Griffintown: Keegan House Saved. Really?
April 29, 2014 § Leave a comment
Montreal is a strange place. The city basically works in completely counter-intuitive ways. Last week, the Comité consultatif d’urbanisme (CCU) of the arrondissement sud-ouest of the Ville de Montréal denied permission to developer, Maitre-Carré, to tear down the oldest building in Griffintown, a grotty old house that stands at 175, rue de la Montagne. The Keegan House, as it is now known, was built sometime between 1825 and 1835, on Murray Street, a block over from its present state. It was moved to what was then McCord Street in 1865, around the same time that the handsome row of townhouses was constructed up the block.
When Maitre Carré’s plans were first made public, I was apprehensive, but also thought that perhaps the developer deserved our benefit of the doubt, insofar as it had, at least, made some nod to heritage in Griff when Hugo Girard-Beauchamp, the company’s president, bought the Horse Palace and has at least nodded to the idea of maintaining the Palace as a working stable going forward (whether this will happen in practice is a whole different kettle of fish). Indeed, as my friend, G. Scott MacLeod, a film-maker interested in Griff, said, Maitre-Carré is the only developer that has at least acknowledged the history and heritage of the neighbourhood. Indeed, other condo developers, most notably Devimco and Préval have been more interested in stuffing ugly, neo-brutalist blocks of condos down on the Griffintown landscape, completely destroying the streetscape (such as it existed) and dwarfing the original buildings.
Having said all that, at this point anyway (because one never knows in Montreal), this is an optimistic sign. Anne-Marie Sigouin, the city councillor for Saint-Paul/Émard, and the chair of the CCU, said (according to The Gazette) “We have sent the architects back to the drawing board. We want to send a clear message on heritage protection.” This is rather surprising, since the CCU and the Ville de Montréal as a whole have not demonstrated much in the way of leadership up to now in Griff.
Louisiana and the First Amendment, redux
April 28, 2014 § 7 Comments
Last week, the Louisiana politician who proposed making the Holy Bible the official book of the Pelican State withdrew his proposal before it went to the state House of Representatives for a vote. Originally, Thomas Carmody, a Republican from Shreveport, had intended to make a specific copy of the Bible, housed in the state museum the official book, but his colleagues in the House had other ideas, and amended his legislation to make the Bible itself the official state book, not just a specific copy.
Carmody withdrew his legislation, stating that it had become a distraction.
I wrote about this last week, raising questions of the First Amendment’s injunction against an established religion. In the meantime, following a spirited discussion in the comments, I spent more time digging deeper into the issue of religion and the state in the United States. I’ve always found this topic interesting, given the First Amendment’s injunction against established religion, and the Founding Fathers’ well-known suspicion of religion itself. At the same time, of course, the dollar bill in my pocket states, on its back, “IN GOD WE TRUST.” Of course, there is a difference, as the Founding Fathers well knew, between a belief in God and religion. Jefferson himself was a life-long religious skeptic, though he maintained his faith from cradle to the grave.
The New Orleans Time-Picayune quotes a few legal scholars, who seem to be of the opinion that the now-scrapped legislation isn’t worth getting excited about, as it has no real value, it cannot lead to the establishment of religion or the enforcement of religion. Yet, in withdrawing his legislation, Carmody noted that it could’ve caused “some constitutional problems.”
And this is what I find interesting. From my own deeper reading of the issue over the past week, as well as what the legal scholars quoted in the Times-Picayune said, it does appear this was really just a tempest in a teapot. And yet, both Carmody and the New Orleans Democrat Wesley Bishop (holder of a J.D.) appear to be confused about the meaning of the First Amendment in real terms.
The Suburbanisation of Punk and Hip Hop
April 23, 2014 § Leave a comment
Questlove, the drummer and musical director of the hip hop band, The Roots (and frankly, if you don’t know just who in the hell The Roots are by now, I’m not sure there’s any hope for you), is writing a six-part series of essays on hip hop, its past, present, and future at Vulture. Not surprisingly, Questlove makes an eloquent argument in part one about the ubiquity of hip hop culture and the dangers that poses to Black America in the sense that if the powers that be wish to quash it, the ubiquity of it is all-encompassing and a quashing would be similarly so. But he also points out the dangers of the all-encompassing nature of hip hop culture.
I like Questlove’s point about the ubiquity of hip hop culture, which means that it’s no longer visible, it’s just everywhere. He also notes that it’s really the only music form that is seen to have this massive cultural phenomenon attached to it: food, fashion, etc. He says that this applies to pretty much anything black people in America do (he also wonders what the hell “hip hop architecture” is, as do I). But I think this goes beyond black America, such is the power of hip hop and the culture that follows it.
There is a relatively long tradition of white rappers, from 3rd Bass and the Beastie Boys up to Eminem and others, and the vast majority of white rappers have deeply respected the culture. More than that, as a white kid growing up in the suburbs in the late 80s, I was totally into hip hop, as were all my friends. This could get stupid, as when guys I knew pretended that life in Port Moody was akin to Compton, but, still. My point is that hip hop music, fashion, and culture has permeated the wider culture of North America entirely (something I don’t think Questlove would disagree with, but it’s irrelevant to his argument).
The only other form of music that has an ethos and culture that follows it, really, is punk. Punk and hip hop are spiritual brother movements, both arise from dispossessed working class cultures. Both originally emerged in anger (think of the spitting anger of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five in “The Message” or the Sex Pistols in “Anarchy in the UK”) and were heavily political and/or documented life on the downside. But, both also went viral, both exploded out of their original confines and went suburban and affluent.
Punk and hip hop are the two musical forms that informed me as a young man, they continue to do so as I hit middle age. But punk and hip hop are both deeply compromised by sinking into the affluent culture of middle class suburbia. The anger is blunted, the social message is reduced, and it becomes about “bitches and bling,” whether in hip hop (pretty much any song by Jay-Z) or punk (pretty much any song by The Offspring, Avril Lavigne, Blink-182, or any pop-punk band you hear on the radio). And then these counter-culture voices become the culture, and, as Questlove notes, they become invisible in their ubiquity. But more than that, the ethos they bring is divorced from their origins.
Questlove talks about the social contract we all subscribe to. He references three quotes that guide his series (and, I would guess, his life in general). The first comes from 16th century English religious reformer, John Bradford, who upon seeing another prisoner led to the gallows, commented, “There but for the graces of God goes John Bradford.” The second comes from Albert Einstein, “who disparagingly referred to quantum entanglement as ‘spooky action at a distance.'” Finally, Ice Cube, the main lyricist of N.W.A. (yes, there was once a time, kids, when Cube wasn’t a cartoon character), who, in the 1988 track “Gangsta Gangsta,” delivered this gem, “Life ain’t nothing but bitches and money.” Questlove also notes that Cube is talking about a world in which the social contract is frayed, “where everyone aspires to improve themselves and only themselves, thoughts of others be damned. What kind of world does that create?”
And herein lies the rub for me, at least insofar as the wider culture of hip hop and punk and their suburbanisation. If you take the politics and intelligence out of punk and hip hop, you’re left with the anger, and a dangerous form of nihilism. We’re left with Eminem fantasising about killing his wife and his mother. Charming stuff, really.
This is not to say there is no place for bangers in hip hop culture, nor is to say there’s no place for the Buzzcocks (the progenitors of pop-punk in the late 1970s), it just means that this is a many-edged sword.
Louisiana and the First Amendment
April 17, 2014 § 12 Comments
It seems that the Louisiana House of Representatives is poised to vote on a measure that would designate the Holy Bible as the “official state book” of Louisiana. Technically, this would have as much weight as the designation of the brown pelican as the official state bird of Louisiana. But, in practice, this would pack a major wallop.
But is it legal? The First Amendment of the Constitution states:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
And while this refers specifically to the United States Congress, the Constitution of the United States applies to the states and local governments as well (similarly, the constitutions of the various states can impact upon federal law and practices). In other words, the designation of the Holy Bible as the Official State Book of Louisiana appears to violate the part of the First Amendment that reads “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” in that it appears to give preferential treatment to Christianity over all other religions.
Louisiana is an overwhelmingly Christian state insofar as religious identification goes. Somewhere around 90% of the state’s population identifies as Christian. The next religious identification is no religion, at 8%, while Muslims, Buddhists, and Jews are all less than 1% of Louisiana’s population. So clearly Louisiana is a Christian state in practice. But, I’m not entirely sure it can identify as such officially.
Before someone gives me hell for saying that opposition to the Bible being designated the official book of Louisiana tramples religious freedoms, it doesn’t. That’s not how “the free exercise” of religion works under the Constitution. The free exercise of religion does not grant the right to trample upon others’ rights, nor does it allow for official religions. The First Amendment simply states that the state itself cannot impede on the free practice of religion. However, the courts maintain the right to mediate what religion actually is and how it might be practiced.
The measure has yet to pass the House of Representatives, let alone the state Senate, though I’m sure Governor Bobby Jindal would sign it into law. IF that were to happen, it will be interesting to see what comes next, whether the ACLU or any other organisation would threaten legal action. And if it were to get as far as the Supreme Court, even with the court’s recent right turn (the Roberts court has been remarkably centrist), I don’t see how it could uphold such a move by the Louisiana state government.
I find this larger discussion of the Constitution interesting given my new research project, which examines the role of history and memory in far right political circles in the United States. Central to this project is an understanding of the Constitution, as well as the intentions of the men who wrote it in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 and its subsequent implementation, practice, and interpretation since.
The Demeaning of Language
April 15, 2014 § 5 Comments
Slavery is, by definition, a condition where one human being is owned by another. The condition of African Americans in the US South prior to the Civil War was one of slavery. Slavery is NOT an unpaid internship. It is NOT working a bad McJob. It is also not what happened to African Americans after the Civil War in the South.
After the war, many allegedly free African Americans were made to work on the same plantations they had been enslaved upon. They were not paid. They were viciously, and cruelly exploited. Their civil rights were deeply and fundamentally violated. And this is a stain on American history that is not spoken of. The standard narrative is that the slaves were freed and that was the end of that. But this status of allegedly free African Americans after the Civil War in the South was not slavery.
There is a fine distinction to be made here between the ownership of someone else’s person and the exploitation of someone else’s body or economic power. A slave has next to no rights. Slave owners in the pre-Civil War South were free to buy and sell their slaves at will. They had almost free range to do whatever they wished with and to their slaves. Men violated and raped their female slaves. Men beat and savaged their male slaves. Slave owners broke up families because they could (see my post on the Carolina Chocolate Drops for a powerful story of a freed slave woman).
The allegedly free African Americans after the war, forced to work on the same plantations they had been enslaved on, were not slaves. They were personally free, even if that freedom amounted to less than a hill of beans.
My college is hosting a partial film-screening of Sam Pollard’s 2012 film, Slavery By Another Name, this week, along with a talk by Rebecca Hill, an historian at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. I fully understand Pollard’s rhetorical point in his documentary. The term “slavery” is one of the few that still has the power to shock, and Pollard capitalises on that in drawing audiences in for his documentary and exposure of a more or less forgotten period of American History. This is a documentary that all Americans and anyone with an interest in American Civil Rights should see.
But the problem is that when we use words like this, we demean their meanings, and lessen their impact. Take, for example, the term “fascism.” That term is thrown around like it means nothing in political circles in both Canada and the USA, by all sides, to describe anyone and anything the speaker might disagree with. In the end, “fascist” doesn’t really mean much anymore, and has no shock value. That is not a good thing.
The same thing will happen with the words “slave” and “slavery,” too. Especially if otherwise well-off white, college-educated young men and women continue to use those terms to describe their unpaid internships, or if we continue to describe the plight of adjuncts in the academy as a form of slavery.
Language is symbolic. We use words to describe concrete and abstract theories and ideas. They are meant to be symbolic for the theories, ideas, and things we are describing. Language is obviously how we communicate, and if we demean and cheapen our words to the point where they lose their meaning, I’m not entirely sure how we communicate at all.
J’Accuse Mme Marois
April 8, 2014 § 1 Comment
Last night’s Québec election was about the worst outcome imaginable, as far as I’m concerned. The Parti libéral du Québec won a majority, with 70 seats in the National Assembly. The PLQ also took 42% of the popular vote. The Parti québécois got the clock cleaning it deserved, reduced to 30 seats and a scant 25% of the popular vote. Pauline Marois also lost her seat. The third place finisher was the Coalition pour l’avenir du Québec, with 22 seats and 23% of the popular vote. And finally, Québec solidaire is bringing up the rear with 3 seats and 8% of the popular vote.
The upside is the contemptible Marois is out of office and out of the National Assembly. But that’s about as far as it goes for me. Two years ago, Montréal streets were full of hundreds of thousands of protesters. The protests began when then-PLQ Premier Jean Charest declared he would lift the tuition freeze in Québec and let tuition rise. Students protested. I felt, as a professor, it was my duty to join them, to ensure that they would continue to enjoy first class education at an affordable price. A generation ago, it was my generation fighting for the right to an affordable education, this was their turn. But they needed help. But then Charest went whole hog on the protesters, and began denying their civil rights, declaring it illegal for protesters to cover their faces, amongst other things. And the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal weren’t exactly excited about allowing citizens their right to protest, quickly declaring protests illegal as an excuse to kettle, arrest, and otherwise abuse protesters. This was the tipping point, however. This is when something beautiful happened in Québec: the people came out to join the students. Not just professors, but the average Quebecer was out there, appalled at M. Charest for denying the students their rights.
This movement got dubbed the Printemps erable, a play on the Arab Spring across the world. There are all kinds of problems with this appellation, of course. Quebecers weren’t getting shot in the streets, our lives were not in danger, we were not a stifled populace under a brutal dictatorship, as in Egypt and other places.
There was a provincial election campaign in the midst of all of this. Pauline Marois got out there on the streets, wearing the carré rouge, the sign of protest, promising to undo Charest’s sins. One of the students’ leaders, Léo Bureau-Blouin, ran for the PQ in a Montréal area riding. Marois rode the tide of protest to office, though with a minority government. And almost immediately, she changed her tone. Amongst her greatest sins was the Charte des valeurs, which was to impose la laïcité on Québec, which, as I noted yesterday, in and of itself is not a bad thing. But when it’s used to target Jews and Muslims, well, then there is a problem. And in the wake of Marois’ declaration of the charte, anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim activity increased in Québec, especially in and around Montréal. Ugly times had returned.
Marois staked her case for re-election on the charte. She thought that by denigrating every single Quebecer, by appealing to the lowest common denominator, by loudly declaring that Québec is an intolerant society, she could win a majority. Happily her cynical move failed. And now she is just another failed politician. I hope she loses sleep over this.
What many Québec Anglophones fail to recognise is a degree of difference in the sovereignty movement. Thus, the PLQ can rely upon Anglo votes. For example, in the Wesmount-Saint Louis riding of Montréal, which is a predominately Anglophone riding, the PLQ member, Jacques Chagnon, was re-elected was 83.2% of the vote. The sovereignty movement has never been built on a push to get rid of Anglos, or to otherwise strip them of their rights. René Lévesque, the founder of the PQ and the modern sovereignty movement, was always clear on that, as has been pretty much every leader of the PQ, with the exceptions of the noted Anglophile Jacques Parizeau and Marois. In the 2000s, the sovereignty movement attempted to move more explicitly to a civic nationalism, one that was meant to include all Quebecers, irrespective of skin colour, mother tongue, or religion. But it failed.
It failed because of small-minded provincialists of the likes of Marois, Mathieu Bock-Côté, and opportunists like Bureau-Blouin. They thought they could fall back on exclusionary politics to achieve their goal of an independent Québec. Happily, they failed miserably.
But the outcome might be even worse. With Marois gone, candidates for leadership of the PQ have emerged, the early frontrunners are the detestable Pierre-Karl Péledeau and Jean-François Lisée. Péladeau is filthy stinking rich, a member of the 1% if ever there was one. Before entering politics last month, he ran Quebecor, one of the world’s largest printers, which had recently branched into media. It publishes the vile Sun chain of newspapers across Canada, as well as owning Sun TV. In Québec, he owned about 2/3 of the private broadcasters, as well as the Journal newspaper chain. Lysée is a small-minded academic.
And then there’s the CAQ. A right-wing sovereigntist party. Frankly, given the current situation, the only way I see forward is for the CAQ and the PQ to merge. The CAQ and its leader, François Legault, are mostly former PQ members anyway. And if Péledeau or Lysée are going to continue to push the PQ further to the right, there is no difference between the two parties.
In other words, the sovereigntist movement, which has long been based on a model of social justice, has abandoned that in recent years. It is this belief in social justice which led me to support sovereigntist parties in Québec more than anything. The PLQ isn’t exactly noted for its progressivism. In short, the PLQ is just another right-wing, pro-business, anti-labour, anti-social justice party. So now Québec will have three of those, which together garnered 90% of the vote last night.
And that, frankly, depresses me. And I see Pauline Marois as at the fault of this.
The Distinct Culture of Anglo Quebecers
April 7, 2014 § Leave a comment
I have been on this listserv of policy wonks and academics in Canada since sometime in the late 90s. Most of the time, I’m not entirely sure why I remain on it, a small handful of the approximately 100 people on it post, and some use it to beat their hobby horses to many, many deaths. But, occasionally, it serves its purpose and intelligent discussion breaks out about various world events, Canadian politics, and the like. Over the past couple of weeks, one of those broke out over the Québec election, which is underway right now.
This has been the most divisive provincial election I’ve seen in Québec in my lifetime, though, admittedly, the bar was set very low with the ruling Parti québécois’ ridiculous, offensive, and racist charte des valeurs, a sad attempt at laïcité. That in and of itself, is fine, and is perfectly consistent with the Euro-francophone world, but the way it was introduced in Québec, and the manner in which it targeted minorities, most notably Arabs and other Muslims, was appalling. And since then, it’s been a raise to the bottom between the PQ, the Parti libéral du Québec, the Coalition pour l’avenir du Québec, and the 4th party, Québec solidaire. For the uninitiated, the PQ is a former leftist, sovereigntist party; the PLQ is a rightist, federalist party, the CAQ is a right-wing, sovereigntist party, and QS is a largely irrelevant leftist sovereigntist party. For the record, I voted QS in 2012 and would’ve again this year if I was still living in Québec.
So, to return to this discussion on the listserv. It was between an Anglo political scientist in Montréal, a Québec sovereigntist, a lawyer in Vancouver, and myself. Three Quebecers and an Anglo Canadian. The discussion largely centred around the PQ and its fitness for government, though, interestingly, the major issue of the election campaign, the charte was largely ignored by three of the four in this discussion (I was the fourth). The political scientist advocated the continuation of the status quo, a PQ minority, the separatist wished for a PQ majority (and a subsequent third referendum on sovereignty), I suggested the PQ was not fit for government based on the charte, and the lawyer ridiculed the entire idea of sovereignty. Other issues raised included protection of the French language and culture of Québec, as well as the fading generation of sovereigntists.
Pauline Marois, the current leader of the PQ and (at least until later tonight) the premier of Québec, is 65 years old. This puts her at the younger end of the baby boomers, who were the ones who really carried the idea of sovereignty in Québec. Interestingly, support for sovereignty is much lower amongst my generation (Gen X) and the millennials. The political scientist noted this, the need for younger blood in the PQ.
I argued that to simply dismiss the PLQ as incapable of defending the French language and culture in Québec is simple-minded, and I mocked the PQ for the charte and also pointed out QS’ near irrelevance. This led the political scientist to assume I voted PLQ. My guess, though, is that my name had more to do with that than anything. I found this rather disappointing, given nearly everything I’ve ever said about Canada/Québec on this listserv has made it clear I am not a knee-jerk Anglo Montrealer (like one I got into an argument with on Twitter this weekend who seemed to be suggesting Anglo Quebecers are a deeply oppressed minority).
But the real silliness emerged with the lawyer, who appears to be of the opinion that Anglo Montrealers and Anglo Quebecers do not have anything distinct about their language and culture, as compared with the Rest of Canada. He opined that in leaving Montréal for Boston, I did not give up much, as opposed to a francophone who would give up nearly everything. I find this argument both fatuous and depressing.
Anglo Montreal, at the least, has a distinct culture, specific to location. Anglo Montreal is often regarded as a large village, as it seems that all Anglos are no more than 3 or 4 degrees of separation from each other. But, more concretely, as McGill linguist Charles Boberg has discovered, Anglo Montrealers speak a dialect of English that is heavily influenced by French and is rather distinct from the Canadian English dialect. This makes sense. English is the mother tongue of about 650,000 people in Québec as a whole. This out of a total population of over 8 million. Within Montréal, out of a total population of nearly 4 million, about 420,000 people are native English-speakers. In other words, Anglos are a small island in a sea of francophone culture (to borrow the metaphor about Québec adrift in the North American sea of Anglos). As such, Anglo Montreal and Anglo Quebec have their own distinct culture and history, shaped as it was by the simple demographic fact of minority. This is very different than the plight of Anglophones in the rest of most of North America (except for Mexico and the American Southwest).
In other words, despite what a lawyer in Vancouver believes, Anglo Montrealers have their own distinct culture, language and identity, one that is separate and distinct from Anglo Canadians in the rest of the country. There are both positives and negatives to this, of course.
But, my Vancouver lawyer isn’t unique. He represents and all-too-common view of Anglo Canadians. Quebecers are perceived to either be beyond the pale of the Rest of Canada (if we’re francophones, I once got told in southwest Ontario that I speak “good English”), or we’re just like everyone else (if we’re Anglos).
So look at that, Québec is a distinct culture all around (Allophones, or immigrants and their descendants also have their own distinct culture in Québec). It might even be a nation unto itself.
Black Death: Some context on the new research
April 2, 2014 § 4 Comments
The interwebs are all a-glow with news that Black Death in the 14th century wasn’t actually the bubonic plague. Rather, according to a new British study, it was pneumonic. This means that rather than being transmitted from bites from fleas (which originally came to Europe aboard the black rat, or rattus rattus, which itself was a stowaway in cargo coming from China and Mongolia), it was an airborne illness. Suddenly, every time I go to a news site in the past couple of days, I’m seeing headlines like this classic from FoxNews: “Black Death wasn’t actually bubonic plague.”
While I am certainly no expert in the matter, I have read a fair bit on Black Death because I have taught many sections of Western Civ and World History, and Black Death is central to the narrative. Plus it’s great fun to go into excruciating detail of the physical symptoms with my students, seeing who turns green first. And what I’ve learned from my reading is this: Black Death was actually three kinds of plague:
1) Bubonic plague: transmitted by bites from infected fleas and the most common of the three strains of plague. This is characterised by High fever, aching joints, swelling of lymph nodes, and buboes (which are red lesions on the body and from whence the term we used as kids for cuts, booboos, comes from). The bubonic plague had an 80% mortality rate.
2) Pneumonic plague: airborne, infects the lungs; symptoms include high fevers, cough, coughing up blood, throwing up blood. The mortality rate for the pneumonic plague was 95%.
3) Septicemic plague: infects blood and the least common strain. Symptoms include high fever and purpura, purple skin patches, bleeding from mouth, nose and/or rectum, vomiting, organ failure. The mortality rate was 100%.
So what appears to be the results of this new study in London doesn’t actually overturn all that we think we know about the plague, as the news reports are suggesting. At most, it changes percentages, in terms of how many people came down with bubonic v. pneumonic v. septicemic plague. Not exactly the earth-shattering news the media is claiming this to be.
And then I wonder if this is a research #fail or if this is a journalism #fail?
Slave Narratives and the Carolina Chocolate Drops
March 31, 2014 § 6 Comments
Last night, we were up in Woodstock, VT, to see the Carolina Chocolate Drops, a string band from Durham, North Carolina. The band is comprised of three African-Americans and fronted by Rhiannon Giddens, who is of mixed white, black, and aboriginal descent, they play a mixture of traditional and modern folk/roots instruments. They’ve revived a number of songs from the slave era in the Deep South, most of which, according to Giddens, were set down in the 1850s, just before the onset of the Civil War. Most of these, however, come without lyrics, for perhaps obvious reasons. The band were incredibly talkative on the stage last night, which created an incredible community vibe inside this small theatre in small-town Vermont. Both Giddens and band mate Hubby Jenkins kept up a running monologue with the crowd, telling us about their songs, how they came to perform them, write them, play them, their traditional instruments, and so on.
Before one song, Giddens told us about her explorations of American history, specifically African-American history, and about a book she read that collated slave narratives, and analysed them collectively, as opposed to the usual individuated approach to slave narratives. However, Giddens also noted one story that stuck out for her, about a slave woman named Julie at the tail end of the Civil War, as the Union Army was coming over the crest of the hill towards the plantation that Julie lived on. Julie is standing with her Mistress, watching them approach in the song, “Julie.”
This video was shot last night, by someone sitting close by us, though I don’t know who shot it, I didn’t see it happening. This is one powerful song, and it got me thinking. I’m teaching the Civil War right now in my US History class, and as I cast about for sources I am intrigued by slavery apologists, then and now, who argue that the slaves were happy. But even more striking are the stories about slave owners who were shocked to their core when the war ended and their slaves took their leave quickly, looking to explore their freedom.
It seems that the slave owners had really convinced themselves that they and their slaves were “friends” and that their slaves loved them. That arrogance seems astounding to me in the early 21st century. But this song last night powerfully brought the story right back around.
Alienation and Belonging
March 28, 2014 § 2 Comments
An old friend visited us this weekend, and as he and I drove up the Massachusetts coast to hunt down the best pizza in the Commonwealth (Riverview in Ipswich, if you’re wondering), we got to talking about New England. Despite having lived in New England, he always feels like he could never penetrate the insularity of New England culture, and he always feels alienated here. I found that interesting, given I don’t feel that way at all, despite obviously being a transplant.
This might be the advantage of being an Anglo from Montréal. Anglo Montrealers are always at least slightly alienated from the city and dominant culture. We are a (small) minority, and we speak a minority language. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, mind you.
I’ve always felt alienated from my surroundings. I grew up in British Columbia, very aware of the fact I didn’t belong, which came out in everything from my distaste of the wet, soggy climate to continuing to cheer for the Montréal Canadiens, Expos, and, when they existed, the Concorde or Alouettes of the CFL, as opposed to my friends who cheered for the Vancouver Canucks, the BC Lions and either the Toronto Blue Jays or Seattle Mariners. I felt similarly alienated in Ottawa. It was only when I moved back to Montréal I finally felt comfortable in my surroundings. But I still felt alienated from the larger culture, mostly due to language, even as my French language skills improved.
But, as with all things Montréal, it was never this simple. My Anglo friends and family dismissed any suggestion I might be a Montrealer, by continually reminding me I grew up out west. On the other hand, my francophone and allophone friends made no such distinction, and this is also true of my separatist friends. Go figure. Anglo mythology would have it the other way round. One of the most amazing moments of my life in Montréal came during the 2000 federal election campaign when I answered a knock on my door and found Gilles Duceppe, the leader of the Bloc québécois, with Amir Khadir, who was the BQ’s candidate in my riding (Khadir has since gone on to be the co-leader of the sovereigntist provincial party, Québec solidaire, and is currently the MNA for the Montréal riding of Mercier). Duceppe, Khadir, and I spent a good 15-20 minutes talking about place, identity, and belonging in Québec. Largely in English. Even the leader of a separatist party and the candidate for my riding didn’t dispute my bona fides as a Montrealer and a Quebecer (maybe, in part, because I assured them the BQ had my vote).
Since 2006, I have spent a lot of time in New England, before moving here in 2012, on account of my wife being American. She lived in Western Massachusetts when we met, so we did our best to split our time between Montréal and Western Mass. After all those years spending time out there, I came to feel like it was Home. Sure, I was never going to fully fit in, be a part of the scenery, but that was ok by me. And, even now, living at the other end of the Commonwealth, in the massive urban sprawl that is Boston, I feel similarly at home. The ways I feel alienated here are mostly due being Canadian. But I don’t find myself feeling excluded by New Englanders, or, really, Americans as a whole. In other words, I can deal with my alienation, it has kind of become my default way of being.
No doubt this is due to being an Anglo Montrealer and experiencing some degree of discomfort and alienation my entire life in my hometown and anywhere else I lived in Canada, tainted as I was, so to speak, by being from Montréal.
Matthew Barlow 