I will be joining thousands of community and student activists at Hampshire College for the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Conference, participating in three workshops:
Colonized Spaces, Criminalized Bodies, Resistance and Resilience, and Storytelling Our Politics. More information HERE.
TUESDAY MA
RCH 27 // 7-9pm // Grover Building 2065 Parthenais
As artists and cultural workers, our labour takes many forms. Our work can be both invisible and overt; paid, under-paid, and unpaid; useful and purposefully futile; productive and squandered; incredibly creative and meaningfully mundane – all on one’s definition of labour and work, art and use. Contextualized within administrative work, studio practices, managing, curating, negotiating, building, writing, applying, cleaning, organizing, and performing, on top of laundry, family and relationships, and additional ‘day jobs’, our labour is divided and overlapped in multiple ways. How do we balance our time and labour? How do we assign value to the many kinds of work we partake in? What are the economies – personal, community-based, or broad-based – that we create or participate in? Additionally, how have the arts community and fine arts students responded to the massive province-wide student strike? In particular, how can we respond to the discrediting of the student strike based on students defined as ‘non-workers’ organized under a non-legitimate ‘union’? How do we assert agency and meaningful solidarity as artists, students, and cultural workers?
Artists: Robyn Maynard, Anne Bertrand, Olivier Forgues, Courtenay Mayes, Emma Siemens-Adolphe Panel Facilitator: Kandis Friesen
More information HERE
There are stark realities to be faced by police, immigration officials and Montrealers
by Anne-Marie Gallant, Robyn Maynard and Samir Shaheen-Hussain in The Gazette
Farshad Mohammadi was shot and killed on Jan. 6 by a Montreal police officer. Very little is known about the police intervention, yet Mohammadi’s killing has precipitated a flurry of calls for more funding for programs for homeless people and those with mental health issues. That funding may be necessary, but it does not target some of the other systemic and institutional realities that also played a role in Mohammadi’s death, and that must be explored if the goal is really to understand what happened and to prevent such deaths in the future.
by Robyn Maynard
Rea Dol (credit Toronto Star)
Shameless Magazine, Fall 2011
Robyn Maynard, Shameless Magazine Fall 2011
Canadians often identify the international interventions of their government as a benevolent and peace-keeping presence. When Laura Bush, (wife of George W. Bush), and the Feminist Majority Foundation claimed it was necessary to invade Afghanistan in order to “save the lives of oppressed women and children” in 2001, the Canadian government hopped on board shortly after, in 2002, supposedly out of a good-will towards the lives of Afghans. Similarly, Canada touts itself as a savior of Haitian women and children, as can be seen in the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)’s “Action Plan for Saving the Lives of Mothers and Children in Haiti,” and sees the RCMP’s presence and involvement since 2004 as helping Haitians build sustainability and security. Canada’s role in these two countries is not small: according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the Canadian government has spent approximately 18.5 billion dollars on its mission in Afghanistan. Canada also spends hundreds of millions of dollars in Haiti as “aid” every year.
The October 2011 edition of No One Is Illegal Radio lends a focus to local struggles 
against deportations, on movements against police killings, and organizing for rights for temporary workers and workers in temp agencies. Also a historical and current account of people of colour organizing in Los Angeles, U.S.A.
Featuring:
Rosalind Wong of Solidarity Across Borders discusses the recent deportation of Mexican refugee mother of two, Paola Ortiz, who had been living in Montreal after fleeing violence in Mexico.
Joey Calugay of Montreal’s Immigrant Worker’s Centre, discussing the intersections between temporary work agencies and the exploitation of migrant labour in Montreal and across Canada.
Joaquin Cienfuegos of Copwatch L.A. and the Native Youth Movement, provides his perspective on autonomous organizing by people of colour in Los Angeles against police brutality, the history of gangs in L.A., and how these issues intersect with the Black Power movement. (recorded at Winnipeg’s International Copwatch Conference July 2011)
Bridget Tolley, an indigenous woman living in Kitiganzibi, and co-founder of Families of Sisters in Spirit discusses her struggle for truth and justice following the killing of her mother on her reserve by the police, and the importance of supporting families in this situation.
by Robyn Maynard
Canadian Dimension, Sept/Oct 2011
As part of a larger ‘tough on crime’ agenda being pushed through parliament, the Harper government intends to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act through Bill C-4. Under the proposed changes, judges would be required to consider sentencing youth 14 and older as if they were an adults who had committed the same offense. Judges would also be required to consider releasing the youth’s name publicly if they were convicted – increasing the visibility and public shaming of youth involved in violent incidents. These changes would also make it easier to sentence youth to be held in custody pre-trial, and also for previous incidents in youths files, even if they were not found guilty, to be used in their sentencing.
The 2nd International Copwatch Conference will take
place on Anishnaabe and Métis territories, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada from July 22 to 24 of 2011 at the University of Winnipeg Register now!
The conference will include sessions of panel discussions, workshops, and video screenings on topics like policing in the context of colonialism; policing and immigration; policing as a gendered, classist and racialized practice; the fluidity of defining crime and criminality; the politics of accountability; community alternatives to policing and practice of restorative justice models, and a range of other topics.
I am presenting two panel discussions, Immigration, Racial Profiling, and the Police with Jaggi Singh and Harsha Walia and Sex Workers and Policing.
