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Volume 103, Issue 19 Monday, February 10, 2014

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NEWS

Backlash against Petrocultures conference Equity and engineering students SSMU General Assembly SSMU council talks referendum questions Photo essay: Vigil for victim of police brutality Sexual assault resources on campuses across Canada

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COMMENTARY

On polyamory and new forms of commitment The problematic use of the term ‘McGill Ghetto’

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FEATURES

Reimagining street art in Montreal

13

SCI+TECH

Paleobotany and fossil trees A look into how internet shapes language

15

HEALTH&ED

Harmful diagnostic labelling model for mental disorders

16

SPORTS

Martlets in the midst of 43 game streak

17

CULTURE

Kent Monkman’s newest painting at the McCord Museum Photographing the 19th century Arab city Rock ‘n’ Roma benefit

19

EDITORIAL

Delegitimizing the police’s use of force

20 COMPENDIUM! SHMU heads into outer space Reflecting on an kingdom of memes

February 10, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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McGill students speak out against fossil fuel extraction MISC conference receives criticism from community Hannah Besseau The McGill Daily

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round 30 students and community members participated in a blockade of the Faculty Club to protest the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada (MISC) Petrocultures conference, which aims to “discuss and debate the role of oil and energy in shaping social, cultural and political life in Canada,” according to their website.

Resistance to the conference According to the website of the blockade, lockoutpetrocultures. wordpress.com, the resistance came from concerns that the conference “positions support for fossil fuel extraction as one valid opinion among others” while ignoring opinions of environmental degradation and ongoing colonialism.

“MISC [is] creating an environment that condones ‘acceptable’ levels of racism in order to generate interest at the expense of Indigenous students,” Molly Swain, an Indigenous student, told The Daily before the conference in an email.

The blockade occurred just before the conference’s registration at 8:00 a.m. on Friday morning.

The group of resisters fastened a rope on the inside of the Faculty Club’s main entrance door. They also blocked each of the building’s fire exits and dropped a banner from the roof that read: “Shut down the tar sands, décolonisons.”

Divest McGill, a group that calls on McGill to divest from fossil fuels, also held a demonstration later that day at 4:30 p.m., this time in front of the Faculty Club. The self-described “counter-conference” asked passersby to write down what a fossil-free future will look like.

“The debate inside is whether Canada is a ‘petroculture’ or not, but the debate we think we should be having is – well, we know we are a ‘petroculture,’ [and] that the Canadian economy and Canadians are socially [reliant] on oil. The question is how to get away from that and move toward renewable sources and away from oil,” Amina Moustaqim-Barrette of Divest McGill told The Daily.

“We stand in solidarity with [the morning demonstrators]. They are there to represent the grassroots movement and that was really poorly represented in this conference.

We were inside the conference to

Resisters at the Faculty Club continue that conversation,” added Moustaqim-Barrette.

QPIRG McGill also spoke out against the conference in a letter to The Daily earlier that week, stating that it felt the conference “legitimizes a mode of socio-economic organization that is having alreadydevastating effects on communities and ecosystems.”

Petrocultures conference The conference featured presenters with experience or expertise on the topic of ‘petroculture.’

Many of the presenters at the conference are directly involved with oil companies and developers although some activists and scholars were also featured.

“The MISC [is] known for being a place where diversity can be shared,” said a member of the MISC board. “It’s known for being a nonpartisan forum [where] you can be unafraid to share your views.”

However, Mona Luxion, one of the resisters at the Faculty Club and a former Daily columnist, felt the event was far from nonpartisan. “There are a variety of types of presenters at this conference, some work directly for the oil industry […] There are people [who are] adamant advocates for fossil fuel extraction, but still aren’t challenging uncontrolled growth that is at the heart of capitalism and is part of the colonialism that goes on in this land,” said Luxion.

“So [in] this debate, the only position available is maintaining

Tamim Sujat | The McGill Daily status quo rather than striving for ways to get out of an economic and political system that is running into the ground,” Luxion continued.

Shaina Agbayani, a McGill student, agreed that the conference held inherent biases. “The theme of the conference is ‘Oil, Energy, and Canada’s Future.’ But the conference fails in its absence of proper recognition of, and critical inquiry into, [what] this ‘Canada’ is that is being projected and involved in the discussion,” said Agbayani.

“Only 1 of 11 talks at the conference seems to [...] include the voices of Indigenous folks on whose territory we reside,” she added.

In response to the blockade and some of the criticism, MISC Director Will Straw expressed his concern with the conference.

“I think we have tried to make it [balanced], but you can’t have perfect balance. I do really think we all benefit from hearing a wide range of views,” Straw told The Daily at the blockade.

Disagreement over blockade One of the attendees at the conference found the presentations perturbing. “When I saw his speech, it was very disturbing for me [...] I would consider [the presentation] a violent experience,” Indigenous student Tiffany Harrington told The Daily in reference to Sun Media personality and pro-tar sands advocate Ezra Levant’s presentation.

“For me, there were a lot of right-wing sentiments, and they

didn’t recognize Indigenous sovereign voices as being able to speak for ourselves. Seeing that [MISC was] only putting forth one point of view I didn’t feel like they were actually opening up any discussion,” said Harrington, adding that MISC also showed “two polarized views that didn’t allow for any consensus on anything.”

Several of the attendees outside of the blockade expressed their discontent with the political actions taken against the conference, with several calling it “immature” and asserting that it was “stifling dialogue.”

“I understand their position; however I think blocking the door and not letting people into a conference that is supposed to be about open discussion and rational debate isn’t a very productive way of supporting or representing your opinion,” Justyna, a Concordia environmental humanities student, told The Daily outside the blockade.

Harrington disagreed. “I think protesting an event like this was a courageous act of speaking up and holding a voice.”

“This is not a neutral debate,” Luxion added. “[MISC has] to understand it is a very political decision to have a conference that debates the role of the tar sands in some sort of ‘both sides are equal’ way, rather than acknowledging [that] the tar sands and global warming are killing people right now, and will continue to do so [...] we need to shut them down.”

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February 10, 2014 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Engineering students talk equity Workshops seek to initiate discussion on safe space Emily Saul The McGill Daily

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n a bid to start a conversation on safe space and equity in the Faculty of Engineering, students in the class Introduction to the Engineering Profession (FACC 100) took part in a workshop on safe space and diversity on February 6 and 7.

The workshop, organized by Engineering Undergraduate Society (EUS) Equity Commissioner Christopher Tegho, was led by former McGill students Nampande Londe and Fiona Ross. It was included as part of a more general discussion about sustainability in the intro-level course.

The interactive discussion aimed to facilitate conversation in the faculty about creating safer space, an ongoing effort of Tegho, who became Equity Commissioner in Fall 2013.

According to Tegho, the faculty has had equity and inclusivity problems, including problematic event titles and Frosh chants that promote rape culture, as well as social

activities that do not include nondrinking options.

The workshop covered topics such as gender identity, racism, microaggressions, and consent, among other issues, and ended with scenarios and classroom discussion. Clicker surveys were also included as part of the presentation, with 79 per cent of students responding that before the presentation they were unfamiliar with the concept of safe space.

Tegho has been working toward an event like this since November.

“Students in [FACC 100] are all firstyear[s], and I think such an initiative is very important in first year,” he said. “Professors, the dean [of Engineering, Jim Nicell], and EUS executives [all] support this idea. The EUS wants this to happen every year.”

Ross thought that the workshop was a good introduction to the process, and spoke to the difficulty of discussing safe space and other equity issues.

“This [class was] a group of 100 people who [had] no idea what safe

space is. But even when people know what it is, people still say shitty things,” said Ross. “In terms of learning new things, you’re never always aware of everything that is out there. We’ve got to do some more easing in.”

Gabriel Veilleux, a U1 Chemical Engineering student, thought the workshop was a positive step.

“You really do have to be careful – you can hurt someone deeply with a comment that you don’t always think about,” Veilleux said. “I think having [these] workshops helps people to realize, ‘Okay, I’m in the public space now, I can hurt someone.’ I think there was a good debate at the end. You’re never going to agree with everything, but it’s good to hear people’s opinions on these things.”

The EUS is currently reviewing its equity policy to make it more proactive, and Tegho was pleased to see that events like this can continue.

“I appreciated that the workshop was with other presentations

Khoa Doan | The McGill Daily about sustainability,” he said. “The EUS believes that social equity is part of sustainability.”

“People really tune out of these discussions because they don’t think it’s relevant to them, so we try to make it relevant to them,” said Londe in a debrief after the first workshop.

“In all my years doing workshops, it’s really easy to want everybody to walk out and go, ‘That’s a microaggression!’ or ‘You’re a microaggressor!’ But we forget that all of this learning starts with a seed,” she said. “So, if we went in there, and some people started thinking about this, that’s enough for me.”

News

February 10, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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General Assembly sees little debate Motions on student rights, freedom of dress, sustainability presented Lauria Galbraith The McGill Daily

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n February 5, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) held their Winter 2014 General Assembly (GA), with three out of four proposed motions passing with quorum.

The first motion concerned students’ Academic Assessment rights, and resolved to include the rights on course outlines and in the Student Handbook in a bid to increase awareness. The motion passed without debate.

To address a lack of action by SSMU’s Ad-hoc Committee on Sustainability, a Motion Regarding Sustainability at SSMU resolved that the Committee make an ac-

tionable recommendation by the end of Winter 2014. The motion passed without debate.

The third Motion Regarding the Timely Distribution of Course Information also passed without any debate. The motion resolved for SSMU to lobby the administration to make course information available “as early and as accurately as possible” to help students better balance their course loads.

The only debate of the night arose over the Motion Regarding the Guarantee of Freedom of Dress in the SSMU Building, which was moved by petition in response to a blanket ban enacted

by SSMU on the lab coats of the Plumbers’ Philharmonic Orches-

tra (PPO). The motion resolved for all standing blanket bans to be lifted, and for offensive garments to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. The efficiency of this system was challenged, and several attendees questioned why the PPO wouldn’t take responsibility for the inoffensiveness of their own lab coats. The motion was passed, but only as a Consultative Forum, as quorum was not met.

A fifth motion regarding the Comprehensive and Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was deemed external by SSMU’s Steering Committee, therefore requiring a quorum of 500 students to enter debate, which was not met.

Arithra C. Debnath | Photographer

SSMU Council addresses freedom of dress, Quebec student roundtable Student society prepares for upcoming Winter referendum Dana Wray The McGill Daily

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n February 6, one day after the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) held its bi-annual General Assembly (GA), SSMU’s Legislative Council met for a double session that stretched past midnight.

In addition to debating SSMU’s membership within the Table de concertation étudiante du Québec (TaCEQ), councillors approved questions for the upcoming Winter 2014 referendum period.

Freedom of dress A Motion Regarding Freedom of Dress in the SSMU Building was brought to Council after the Winter 2014 General Assembly (GA), where it was presented, failed to meet quorum, and instead passed in a Consultative Forum.

The motion was moved by a petition and originally stemmed from a ban on the lab coats of the Plumbers’ Philharmonic Orchestra (PPO), an Engineering student group, due to offensive writing or drawings on the coats.

VP University Affairs Joey Shea pointed out that although the motion claimed freedom of speech was an integral part of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Free-

doms, “In Canada, one’s freedom of speech and freedom of expression is limited [...] so for example, hate speech is not allowed.”

The motion was divided into three separate resolved clauses – one which stated that freedom of dress should not be infringed upon, one which stated that bans should proceed on a case-by-case basis, and one that overturned the standing ban on the PPO’s lab coats. All three resolved clauses passed.

The TaCEQ crisis On January 24, 73.2 per cent of the University of Sherbrooke’s graduate student association, Regroupement des étudiants de maîtrise, de diplôme et de doctorat de l’Université de Sherbrooke (REMDUS) voted to disaffiliate from TaCEQ, a result that was later ratified by a GA of its members. The departure of REMDUS leaves SSMU without its main ally, SSMU VP External Samuel Harris told The Daily in an earlier interview.

When asked by a councillor about alternatives to TaCEQ for SSMU, Harris responded, “I don’t feel any other association right now suits the needs of SSMU members, especially because of the cost – we’re paying upward of four to five dollars per person, that’s around

$80,000 [total].”

A motion regarding the creation of a referendum question to disaffiliate from TaCEQ passed.

Cover charges for charities Science Undergraduate Society (SUS) VP Internal Sahil Kumar was on hand to present the Motion Regarding Gerts Retainment of Cover Charges. Currently, Gerts collects 50 per cent of cover and coat check charges. However, Kumar argued that groups hosting charity events that planned to donate 100 per cent of the proceeds of the cover and coat check charges to charity should have this commission waived if they advertised sufficiently in advance.

SSMU VP Finances and Operations Tyler Hofmeister disagreed strongly with the motion, adding that Gerts is also facing a $26,000 deficit – $13,000 over the budgeted deficit.

The motion passed after being amended to require that Gerts make its booking procedures more transparent and simpler for charities who wanted to book an event.

Referendum questions regarding fees A Motion Regarding SSMU First Year Council (FYC) Fee Referendum Question resolved that a

referendum question be asked to levy a $0.50 opt-outable fee to create a First Year Fund. With around 6,000 first year students, the FYC has a budget of only $3,000, limiting its ability to provide events and help, according to Services Representative Élie Lubendo.

Lubendo explained that due to exchange, transfer, and U0 and U1 students, it was “impossible” to charge only first-years, and pointed out that although the FYC targeted first-years, it technically serves the entire McGill student body.

The Motion Regarding Athletics and Recreation Facilities Referendum Question, which resolved to renew the non-optoutable Athletics and Recreation Facilities Improvement Fee of $10 per semester, faced some frustration from councillors.

Arts and Science Representative Courtney Ayukawa expressed concern that this fee came on top of the already-existing $127.75 fee per semester for Athletics. Farnan explained that the $10 fee paid for various updates and renovations.

Due to the financial cost of complying with Quebec labour laws, Organic Campus brought forth a motion asking for a referendum to create a $0.22 opt-outable fee per student per semester. According to

calculations by Organic Campus, its prices would have to rise threefold to compensate without a fee.

Arts Representative Ben Reedijk objected to the fee levy on the grounds that, as a business, Organic Campus should be able to satisfy its own financial needs.

However, VP Clubs and Services Stefan Fong pointed out that Organic Campus is in fact a service, not a business.

As the potential end of the fouryear long negotiations for the lease of the Shatner building looms, the cost of rent and utilities is projected to increase immediately with the new agreement and on a yearly basis afterward. To deal with the increasing costs, Council approved a referendum question to ask for a University Centre building fee of $6.08 per full-time student, which will be indexed to increase at a rate of 5.6 per cent per year.

All three motions passed, and will be asked as referendum questions in the Winter 2014 referendum period.

Motions regarding the renewal of the SSMU Access Bursary Fund, the SSMU Ambassador Fund, the SSMU Campus Life Fund, and the SSMU Library Improvement Fund all passed, and will appear in the Winter 2014 referendum period.

AUS WINTER REFERENDUM PERIOD Do you want to amend the AUS Constitution, levy a fee on AUS members, or change any AUS fees?

Deadline to submit petition with 150 signatures or have a referendum question approved by AUS Council: Wednesday, February 19 Campaign Period: Monday, March 10 - Thursday, March 20 Polling Period: Thursday, March 13 - Tuesday, March 20 Questions? Email elections.aus@mail.mcgill.ca or president.aus@mail.mcgill.ca

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February 10, 2014 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

News

Vigil mourns victim of police brutality O n February 3, Montreal police shot and killed 41-year-old Alain Magloire. The justification given for the shooting was that Magloire, a homeless man who was said to have mental health issues, was wielding a hammer. Police shot Magloire before a senior officer with

a taser arrived at the scene. Quebec’s chief coroner has ordered a public inquiry into Magloire’s death, examining the emergency protocol used for interventions for those with mental health issues. On February 4, a vigil was held for Magloire at Place Emilie-Gamelin.

Photos by Khoa Doan

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February 10, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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Dealing with sexual assault at Canadian universities Recent incidents call attention to lack of resources Janna Bryson The McGill Daily Trigger warning: this article contains discussion of sexual assault.

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n February 26, McGill will host a Forum on Consent.

The Forum, open to the McGill and Montreal communities, will include keynote speakers, panel discussions, and small breakout groups.

SSMU VP University Affairs Joey Shea, who will co-chair the Forum, explained to The Daily that diverse attendance is important to the Forum’s effectiveness.

“I would encourage students to go to the chairs of their departments and lobby for them to attend the Forum because [... it] is not going to do anything if people don’t end up showing up, or if key players don’t end up showing up.”

“Trying to engage students who wouldn’t normally come to this type of event” is important, noted Shea.

Shea is also working on a document to be released and circulated around the same time as the Forum.

“There will be a number of recommendations [in the document such as] the fact that there should be a policy specifically regarding sexual assault.”

Part of Shea’s document will look at how different Canadian universities handle sexual assault. In the last six months, McGill, the University of British Columbia (UBC), the University of Toronto (U of T), and St. Mary’s University (SMU) have made national headlines with sexual assault controversies.

In light of the recent incidents,

The Daily investigated the various disciplinary mechanisms for sexual assault at these universities to evaluate how they compare to McGill.

Recent incidents In November 2013, the Montreal Gazette published an article that detailed the 15-month-old sexual assault charges brought against three thenmembers of the McGill football team.

This sparked widespread outrage and debate, and prompted an email several weeks later from Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Ollivier Dyens to the entire student body responding to the charges.

In the first week of September 2013, SMU was the subject of outrage when videos surfaced of students performing a Frosh chant that advocated non-consensual sex with underage girls.

That same month, UBC faced media attention after its Commerce Undergraduate Society performed a similar chant.

Both Frosh controversies occurred at a time when concern was growing about a series of sexual assaults on the UBC’s campus.

Later in September, SMU’s media attention continued when a SMU student was suspended after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl.

In December 2011, U of T professor James Payne was charged with sexual assault by the police, but continued teaching until the complainant informed the university of the charges in August 2013.

Students at U of T expressed concern in the Varsity, one of U of T’s campus newspapers, that

Payne was able to continue to teach students for two years with the sexual assault charge pending, arguing that there should be protective mechanisms in place for students.

Codes of conduct McGill’s Code of Student Conduct and Displinary Procedures does not explicitly mention sexual assault, instead defining generalized assault and sexual harassment under the “Physical Abuses, Harassment and Dangerous Activity” category.

The first clause of the category reads that no student shall “assault another person, threaten another person or persons with bodily harm or damage to such person’s property,” and the third reads that no student shall “harass, sexually or otherwise, another person or persons.”

In an interview with The Daily, Dean of Students André Costopoulos explained McGill’s disciplinary procedures.

“The allegation goes to a disciplinary officer. The [disciplinary officer] investigates and decides whether to bring formal allegations forward, and then decides whether it’s going to be handled at a discipline interview, or handled in a committee, or a student discipline hearing. And [then] there are potential sanctions.”

“Discipline is not the only possible response,” added Costopoulos. “It may be that we have discipline going forward, a criminal complaint going forward, and a civil complaint going forward all at the same time.”

At UBC, sexual assault is not explicitly mentioned in the Stu-

dent Code of Conduct. Similar to McGill, assault is included under section 4.2.1 in UBC’s Code: “Misconduct against persons, which includes: physically aggressive behaviour, assault, harassment, intimidation, threats, or coercion.”

U of T’s Code of Student Conduct lists sexual assault as the first type of “offense against persons,” reading: “No person shall assault another person sexually or threaten any other person with sexual assault.”

SMU’s Student Code of Conduct does not deal with sexual assault, only harassment. The university instead has an explicit policy that deals solely with sexual assault.

The policy outlines the appropriate responses for university officials and outcomes for a sexual assault report. Outcomes range from “a written warning or letter of reprimand,” to “suspension, probation or expulsion in conjunction with existing disciplinary procedures and/or collective agreements.”

Crisis and survivors’ resources The Sexual Assault Centre of the McGill Students’ Society (SACOMSS) has been active at McGill since 1991.

The Centre is volunteer-run and is solely funded by student fees. SACOMSS provides drop-in hours, runs a crisis line, and provides advocacy for students, staff, and faculty.

UBC’s Sexual Assault Support Centre is run by their Alma Mater Society, and is supported by $3.25 from student fees. The Centre provides services such as crisis support, advocacy, outreach and education, and service referrals.

U of T does not have a sexual as-

sault centre. Instead, their Counselling and Psychological Services office has specific provisions for sexual assault survivors to access counselling, and also provides education, workshops, and consultation.

SMU, like U of T, also does not have a separate sexual assault centre.

Sexual Assault survivors can seek assistance from a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner, as outlined in the university’s sexual assault policy.

Specialized staff Costopoulos stated that McGill is in the process of interviewing candidates for a Harm Reduction Coordinator. “We’ve had quite a bit of interest. We’ve had lots of applications and we’re interviewing for the position, so the position should start very soon.”

The Coordinator, according to Costopoulos, will oversee the various initiatives on campus that tackle sexual assault, and help answer the question: “Is what we have now enough?”

Despite a student referendum in which UBC Commerce students rejected the proposal to fund a sexual assault counsellor position with student fees, the university will be adding the position to its staff as a response to the string of campus assaults and the Frosh chant controversy.

U of T has counsellors available to students. Sexual assault counsellors, in particular, can be reached through a confidential voicemail system.

Beyond the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner, SMU has little in the way of specialized staff.

SACOMSS was not available for comment as of press time.

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February 10, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

8

Rethinking commitment Polyamory and the potential for new ways of loving Eric White White Noise

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always dreaded having to play the game. Soon after coming out I entered a relationship with the first guy I hooked up with, and when we finally broke up almost two years later I felt lost and helpless in a world of single, gay men I knew nothing about. We attempted making our relationship an open one in the last few months we were together, which in hindsight was just a vain attempt to make a failing relationship work. Although he saw a few other guys, causing surges of jealousy for me in a confusing and turbulent time for both of us, I was always afraid to leave the cocoon of our comfortable yet dysfunctional situation.

Now, months later, despite continued qualms about immersing myself in the dating scene, as a single 20-year-old gay male in a city with a large queer population, I know that this is my time to experiment. I need to see what works for me as I figure out what it is I want from my relationships.

The media obsesses over the ways relationships are changing because our generation tends to communicate using social media and texting. We resist labels and commitment, and have a proclivity for casual hook-ups over serious, committed relationships. For queers, the likelihood of experimenting with polyamory adds to the complexity of the dating scene.

Despite having more straight than queer friends, it seems more of my queer friends have experienced, or at least considered, open relationships. It’s probably because the essence of queerness implies challenging, avoiding, and questioning traditional gender norms and social relations. I’m sure straight people engage in polyamory as well, but I personally haven’t met too many who are into that sort of thing.

In some ways, I sometimes feel this invisible pressure that as a queer person in this day and age, a successful polyamorous relationship is the rainbow-covered, glittery, golden peak I should be striving for. Given the benefits of polyamory, I understand why.

I remember a great conversation with a queer friend who has been in a successful, albeit sometimes challenging, open relationship. We discussed how being able to see other people while still having a committed relationship can mean fulfilling

Saad Salahuddin | Illustrator different sexual desires and preferences. Different people can provide you with different pleasures and help you discover different sexual practices and preferences. Polyamory can definitely limit the potential for boredom in a relationship, making things more fun and dynamic.

If you’re able to make it work and strike a balance, a successful open relationship can mean a much more interesting and challenging sex life. For a sexual young adult, what could be more attractive than that?

Of course, given the dimensions that seeing other people adds to a relationship, it can mean a lot of hard work and commitment in figuring out what makes you and your partner comfortable. Based on my own experiences, and what I’ve heard and seen from friends, nothing is more pivotal to an open relationship than communication.

After flirtily texting with one guy for multiple weeks, he told me that he and his boyfriend were trying to be open – yet after enjoying one late night rendezvous together, he stopped answering my texts and I’m inclined to believe they realized polyamory wasn’t right for them. It might work for you to tell your partner when you’ve seen someone else, or it might not. Reevaluating may be a necessity too. Setting boundaries,

sticking to them (or altering them if need be), as well as continuing the dialogue, immensely increase the chances that an open relationship will work.

Problems can go beyond jealousy. Figuring out to what extent you and your partner are allowed to see other people can be a tricky thing.

What if a couple decided they could hook-up with, but not date, other people? What would be acceptable?

Does that limit someone to Grindr hook-ups and one night stands? Are casual beers and coffee dates out of the question? It’s tough to say, and relates to the importance of defining terms and boundaries.

It’s common to scroll through the plethora of guys on Grindr and see plenty whose status is ‘open relationship.’ There are also plenty of couples, anywhere from their early 20s to past 50, scanning Grindr for guys to come add a little spark to their relationships that monogamy probably couldn’t provide.

Every polyamorous relationship is going to take a different shape and allow for different experiences and understandings of what one wants from their different sexual partners. Open relationships have the potential to challenge concepts and ideas of the differences between sex and love. What are the implications of sustaining loving relation-

ships with more than one person?

Emotional attachment to someone besides your primary partner could have serious implications for the relationship. I’ve found it can be quite difficult to play the role of the mistress too, especially when the motives of your polyamorous love interest are unclear.

Since beginning to overcome my fear of the dating scene, I’ve had one open relationship that spanned a few months. We established a mutual desire to also see other people early on, and were able to sustain a comfortable, enjoyable, and I’d like to think healthy relationship thereafter. Once it was no longer working, our commitment to ‘not being committed’ meant the relationship ended more easily than it probably would have otherwise. In this case, establishing openness from the onset allowed us to sidestep commitment.

There are times I want things to be simpler though. Isn’t seeing one guy at a time enough? It may be, but resisting experimenting with polyamory will be a tough thing to do, both because of my own prerogative and since so many queers are just doing it anyway.

I’m sure some stigma surrounding polyamory will remain, despite changing ideas and concepts of relationships on a more societal level.

People are likely to believe open

relationships aren’t legitimate, assume they can’t work, and disregard their potential for success and greater sexual fulfillment. Nevertheless, I’m becoming more comfortable with the fact that as a queer person, the way I interact, hook-up, and go about my relationships will inherently deviate from current and past concepts of the norm.

Despite my current desire to explore, date, hook up, and see what’s out there, having known the comfort and stability a committed relationship can provide, I secretly look forward to getting back there.

Whether or not polyamory is a part of that equation remains to be seen, but I’m aware of the potential polyamory has for redefining commitment, allowing for different concepts and forms of sexual expression. Overall, I definitely see this as a good thing; considering and embracing polyamory can only mean a wider array of options and opportunities for relationships, and a more interesting pursuit toward understanding what queerness means for the way I date, hook-up, and fuck.

White Noise is a column exploring what it means to identify as gay or queer in McGill and Montreal communities. Eric can be reached at whitenoise@mcgilldaily.com.

Commentary

February 10, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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The ghetto that isn’t Toward a new relationship between students and Milton-Parc

Tamim Sujat | The McGill Daily

A Milton-Parc street view Sam Harris and Enbal Singer Commentary Writers

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any students at McGill reside in an area immediately east of campus which is commonly referred to as the ‘McGill Ghetto’ – a place where, as the belief goes, the students represent an overwhelming majority of the population. The fact that the area is actually a rich and storied neighbourhood called Milton-Parc, where long-term residents actually comprise the demographic majority, contradicts longheld myths about the ‘Ghetto’ as a place where students can do whatever they want because they own the place. Calling Milton-Parc the ‘Ghetto’ is not just problematic – it’s also very inaccurate.

The word ‘ghetto’ has a long historical significance. First used to describe Jewish enclaves in Venice, it later became a place where Jews were forced to live during the Nazi regime. In North America, ghettos arose in the post-World War I period after African American migration from the Southern U.S., and then later in the post-World War II era with the ‘white flight’ phenom-

enon, when the white population started migrating from inner city to suburbia.

Neighbourhoods like Harlem in New York City are a prime example of this process. For many, certain images and ideas come to mind when using the word ‘ghetto’ due to both historical and contemporary uses of the term. Even after major reductions in crime and poverty, in Harlem for example, the word ‘ghetto’ still has a powerful effect on people’s perceptions.

It seems obvious that the Milton-Parc area stands in stark contrast to ethnic ghettos. It is neither economically deprived, nor does it experience structural disadvantage.

In appropriating the term ‘ghetto,’ students dilute the history of racial politics associated with the word.

The Milton-Parc neighbourhood has a history that points to both wealthy and working class roots throughout the years. The area is roughly bounded by Sherbrooke and Pine from north to south, and University and Ste. Famille from west to east (The ‘McGill Ghetto,’ on the other hand, usually refers to the area west of Parc, but is flexible depending on where students

live.) At the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, the dwellings consisted mainly of Victorian row houses, and in some cases, large mansions.

Beginning in 1930, wealthy families began moving to other areas, like Westmount and Outremont, and an era of greater class diversification began, with students actually representing a poorer class than the residents who had lived there before them. In the 1960s and 1970s, the area became a battleground when Montreal’s Jean Drapeau administration worked with developers to conceive of the La Cité Concordia Project.

The vision of the La Cité project was to purchase the majority of the residential land in the Milton-Parc area with the intention of demolition and redevelopment, which would have hampered the affordability of the neighbourhood and destroyed architectural landmarks.

With the help of McGill students, major strikes and occupations were organized by the then-nascent Milton Parc Citizens Committee. These were largely successful, limiting the project to the current La Cité buildings and Place du Parc, and result-

ing in the creation of the largest set of co-operatively owned housing in North America.

As it is one of the most densely populated neighbourhoods in Montreal, tensions have arisen between university students and permanent residents over the last decade, often leading to unnecessarily hostile confrontations. In response to this growing problem, in 2010, the McGill administration, SSMU, and the Milton Parc Citizens Committee decided to set up the Community Action and Relations Endeavour to improve their relations. While efforts have since been made to fulfill this mandate – such as Street Teams and the Community Ambassador Program for example – the results have been limited.

Much of the tension created in Milton-Parc is easily avoidable.

For example, one of the most common complaints by residents is of people yelling across the street to one another. This is something that could easily be prevented and make a big difference in lessening disturbance and frustrations.

Getting to know your neighbours is another small step that can go a long way in appeasing residents

and improving relations.

Most importantly, Milton-Parc is a shared space that students and long-term residents have a stake in maintaining. While we cannot control how thin the walls in apartment buildings are, we can work together to try to minimize the harm we cause one another in the neighbourhood. Recognizing that the neighbourhood is complex and diverse is an important and simple first step.

As long as it is mistakenly called the ‘McGill Ghetto,’ it is easy for everyone to disregard their responsibilities and ignore the history of the area. Ongoing tensions between students and long-term residents will take time to resolve, and careless use of the word ‘ghetto’ reveals a misunderstanding about how it is a shared space, as well as ignoring the complex history of the term. A simple shift in vocabulary is a start in resolving these problems.

Sam Harris is the SSMU VP External, and can be reached at external@ssmu.mcgill.ca. Enbal Singer is the SSMU Community Affairs Coordinator, and can be reached at enbal.singer@mail.mcgill.ca.

Features

February 10, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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FEMINIST ART COLLECTIVE PUTS THE WRITING ON THE WALL OFFMURALES’ WAYS OF SEEING

Features

February 10, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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WRITTEN BY HERA CHAN PHOTOS AND WORK BY STELA LILYCUCIOLE ZOLA The artists in the OFFmuralES collective are referred to here by their chosen street art names: Harpy, Lilycuciole, Stela, and Zola.

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nter the square white room, a newly-sponsored gallery space. The cube presents the art, which is supposed to speak for itself – because art can speak to you, really – and the white frames the work, contextualizes it. We are told that the space is there, but not. It negates itself so you can focus on the art. If you feel isolated, have no fear because after the show, you can leave the space, forget the socio-historical context and politics that made the work available to you, and go shoot the breeze about the aesthetics over a cup of third wave coffee and a flaxseed vegan muffin, if that’s your thing.

Street art and graffiti are cool and trendy now; they’re popular.

In the 1990s, the rise of graffiti into fashion was exponential. You could wear the elusive culture on your back, an aesthetic without the context of the street and the politics, because politics are only cool if you’re not too intense about it. And now, another wave of commodification of street art and graffiti culture is hitting Montreal.

At what point did we create these structures that institutionalize certain forms of art and criminalize others?

At what point did we decide to create a cultural currency for art, including street art and graffiti, determined by the market rate? The demographics of artist visibility are still laden with problems that art historians have picked at

in the past. Street art and graffiti have reckoned with demystification over the last few decades, with all varieties of literature, from academic writing to blog posts about the artists and where they are coming from.

Nonetheless, the consumer report on street art – and the focus of this piece is street art, not graffiti, usually defined by medium – is lacking in perspective. Scouring the academic literature, the journalistic articles, the blog posts, you have to ask: where are the women? The people of colour? Where are the people who identify as queer, as trans*? They exist. The feminist, anti-racist, anti-colonial, and anti-corporate street art collective OFFmuralES brings this question to the city of Montreal by creating a visual culture that is available to those who can see it, reimaging Montreal’s cityscape.

OFFmuralES was formed by a group of women last June when MURAL, a public art festival in its inaugural year, descended upon St. Laurent.

The collective sought an alternative vision of what was presented at the corporate-driven event that closed down the street.

“With the idea of collectively joining our critiques of the festival,” reads the first page of OFFmuralES, the collective’s self-titled zine, “many of us met in order to organize our own event, at the margin of MURAL. We wanted to present our work, excluded from the distribution, as an alternative vision to the one presented by the festival.”

MURAL was sponsored by the Osheaga Festival and Desjardins Caisse Portugaise, among others, and

employed the rhetoric of community.

“Our meeting gave us the opportunity to create new solidarity friendships and a network of support and creative inspiration,” the zine’s text continues, combatting the street art culture that is bred by the monetary-based street art and graffiti festival.

“Street art becomes ‘co-opted,’ the [festival participants] are not about community building and local politics anymore, but about fame and money,” said Zola, an artist who works with OFFmuralES. Lilyluciole, another artist in the collective, said that corporate-driven art “destroys the relationship between the actors in this community. It excludes and breaks the integration of new players who have something to say or share.”

Nobody asks who controls what goes onto the city’s walls; who gets to be shown; why it’s there; whether someone sponsored it; what the work is trying to say. Street art, for the urban dweller, is free of charge to experience, but it is far from being free from corporate influence. One of the largest works produced during MURAL, facing an empty lot at the corner of St. Laurent and Milton, is owned by Rogers. Painted in the company colours of red and white, the image of tennis players might not strike the casual viewer as corporate, yet it is.

“They can reclaim whatever they want. They can claim our ideas as theirs. They can say, ‘We’re going to have that many women, that many persons of colour.’ They can say that, but as soon as they’re within that system, that capitalist system, these elitist ideas of who’s a great artist or not,

then the space will never be safe for people who are marginalized within this system. I’ll never feel safe there,” said Stela, a member of OFFmuralES. +++ “For street art to be effective, you need to think about so many layers.

The place you’re in, what [you’re] expecting from it,” said Stela, who has been doing graffiti for over eight years.

“The first thing I often decry about Station 16 and MURAL would be the lack of diversity in the artists they feature,” Zola said. “But in fact the problems are much deeper than that.

It is the vision of what street art is and how it can be used that marks a radical change with them.”

On its website, Station 16 describes itself as “[an] urban art gallery and creative silkscreen print shop.” It represents different street and graffiti artists through a private gallery system. Zola says the dynamics of MURAL – that is, the question of community, lack of diverse participants, and a sliding scale of payment for artists dependent on the organizers’ choice – existed before its inauguration, but were only amplified during that time.

“The people who gravitate around the ‘community’ are almost exclusively males. Some of them are represented

by Station 16, [which] represents very close to no females or trans* [people] at all […] and these people have career interests,” said Zola on the corporate construct of community. “Then there are the others who all have their opinion on Station 16 and most of the time will not like the gallery’s ways and dis-

course,” said Zola, citing OFFmuralES as sitting on that “other side.”

The domain of the street, through corporate-driven festivals, is divided up among those artists that corporations and organizations judge fit to claim it. The institutional memory of street art and graffiti, through its literature, operates much in the same way.

There is no lack of people out writing on the walls who do not conform to the heteronormative male worldview out writing on walls, only a lack of representation in the public imagination and literature.

“As the street is perceived as the domain of man and the site of his adventure, it is therefore not surprising that, in popular imagination, the street artist is first and foremost a solitary male marking his territory,” wrote Harpy in the OFFmuralES zine co-published with the Howl!

Arts Collective.

Harpy; from the French word harpie. Nom f´éminin en français. Monstre fabuleux, femme très méchante.

Jessica Pabón, who runs Bustoleum, “a blog dedicated to graffiti writing women,” wrote to me, “I think the only way to approach street art and grrlz involvement in it is to assume that they have to navigate the same social scene, and follow the same kinds of ‘rules and regulations’ in terms of subcultural dynamics, but that they also have to navigate the material effects of their gender as marginalized minorities in an overwhelmingly sexist male-dominated subculture.”

Pabón’s dissertation, which she wrote at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, is entitled “The ‘Art of Get-

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Features

February 10, 2014 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

ting Ovaries’: Female Graffiti Artists and the Politics of Presence in Hip Hop’s Graffiti Subculture.”

“It is less about essentializing them as ‘all grrlz do this’ and more about taking account of difference within the subculture,” wrote Pabón.

“As a woman you become hypervisible in the city at night, so when we paired together we were already more threatening than when we were alone,” said Stela on the OFFmuralES collective.

She believes in empowering other artists by offering “to support other people’s projects in a way that can help them. For example, some of the people in the group are doing textile work, which takes a long time to install, so this is something I can do, to go and help them put it up.”

Zola began creating street art by yarnbombing, the manifestations of knit attacks you see wrapping various structures around the city. It was in the early spring of 2011. She said it was her way of participating in a movement. “It was political, it was artistic, and it was heart warming.” According to Zola, the inherent politics of yarnbombing – aside from the illegality of fixing textile works in the public – is as feminist as it was when Miriam Schapiro first used textiles in the world of

fine art in the 1980s.

Displacing the ‘domestic’ to the public realm as a form of cultural production removes a bit of that calibrated secrecy around identity in street art. Identifying as a woman, as a person of colour, as queer, as trans* in your art, and making that visible on the street becomes a political act. “When I began to see my experience in that scene as a sexist experience, I guess I cannot see anything that I do, street artwise, as not political, because it is.

Because I was not supposed to still be there,” said Stela. +++ There is a black and white portrait of a woman of East Asian background wheat-pasted on St. Laurent. The woman is looking upward in the shot, palms clasped together, surrounded by painted flora. On the

wall, she is striking. I realized that this was one of the few instances that I saw a face that I could identify with on the streets of this city, leading me to scour the walls looking for more. I spoke to Lilyluciole, the artist behind these works. “An anti-colonial art is an art that does not establish a hierarchy between the creators,” she wrote. “An art that integrates all actors independently of the colour [of their] skin, origins, social class, political affiliation, religious beliefs.” Her project is called “Revelation,” which comes from the “misunderstandings, ignorance, and racism among people both in Montreal and Paris,” according to an interview with Powder Magazine.

Montreal is lacking a public forum for dialogue about street art, a dialogue that OFFmuralES created for their collective. The walls strewn with writing are standing on unceded land, Mohawk territory. When

street artists reclaim space, do they think about whose land they walk on? When an artist creates a work, do they pick a corporation’s window as their canvas, or a local business that might not be financially able to remove the paint? Who gets to paint there? Who are they?

“What was very important for me – I realized that after, not while it was happening – it really made me realize that I do have some of that ‘work hard and you’re going to get it’ mentality internalized and that’s not actually how it is. I feel in Montreal and different places, and in Montreal it’s very visible to be doing that kind of work you need a set of privileges to keep doing it – material, body-wise, ability, mental ability, to go outside at night,” said Stela.

“As I started to identify as a feminist and as a rape survivor, and so on, these are things that if I do that, these experiences are with me when I do

that, when I reclaim space,” said Stela.

Since coming out as a rape survivor in an interview over a year ago, Stela said that she has been approached by girls saying graffiti artists had raped them, adding, “It’s super hard to participate in an interview like this because [what I have to say is] often not what people want to say in their paper.”

Enter the street, white skies, newly-sponsored gallery space.

The street presents the art, which is supposed to speak for itself – because art can speak to you, really – and the brick walls and concrete jungle frame the work. The street contextualizes it, marks gentrification, and cannot negate itself.

If you feel isolated, have no fear, because you can find faces or messages in the writing on the walls of Montreal you may identify with, like I did. We don’t leave the public space, and we can’t forget the socio-historical context and politics that make street art available to us.

You can shoot the breeze about the aesthetics of street art over a cup of third wave coffee and a flaxseed vegan muffin, if that’s your thing, but the consumer report on street art and graffiti is continuously being written, and feminist, antiracist, anti-colonial, and anti-corporate artists are still taking to the streets. The work is framed for you.

Do you miss the white walls yet?

Sci+Tech

February 10, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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Painting pictures of the past A look at paleobotany and its deep connection to McGill Sivakami Mylvaganam The McGill Daily

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hen we think of paleontology, most of us will imagine Ross Gellar or Indiana Jones, largely associating it with digging up dinosaur fossils.

While dinosaur remains have definitely been exciting and offered insight into the evolutionary history of life, they are just a small part of what is in fact a vast field of study.

Ingrid Birker, the science outreach coordinator at the Redpath Museum, gave a short talk on one of the lesser-known branches of paleontology: paleobotany. The talk was hosted by the Montreal Field Naturalists Club (or the “Field-Nats” as they call themselves) and functioned as one of the group’s monthly public lectures, which they host to foster a general public appreciation of nature. Birker’s talk was supplemented with numerous photos and fossil specimen. Although it was not necessarily very scientific in nature, it provided a basic introduction to the topic, relating it to various points in the history of McGill.

Paleobotany is the branch of paleontology concerned with the Earth’s earliest plants. It involves the recovery and analysis of ancient plant remains and fossils, and using these to predict what entire plants would have looked like. It can also be used to reconstruct past environments.

In the talk, the speaker gave William Dawson’s previous description of the Archeopteris type specimen, a tree from the Devonian period (around 400 million years ago). A type specimen is the original specimen from which a description of a new species is made. This presents a problem when attempting to study and characterize extinct plants.

Different kinds of plant fossils will provide specific informa-

Jasmine Wong | Illustrator tion about the plant. Impressions can provide good morphological detail of flattened plant parts such as leaves. Petrifactions (like petrified wood) where organic material has been converted to stone, can provide insight into the cell anatomy of the plant tissue. Moulds (which are similar to impressions) can provide information on the three dimensional form of the plant. Paleobotanists can predict what the entire specimen would have looked like by combining the information collected from different fossil types of the same species.

SCIENCE WRITING 101 WORKSHOP

John William Dawson was McGill’s principle from 1855-93. At the time, he was referred to as a “natural philosopher” and is considered one of the founders of the science of paleobotany. During his time with the Geological Survey of Canada, he described fossil plants from the Silurian, Devonian, and Carboniferous eras. As a professor of geology at McGill, he taught with the aid of what are now his famous bedsheet drawings – large-scale representations of what he thought different plants would look like. Though some of these representations have now

been disproved, it is interesting to consider how Dawson arrived at his conclusions with the tools at his disposal.

McGill campus is also littered with a number of living fossil trees. Living fossils are a live species that appear similar to a species otherwise believed to exist with no other known living relatives. One example is the ginkgo in front of Chancellor Day Hall, an unusual non-flowering plant that is only found in the wild in China but has been cultivated worldwide. The evolutionary history and phylogenetic place of gingko

is still a mystery to botanists but it is believed to have first appeared around 250 million years. Another is the Metasequoia redwood on the grounds of the Stewart Biology building. This redwood was believed to exist only in the fossil record until 1941 when it was found by a Chinese botanist. It has since become a popular ornamental.

The living fossil trees around campus prove that you don’t need to be Indiana Jones to appreciate fossils. For those interested in more ancient plants, living fossil trees can provide a window into the ancient past.

What to learn about the basics of science reporting and writing?

Come to the workshop.

Wednesday, February 12 at 5:30 p.m.

Email scitech@mcgilldaily.com for more information

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Sci+Tech

February 10, 2014 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

From current to correct How the internet shapes language Leyla Omeragic Sci+Tech Writer

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avid Foster Wallace, an American author and former professor at Illinois State University, opens his essay Authority and American Usage with a question for the reader: “Did you know that probing the seamy underbelly of U.S. lexicography reveals ideological strife and controversy and intrigue and nastiness and fervor on a nearLewinskian scale?” After a brief sketch of the politics around modern language, he rephrases it, asking, “Did you know that U.S. lexicography even had a seamy underbelly?” Published in 2007, Wallace’s essay popularized a debate around language that would gain traction in the following years. The essay intended to critique the notion of grammatical correctness within the U.S. political sphere, placing Standard Written English in opposition to the dialects of marginalized North American groups; however, this contention between linguistic prescriptivism and descriptivism is made more relevant in the new media landscape with the rise of internet communication.

Unravelling the seamy underbelly The true “democratic spirit,” Wallace argues, questions the historicity of prescription, in turn challenging authority. Who has genuine authority to establish rules, and can language exist in a depoliticized space? “Correctness” emerges as a social construct to be probed and prodded by the people.

Radical cybercitizens often construe an idealized internet as the promised land of democracy, an arena in which anyone can commentate. The new media platform provided by the internet is manipulable, networkable, and interactive. User-driven technologies emerge, allowing for broadcasting at the individual level.

Twitter handles reach virality, and in self-publishing, bloggers bypass the traditional editorial hierarchy that enforces Standard English conventions in print and radio.

Thus, one’s individual pattern of grammar and vocabulary has the potential to reach (and influence) more people than ever before.

Whether new media democratize language by returning it to the masses, or establish a new class of linguistic “taste-makers,” is con-

testable. According to Charles Boberg, a linguistics professor at McGill, the linguistic trends on the internet parallel many other social and cultural phenomena.

A few influential people act as guides to what is ‘in,’ and the trend rapidly spreads across the rest of the population.

Applied internet linguistics and the democratic spirit Theorists have argued that the internet challenges the linguistic binary, wherein speech and writing form the two absolutes; the internet provides a unique mode of linguistic communication. In contrast to spoken conversations, online communication delays feedback and allows a premeditated response. This potentially leaves less room for spontaneity in the exchange. The internet also enhances our interactions by allowing the use of hyperlinks and graphics (such as image macros and animated GIFs) in communication.

A growing body of knowledge in applied internet linguistics explores the role of internet slang, or netspeak, in driving linguistic evolution. In an interview with the CBC, Gretchen McCulloch, a linguist with a Master’s of Arts from McGill, explains: “Our notion of grammatically correct is kind of a weird beast. Some of the ideas of what people think of as correct are strange holdovers from the Latin tradition of grammar, [such as] this idea that you should never split a preposition.” Yet, the interpersonal dynamics of communication leave room for linguistic evolution.

Ubiquity plays a role in legitimizing certain coinages, eventually allowing them to enter the realm of the correct. McCulloch continues, “But various more subtle things have made their way into the canon of English literature without people really noticing or people really remarking on them.”

Because internet One such example lies in contemporary usage of “because.”

In November 2013, Megan Garber of The Atlantic reported on a syntactic trend gaining internet linguists’ attention. In her article “English Has a New Preposition, Because Internet,” she reports on the new construction that linguists have dubbed the “prepositional because.” Though “because-noun” has garnered the most media attention, the same syntax can be used with other

Antu Das | Illustrator parts of speech.

By the rules of Standard English, “because” is a subordinating conjunction. As such, “because” can only be followed by a finite clause (“because the cake was delicious”) or a prepositional phrase (“because of the internet”).

Prepositional because, on the other hand, may precede an adjective or a noun. Interestingly, the conjunction’s conventional purpose is preserved in the two prepositional forms of “because.” “Because-noun” is exemplified in the title of Garber’s article: “English Has a New Preposition, Because Internet.” The properly formed sentence would instead claim that there is a new preposition “because of the internet.” Here, the noun is clearly a contemporary analog to the prepositional phrase. Similarly, “because-adjective” mirrors the construction involving finite clauses. “I ate the whole cake because delicious” acts as a jocular rendition of “because it is delicious.”

How it evolved Prepositional because has its own evolutionary history. Neal Whitman of the Literal Minded blog explains that the construction emerged in the early 2000s with “because” being followed by a jokey interjection: “because – hey – why not?” “It’s like a verbal shrug,” he writes, “as if to ask,

‘What more do I need to say?’”

The underlying sarcastic tone appealed to satirists and bloggers alike. “Because – hey” began to appear on websites with a particular demographic following, including Jezebel, a women’s interests subsidiary of Gawker Media.

Readers quickly adopted “because – hey” as a meme, thanks to its simplicity and lightheartedness.

Eventually, people dropped the “hey.” In her blog All Things Linguistic, McCulloch suggests that the construction’s “stylized verbal incoherence [mirrors] emotional incoherence.” Similar constructions are also found with but, also, so, thus, and the like.

The lasting effects of this construction’s ubiquity, however, are still to be seen. Linguistic databases show that children are now using it without the implicit sarcasm that made prepositional because go viral as a meme.

Contentions Boberg is skeptical of the media buzz surrounding prepositional because. “I think this is one of dozens of language usage trends that start up on the internet, quickly spread, and then eventually die out as they become passé. It’s true that the internet, because of the instant global communication it facilitates, may have sped up this process considerably, compared to the old print world,

but the process is essentially the same,” he says.

When asked whether he believed prepositional because and related constructions would have a lasting impact on the English language, Boberg expressed doubt. “I think it’s just one of many shorthand forms that developed from texting and email typing, which have been widely reported on all over the world by linguists and others who study the internet,” he told The Daily. “I doubt it’s going to have any effect outside that medium (e.g. in speech or more formal, traditional writing), and I doubt it’s going to survive more than five years, unless as a restricted conventionalized form in texting. But it’s dangerous to try to predict the future.”

McCulloch expressed a similar concern in her interview with CBC. “You can’t necessarily predict which things are going to stick around and become part of the formal written canon and which things are going to remain as slang,” added McCulloch.

“But there is definitely a porous boundary between the two.”

A corresponding podcast will be released on The Daily’s website.

Check online for more details.

Health&Ed

February 10, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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Pitfalls of diagnostic labelling Categorizing mental disorders when they should be personalized

Tanbin Rafee | The McGill Daily Angela Hsieh Health&Education Writer

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abels serve a variety of purposes. Assigning a name to something can offer a false sense of comfort and understanding, and labels within the mental health care system are no exception. Diagnostic labelling has been a controversial issue within clinical psychology for decades. Following last year’s release of the fifth revision to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), many of these criticisms have resurfaced, and the debate over the most appropriate diagnostic model has become more heated than ever.

With a listing of nearly 400 mental disorders, the DSM-5 – often referred to as the “Bible” of psychiatry – takes a largely categorical approach to disorder classification.

For Ethan Macdonald, a member of the Inclusive Mental Health Collective at McGill, these solid walls between psychological conditions are too limiting. Macdonald believes that individuals should be given room to make sense of their own experiences, outside of the psychiatric diagnoses that bind them in their everyday lives. “The act of coercing someone into a DSM category [...] in order to access services is but one way we marginalize and oppress the psychologically diverse. A diagnosis can have a major impact on the way one lives, and yet here we

have groups of people who can’t access resources if they don’t fit into the proper category,” he wrote in an email to The Daily.

Macdonald is not the only one who finds the current categorical approach to be problematic. Individuals in the community concerned with mental health issues have brought up the troubling phenomenon of “diagnostic inflation.” They point out that many new disorder categories are introduced with each DSM revision, despite the fact that there are significantly more disorders than treatment options and the same drugs are used to treat patients with supposedly distinct conditions.

According to Frédéric Fovet, director of the Office for Students with Disabilities (OSD) at McGill, “Almost all forms of human behaviour can now [fit] into the description of a ‘dysfunction.’” Not only could this be a waste of limited resources, but more importantly, it also runs the risk of unnecessarily subjecting people to harmful treatments and stigma. “Literally tens of millions of new patients will be created overnight with no evidence that they can be accurately identified, no proven effective treatment, and every indication that the medication treatments offered can have very harmful side effects,” said Allen Frances, chair of the task force responsible for the previous DSM, in a Medscape interview shortly before the DSM-5 was set to be published.

Studies have also revealed that DSM diagnoses show poor accordance between diagnosticians.

These findings become particularly worrisome considering that psychiatric treatments can only ever be as dependable as their corresponding diagnoses. In 2005, a study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry found that 45 per cent of people who met criteria for a single DSM-IV disorder met it for at least two more. Overlapping risk factors and symptoms found between DSM diagnoses raise concerns about blurred boundaries between the presently established categories.

Joel Paris, a professor in McGill’s Psychiatry department, notes that there is a distinct lack of scientific evidence supporting the current breakdown of disorders. “Categories can be arbitrary, and in psychiatry all diagnoses are based on signs and symptoms, not on underlying mechanisms,” states Paris.

Due to the weaknesses in the present diagnostic paradigm, an increasing number of professionals believe that the field of psychiatry should reject discrete mental illness labels altogether and take a continuous, dimensional approach instead. This involves using quantifiable measures to determine where patients stand on a continuum. Recent brain-imaging studies show strong support for the use of disorder spectra. For example, a study published in 2012 in the Journal of

Neurodevelopmental Disorders found that people with mood disorders and people with anxiety disorders showed similar activation patterns in the amygdala region of the brain – which plays a major role in the processing of feelings and memories – in response to particular emotions.

In fact, the original goal of the DSM-5 was to make a complete switch to dimensional psychiatry, but the task force was too idealistic. During the development process, enthusiastic proponents of this approach suggested a variety of dimensions, such as a schizoobsessive spectrum which merged schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Unfortunately, the majority of these dimensions did not pass field trials, as diagnoses were too inconsistent between psychiatrists. One notable spectrum that did make the final cut, however, involved Asperger’s syndrome, which was removed as a separate diagnosis and placed under “autism-spectrum disorder.”

Moving toward dimensionality would inevitably alter psychiatric drug administration, posing a problem for drug companies. Clinical research, charities, and support groups would be impacted as well, since familiar diagnostic labels and mental disorder ‘brands’ would lose their power and visibility. All in all, critics argue that it is too early to make such a drastic shift to the diagnostic paradigm, as the field is still

lacking sufficient genetic and neuroscientific knowledge about the links between various disorders. “Proposals to make all classification dimensional are premature, and run the risk of labelling [healthy] people as having sub-clinical forms of illness,” explained Paris. He adds that “future DSM revisions should await real scientific breakthroughs, which I don’t expect to see for several decades. It is the best we have for now, with all its problems.”

For certain professionals like Fovet, a more ecological and holistic approach may be the most appropriate alternative while waiting for an actual solution. He notes that an increasing number of student services at McGill, including McGill’s Counselling Service and the OSD, have chosen not to rely so heavily on diagnostic instruments. These services focus instead on how to benefit the individual client by teaching students useful skills to manage their problems and remove barriers in the environment whenever possible.

“Diagnosis therefore becomes almost irrelevant,” states Fovet.

As for the DSM-5 and its faults, Fovet believes that not all hope is lost. “The good news is that a fair section of the psychology-psychiatry field is now pushing back and ridiculing this last embodiment of the DSM. Perhaps this grotesque excess in one direction will have positive outcomes after all.”

Sports

February 10, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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A quest for perfection Martlets hockey looks to extend streak, shake playoff blues Drew Wolfson Bell Sports Writer

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ast weekend, the McGill Martlets, the women’s hockey team, walked away with two wins against the Concordia Stingers and Ottawa Gee Gees. The Martlets have had nothing less than a stellar season thus far. They sit in first place of the Réseau du sport étudiant du Quebec (RSEQ) division by a wide margin of points. In addition to that, they are on a 17-game winning streak, which adds to their regular season winning streak of 43 games dating back to last season. When The Daily asked the Martlets’ Head Coach Peter Smith to what he attributes his team’s success, he credited their work ethic.

“Yes, we played two very physical teams and they did push us,” he said.

“In the end, we agreed as a team that our hard work paid off and we walked away with two wins.”

With that said, McGill’s is not an overly physical team. But, when push came to shove, they shoved back. The Martlets rely on playing a system that utilizes their speed and precision as effectively as possible. They blend acute hockey intelligence, speed, tenacious offence, disciplined defence, and solid goaltending to form a winning squad.

Watching the Martlets play is like watching surgery; every play is deliberate and precise and, if a play doesn’t work, they simply re-group and try again. In addition to this team’s overall talent, there are still names that warrant special mention. At the end of Sunday’s game the three stars announced were Katia Clement-Hydra, Leslie Oles, and Gabrielle Davidson. This is not the first time this trifecta has received such adulation. This season, they have tallied a total of 44 goals and 45 assists over 16 games. Smith noted that these three players “have stepped up hugely, not only through their contributions in points, but also [with] the leadership they provide and their work ethic.” This trio is reminiscent of the Triple Crown line of the 1975-88 Los Angeles Kings, the first line in National Hockey League (NHL) history to combine for over 100 points in a single season. This

Eleanor Milman | Illustrator line has great potential; although they don’t play together regularly during five on five play, on the power play they are a formidable force and a major contribution to the Martlets’ offensive punch. The Martlets also have the benefit of great goaltending.

Andrea Weckman started on Sunday with a save percentage of .935 and three shutouts in nine games. She is ranked first in the RSEQ conference, right ahead of her teammate Taylor Hough who is ranked second and has a save percentage of .897 in six games against tough opponents.

With a team built around a large group of returning veterans, it can be hard coming in as a rookie, especially on a team as good as McGill’s.

But the Martlets also have several new rookies this year who are making their mark, one of whom is see-

ing significant ice time. On defence, Emily Davis, whose play resembles the Pittsburg Penguins’ Olli Määttä, has played 15 games this season. In that time, Davis has tallied 3 points along with only 12 penalty minutes.

Although her total number of points is not especially high, her presence is felt on the ice. In a few years, Davis could emerge as a keystone of the Martlets defence. For now, she is paying her dues and working her way up the ladder. As Smith said: “It’s a big jump both athletically and academically for these players to make, but they are working hard and doing good. [They] still have some learning to do, but I am very happy with their performance.”

With a squad of such skill and depth, it is really no surprise that the Martlets remain unbeaten this

Everybody get up and write for sports now Space jam (We got a real jam going now)

season. The Martlets started off the season strong and, with the playoffs coming up, hope to continue their success. It is fair to say that they have a lot of pressure on them and expectations are at an all-time high. McGill has had success in the past at the Canadian Interuniversity Sports (CIS) Cup, winning back-to-back titles in 2007-08 and 2008-09. The Martlets’ most recent CIS Cup championship came back in the 2010-11 season.

Unfortunately luck has not been on their side since then.

In 2011-12 McGill was listed as the top-seeded team at the CIS Cup but was eliminated in the first round by an underdog Calgary team. Calgary went on to win the entire tournament. The year after, the Martlets found themselves in unfamiliar territory. They failed to qualify for Na-

tionals for the first time since 200405, losing to Université de Montreal.

You would think the team’s regular season success and recent post-season blues would start to play mind games as the playoffs approach, but that’s not the case. As Smith says, “I have a short term memory. We all just focus on the game at hand.”

The Martlets still have some regular season games left to play and, given how the team is playing, it is not unrealistic to believe that they could finish with an undefeated season. They are also talented, hardworking, and tough. After two early exits from the playoffs, you can bet they’re going in with a chip on their shoulder. They want to prove they are the best team in women’s hockey by bringing that cup home to McConnell Arena.

Contributor meetings Tuesday, 5:30 p.m.

Shatner B-24 email sports@mcgilldaily.com

Culture

February 10, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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Revisionist art Kent Monkman’s “Welcome to the Studio” challenges traditional narratives of Canadian history Lily Shaddick Culture Writer

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t is always a challenge to start something new, whatever the project may be. For some, such as Kent Monkman, the artist-in-residence at the McCord Museum, the process may prove to be a bit more intricate than for others. Monkman, an established Toronto artist of Cree ancestry, works within a variety of mediums. He drew on the McCord’s Notman Photographic Archive, which has over 600,000 photographs taken by the Notman studio, and Gustave Courbet’s famous painting “The Painter’s Studio” (1854-55) as inspiration for a work that was unveiled at the museum’s vernissage last week.

Spanning 7.3 metres in length, the painting was – literally – no small feat. Monkman looked through over 30,000 images from the 19th century photographer to incorporate over 30 into his work. On viewing, it is clear “Welcome to the Studio” successfully used the black and white photos to draw attention not only to Canada’s colonialist legacy, but the impact colonialist histories have on our perception of events and the implications this perception has for Canadian Indigenous identities, past and present.

Monkman’s works often engage with the political, social, and sexual aspects of the identity and history of Indigenous people in Canada. True to his practice, “Welcome to the Studio” explores Indigenous identities, past contact with settlers, and the construction of historical narratives

by superimposing figures from the Notman collection onto the arrangement of Courbet’s Painter Studio.

Monkman portrays himself in the place of Courbet, but in the garb and pose of William Notman’s own famous self-portrait. Unavoidably, this compositional representation ties Monkman to the two other men, while raising questions of his identity as an artist and an individual of Cree descent.

Like Courbet’s, Monkman’s piece is split into three sections that present the viewer with his inner circle, those who define his identity on the right side, and those who willingly participate as spectacles on the left side and peripheries.

The painting is rife with symbolism and allegorical representations of his Cree ancestors and the white Notman figures who interact with one another across the board.

Monkman presents a playful scene that emphasizes cross-cultural relationships that undoubtedly occurred, but which have been erased through hegemonic, colonialist narratives of the European explorer and the marginalized Indigenous perspective. His incorporation of men from the Notman photographs is significant; his careful, and at times ironic, juxtaposition of the figures alert viewers to the importance that historical relations and narration play in contemporary identity formation, not only for Indigenous people but for those of settler ancestry as well. In this regard, the painting immediately asks viewers to become self-reflexive of their own cultural identities and

Gustave Courbet’s “The Painter’s Studio.”

Kent Monkman’s “Welcome to the Studio.” ancestry. The interactive aspect of the painting, wherein the viewer can sit on a stool that strategically places their reflection in the place of Monkman, furthers the piece’s request for self-reflexivity.

Photography as a medium stands in as ‘fact,’ ‘evidence,’ or ‘proof’ of events, while painting, on the other hand, is rarely granted such power.

By incorporating photography into his piece, Monkman blends ‘reality’ with fictive narratives and questions the absoluteness of photography’s ability to tell truth. This is particularly significant when considering the reality of the ‘historical’ depic-

Creative Commons

Tamim Sujat | The McGill Daily

tions of Indigenous people, which were frequently staged and functioned to reduce their identities to stereotypes of ‘noble savages’

By incorporating photography into his piece, Monkman blends ‘reality’ with fictive narratives and questions the absoluteness of photography’s ability to tell truth. doomed for ‘extinction’ in the eyes of European settlers. This colonialist narrative is evident in photos of the Notman collection, such as the photograph of a white man dressed-up in Indigenous clothing (an act of cultural appropriation that, by the way, is still unfortunately practiced every Halloween), which Monkman incorporated into his piece. Such photos are examples of the way crafted historical narratives influence the way Indigenous people are represented and perceived by our society today.

As an artist, Monkman is clever and insightful. His piece challeng-

es viewers to reassess colonialist histories by inverting the typical power dynamics between Indigenous people and colonizers and inserting elements of sexuality and homoeroticism. When approached for a comment on what viewers should take from the piece, Monkman simply replied the viewing was up to the individual, that they could think upon the content and mediate it for themselves; a tongue-in-cheek answer that matched the complex yet playful nature of his piece. The sheer detail of his work enables Monkman’s piece to be successful in crafting a reflective and questioning audience.

“Welcome to the Studio” asks us to reassess the narratives and relationships that we are frequently presented with as facts of Canadian history. His piece casts a critical, and in some instances subversive, eye on the typical representation of the Indigenous person/colonizer binary through the melding of painting and photography, reality and imagination. Monkman’s focus on multiple identities (the artist, the Indigenous person, and settler) functions to both analyze the conventional settler-Indigenous people relationship and to prompt audiences to reassess the dominant interpretation of Canadian history on the part of the audience.

“Welcome to the Studio” is on display at the McCord Museum (690 Sherbrooke W.) until June 1.

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Culture

February 10, 2014 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Orientalism meets photography The Canadian Centre for Architecture presents “Photographing the Arab city in the 19th century” Graham MacVannel Culture Writer

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Photographing the Arab city in the 19th century” takes a critical look at images taken of the Middle East from the 19th century up to the beginning of the 20th century. The show is premised on re-envisioning these early images of Middle Eastern and North African cities outside of the context of orientalism, investigating them for the stories they tell about contemporary urban life.

Upon entering the exhibit, it becomes immediately clear that the photographs can be divided into those re-examining the 19th century Islamic city and those indicating the constant development of photography in use at the time. The collection itself strikes a balance between the Arab city as characterized by the curator – visiting academic Jorge Correia – and its surrounding landscapes, with cities depicted by snapshots, spanning from their stylized alleyways to their enclosed courtyards, with the most personal of spaces sealed away by constructed wooden lattice clinging to the sandstone buildings’ outer walls.

The panoramas of the cities (Cairo generally) are arguably the most breathtaking photos, with countless

minarets rising above densely constructed cities in the middle of the desert, with little obvious rational planning at first glance, and nothing separating the urban centre from the desert but ancient decaying city walls.

Even beyond the city limits, the photographers’ images capture the dilapidation of colossal domed royal tombs among the empty sand dunes of the Egyptian desert.

The small exhibit aims to tackle the predominantly Western, orientalist perception of the Arab world that characterized the production of these photographs. It is through these images that 19th century Europe indulged what Edward Said, author of foundational text Orientalism, conceived to be “the essentializing of these societies as undeveloped, fabricating a view of culture that can be reproduced.” Many of the photos used in the exhibit were originally created for tourism or academic purposes, distributed and shown across Europe. They helped fashion an immutable view of Islamic culture, defined by its chaotic, ungovernable cities and landscapes, feeding the imperialistic impressions of the people gazing at them.

The collection of urban city shots viewed from a perspective of urban planning are the most fascinat-

Tamim Sujat | The McGill Daily ing. The distant panoramic views of Cairo at the turn of the century, arguably some of the best images in the gallery, betray the social fabric of the time which was interwoven with the urban scene. On closer examination, the density of these cities becomes immediately obvious, as does their complete lack of linear roads and accessways. Correia describes the cities as pedestrian-based, with only minarets and a few major

routes carving through. What was mistaken for romanticized chaos by 19th century Europeans was in fact the result of a largely pedestrian city, organized by social clusters focused on local mosques and the surrounding markets and semi-public spaces contained within them.

The contemporaneity of the photographs themselves goes beyond the time period. Thinking of Montreal, one can’t help but be struck by the un-

canny resemblance between the scattered minarets and a city renowned for its steeples. The timelessness of urbanism and the social fabrics the photos display makes this exhibit well worth the visit.

“Photographing the Arab city in the 19th century” is on display at the Canadian Centre for Architecture until May 25. Visit www.cca. qc.ca for more details.

Rock ’n’ Roma Musical benefit helps Roma families fighting deportation Rosie Long Decter The McGill Daily

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asa del Popolo was packed last Monday night for a singing, dancing, political good time at Rock ’n’ Roma, a benefit for local Roma families fighting deportation. The evening featured four different Roma music groups, interspersed with first-hand stories from Montreal Roma families.

Organized by Solidarity Across Borders, a Montreal-based migrant justice network, and Romanipe, a community organization for Roma people, the benefit raised money and awareness for Roma families struggling to stay in Canada by harnessing music’s unique ability to engage and inspire.

Roma people have been immigrating to Canada from Central and Eastern Europe in large numbers, seeking asylum from harsh discrimination, described by Rock ’n’ Roma organizers as “neo-Nazism.” Canada receives more immigrants claiming refugee status from Hungary (a country with

a large Roma population) than from any other nation. Roma have a long history of being stereotyped and misrepresented in popular culture, often derogatorily referred to as ‘gypsies,’ and incorrectly portrayed as nomadic.

These prejudices have emerged from longstanding oppression of Roma, still prevalent in countries such as Hungary, where discrimination ranges from the violent attacks of right wing extremists, to an everyday bus-rider refusing to sit beside a Roma person. Now, discrimination follows the Roma to Canada, where the federal government has designated Hungary as a “safe” country and is rejecting Roma people’s claims to refugee status. The proceeds from last Monday’s events are going toward legal services and claims applications for Montreal’s Roma asylum seekers.

The event itself drew from a broader base than the Montreal Roma community. Hosted by Dafina Savic, founder of Romanipe, and Norman Nawrocki, Montreal artist, Rock ’n’

Roma packed Casa del Popolo with an eclectic mix of Roma families, Montreal activists, and music enthusiasts.

While politics was the motivator for the evening, music was its driving force, connecting the array of guests to a rich Roma musical history and to each other through song and dance.

Some musicians often have trouble defining ‘Roma music,’ and claim that due to the group’s diaspora, Roma music has adopted other styles depending on the country of settlement. Others insist that despite the diaspora, there remains a distinctive Roma sound. The four acts of Rock ’n’ Roma displayed a continuity indicative of this arguably distinctive traditional sound, such as the use of the accordion, intricately quick chromatic and pentatonic solos, and melismatic (warbling) vocals. But they also incorporated elements that the average listener would not associate with traditional folk music, such as electric guitar or synth, justifying the inclusion of “Rock” in the event’s title and

showing that traditional music can be adapted and updated.

Shukar Roma, the first group to perform, consisted of Sergiu Popa and Dan Armeanca, a Moldovan accordionist and Romaan guitarist, respectively, who met in Montreal.

Both virtuosos, their different musical backgrounds and styles of playing – more traditional accordion and jazzier guitar – were perfectly in sync. Popa’s almost frantic accordion playing provided a melody line so fluid that it was impossible to tell when he was improvising, while Armeanca’s electric guitar somehow managed to combine modern jazz, 1960s surf-pop, and centuries-old folk music. The second act featured Boris Bartula on accordion and vocals, accompanied by electric violin. Bartula performed with a much more traditional sound that had the infectious air of a large family or community celebration, quickly turning Casa del Popolo into a dance hall. The last two performances

most encapsulated the evolution of Roma music from traditional to modern, as Marijan Zivkovic’s Band explored synthetic accordion and clarinet sounds on their keyboards, and DJ Touski played his set using a laptop. The artists themselves had their own connections to the cause as well, in particular the members of Marijan Zivkovic’s Band, Roma who fled Croatia due to violence and discrimination and are now living in LaSalle without status.

Rock ’n’ Roma was the product of different and disparate communities, styles, and histories coming together.

The partnership of Romanipe and Solidarity Across Borders, the mixed audience of Roma and activists, and the interplay between traditional and mainstream music created an evening of harmonies. Events such as Rock ’n’ Roma help build the Roma base in Montreal, creating a community of allies and musicians to make the voice of the Roma heard – hopefully loud enough to reach Parliament Hill.

Editorial

volume 103 number 19

editorial board 3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-24 Montreal, QC H3A 1X9

February 10, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Delegitimizing police brutality

phone 514.398.6784 fax 514.398.8318 mcgilldaily.com coordinating editor

Anqi Zhang

coordinating@mcgilldaily.com coordinating news editor

Hannah Besseau news editors

Molly Korab Jordan Venton-Rublee Dana Wray commentary & compendium! editors

E.k. Chan Emmet Livingstone

culture editor

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Carla Green

science+technology editor

Diana Kwon

health&education editor

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multimedia editor

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photo editor

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Davide Mastracci design & production editor

Rachel Nam web editor

Igor Sadikov le délit

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rec@delitfrancais.com cover design Zola contributors Janna Bryson, Antu Das, Arithra C. Debnath, Khoa Doan, Sam Harris, Angela Hsieh, Rosie Long Decter, Graham MacVannel, Eleanor Milman, Sivakami Mylvaganam, Leyla Omeragic, Saad Salahuddin, Emily Saul, Lily Shaddick, Enbal Singer, Jasmine Wang, Eric White, Drew Wolfson Bell, Zola

Alice Shen | The McGill Daily

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ast Monday, February 3, a man was shot by police outside the Berri bus terminal. The victim has been identified as Alain Magloire, a homeless man in his 40s, who was reportedly holding a hammer at the time – a detail mentioned by the police to justify their use of firearms. Reports indicate that the police shot him four times, despite being directed by their superiors to hold off on using their weapons. The incident marked yet another instance in which the Montreal police (the SPVM) have abused their power, particularly against those most marginalized by society. Last Monday’s shooting was not the first case of police aggression in the past few years against homeless individuals, nor was it the first fatal case.

The SPVM’s use of extreme force, and its mistreatment of marginalized groups, particularly the homeless, has drawn much attention in recent years. In 2012, the police shot and killed Farshad Mohammadi, a homeless man, on the Bonaventure metro platform. Their actions against the homeless extend beyond direct violence, as shown in a recent video of a police officer threatening to tie a homeless man to a pole in the freezing cold as a form of punishment.

This is clearly a failure by the organization to faithfully serve people in the society they are supposed to protect, and displays a disturbing trend of targeting the homeless. Police action against the homeless is often excused as a form of control over ‘dangerous’ individuals.

Stigma against this highly visible and vulnerable population is often coupled with a negative and misinformed view of mental health issues, as it was in the cases of both Magloire and Mohammadi.

Furthermore, in an environment where police are given such latitude with respect to violence, the systems of oversight for these acts must be strong – yet the

SPVM’s system has proved itself insufficient. In the moments leading up to last Monday’s shooting, the officers were reportedly told not to use their weapons and to wait for a superior officer to arrive with a taser. Instead, the officers went ahead and used their firearms. If the organization is given the ability to use as much force as they see fit, it needs to implement better protocols that avoid the use of tasers and guns and emphasize the dangers of their misuse. Given the prevalence of incidents involving the two, it is crucial to have extensive training that teaches police officers how to appropriately interact with people with mental health issues without resorting to violence.

However, the fundamental problem is that police are given the power to use severe violence legitimately.

In essence, the police force has been given carte blanche to use violence, as long as it is framed as a means of maintaining order. In many cases, police abuse of power is justified and sustained by societal biases that label certain individuals as more dangerous. Such rhetoric against those who are most vulnerable obscures the gross injustices perpetrated by police under the guise of defence of society.

To give the police such a monopoly on legitimized, state-supported violence is not just frightening. It also serves to uphold prevalent, and often marginalizing, biases within society – biases that then, in circular fashion, permit the police to continue their abuses. It is in our society’s name that police commit these violent acts; therefore, it is up to us, its members, to debunk the marginalizing perceptions that permit this violence. It is up to us to deny the police their legitimacy.

—The McGill Daily Editorial Board

Errata 3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-26 Montreal, QC H3A 1X9 phone 514.398.6790 fax 514.398.8318 advertising & general manager Boris Shedov sales representative Letty Matteo ad layout & design Geneviève Robert

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ISSN 1192-4608.

In the article “Indigenous Access McGill searches for funding” (News, page 5, February 3), The Daily incorrectly named Mary Shen as a member of IAM; in fact, she is a student supported through IAM named Mary Shem. In addition, The Daily misstated the titles of Nicole Ives and Michael Loft as an assistant professor and professional associate, respectively; in fact, their titles are professor and academic associate. In addition, The Daily incorrectly referred to the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology as the University of British Columbia. Lastly, The Daily stated that Claire StewartKanigan spoke with Christopher Manfredi at AUS Council; in fact, they spoke at the January 22 Senate meeting.

The Daily regrets the errors.

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19

Compendium!

February 10, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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Lies, half-truths, and fucking off this shitty planet forever

“Everybody in this building needs to be shot into outer space” SHMU Council meeting runs until wee hours, discusses referendum motions E.k. EK The McGall Weekly

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empers flared at the most recent gathering of the Students’ Headquarters of McGall University (SHMU) Council, as debates on contentious issues raged until 2:43 a.m. when the meeting was finally adjourned.

Refusing to allow any hot topics to go undiscussed, councillors endured stale, cold samosas and slowly failing vocal cords.

The meeting was prolonged beyond its usual tedium due to the consideration of several new motions for the upcoming SHMU referendum period this semester.

Among the uncharacteristically long list of motions for the referendum was a motion regarding the relocation of certain offices within SHMU, which took up most of the debating time during the meeting.

The motion was moved by SHMU Vice-President (VP) Extraterrestrial Sham Haggis, and VP Universal Affairs Showy Jay, and resolves to “shoot certain offices currently located in the SHMU building into fucking outer space once and for all.” The resolutions go on to specify that The Weekly office in particular

“has a crater in the moon with its name on it,” and that the entirety of the SHMU office should be “given the astronomical boot, if you know what I mean.” Other smaller offices were also slated for launch, but in less grandiose and descriptive fashion.

When debate opened on the motion, opinions were highly polarized. Immediate concerns were raised about the logistics of the operation. SHMU President Karp Larping was among the first to speak up. “Sure, it needs to happen. But how? Are we gonna get a demo team and rip these offices out the side of the building? Or just collect everything inside them and load it into a spaceship?”

Several councillors spoke out in favour of the motion, but with reservations about its limited scope. Damn Bannermore, representative for the Department of Brain Thinky Science, suggested that, economically speaking, it would be worth including a number of offices located elsewhere on campus in the ejecta.

Bannermore indicated several floors of the Farts building, as well as certain offices within the MacDoodle Engineering building that “could certainly use a trip to the surface of Pluto.”

Very few were vocal opponents of the gist of the plan itself, but instead fierce debate continued for hours on the scale and management of the plan. Sham Haggis spoke up in favour of his more conservative motion to only send a few offices from the SHMU building. “If we’re going to be honest, everybody in this building needs to get shot into outer space. I think we can all agree on that. But it isn’t doable.”

A representative from the Department of Criticism and Critiquing, King Sharzem-O’Granny, emphasized the urgency of having the motion moved forward in the upcoming referendum. “The longer we all stay on the surface of this shitty planet, the longer we have to fuck everything up.”

The meeting finally adjourned when it was decided that the motion would proceed as a referendum question, with minor amendments. Rather than selecting a few offices, the question now reads that the entirety of the SHMU building is to be lifted from its foundations with several rockets strapped to its sides.

The precise logistics are yet to be made explicit, but details will follow if the question passes referendum later this semester.

E.k. EK | The McGall Weekly

Goodbye and thanks for all the memes McGall Memes supremo reflects on a neglected art form Braniel Daden The McGall Weekly

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hen people ask me about my post-graduation plans, I often tell them that I am done with McGall. For the past four years this university has been hostile and rude and highly dismissive.

I am exasperated with this university and everything about it. McGall is a school full of bureaucracy, grade deflation, and incredibly pretentious and hypocritical undergrads who don’t laugh at memes.

I mean come on guys, memes are really funny and critical. It’s like humour but with jokes you’ve heard before. You know like how

people in the Faculty of Farts don’t get jobs, McGall is cold, and Disservice Point has long lines. But all these ideas are put over funny pictures of animals and figures from pop culture.

I’m sorry, I got distracted. Conferences are full of hostile students who are fighting for recognition at the expense of friendship and cooperation. Competition for grades leaves no room for collaboration.

Also no one in conferences goes, ‘Hey! Are you the meme man?

Good job on the memes, man!’ or similarly clever ways of congratulating someone for being really creative and a meme-master.

Also, McGall’s administration

refuses to provide students with essential guidance like mental health services or an acknowledgement of a certain Facebook page with thousands of likes.

McGall is full of hostile students, did I mention that the students were hostile and not friendly? There is no larger campus culture. I know we are a large diverse campus unwilling to coalesce around a scandal-ridden oppressive sports culture like schools in the United States. But how about memes? Have we tried that? What if we all came together to laugh at memes? Like memes were football? Or religion? What if we all worshipped memes? I have

a really funny one about snowfall which uses a picture of a frog. It’s a really good image macro, we can worship it. Okay? Oh. Alright, that’s cool, yeah we don’t have to do that. I was totally joking, I was so joking I am going to make an image macro of a cat with what I am saying over it.

Also the level of hypocrisy which characterizes campus media is sickening. Not only do I not agree with my strawmen which I have constructed based on misperceptions of an article in The McGall Weekly, but also the campus media has such a skewed ratio of image to text. I mean how can you have legitimate discourse without more

pictures? Also, I think The Weekly and other media outlets should use Impact. It’s such a great font.

Finally the Students’ Headquarters of McGall University (SHMU) is just as hypocritical. They aren’t bilingual which somehow relates to my previous points. Neither are McGall memes, but it’s different because I had two or three memes which had French words in them.

Am I satisfied with my McGall experience? No. When I graduate this spring, I will never entertain McGall with my memes ever again.

Braniel Daden is the creator, curator, and mastermind behind McGall Memes.