“Armed to the teeth”: police report
A police report says gangs in Montreal are violent and armed to the teeth although, compared to many cities this size, ours is almost comically peaceful. A sidebar looks at seized weapons and numbers 39 gang killings from 2006 to 2009 – a period of time more than ten years ago.
I’m not minimizing the potential for violence, but this kind of story can also be used for nonsense crackdowns by police, especially on people of colour. Cops should be allowed to do a reasonable job without hysteria from the media.
SMD 17:30 on 2021-03-07 Permalink
Perhaps a good moment to remind everybody that March 15th will be the 25th annual march against police brutality (https://cobp.resist.ca/fr/node/22244). This year’s protest begins at 5pm at Parc metro.
MarcG 18:48 on 2021-03-07 Permalink
Before David comes along and says something stupid about how anti-police sentiment in Montreal is a new phenomenon tied to the US somehow: the COBP has been around since 1995 and the march since 1997.
David943 21:20 on 2021-03-07 Permalink
. . . and he doth appear . . .
What’s tied to the US media is the salience of the issue. As police violence has decreased in Montreal, people have come to believe that it is worse than ever; the US media prompts, and our media get busy to explain how Canada has these problems too. I recently rewatched Gosford Park and the dynamic of vicarious familiarity in the servant crew struck me as not dissimilar to the media frame through which Canadians take in America.
Anyway, I turned it over in my head for a while a decided that I’m just going to keep my thoughts to myself. What I bang out on some online forum can’t capture the archness, resignation, and humor I’m trying to convey (and I think this cultural moment just doesn’t want/need it). So, I officially no longer have any more opinions on all this performative stuff.
Really and fundamentally, my revolution is about tanking property values and rents, after which I think a lot of this racial stuff.(which is really class stuff) just sort of sorts itself out.
Kate 14:58 on 2021-03-08 Permalink
David, you have absolutely lost me with your Gosford Park analogy.
david220 00:38 on 2021-03-09 Permalink
As a parenthetical from my retirement from commenting on cultural matters, I’ll just explain the Gosford Park analogy:
To us, even in Quebec but 100% in Canada, America is the big league, the way it’s supposed to be done, the false consciousness, the dominant narrative, the boss in setting cultural priorities, etc Like your servants took on the absolutely pointless dynamics, opinions, etc. that animated their masters; trying to take, or experience or imitate.
The Americans get interested in a specific sort of food, so do we. They’re politics turns one way or another, so does ours (Reagan -> Mulroney, Clinton -> Chretien, Bush -> Harper, Barack -> the prince that was promised. O’Toole will probably be our next prime minister, unless Doug Ford is. With the culture, it’s the same, with is why we’re seeing all of this argument that super left-wing Canada is a fascist utopia, just waiting to be taken down by investigative reporters explaining how ice skating lessons are racist, or whatever.
That’s the the Gosford Park false consciousness thing.
BUT, listen, I’m self cancelling, so there’s no real need to go point by point and take me down on this.
It’s out of exhaustion, but also a sense of impending victory. A project I’ve been banging on about since I’ve been an adult is well supported in Biden’s America and, so, consequently, increasingly in our call-and-response project we tend to call Canada. See, eg: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-yes-in-my-backyard-how-urban-planning-must-shift-to-meet-our/
So there’s no reason for me to continue on with this anti-American bit. It appears that my, literally life long, project is about to get imported up here from the US, and I’m very happy about it.
If anything, I’m going to encourage people to stop being so parochial and start thinking bigger. The Americans were right about how Canada is systemically racist, and that racism is why they’re so anti-development (google this, it’s both a real argument, and objectively true). Let’s call this racist scum out, and get our cities built.