I guess this is a thing now? There’s a crisis on a First Nation reserve, and a columnist says people living there should move.
At the beginning of this year, following a shooting in La Loche, Saskatchewan, Scott Gilmore took a look at the problems in the village and wrote “the hard truth about remote communities” is:
“isolated communities like La Loche, Sask., will always be far more disadvantaged compared to larger cities in the south; and therefore the best thing we can do for struggling families is to help them move if they want.”
And now, following a spate of attempted suicides in Attawapiskat, Jon Kay has weighed in, arguing “moving is the only real hope”
“In most communities that have no jobs, people pack up and relocate. Whole regions of Atlantic Canada have fallen prey to this cycle of creative destruction. So has much of Detroit. While this process is sad and disruptive, it pushes families to areas where they can make a living and exist in dignity. But the Indian Act created a system that perversely discourages residents from leaving even the most appallingly impoverished reserves — without actually giving them any of the capitalist tools (such as the right to own private property) necessary to prosper.”
A couple things before we get going here:
So, for all I know Gilmore and Kay and the others echoing their sentiments could be absolutely right and there is no hope for these northern communities.
But I am wary of this idea because I’ve heard similar solutions for problems facing the city I live in.
At roughly 80,000 people, Prince George British Columbia is not as small as most reserves. Nor is it as remote as many of them- it has an airport, two highways, a railway, and serves as a central hub for the region.
And yet by living here I am exposing myself to less opportunities and higher risks than if I moved to a bigger city.
One example: there is no trauma centre here. In fact, there’s no trauma centre in the entire region- if you are in a major accident you have to be airlifted to Vancouver. According to a 2002 study, this makes me six times more likely to die following a survivable accident than if I lived in the Lower Mainland. I am also two-and-half times more likely to die in a car accident.
Going off of data from Stats Canada, I am more likely to be obese, have high blood pressure, and die from avoidable causes that the average Canadian, and the outcomes are worse when compared to the nearest major city, Vancouver. I am also less likely to have graduated from high school or attend university, and will likely die younger. Average incomes here are lower than further south.
At various points in my city’s history, people have seen these problems and fought to change them. To counter lower incomes and education, they rallied to build a university. Disturbed by worse health outcomes and a lack of access to doctors, they created a northern medical program. In response to the toll of having to travel for cancer treatment, a clinic was finally opened here in 2012.
None of these things were easy to do. Perhaps the most infamous example was during the drive to create a university when the advanced education minister told the Globe and Mail there was no need for such an institution up north because “In the interior…people don’t think of education beyond grade twelve. The questions they ask at the end of the day are ‘How many trees did you cut today?’ or ‘How were things down in the mine?’”
And that attitude persists. Almost any time an article about the city gets provincial or national attention (usually for a problem, because that’s the sort of thing that gets national coverage for small communities) someone shows up in the comments section calling it a dirty, stinky, crime-ridden place that no one in their right mind would want to live in. The unspoken question: if you have problems with life there, why not just move?
I’ve been asked this, myself. Not because I’m complaining about problems, but, weirdly, as a sort of compliment. I seem ambitious, capable- why don’t I have aspirations of working in Vancouver or Toronto?
The answer I usually give is a true one: my family is here, I like my job, the cost of living is lower. But there’s a deeper connection, and one that I don’t usually try to articulate.
For whatever reason, I feel like I belong here. And that goes beyond my usual answers. I think even if my parents moved away and I lost my job, I’d stick it out. I’ve lived in other places and came back, not because I had an amazing employment opportunity, but because I felt like whatever life I had, it was supposed to be here. I got an amazing employment opportunity soon afterwards, but it wasn’t even one I knew existed when I made that decision. I came back and made my plans based on how much money I would be able to make working in the service industry on minimum wage. The plan was to be here, and everything else grew around that.
My dad’s a paramedic. He told me a story about when there was an issue with ambulance response times in the north vs. the Lower Mainland, a disparity that still persists. The proposed solution from one of his Vancouver counterparts was that if people in northern B.C. cared so much, they should move south. Now, it’s true: if your primary value is getting the fastest ambulance response time, then maybe you should live in Vancouver. But if you value the community you live in, “move” isn’t really a viable solution to whatever problems your community faces.
I don’t know that I, personally, could handle the harshness of what’s happening on some reserves. But I understand why, for those who do stay, “move” might not be an option. Setting aside the context of colonization and reserves and the fact that outcomes for First Nations people off reserve are often much worse than non-First Nations so moving isn’t exactly a magic bullet– putting all that aside, there are values beyond what, on paper, is best for you as an individual.
I’m not saying people should be forced to stay where they are, and I hold nothing against those who leave, for any reason. And I’m not saying that people living in more rural and remote areas should expect all the advantages and services available in cities- there are certain trade-offs that you should expect. But I disagree with the premise that either you live in a city with an NHL team or you accept worse outcomes for you and your loved ones, and any time you raise the issue you’re told to leave if things are so bad. I disagree with the premise that we should give up on any place that isn’t a major urban centre. I could well be wrong, but I suspect we can do better than “move.”
I’m sure your mom/wife/sister/daughter/grandma/aunt are awesome. The women in my family are awesome. Yours probably are, too.
But too often the mother/wife/daughter thing is used by men who cannot think of any women in the public space whom they admire or respect. Literally when American presidential candidates were asked which woman they would like to see put on money, a number answered with their wife or mother. They couldn’t think of any women outside of those related to them deserving of the role.
And again- I’m sure those women are great! But we don’t have this problem with guys, where the only men people can think of praising are their dads or husbands.
So think about this: which women would you put on money? How quickly can you think of someone other than a family member you think is worthy of the role? How many?
If you’re having trouble, take this opportunity to educate yourself about some other women- past and present- deserving of your praise.
Because if the only women you can think of praising are related to you, and you’re praise is based on them being related to you-
Well, that’s kind of the problem.
There are a lot of different stories you can tell about how you got to where you are. This one is about perspective.
I grew up in northern British Columbia. My family is from here, I went to university here, and after some time away, I decided I wanted to live here.
I have a degree in political science/international studies, which is another way of saying no easily definable skill set. So I applied for a wide range of jobs. One of them was for the current affairs radio show for northern British Columbia (the same place I work today).
I don’t remember the exact wording of the job description, but part of it was essentially wanting a candidate who is passionate about the region and its stories.
Now, I had some background in media- I could write, I had volunteered at campus radio and newspaper. But lots of people do that.
But what there isn’t a lot of, I figured, is people who are from and actively want to live in northern B.C. applying for journalism jobs (my experience has been a lot of people see smaller centres as stepping stones to bigger ones).
So I leaned on that hard, in my cover letter and interview. What I really sold was my perspective as someone who knows this place. I sold my network and experience as an asset to digging up new stories.
I didn’t get the job, but I did get put on the call list for when an extra body was needed in the office. And eventually that turned into a part-time job, then a full-time one.
And all along, I think one of my greatest strengths has been my perspective as a person who is from here. Growing up in a certain way allows you a deeper understanding of issues and stories that other people don’t get, at least not right away.
* * *
I bring this up because of what happened this week when BuzzFeed editor Scaachi Koul revealed they were interested in hearing non-white, non-male perspectives. You can read the full series of tweets here, but the key ones are:
“Would you like to write long-form for @BuzzFeed Canada? WELL YOU CAN. We want pitches for your Canada-centric essays and reporting.”
“.@BuzzFeedCanada would particularly like to hear from you if you are not white and not male.”
“Last thing:
IF YOU’RE A WHITE MAN UPSET THAT WE ARE LOOKING MOSTLY FOR NON-WHITE NON-MEN
I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU
GO WRITE FOR MACLEAN’S“
Now, granted, it was put a little more bluntly than most want ads, but a. this wasn’t a want ad, it was a series of tweets and b. ultimately what it says is that BuzzFeed is looking for diverse voices. In fact, Koul later clarified that yes, white men could pitch and, in fact, she was receiving good pitches from a variety of people, including white men. But it was too late because of bunch of (mostly white, mostly male) people decided these tweets seeking out diverse perspectives were a form of discrimination.
But in media, that’s a huge part of why you are hired: your perspective. You live or die based on your ability to pitch and deliver certain types of stories.
There are a ton of people who on a technical/training level are better writers/editors/producers than I am, and that was especially true when I first got my job.
But they don’t have my perspective. They don’t have my lived experience. They don’t have my roots and network in the community I cover. And the audience likes it, too! It’s amazing how often people are first surprised and then pleased to discover that I am one of them, a person from northern B.C. telling the stories of northern B.C.
* * *
Here’s another story about me being a white man in media. This one ends with me NOT getting a job.
It was for a cool series taking a look at the lives of young indigenous people in Canada.
At this point, I was pretty qualified on all the technical aspects. And I’ve done stories on young indigenous people, so I had pitches, too!
When I heard back on my application, I was told I would be a good fit, but ultimately they were going with a young indigenous person.
AND HERE’S WHAT I DID: I assumed the person who got the job was also qualified, with the added bonus of having perspectives I don’t. Heck, for all I know, they were way more qualified, and there were a ton of other people who applied who were more qualified, too. It wasn’t my job for the taking!
And the series was great! I don’t at all resent that they went with someone with an insider perspective. It made for a stronger set of stories.
* * *
Is it discrimination that people who are from a certain community be given consideration when a media outlet wants to reflect that community?
I say no. You get a more accurate reflection of the community when a person knows it first-hand. BuzzFeed is looking for stories from underrepresented communities, so they are seeking out underrepresented demographics. It makes sense!
And sure, maybe it means I as a straight white dude won’t get contracts when people are looking for diverse storytellers. But how is that different from when I’m not hired to work on a story about Toronto because I’m from B.C. and they want people who know Toronto? Or someone who’s worked in politics is later picked up as a political commentator? It’s all about having an authentic/knowledgable voice.
You’ll note Koul also said BuzzFeed was looking for “Canada-centric” stories, but no one’s getting pissy about them discriminating against Americans and Australians.
Why? Because we recognize that in writing Canadian stories, it helps to have a Canadian perspective. So why the heck would it not make sense to throw some non-white, non-male (and, I’d add, non-cis) voices into the mix to get some of their perspectives?
If you are a reporter or a writer or a storyteller, don’t be threatened by job postings seeking perspectives you don’t have. Instead, figure out what your unique perspective is, and pitch to that.
As a member of the public, I benefit from having the best possible reporting on a wide variety of issues. And that means seeking out a greater diversity of reporters.
If we want to truly understand this country, we must seek out the widest range of voices possible to share its stories.
And that includes ones that aren’t me.
I’m turning 31 today. As I’ve said before, having a January birthday is helpful in delineating points in your life – a new calendar year is followed quickly by a new year for me, personally. So it’s a good point to look back/look ahead on what I accomplished, learned, and hope to do better. So here we go:
Looking back at those last four points has made me realize what I’m really getting value out of are things that can’t be accomplished in a day- they are things that require days/weeks/months of work. And they probably can’t be done alone. So that will be something to think about moving forward: what do I want to say, how do I want to say it, and who do I want to say it with? Hopefully I can figure that out.
Since turning 30, I’ve been trying to record one second of every day of my life. There’s some gaps here and there, but overall this feels pretty representative. There’s a few big moments, but there’s also the little ones that get more important with time: family, friends, a bike ride home, pets who’ve since crossed the rainbow bridge.
I’m surprised at how valuable of an exercise this has been, making me think just a little more about what I want to do each day, what I want to remember, and discovering how even something as simple as a one second image of a faucet or the outside of a building can take me back to a moment I’d otherwise forget.
My only regret is the days I missed but, hey, there’s always next year.
Thanks for the past 365 days, y’all. You make it grand.
Every year, I find it’s a helpful exercise to look back on some of my output from the past 365 days to see what resonates. Some of that is the stuff that resonates with me, personally, and some of it is what resonated with people more widely. I’m happy to see that this year, more than any previous ones, the stuff that resonated widely is largely the stuff that resonated with me, as well.
According to a combination of Google Analytics, Medium’s built-in analytics, and Facebook + Twitter shares, these are my most popular pieces of writing of 2015:
Alright, so every New Year’s I like to do a little personal “best of” highlighting work I’m proud of from the past year. I’m going to do that again, but I wanted to give a shout out to other people, first.
I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again, journalism doesn’t happen in a vacuum. When stories go national, they get all the attention, but they have to bubble up from a local level, first. And sometimes they just stay local, but are hugely important on a local level. And the local journalists deserve the recognition for that. For example:
This isn’t a definitive listing, and I’m sure I’ve missed some really good stuff, especially from near the beginning of the year. It’s just some highlights off of the top of my head. Journalism can feel like a grind sometimes, but it’s nice to step back and look at all the truly compelling stuff coming out on a regular basis. To all of y’all on that grind over the past year- thanks, and all the best for 2016.
Every December/January, I like to make a little mix of my favourite things in music from the past year. Sometimes it’s top songs, sometimes it’s top albums, sometimes it’s twelve tracks, sometimes it’s twenty. It really depends on what feels most relevant to my listening habits of the past year.
This year, it feels like the most honest thing to do is make a mixtape that’s roughly representative of my listening habits of the past year, which was largely listening to various mixes and individual tracks. I limited it to forty tracks because I find anything too long is just not worthwhile as a curated mix of the best of the best. If you desperately want more, I suggest my 2015 jams playlist on Spotify which sounds awesome on shuffle and includes basically every song I loved from the past 360-ish days.
As it is, these are the forty songs I’ve selected as the best representation of the past year. I followed the Said the Gramophone rules for year-end lists, which is: every artist only gets one song, and the songs are ones that I heard for the first time in 2015- a few came out at the tail end of 2014, but I didn’t catch them then.
By the way, my favourite albums of the year were: Carly Rae Jepsen‘s Emotion plus all its related singles, Grimes‘ Art Angels plus all her related singles/releases of the year, and Bleachers‘ Terrible Thrills Vol. 2. My other favourite artists were Drake (who released a good album, a good joint album, and good singles) and Justin Bieber (who released a strong slate of singles, but whose album still has too much filler).
My favourite live artist was Black Spruce Bog, who had a great year from the Canada Winter Games through to The First Waltz and who also released the very excellent Confluence. My favourite song, period, was “Can’t Feel My Face” by the Weeknd. My favourite soundtrack was the season one playlist for Aziz Ansari’s Master of None, which is great all the way through and introduced me to “Cool It Now” by New Edition, which I’d somehow never heard before.
If you are interested, here are my previous year-end lists:
2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010
And here’s this year’s mix:
Stream:
Mixcloud | Download | Spotify (not all tracks are available on Spotify)
Tracklisting:
Today, CBC’s acting director of digital news announced comments on stories about indigenous people will be closed until at least mid-January. In the post, Brodie Fenton writes (emphasis mine):
“We’ve noticed over many months that these stories draw a disproportionate number of comments that cross the line and violate our guidelines. Some of the violations are obvious, some not so obvious; some comments are clearly hateful and vitriolic, some are simply ignorant. And some appear to be hate disguised as ignorance (i.e., racist sentiments expressed in benign language).
“This comes at the same time CBC News has made a concerted effort to connect with indigenous communities in order to improve our journalism and better reflect these communities to a national audience. The success of our Aboriginal unit and our investigative journalism around missing and murdered indigenous women are just two examples of that commitment.
“We don’t want violations of our guidelines by a small minority of our commenters to derail our good work or alienate our audience. So we’re taking a pause to see if we can put some structure around this. We will reopen comments as soon as possible.”
I’ve spent a fair amount of time thinking about comments, and recently put my own, loosey-goosey policy into place about which sort of comments would get deleted on my Facebook page. One of the things I didn’t really get into with my explanation, but which was top of mind, is a desire for people who are marginalized to feel comfortable being present in my online space, even if it means cracking down on people who are less sensitive to those sorts of situations.
It’s all about what sort of space you want to make – is it a shouting match where anyone can say anything, or is it a civil discussion where people of different backgrounds can speak up and feel a sense of belonging and respect?
* * *
Earlier this year the city of Prince George decided to rename a city park in such a way that it recognized the indigenous people who originally called that space home (and many of whom still do). The online debate was, at times, heated and in some cases boiled over to the point of implicit and explicit racism.
Some sites allowed this debate to stand. The Facebook page for a local radio station wound up deleting a post about it after the discussion veered outside of what they deemed good taste, and then they posted about that decision. They were not the only one to delete stories.
There is a popular Facebook page in Prince George for posting good news stories about the city. It has created an amazing community of people who want to celebrate the city, connected people needing help, and quite literally changed lives for the better. And the job of keeping that page a place of positivity is not easy. I’ve seen some of messages the admins receive – all volunteers mind you- and they are virulent, hateful, expletive-filled, and not something I would wish on my worst enemy. In order to prevent these messages from polluting the public-facing parts of this community, the admins have had to make some difficult decisions about what is and isn’t allowed. Controversy is not.
The world is full of spaces for people to argue. This page is not one of those spaces. It is a space to share good-news stories and feel good doing it. So one of the rules is, basically, if a post starts to generate controversy, it gets deleted. One time I posted a story about stairs being painted a new colour, and people didn’t like the change, so the story got deleted. I shrugged and moved on.
I think, however, this decision-making gets a little more complicated if you are dealing with stories affecting marginalized groups. Because while for some people the renaming of this park was something to complain about, for a great many others it was something to celebrate. For the Lheidli T’enneh people, it was a moment of acknowledgement of their past and present in this city. It was a moment of reconciliation. It was a good news story.
And so they did what many other people in this city do when they want to celebrate – they posted the story in this very popular Facebook page for sharing good news. And then the negative comments would start, and the story would get deleted.
The metaphor I came up with was to think of the Facebook page as a popular pub where people go to celebrate. In this instance, people came in to celebrate the renaming of the park. Some people at the other table didn’t like it. So the people celebrating were asked to quiet down or leave.
I don’t think for a second this was the message the admins of the page want to send. They have a tough job (that isn’t actually a job), and they are keeping things civil as best they can. I know for certain I’ve clammed up or tried to change the subject when a conversation gets uncomfortable, simply because I want to move on and keep the peace. I know that isn’t always the best decision, and yet I continue to do it. So I’m not going to fault anyone for how this played out.
There are large media organizations with dedicated comments manager who still struggle to keep discussion respectful– see CBC’s decision to shut the comments down as they consider ways to fix this. Rather than kicking people out of the pub, they are shutting the pub down while figuring out their next move.
But I also think the reasons for doing this are worth paying attention to. There is a desire to keep the comments open, but open to people of all backgrounds, rather than letting the baser elements control the conversation. I’m not sure how that will be accomplished, but it will be worth following. At the core of this, for anyone with an online community, is the process of thinking about what sort of community you are aiming to create, how you do that, and who might get left out in the process. Who do you want to be allowed in your pub?
“The vast majority of the charts draw upon the same few concepts, deriving from the same few traditions, borne of the same few sensibilities. Touchy-feely reportage. Public radio two-ways. Public radio science-y shows. Shows about music. Comedians talking with comedians. People talking with people like themselves. Celebrities talking celebrity things. Conversationals. True crime true crime true crime.”
Sounds about right.
I live in the same neighbourhood I grew up in. A few blocks away from both my childhood home and current home, there is a small business plaza.
When I was a kid it had ((all of these are partial lists, based on memory)) :
The bakery, deli, dentist, and pub have all shut down.
Some of the businesses that have opened and subsequently shut in the intervening years include:
Today it has:
Only the pizza place, as far as I know, is under the same ownership. The convenience store is also still there, but it has changed hands once or twice.
I feel like there’s some sort of story about demographic and cultural shifts in there.
If people from a cultural group say a costume is offensive, I just won’t wear it.
There is no costume that is so important to me that it is worth making a group of people feel excluded or belittled, regardless of my own thoughts on the subject.
And that’s my hot take on cultural appropriation and Hallowe’en.
Ad nauseam
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April 2 2016 | ∞
On May 28, 1974, Deep Purple were playing a concert in London when guitarist Ritchie Blackmore started riffing through some finger-picking tunes before tearing into their biggest hit “Smoke On The Water.”
The performance was recorded for broadcast on the BBC, but for the last decade-and-half(ish) the song has truly belonged to CFUR campus radio and its longest-serving volunteer. When you hear those riffs, it means it’s time for Air Guitar with Greg the Egg.
I’m actually not sure when Greg first made his way onto the radio, but by the time I found 88.7 “The Fur” on my radio dial, he was already an institution. Every Friday from 2 to 4 he would be there on his “big Air Guitar show!” playing tracks from his favourite “Poppunkarocknroll!” bands ranging from the Ramones to KISS to Black Sabbath. On paper, it sounds like your typical classic rock station rotation, but in practice it’s anything but. For one thing, songs are often album or alternative cuts, not the same high-rotation stuff you get everywhere else. For another, the show’s main attraction is Greg himself.
On the air, Greg the Egg is a force. As he explains in this episode, he’s the only host at CFUR who has to keep his mic levels low because of his propensity for bursting into bouts of yelling, whether it’s about the poor performance of the Canucks or an outburst cutting himself off for talking too long. These moments of back-and-forth with himself are some of most endearing. In one regular segment, his “little brother Ritchie” (actually greg making a silly voice) comes on to trash talk his favourite sports teams. In another, he opens his literal joke book to read aloud, then goes off-mic to provide both the laughter and the heckling. It’s odd and confusing and fun as heck.
People often assume this is what Greg is like in real life, and so did I, until I actually met him. It was my first day after being hired as the station manager of CFUR, when he humbly introduced himself, offered me a Tim Hortons coffee, and said he hoped I wouldn’t fire him (bearing in mind this is a volunteer run station). I wasn’t sure if he was serious, and honestly I’m still not. But it didn’t take me long to realize that Greg off-mic is one of the must humble and self-deprecating people you will ever meet.
As the best-known member of the CFUR team, I would try to offer him up for interviews with the newspaper or small magazines if we ever wanted to get some publicity. He always seemed shocked that there would be any interest in this, and would only agree to be photographed if could wear his B.C. Lions logo mask over his head. Some people do this sort of thing to create an air of mystery. Greg would do it because he was too nervous to have his face in the paper.
He’s also extremely dedicated. One night, the computer we use to stream music and repeat programs overnight had gone kaput in the early, early hours of the morning. Greg heard it happen (he works night shifts) and not knowing what else to do drove up to the university to host an impromptu version of his show for hours, from something like 2 until 8 in the morning on the lowest-frequency station in the city.
That attitude is exactly what makes his show work. Air Guitar sounds like what I imagine rock radio used to be, back when it was still the world of rebellion rather than corporate boardrooms. Greg’s enthusiasm for the music is contagious, and there are numerous bands I used to think of as bloated eighties one-hit wonders that Air Guitar has caused me to reconsider. He’s constantly championing new bands that he comes across, particularly the locals. And there’s the sense that it could all go off the rails at any minutes, in part because it sometimes actually does.
In a world of playlists and podcasts, Air Guitar is something best experienced on the radio, as it’s happening. Pretty much anyone who’s fan has discovered Greg by shifting aimlessly through the dial and coming across this persona yelling about how the Lions rule and disco sucks and needing to stay tuned in just to find out what happens next. It’s like a secret club- if someone knows Greg the Egg, he’s cool, man.
Sadly, Greg is stepping away from the microphone. Having recently retired from his paid job, he’s retiring from his volunteer, one, as well. Last night CFUR held a volunteer tribute party for Greg, and his fans got to see his next step- playing bass and vocals in a Ramones tribute band called The Razones. Having championed rock and roll on the radio for so long, he finally has time to champion it on the stage, as well. Appropriately, the audience wasn’t huge, but it was incredibly enthusiastic- just like we’ve been for Air Guitar. Just before he stepped on stage, Greg even let me snap this picture, no mask required.
The best thing ever is about to happen. Happy retirement, Greg.
SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT!
Filed under: CFUR | Discussion