Here we are again: race relations in Thunder Bay. I’m really having a hard time determining where to start with this one, and probably not just becausHere we are again: race relations in Thunder Bay. I’m really having a hard time determining where to start with this one, and probably not just because of its sensitive nature, but because of the uneasy feeling I’m left with when I dwell on it for too long. I think it has a lot to do with terrible, racist things I’ve said and sincerely thought over the years. I mean, I’m trying my best to do better, but I still struggle to overcome my personal ignorance. Besides, my past is still a part of me, and it’s not easy to admit how ugly that part of me may have been. And it’s not easy picking up a book like Talaga’s, one that reminds you of this ugly side, but it’s an important book to try to get through with an honest attempt at understanding if we actually want to fix the problem.
Talaga, an award-winning investigative journalist, came to Thunder Bay in the middle of the 2011 federal election with the intention of writing an article about Indigenous Canadians’ untapped ability to swing the vote. When she sat down with Stan Beardy, Nishnawbe Aski Nation’s grand chief, he had little interest in her line of questioning, instead bringing up Jordan Wabasse, a young Indigenous student who went missing seventy-one days beforehand. Wabasse’s body was eventually recovered from the Kaministiqua River, making him the seventh student from Thunder Bay’s Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School–-a school for teens from remote reserves across Northwestern Ontario and the Far North–-to die in just eleven years. Seven Fallen Feathers is Talaga’s telling of the students’ lives before leaving their tiny, remote communities for Northwestern Ontario’s largest city; the details known or speculated on regarding the events surrounding their deaths; and the eventual coroner’s inquest into the police investigations, including the perceived racism in the way the cases were handled.
Talaga presents the historical context for the racial tension locally as well as nationally, discussing the residential school system’s lasting legacy of trauma, the seeds of mistrust sown in the Indigenous communities toward governments continually ignoring recommendations aimed at mending fractured relations and bettering Indigenous lives, and a justice system that continually ignores Indigenous pleas for help. But she always returns her narrative to the Seven. The author talks to friends and relatives of the teens, as well as members of reservations in the region. This not only gives a sense of where the students came from–-whether they individually came from functional families or broken homes, all the remote communities grapple with significant issues, with boil water advisories, a lack of adequate housing, and ill-equipped schools affecting the majority, but some also dealing with suicide epidemics and widespread childhood addictions–-it also keeps them human, and this is imperative to the book’s success. For it’s far too easy to emotionally dissociate from tragedies such as these, to treat these deaths as statistics rather than people. But it was people, and Talaga makes the case that they and their families deserve to discover why this happened so that we can prevent it in the future, so that this tragedy doesn’t have to be a pointless one.
While the government and police services get the majority of the criticism within these pages, Seven Fallen Feathers is less about directing the blame at one group and more about a collective failure of our society to protect and support these teens in order to give them a chance to live a normal and fulfilling life. Talaga argues that there must be a better way to offer Indigenous children a good education than forcing them to leave their families to live with strangers in a strange, hostile city. Though we still seem far from any meaningful way forward on this front, I find it hard to disagree with her, and I find myself putting down her book feeling the need to do more to help, to do better....more
An unforgettable photo of a child––running naked, crying, and badly burned by a napalm strike––was not only influential in turning public opinion duriAn unforgettable photo of a child––running naked, crying, and badly burned by a napalm strike––was not only influential in turning public opinion during the Vietnam war, but kept an enduring legacy as the embodiment of the senselessness and cruelty of war. Kim Phuc was the child, and The Girl in the Picture comprises the lead up to and the immediate aftermath of the bombing that irreversibly changed her life, as well as her experiences afterwards as an unwilling tool of Communist propaganda, a much sought-after news “item,” and a famous woman instrumental in repairing historical rifts left over from a grisly war.
Chong has a great understanding of details that require context for a reader to gain full appreciation of Kim Phuc’s story––such as the history of the region, meanings behind Vietnamese names, and journalism slang––and she presents such things without ruining the flow of the writing. But it’s more than that: The author brings these things up again and again without reminding the reader of the meaning or significance. This not only comes across as a measure of confidence from an author who respects her audience, but it also lends a measure of authenticity to recollections of the time and place. The flip side to this, however, is a habit of reintroducing events long past and only now telling us about significant exchanges, and immediately explaining the implications. I wish Chong would have presented more the first time around with less explanation in order to revisit these moments when Kim Phuc has a better understanding of their importance. This strikes me as a way to both make the book feel like a more cohesive whole and give a sense of greater depth to the text without actually changing any of the facts. That said, I don’t begrudge the author to relay her understanding of Kim Phuc’s story with a straightforwardness, a bluntness, that leaves little room for people to twist her message.
And take that opinion for what little it matters: that I may have better appreciated Chong’s book if she had taken a slightly different approach in the writing. The Girl in the Picture is still an important reminder of the horrors that both war and those with power inflict on the innocent. We can all learn from Kim Phuc, that the past is done, and we mustn’t dwell on it, but that remembering it will help us understand how to build a better future....more
I’m really having trouble with this one. I mean, it’s not even that it’s difficult for me to express my feelings toward it––it’s really good––but it’sI’m really having trouble with this one. I mean, it’s not even that it’s difficult for me to express my feelings toward it––it’s really good––but it’s just that I’m having a hard time talking about it, bringing any useful commentary into the review. Usually, with any of my reviews destined for The Walleye, as this one is, I tend to start with my longer online review and sort of chop off pieces until I wind up with something focused and worthy of publication. This time around, I found myself working in reverse, making my bare-bones review and building it up for an online post, and I really hope that by the end of it all it doesn’t come across as an attempt to fatten the review without really adding any content, but I guess we’ll see what happens.
The Promise of Canada consists of a set of biographies of nine Canadians who left their mark on the nation. Starting with the birth of the Confederation with Georges Étienne-Cartier, Gray moves through the years, tracing people impacting our understanding of history (Harold Innis), culture (Emily Carr), and civil rights (Bertha Wilson), up to modern times. In doing so, she paints a convincing picture that each individual significantly influenced how we perceive ourselves and our nation, helping Canada assert its independence on an international stage as a young and growing country. And, even when I thought I knew about her subjects, such as with Margaret Atwood or Tommy Douglas, Gray was able to reveal so much their lives, their work, and their impact.
It’s amazing how much Gray is able to demonstrate about such a broad subject by taking focused explorations into the lives of individuals––even such influential ones as she discusses. The Promise of Canada is truly an inspiring work, and it comes highly recommended....more
