded police presence on the lives of racialized Canadians as well as rate of crimes committed by the police or police on civilian violence. The NBER research found that increased police presence could act as a deterrent to homicide in cities without large Black populations, but also found that more police meant more traffic stops and arrests for “low level” crimes, both of which are deeply harmful to marginalized communities. The association between traffic stops and racial profiling is well established. BIPOC are disproportionately likely to be the subjects of “random” traffic stops. Whether this is the result of conscious or implicit bias is unclear. A recent ruling by a Quebec judge went so far as to say that traffic stops are unconstitutional. A similar relationship has been established between racial profiling and arrests for low level crime – racialized Canadians are disproportionately impacted. Black Canadians are the community most likely to be the victims of a hate crime but also the most likely to experience

violence at the hands of the police. A 2020 report found that Black Torontonians are twenty times more likely than other residents to be killed by police, accounting for 61 per cent of all police shootings in Canada’s largest city.

Between 2020 and 2021, the number of Canadians shot by the police in Canada went up by 25 per cent. In 2021, police killed 37 Canadians. Of police shooting victims, 40 per cent were Indigenous and another 25 per cent were members of other racialized communities. These statistics had to be compiled by The Canadian Press as Canada does not keep race based statistics about police violence at a national level. Some of these deaths occurred during violent confrontations with police but civilians have also been killed in cases where police had been sent to check on their safety. For example, Chantel Moore, a young Indigenous woman, was shot to death by police during a wellness check. Furthermore, Statistics Canada data shows that homicides where the victim was a racialized Canadian took longer to solve, particularly if the victim was an Indigenous woman.

The analysis done by Arizona State University regarding how to reduce the rate of hate crimes also mentioned the importance of monitoring hate groups. This is significant for Canadians as a 2021 report by the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism found that highly organized transnational white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups were recruiting active or former military and police officers in Canada. Significant rates of participation by police officers in white supremacist groups calls into question the effectiveness of policing as a response to racially motivated crimes.

Research from the United States found that sexual violence is the second most common type of reported police violence and that its victims are disproportionately Black women and girls. A national study in the United States found victims of sexual crimes by police were typically minors. Police officers are also disproportionately likely to be perpetrators of domestic

Alternatives to Policing

There are options other than policing for addressing community violence both as it happens as well as through prevention via upstream approaches which aim to reduce violence by addressing the root causes of community violence such as poverty and trauma.

These approaches are not punitive or carceral in nature and most do not involve law enforcement. Instead they focus on creating opportunities for inter community support through training and education as well as on meeting the basic material needs of the most vulnerable members of society. Given the ubiquitous presence of policing, it is difficult to evaluate alternative approaches but there has been promising research into several upstream interventions. Community-based violence intervention programs, summer jobs programs, raising the minimum age to drop out of school, greening vacant lots, more streetlights, more drug treatment, better gun control, and raising the alcohol tax have all been found to reduce crime rates. So have Medicaid expansion, access to mental health care and guaranteed basic income programs.

Many of these programs focus on the prevention of crimes by attempting to address poverty. Addressing the presence of crime at its source is an approach outside the scope of most law enforcement, which is why increasing police budgets is a band-aid solution. Being a victim of or witnessing violence is a major factor in whether one goes on to perpetrate an act of violence oneself. Violence that is associated with property crimes such as mugging is closely associated with poverty; perpetrators are not violent by nature but commit these crimes in order to meet their material needs. Stress and isolation due to poverty also increase the likelihood of domestic violence. Domestic violence in turn contributes to poverty: the fear of physical abuse is a primary cause of homelessness. As a result, it stands to reason that addressing trauma and poverty is an effective way to reduce the rate of violent crime.

ending their gang affiliation is the largest gang rehabilitation program in the world. Homeboy Industries has supported thousands of youth in their transition from gang life to employment over the course of the last thirty years and have been an integral part of transforming a city once notorious for gang activity. Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago succeeded in reducing shootings and killings by thirty percent after implementing Cure Violence programs in which community members are trained to interrupt street violence. Chicago’s CRED program which offers at-

the Night which work to prevent sexual violence through activism and education.

The pattern is clear: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the cure. Preventing violence before it happens protects potential victims and frees perpetrators from cycles of violence. Until municipalities are prepared to dedicate the same amount of funding to upstream solutions as they do to policing, our options will remain limited. In 2023, the SPVM will possess a budget of 787 million dollars, more than 10 per cent of the total municipal budget for the year.

violence. Domestic violence occurs in between 28 and 40 per cent of police households compared to 10 per cent in the general population.

It therefore comes as no surprise that calls for police abolition and defunding are led by members of Black and Indigenous communities and advocates for survivors of sexual and domestic violence. These groups argue that there are more effective ways to address the sorts of violence that their communities experience.

With community support, solutions that address poverty can be wildly successful in reducing community violence. Research done on gang activity in Canada demonstrates that the most effective interventions are not police related but the ones that address childhood abuse and childhood trauma broadly. The youth at the highest risk of gang involvement are those who are in foster care and/or have survived abuse or sexual assault. Programs that offer support rather than punishment such as mental health counseling, youth drop in centers and youth employment programs. One extremely successful example of such a program is social enterprise organization Homeboy Industries, a Los Angeles-based program which offers youth employment in exchange for

risk youth counseling, life coaching and employment saw a 50 per cent reduction in gun related injuries in its participants. Upstream solutions work for other, less street-based, forms of violence as well – specifically in cases involving discriminatory workplace harassment. The CCNCTO report on hate crimes found that more than 80 per cent of the hate crimes victims who responded saw public education, collective action or policy reform as desirable solutions. None of them wanted their aggressors to face punishment. In this way, antidiscrimination policies can help protect marginalized employees while public anti-hate education programs may work to prevent the occurrence of hate crimes in the first place. Programs similar to the ones developed to prevent street violence such as bystander intervention training programs can help equip community members to address street harassment and verbal assaults.

Finally, regarding sexual assault prevention, one campusbased program called “Enhanced Access, Acknowledge, Act” was developed at the University of Windsor and offered to first-year women. Women who participated in the program were 46 percent less likely to experience a sexual assault than their peers. The program has since been offered at two other universities. The program focuses on empowering participants by training them to recognize and react to signs of danger. It does not involve law enforcement. Perpetrators of sexual violence are rarely punished by the judicial system and whether or not they are, survivors often require psychological support for the trauma they’ve incurred. That’s why many survivors of sexual assault are disinterested in carceral solutions advocating instead for mental health support for survivors and funding for organizations such as Take Back

Montreal does have a non-police mobile unit but they are set to receive a total of only 10 million dollars in funding to be spent over the next five years. Meanwhile, the same budget allocated only 480 million dollars to be spent on affordable housing over the next ten years.

Upstream interventions receive a fraction of the financing dedicated to expanding police presence, which is disappointing considering their relative potential to bolster the well being of residents. Hiring more police officers can be an effective way to address some forms of crime under specific circumstances but comes with major costs both financially and to the safety of BIPOC and other vulnerable Canadians. Without significant action taken to address violence against marginalized communities and women at the hands of the police, expanding police presence in Canadian cities may cause as many problems as it hopes to address.

Politicians, by virtue of our political system, are not focused on the future. They invest in solutions which will show short term results which can be pointed to during election periods regardless of long term consequences. In the absence of forward thinking political leadership, the responsibility falls on community members to apply pressure to invest in longer term, less destructive and, most importantly, evidence based solutions. This requires engagement - with politicians as well as with each other to advocate for and then implement proactive, preventative responses to violence. We know that upstream solutions which focus on public education, empowering community members and addressing the financial and social needs of vulnerable community members will not only address violence more effectively than policing but will improve the quality of life in Canadian cities across the board.

Without significant action taken to address violence against marginalized communities and women at the hands of the police, expanding police presence in Canadian cities may cause as many problems as it hopes to address.

Addressing the presence of crime at its source is an approach outside the scope of most law enforcement, which is why increasing police budgets is a band-aid solution.

Odysseus: Hero, Trickster, or Colonizer?

An interview with the cast and directors of Ithacan Idol Presents: the Odyssey

The McGill Classics Play has been giving Montreal university students a unique educational experience since 2011. It aims to foster cultural exchanges within the Montreal community around ancient Greek and Latin texts by presenting them in all-new, student-driven English versions. This week, we sat down with directors E. Weiser and Audrey Michel as well as actors Thea S. and Gabrielle Gaston to discuss the thought process behind this year’s play, Ithacan Idol Presents: The Odyssey. The production was performed during the first two weeks of February, and a portion ofitsrevenuesweredonatedtothe

Montreal Native Women’s Shelter andtheActionLGBTQIA+avecles ImmigrantesetRefugiées.

This interview has been shortenedandeditedforclarity.

Frida Sofía Morales Mora and Eliana Freelund for The McGill Daily (MD) : What exactly are the goals of the McGill Classics Play? How did this whole thing start?

E. Weiser (EW): The McGill Classics play was started by Professor Lynn Kozak back in 2011 with the goal of integrating theatre back into classics. Theatre was a huge part of classical literary tradition, so this was a way to revitalize that. It’s also our goal to make the plays we put on accessible to a general public which might not have as much knowledge about these stories.

Audrey Michel (AM): We’ve also seen a bit of a shift in the past two years in how the McGill Classics Play operates. We’re encouraged to put our own creative spin on these stories rather than just directly translate what’s on the page to the stage. You can definitely see this with our play this year – it’s very different from the original text!

MD: What was the reasoning behind choosing this particular story? Why is Homer’s Odyssey still relevant in 2023?

AM: As E. mentions in our program, we are both haunted by Odysseus. We wanted to give space for many different areas of interpretation. This all came as a response to a very personal reckoning with the text.

EW: The themes of the Odyssey come back again and again in popular culture. Odysseus’s archetype as the wily trickster, the clever man who can escape from any situation – this trope comes back all the time. It’s the same thing with the idea of the Odyssean voyage home. These themes are ongoing and are constantly being reinterpreted in modern media.

MD: The form of this particular play is very unique and comedic! What made you choose a gameshow format? Why Ithacan Idol?

EW: We have a policy that everyone who wants to get involved in the McGill Classics Play can get involved. This usually means that we have

to be pretty strategic in how we structure things, though, in order to make sure that everyone gets the chance to shine. So, we just thought, why not go camp?

AM: The concept of the game show is actually not irrelevant to the Odyssey. It goes straight back to the ancient tradition of presenting these stories during events such as festivals, where everyone puts their own twist on a given story and competes against one another to determine who has the best version.

EW: And in a way the contestants in our play are recreating the contest of the bow in the Odyssey, where the competitors compete to see who can get Penelope’s attention.

MD: In your program you define the ancient Greek term polytropos – to have many (poly-) manners or ways (-tropos). How is this concept relevant to your play?

AM: That term is basically an encapsulation of why we are haunted by Odysseus. It comes from the first line of the Odyssey: “Tell me, Muse, about the polytropos man.” It calls into question the idea of identity itself. In the text, this refers to Odysseus’s identity as a husband, as a father, and as a former soldier. This also applies on a metaliterary

McGill Classics Play | Photos Contributor

“[...] we are both haunted by Odysseus.

[...] This all came as a response to a very personal reckoning with the text.”

-Audrey Michel and E. Weiser

Frida Sofía Morales Mora | Social Media Editor Eliana Freelund | Culture Editor

level: Is Odysseus a criminal? Is he a refugee? Is he someone we should sympathize with? There are just so many layers and so many variables.

MD: When we saw the play, both of us agreed that the Polyphemus scene depicting colonial violence was both incredibly moving and very difficult to watch. Can you explain the thought process behind writing this scene?

EW: When you think of this scene more simply, it’s basically this: someone rolls off onto your island, eats your shit, attacks you, and then leaves. The thing is, in the Odyssey we get the version told by Odysseus, where Polyphemus is not painted in a good light simply because he doesn’t understand Greek customs and traditions. Polyphemus is othered – he is one-eyed, he doesn’t speak “proper” Greek, he isn’t familiar with Greek hospitality customs (xenia). According to Odysseus’s version of the story, that gives him permission to invade Polyphemus’s home. This is the part in the Odyssey, especially from a modern perspective, where you see the biggest pitfall of the hero. Because he is not a hero in this scene; he is just a colonizer.

AM: It’s important to recognize that colonization was going on during antiquity. Of course it looked very different, but it’s important that we talk about this now, especially because these narratives were used to justify later colonization. During this time, people were trying to define what it meant to be Greek. And to Odysseus, it seems that to be Greek is to not be what he would have considered “barbarian.” The tension in this scene is essentially, “you don’t look like us, you don’t respect my customs, you don’t speak like us.”

EW: The part in our play where Polyphemus is holding his lamb and laments to the audience is taken directly from the text. So you have this painting of him as a devastated farmer who just lost his pet. And then you cut to Odysseus boasting over the fact that he’s just taken Polyphemus’ most prized lamb.

AM: In a way, it’s just twisting what he’s really known for the most – his trickster nature – and turning it into cruelty.

MD: How did the actors portraying Odysseus and Polyphemus feel when acting out this scene? It must have been very difficult emotionally.

Thea S. (TS): Portraying Polyphemus required a lot of vulnerability on my part. As a Lebanese person, as a person of colour, as a person whose country is constantly affected by external forces, this scene really helped me rethink the struggles my country has to deal with. Here it’s a different framing: there are different characters, different forces, but the elements are still there. The part where Polyphemus gets scared and asks “who are you?” and “what did you say your name was?” really affected me. He gets defensive; he tries to defend himself. Peoples who have been colonized are often depicted as weaker, and the narrative is often that they were colonized because they were unable to fight back. I think it’s important to remember that that’s an unfair way to perceive these events in history. Nothing about colonization should ever be justified. This narrative of the weaker versus the stronger – it’s not real. It’s an illusion created by the oppressors.

Gabrielle Gaston (GG): I had a difficult time acting in this scene

in a different way. I’m playing a colonizer; I’m playing a villain. And at the same time I am fully aware of my positionality in this scene – as a white person, as a settler. I’m aware of the power dynamics that are in place, not only the privilege that I have in my day to day life in Canada, but also the power dynamics in the scene. I’m not only older than Thea, but I am a white person, and she is a person of colour. I know that she is in a more vulnerable state here, and there are a lot of really intense moments in that scene. I really wanted to make sure that we established a relationship of trust while working on the play together so that she could be as comfortable as possible. I wanted

her to be able to tell me when something was too much. The most important thing to me was that she would feel safe.

MD: We are currently in the middle of Black History Month. Was there a conscious decision to put on the play during this month? How is the content of the play relevant to Black history?

GG: Although it wasn’t a conscious decision to put on the play during Black History Month, I think that the content is very much relevant to Black history. The way that E. and Audrey wrote and directed the play, specifically with the scene depicting colonial violence, speaks to the ongoing effects of colonization. In a play that is so campy, we were told that that scene had to be completely sober. It was very important for us to convey the weight of that scene – this is not something that’s over; it’s something that is still going on. Antiquity is effectively the foundation of Western civilization. It’s important to note that these traditions carry on, even though, as Audrey said, colonization looked different back then. These stories, these traditions, these narratives – they’ve shaped so much of Western culture. The transatlantic slave trade, the colonization of the African continent – these things have been catastrophically traumatic on a generational level. And whether or not Odysseus really existed, the idea of him – the idea of this OG colonizer figure in Odysseus has persisted throughout Western culture. The themes of domination and colonization in the Odyssey still exist to this day – and their effects can still be felt among Black people and on the African continent. I think it’s important to shift the narrative of how stories of colonization are told, to a place where the white person isn’t the hero.

EW: Classics have historically been used to justify white supremacy. It’s incredibly important to not perpetuate that narrative. We don’t need another Odysseus-the-hero narrative – it was time to tell a different story.

TS: The medium of storytelling is really powerful. For the liberation of the oppressed, it is vital to keep the stories of the victims alive. It’s important for the truth to be heard – it’s necessary for justice, and it’s necessary for healing to start.

MD: The play remains openended as to who exactly Odysseus was. What does Odysseus mean to each of you?

EW: For me, Odysseus is all of these interpretations at once. You can’t distill the connotations his name has down to a single source.

AM: I think Odysseus is a question about who I want to be. His story about wandering, looking for home, looking for belonging – it resonates with all of us. But this story also asks us, what are you going to do in that situation? How do you want to be remembered, how are you going to treat people?

GG: To me, Odysseus is more of a concept than a real person. He’s kind of transcended being a real man because of the many ways he’s been interpreted and how they build off of each other.

TS: I think Odysseus is very much a multi-faceted character. As Gab said, he really is more of a concept than a person. There are so many perspectives on his character, but I think it’s important not to get lost in one or two interpretations. Instead, we should look at every aspect of him in a way that leaves room for critical thinking and for nuance.

If you are interested in being a part of McGill Classics Play, proposalsforits2024production are currently being held. For further information, contact lynn.kozak@mcgill.ca.

“The medium of storytelling is really powerful. For the liberation of the oppressed, it is vital to keep the stories of the victims alive. It’s important for the truth to be heard – it’s necessary for justice, and it’s necessary for healing to start.”

-Thea S.

McGill Classics Play | Photos Contributor

“ Antiquity is effectively the foundation of Western civilization. It’s important to note that these traditions carry on, even though [...] colonization looked different back then. ”

-Gabrielle Gaston

CELEBRATING CANADIAN BLACK EXCELLENCE CROSSWORD

ACROSS

2. co-founder of the Black Health Education Collaborative

6. author of Shame on Me: An Anatomy of Race and Belonging

7. first Black female lawyer in Canada

8. the King of inside swing

12. one of Canada’s oldest Black communities razed in 1964

13. known as the “Wayne Gretzky of women’s hockey”

16. largest multicultural African music festival in North America

18. author of The Skin We’re In: A Year of Black Resistance and Power

19. U of T alumni to drive to have Black History Month recognized across Canada

20. executive director and a founding member of the Black Action Defence Committee

22. bookstore highlighting the Black diaspora in Montreal

25. longest serving member of the Senate of Canada

26. longest running Black theatre company in Canada

DOWN

1. known as the Harlem of the North

3. wrote “Hymn to Freedom” along with Oscar Peterson

4. ethnic group making up the largest population of Black francophones in Canada

5. Montreal’s oldest Black congregation founded in 1907

9. first Black owned night club in Montreal

10. youngest player in Canada’s Men’s National Football team

11. 1971 sprinter representing Canada in three Olympic Games

14. established the first Black-owned and operated radio station in Canada

15. 27th Governor General of Canada

17. one of the founding members of Toronto’s Caribbean Carnival

21. annual Carribbean Carnival in Montreal

23. first news reporter in Canada to wear a hijab on-air

24. challenged racial segregation at a cinema in Nova Scotia