Kanehsatake 270 Years of Resistance

I finally got to watching Kanehsatake 270 Years of Resistance this weekend past. I really enjoyed the documentary and felt that it hit on a lot of good points about Canada and the approaches that people take to things. The scene that really stuck out the most to me was when they were showing how people weren't allowed through this roadblock and this one woman started losing it and started saying stuff like "This is Canada! This is a free country, why can't I go through that roadblock". I felt that it was something that really stuck out because it's true. A lot of people who live in Canada value the freedom that we are given and I don't think a lot of people would know what to do if it was taken away and we lived in a police run state like they did during the Oka Crisis.


I felt that this documentary really taught me a lot about the Oka crisis and really hit some key issues, such as land rights, aboriginal rights, human rights in general really. The fact that they wouldn't give them any more food shipments, and that news reporter that needed medication for his asthma and they refused him that right was crazy. I can't imagine Canadians being like that, yet there it was, proof that people were like that and it created doubt that Canada is really like it says it is. Though with our current state of affairs I guess there's no doubt that this is being proven yet again.

My Political Ideology

These are the results from the three political ideology quizzes that were emailed out to us today. I felt that the last two are a bit more accurate than the first one. I don't feel that I'm an anarchist in any way, I just gained some riot experience having graduated from Cole Harbour High. 

I felt that the social democrat and political compass results were fairly accurate with my beliefs though. They were both a fair representation. 

United Kingdom - Iraq Inquiry told to "protect US interests"

So for my first non-mainstream media blog I decided to finally take a look at Wikileaks, a website that is intended to post articles of non-mainstream news. Flipping through Wikileaks, I felt that the website was awkward to use and I didn't like how it was laid out. Also, with all the "//SECRET" and stuff like that on the website, I feel like it's just for people who are really into conspiracy theories to help prove their point rather than anything actually tangible. 


The article just spoke of a meeting that apparently happened between some governmental figures regarding the Iraq War.  The quote below is what I found to be the most interesting out of the article I read:  "Chilcot replied, “Discussions and evidence sessions are not necessarily the same thing, and of course we have no power to compel witnesses here, let alone people in foreign governments. Nonetheless, I accept the thrust behind your question, that the Anglo-American relationship is one of the most central parts of this inquiry, and how that was conducted is something that we need to get a very strong understanding of.”"


This quote I felt shows how good people have gotten at manipulating the English language and the various meanings that things can have. I don't think it necessarily surprises me that the government is corrupt to the point that other countries are protecting other governments when it comes to things like this, but it was just an interesting read. 




http://wikileaks.ch/Iraq-Inquiry-told-to-protect-US.html

New bill to help plain folks catch a thief

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Canada/1223566.html

"Chen made national headlines last fall when he was acquitted of assault and forcible confinement after catching and tying up a shoplifter in Toronto."

I can't imagine ever having the gall to catch and tie up a shoplifter, but as the article says, you need to actually catch a shoplifter for them to get charged with the law. I thought this article was interesting because when I at first saw the headline, I was initially like oh jeez. I thought it was going to be something super ridiculous. I don't know if that thought was valid or not though because I felt though that the article didn't share that much about the law that was going to get passed but was focused on Chen and Chan. The only real thing said in the article that alluded to what the amendment to the criminal code may be is what Harper said: "Let’s make sure that hard-working store owners won’t get punished if they try to defend their stores because that’s totally unfair." 

I can see the point of making sure they don't get punished for defending their stores, but I hope this doesn't mean we're going to have some crazy vigilante store owners harassing those who they suspect to be shoplifters but aren't. I remember a few years ago my dad's work van was stolen and used in a robbery of a store and the store owner actually chased after the van and beat it all in with a baseball bat. I understand that he was trying to defend his store, but the damages done to the van weren't covered by anything and came out of my parents pocket which I didn't think was fair. 

The SHAC 7

The Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty U.S.A (SHAC U.S.A) originally comprised of seven animal rights activists that were working to close down a product-testing lab in Huntingdon. Under an act that exists in the U.S.A called the “Federal Animal Enterprise Protection Act” they were charged for their work on this goal with a charge of terrorism. No one has ever been charged under this act before, and the SHAC 7 were charged for their verbal expression of their views on this lab, what would seem to be a violation of the idea of free speech.

I was an employee at the local S.P.C.A in Dartmouth for almost two years. Surprisingly, the fact that something like this would happen doesn't surprise me one bit. I found that traditionally, working at the S.P.C.A, that the government generally supports things like these labs or stores like Pets Unlimited because they generate income and help build the economy. There is such a process in Nova Scotia to be able to take people's animals away or to shut down businesses or breeders without getting in trouble with the law that it makes it rather difficult to do. 

Viola Desmond: Canada's Rosa Parks?

Only 65 years ago, a woman named Viola Desmond was kicked out of a movie theatre in New Glasgow for sitting in the main floor section, an area reserved for white people. She was offered the chance to go sit on the balcony, the area for black people, but refused and instead was kicked out and given a fine.

When she was kicked out of the theatre, her hip was injured. While discussing what happened with the doctor who looked at her injured hip, she decided to take the issue to court, feeling there was a racist seating policy in place at the theatre. The actions that she took helped spread the fact that Canada still was segregated and changed public opinion on segregated seating. By 1954, eight years after this incident and she won the court case on a technicality, all segregated seating laws were gone.

Viola Desmond is compared to Rosa Parks because of her action of sitting in an area where only white people were allowed to sit down. Although just sitting in an area seems like a small action, each one inspired law changes in Canada and in the U.S.A. 

“Black Men in Nova Scotia Still Catching Hell But Surviving Against the Odds”

Last night I attended a lecture given by Dr. Wanda Bernard about her findings on the various research projects she’s done on racism and it’s effects on black men in Nova Scotia. She spoke of black male stereotyping, crime rates, how they cope with racism and so on.

I found Dr. Bernard to be a fairly engaging speaker and it’s obvious the passion that she has for the topic she was speaking about. I felt though as if she feels this racism is something that only black males are subject to, and that the stereotyping that is given to black males is the only stereotyping that is done.  This may have just been because of the topic and only having an hour and a half though to speak.

Some of the stories she shared though with the audience throughout her lecture were intended to be shocking but it made me wonder maybe if sometimes it’s not necessarily racism but community reputation and stigma. When she shared the story of her getting pulled over because they suspected her van was stolen, I must say that things like that happen in Eastern Passage where I live and I would say that’s because of community reputation, but not because of skin color.  I agree that police officers can attach stigmas to certain ethnic groups but I wouldn’t go as far as to say that many of them are racist and would go further as to say that there are more connections to skin colors or dress and the area that one is from. Eastern Passage and Preston are both areas known in Halifax area as being rough with a lot of drug violence. So are areas of Downtown Dartmouth, Highfield Park and Spryfield.

I also had the thought during her lecture that in our post 9/11 society that wouldn’t Middle Eastern people be subject to more skepticism and racism than African Nova Scotians? I think that nowadays if you had a black male and a Muslim man go into a store, the Muslim would be more heavily watched, with the skepticism that he is most likely speaks little English and is a terrorist. This makes me then make the conclusion that racism is something that affects all minority groups and not just black men. I think it’d be really interesting to do similar studies on other groups because I think that in many cases you would probably find similar results if not even more racism in the case of Middle Eastern peoples. 

George Elliot Clarke

1933

Steps shear from beefy, rancid houses, T-bone into sidewalks.

Or: ramshackle stairs screw into air, then accordion into heaps

of brick-broken bottles, trash, jalopy remains. Rubble

architects the North End, some left over dying

from '17's Explosion, when seamstresses got mashed

by heavy machines crashing through floor after floor,

and schoolkids' eyes shot out, gaudy with glass.

A Canaan of syphilis: Halifax.

On Gottingen St. - sty of sailors' uncivic vices- 

Indigo Sampson, pop-eyed drunkard,

violet scar raping his Billy-Eckstine-but-darker face,

remembers wharf rats to be so very bad: Like

white gentry promenading in elongated mansions

while black folk pray in taut shacks. This day's not the one- 

he's toxic, shabby, cross-eyed, and tizicky - 

for two white small boys to accost him, zestfully,

as "n-i-g-g-e-r": He's staggering from killing rats.

His ex-boxer fists- used to hauling junk - elevate an axe.

"Let this blade spit! Let your bloods stink!"

Those two boy disintegrated under his blows,

slicking them with red awfulness. Sampson holds

two blond heads aloft like hauled up weeds.

He flings two fair splintered bodies into the gutter.

His eyes have fallen; nobody looks at him:

Doors have always been flung in his face in his face. 

His crimson terrors could have garnished the Somme.

Guts dangled crazily from fence posts.

A child's heart was hashed up by rats' pitiless teeth. 

They put Sampson in what he called the penatenrinary- 

the petty tryanny. 

Gallant, pallid guards played at shooting him.

One morning he was sitting with the Bible

and his head popped open;

his black scalp puffed up fatally scarlet. 

This is a poem from Execution Poems by George Elliot Clarke. This volume of poetry is about his two late cousins George and Rue who were hung for the murder of a taxi driver. The entire volume of poetry is very dark and rather complex but as well as being about his cousins, provides a lot of historical information on Nova Scotia and on Halifax at the time.

Born in Windsor, Nova Scotia, George Elliot Clarke is an established writer and anthologist who has published a variety of works. George Elliot Clarke coined the term "Africadian", a term for the descendants of black loyalists who immigrated to the maritimes. He currently teaches at the University of Toronto and has taught there since 1999. 

George Elliot Clarke is a huge supporter of the study of black Canadian literature and this is a huge focal point in his writing. he has been awarded many awards and honours for his work in this area. Examples are the Governor Generals Literary Award, the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Achievement Award and his appointment to the Order of Nova Scotia.


Sources: 
- http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0010840
- http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/325698.Execution_Poems
- Execution Poems (2001) , George Elliot Clarke

About Me

This blog is going to be for all my weekly work for my POLS1303 class. I thought at first it was rather odd and had no idea how to make a blog, but I got a friend to show me and I think I'm good to go now. 

So, my name is Jenna Khoury-Hanna and I'm from Eastern Passage, Nova Scotia. I graduated last year from Cole Harbour District High School with a French Immersion certificate. I have a younger brother and sister as well as four cats and two dogs, so our house pretty much qualifies as a zoo. When I'm home I have two jobs, working at a store called Jacob in MicMac Mall and working as a summer day camp counsellor for H.R.M. Parks and Rec. 

At Acadia I'm hoping to complete a double major, my main major being Environmental and Sustainability Studies, and the other being Political Science. I don't really know what I'm going to do with such a degree, but I really enjoy both so I figure you got to do what you enjoy, especially with the money that you put into school. Going with that, I also chose to get involved in extra school activities such as sit on my house council and helped start up and sit on the ESST Student Society executive.