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CANADALAND - (Détours) - Le coût de l’expression

(Podcast in French--I'm writing in English for French context to anglos, and writing in French for English context to francos, and then I just keep going in French I guess :))

In 1968, Pierre Vallières, a noted Québecois author, published "White N----- of America", a complaint about the state of French Canadians and a foundational primer for Québec sovereignty. In the last year or two, three people with our national broadcaster (CBC/Radio-Canada), Wendy Mesley (discussing the book off the air with her producers) and two French broadcasters (on the air) mentioned the book while pronouncing the whole n-word.

Mesley s'était fait demander de ne pas utiliser le mot, mais se défendant que le livre était historique, elle l'a ré-utilisé plus tard. Certains de ses collègues se sont plaints, Mesley s'est fait enlever son poste d'animatrice lors d'un remaniement, et est finalement partie à la retraite. C'est toute une débarque pour celle qui était l'animatrice de fin de semaine du National et qu'on a longtemps pensé allait remplacer Peter Mansbridge, l'animateur-monument du National.

On the French side, two hosts used the full book title on the air to discuss the case of a University of Ottawa prof who was reprimanded for using it in class. Some people complained, which led the CRTC (comms regulator) to investigate both cases. Then the CRTC published its report, which said that CBC should issue a formal apology. This made a bunch of boomer journalist personalities in Québec publish an explosive public letter demanding that R-C appeal this report. In turn, this generated more discussion on TV, radio and newspapers of all kinds, which almost all repeated/reprinted the book's title in full, while discussing "Freedom of speech."

Dans tout ce débat, il manque les voix des personnes racisées et des journalistes plus jeunes. Émilie Nicolas, qui est chroniqueuse au Devoir, à la Gazette, contributrice chez Canadaland (une rare chroniqueuse culturelle qui traverse les deux langues et trois contextes (Québec franco et anglo, et Canada anglo)), invite Vanessa Destiné, une chroniqueuse qui est familière avec la culture interne de Radio-Canada. Deux femmes noires qui discutent du problème sous plusieurs angles intéressants, sans avoir à répondre aux questions d'interlocuteurs blancs qui sont obnubilés sur la question de la liberté d'expression, et ne pensent pas du tout aux conséquences.

Un segment particulièrement intéressant discute de la sursolicitation de certains chroniqueuses noires lors de débats sur la race, l'harcèlement auquel elles font face en ces moments, et une reconnaissance de celles qui sont "tombées au combat", qui ont dû arrêter de commenter sur ces questions dû à ce harcèlement trop intense.


Commons: Mining - The Crying of Lot 8

Canadaland's Commons podcast did a series on the Canadian mining industry, which is more or less the HQ of the global mining industry due to lax legal oversight. The last episode is a particularly good exposé of the kind of murders, rapes and other abuses committed by Canadian mining companies abroad. The episode also goes into difficult efforts and successes for activists trying to sue companies in civil courts to account for their actions.



The East is a Podcast - Dr. Salman Abu Sitta & Visualizing Palestine in Conversation (2019)

Dr. Salman Abu Sitta is the creator of the Visualizing Palestine project. Here he is on a panel being interviewed about the project, how it came about, how they go about obtaining information from multiple archives, and great insights that came about in the course of the project.


Métis In Space - Generation Energy Science Interview

Another panel recording! A scientist turned poet, an alternative energy engineer and the manager of a long horizon research organisation discuss climate change and doomsday scenarios in an indigenous context. That was fascinating.


I have lots more podcasts to feature but when it's been more than a week I've listened to them, my memory fades and I can't really write a good summary...

If you aren't in Canada or haven't been paying much attention to the news, most news organizations have been obsessed with the Tamil refugee ship, the MV Sun See, that's arrived in BC. On board are 490 Tamils seeking refugee status in Canada.

This is very much a story about media fear-mongering about brown people coming to Canada.

Now, I don't know if news organizations have paid attention, but the LTTE have been pretty much been annihilated. By that I obviously don't mean to say that there are no Tamil Tigers left, but organizationally, they've pretty much hit the bucket. What are they going to be doing in Canada? Raising funds? What for? The war is over.

We were warned last time that there were Tamil Tiger "terrorists" on board, but no one has either been arrested or sent back to Sri Lanka, as far as I know. Granted, this time the Sri Lankan government is saying that the ship's crew and some passengers belong to the Tamil Tigers, but considering how racist this government is, what's that worth? I mean if they are Tamil Tigers, I'm guessing that they have even more of a case in claiming refugee status in Canada, since they can be severely mistreated in Sri Lanka, if not killed in the case of the most serious commanders. I don't know.

The whole media circus around this stinks to high heaven. I hope no one on board is seriously sick; there have been reports of TB. The Victoria hospital has opened a ward for them, at least. Great thanks for public health care.

Latest Right-Wing Meme: Von Brunn's A Lefty

wuh-wuh-what?

The Morning After ‘American Idiot’ - Good article on the new Green Day album.
Obama Is Nudging Views on Race, a Survey Finds.
Voices Reflect Rising Sense of Racial Optimism in the wake of Obama's election. (Companion article to the survey above)

On a more sour note, if you read French:
De la haine d'Obama à la violence armée -- From hatred of Obama to armed violence... Talks about the increase in the number of right-wing extremist and hate crimes groups, and hatred of Obama in general from the like.

Speaking of which, springheel_jack reposts: A longshot Georgia candidate for governor who’s already admitted having sex with a mule before finding God says he’s ready to sacrifice his own son in an effort to get his state to secede from the union.


Bonus for icecreamemperor: Leonard Cohen transformed 'Hallelujah' into a revelation

RCMP officers pinned down aboriginal teenage girl, tasered her legs and her groin area after she threw a drunken punch at an officer.

Her mother wants to know why the officers had to resort to such force when they could have walked away and left her in the locked cell.
[...]
The girl, who is a high-school student, said her wounds were painful for days. The taser broke the skin, leaving red and bloody circular marks on her thighs. The police didn't tell the girl's mother about the incident when she picked her up the next morning, and the girl was too ashamed to tell. As a result, the wounds became infected.

China ready to discuss Tibet

But the decision to talk also reveals a "dilemma" the Chinese Communist Party leadership is now facing, caught between the burgeoning forces of Chinese nationalism on the one hand, and the demands of world civil society on the other. "This will definitely be seen as a climbdown by many people in the nationalist movement," Hughes predicted.

What is this? The "nationalist movement"? Who is the biggest promoter of nationalism in China but the Chinese government? Mao was so successful in part because of his deft use of nationalism (in the light of an anti-colonial struggle) to rally the Chinese people to his side. The "nationalist movement" is not something that is exogenous to the government.

If the Chinese government is afraid of nationalist fervour preventing them "climbing down" on Tibet, they only have themselves to blame. The only kind of demonstrations that have been allowed in China for years have been those that have stoked nationalism, in the face of perceived anti-Chinese actions abroad, in particular the visits to the Shinjuku shrine by the Japanese leaders.

Anyway, if the Chinese government is willing to acknowledge that the Dalai Lama is human after all, it's a good first step, and a vindication for all the violence of the pro-Tibet movement in recent weeks. Violence that pales greatly, it must be said, by the nearly 60-year campaign of cultural genocide by the Chinese government against Tibet, with thousands imprisoned and killed.

(This is no laughing matter, but this is also my only Chinese icon.)

*** ETA:
With a little more than 100 days until the opening ceremonies, the government is keen for its citizens to welcome Westerners, and everyone from around the world.

Of course, the government itself is the not most welcoming to foreigners right now, greatly limiting visas to pre-Olympics visitors.

From debunkingwhite, the two most recent articles by the most excellent Tim Wise on Obama :

Uh-Obama: Racism, White Voters and the Myth of Color-Blindness


and

Another Batch of White Whine: Obama, Black Voters and the Myth of Reverse Racism

Carole McNeil was just interviewing Halle Berry on the CBC... McNeil's first questions were a bit condescending and simplistic, so Berry sent her back some of her banter:

McNeil: "Happy belated 40th birthday."
Berry: "Thank you."
McNeil: "How does it feel to be 40?"
Berry: "It feels fine. How old are you?"
McNeil: "43."
Berry: "How did it feel to turn 40?"

The rest of the piece was about racism in Hollywood and its continued presence, even for Berry.

Largest cache of bomb-making explosives found in British history, terrorists get no bloody attention:
Police officers raided a home in Lancashire on Monday night and uncovered a huge cache of chemicals used to make explosives. Officers say it is the largest haul of such chemicals ever found in this country. One man has already appeared in front of Burnley magistrates charged under the Explosives Substances Act 1883. Another man has also been charged after a raid on his house uncovered rocket launcher and a nuclear biological suit.

You'd have thought this would be national front page news, wouldn't you? After all the hype, at last we have solid evidence of terrorists attempting to perpetrate a murderous outrage on the population - prosecutors say the pair had "some kind of master plan".

Except, of course, that the men charged are not Asian Islamists, but white fascists. Robert Cottage, who has been charged for the explosives haul, stood for the BNP in Colne at the last elections.

follow-up 1: I wrote to the BBC asking why they had not covered the story that bat020 drew attention to of the huge bomb factory discovered in the hands of far right activists, and I got the following reply.

follow-up 2: So, does anyone know what date it is?