This Sunday we spoke with artist, activist, sex worker and whorevolutionary, Mariko Passion, about sex worker rights, the impetus behind her prolific body of work and her upcoming performance with FF-WPR collective member anna Saini at the Granny Boots sex worker showcase.
Check out more of Mariko Passions deeply personal and powerful work at her blog www.marikopassion.wordpress.com or her facebook page www.facebook.com/marikopassionsongs.
Or check her out along with anna Saini and the sex worker talent extravaganza going on at Granny Boots this Wednesday September 29th 7:30PM at the Melody Bar in the Gladstone Hotel on Queen West.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
Headlines September 19th
The Six-Band Tsilhqot’in nation in the interior of British Colombia have promised fierce resistance if the Harper government green-lights the development of the$800 million QUOTE “prosperity” END QUOTE gold and copper mine on their traditional territory. The mine would turn a lake that is sacred to the First Nation and that holds 90 000 unique rainbow trout into a tailings dump, replacing it with an artificial lake. If the Cabinet gives final approval to the mine it would be overruling for the first time in Canadian history, a Federal environmental impact study that recommended against the mine, concluding it would have a QUOTE “high-magnitute, long-term and irreversible effect” END QUOTE.
The entire 2000-mile US-Mexico border will now be patrolled by predator drones as part of a policy to increase border militarization overseen by President Obama ahead of November elections.
As many as 2000 additional troops, mostly American, may be headed to occupy Afghanstan under a plan proposed by US General David Petraeus, potentially bringing the US troop levels above the 30 000 authorized by Obama earlier this year.
The Department of National Defence denied that Canadian troops are involved in trafficking heroin, after the British Sunday Times and the BBC reported that Britain’s Ministry of Defence was investigating claims that soldiers from the two countries were smuggling drugs out of Southern Afghanistan on military aircrafts.
Briefing notes obtained by the Canadian Press revealed that a member of the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, boasted to Canadian military officers in May 2009 that his organization was able to QUOTE “torture” END QUOTE and QUOTE “beat” END QUOTE prisoners during its interrogations.
The Halifax Peace Coalition (HPC) protested DEFSEC Atlantic, a defence and security exhibition in the city, which included Lockheed Martin. Over the summer, Lockheed received a no-bid contract worth $16 billion to sell F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Jets to the Department of National Defence. QUOTE “The Federal government should be investing in hospitals, schools and affordable housing to provide true security for Canadians, not Fighter Jets“,END QUOTE said Tamara Lorincz a peace activist with HPC.
Canadian journalists were falsely signed onto a petition organized by internet advocacy group avaaz.org. The petition opposed the introduction of Quebecor’sSunTV News channel, dubbed QUOTE “Fox News North” END QUOTE into Canada. The news channel would be run by Prime Minister Harper’s former Director of Communications, Kory Teneycke, whose name was also added to the petition, and who was contacted by the trickster. QUOTE “We have taken on some pretty nasty characters in our three-and-a-half-years- everyone from Bush to Burmese dictators to corrupt politicians in Brazil and Germany,” END QUOTE, said Avaaz executive Director, Ricken Patel of the fraudulent signatures. QUOTE “No one has tried this before.” END QUOTE
Briefing notes received under access to information requests revealed the Canadian Security Intelligence Agency says it would use torture-tainted information and share it with foreign governments, violating a Federal policy issued last year that directed the spy agency to QUOTE “not knowingly rely upon information which is derived from the use of torture” END QUOTE
Police continued to make arrests in relation to June’s G20 protests in Toronto, charging 28-year-old Montreal resistant, Juan Lepore with mischief exceeding $5000, mischief endangering life and assault.
In other G20 related news, G20 defendant Alex Hundert was arrested from his home at 10:30 PM after the “Strengthening Our Resolve” event on September 17, 2010. The authorities are alleging breach of ‘no protest’ condition. Hundert appeared at Old City Hall the following morning. The Toronto Community Mobilization Network put out an urgent call for court support. Please keep checking http://g20.torontomobilize.org/ for details and updates.
In other local news, the Queer Resistance Network held a public demonstration outside the 519 Community Centre on September 18 to build the anti-policing movement and build bonds with the community and in response to a recent decision by the. Ontario Police to use the 519 for a recruitment session.
Hundreds of Guatemalan migrant workers and their allies protested at the Canadian embassy in Guatemala City, denouncing the abusive treatment of migrants under the Temporary Foreign Workers Program, under which 4000 Guatemalan migrants work in Canada’s agricultural sector every season.
Distress with the Temporary Foriegn Worker Program can be felt right here in Canada. In a recent media advisory, Justicia for Migrant Workers (J4MW), an advocacy group for the rights of migrant workers, expressed its outrage over the arrest and detension of 11 migrant agricultural workers. They were arrested on the morning of Tuesday, August 31 during an immigration raid conducted in the Chatham-Kent area. All 11 arrested were migrant agricultural workers employed on local farms. They are presently being held in detension in the Windsor jail. QUOTE “J4mW and countless community, legal and labour organizations have expressed their consistent opposition to the mistreatment faced by current and former temporary foreign workers” END QUOTE, says Tzazna Miranda Leal, QUOTE “over the last year, there have been petitions, deputations, and delegations made to Federal, provincial politicians to no avail” END QUOTE, she continues.
In related news, J4MW learnt of the death of 2 Jamaican migrant workers, as a result of workplace injuries near Owen Sound, Ontario. J4MW notes that such accidents and accompanying violations of workplace safety standards are commonplace for migrant workers and urges the Minister of Labour to take steps to prevent future deaths and injury. We would like to offer our condolences to the families of the two workers.
Canadian Minister of Citizenship and Immegration, Jasen Kenney visited Asia to build support for law enforcement to crack down on human smuggling and flights of refugees to Canada, a month after a boatload of Tamil refugees arrived in British Colombia. An Immegration and Refugee Board hearing in Vancouver ordered the release of the first of the Tamil refugee applicants, a pregnant woman with three children who is suffering from complications to injuries she sustained in Sri Lanka. The 492 Tamil migrants who arrived abord the MV Sun Sea in Esquimalt, BC on August 13 have been held in detension facilities in the Vancouver area with children being put in care by the provincial government.
Eight separate incidents of QUOTE “swarming” END QUOTE over the last two weeks in Halifax landed victims in hospitals and one in surgery. The recent state of QUOTE “random” END QUOTE violence with no QUOTE “profound motivation” END QUOTE went unreported until a victim of the sixth swarming went to the press after he learnt from hospital staff of the previous incidents.
A recent report released by Statistics Canada shows that students in Ontario paid the highest tuition in the country for the second year in a row. Undergraduate students pay an average of $6307 (an increase of 5.4 per cent) and that graduate fees have increased by 10 per cent. The Canadian Federation of Students Ontario called this situation QUOTE “a national embarrassment” END QUOTE.
BP warned the US Congress that if it passed legislation barring the company from acquiring new offshore drilling permits, it wouldn’t have money to pay for damages caused by the Gulf of Mexico spill, leaving observers to concludethe company is using the funds as a bargaining chip to ensure continued access to the Gulf of Mexico,which accounts for 11 Per Cent of its global production of oil.
An offshore petroliam platform exploded and burnt in the Gulf of Mexico, 80 miles of the coast of Louisiana, west of the site where BP’s well spilt.
A fuel tanker ran aground in the Northwest passage, though no spills were reported, as it delivered nine-and-a-half million litres of diesel fuel to remote communities in the Canadian arctic. QUOTE “I don’t know if people are prepared for (a spill),” END QUOTE, said Jeannie Ugiuk, a local MLA.
More than 500 First Nations and Northern BC residents marched in Prince George BC, against a proposed pipeline that would allow Enbridge to transport oil from the Alberta Tar Sands to Canada’s West coast and on to China. The next day, an Enbridge pipeline spilt more than 6000 barrels of oil into an industrial park near Romeoville, Illinois. QUOTE “This most recent pipeline leak is the nail in the coffin for the Northern Gateway Pipelines Project,” END QUOTE, said Chief Larry Nooski of the Nadleh Whut’en First Nation in a press release.
For good measure, another pipeline in Buffalo leaked an indeterminant amount of oil,enbridges third spill in three months.
Alberta Premier Stelmach said he would compare a recent study that found elevated levels of Mercury, lead and 11 other toxins in the tar sands’ main water source, the Athbasca river, to government research that has backed up long-standing industry claims that oil development has has left the water unaffected. QUOTE “If it means that we have to do something more, we will” END QUOTE he said.
The Harper Government muzzled Natural Resources Canada scientists this spring, telling them they would need QUOTE “pre-approval” END QUOTE from the Minister’s office to speak with national and international journalists. The policy is reserved for QUOTE “high-profile” END QUOTE issues like QUOTE “climate change (and) oilsands” END QUOTE, but access to information documents show the rules are being applied so broadly that a scientist who published a study about a colossal flood that hit Northern Canada 13 000 years ago was prevented from speaking to the media. QUOTE “If you can’t get access to a nice, feel-good science story about flooding at the end of last glaciation, can you imagine trying to get access to scientists with information about cadmium and mercury in the Athbasca river?” END QUOTE said Andrew Weaver, a University of Victoria Climatologist.
Thanks to the dominianpaper.ca and to the various community organizations.
The entire 2000-mile US-Mexico border will now be patrolled by predator drones as part of a policy to increase border militarization overseen by President Obama ahead of November elections.
As many as 2000 additional troops, mostly American, may be headed to occupy Afghanstan under a plan proposed by US General David Petraeus, potentially bringing the US troop levels above the 30 000 authorized by Obama earlier this year.
The Department of National Defence denied that Canadian troops are involved in trafficking heroin, after the British Sunday Times and the BBC reported that Britain’s Ministry of Defence was investigating claims that soldiers from the two countries were smuggling drugs out of Southern Afghanistan on military aircrafts.
Briefing notes obtained by the Canadian Press revealed that a member of the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, boasted to Canadian military officers in May 2009 that his organization was able to QUOTE “torture” END QUOTE and QUOTE “beat” END QUOTE prisoners during its interrogations.
The Halifax Peace Coalition (HPC) protested DEFSEC Atlantic, a defence and security exhibition in the city, which included Lockheed Martin. Over the summer, Lockheed received a no-bid contract worth $16 billion to sell F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Jets to the Department of National Defence. QUOTE “The Federal government should be investing in hospitals, schools and affordable housing to provide true security for Canadians, not Fighter Jets“,END QUOTE said Tamara Lorincz a peace activist with HPC.
Canadian journalists were falsely signed onto a petition organized by internet advocacy group avaaz.org. The petition opposed the introduction of Quebecor’sSunTV News channel, dubbed QUOTE “Fox News North” END QUOTE into Canada. The news channel would be run by Prime Minister Harper’s former Director of Communications, Kory Teneycke, whose name was also added to the petition, and who was contacted by the trickster. QUOTE “We have taken on some pretty nasty characters in our three-and-a-half-years- everyone from Bush to Burmese dictators to corrupt politicians in Brazil and Germany,” END QUOTE, said Avaaz executive Director, Ricken Patel of the fraudulent signatures. QUOTE “No one has tried this before.” END QUOTE
Briefing notes received under access to information requests revealed the Canadian Security Intelligence Agency says it would use torture-tainted information and share it with foreign governments, violating a Federal policy issued last year that directed the spy agency to QUOTE “not knowingly rely upon information which is derived from the use of torture” END QUOTE
Police continued to make arrests in relation to June’s G20 protests in Toronto, charging 28-year-old Montreal resistant, Juan Lepore with mischief exceeding $5000, mischief endangering life and assault.
In other G20 related news, G20 defendant Alex Hundert was arrested from his home at 10:30 PM after the “Strengthening Our Resolve” event on September 17, 2010. The authorities are alleging breach of ‘no protest’ condition. Hundert appeared at Old City Hall the following morning. The Toronto Community Mobilization Network put out an urgent call for court support. Please keep checking http://g20.torontomobilize.org/ for details and updates.
In other local news, the Queer Resistance Network held a public demonstration outside the 519 Community Centre on September 18 to build the anti-policing movement and build bonds with the community and in response to a recent decision by the. Ontario Police to use the 519 for a recruitment session.
Hundreds of Guatemalan migrant workers and their allies protested at the Canadian embassy in Guatemala City, denouncing the abusive treatment of migrants under the Temporary Foreign Workers Program, under which 4000 Guatemalan migrants work in Canada’s agricultural sector every season.
Distress with the Temporary Foriegn Worker Program can be felt right here in Canada. In a recent media advisory, Justicia for Migrant Workers (J4MW), an advocacy group for the rights of migrant workers, expressed its outrage over the arrest and detension of 11 migrant agricultural workers. They were arrested on the morning of Tuesday, August 31 during an immigration raid conducted in the Chatham-Kent area. All 11 arrested were migrant agricultural workers employed on local farms. They are presently being held in detension in the Windsor jail. QUOTE “J4mW and countless community, legal and labour organizations have expressed their consistent opposition to the mistreatment faced by current and former temporary foreign workers” END QUOTE, says Tzazna Miranda Leal, QUOTE “over the last year, there have been petitions, deputations, and delegations made to Federal, provincial politicians to no avail” END QUOTE, she continues.
In related news, J4MW learnt of the death of 2 Jamaican migrant workers, as a result of workplace injuries near Owen Sound, Ontario. J4MW notes that such accidents and accompanying violations of workplace safety standards are commonplace for migrant workers and urges the Minister of Labour to take steps to prevent future deaths and injury. We would like to offer our condolences to the families of the two workers.
Canadian Minister of Citizenship and Immegration, Jasen Kenney visited Asia to build support for law enforcement to crack down on human smuggling and flights of refugees to Canada, a month after a boatload of Tamil refugees arrived in British Colombia. An Immegration and Refugee Board hearing in Vancouver ordered the release of the first of the Tamil refugee applicants, a pregnant woman with three children who is suffering from complications to injuries she sustained in Sri Lanka. The 492 Tamil migrants who arrived abord the MV Sun Sea in Esquimalt, BC on August 13 have been held in detension facilities in the Vancouver area with children being put in care by the provincial government.
Eight separate incidents of QUOTE “swarming” END QUOTE over the last two weeks in Halifax landed victims in hospitals and one in surgery. The recent state of QUOTE “random” END QUOTE violence with no QUOTE “profound motivation” END QUOTE went unreported until a victim of the sixth swarming went to the press after he learnt from hospital staff of the previous incidents.
A recent report released by Statistics Canada shows that students in Ontario paid the highest tuition in the country for the second year in a row. Undergraduate students pay an average of $6307 (an increase of 5.4 per cent) and that graduate fees have increased by 10 per cent. The Canadian Federation of Students Ontario called this situation QUOTE “a national embarrassment” END QUOTE.
BP warned the US Congress that if it passed legislation barring the company from acquiring new offshore drilling permits, it wouldn’t have money to pay for damages caused by the Gulf of Mexico spill, leaving observers to concludethe company is using the funds as a bargaining chip to ensure continued access to the Gulf of Mexico,which accounts for 11 Per Cent of its global production of oil.
An offshore petroliam platform exploded and burnt in the Gulf of Mexico, 80 miles of the coast of Louisiana, west of the site where BP’s well spilt.
A fuel tanker ran aground in the Northwest passage, though no spills were reported, as it delivered nine-and-a-half million litres of diesel fuel to remote communities in the Canadian arctic. QUOTE “I don’t know if people are prepared for (a spill),” END QUOTE, said Jeannie Ugiuk, a local MLA.
More than 500 First Nations and Northern BC residents marched in Prince George BC, against a proposed pipeline that would allow Enbridge to transport oil from the Alberta Tar Sands to Canada’s West coast and on to China. The next day, an Enbridge pipeline spilt more than 6000 barrels of oil into an industrial park near Romeoville, Illinois. QUOTE “This most recent pipeline leak is the nail in the coffin for the Northern Gateway Pipelines Project,” END QUOTE, said Chief Larry Nooski of the Nadleh Whut’en First Nation in a press release.
For good measure, another pipeline in Buffalo leaked an indeterminant amount of oil,enbridges third spill in three months.
Alberta Premier Stelmach said he would compare a recent study that found elevated levels of Mercury, lead and 11 other toxins in the tar sands’ main water source, the Athbasca river, to government research that has backed up long-standing industry claims that oil development has has left the water unaffected. QUOTE “If it means that we have to do something more, we will” END QUOTE he said.
The Harper Government muzzled Natural Resources Canada scientists this spring, telling them they would need QUOTE “pre-approval” END QUOTE from the Minister’s office to speak with national and international journalists. The policy is reserved for QUOTE “high-profile” END QUOTE issues like QUOTE “climate change (and) oilsands” END QUOTE, but access to information documents show the rules are being applied so broadly that a scientist who published a study about a colossal flood that hit Northern Canada 13 000 years ago was prevented from speaking to the media. QUOTE “If you can’t get access to a nice, feel-good science story about flooding at the end of last glaciation, can you imagine trying to get access to scientists with information about cadmium and mercury in the Athbasca river?” END QUOTE said Andrew Weaver, a University of Victoria Climatologist.
Thanks to the dominianpaper.ca and to the various community organizations.
Natasha Henry August 22nd
Today, we spoke with Natasha Henry about her recently published book on Emancipation Day. Natasha Henry read excerpts from her book and talked about the historic roots of Emancipation Day as well as the socio-cultural impacts of Emancipation.
She discussed the role of women in Emancipation day celebrations; such as Chloe Cooley who resisted her enslavement and sale on March 14, 1793 (in Queenston, Upper Canada) and Marie Joseph Angelique who in resisting her enslavement and sale was accused of burning half of Montreal in 1734.
We finally talked about the recent developments within Caribana (the largest Caribbean festival in North America) and the conspicuous absence of a discourse that links it to Emancipation Day.
She discussed the role of women in Emancipation day celebrations; such as Chloe Cooley who resisted her enslavement and sale on March 14, 1793 (in Queenston, Upper Canada) and Marie Joseph Angelique who in resisting her enslavement and sale was accused of burning half of Montreal in 1734.
We finally talked about the recent developments within Caribana (the largest Caribbean festival in North America) and the conspicuous absence of a discourse that links it to Emancipation Day.
Women and Substance Use
By Maria Garrick special for FF-WPR
Introduction:
A number of women in our society are facing challenges whether it is the loss of a love one, family issues, feeling abandon, and dealing with changes in our life or looking for love. We all have fears and doubts. Sometimes they try so hard to cope. Sometimes they are successful and sometimes they are not. Sometime some women turn to substance use as a way of coping.
What are substance use/ abuse?
Definition: DSM-Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorder provides a technical definition:
“Substance abuse is a maladaptive pattern of substance use leading to significant clinically impairment or distress as manifested by various factors occurring within a 12 month period one significant factor being persistent or recurrent social or interpersonal problems caused r exacerbated by the effects of the substances”. (Like relationship difficulties, family problems, parenting….). Here I will also include alcohol to encompass substance use and abuse.
The question is? How is substance use/abuse defined? Who defines it? A more feminist definition of substance use and addiction is provided by Bell Hooks. Bell Hooks in one of her books, Sisters of the Yam - Chapter five on Growing away from addiction provide us with a definition of addiction that I feel is relevant for today.
“Addiction is not a chemical reaction. Addiction is an experience- one which grows out of an individual’s routinized subjective response to something that has special meaning for him- something anything that he finds so safe and reassuring that he cannot be without it… We still find that we learn habits of dependency by growing up in a culture which teaches a sense of personal inadequacy, a reliance on external bulwarks, and a preoccupation with the negative or painful rather than the positive or joyous. Addiction is not an abnormality in our society. It is not an aberration from the norm; it is itself the norm”.
We live in a culture that glorifies drugs and associated drugs with pleasure. The media and social events promote drinking and substance use as a way to feel good….
Research information suggests that women are drinking and this is an issue. In Canada- 4 percent of population over 15 dependent on alcohol. In America 13 to 16 million American needed treatment for alcoholism
Research by Lois Biener —she reported that Habitual use of substance abuse produces behavioral changes that interfere with daily functioning and leads to deterioration in family and social relationships. It is difficult to stop substance use
What are some reasons why women use drugs/alcohol?
1. Biology
2. Genetic
3. Psychology
4. environment/social
5. Feminist views
Susan Harrison and Eva Ingberg - editors, in their book - Alcohol and Drug Problems- a practical guide for counselors, talk about women and substance use. They make reference to Gender Based Statistics taken from Statistic Canada – 2000. They site:
- Women continue to make up the large majority of lone parents in Canada. In 1996, 83 % of all single –parent families were headed by women.
- In 1996-97, 62 per cent of females aged 12 and over reported having some form of chronic health condition as diagnosed by a health professional.
- 56 per cent of all families headed by lone parent mother mothers had incomes that fell below the Low Income Cut-Offs.
- In 1997, the average annual pre-tax income, from all sources, of women aged 15 and over was $19, 800 – just 62 per cent of the average income of men.
- Even when employed women with a spouse and at least one child under age 19 spent an hour and a half a day more than men performing household duties.
Women continue to face challenges- Look at Society’s attitude towards women
Susan Harrison and Ingberg also wrote about societal attitudes towards women-
They make reference to women position in society.
Subordinated and multiple roles
Stereotypes, stigma and how women are judged differently in our society especially when they drink or abuse substance.
How do we define women? Here woman does not refer to a homogenous group. What about age, sexual orientation, physical abilities and marital status etc.?
All women face different challenges and experiences.
What about Immigrant minority women and Aboriginal women?
African Feminist in the Diaspora like Delores Mullings and Hill Collins writes that there is not enough information about African women by African Women.
According to Delores Mullings:
“African Women in Diaspora are challenged to create the space that supports the emergence of knowledge construction relevant to our social location”.
Minority, immigrant women have different experience and challenges.
They face racism, discrimination, unemployment and a host of other issues.
What are some other reasons why women abuse drugs?
Loneliness, poor relationship
Exposure marginalization and powerlessness
Domestic violence
Ways in which society structure
Patriarchal/ inferior status of women/ women’s role
Low self esteem
Introduction:
A number of women in our society are facing challenges whether it is the loss of a love one, family issues, feeling abandon, and dealing with changes in our life or looking for love. We all have fears and doubts. Sometimes they try so hard to cope. Sometimes they are successful and sometimes they are not. Sometime some women turn to substance use as a way of coping.
What are substance use/ abuse?
Definition: DSM-Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorder provides a technical definition:
“Substance abuse is a maladaptive pattern of substance use leading to significant clinically impairment or distress as manifested by various factors occurring within a 12 month period one significant factor being persistent or recurrent social or interpersonal problems caused r exacerbated by the effects of the substances”. (Like relationship difficulties, family problems, parenting….). Here I will also include alcohol to encompass substance use and abuse.
The question is? How is substance use/abuse defined? Who defines it? A more feminist definition of substance use and addiction is provided by Bell Hooks. Bell Hooks in one of her books, Sisters of the Yam - Chapter five on Growing away from addiction provide us with a definition of addiction that I feel is relevant for today.
“Addiction is not a chemical reaction. Addiction is an experience- one which grows out of an individual’s routinized subjective response to something that has special meaning for him- something anything that he finds so safe and reassuring that he cannot be without it… We still find that we learn habits of dependency by growing up in a culture which teaches a sense of personal inadequacy, a reliance on external bulwarks, and a preoccupation with the negative or painful rather than the positive or joyous. Addiction is not an abnormality in our society. It is not an aberration from the norm; it is itself the norm”.
We live in a culture that glorifies drugs and associated drugs with pleasure. The media and social events promote drinking and substance use as a way to feel good….
Research information suggests that women are drinking and this is an issue. In Canada- 4 percent of population over 15 dependent on alcohol. In America 13 to 16 million American needed treatment for alcoholism
Research by Lois Biener —she reported that Habitual use of substance abuse produces behavioral changes that interfere with daily functioning and leads to deterioration in family and social relationships. It is difficult to stop substance use
What are some reasons why women use drugs/alcohol?
1. Biology
2. Genetic
3. Psychology
4. environment/social
5. Feminist views
Susan Harrison and Eva Ingberg - editors, in their book - Alcohol and Drug Problems- a practical guide for counselors, talk about women and substance use. They make reference to Gender Based Statistics taken from Statistic Canada – 2000. They site:
- Women continue to make up the large majority of lone parents in Canada. In 1996, 83 % of all single –parent families were headed by women.
- In 1996-97, 62 per cent of females aged 12 and over reported having some form of chronic health condition as diagnosed by a health professional.
- 56 per cent of all families headed by lone parent mother mothers had incomes that fell below the Low Income Cut-Offs.
- In 1997, the average annual pre-tax income, from all sources, of women aged 15 and over was $19, 800 – just 62 per cent of the average income of men.
- Even when employed women with a spouse and at least one child under age 19 spent an hour and a half a day more than men performing household duties.
Women continue to face challenges- Look at Society’s attitude towards women
Susan Harrison and Ingberg also wrote about societal attitudes towards women-
They make reference to women position in society.
Subordinated and multiple roles
Stereotypes, stigma and how women are judged differently in our society especially when they drink or abuse substance.
How do we define women? Here woman does not refer to a homogenous group. What about age, sexual orientation, physical abilities and marital status etc.?
All women face different challenges and experiences.
What about Immigrant minority women and Aboriginal women?
African Feminist in the Diaspora like Delores Mullings and Hill Collins writes that there is not enough information about African women by African Women.
According to Delores Mullings:
“African Women in Diaspora are challenged to create the space that supports the emergence of knowledge construction relevant to our social location”.
Minority, immigrant women have different experience and challenges.
They face racism, discrimination, unemployment and a host of other issues.
What are some other reasons why women abuse drugs?
Loneliness, poor relationship
Exposure marginalization and powerlessness
Domestic violence
Ways in which society structure
Patriarchal/ inferior status of women/ women’s role
Low self esteem
The Live-In Caregiver program and Canada’s National Childcare strategy
By Qara Clemente - Special for FF-WPR
With daycare costs on the rise and available spaces dwindling down, the need to create a national childcare program that genuinely addresses the needs of all Canadians has become ever-pressing. Speaking on this issue on the 22nd of August was guest host Qara Clemente and interviewee Kelly Botengan, a member of SIKLAB Ontario (a Filipino worker’s organization) and the Philippine Women Centre of Ontario. Botengan elaborated on the link between national childcare and immigration policy by discussing Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP), Canada’s de facto national childcare program. According to Botengan, the LCP is a disservice both to Filipinos and Canadians alike as it fills in Canada’s need for cheap female labour from the Philippines and fuels the privatization of healthcare and childcare. The recent changes to the program, implemented this spring, has only concealed the crisis in immigration and childcare. As Botengan said, “the only fundamental change that can be made to the program is its scrapping, in other words, granting permanent residency to temporary workers upon arrival and creating a national childcare program.”
With daycare costs on the rise and available spaces dwindling down, the need to create a national childcare program that genuinely addresses the needs of all Canadians has become ever-pressing. Speaking on this issue on the 22nd of August was guest host Qara Clemente and interviewee Kelly Botengan, a member of SIKLAB Ontario (a Filipino worker’s organization) and the Philippine Women Centre of Ontario. Botengan elaborated on the link between national childcare and immigration policy by discussing Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP), Canada’s de facto national childcare program. According to Botengan, the LCP is a disservice both to Filipinos and Canadians alike as it fills in Canada’s need for cheap female labour from the Philippines and fuels the privatization of healthcare and childcare. The recent changes to the program, implemented this spring, has only concealed the crisis in immigration and childcare. As Botengan said, “the only fundamental change that can be made to the program is its scrapping, in other words, granting permanent residency to temporary workers upon arrival and creating a national childcare program.”
REVIEW PANEL OF ENBRIDGE GATEWAY PIPELINES INITIATES B.C. MEETINGS BY DISRESPECTING FIRST NATIONS
(by Tyler McCrerey from rabble.ca)
On August 31, 2010, the federal Joint Review Panel learned some basic cues about respecting local First Nations title holders. Holding a meeting in Kitimat, British Columbia, to review procedural questions about the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline Joint Review Panel process, the Panel neglected to honour the host First Nation as the first speaker. Instead the panel first called representatives of the Heiltsuk nation from Bella Bella. The Heiltsuk, however, refused to dishonour the local Haisla nation and insisted the Haisla be allowed to go first.
This disrespect to the Haisla is emblematic of how this process is grounded upon disrespect to First Nations traditions and concerns. Throughout the three days of hearings at Kitimat, representatives of the Haisla First Nation, Heiltsuk Tribal Council, Gitga'at First Nation, Office of the Wet'suwet'en, Coastal First Nations, Kitasoo/Xai'xais First Nation, Gitxaala First Nation, and Wilp Gwininitwx from the Gitxsan Nation spoke to their opposition to the proposed pipeline. First Nations representatives spoke repeatedly to their concerns about potential impacts on their territories and inherent rights, and the limited consideration of their traditions in Enbridge's assessment of the impact of pipeline development.
The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has recognized the need to attain First Nations free, prior and informed consent for developments that would alter their territories, traditional land use, and culture. The Supreme Court of Canada has also recognized a Crown duty to consult and accommodate Aboriginal peoples regarding any project that would impact their relationships to their territories. First Nations own systems of law mandate their responsibilities to protect and maintain the integrity of their territories.
First Nations continue to oppose the pipeline, defending their rights and responsibilities in International, Canadian, and First Nations law. Many communities are also asserting the federal Joint Review Panel is disrespectful to their traditions and authority over their traditional territories. They have indicated that their communities and their knowledge should be substantively involved in the management of their territories. The Joint Review Panel lacks representation of local First Nations and lacks knowledge in local First Nations traditions. Regardless, Enbridge continues to push the proposal through the review process.
In fact, Enbridge's lawyers took the further step in July of lobbying the Joint Review Panel to exclude from the procedural pre-hearing meetings Aboriginal concerns, specifically those of the Gitxaala and Haisla nations. While the Gitxaala and Haisla First Nations expressed concerns regarding the limited recognition of Aboriginal traditional knowledge in the Enbridge application, Enbridge's lawyers argued that their application "contains sufficient detail to initiate the review." They suggested that listening to Aboriginal complaints about the insufficiency of the information included within Enbridge's application would unfairly prejudice the process against the company.
The Joint Review Panel eventually ruled that First Nations could present issues regarding the sufficiency of the application. They also clearly stated that the Panel would consider how the development may possibly infringe on Aboriginal rights in its hearings. However, the ignorance of the Panel to the most basic of local First Nations protocols highlights continued fundamental problems with the process.
Tyler McCreary is an Indigenous solidarity activist based in northern British Columbia. He is also currently working towards his PhD in geography at York University.
On August 31, 2010, the federal Joint Review Panel learned some basic cues about respecting local First Nations title holders. Holding a meeting in Kitimat, British Columbia, to review procedural questions about the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline Joint Review Panel process, the Panel neglected to honour the host First Nation as the first speaker. Instead the panel first called representatives of the Heiltsuk nation from Bella Bella. The Heiltsuk, however, refused to dishonour the local Haisla nation and insisted the Haisla be allowed to go first.
This disrespect to the Haisla is emblematic of how this process is grounded upon disrespect to First Nations traditions and concerns. Throughout the three days of hearings at Kitimat, representatives of the Haisla First Nation, Heiltsuk Tribal Council, Gitga'at First Nation, Office of the Wet'suwet'en, Coastal First Nations, Kitasoo/Xai'xais First Nation, Gitxaala First Nation, and Wilp Gwininitwx from the Gitxsan Nation spoke to their opposition to the proposed pipeline. First Nations representatives spoke repeatedly to their concerns about potential impacts on their territories and inherent rights, and the limited consideration of their traditions in Enbridge's assessment of the impact of pipeline development.
The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has recognized the need to attain First Nations free, prior and informed consent for developments that would alter their territories, traditional land use, and culture. The Supreme Court of Canada has also recognized a Crown duty to consult and accommodate Aboriginal peoples regarding any project that would impact their relationships to their territories. First Nations own systems of law mandate their responsibilities to protect and maintain the integrity of their territories.
First Nations continue to oppose the pipeline, defending their rights and responsibilities in International, Canadian, and First Nations law. Many communities are also asserting the federal Joint Review Panel is disrespectful to their traditions and authority over their traditional territories. They have indicated that their communities and their knowledge should be substantively involved in the management of their territories. The Joint Review Panel lacks representation of local First Nations and lacks knowledge in local First Nations traditions. Regardless, Enbridge continues to push the proposal through the review process.
In fact, Enbridge's lawyers took the further step in July of lobbying the Joint Review Panel to exclude from the procedural pre-hearing meetings Aboriginal concerns, specifically those of the Gitxaala and Haisla nations. While the Gitxaala and Haisla First Nations expressed concerns regarding the limited recognition of Aboriginal traditional knowledge in the Enbridge application, Enbridge's lawyers argued that their application "contains sufficient detail to initiate the review." They suggested that listening to Aboriginal complaints about the insufficiency of the information included within Enbridge's application would unfairly prejudice the process against the company.
The Joint Review Panel eventually ruled that First Nations could present issues regarding the sufficiency of the application. They also clearly stated that the Panel would consider how the development may possibly infringe on Aboriginal rights in its hearings. However, the ignorance of the Panel to the most basic of local First Nations protocols highlights continued fundamental problems with the process.
Tyler McCreary is an Indigenous solidarity activist based in northern British Columbia. He is also currently working towards his PhD in geography at York University.
AN ERA OF NEW POLITICS BEGINS
by Murray Dobbin from rabble.ca
I confess that I did not, as promised, spend the summer thinking about the new paradigm of local, national and global politics. It was the perfect summer at my log cabin in Saskatchewan and I spent most of it swimming to the end of the lake and back, picking blueberries and swinging in my Mexican hammock. But I did spend some time pondering just what has to happen in Canadian left politics to address the crisis in confidence and the collapse of social movement and labour politics.
My view has not changed since spring when I suggested that existing organizations are unlikely to be able to meet the challenges of the current crisis without some kind of external demand and pressure from below. Many organizations have simply disappeared or are moribund to the point of being irrelevant. Labour is virtually AWOL with no new ideas and no appetite for sustained struggle. The NDP, despite a social democratic culture largely intact despite assaults on it, is still mired at 15-17 per cent in the polls and incapable, apparently, of bold, challenging leadership on any issue.
In the heady days of the fight against free trade there were active, dynamic social justice coalitions in every province except New Brunswick as well the national Action Canada Network. Each of those coalitions was made up of dozens of community groups from unions and anti-poverty groups to cultural and environmental organizations. They had fire in their bellies and passion for the country -- or rather, what the country's working and middle class people had accomplished..
In the era of social justice coalitions the political culture provided the possibility of change -- the elites were still susceptible to pressure from citizens and their organizations. We didn't win every fight but we did win some and we could at least imagine winning if we fought hard enough and smart enough. I was on the board of the Council of Canadians in the late 1990s and the Council was part of victories against bank mergers, the BGH hormone in milk, Paul Martin's plan to gut the Old Age Assistance program -- not to mention the defeat of the MAI which was largely a Canadian activists' victory.
Such victories are now much more difficult to achieve. Twenty years of globalization has seen an already weak nationalist elite become little more than a class of Quislings - eager to sell out whatever is left of the country and deaf to the anguish about what we are losing. They identify not with Canada but with their own sordid and pathetic wealth accumulation and the global class of super-rich.
Government bureaucracies -- once quiet defenders of the collective good -- are now decimated and partially occupied by ideologues committed to dismantling the social democratic state. The decision of the right to seize control of the media -- via Conrad Black and the Asper family -- has had the accumulative affect over more than decade of impoverishing the political debate and neutralizing dissenting voices.
The rise of the internet has moderated this somewhat but blogs, tweeting and Facebook and a few online journals will not challenge the power of television any time soon. The incredibly destructive power of Fox News in the U.S. proves this -- and those who fear the arrival of a similar network here (headed up by Harper's former communications guru) are right to be fearful.
If change is going to come -- if organized social change organizations are to form anew -- perhaps it will have to come from individuals demanding it. This is certainly true if we are talking about the momentous changes we are looking at down the road. The climate change crisis, the permanent recession, the desperate need to curb private sector growth and consumerism (and the parallel need for public sector growth and human scale development) all speak to a new politics which virtually none of the traditional players are even talking about (the B.C. office of the CCPA being a notable exception) let alone practicing.
In the absence of broad social movement organizations that actually understand our current context perhaps the next step is for those who do get it coming together in smaller groups to imagine the future -- the future we want and the politics we need to create to get us there. A couple of recent articles suggest the kind of reading, imagining and thinking that needs to be done (in study/action groups?) in order for a new politics to be informed. Marc Lee of the B.C.-CCPA just published a piece called "What are the game changers?" on the blog site The Progressive Economic Forum -- the source of some leading edge thinking about political economy from some of Canada's brightest public intellectuals.
What are the game changers? According to Lee: "The game changers need to be measures that fundamentally alter the balance of power between corporations (and compliant governments) and ordinary people, building on the successes that have remained resilient to the onslaught of expanding markets for for-profit enterprise (in BC, public auto insurance, BC Hydro, BC Ferries, the Agricultural Land Reserve, public health care and education are all examples that have held their own against right-wing governments; perhaps bruised but still very much alive). Game changers, almost by definition, need to be bold, and ordinary people need to see that such moves will improve their day-to-day lives."
Lee provides a twelve step program which includes: "Reigning in corporations - Currently, shareholders and executives benefit from limited liability (e.g. in the case BP oil spill, shareholders' losses are limited to the price they paid for their shares), free speech (in advertising and politics)... Corporations can be a useful organization form but they should have to prove their benefit to society, with sunsets on their corporate charters and a process for renewal." And "Reclaiming the New "Commanding Heights" -- Key sectors of the economy should be brought into the public sector through aggressive regulation, nationalization or creation of public competitors."
Lee gets us started thinking about the Big Ideas that have been absent from left thinking and proselytizing for too long but he leaves the politics of how to get there either for later or for others to contribute. Perhaps it will only become clear once we extricate ourselves from the defensive, chronically negative politics that right-wing domination has fostered.
Another article worth reading is "Towards a New Economy and a New Politics" by American writer Gus Speth. He writes about the U.S. but most of his conclusions apply equally well to Canada.
Speth observes: "The prioritization of economic growth and economic values is at the root of the systemic failures and resulting crises America is now experiencing. Today, the reigning policy orientation holds that the path to greater well-being is to grow and expand the economy. Productivity, wages, profits, the stock market, employment, and consumption must all go up. This growth imperative trumps all else. It can undermine families, jobs, communities, the environment, and a sense of place and continuity because it is confidently asserted and widely believed that growth is worth the price that must be paid for it."
As for how we get there, Speth writes: "...the best hope for a new political dynamic is a fusion of those concerned about environment, social justice, and political democracy into one progressive force. A unified agenda would embrace a profound commitment to social justice and environmental protection, a sustained challenge to consumerism and commercialism and the lifestyles they offer, a healthy skepticism of growth-mania and a new look at what society should be striving to grow, a challenge to corporate dominance and a redefinition of the corporation and its goals, and a commitment to an array of major pro-democracy reforms."
How could we make that happen in Canada? There are still hundreds of thousands of us belonging to scores of national, provincial and local groups. For the most part, we pay our membership dues because we support the good work they are doing. But that good work isn't working fast enough. It is still largely following the old rules where single issue organizing produced the occasional victory and held power to account. There are still victories to be had in this way -- but they don't add up to a challenge to capitalism.
Maybe we should all be writing to the groups we keep alive by our financial contributions and tell them they need to do more. They need, in Speth's words, to begin thinking about a unified agenda that help us break out of the fatal political rut we find ourselves in. That goes for the labour, environmental, social justice, human rights and anti-poverty organizations as well as the NDP and the Greens. You want our money? Do better. Be bold. Provide visionary leadership. Then we might give you even more money to really begin to change the world.
I confess that I did not, as promised, spend the summer thinking about the new paradigm of local, national and global politics. It was the perfect summer at my log cabin in Saskatchewan and I spent most of it swimming to the end of the lake and back, picking blueberries and swinging in my Mexican hammock. But I did spend some time pondering just what has to happen in Canadian left politics to address the crisis in confidence and the collapse of social movement and labour politics.
My view has not changed since spring when I suggested that existing organizations are unlikely to be able to meet the challenges of the current crisis without some kind of external demand and pressure from below. Many organizations have simply disappeared or are moribund to the point of being irrelevant. Labour is virtually AWOL with no new ideas and no appetite for sustained struggle. The NDP, despite a social democratic culture largely intact despite assaults on it, is still mired at 15-17 per cent in the polls and incapable, apparently, of bold, challenging leadership on any issue.
In the heady days of the fight against free trade there were active, dynamic social justice coalitions in every province except New Brunswick as well the national Action Canada Network. Each of those coalitions was made up of dozens of community groups from unions and anti-poverty groups to cultural and environmental organizations. They had fire in their bellies and passion for the country -- or rather, what the country's working and middle class people had accomplished..
In the era of social justice coalitions the political culture provided the possibility of change -- the elites were still susceptible to pressure from citizens and their organizations. We didn't win every fight but we did win some and we could at least imagine winning if we fought hard enough and smart enough. I was on the board of the Council of Canadians in the late 1990s and the Council was part of victories against bank mergers, the BGH hormone in milk, Paul Martin's plan to gut the Old Age Assistance program -- not to mention the defeat of the MAI which was largely a Canadian activists' victory.
Such victories are now much more difficult to achieve. Twenty years of globalization has seen an already weak nationalist elite become little more than a class of Quislings - eager to sell out whatever is left of the country and deaf to the anguish about what we are losing. They identify not with Canada but with their own sordid and pathetic wealth accumulation and the global class of super-rich.
Government bureaucracies -- once quiet defenders of the collective good -- are now decimated and partially occupied by ideologues committed to dismantling the social democratic state. The decision of the right to seize control of the media -- via Conrad Black and the Asper family -- has had the accumulative affect over more than decade of impoverishing the political debate and neutralizing dissenting voices.
The rise of the internet has moderated this somewhat but blogs, tweeting and Facebook and a few online journals will not challenge the power of television any time soon. The incredibly destructive power of Fox News in the U.S. proves this -- and those who fear the arrival of a similar network here (headed up by Harper's former communications guru) are right to be fearful.
If change is going to come -- if organized social change organizations are to form anew -- perhaps it will have to come from individuals demanding it. This is certainly true if we are talking about the momentous changes we are looking at down the road. The climate change crisis, the permanent recession, the desperate need to curb private sector growth and consumerism (and the parallel need for public sector growth and human scale development) all speak to a new politics which virtually none of the traditional players are even talking about (the B.C. office of the CCPA being a notable exception) let alone practicing.
In the absence of broad social movement organizations that actually understand our current context perhaps the next step is for those who do get it coming together in smaller groups to imagine the future -- the future we want and the politics we need to create to get us there. A couple of recent articles suggest the kind of reading, imagining and thinking that needs to be done (in study/action groups?) in order for a new politics to be informed. Marc Lee of the B.C.-CCPA just published a piece called "What are the game changers?" on the blog site The Progressive Economic Forum -- the source of some leading edge thinking about political economy from some of Canada's brightest public intellectuals.
What are the game changers? According to Lee: "The game changers need to be measures that fundamentally alter the balance of power between corporations (and compliant governments) and ordinary people, building on the successes that have remained resilient to the onslaught of expanding markets for for-profit enterprise (in BC, public auto insurance, BC Hydro, BC Ferries, the Agricultural Land Reserve, public health care and education are all examples that have held their own against right-wing governments; perhaps bruised but still very much alive). Game changers, almost by definition, need to be bold, and ordinary people need to see that such moves will improve their day-to-day lives."
Lee provides a twelve step program which includes: "Reigning in corporations - Currently, shareholders and executives benefit from limited liability (e.g. in the case BP oil spill, shareholders' losses are limited to the price they paid for their shares), free speech (in advertising and politics)... Corporations can be a useful organization form but they should have to prove their benefit to society, with sunsets on their corporate charters and a process for renewal." And "Reclaiming the New "Commanding Heights" -- Key sectors of the economy should be brought into the public sector through aggressive regulation, nationalization or creation of public competitors."
Lee gets us started thinking about the Big Ideas that have been absent from left thinking and proselytizing for too long but he leaves the politics of how to get there either for later or for others to contribute. Perhaps it will only become clear once we extricate ourselves from the defensive, chronically negative politics that right-wing domination has fostered.
Another article worth reading is "Towards a New Economy and a New Politics" by American writer Gus Speth. He writes about the U.S. but most of his conclusions apply equally well to Canada.
Speth observes: "The prioritization of economic growth and economic values is at the root of the systemic failures and resulting crises America is now experiencing. Today, the reigning policy orientation holds that the path to greater well-being is to grow and expand the economy. Productivity, wages, profits, the stock market, employment, and consumption must all go up. This growth imperative trumps all else. It can undermine families, jobs, communities, the environment, and a sense of place and continuity because it is confidently asserted and widely believed that growth is worth the price that must be paid for it."
As for how we get there, Speth writes: "...the best hope for a new political dynamic is a fusion of those concerned about environment, social justice, and political democracy into one progressive force. A unified agenda would embrace a profound commitment to social justice and environmental protection, a sustained challenge to consumerism and commercialism and the lifestyles they offer, a healthy skepticism of growth-mania and a new look at what society should be striving to grow, a challenge to corporate dominance and a redefinition of the corporation and its goals, and a commitment to an array of major pro-democracy reforms."
How could we make that happen in Canada? There are still hundreds of thousands of us belonging to scores of national, provincial and local groups. For the most part, we pay our membership dues because we support the good work they are doing. But that good work isn't working fast enough. It is still largely following the old rules where single issue organizing produced the occasional victory and held power to account. There are still victories to be had in this way -- but they don't add up to a challenge to capitalism.
Maybe we should all be writing to the groups we keep alive by our financial contributions and tell them they need to do more. They need, in Speth's words, to begin thinking about a unified agenda that help us break out of the fatal political rut we find ourselves in. That goes for the labour, environmental, social justice, human rights and anti-poverty organizations as well as the NDP and the Greens. You want our money? Do better. Be bold. Provide visionary leadership. Then we might give you even more money to really begin to change the world.
KEEPERS OF THE WATER: A WAKE-UP CALL FROM THE NORTH
by Rita Wong, published first on rabble.ca
I was very fortunate to participate in the Keepers of the Water conference in Wollaston Lake, northern Saskatchewan, in mid-August. It was my first time to this remote community, which can only be reached by barge/boat or airplane as there are no roads that go directly there. People say the water there is clean enough to drink right out of the lake, which I saw someone doing. The lake, one of Saskatchewan's largest, certainly looked beautiful, though I hesitated to drink from it like the locals.
Wollaston Lake was the site of protests against uranium mining in 1985, when roughly 200 indigenous people and their allies blocked traffic in and out of Rabbit Lake (now the world's second largest uranium mine) and Collin's Bay. This was documented in Miles Goldstick's book, Wollaston, which describes Saskatchewan as the Saudi Arabia of the uranium industry. Unfortunately, the extraction continued, and Canada is the world's largest exporter of uranium because of northern Saskatchewan, which is the epicentre of the mining. A new proposed Millennium Project would be "150 km from Wollaston Lake, an area already inundated with radioactive tailings from past mines," according to Dr. Jim Harding.
Because uranium radiation "has no taste, no sounds, no form by which it can be seen, and no odour" (Judge Robert McCleave, 1982), its carcinogenic effects may not be immediately apparent, but take time to unfold in the affected people and animals. Though I enjoyed the fresh caribou and whitefish served on my visit immensely, I did wonder about eating wildlife caught in proximity to the uranium mining.
As Dr. Manuel Pino pointed out at the conference, the "dendritic patterns of the water ways" mean that the wastes and tailings do not remain contained underground but leak out into the environment, eroding indigenous people's food sovereignty as game and fish become contaminated over time. For this reason, the Navajo in the United States, who have over 1,300 abandoned mines on their reserves, decided in 2005 to refuse to allow any more uranium mining on their lands. As a water-soluble metal, uranium "emits radiation until it stabilizes into lead in 4.5 billion years" (Jim Harding, 2010). Its short-term benefits in terms of energy result in long-term problems, as no one really knows what to do with waste that has such a long shelf life.
As one of the conference speakers, Bob Patrick, pointed out, we can't talk about energy without talking about water. And the conference brought home to me how crucial it is to understand and respect water's tendency to keep moving, to connect all forms of life in its ceaseless flow.
Generously hosted by the Hatchet Lake Denesuline First Nation, the conference structure was as fluid as the topic of water itself. A one-hour elders' panel on the conference schedule spontaneously expanded into over eight-and-a-half hours of testimony over two days, as 23 elders spoke movingly of how important water is, how cancer caused by mining has killed many family members, how uranium mining and tar sands expansion is poisoning the land. Any elder who wanted to speak was given time, and the way the telling unfolded was an excellent lesson in patience and community love; over and over in different ways, elders stressed the importance of working together to respect and protect the water.
It was my first time to be immersed in the Dene language, for there was simultaneous translation between Dene and English during the whole conference, and it was truly exciting to hear the Dene language thriving in Wollaston Lake, spoken by children and elders alike. In Dene, the term for uranium is "dada-thay," which translates as "death rock," which is how I think people should start describing it in English.
Fast death or slow death, we cannot afford to be naïve about the military uses to which the uranium has been put. Saskatchewan has supplied the U.S. nuclear weapons industry and nuclear power plants with "death rock."
Some other highlights of the conference include hearing Chief Allan Adam, who was elected by the Athabascan Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) based on his opposition to the reckless expansion of the tar sands. In September, the ACFN will be announcing legal action to protect caribou habitat in northern Alberta. They are also developing their own environmental protection policy, since Alberta's has been so ineffectual and meaningless.
George Poitras of the Mikisew Cree informed us that a health study completed last year showed 30 per cent more cancers than expected in his community of Fort Chipewyan, downstream of the tar sands, adding strong evidence to support the moratorium that the Mikisew Cree have been demanding since 2006. Poitras has done a lot of inspiring work, including winning a legal battle that set a precedent requiring the federal government to consult First Nations when proposing roads that traverse traditional indigenous lands. And the serious health concerns identified by First Nations communities are reinforced by a new study co-authored by scientists Erin Kelly, David Schindler and others, identifying high levels of toxic metals like mercury, arsenic, lead and cadmium being released into the Athabasca River by the tar sands.
The Keepers conference gave me a much better sense of not only the threats to water across B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, but also the incredible work that is being done on the frontlines to protect water in the north where the mining and oil extraction happens, out of sight of the cities. The work is deadly serious, but it is also deeply joyful, as participants played as hard as they work; each night, there were lively social activities --singing, dancing, bingo, fireworks, a talent show and more, building a sense of community and relationship that sustains people in hard times.
I appreciated the sense of ceremony and protocol at work in the community; we began with the lighting of a large sacred fire outdoors, which burned throughout the entire length of the conference. Watching the fiery sparks leap into the big Saskatchewan night sky, I felt the sense of strength and hope needed to commit to the work of protecting water.
There are two observations worth keeping in mind.
Canadians are responsible for an immense amount of damage; Jamie Kneen of Mining Watch points out that 70 to 80 per cent of mining companies in the world are Canadian. It is our responsibility to educate ourselves about what we don't see, what's underground, what's up north. That is where neo-colonialism is happening today, as industries make land uninhabitable, jeopardizing traditional food and water sources as well as indigenous cultures.
Whether it's uranium waste slowly decaying or tar sands tailings ponds slowly leaking, the cumulative effect of toxic pollution needs more serious attention than government and industry are giving it. A December 2009 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences pointed out that the equivalent of a major oil spill happens every year on the Athabasca River if you measure the polycyclic aromatic compounds that have been leaked over the year all at once.
Water moves constantly through the biosphere, leaking, spilling, slowly seeping everywhere, subtly powerful in a peaceful, interconnected way, and we need to learn to think, see, and act like water if we want to protect future generations.
Rita Wong is a poet and the author of monkeypuzzle (Press Gang, 1998), forage (Nightwood, 2007) and sybil unrest (Line Books, 2009,co-written with Larissa Lai). She is currently researching the poetics of water.
I was very fortunate to participate in the Keepers of the Water conference in Wollaston Lake, northern Saskatchewan, in mid-August. It was my first time to this remote community, which can only be reached by barge/boat or airplane as there are no roads that go directly there. People say the water there is clean enough to drink right out of the lake, which I saw someone doing. The lake, one of Saskatchewan's largest, certainly looked beautiful, though I hesitated to drink from it like the locals.
Wollaston Lake was the site of protests against uranium mining in 1985, when roughly 200 indigenous people and their allies blocked traffic in and out of Rabbit Lake (now the world's second largest uranium mine) and Collin's Bay. This was documented in Miles Goldstick's book, Wollaston, which describes Saskatchewan as the Saudi Arabia of the uranium industry. Unfortunately, the extraction continued, and Canada is the world's largest exporter of uranium because of northern Saskatchewan, which is the epicentre of the mining. A new proposed Millennium Project would be "150 km from Wollaston Lake, an area already inundated with radioactive tailings from past mines," according to Dr. Jim Harding.
Because uranium radiation "has no taste, no sounds, no form by which it can be seen, and no odour" (Judge Robert McCleave, 1982), its carcinogenic effects may not be immediately apparent, but take time to unfold in the affected people and animals. Though I enjoyed the fresh caribou and whitefish served on my visit immensely, I did wonder about eating wildlife caught in proximity to the uranium mining.
As Dr. Manuel Pino pointed out at the conference, the "dendritic patterns of the water ways" mean that the wastes and tailings do not remain contained underground but leak out into the environment, eroding indigenous people's food sovereignty as game and fish become contaminated over time. For this reason, the Navajo in the United States, who have over 1,300 abandoned mines on their reserves, decided in 2005 to refuse to allow any more uranium mining on their lands. As a water-soluble metal, uranium "emits radiation until it stabilizes into lead in 4.5 billion years" (Jim Harding, 2010). Its short-term benefits in terms of energy result in long-term problems, as no one really knows what to do with waste that has such a long shelf life.
As one of the conference speakers, Bob Patrick, pointed out, we can't talk about energy without talking about water. And the conference brought home to me how crucial it is to understand and respect water's tendency to keep moving, to connect all forms of life in its ceaseless flow.
Generously hosted by the Hatchet Lake Denesuline First Nation, the conference structure was as fluid as the topic of water itself. A one-hour elders' panel on the conference schedule spontaneously expanded into over eight-and-a-half hours of testimony over two days, as 23 elders spoke movingly of how important water is, how cancer caused by mining has killed many family members, how uranium mining and tar sands expansion is poisoning the land. Any elder who wanted to speak was given time, and the way the telling unfolded was an excellent lesson in patience and community love; over and over in different ways, elders stressed the importance of working together to respect and protect the water.
It was my first time to be immersed in the Dene language, for there was simultaneous translation between Dene and English during the whole conference, and it was truly exciting to hear the Dene language thriving in Wollaston Lake, spoken by children and elders alike. In Dene, the term for uranium is "dada-thay," which translates as "death rock," which is how I think people should start describing it in English.
Fast death or slow death, we cannot afford to be naïve about the military uses to which the uranium has been put. Saskatchewan has supplied the U.S. nuclear weapons industry and nuclear power plants with "death rock."
Some other highlights of the conference include hearing Chief Allan Adam, who was elected by the Athabascan Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) based on his opposition to the reckless expansion of the tar sands. In September, the ACFN will be announcing legal action to protect caribou habitat in northern Alberta. They are also developing their own environmental protection policy, since Alberta's has been so ineffectual and meaningless.
George Poitras of the Mikisew Cree informed us that a health study completed last year showed 30 per cent more cancers than expected in his community of Fort Chipewyan, downstream of the tar sands, adding strong evidence to support the moratorium that the Mikisew Cree have been demanding since 2006. Poitras has done a lot of inspiring work, including winning a legal battle that set a precedent requiring the federal government to consult First Nations when proposing roads that traverse traditional indigenous lands. And the serious health concerns identified by First Nations communities are reinforced by a new study co-authored by scientists Erin Kelly, David Schindler and others, identifying high levels of toxic metals like mercury, arsenic, lead and cadmium being released into the Athabasca River by the tar sands.
The Keepers conference gave me a much better sense of not only the threats to water across B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, but also the incredible work that is being done on the frontlines to protect water in the north where the mining and oil extraction happens, out of sight of the cities. The work is deadly serious, but it is also deeply joyful, as participants played as hard as they work; each night, there were lively social activities --singing, dancing, bingo, fireworks, a talent show and more, building a sense of community and relationship that sustains people in hard times.
I appreciated the sense of ceremony and protocol at work in the community; we began with the lighting of a large sacred fire outdoors, which burned throughout the entire length of the conference. Watching the fiery sparks leap into the big Saskatchewan night sky, I felt the sense of strength and hope needed to commit to the work of protecting water.
There are two observations worth keeping in mind.
Canadians are responsible for an immense amount of damage; Jamie Kneen of Mining Watch points out that 70 to 80 per cent of mining companies in the world are Canadian. It is our responsibility to educate ourselves about what we don't see, what's underground, what's up north. That is where neo-colonialism is happening today, as industries make land uninhabitable, jeopardizing traditional food and water sources as well as indigenous cultures.
Whether it's uranium waste slowly decaying or tar sands tailings ponds slowly leaking, the cumulative effect of toxic pollution needs more serious attention than government and industry are giving it. A December 2009 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences pointed out that the equivalent of a major oil spill happens every year on the Athabasca River if you measure the polycyclic aromatic compounds that have been leaked over the year all at once.
Water moves constantly through the biosphere, leaking, spilling, slowly seeping everywhere, subtly powerful in a peaceful, interconnected way, and we need to learn to think, see, and act like water if we want to protect future generations.
Rita Wong is a poet and the author of monkeypuzzle (Press Gang, 1998), forage (Nightwood, 2007) and sybil unrest (Line Books, 2009,co-written with Larissa Lai). She is currently researching the poetics of water.
MINING PLANS ENDANGER A FIFTH OF THE GREAT PEEL WILDERNESS
by Shannon Thompsen, from rabble.ca
Duo Lakes, Yukon -- Na-cho Nyak Dun elder Jimmy Johnny would rather be picking blueberries and wandering off alone to scout for animals. But today he has a job to do: tell reporters and southerners like me why we should care about the fight to protect the Peel River Watershed in the northeast Yukon.
"To me this is home, I feel I belong here. There is no words for saying what I feel inside about this place. I just don't want to see it disturbed," says Johnny.
He has had plenty of time to get to know the Peel and its mountains, wild rivers, and abundant wildlife. For the past 52 years he's worked as a guide in this area. "I fell in love with this country out here, its pure, pure water and many, many animals," Johnny says, looking out at the land around the Snake River. "Caribou, grizzlies, wolves, foxes, moose, gopher, ptarmigan, falcons, grouse. You name it, it's here."
"Our people have been tied to the Peel River watershed for generations," says Na-Cho Nyak Dun Chief Simon Mervyn. "Our people are born there, our people have been buried there. The spirituality of this place to our people must be acknowledged."
But his time is running out to help guide the future of the Peel region. For the last five years, the Peel Watershed Planning Commission has studied the watershed, which is 10 times the size of Banff National Park and boasts the largest group of wild mountain rivers in North America. Last December, the commission's final plan recommended protecting 80 per cent of the Peel watershed from roads and industrial development.
That recommendation of 80 per cent protection was considered a minor miracle in a territory built on the Klondike gold rush and with a right-wing premier, Dennis Fentie, who was accused of suppressing pro-protection advice from his own departments.
Advertising
First Nations ask for 100 per cent protection
But the First Nations who traditionally used the watershed are mounting an unprecedented joint effort to save 100 per cent of the area. They say they are defending their constitutional rights in their traditional territories in the Yukon.
At the recent public consultation on the plan in Dawson City, Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in First Nation Chief Eddie Taylor left no doubt about it. "Our position is definitely 100 per cent protection in the Peel," Taylor told about 30 people gathered for the consultation. "Make no mistake -- the Tr'ondëk position is to protect this and we are looking for support territorially and nationally."
Chief Taylor got plenty of support from elders who have seen the pollution of the Yukon river. "We don't want that for our future," said Tr'ondëk elder Percy Henry. "I remember drinking Yukon water -- now you can't even do laundry in it."
Polluted water is just one problem facing northern Alberta First Nations who are grappling with rapid tar sands development, said Gladys Netro, a Vuntut Gwitchin whose home is in the Ogilvie River region.
"For them, they thought they had no recourse. There is no turning back, it's too late," Netro said. "We don't have to turn out like our neighbours in Alberta.... We don't want that for our future."
When asked about the need for jobs and the willingness in the past of the affected First Nations to work with extraction industries, Chief Eddie Taylor says they take a balanced position. "We feel that well managed resource development is appropriate in some places, but not in the Peel watershed," he says. "The Yukon government has provided the whole rest of the Yukon for free staking for the world to come in and mine, and this is the only pristine place we have left, and they want that too."
Support is widespread
The chiefs' appeal for support is being heard. They've forged a new level of trust and collaboration with Whitehorse-based environmental groups. The Tourism Industry Association of the Yukon is onside with the 80 per cent recommendation.
There are also signs of national and international interest. The Big Wild Campaign, which you see when you walk into any Mountain Equipment Co-op, is featuring the Peel on their website. American foundations that focus on saving the world's most intact ecosystems and traditional cultures have noticed and funded campaigns to protect the Peel.
"Momentum is happening and I'm hopeful that the pressure is being felt," says Chief Taylor. "The First Nations and the Yukon general public are on the same side. And when those two unite, that is the most powerful force in the Yukon." He hopes that the upcoming election in the Yukon will add incentive for politicians.
When Margaret Atwood visited the Peel in 2003 as part of a Canadian-artists-meet-elders expedition and book project organized the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, she wrote about the usefulness of artists to this massive beautiful land:
"It needs them to tell the rest of us about itself because, at the stage we've now reached in the saga of ever-expanding, ever-voracious humanity, anything or anyone that isn't understood, valued, and defended -- made real to the hearts of others -- is likely to be exploited and obliterated."
Over three days at Duo Lakes, we didn't hear a single car, no planes flew overhead. It is the wildest place I've ever seen and it quickly worked its magic on my heart.
But is the area too remote for most Canadians to value? Is the industry lobby too powerful? Is Premier Fentie listening?
This is the only question that gets the normally soft spoken elder Jimmy Johnny riled up."I get kinda upset when I hear what these guys are saying, cause many of them in their offices have never set foot in this area. They don't know what they're talking about," Johnny says.
"To me, this place is more valuable than money. That's all these guys think about is money, money. Nothing else. They don't care for the land, how they disturb it, they don't care how they pollute the water. Then they leave us poor people alone with our disturbed land. Where are the animals going to go then. What will we do after that?"
The Dawson meeting was the second in a series of meetings the governments are holding to gauge public sentiment on the Peel plan. The Whitehorse meeting is set for Sept. 15 and the Plan closes for public comment on October 1. After that, the Yukon and the First Nation governments will prepare a Final Recommended Plan. For more information: www.protectpeel.ca
Shannon Thompson is a Toronto-based environmentalist and educator who long ago worked as a documentary producer for CBC North. With files from Mary Walden.
Duo Lakes, Yukon -- Na-cho Nyak Dun elder Jimmy Johnny would rather be picking blueberries and wandering off alone to scout for animals. But today he has a job to do: tell reporters and southerners like me why we should care about the fight to protect the Peel River Watershed in the northeast Yukon.
"To me this is home, I feel I belong here. There is no words for saying what I feel inside about this place. I just don't want to see it disturbed," says Johnny.
He has had plenty of time to get to know the Peel and its mountains, wild rivers, and abundant wildlife. For the past 52 years he's worked as a guide in this area. "I fell in love with this country out here, its pure, pure water and many, many animals," Johnny says, looking out at the land around the Snake River. "Caribou, grizzlies, wolves, foxes, moose, gopher, ptarmigan, falcons, grouse. You name it, it's here."
"Our people have been tied to the Peel River watershed for generations," says Na-Cho Nyak Dun Chief Simon Mervyn. "Our people are born there, our people have been buried there. The spirituality of this place to our people must be acknowledged."
But his time is running out to help guide the future of the Peel region. For the last five years, the Peel Watershed Planning Commission has studied the watershed, which is 10 times the size of Banff National Park and boasts the largest group of wild mountain rivers in North America. Last December, the commission's final plan recommended protecting 80 per cent of the Peel watershed from roads and industrial development.
That recommendation of 80 per cent protection was considered a minor miracle in a territory built on the Klondike gold rush and with a right-wing premier, Dennis Fentie, who was accused of suppressing pro-protection advice from his own departments.
Advertising
First Nations ask for 100 per cent protection
But the First Nations who traditionally used the watershed are mounting an unprecedented joint effort to save 100 per cent of the area. They say they are defending their constitutional rights in their traditional territories in the Yukon.
At the recent public consultation on the plan in Dawson City, Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in First Nation Chief Eddie Taylor left no doubt about it. "Our position is definitely 100 per cent protection in the Peel," Taylor told about 30 people gathered for the consultation. "Make no mistake -- the Tr'ondëk position is to protect this and we are looking for support territorially and nationally."
Chief Taylor got plenty of support from elders who have seen the pollution of the Yukon river. "We don't want that for our future," said Tr'ondëk elder Percy Henry. "I remember drinking Yukon water -- now you can't even do laundry in it."
Polluted water is just one problem facing northern Alberta First Nations who are grappling with rapid tar sands development, said Gladys Netro, a Vuntut Gwitchin whose home is in the Ogilvie River region.
"For them, they thought they had no recourse. There is no turning back, it's too late," Netro said. "We don't have to turn out like our neighbours in Alberta.... We don't want that for our future."
When asked about the need for jobs and the willingness in the past of the affected First Nations to work with extraction industries, Chief Eddie Taylor says they take a balanced position. "We feel that well managed resource development is appropriate in some places, but not in the Peel watershed," he says. "The Yukon government has provided the whole rest of the Yukon for free staking for the world to come in and mine, and this is the only pristine place we have left, and they want that too."
Support is widespread
The chiefs' appeal for support is being heard. They've forged a new level of trust and collaboration with Whitehorse-based environmental groups. The Tourism Industry Association of the Yukon is onside with the 80 per cent recommendation.
There are also signs of national and international interest. The Big Wild Campaign, which you see when you walk into any Mountain Equipment Co-op, is featuring the Peel on their website. American foundations that focus on saving the world's most intact ecosystems and traditional cultures have noticed and funded campaigns to protect the Peel.
"Momentum is happening and I'm hopeful that the pressure is being felt," says Chief Taylor. "The First Nations and the Yukon general public are on the same side. And when those two unite, that is the most powerful force in the Yukon." He hopes that the upcoming election in the Yukon will add incentive for politicians.
When Margaret Atwood visited the Peel in 2003 as part of a Canadian-artists-meet-elders expedition and book project organized the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, she wrote about the usefulness of artists to this massive beautiful land:
"It needs them to tell the rest of us about itself because, at the stage we've now reached in the saga of ever-expanding, ever-voracious humanity, anything or anyone that isn't understood, valued, and defended -- made real to the hearts of others -- is likely to be exploited and obliterated."
Over three days at Duo Lakes, we didn't hear a single car, no planes flew overhead. It is the wildest place I've ever seen and it quickly worked its magic on my heart.
But is the area too remote for most Canadians to value? Is the industry lobby too powerful? Is Premier Fentie listening?
This is the only question that gets the normally soft spoken elder Jimmy Johnny riled up."I get kinda upset when I hear what these guys are saying, cause many of them in their offices have never set foot in this area. They don't know what they're talking about," Johnny says.
"To me, this place is more valuable than money. That's all these guys think about is money, money. Nothing else. They don't care for the land, how they disturb it, they don't care how they pollute the water. Then they leave us poor people alone with our disturbed land. Where are the animals going to go then. What will we do after that?"
The Dawson meeting was the second in a series of meetings the governments are holding to gauge public sentiment on the Peel plan. The Whitehorse meeting is set for Sept. 15 and the Plan closes for public comment on October 1. After that, the Yukon and the First Nation governments will prepare a Final Recommended Plan. For more information: www.protectpeel.ca
Shannon Thompson is a Toronto-based environmentalist and educator who long ago worked as a documentary producer for CBC North. With files from Mary Walden.
Grassy Narrows' Blockade Update
Slant Lake, Asubpeeschoseewagong - The site of Grassy Narrows' high profile logging blockade will see action again today as grassroots women block passage for Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR ) enforcement officers interfering with back-road repair work by the northwestern Ontario First Nations community. The community was repairing washouts and beaver damage to nearby back-roads to facilitate their ongoing use and enjoyment of their traditional territory. The MNR has visited the repair work three times and have said to the workers they will be watching them closely, threatening to stop the work. This time the community has resolved not to allow that and blocked MNR access at Slant Lake, allowing repairs to proceed.
"We the Anishinabek have never given up jurisdiction on our natural territories," said Judy Da Silva, a Grassy Narrows mother, blockader, and traditional healer. "We agreed to share the lands with the newcomers, but we will never give up our inherent right to use and protect the land, water and the forests."
The roads require repairs because the MNR has not conducted maintenance on the back road network since 2002 when grassroots women and youth put their bodies on the line to block logging machinery from further destroying the forests their community depends on. Previously the back roads had been maintained by local contractors through Provincial subsidies provided to the logging industry.
The blockade, now in its eighth year is the longest running blockade in Canadian history. Logging trucks feeding Weyerhaeuser's Trust Joist mill, and Abitibi pulp and paper mills shifted their clearcut logging operations to other parts of the territory until June 2008 when AbitibiBowater bowed to pressure and surrendered their license to log on the Whiskey Jack Forest. However, Weyerhaeuser continues to seek access to wood clearcut on Grassy Narrows Territory and the MNR has threatened to resume logging as early as September.
The back roads are used by Grassy Narrows members to access hunting, trapping, wild rice picking and berry picking areas, and for access to the Ball Lake fishing lodge. For generations the lodge has been a key source of employment for the community, but since the mercury poisoning of the English-Wabigoon River System the lodge has had minimal economic development benefits for the small indigenous community.
"The MNR attempt to stop maintenance of the roads is an attack on our community's self sufficiency," said Roberta Keesick, a Grassy Narrows grandmother, trapper, and blockader. “It is another attempt by the Province to assert unilateral control over the Territory in violation of our inherent and treaty rights."
For more information contact: RiverRun2010@gmail.com
"We the Anishinabek have never given up jurisdiction on our natural territories," said Judy Da Silva, a Grassy Narrows mother, blockader, and traditional healer. "We agreed to share the lands with the newcomers, but we will never give up our inherent right to use and protect the land, water and the forests."
The roads require repairs because the MNR has not conducted maintenance on the back road network since 2002 when grassroots women and youth put their bodies on the line to block logging machinery from further destroying the forests their community depends on. Previously the back roads had been maintained by local contractors through Provincial subsidies provided to the logging industry.
The blockade, now in its eighth year is the longest running blockade in Canadian history. Logging trucks feeding Weyerhaeuser's Trust Joist mill, and Abitibi pulp and paper mills shifted their clearcut logging operations to other parts of the territory until June 2008 when AbitibiBowater bowed to pressure and surrendered their license to log on the Whiskey Jack Forest. However, Weyerhaeuser continues to seek access to wood clearcut on Grassy Narrows Territory and the MNR has threatened to resume logging as early as September.
The back roads are used by Grassy Narrows members to access hunting, trapping, wild rice picking and berry picking areas, and for access to the Ball Lake fishing lodge. For generations the lodge has been a key source of employment for the community, but since the mercury poisoning of the English-Wabigoon River System the lodge has had minimal economic development benefits for the small indigenous community.
"The MNR attempt to stop maintenance of the roads is an attack on our community's self sufficiency," said Roberta Keesick, a Grassy Narrows grandmother, trapper, and blockader. “It is another attempt by the Province to assert unilateral control over the Territory in violation of our inherent and treaty rights."
For more information contact: RiverRun2010@gmail.com
Black August
A segment for the August 29th show
* Black August originated in the California penal system to honor three fallen freedom fighters, Jonathan Jackson, George Jackson and Khatari Gaulden. Jonathan Jackson was gunned down outside a Marin County, California courthouse on August 7, 1970, as he attempted to liberate three imprisoned Black Liberation Fighters: James McClain, William Christmas, and Ruchell Magee. Ruchell Magee is the sole survivor of that armed liberation attempt.
* George Jackson was assassinated by prison guards during a black prison rebellion at San Quentin on August 21, 1971. In an unsuccessful effort to cover up that state’s premeditated assassination of George Jackson, prison officials selected six Black and Latino prisoners to make scapegoats for their racist, murderous act. These prisoners became known as the San Quentin Six.
* Khatari Gaulden was a political activist who worked with the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. While in prison, he organized after George Jackson’s assassination. Gaulden was killed in the prison infirmary.
* Black August promotes a “non-sectarian mass based” resistance culture inside and outside the prison walls across the United States. The brothers who participated in the collective founding of Black August wore black armbands on their left arm and studied revolutionary works, focusing on the works of George Jackson.
* The brothers did not listen to the radio or watch television in August. Additionally, they didn’t eat or drink anything from sun-up to sundown, and loud boastful behavior was not allowed.
* The brothers did not support the prison canteen. The use of drugs and alcoholic beverages was prohibited and the brothers held daily exercises, because during Black August, emphasis is placed on sacrifice, fortitude and discipline.
* Black August is still a time to embrace the principles of 1) Unity; 2) Self-Sacrifice; 3) Political Education; 4) Physical training; and 5) Resistance!
* The first Africans were brought to Jamestown as slaves in August of 1619
* In 1843, Henry Highland Garnett called a general slave strike on August 22. William Still started the Underground Railroad on August 2, 1850, and the Afro-American Newspaper was founded on August 13, 1892.
* On August 3, 1908, the Allensworth Township for former slaves was established in California. The March on Washington occurred in August of 1963.
* Gabriel Prosser’s 1800 slave rebellion occurred on August 30. Nat Turner planned and carried out an August slave rebellion that commenced on August 21, 1831.
* During the Watts rebellions in August 1965, blacks took to the streets, and on August 18, 1971 in Jackson, Mississippi, the official residence of the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika (RNA) was raided by Mississippi police and FBI agents.
* Further, August is a time of birth. International African leader Marcus Garvey and Dr. Mutulu Shakur, political prisoner and prisoner of war, were both born in August.
* August is also a time of rebirth. W.E.B. Dubois died in Ghana on August 27, 1963.
Let's also commemorate the passing of Marilyn Buck with a reading from the Bayview National Black Newspaper:
Marilyn Buck a former political prisoner and prisoner of war. Along with Mutulu Shakur, she was involved in the liberation of Assata Shakur from prison in 1979. She later went underground.
“In the ‘60s Marilyn participated in protests against racism and the Vietnam war. In 1967 she became part of Students for a Democratic Society. Marilyn became part of a radical filmmaking and propaganda collective, showing the films as an organizing aid at community meetings, high school groups, workers’ committees and in the streets. She also participated in international solidarity groups supporting the Vietnamese, Palestinians and the Iranian struggle against the Shah. She worked in solidarity with Native Americans, Mexicano and Black liberation struggles.
“As a direct result of all of this activity, she became a target of COINTELPRO. In 1973, she was arrested and convicted of buying two boxes of bullets. Accused of being a member of the BLA [Black Liberation Army], she was sentenced to 10 years, the longest sentence ever given for such an offense at the time. In 1977 she was granted a furlough and never returned, joining the revolutionary clandestine movement. In 1985 she was captured and faced four separate court trials. She was charged with conspiracy to support and free PP/POWs [political prisoners and prisoners of war] and to support the New Afrikan Independence struggle through expropriations. In 1988 she was indicted for conspiracy to protest and alter government policies through use of violence against government and military buildings and received an additional 10 years for conspiracy to bomb the Capitol.
She was released July 15, 2010, after 25 years as an anti-imperialist political prisoner. Then suddenly, only 19 days later, she was gone. Her comrade and fellow former political prisoner Linda Evans broke the sad news: “Our dear comrade Marilyn Buck made her transition yesterday (Aug. 3, 2010) at 1 p.m. EST peacefully and surrounded by friends.” Sister Marpessa Kupendua wrote: “Former political prisoner Marilyn Buck made her transition. Peace and blessings be upon her revolutionary soul! Let her passing motivate us to be on point for all those denied medical care within the walls. Serious illnesses ARE death sentences! Much respect to her struggle on our collective behalf and all those who loved her so strong in her final days!”
‘Black August’
by Marilyn Buck
Would you hang on a cliff’s edge
sword-sharp, slashing fingers
while jackboot screws stomp heels
on peeled-flesh bones
and laugh
“let go! die, damn you, die!”
could you hang on 20 years, 30 years?
20 years, 30 years and more
brave Black brothers buried
in US koncentration kamps
they hang on
Black light shining in torture chambers
Ruchell, Yogi, Sundiata, Sekou,
Warren, Chip, Seth, Herman, Jalil,
and more and more they resist: Black August
Nat Turner insurrection chief executed: Black August
Jonathan, George dead in battle’s light: Black August
Fred Hampton, Black Panthers, African Brotherhood murdered: Black August
Kuwasi Balagoon, Nuh Abdul Quyyam captured warriors dead: Black August
Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Ella Baker, Ida B. Wells
Queen Mother Moore – their last breaths drawn fighting death: Black August
Black August: watchword
for Black liberation for human liberation
sword to sever the shackles
light to lead children of every nation to safety
Black August remembrance
resist the amerikkan nightmare for life
* Black August originated in the California penal system to honor three fallen freedom fighters, Jonathan Jackson, George Jackson and Khatari Gaulden. Jonathan Jackson was gunned down outside a Marin County, California courthouse on August 7, 1970, as he attempted to liberate three imprisoned Black Liberation Fighters: James McClain, William Christmas, and Ruchell Magee. Ruchell Magee is the sole survivor of that armed liberation attempt.
* George Jackson was assassinated by prison guards during a black prison rebellion at San Quentin on August 21, 1971. In an unsuccessful effort to cover up that state’s premeditated assassination of George Jackson, prison officials selected six Black and Latino prisoners to make scapegoats for their racist, murderous act. These prisoners became known as the San Quentin Six.
* Khatari Gaulden was a political activist who worked with the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. While in prison, he organized after George Jackson’s assassination. Gaulden was killed in the prison infirmary.
* Black August promotes a “non-sectarian mass based” resistance culture inside and outside the prison walls across the United States. The brothers who participated in the collective founding of Black August wore black armbands on their left arm and studied revolutionary works, focusing on the works of George Jackson.
* The brothers did not listen to the radio or watch television in August. Additionally, they didn’t eat or drink anything from sun-up to sundown, and loud boastful behavior was not allowed.
* The brothers did not support the prison canteen. The use of drugs and alcoholic beverages was prohibited and the brothers held daily exercises, because during Black August, emphasis is placed on sacrifice, fortitude and discipline.
* Black August is still a time to embrace the principles of 1) Unity; 2) Self-Sacrifice; 3) Political Education; 4) Physical training; and 5) Resistance!
* The first Africans were brought to Jamestown as slaves in August of 1619
* In 1843, Henry Highland Garnett called a general slave strike on August 22. William Still started the Underground Railroad on August 2, 1850, and the Afro-American Newspaper was founded on August 13, 1892.
* On August 3, 1908, the Allensworth Township for former slaves was established in California. The March on Washington occurred in August of 1963.
* Gabriel Prosser’s 1800 slave rebellion occurred on August 30. Nat Turner planned and carried out an August slave rebellion that commenced on August 21, 1831.
* During the Watts rebellions in August 1965, blacks took to the streets, and on August 18, 1971 in Jackson, Mississippi, the official residence of the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika (RNA) was raided by Mississippi police and FBI agents.
* Further, August is a time of birth. International African leader Marcus Garvey and Dr. Mutulu Shakur, political prisoner and prisoner of war, were both born in August.
* August is also a time of rebirth. W.E.B. Dubois died in Ghana on August 27, 1963.
Let's also commemorate the passing of Marilyn Buck with a reading from the Bayview National Black Newspaper:
Marilyn Buck a former political prisoner and prisoner of war. Along with Mutulu Shakur, she was involved in the liberation of Assata Shakur from prison in 1979. She later went underground.
“In the ‘60s Marilyn participated in protests against racism and the Vietnam war. In 1967 she became part of Students for a Democratic Society. Marilyn became part of a radical filmmaking and propaganda collective, showing the films as an organizing aid at community meetings, high school groups, workers’ committees and in the streets. She also participated in international solidarity groups supporting the Vietnamese, Palestinians and the Iranian struggle against the Shah. She worked in solidarity with Native Americans, Mexicano and Black liberation struggles.
“As a direct result of all of this activity, she became a target of COINTELPRO. In 1973, she was arrested and convicted of buying two boxes of bullets. Accused of being a member of the BLA [Black Liberation Army], she was sentenced to 10 years, the longest sentence ever given for such an offense at the time. In 1977 she was granted a furlough and never returned, joining the revolutionary clandestine movement. In 1985 she was captured and faced four separate court trials. She was charged with conspiracy to support and free PP/POWs [political prisoners and prisoners of war] and to support the New Afrikan Independence struggle through expropriations. In 1988 she was indicted for conspiracy to protest and alter government policies through use of violence against government and military buildings and received an additional 10 years for conspiracy to bomb the Capitol.
She was released July 15, 2010, after 25 years as an anti-imperialist political prisoner. Then suddenly, only 19 days later, she was gone. Her comrade and fellow former political prisoner Linda Evans broke the sad news: “Our dear comrade Marilyn Buck made her transition yesterday (Aug. 3, 2010) at 1 p.m. EST peacefully and surrounded by friends.” Sister Marpessa Kupendua wrote: “Former political prisoner Marilyn Buck made her transition. Peace and blessings be upon her revolutionary soul! Let her passing motivate us to be on point for all those denied medical care within the walls. Serious illnesses ARE death sentences! Much respect to her struggle on our collective behalf and all those who loved her so strong in her final days!”
‘Black August’
by Marilyn Buck
Would you hang on a cliff’s edge
sword-sharp, slashing fingers
while jackboot screws stomp heels
on peeled-flesh bones
and laugh
“let go! die, damn you, die!”
could you hang on 20 years, 30 years?
20 years, 30 years and more
brave Black brothers buried
in US koncentration kamps
they hang on
Black light shining in torture chambers
Ruchell, Yogi, Sundiata, Sekou,
Warren, Chip, Seth, Herman, Jalil,
and more and more they resist: Black August
Nat Turner insurrection chief executed: Black August
Jonathan, George dead in battle’s light: Black August
Fred Hampton, Black Panthers, African Brotherhood murdered: Black August
Kuwasi Balagoon, Nuh Abdul Quyyam captured warriors dead: Black August
Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Ella Baker, Ida B. Wells
Queen Mother Moore – their last breaths drawn fighting death: Black August
Black August: watchword
for Black liberation for human liberation
sword to sever the shackles
light to lead children of every nation to safety
Black August remembrance
resist the amerikkan nightmare for life
Can A woman Be Pretty, Funny and Smart?
A segment by Janelle Burke for the August 29th show
“If, like me, you’re a bit of a geek, you might be familiar with G4TV, and if you’re familiar with G4TV you’re probably familiar with Olivia Munn, co-host of the popular video game & tech show Attack of the Show.
For those of you still in the dark, here’s a little background on Olivia Munn:
She graduated from Oklahoma University with a major in Journalism and two minors – one in Japanese, the other in Dramatic Arts. In 2006 she began co-hosting Attack of the Show on the G4 network, and has filmed 374 episodes so far. She’s also had roles in recent films that include blockbuster Iron Man 2 and Date Night, starring Steve Carrell and Tina Fey of SNL fame. She is soon to be starring in a recently acquired NBC show Perfect couples, which is slated to air very soon. You can also see her on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart as their newest correspondent, and in 2010 she published her very first book. Remember these facts, kids, they’re coming up later on the test.
What we’re going to talk about today is a fairly recent controversy involving G4TV host Olivia Munn and her recent move to the Daily Show, so let’s get an idea of just how that happened. After establishing herself as a funny, articulate and more than capable host of G4’s Attack of the Show for four years and 374 episodes, Oliva landed a role in the comedy Date Night, where she met Tina Fey, who, until recently has been an SNL staple, who now shines on the NBC hit 30-Rock. It was in catching the eye of people like Tina Fey that helped Olivia land a starring role in the upcoming sitcom Perfect Couples, and as the Daily Show’s newest correspondent.
The controversy started with a rather incendiary and polarizing article from Jezebel writer Irin Carmon called “The Daily Show’s Woman Problem”. In it, the author proceeds first to slam the Daily Show for not having enough women on air, and being an environment which is hostile to women, having not had a new female correspondent in seven years. She recounts an often-told but never proved incident of Jon Stewart throwing a quote, newspaper or script, end quote, at the co-creator of a show. Carmon also injects well-tailored quotes into her article from women who either auditioned and didn’t get the gig – jilted is a good word for those ones I think. Or women that got the job, didn’t make the grade and were subsequently let go. Could it be that these jilted employees and almost-employees might be left feeling stung? Feeling perhaps that they should’ve gone to the gym more as one reject stated. But one has to ask, by which authority does writer Irin Carmon know exactly how the daily Show selects is correspondents? By which authority can she claim to understand the audition process? All interesting and relevant questions indeed.
Carmon states in her article that “Overall, The Daily Show's environment was such that many women felt marginalized.” This is interesting because Carmon has never auditioned for the Daily show, or worked there, and did not in fact speak with any of the many female staff members that have found working on the show to be a positive experience. Single-line quotes from a few spurned applicants can hardly be called research. Carmon fills her article space with clips of Olivia Munn eating a hot dog and jumping into a pie in a French maid’s outfit – comedy bits from Attack of the show, as proof that not only is Olivia Munn not funny, she’s a highly sexualized nit-wit to boot. Now everybody in the blogosphere commence internet rage!!
I find it very interesting that a young woman can graduate from university with a major in Journalism and two minors in Japanese and Dramatic Arts, film 374 episodes of a video game and tech show for an intelligent and un-forgiving audience for four years, star in a sitcom, have roles in two or the summer’s most popular films, have her comedic chops lauded by hte likes of Tina Fey, Robert Downey Jr and Jon Stewart, become a correspondent on the daily show, only to have her accomplishments reduced to eating a hot dog and jumping into a pie. Come on now.
I set about seeing if anyone was as incensed by this as I was. As Jezebel continued to garner page hits and advertising dollars I came upon another article, another voice in the chat room furor. That voice came from the very women Jezebel’s article was about – the women of the daily show. In an open letter, they responded to the charges of sexism at the Dail Show.
Dear People Who Don't Work Here,
Recently, certain media outlets have attempted to tell us what it's like to be a woman at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. We must admit it is entertaining to be the subjects of such a vivid and dramatic narrative. However, while rampant sexism at a well-respected show makes for a great story, we want to make something very clear: the place you may have read about is not our office.
The Daily Show isn't a place where women quietly suffer on the sidelines as barely tolerated tokens. On the contrary: just like the men here, we're indispensable. We generate a significant portion of the show's creative content and the fact is, it wouldn't be the show that you love without us.
So, who are the women of The Daily Show?
If you think the only women who help create this show are a couple of female writers and correspondents, you're dismissing the vast majority of us. Actually, we make up 40% of the staff, and we're not all shoved into the party-planning department (although we do run that, and we throw some kick-ass parties). We are co-executive producers, supervising producers, senior producers, segment producers, coordinating field producers, associate producers, editors, writers, correspondents, talent coordinators, production coordinators, researchers, makeup artists, the entire accounting and audience departments, production assistants, crew members, and much more. We were each hired because of our creative ability, our intelligence, and above all, our ability to work our asses off to make a great show.
Is it hard to work at The Daily Show?
Absolutely. When it comes to what makes it onto the show, competing ideas aren't just hashed out between the faces you see on camera or the names that roll under the "writers" credits. Jokes and concepts come from our studio department, our field department, our graphics department, our production department, our intern department, and our control room. Jon's rule is: the strongest idea and the funniest joke win every single time, no matter who pitches it--woman or man, executive producer or production assistant. And of course none of these jokes and ideas would get to air without the layers of production talent working behind the scenes. The fairness of our workplace makes competition tough and makes the show better.
So if it's so challenging, why have we stayed for two, five, ten, fourteen years? Because it's challenging. We feel lucky to work in a meritocracy where someone with talent can join us as an intern and work her way up to wherever her strengths take her. But also because it's an environment that supports our being more than just our jobs. The Daily Show (to an extent few of us have seen elsewhere) allows us the flexibility to care for our families, pursue our own projects, cope with unexpected crises, and have lives outside the show.
Also... are you kidding? It's The Daily Show for Christ's sake. You ask some stupid questions, imaginary interlocutor.
What's Jon Stewart really like?
Jon's not just a guy in a suit reading a prompter. His voice and vision shape every aspect of the show from concept to execution. The idea that he would risk compromising his show's quality by hiring or firing someone based on anything but ability, or by booking guests based on anything but subject matter, is simply ludicrous.
But what's he really like? Well, for a sexist prick, he can be quite charming. He's also generous, humble, genuine, compassionate, fair, supportive, exacting, stubborn, goofy, hands-on, driven, occasionally infuriating, ethical, down-to-earth and--a lot of people don't know this--surprisingly funny (for a guy brimming with “joyless rage”). How else to describe him? What's the word that means the opposite of sexist? That one.
In any organization, the tone is set from the top. Since taking over the show, Jon has worked hard to create an environment where people feel respected and valued regardless of their gender or position. If that's not your scene, you probably wouldn't like it here. We happen to love it.
And so...
And so, while it may cause a big stir to seize on the bitter rantings of ex-employees and ignore what current staff say about working at The Daily Show, it's not fair. It's not fair to us, it's not fair to Jon, it's not fair to our wonderful male colleagues, and it's especially not fair to the young women who want to have a career in comedy but are scared they may get swallowed up in what people label as a "boy's club."
The truth is, when it comes down to it, The Daily Show isn't a boy's club or a girl's club, it's a family - a highly functioning if sometimes dysfunctional family. And we're not thinking about how to maximize our gender roles in the workplace on a daily basis. We're thinking about how to punch up a joke about Glenn Beck's latest diatribe, where to find a Michael Steele puppet on an hour's notice, which chocolate looks most like an oil spill, and how to get a gospel choir to sing the immortal words, "Go f@#k yourself!"
Love,
Teri Abrams-Maidenberg, Department Supervisor, 11 years
Jill Baum, Writers' Assistant, 4 years
Samantha Bee, Correspondent, 7 years
Alison Camillo, Coordinating Field Producer, 12 years
Vilma Cardenas, Production Accountant, 14 years
Lauren Cohen, Production Assistant, 1 year
Jocelyn Conn, Executive Assistant, 4 years
Kahane Cooperman, Co-Executive Producer, 14 years
Pam DePace, Line Producer, 14 years
Tonya Dreher, Avid Editor, 4 years
Kristen Everman, Production Assistant, 2 years
Christy Fiero, Production Controller, 13 years
Jen Flanz, Supervising Producer, 13 years
Hallie Haglund, Writer, 5 years
Kira Hopf, Senior Producer, 14 years
Jenna Jones, Production Assistant, 2 years
Jessie Kanevsky, Department Coordinator, 5 years
Jill Katz, Producer/Executive in Charge of Production, 4 years
Hillary Kun, Supervising Producer, 9 years
Christina Kyriazis, TelePrompter Operator, 14 years
Jo Miller, Writer, 1 year
Jody Morlock, Hair & Make-Up Artist, 14 years
Olivia Munn, Correspondent, 1 month
Lauren Sarver, Associate Segment Producer, 5 years
Kristen Schaal, Correspondent, 2 years
April Smith, Utility, 14 years
Patty Ido Smith, Electronic Graphics, 12 years
Sara Taksler, Segment Producer, 5 years
Elise Terrell, Production Coordinator, 6 years
Adriane Truex, Facility Manager, 12 years
Juliet Werner, Researcher, 1 year
Kaela Wohl, Wardrobe Stylist/Costumer, 2 years
PS. Thanks for the list of funny women. Our Nanas send us a ton of suggestions about "what would make a great skit for The John Daley Show." We'll file it right next to those.
PPS. Thanks to the male writers who penned this for us.
The letter goes on to be signed by the dozens of women staff members, and how many years they’ve worked on the show.
I found that really refreshing, mainly because you almost never hear such an open response to various online diatribes levelled at different shows on television.
An article on website Slate titled, Outrage World: How Feminist Blogs Like Jezebel Gin Up Pageviews by Emily Gould. A quote from her sums up Jezebel’s argument pretty well:
Jezebel writer Irin Carmon's argument is essentially this: "Former videogame show host" Olivia Munn may soon become the show's first new female correspondent in seven years, but her potential hiring is nothing to celebrate, because, while she's a woman, she's not the right kind of woman.
So what is the right kind of woman? Smart? Funny? Okay, so what’s the problem? Oh wait, she’s pretty too. And we now get to the heart of the Daily Show’s seeming epic fail. NO PRETTY WOMEN ALLOWED! Wait. So the question then seems to be, can a woman be pretty, funny AND smart? It seems Jezebel would say no.
But I ask Jezebel, and the general community, can we really go to this extreme after so many gains have been made? Are we really, in 2010, still saying that women deemed attractive have nothing of value to contribute? How is that different to the attitudes of those who hold misogynist views?
Formerly beloved on G4TV's Attack of the Show, Olivia Munn is now accused of getting to where she is simply on sex appeal, and apparently not being the right kind of woman for the Daily Show. I'm of the opinion that the vicious tearing-down she's receiving in the blogs is merely a result of certain women feeling threatened (perhaps subconsciously) by Munn's apparent ability to walk in both worlds - that is, to be "one of the boys", while embracing her femininity and sex appeal. In the end, not only is it counter-productive to the feminist dialogue, it ultimately does the work of misogyny by playing up age-old insecurities under the guise of feminism.
Feminism is not for a certain kind of woman. It is for all women, no matter their race, creed or level of attractiveness. It is for empowering women with the freedom to do with their lives what they choose, and to be whomever or whatever they wish to be. The purpose of feminism, in my view, is the ultimate goal of joining the sexes under the banner of social equality, eliminating the biases of gender and sex – on both sides of the debate. One day”.
“If, like me, you’re a bit of a geek, you might be familiar with G4TV, and if you’re familiar with G4TV you’re probably familiar with Olivia Munn, co-host of the popular video game & tech show Attack of the Show.
For those of you still in the dark, here’s a little background on Olivia Munn:
She graduated from Oklahoma University with a major in Journalism and two minors – one in Japanese, the other in Dramatic Arts. In 2006 she began co-hosting Attack of the Show on the G4 network, and has filmed 374 episodes so far. She’s also had roles in recent films that include blockbuster Iron Man 2 and Date Night, starring Steve Carrell and Tina Fey of SNL fame. She is soon to be starring in a recently acquired NBC show Perfect couples, which is slated to air very soon. You can also see her on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart as their newest correspondent, and in 2010 she published her very first book. Remember these facts, kids, they’re coming up later on the test.
What we’re going to talk about today is a fairly recent controversy involving G4TV host Olivia Munn and her recent move to the Daily Show, so let’s get an idea of just how that happened. After establishing herself as a funny, articulate and more than capable host of G4’s Attack of the Show for four years and 374 episodes, Oliva landed a role in the comedy Date Night, where she met Tina Fey, who, until recently has been an SNL staple, who now shines on the NBC hit 30-Rock. It was in catching the eye of people like Tina Fey that helped Olivia land a starring role in the upcoming sitcom Perfect Couples, and as the Daily Show’s newest correspondent.
The controversy started with a rather incendiary and polarizing article from Jezebel writer Irin Carmon called “The Daily Show’s Woman Problem”. In it, the author proceeds first to slam the Daily Show for not having enough women on air, and being an environment which is hostile to women, having not had a new female correspondent in seven years. She recounts an often-told but never proved incident of Jon Stewart throwing a quote, newspaper or script, end quote, at the co-creator of a show. Carmon also injects well-tailored quotes into her article from women who either auditioned and didn’t get the gig – jilted is a good word for those ones I think. Or women that got the job, didn’t make the grade and were subsequently let go. Could it be that these jilted employees and almost-employees might be left feeling stung? Feeling perhaps that they should’ve gone to the gym more as one reject stated. But one has to ask, by which authority does writer Irin Carmon know exactly how the daily Show selects is correspondents? By which authority can she claim to understand the audition process? All interesting and relevant questions indeed.
Carmon states in her article that “Overall, The Daily Show's environment was such that many women felt marginalized.” This is interesting because Carmon has never auditioned for the Daily show, or worked there, and did not in fact speak with any of the many female staff members that have found working on the show to be a positive experience. Single-line quotes from a few spurned applicants can hardly be called research. Carmon fills her article space with clips of Olivia Munn eating a hot dog and jumping into a pie in a French maid’s outfit – comedy bits from Attack of the show, as proof that not only is Olivia Munn not funny, she’s a highly sexualized nit-wit to boot. Now everybody in the blogosphere commence internet rage!!
I find it very interesting that a young woman can graduate from university with a major in Journalism and two minors in Japanese and Dramatic Arts, film 374 episodes of a video game and tech show for an intelligent and un-forgiving audience for four years, star in a sitcom, have roles in two or the summer’s most popular films, have her comedic chops lauded by hte likes of Tina Fey, Robert Downey Jr and Jon Stewart, become a correspondent on the daily show, only to have her accomplishments reduced to eating a hot dog and jumping into a pie. Come on now.
I set about seeing if anyone was as incensed by this as I was. As Jezebel continued to garner page hits and advertising dollars I came upon another article, another voice in the chat room furor. That voice came from the very women Jezebel’s article was about – the women of the daily show. In an open letter, they responded to the charges of sexism at the Dail Show.
Dear People Who Don't Work Here,
Recently, certain media outlets have attempted to tell us what it's like to be a woman at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. We must admit it is entertaining to be the subjects of such a vivid and dramatic narrative. However, while rampant sexism at a well-respected show makes for a great story, we want to make something very clear: the place you may have read about is not our office.
The Daily Show isn't a place where women quietly suffer on the sidelines as barely tolerated tokens. On the contrary: just like the men here, we're indispensable. We generate a significant portion of the show's creative content and the fact is, it wouldn't be the show that you love without us.
So, who are the women of The Daily Show?
If you think the only women who help create this show are a couple of female writers and correspondents, you're dismissing the vast majority of us. Actually, we make up 40% of the staff, and we're not all shoved into the party-planning department (although we do run that, and we throw some kick-ass parties). We are co-executive producers, supervising producers, senior producers, segment producers, coordinating field producers, associate producers, editors, writers, correspondents, talent coordinators, production coordinators, researchers, makeup artists, the entire accounting and audience departments, production assistants, crew members, and much more. We were each hired because of our creative ability, our intelligence, and above all, our ability to work our asses off to make a great show.
Is it hard to work at The Daily Show?
Absolutely. When it comes to what makes it onto the show, competing ideas aren't just hashed out between the faces you see on camera or the names that roll under the "writers" credits. Jokes and concepts come from our studio department, our field department, our graphics department, our production department, our intern department, and our control room. Jon's rule is: the strongest idea and the funniest joke win every single time, no matter who pitches it--woman or man, executive producer or production assistant. And of course none of these jokes and ideas would get to air without the layers of production talent working behind the scenes. The fairness of our workplace makes competition tough and makes the show better.
So if it's so challenging, why have we stayed for two, five, ten, fourteen years? Because it's challenging. We feel lucky to work in a meritocracy where someone with talent can join us as an intern and work her way up to wherever her strengths take her. But also because it's an environment that supports our being more than just our jobs. The Daily Show (to an extent few of us have seen elsewhere) allows us the flexibility to care for our families, pursue our own projects, cope with unexpected crises, and have lives outside the show.
Also... are you kidding? It's The Daily Show for Christ's sake. You ask some stupid questions, imaginary interlocutor.
What's Jon Stewart really like?
Jon's not just a guy in a suit reading a prompter. His voice and vision shape every aspect of the show from concept to execution. The idea that he would risk compromising his show's quality by hiring or firing someone based on anything but ability, or by booking guests based on anything but subject matter, is simply ludicrous.
But what's he really like? Well, for a sexist prick, he can be quite charming. He's also generous, humble, genuine, compassionate, fair, supportive, exacting, stubborn, goofy, hands-on, driven, occasionally infuriating, ethical, down-to-earth and--a lot of people don't know this--surprisingly funny (for a guy brimming with “joyless rage”). How else to describe him? What's the word that means the opposite of sexist? That one.
In any organization, the tone is set from the top. Since taking over the show, Jon has worked hard to create an environment where people feel respected and valued regardless of their gender or position. If that's not your scene, you probably wouldn't like it here. We happen to love it.
And so...
And so, while it may cause a big stir to seize on the bitter rantings of ex-employees and ignore what current staff say about working at The Daily Show, it's not fair. It's not fair to us, it's not fair to Jon, it's not fair to our wonderful male colleagues, and it's especially not fair to the young women who want to have a career in comedy but are scared they may get swallowed up in what people label as a "boy's club."
The truth is, when it comes down to it, The Daily Show isn't a boy's club or a girl's club, it's a family - a highly functioning if sometimes dysfunctional family. And we're not thinking about how to maximize our gender roles in the workplace on a daily basis. We're thinking about how to punch up a joke about Glenn Beck's latest diatribe, where to find a Michael Steele puppet on an hour's notice, which chocolate looks most like an oil spill, and how to get a gospel choir to sing the immortal words, "Go f@#k yourself!"
Love,
Teri Abrams-Maidenberg, Department Supervisor, 11 years
Jill Baum, Writers' Assistant, 4 years
Samantha Bee, Correspondent, 7 years
Alison Camillo, Coordinating Field Producer, 12 years
Vilma Cardenas, Production Accountant, 14 years
Lauren Cohen, Production Assistant, 1 year
Jocelyn Conn, Executive Assistant, 4 years
Kahane Cooperman, Co-Executive Producer, 14 years
Pam DePace, Line Producer, 14 years
Tonya Dreher, Avid Editor, 4 years
Kristen Everman, Production Assistant, 2 years
Christy Fiero, Production Controller, 13 years
Jen Flanz, Supervising Producer, 13 years
Hallie Haglund, Writer, 5 years
Kira Hopf, Senior Producer, 14 years
Jenna Jones, Production Assistant, 2 years
Jessie Kanevsky, Department Coordinator, 5 years
Jill Katz, Producer/Executive in Charge of Production, 4 years
Hillary Kun, Supervising Producer, 9 years
Christina Kyriazis, TelePrompter Operator, 14 years
Jo Miller, Writer, 1 year
Jody Morlock, Hair & Make-Up Artist, 14 years
Olivia Munn, Correspondent, 1 month
Lauren Sarver, Associate Segment Producer, 5 years
Kristen Schaal, Correspondent, 2 years
April Smith, Utility, 14 years
Patty Ido Smith, Electronic Graphics, 12 years
Sara Taksler, Segment Producer, 5 years
Elise Terrell, Production Coordinator, 6 years
Adriane Truex, Facility Manager, 12 years
Juliet Werner, Researcher, 1 year
Kaela Wohl, Wardrobe Stylist/Costumer, 2 years
PS. Thanks for the list of funny women. Our Nanas send us a ton of suggestions about "what would make a great skit for The John Daley Show." We'll file it right next to those.
PPS. Thanks to the male writers who penned this for us.
The letter goes on to be signed by the dozens of women staff members, and how many years they’ve worked on the show.
I found that really refreshing, mainly because you almost never hear such an open response to various online diatribes levelled at different shows on television.
An article on website Slate titled, Outrage World: How Feminist Blogs Like Jezebel Gin Up Pageviews by Emily Gould. A quote from her sums up Jezebel’s argument pretty well:
Jezebel writer Irin Carmon's argument is essentially this: "Former videogame show host" Olivia Munn may soon become the show's first new female correspondent in seven years, but her potential hiring is nothing to celebrate, because, while she's a woman, she's not the right kind of woman.
So what is the right kind of woman? Smart? Funny? Okay, so what’s the problem? Oh wait, she’s pretty too. And we now get to the heart of the Daily Show’s seeming epic fail. NO PRETTY WOMEN ALLOWED! Wait. So the question then seems to be, can a woman be pretty, funny AND smart? It seems Jezebel would say no.
But I ask Jezebel, and the general community, can we really go to this extreme after so many gains have been made? Are we really, in 2010, still saying that women deemed attractive have nothing of value to contribute? How is that different to the attitudes of those who hold misogynist views?
Formerly beloved on G4TV's Attack of the Show, Olivia Munn is now accused of getting to where she is simply on sex appeal, and apparently not being the right kind of woman for the Daily Show. I'm of the opinion that the vicious tearing-down she's receiving in the blogs is merely a result of certain women feeling threatened (perhaps subconsciously) by Munn's apparent ability to walk in both worlds - that is, to be "one of the boys", while embracing her femininity and sex appeal. In the end, not only is it counter-productive to the feminist dialogue, it ultimately does the work of misogyny by playing up age-old insecurities under the guise of feminism.
Feminism is not for a certain kind of woman. It is for all women, no matter their race, creed or level of attractiveness. It is for empowering women with the freedom to do with their lives what they choose, and to be whomever or whatever they wish to be. The purpose of feminism, in my view, is the ultimate goal of joining the sexes under the banner of social equality, eliminating the biases of gender and sex – on both sides of the debate. One day”.
How Do You like Your Politics Served?
A segment by Ayshia Musleh for August 29th show
Coming from a background of a community organizer as a result of my own personal experience as a Racialized woman of Arab descent with a disability, I reflect upon the current local politics of Toronto and ask, as Heather Mallick of the Toronto Star asks Rod Ford for Mayor: Has Toronto Gone Nuts?!!
Do we really want the brash but media savvy info-tainment styling of a Rod Ford as mayor of this beautiful and diverse city? I argue that this startling set of circumstances is more an issue of community political apathy, disengagement and a lack of political literacy. Time to be more engaged with the world around us, and ask the hard questions and reflect - Do we really want Rod Ford as mayor and how will that result affect us in the long run?
Coming from a background of a community organizer as a result of my own personal experience as a Racialized woman of Arab descent with a disability, I reflect upon the current local politics of Toronto and ask, as Heather Mallick of the Toronto Star asks Rod Ford for Mayor: Has Toronto Gone Nuts?!!
Do we really want the brash but media savvy info-tainment styling of a Rod Ford as mayor of this beautiful and diverse city? I argue that this startling set of circumstances is more an issue of community political apathy, disengagement and a lack of political literacy. Time to be more engaged with the world around us, and ask the hard questions and reflect - Do we really want Rod Ford as mayor and how will that result affect us in the long run?
Friday, September 17, 2010
Immigration Raids Targets Migrant Workers
J4MW Demands An End to the Criminalization of Undocumented Workers.
For Immediate Release
(Toronto)- Justicia for Migrant Workers (J4MW), an advocacy group for the rights of migrant workers, expresses its outrage over the arrest and detention of eleven migrant agricultural workers. They were arrested on the morning of Tuesday August 31, 2010 during an immigration raid conducted in the Chatham-Kent area. All eleven arrested were migrant agricultural workers employed on local farms. The workers are currently being held in detention at the Windsor Jail.
“J4MW and countless community, legal and labour organizations have expressed their consistent opposition to the mistreatment faced by current and former temporary foreign workers” says Tzazna Miranda Leal "Over the last year there have been petitions, deputations and delegations made to Federal and Provincial Politicians to no avail. When will we prioritize the rights of migrant workers over their persecution?” continues Miranda-Leal
The detained migrants are all former participants of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, a Federal Government Migrant Scheme that ties workers to an employer with no ability to apply for permanent residency. There have been ongoing concerns over abuses that are inherent in the TFW program including: exorbitant recruitment fees, charges for services not provided and sometimes not available, no labour mobility, threats of repatriation, employment abuses and precarious immigration status.
Recently the Federal Government announced changes to the Pilot Project for Occupations Requiring Lower levels of Formal Training (NOC C and D) the ‘low skilled’ stream of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. This includes banning workers from Canada for a minimum of four years after working in Canada for a maximum of four years, and denying migrant workers entry into Canada if they are not in possession of a work permit that is not deemed to be ‘genuine’. Thousands of workers across Ontario will be impacted by these changes.
Migrant workers under the ‘low skill stream’ have described paying over $10 000 plus interest to come to Canada on contracts that do not provided what was promised in their home country. These workers face ongoing threats of deportation, pay exorbitant fees for work permits and other fees associated with work. They are paid less than what was agreed before arriving and do not make the money as promised. With no possibility of paying off their debts if they return to their home country, these migrants are corralled into precarious conditions because Canadian laws do not adequately reflect the realities that migrant workers face on a daily basis.
Justicia for Migrant Workers proposes that the Federal Government repeal the proposed regulations in favour of an immigration reform that emphasizes fair and compassion treatment for migrant workers. J4MW proposes the following steps: status upon arrival for all temporary foreign workers, an end to recruitment and placement fees for all workers, an end to repatriations and deportations, access to benefits and entitlements (EI, Healthcare etc) and reforming labour laws to reflect the realities faced by migrant workers.
In 2009 there were over 282, 194 temporary foreign workers employed across Canada an increase of nearly 200,000 temporary foreign workers since 1990.
For more information please contact
Justicia for Migrant Workers (J4MW)
http://justicia4migrantworkers.org/index.htm
Follow on twitter: http://twitter.com/j4mw/
For Immediate Release
(Toronto)- Justicia for Migrant Workers (J4MW), an advocacy group for the rights of migrant workers, expresses its outrage over the arrest and detention of eleven migrant agricultural workers. They were arrested on the morning of Tuesday August 31, 2010 during an immigration raid conducted in the Chatham-Kent area. All eleven arrested were migrant agricultural workers employed on local farms. The workers are currently being held in detention at the Windsor Jail.
“J4MW and countless community, legal and labour organizations have expressed their consistent opposition to the mistreatment faced by current and former temporary foreign workers” says Tzazna Miranda Leal "Over the last year there have been petitions, deputations and delegations made to Federal and Provincial Politicians to no avail. When will we prioritize the rights of migrant workers over their persecution?” continues Miranda-Leal
The detained migrants are all former participants of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, a Federal Government Migrant Scheme that ties workers to an employer with no ability to apply for permanent residency. There have been ongoing concerns over abuses that are inherent in the TFW program including: exorbitant recruitment fees, charges for services not provided and sometimes not available, no labour mobility, threats of repatriation, employment abuses and precarious immigration status.
Recently the Federal Government announced changes to the Pilot Project for Occupations Requiring Lower levels of Formal Training (NOC C and D) the ‘low skilled’ stream of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. This includes banning workers from Canada for a minimum of four years after working in Canada for a maximum of four years, and denying migrant workers entry into Canada if they are not in possession of a work permit that is not deemed to be ‘genuine’. Thousands of workers across Ontario will be impacted by these changes.
Migrant workers under the ‘low skill stream’ have described paying over $10 000 plus interest to come to Canada on contracts that do not provided what was promised in their home country. These workers face ongoing threats of deportation, pay exorbitant fees for work permits and other fees associated with work. They are paid less than what was agreed before arriving and do not make the money as promised. With no possibility of paying off their debts if they return to their home country, these migrants are corralled into precarious conditions because Canadian laws do not adequately reflect the realities that migrant workers face on a daily basis.
Justicia for Migrant Workers proposes that the Federal Government repeal the proposed regulations in favour of an immigration reform that emphasizes fair and compassion treatment for migrant workers. J4MW proposes the following steps: status upon arrival for all temporary foreign workers, an end to recruitment and placement fees for all workers, an end to repatriations and deportations, access to benefits and entitlements (EI, Healthcare etc) and reforming labour laws to reflect the realities faced by migrant workers.
In 2009 there were over 282, 194 temporary foreign workers employed across Canada an increase of nearly 200,000 temporary foreign workers since 1990.
For more information please contact
Justicia for Migrant Workers (J4MW)
http://justicia4migrantworkers.org/index.htm
Follow on twitter: http://twitter.com/j4mw/
Agricultural Deaths Preventable
Migrant Advocacy group calls on Provincial Government to Protect Workers: Snap inspections, Coroner’s Inquest, and Criminal Investigation needed to show Zero Tolerance for Migrant Fatalities
(Toronto) Justicia For Migrant Workers (J4MW), a migrant worker advocacy group is saddened to learn of the latest tragedy facing the migrant worker community. On Friday September 10, 2010 J4MW learnt that two Jamaican migrant agricultural workers died as a result of workplaces injuries suffered at Filsinger Farms near Owen Sound, Ontario. “We are aggrieved by this tragedy,” states Tzazna Miranda Leal an organizer with Justicia for Migrant Workers, “We mourn this loss, and we send our condolences to the families of these workers” continues Miranda Leal.
While details of the fatalities are pending due to an ongoing investigation by the Ministry of Labour, the Jamaican government is reporting that Ralston White and Paul Roach may have died from the inhalation of toxic fumes. Health and safety violations are an everyday occurrence for migrant workers. From chemical and pesticides exposure, to faulty equipment, to workplace bullying and harassment, migrant workers from across the province have described countless examples of dangers while working.
It is critical to examine whether or not these men received safety equipment, what education and training they received or if they were provided information relating to their rights under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. J4MW further argues that the structure of the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), which employ approximately 30,000 migrant farm workers in Canada, denies migrant agricultural workers labour mobility and the ability to exert rights. Fear of reprimand--firings, repatriations/deportations and permanent disbarment from working in Canada--is a constant concern for many workers, whose employment and ability to work in Canada depends largely on their employers' approval.
J4MW is urging the Minister of the Labour to consider the following options in addressing this tragedy: Snap inspections for all workplaces and accommodations where migrant workers live and work; a coroner’s inquest into the details relating to these workplace deaths; an appeals mechanism built into the SAWP and TFW so that migrant workers cannot be arbitrarily and unilaterally repatriated to their homeland (anti-reprisal protection); increased labour rights and protections for all migrant workers; and a criminal investigation into this workplace fatality as mandated by section 217.1 of the criminal code of Canada. The code states that:
Everyone who undertakes, or has the authority, to direct how another person does work or performs a task is under a legal duty to take reasonable steps to prevent bodily harm to that person, or any other person, arising from that work or task.
Every year over 300 workers die in occupational related fatalities across Ontario. Countless others are maimed or injured. Agriculture remains one of the most dangerous occupations across Canada. Since 1999 there have been 33 reported deaths of migrant workers employed under the auspices of the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program in Ontario and 1,129 medical repatriations of SAWP migrants (workers who left Canada because of illness or injuries sustained while in Ontario). The numbers of migrant workplace injuries and deaths are underreported because of premature repatriations and workers dying in their home countries as a result of injuries sustained while working in Canada.
For more information please contact:
Chris Ramsaroop 647 834 4932- ramsaroopchris@gmail.com
(Toronto) Justicia For Migrant Workers (J4MW), a migrant worker advocacy group is saddened to learn of the latest tragedy facing the migrant worker community. On Friday September 10, 2010 J4MW learnt that two Jamaican migrant agricultural workers died as a result of workplaces injuries suffered at Filsinger Farms near Owen Sound, Ontario. “We are aggrieved by this tragedy,” states Tzazna Miranda Leal an organizer with Justicia for Migrant Workers, “We mourn this loss, and we send our condolences to the families of these workers” continues Miranda Leal.
While details of the fatalities are pending due to an ongoing investigation by the Ministry of Labour, the Jamaican government is reporting that Ralston White and Paul Roach may have died from the inhalation of toxic fumes. Health and safety violations are an everyday occurrence for migrant workers. From chemical and pesticides exposure, to faulty equipment, to workplace bullying and harassment, migrant workers from across the province have described countless examples of dangers while working.
It is critical to examine whether or not these men received safety equipment, what education and training they received or if they were provided information relating to their rights under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. J4MW further argues that the structure of the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), which employ approximately 30,000 migrant farm workers in Canada, denies migrant agricultural workers labour mobility and the ability to exert rights. Fear of reprimand--firings, repatriations/deportations and permanent disbarment from working in Canada--is a constant concern for many workers, whose employment and ability to work in Canada depends largely on their employers' approval.
J4MW is urging the Minister of the Labour to consider the following options in addressing this tragedy: Snap inspections for all workplaces and accommodations where migrant workers live and work; a coroner’s inquest into the details relating to these workplace deaths; an appeals mechanism built into the SAWP and TFW so that migrant workers cannot be arbitrarily and unilaterally repatriated to their homeland (anti-reprisal protection); increased labour rights and protections for all migrant workers; and a criminal investigation into this workplace fatality as mandated by section 217.1 of the criminal code of Canada. The code states that:
Everyone who undertakes, or has the authority, to direct how another person does work or performs a task is under a legal duty to take reasonable steps to prevent bodily harm to that person, or any other person, arising from that work or task.
Every year over 300 workers die in occupational related fatalities across Ontario. Countless others are maimed or injured. Agriculture remains one of the most dangerous occupations across Canada. Since 1999 there have been 33 reported deaths of migrant workers employed under the auspices of the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program in Ontario and 1,129 medical repatriations of SAWP migrants (workers who left Canada because of illness or injuries sustained while in Ontario). The numbers of migrant workplace injuries and deaths are underreported because of premature repatriations and workers dying in their home countries as a result of injuries sustained while working in Canada.
For more information please contact:
Chris Ramsaroop 647 834 4932- ramsaroopchris@gmail.com
STOP THE KILLING OF MIGRANT WORKERS, END EXPLOITATIVE TEMPORARY WORK PROGRAMS
Toronto — No One Is Illegal-Toronto, a grassroots migrant justice organization, is shocked and enraged at the most recent deaths of two migrant workers from Jamaica, Ralston White and Paul Roach, on September 10 while working at Filsinger's Organic Foods apple orchard and processing facility near Owen Sound, Ontario. Deaths and injuries to migrant workers are a hidden face of Canada's exclusionary immigration system, bursting in to light only when immense tragedies take place.
Four construction workers with precarious immigration status, Alexander Bondorev, Aleksey Blumberg, Fayzullo Fazilov and Vladimir Korostin, fell to their deaths on Christmas Eve 2009 in one of the worst workplace disasters to shake Toronto. The swing stage scaffolding they were working on broke into two pieces, plummeting the four workers over 13 stories to the concrete below at 2757 Kipling Avenue. A fifth man was in critical condition and will need medical attention for the rest of his life. A vigil was organized by No One Is Illegal-Toronto and Justice for Migrant Workers on January 7, 2010 (http://toronto.nooneisillegal.org/node/391)
The deaths of September 10 are presently under an Ontario Provincial Police and Ministry of Labor investigation. Such investigations do little to attack the root cause of the problem - the exclusionary, racist immigration agenda of Canada that forces migrants into temporary jobs with minimal protection or access to justice and dignity.
Bauxite mining in Jamaica has caused immense deforestation and weakened the economy. One of the largest corporate exploiters of mining in Jamaica is Alcan Canada whose mining rights supersede all Jamaican law. Structural adjustment programs endorsed by Canada brought the Jamaican economy to its knees, at the same time as Canada was expanding the Seasonal Agricultural Work Program to bring in Jamaican migrants as farmworkers in the late 70s, and 80s.
In short, Canada profits from the impoverishment of poor and people of colour communities the world over, forcing many to make the difficult decision to come to Canada. Those who are able to arrive do so on temporary work programs that restrict their ability to create long lasting relationships in Canada. Temporary migrant workers struggle in difficult and dangerous jobs, often injured. Many are deported when they are deemed unfit to work and some die upon their return.
The deaths of Ralston and Paul are the tip of an iceberg calling to account the hundreds of others that have been injured and killed as a result of Canadian immigration policy. Mere investigations that will simply blame a few corporations and not fundamentally overhaul the immigration system are simply not sufficient.
On August 13, 30 civil charges were laid against Metron Construction Corporation, 16 against a Director in the company and 8 against a supervisor for the deaths of Alexander, Aleksey, Fayzullo and Vladimir. Platform supplier Swing ‘N’ Scaff also faces four charges, and another three were laid against a director in the company. The cause of death - lack of resources due to immigration status - is being quickly brushed under the carpet.
Since becoming the minority Prime Minister, Stephen Harper has continued the Liberal policy of limiting access to full citizenship rights for migrants. Today, more people enter Canada as temporary workers then those with access to permanent residency. Today, more than 60% of refugee claimants are denied access to citizenship rights on arbitrary grounds. Many of these people must make the difficult decision to continue to live in Canada without full status, often unable to secure safe employment, have access to full education, health care, housing or emergency services. Those that do so face the daily of fear of detention and deportation, injuries and in some cases death.
Nothing short of full status for all people can end such tragedies from taking place.
Four construction workers with precarious immigration status, Alexander Bondorev, Aleksey Blumberg, Fayzullo Fazilov and Vladimir Korostin, fell to their deaths on Christmas Eve 2009 in one of the worst workplace disasters to shake Toronto. The swing stage scaffolding they were working on broke into two pieces, plummeting the four workers over 13 stories to the concrete below at 2757 Kipling Avenue. A fifth man was in critical condition and will need medical attention for the rest of his life. A vigil was organized by No One Is Illegal-Toronto and Justice for Migrant Workers on January 7, 2010 (http://toronto.nooneisillegal.org/node/391)
The deaths of September 10 are presently under an Ontario Provincial Police and Ministry of Labor investigation. Such investigations do little to attack the root cause of the problem - the exclusionary, racist immigration agenda of Canada that forces migrants into temporary jobs with minimal protection or access to justice and dignity.
Bauxite mining in Jamaica has caused immense deforestation and weakened the economy. One of the largest corporate exploiters of mining in Jamaica is Alcan Canada whose mining rights supersede all Jamaican law. Structural adjustment programs endorsed by Canada brought the Jamaican economy to its knees, at the same time as Canada was expanding the Seasonal Agricultural Work Program to bring in Jamaican migrants as farmworkers in the late 70s, and 80s.
In short, Canada profits from the impoverishment of poor and people of colour communities the world over, forcing many to make the difficult decision to come to Canada. Those who are able to arrive do so on temporary work programs that restrict their ability to create long lasting relationships in Canada. Temporary migrant workers struggle in difficult and dangerous jobs, often injured. Many are deported when they are deemed unfit to work and some die upon their return.
The deaths of Ralston and Paul are the tip of an iceberg calling to account the hundreds of others that have been injured and killed as a result of Canadian immigration policy. Mere investigations that will simply blame a few corporations and not fundamentally overhaul the immigration system are simply not sufficient.
On August 13, 30 civil charges were laid against Metron Construction Corporation, 16 against a Director in the company and 8 against a supervisor for the deaths of Alexander, Aleksey, Fayzullo and Vladimir. Platform supplier Swing ‘N’ Scaff also faces four charges, and another three were laid against a director in the company. The cause of death - lack of resources due to immigration status - is being quickly brushed under the carpet.
Since becoming the minority Prime Minister, Stephen Harper has continued the Liberal policy of limiting access to full citizenship rights for migrants. Today, more people enter Canada as temporary workers then those with access to permanent residency. Today, more than 60% of refugee claimants are denied access to citizenship rights on arbitrary grounds. Many of these people must make the difficult decision to continue to live in Canada without full status, often unable to secure safe employment, have access to full education, health care, housing or emergency services. Those that do so face the daily of fear of detention and deportation, injuries and in some cases death.
Nothing short of full status for all people can end such tragedies from taking place.
Friday, September 10, 2010
10 reasons why sexual labour is vital to our communities
Today as part of our labor day programming frequency feminisms is honoring a job that is close to our proverbial hearts as women. We are spotlighting the contribution of the “oldest profession” in keeping our communities functioning, healthy and economically productive. That's right, we are talking about sex workers and sexual labor.
Why? Because sexual labor is a primary source of national and transnational wealth and profit. Even though sex workers are marginalized in mainstream culture it's our work that keeps the wheels of our economy turning. Even more importantly, we are talking about the value of sex work to combat the violence and abuse meted out against us by promoting a view of sex workers as essential workers instead of objects, victims and criminals.
Here are 10 reasons why our work, the labor of sex workers, is vitally important to our communities.
1.Sex workers promote relaxation, release and productivity: My client list includes people that work in every stressful profession in the book including doctors, lawyers, firemen and plenty of police officers. Sexually satisfied people can work harder, longer and more efficiently. Do you really want the brain surgeon who is removing your granny's tumor to be preoccupied with pent up sexual frustration? You can thank a sex worker for making sure that he can get off so you don't have to worry.
2.Sex workers promote family values: We save marriages by making sure that partners have an avenue to pursue their sexual desires as an alternative to having an affair. We also act as relationship counselors. I can't tell you how many times I've helped troubled husbands and boyfriends talk through their issues so that they can return to their wives and girlfriends refreshed and ready to love them the way that they deserve.
3.Sex workers can do AND we can teach: We teach our clients how to have hotter sex with their current and future partners. We give hands-on instruction in practicing skill and technique. As a result, our clients often make for better lovers.
4.Sex workers promote better hygiene and safer sex: We often do the hard job of telling that guy in your office that smells like ass to clean up his act and that dude you slept with that one night to wrap it up. As part of our work we learn to do this with compassion and tact. More often than not our clients our fresher and safe sex savvy by virtue of seeing us.
5.Sex workers help prevent sex related crimes: By destigmatizing fetish sex workers provide a space for people to fulfill their sexual desires rather than repressing them and eventually acting out in violence. We also assert the importance of consent in any sex act by promoting the primacy of the “no means no” rule. Furthermore, we allow for open, frank discussion of the terms of each sexual encounter so that clients can learn to engage in similar talks with their other partners.
6.Sex workers promote sex positivity and healthy sexuality: The World Health Organization defines sexual health as the integration of physical, emotional, intellectual and social aspects of sexual being in ways that are positive, enriching and enhancing of personality, communication and love. For many people achieving this definition of sexual health is only possible through the involvement of sex workers. We normalize kink and create a space where sex is healthy, positive and fun.
7.Sex workers provide sexual services to people with special needs: Disabled people deserve sexual satisfaction just as much as anybody else. However, for many people with physical, emotional and intellectual disabilities, meeting and maintaining sexual partners can prove difficult. Some disabled people have specific needs that require accommodation by a skilled professional. Sex workers play an important role in ensuring that these people have access to a happy and fulfilling sex life. Also, sex work provides a career path for people like myself who have disabilities that make it difficult to obtain or maintain a job in another field so that we can be economically productive members of society despite our limitations.
8.Sex workers put money back into the economy: We make money and we spend money. A lot of the money that keeps the tourism industry thriving is either from us or our clients. We spend money on hotel rooms, airline tickets and meals amongst other products and services that are closely related to our work.
9.Sex worker promotes the financial independence of women: Sex work is a viable income stream for women facing tough times and there is no glass ceiling for women in sex work. We rule the industry. This means that in the sex industry, the woman's place is on top, even when we are playing power-bottom.
10.Sex workers are rad: By virtue of engaging in work that is often stigmatized and illegal, we challenge societal norms every day that we work, identify as a sex worker or fight for the rights of sex workers.
This labor day lets extend our heartfelt thanks and gratitude to our local sex workers who keep our communities healthy, sexy and fun. And please remember, tipping is not required but it is very, very much appreciated.
Why? Because sexual labor is a primary source of national and transnational wealth and profit. Even though sex workers are marginalized in mainstream culture it's our work that keeps the wheels of our economy turning. Even more importantly, we are talking about the value of sex work to combat the violence and abuse meted out against us by promoting a view of sex workers as essential workers instead of objects, victims and criminals.
Here are 10 reasons why our work, the labor of sex workers, is vitally important to our communities.
1.Sex workers promote relaxation, release and productivity: My client list includes people that work in every stressful profession in the book including doctors, lawyers, firemen and plenty of police officers. Sexually satisfied people can work harder, longer and more efficiently. Do you really want the brain surgeon who is removing your granny's tumor to be preoccupied with pent up sexual frustration? You can thank a sex worker for making sure that he can get off so you don't have to worry.
2.Sex workers promote family values: We save marriages by making sure that partners have an avenue to pursue their sexual desires as an alternative to having an affair. We also act as relationship counselors. I can't tell you how many times I've helped troubled husbands and boyfriends talk through their issues so that they can return to their wives and girlfriends refreshed and ready to love them the way that they deserve.
3.Sex workers can do AND we can teach: We teach our clients how to have hotter sex with their current and future partners. We give hands-on instruction in practicing skill and technique. As a result, our clients often make for better lovers.
4.Sex workers promote better hygiene and safer sex: We often do the hard job of telling that guy in your office that smells like ass to clean up his act and that dude you slept with that one night to wrap it up. As part of our work we learn to do this with compassion and tact. More often than not our clients our fresher and safe sex savvy by virtue of seeing us.
5.Sex workers help prevent sex related crimes: By destigmatizing fetish sex workers provide a space for people to fulfill their sexual desires rather than repressing them and eventually acting out in violence. We also assert the importance of consent in any sex act by promoting the primacy of the “no means no” rule. Furthermore, we allow for open, frank discussion of the terms of each sexual encounter so that clients can learn to engage in similar talks with their other partners.
6.Sex workers promote sex positivity and healthy sexuality: The World Health Organization defines sexual health as the integration of physical, emotional, intellectual and social aspects of sexual being in ways that are positive, enriching and enhancing of personality, communication and love. For many people achieving this definition of sexual health is only possible through the involvement of sex workers. We normalize kink and create a space where sex is healthy, positive and fun.
7.Sex workers provide sexual services to people with special needs: Disabled people deserve sexual satisfaction just as much as anybody else. However, for many people with physical, emotional and intellectual disabilities, meeting and maintaining sexual partners can prove difficult. Some disabled people have specific needs that require accommodation by a skilled professional. Sex workers play an important role in ensuring that these people have access to a happy and fulfilling sex life. Also, sex work provides a career path for people like myself who have disabilities that make it difficult to obtain or maintain a job in another field so that we can be economically productive members of society despite our limitations.
8.Sex workers put money back into the economy: We make money and we spend money. A lot of the money that keeps the tourism industry thriving is either from us or our clients. We spend money on hotel rooms, airline tickets and meals amongst other products and services that are closely related to our work.
9.Sex worker promotes the financial independence of women: Sex work is a viable income stream for women facing tough times and there is no glass ceiling for women in sex work. We rule the industry. This means that in the sex industry, the woman's place is on top, even when we are playing power-bottom.
10.Sex workers are rad: By virtue of engaging in work that is often stigmatized and illegal, we challenge societal norms every day that we work, identify as a sex worker or fight for the rights of sex workers.
This labor day lets extend our heartfelt thanks and gratitude to our local sex workers who keep our communities healthy, sexy and fun. And please remember, tipping is not required but it is very, very much appreciated.
Grassy Narrows Clan Mothers block MNR enforcement team
Slant Lake, Asubpeeschoseewagong - The site of Grassy Narrows' high profile logging blockade will see action again today as grassroots women block passage for Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR ) enforcement officers interfering with back-road repair work by the northwestern Ontario First Nations community. The community was repairing washouts and beaver damage to nearby back-roads to facilitate their ongoing use and enjoyment of their traditional territory. The MNR has visited the repair work three times and have said to the workers they will be watching them closely, threatening to stop the work. This time the community has resolved not to allow that and blocked MNR access at Slant Lake, allowing repairs to proceed.
"We the Anishinabek have never given up jurisdiction on our natural territories," said Judy Da Silva, a Grassy Narrows mother, blockader, and traditional healer. "We agreed to share the lands with the newcomers, but we will never give up our inherent right to use and protect the land, water and the forests."
The roads require repairs because the MNR has not conducted maintenance on the back road network since 2002 when grassroots women and youth put their bodies on the line to block logging machinery from further destroying the forests their community depends on. Previously the back roads had been maintained by local contractors through Provincial subsidies provided to the logging industry.
The blockade, now in its eighth year is the longest running blockade in Canadian history. Logging trucks feeding Weyerhaeuser's Trust Joist mill, and Abitibi pulp and paper mills shifted their clearcut logging operations to other parts of the territory until June 2008 when AbitibiBowater bowed to pressure and surrendered their license to log on the Whiskey Jack Forest. However, Weyerhaeuser continues to seek access to wood clearcut on Grassy Narrows Territory and the MNR has threatened to resume logging as early as September.
The back roads are used by Grassy Narrows members to access hunting, trapping, wild rice picking and berry picking areas, and for access to the Ball Lake fishing lodge. For generations the lodge has been a key source of employment for the community, but since the mercury poisoning of the English-Wabigoon River System the lodge has had minimal economic development benefits for the small indigenous community.
"The MNR attempt to stop maintenance of the roads is an attack on our community's self sufficiency," said Roberta Keesick, a Grassy Narrows grandmother, trapper, and blockader. “It is another attempt by the Province to assert unilateral control over the Territory in violation of our inherent and treaty rights."
For more information, and to arrange interviews contact:
RiverRun2010@gmail.com
"We the Anishinabek have never given up jurisdiction on our natural territories," said Judy Da Silva, a Grassy Narrows mother, blockader, and traditional healer. "We agreed to share the lands with the newcomers, but we will never give up our inherent right to use and protect the land, water and the forests."
The roads require repairs because the MNR has not conducted maintenance on the back road network since 2002 when grassroots women and youth put their bodies on the line to block logging machinery from further destroying the forests their community depends on. Previously the back roads had been maintained by local contractors through Provincial subsidies provided to the logging industry.
The blockade, now in its eighth year is the longest running blockade in Canadian history. Logging trucks feeding Weyerhaeuser's Trust Joist mill, and Abitibi pulp and paper mills shifted their clearcut logging operations to other parts of the territory until June 2008 when AbitibiBowater bowed to pressure and surrendered their license to log on the Whiskey Jack Forest. However, Weyerhaeuser continues to seek access to wood clearcut on Grassy Narrows Territory and the MNR has threatened to resume logging as early as September.
The back roads are used by Grassy Narrows members to access hunting, trapping, wild rice picking and berry picking areas, and for access to the Ball Lake fishing lodge. For generations the lodge has been a key source of employment for the community, but since the mercury poisoning of the English-Wabigoon River System the lodge has had minimal economic development benefits for the small indigenous community.
"The MNR attempt to stop maintenance of the roads is an attack on our community's self sufficiency," said Roberta Keesick, a Grassy Narrows grandmother, trapper, and blockader. “It is another attempt by the Province to assert unilateral control over the Territory in violation of our inherent and treaty rights."
For more information, and to arrange interviews contact:
RiverRun2010@gmail.com
Monday, September 6, 2010
Join No One is Illegal to call for the immediate release of detained Tamil asylum seekers
THERE ARE 10 THINGS YOU COULD DO!
1) Join other cities and communities for nation-wide actions. Wherever you maybe, whatever you can organize (delegation to a Minister’s office, street theatre, leafleting, community speak-out), will help build this movement. Please email noii-van@resist.ca and let us know how you can participate.
2) Engage in dialogue and widely circulate the factsheet on the 6 most popular myths about the 490 Tamil Refugees, available here: http://noii-van.resist.ca/?p=2167
3) Sign the petition available on petitiononline.com: http://www.petitiononline.com/16082010/petition.html
Join the Facebook group Uphold the Rights of the MV Sun Sea Migrants here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=106719212717437
4) Put up posters in your neighbourhood, workplace, and campus, and as your social media profile.We have ‘Let them Stay’ and ‘Anti Neo Nazi, Fight Racism’ posters available on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nooneisillegal/ PDF’s: http://bit.ly/9HBtGa and http://bit.ly/cgM3gK
5) Participate in the Call/Email/Fax Campaign to the Government and your MP. State your support forthe refugees to stay in Canada and denounce the government for spreading unsubstantiated racist lies. This is easy to do and you can tell others to do the same!
Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration
Phone 613-992-2235 or 403-225-3480. Fax 403-225-3504 or 613-992-1920 Email: Minister@cic.gc.ca and kennej@parl.gc.ca
Vic Toews, Minister of Public Safety
Phone: (204) 326-9889 or (204)345-9762 or (613) 992-3128 Fax: (204) 346-9874 or (204) 345-9768 or (613) 995-1049 Email: toewsv1@mts.net and Toews.V@parl.gc.ca
To find out who your MP is and where to write them: http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Parlinfo/Compilations/HouseOfCommons/MemberByPostalCode.aspx?Menu=HOC
6) Always take a minute to write letters to the editor and comment on news stories – make a difference in public discourse! Reinforce your support for the migrants and condemn irresponsible reporting including repeating unsubstantiated lies and giving white supremacists like Paul Fromm a platform. All letters must be short (100 words), include name, mailing address and daytime phone number of the writer; state “Letter to the Editor” in subject; and content should be in the body of the email.
Globe and Mail: letters@globeandmail.com
Vancouver Sun: sunletters@png.canwest.com
Vancouver Province: provletters@png.canwest.com
24 Hours: news@sunmedia.ca
Metro News: http://www.metronews.ca/Vancouver/comment/lettereditor
National Post: letters@nationalpost.com
Toronto Star: lettertoed@thestar.ca
7) Take your own initiative. This issue is not just the Tamil communities’ or for migrant justice organizers. The growing racist backlash that is taking root should concern all of us. Think of creative ways to disrupt this xenophobic climate (do a banner drop, host a community picnic, take some friends postering, organize a forum or press conference, distribute anti-racist zines, take action at the prison).
8) Consider inviting a speaker to your next meeting. Email noii-van@resist.ca and we would be happy to attend or suggest speakers, as well as provide educational materials.
9) Have your organization, traditional council, union, community group, or artist collective write a short public statement of support for the Tamil migrants. Please email us a copy at noii-van@resist.ca.
10) Join our low-traffic email announcement list to receive news and events. You can subscribe yourself
1) Join other cities and communities for nation-wide actions. Wherever you maybe, whatever you can organize (delegation to a Minister’s office, street theatre, leafleting, community speak-out), will help build this movement. Please email noii-van@resist.ca and let us know how you can participate.
2) Engage in dialogue and widely circulate the factsheet on the 6 most popular myths about the 490 Tamil Refugees, available here: http://noii-van.resist.ca/?p=2167
3) Sign the petition available on petitiononline.com: http://www.petitiononline.com/16082010/petition.html
Join the Facebook group Uphold the Rights of the MV Sun Sea Migrants here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=106719212717437
4) Put up posters in your neighbourhood, workplace, and campus, and as your social media profile.We have ‘Let them Stay’ and ‘Anti Neo Nazi, Fight Racism’ posters available on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nooneisillegal/ PDF’s: http://bit.ly/9HBtGa and http://bit.ly/cgM3gK
5) Participate in the Call/Email/Fax Campaign to the Government and your MP. State your support forthe refugees to stay in Canada and denounce the government for spreading unsubstantiated racist lies. This is easy to do and you can tell others to do the same!
Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration
Phone 613-992-2235 or 403-225-3480. Fax 403-225-3504 or 613-992-1920 Email: Minister@cic.gc.ca and kennej@parl.gc.ca
Vic Toews, Minister of Public Safety
Phone: (204) 326-9889 or (204)345-9762 or (613) 992-3128 Fax: (204) 346-9874 or (204) 345-9768 or (613) 995-1049 Email: toewsv1@mts.net and Toews.V@parl.gc.ca
To find out who your MP is and where to write them: http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Parlinfo/Compilations/HouseOfCommons/MemberByPostalCode.aspx?Menu=HOC
6) Always take a minute to write letters to the editor and comment on news stories – make a difference in public discourse! Reinforce your support for the migrants and condemn irresponsible reporting including repeating unsubstantiated lies and giving white supremacists like Paul Fromm a platform. All letters must be short (100 words), include name, mailing address and daytime phone number of the writer; state “Letter to the Editor” in subject; and content should be in the body of the email.
Globe and Mail: letters@globeandmail.com
Vancouver Sun: sunletters@png.canwest.com
Vancouver Province: provletters@png.canwest.com
24 Hours: news@sunmedia.ca
Metro News: http://www.metronews.ca/Vancouver/comment/lettereditor
National Post: letters@nationalpost.com
Toronto Star: lettertoed@thestar.ca
7) Take your own initiative. This issue is not just the Tamil communities’ or for migrant justice organizers. The growing racist backlash that is taking root should concern all of us. Think of creative ways to disrupt this xenophobic climate (do a banner drop, host a community picnic, take some friends postering, organize a forum or press conference, distribute anti-racist zines, take action at the prison).
8) Consider inviting a speaker to your next meeting. Email noii-van@resist.ca and we would be happy to attend or suggest speakers, as well as provide educational materials.
9) Have your organization, traditional council, union, community group, or artist collective write a short public statement of support for the Tamil migrants. Please email us a copy at noii-van@resist.ca.
10) Join our low-traffic email announcement list to receive news and events. You can subscribe yourself
September 5th
As part of our labor day programming we examined the herstory of labour day with particular focus on the treatment of racialized womyn in the context of unions and employment equity. We also talked about the vital role that sex workers and sexual labour plays in our communities and sampled the work of acclaimed Canadian musician Tiki Mercury-Clarke.
In recognition of both the history of exclusion that has marked Canada’s policies on migrants and the treatment of migrants as well as in acknowledgment of the role- often under-appreciated and devalued, played by migrant workers in the economy; we turned our attention to the 490 refugees whoarrived in early August aboard the MV Sun Sea.
Throughout the program we heard music from Nina Simone and Billie Holiday.
In recognition of both the history of exclusion that has marked Canada’s policies on migrants and the treatment of migrants as well as in acknowledgment of the role- often under-appreciated and devalued, played by migrant workers in the economy; we turned our attention to the 490 refugees whoarrived in early August aboard the MV Sun Sea.
Throughout the program we heard music from Nina Simone and Billie Holiday.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)