Song: Viola Desmond by the Stolen Minks
On 8 November 1946, Viola Desmond, a black Nova Scotian, refused to leave her seat in the white only section of a cinema. She was forcibly removed from the theatre, held in a male cell block, charged with tax evasion in the amount of 1 cent (the cost difference between white floor seating and black balcony seating), tried without counsel and fined $26 dollars. She fought the conviction up to the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia but her appeals were denied.
The authorities never acknowledged that she was black and arrested because of a racist policy. Her struggle contributed to the eventual changing of segregation laws in Nova Scotia. In April 2010, against the wishes of her family, the Nova Scotian government pardoned Viola Desmond.
Today I can’t find a single article acknowledging what should be a well known event in the history of Canadian civil rights. Without public recognition of systematic institutionalized racism in Canada (past and present) we are ill-equipped to identify interpersonal racism or our own prejudices. Those who experience racism remain oppressed yet invisible.
More:
Viola Desmond is not Canada’s Rosa Parks by Renee Martin
Viola Desmond (and more links) from BlackHistoryCanada.ca
That moment when you open the fridge and there’s alot of food to choose from.
Mom, you my nigga for life.
So often.
Things like this are happening in Saskatoon.
A Bloody Mess: I want a bike.
I’m currently looking at hybrid and cyclocross bikes because something about a pure road bike doesn’t speak to me… plus the roads around here are usually trashed and I think I would be better off with the bigger tires.
I don’t know much of anything about bicycles except BMX…
I must say that I don’t like single/fixed gear bikes because having no gears makes no sense to me (unless you just don’t want to have to work on gears, but half the people that buy fixed don’t even work on their own bikes anyway).
I have a road bike but barely ever use it because the roads are so torn up and bumpy. And there are so many traffic lights, it’s not like you can ever get going fast enough, for long enough to make it worth while.
I also have a mountain bike, which of course is fine for trails, but it’s too heavy to commute every day.
This is my main bike, and I’ve put thousands of kilometers on it. I ride it all year, through -50C winters.
http://www.devinci.com/archive/2009/hybride/St-tropez.htm
I love it for getting around town. It’s almost as light as a road bike, but it’s good for jumping curbs and riding slightly off-road if you have to.
I cannot say enough about how much I like hybrids.
There’s nothing like quality hybrid. I don’t bike as much as I can or would like to. It’s just a matter of inertia. I’m currently coveting something like this:
http://www.giant-bicycles.com/en-ca/bikes/model/roam.xr.0/8081/45741/
Hopefully Giant will come offer women’s geometry on the top model someday.
This man.
Will you be on the trolley tonight? If you are one of the few, you already know it. The summer sun in Edmonton is a heavy handed teenager, gripping your shoulders as it streams through the windows of the heritage tram, uninhibited and simmering.
Or will you be waiting for the trolley to arrive at Steel Wheels? Waiting for the pay-what-you-can, Bulgogi scented show of the year.
Jom Comyn is releasing Sunstroke tonight. Old Ugly is proud to add it to the roster.
Albums like Sunstroke only come around once in a long while. This is a seminal Edmonton recording, highlighted by the title track.
I will be working the door at Steel Wheels (it’s by donation) while the trolley portion of the show is going down. Anyone who missed out on the trolley: come eat Canada’s Best Slice* with me and catch the full band sets.
Mr. Liam Trimble, whom I love, is playing with his band.
Then as if this happening weren’t enough of a dream… Calgary’s Kris Ellestad has finally journeyed north, bringing what I anticipate will be a thoroughly spiritual experience (in a forlorn pizza joint). His deft pluckings and manicured croon got me through many a shitty ‘doing this to afford music’ job. Tonight I release my inner fan-girl.
*as judged by one musician with many nationwide tours under his belt
[ “Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society’s definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference – those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older – know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to stand alone, unpopular and sometimes reviled, and how to make common cause with those others identified as outside the structures in order to define and seek a world in which we can all flourish. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths.”]
— audre lorde
