Montreal City Weblog

Kate 09:43 on 2020-06-23 Permalink Reply  

• David753 18:00 on 2020-06-23 Permalink

  I really do applaud this kid coming in from Canada to show us the wayx and I wonder what part of Canada he’ll move back to now that he’s finished his degree Quebec.

• David753 18:08 on 2020-06-23 Permalink

  And to clarify: I genuinely salute the courage it took to rally a group who 90% agreed with you once your first nations credentials were established, when absolutely everyone knew that it was basically just describing the McGill colors. That level of politics is impressive. Especially considering that the “red man” sobriquet was another of these terms that only had salience in America.

• David753 18:10 on 2020-06-23 Permalink

  One man can make a difference.

• David753 18:21 on 2020-06-23 Permalink

  If he’s cynical enough and the conditions are right.

• Kate 18:31 on 2020-06-23 Permalink

  David, you’re starting to be a pain in the ass.

• Ian 19:49 on 2020-06-23 Permalink

  Using a person’s indigenous roots to dogwhistle otherness is particularly ugly.

• David753 20:39 on 2020-06-23 Permalink

  Not dogwhistling, I’m straight up saying: this guy drafted up this controversy, he made a big play with it in campus politics, he got a lot of press out of it, and he came out the winner. Fair play. Just wondering now that he’s done with his turn in Quebec, what he’ll do when he rolls back to Canada.

• Kate 20:48 on 2020-06-23 Permalink

  David, the fact you’re trolling your tedious fiction that Quebec and Canada are separate places (again) is annoying enough.

• Ian 20:58 on 2020-06-23 Permalink

  The thing is that it’s really common and in fact desirable for people to come from all over the world to contribute to universities, students and faculties alike. This us something they literally celebrate. That some see this as an opportunity to build “de chez nous et entre nous” narratives is telling.

• dwgs 21:07 on 2020-06-23 Permalink

  Starting?

• Michael Black 21:35 on 2020-06-23 Permalink

  First, he isn’t someone with “cherokee ancestry”, vague and needing to prove that ancestry.

  I think it’s a borderline thing (other team names are way more concrete), but it’s not something cooked up. The names of teams is an ongoing issue. Lots of people have written about the subject, if you go looking. To dismiss it as some third party issue is to dismiss native people as not having any concerns. That’s just a continuation of how they’ve long been treated and perceived.

  The day Tina Fontaine’s body was pulled out of the Red River was the day I saw a full list of Winnipeg streets named after family members. How could she be treated so badly when Red River had been a Metis place? How could she feel so bad when there are streets named after the children of a Syilx woman?

  Do we want hurt and self-loathing or do we want people to stand up to things that bother them?

  The Metis nation was built on resistance, but oddly a family member argued with Louis Riel to include native people in the demands of the provisional government. I’m not sure if it’s garbled, but I can find a quote from Sitting Bull, where he says he knows that family member. And of course the distant cousins are on the Colville reservation in Washington State, which is where Chief Joseph went after his “I will fight no more forever” speech. Three acts of resistance connected to my family.

  The ironic thing is that when people speak, whether they are black or native, they are way more powerful than when Europeans try to speak for them. Don’t confuse the two, and then use it to dismiss what is said.

• Kevin 21:49 on 2020-06-23 Permalink

  David

  You are 100% wrong.
  Back when Dick Pound was in charge of athletics at McGill, the logo was changed, because the school realized that having a native man wearing a headdress as a logo for sports teams was wrong.

  https://mcgillathletics.ca/news/1992/3/6/GEN_0319130825.aspx?path=general

• david273 22:30 on 2020-06-23 Permalink

  So, my comments were meant to be arch. But Kevin, you raise a good point. A misleading one, but one worth raising.

  That article is saying that, yeah, they got goofy with sports team logos back in the day (1980s?), again, certainly based on the US influence. But it’s also fairly clear there that they get the point, and that there wasn’t “evidence which establishes that the Redmen name came from other than the colour of McGill’s uniforms.”

  And I don’t feel super passionately about this whole red man thing, I was never an athlete.

  But I also am a multi-generational McGillian, and when I asked my grandparents and parents about this many years ago, they were amazed that anyone would think that ‘red man’ had anything to do with anything other that the color red. They just never thought about first nations people at all. Like, at all. No battle cries during games, no nothing. That’s its own thing, you might say. But, at any rate, it’s conclusive for me.

  Again – fair play for a Canadian to come into one of the last bits of Anglo Quebec culture, and project whatever they’ve picked up from their struggles and American teevee onto what they find, and then to leverage that into a political career or whatever. Great, I don’t begrudge him that. Culture, especially in Quebec, is a war. And the battlegrounds are shifting all the time. We already know that a sizeable contingent of the Anglophone community considers quebecois to be irremediably racist, full stop.

  But, whatever. I know I’m going to be kicked out of the left and possibly this website as I keep on, but when does this nonsense stop?

• Kevin 23:26 on 2020-06-23 Permalink

  David

  People may say the name may have originally been picked because of the school colours, but it was definitely subverted by a football coach in the 1940s, even if the last « official » image was only picked in the 80s.

  And you’ve got to recognize that what people say and what they put on paper in official decisions are often not the same. It’s rare that someone tells you to your face that you didn’t get the job or the apartment because of your skin colour.

• JP 23:42 on 2020-06-23 Permalink

  “But I also am a multi-generational McGillian, and when I asked my grandparents and parents about this many years ago, they were amazed that anyone would think that ‘red man’ had anything to do with anything other that the color red. They just never thought about first nations people at all. Like, at all.” 

  And therein lies the issue. “They just never thought about first nations people at all. Like, at all.” While you, your parents and your grandparents were getting degrees at McGill, Indigenous children were being taken away from their parents and thrown into the residential school system (the last of which closed in the1990s). You were studying on land that had been annexed away from the First Nations people. You are living on land that they had been on for millenia until Europeans arrived, but “they just never thought about first nations people at all. Like at all.”

  I can overlook your parents’ and grandparents’ views. I understand it was a different time. I wouldn’t want to be judged by all of my grandparents’ beliefs either. But, part of racism and systemic racism definitely stems from thinking your world and your bubble (e.g., the status quo) is superior, and your thoughts (i.e. they were amazed that anyone would think that ‘red men’ had anything to do with anything other than the color red) are the only ones that matter, and that there is no other perspective that matters. It’s actually a rather egocentric way of living. You and the people you know are not the only ones who exist and matter in society.

  It’s not about individual beliefs either. Yes, your thoughts behind “red man” may be non-racial, but “red man” sounds like a reference to Indigenous people based on slurs and terms that were inappropriately used in the past, and when they are collectively as a group telling you it is offensive, it is offensive. 

  We all have blindspots. But as you expose yourself to other views and educate yourself, you can start to overcome them. I have blindspots too, and as I learn more and become more aware I am, in turn, trying to be a better person, a better citizen, a better friend, etc. What’s important is becoming aware of these blindspots and trying to correct them. Of course, we’ll never be perfect, but I think it’s important to recognize that your life circumstances, experiences and culture, etc. are not shared by everyone. It’s important to recognize that historically there has been much injustice and discrimination directed toward certain groups that continue today. The present is inextricably linked to the past. You can’t just erase it. But acknowledging the injustices and taking appropriate actions are first steps in trying to build and move toward a more equitable and just society for everyone.

• Dan 08:59 on 2020-06-24 Permalink

  David###, bringing up your multi-generational McGillianism has never made you sound more white and fragile. Really not surprising coming from someone who has defended several racist incidents in this city on this blog. I don’t think you’re going to get kicked off, but if you saw yourself out I for one would not complain.

• qatzelok 09:58 on 2020-06-24 Permalink

  I am in favor of eliminating offensive first nation’s team names (Washington’s football team, ex) but I had always thought that “redmen” only referred to the color of the birds on the McGill flag. Interestingly, the flag – from a distance – looks like a “KKK” written in a thick red font.

  Three years, a group of McGill students from Canada wrote a report that concluded that the deMaisonneuve bikelane was dangerous.

  University isn’t the real world, but it gives young people the occasion to practice their roles for the real world they will eventutally live in, so I salute this young student.

• Kate 11:21 on 2020-06-24 Permalink

  Summarizing what I’ve read about this: “Redmen” was initially a nickname from the team colours, but it wasn’t long before various kinds of indigenous associations were attached to it, up to and including referring to the women’s teams as “squaws.” Yes, the more offensive associations have been pruned away in recent years, but clearly the potential for offense remained.

  Guys, what is this “from Canada” bullshit? If you’re living in an alternate reality where Quebec is a different place, go write some science fiction. This blog is about the factual world.