Language of the Status Quo
Canadian media is terrible when it comes to holding powerful institutions accountable and challenging the status quo. In this episode we’re talking about the media’s failure of students criminalized by the School Resource Officer Program, and examples of how both independent and traditional media can be shaped by toxic work environments and politics of recognition.
Media Ignores as Police Criminalize Students
🎵 Intro Music – “Not Alone” by Melafrique
Oumar Salifou (Host)
We’re often critical of media on this podcast, and that’s whether it’s their coverage of politics, police, Black issues, or the Oscars. They never can really seem to get it right. This might be because they’re so hostile to black employees that there aren’t really many left in their newsrooms or many to begin with. It could be because they are solely owned by hedge funds and corporations that are also slowly destroying our society and planet, or owned by the government whose existence rests on the continuous colonization of this land.
Whatever the reason, we wanted to take this episode to go through some of the recent failures of media in Edmonton, both traditional and independent media, that are kind of in a position where they’re supposed to represent the people, keep power in check, and find the truth. All these things, you know, supposedly.
So we’re going to be talking a bit about their coverage of the School Resource Officer program, a recent controversy with Edmonton’s own “prince of podcasting,” and some problematic efforts by the CBC to cover and represent Black life and culture in Alberta.
We’re seeing new research that has been compiled by friend of the show Bashir Mohamed and Alexandre Da Costa on the SRO project in Edmonton. School resource officers basically were exposed using data that we’ve never had access to and that mainly shows that students in Edmonton had 2,068 criminal charges handed down to them by SROs. 679 students were expelled with SRO involvement. 5,228 students were suspended with SRO involvement, and 2,963 students were labeled as offenders.
So this is the first time that we’ve kind of seen any of this information or this data being placed in a centralized way. And it’s important also to remind listeners that this is being done by two independent writers, but really people who are doing this in their spare time. They weren’t commissioned to do this by anyone. They were given funding to do this. And I think understanding that in the context of, you know, realizing that we do have people who we give funding to, we do have people who we trust to do this kind of work, but it’s not necessarily being done by them.
Just to jump in here from the editing booth, I wanted to mention that Bashir actually tried to FOIP the Edmonton Police Service in 2019 to access the data that was released for the SRO program. But was actually quoted to pay $64,000 to access that FOIP information. And it’s not clear from this data that was released if he actually did pay for this data, like I mentioned, or if there was another means to get access to it.
But obviously $64,000 is a huge deterrent for a civilian or private person to do independent research, when again we mentioned that we’ve had state funded media, we have privately owned media funded by advertising that have all been able to essentially investigate these things, but have never done so in all the decades that the SRO program has existed in Edmonton. So if you want to find more information about that project, you can visit their website at www.sroresearchproject.ca.
We actually covered the issue of SROs back in Fall of 2020 when we released, I think it was the third episode of our podcast, where we talked to a teacher who was positioned in a school that had a particularly bad SRO. And that’s not to say that there’s a distinction between, you know, good or bad. I think ultimately the presence of officers in the school will continue to incentivize this criminalization, which is ultimately the negative thing. But, you know, we heard stories of sexual assault, of harassment, of students being targeted, people feeling unsafe, and all of this being done by a teacher anonymously because there’s still a fear of being punished because there isn’t a lot of control of the SRO program by teachers. A lot of it is done in a very top-down way from administration who are able to weaponize and utilize SROs or, you know, the tools that police have in order to crack down on students in a more punitive way.
At that time, too, we also saw media coverage of the program. But, you know, we saw and we noticed that it was particularly soft on the police and on the school board when it was happening. We saw a suspension of the program in 2020, even though it continued in a more sinister way arguably, under the Youth Enhanced Deployment program. That was enough basically to convince the media and allies that the issue was gone. So we didn’t necessarily need to see any more coverage or any more analysis of this program. And even on this podcast, I would say that we were, you know, a little bit too quick to interpret the suspension of the program as a win ultimately.
I just want to give a few more examples of how the media in Edmonton have been complicit or outright supported the SRO program over the years. To start off, this article from September 23, 2014. The headline reads “Edmonton's school resource officers win Model Agency Award.” So essentially this article was completely written up because the Edmonton police received an award for their SRO program by, get this, the National Association of School Resource Officers, an association based in the world’s hottest destination for policing, the United States of America.
So this award was given, and essentially cited Edmonton School Resource Officers as the model agency award for “specialized training they developed, as well as the strong relationship resource officers have with the school communities they have.” It’s a real puff piece that quotes the police, that quotes the public school superintendents, and that essentially highlights all the amazing things that are being accomplished by the SRO program. The same program that we already know has criminalized thousands of students over the years.
The next article that we’re going to talk about a little bit is this article by CTV that was published after we saw a broader questioning about the SRO program. And the headline for this one is “Police association makes case for SROs to return to public schools.” So we’re really giving the Police Association and Michael Elliott, who’s the president, this like outsized platform just to make the case for why their program should return. I don’t know if this kind of treatment is like doled out for everyone in public when their services get cut. But police get a whole article saying that because a Grade 10 student was assaulted in November of 2020, essentially that was evidence for school resource officers to be put back into campuses.
So there’s quotes from the Sergeant Michael Elliott — “Luckily, this case was a Catholic school and there was an SRO present.” Essentially making the case for why we need to criminalize students, how these incidences can only be solved by police officers. Yeah, it continues with various scare tactics, talking about guns, talking about drug dealers at school, talking about stolen property, and again, doing all of this through the media. So when we say that the media is complicit, when we say that the media is outwardly supportive of things like the SRO program and doesn’t question it, these two articles are what we’re talking about.
Speaking about punitive crackdowns based on narratives of fear inherent criminality of certain groups, I think we’re going to talk a little bit more on this episode too about a CBC documentary that touches on these narratives that fit within the criminalization of students with the SRO program, but ultimately that serve to benefit elites in their concentration of power over the rest of our lives. So yeah, we’re going to talk a bit about that in the rest of the podcast.
The Misogyny of Ryan Jespersen + Toxicity in Independent Media
🎵 Intro Music
Failures in media aren’t limited to institutional, traditional media. I think we definitely see that in independent media, and especially in the last couple of weeks. We’ve seen an example locally that I think shows how a lot of the negative, toxic attitudes and behaviours that are perpetuated and live in these traditional newsrooms can definitely be downloaded onto this \independent media space that I think really prides itself in being very different or offering something different, not only for the people who are working in the industry, but also for like listeners in the audience. But it can often just perpetuate the same awful things that we find in, like I said, traditional mainstream spaces.
So the story, I think that’s like a really perfect example of that in Edmonton has been — and I hate to use this term, but I have to — the story with the “prince of podcasting,” Ryan Jespersen and his producer Sarah Hoyles, who was on his show when this conversation about Kim Kardashian came up. And this back-and-forth kind of started where Jespersen was very clearly very sexist, very condescending in his way of cutting off his producer, Sarah. Interrupting her whenever she was trying to speak, and then also siding with this strange character “Captain Coby,” who was calling his producer racist against white men because of her critiques about sexism. That was, you know, pretty blatant and pretty obvious.
I mentioned Kim Kardashian and this mysterious character called Captain Coby. So you don’t really need to know much about these people to understand the situation with Ryan Jespersen. But yeah, we’re going to play a clip right here that really makes you understand what’s going on when we say Ryan was acting in a very sexist way, in a very domineering way.
Ryan Jespersen (Real Talk Host)
Here’s the thing. You know what? You know what a down home example is Captain Coby that we had on the show a couple weeks ago.
John Hicks (Real Talk Technical Producer)
Perfect!
Sarah Hoyles (Real Talk Editorial Producer)
Don’t get me started, dude –
Ryan
Oh, no, no. Hey! That’s enough. I don’t mean, it’s enough Sarah Hoyles, I’m not saying that. Let me be clear. I’m saying my point is, my point is Captain Coby.
Sarah
He actually re-emphasizes what my point is.
Ryan
Yeah, sure. But you know what? Lots of people give a fuck about what he has to say. And so that’s that people’s interest. People are like, why are you making certain people famous? That’s because that’s who those people want to listen to. And if you don’t like it, then that’s fine.
John
He’s already famous. And I get what they’re saying right now. Like, stop making stupid people famous. But at the same time, I like the fact that the average person can just climb out from the rubble and become a social media icon or even a millionaire in this day and age.
Ryan
Yeah!
Sarah
But she hasn’t climbed out from the rubble, stop —
John
I’m not talking about her. I’m saying in general, like we’re talking about Captain Coby. We’re talking about other people.
Sarah
He also has — if we’re talking Captain Coby, he is a white male, which automatically gives him —
Ryan
So what do you want him to do, Sarah?
Sarah
I’m saying that it is not an equal playing field —
Ryan
But what do you want him to do?
Sarah
The fact that he’s talking about that he wants to go and talk to Indigenous people? Great. But the point is, it’s not about going and giving your mic to someone else. It’s about getting the fuck out of the way and letting people speak for themselves, and to stop taking up air time.
Ryan
He’s not taking up “air time.” He is his own guy. And he goes, “it’s always been my dream…” This is, he said it on our show. People can go back and listen to the interview, he goes, “it’s always been my dream.” He goes, “I want to go across the country on a motorcycle and talk to people and tell people stories.” And he goes, “including first nations people, including Indigenous people.”
And then all of a sudden, the left starts to pile on him and say, “oh yeah, white guy is going to co-opt the culture.” 100%. 100% Sarah, you know it.
Sarah
I don’t know it.
Ryan
So the biggest mistake that Captain Coby made was acknowledging that he wanted to include Indigenous people in the conversations he had. Because people started lighting their hair on fire. So the better thing he would have done, what everybody would have preferred — right, all the Stacey’s — what everybody would have preferred is if Captain Coby would have just ignored Indigenous people altogether and said, I’m just going to ride my motorcycle across the country. But I’m not going to talk to any Indigenous people then. And then all of the Stacey’s online would be more satisfied.
Sarah
We should not be diminishing people and referring to them as “Stacey’s” —
Ryan
No, I’m specifically talking about someone called Stacey. By the way, this is the most real talk we’ve had in a long time. I know some people are pissed off about this, this is real.
John
I love this!
Ryan
Show me one example of Captain Kirby speaking on behalf of Indigenous people.
Sarah
Why are you defending him so much?
Ryan
I’m not defending Captain Coby. What I’m defending is this cancel culture that —
Sarah
Not cancel culture —
Ryan
Yes, of course it is.
Sarah
Stop. You are going to extremes!
Ryan
People talking to me about, I don’t know cancel culture. Like, do you fucking forget my story? Like, I don’t know cancel culture? You fucking kidding me? I have first hand experience of what it’s like. And I have encountered the same crew on social media.
Is the assertion that basically, if you’ve got a beard and you’re white, you should just shut the fuck up? Shut down your social media, shut the fuck up? Because that’s the impression I get.
Ryan
First, we wanted to address the wrapup, about the final 15, 17 minutes of yesterday’s show. And we had this sort of talk radio moment where our team, in particular me and our editorial producer, Sarah Hoyles, really got into it. And it was a situation where I think both of us were uncomfortable at the time as we talked about it afterwards. Sarah will share it in her words in just a second. But after our show, we went, “whoo!” And we all kind of took a deep breath and went, “well that doesn’t happen every day!” And my first inclination was that this was a huge success!
Sarah
It wasn’t okay. Having heated conversations, I’m all for. Going toe to toe, I am all for. Not agreeing, I am all for. But being steamrolled? Having people try to explain what I was saying back to me? Being interrupted repeatedly, not being able to say a sentence without it being cut off? That’s not okay. And then to be said that I’m racist because I’m discriminating against all white men with beards is ludicrous.
And that just goes to show that people don’t get it. They don’t get what it means. I have privilege. You have privilege. Different levels of privilege, different kinds of privilege.
Ryan
But also, Sarah. Like, one of the most important things I’ve learned to do in my career, and yesterday was a good reminder too, is to take important points that people make, right? To seek out different perspectives. Everybody knows you do. You booked Supriya Dwivedi and Brian Lilley for the same roundtable today. Like that’s different perspectives. You’re not afraid of different perspectives.
And at the same time, every once in a while, you gotta just forget about the comments. It’s not real life. And in so many ways as a lot of people yesterday were telling me to fuck off and die, people calling you a racist? It’s the same ball of wax. And that’s the stuff like, it’s easier said than done for us to say “just shake it off” or “just ignore the comments,” right? If someone’s calling you a racist.
But at the same time, in real life, you know where your heart’s at! I know where your heart’s at! I know what drives your passion. I’ve seen the editorial process. There’s a reason why, I said this to people yesterday, there’s a reason why you are hired to be the producer of this show. I hired you because of what you bring to the table, because of your skill set, and because the show is better because of your contribution. This is real life, man. This is real stuff.
Sarah
I have just been messaged by Captain Coby. He put it on Twitter, saying, “I see everyone on here defending Sarah. But you all seen her being racist towards all white men with beards, right?”
I need you to call him out, Ryan. I need you to call him out. He’s dangerous. He’s targeting me, and he’s… This is inaccurate, unfair, and a smear. And I need you to call him out.
Ryan
Yeah, um, well this is —
Sarah
This is exactly what the problem is. When women stand up, and ask to be heard, and say things that are hard for white men to hear, this is what comes back at them. And he’s dangerous because he has such a platform, which we helped to create.
Ryan
Okay, so let’s… let me ask for starters —
Sarah
This is why it was dangerous. I was scared to come on today because I need you to stand up.
Ryan
Like, what’s the specific message? What do you specifically want to say with regards to me calling him out. I don’t have background here.
Sarah
I just read it to you, Ryan. I just read it to you.
Ryan
Okay. Okay. So, yeah, so I mean, I’m just seeing it. I haven’t had a chance to formulate my thoughts, but what’s the message? Like, what do you, what’s the most important message you want people focusing on right now? What do you want people to hear right now?
Sarah
You have the platform. He listens to you. This is white privileged males that will only listen to each other —
Ryan
No, but I want you to feel supported right now. And I’m standing here —
Sarah
And so that’s why I’m asking you to tell him it’s wrong!
Ryan
Tell him what? That you’re not a racist? 20 minutes ago we talked about that. I said that specifically. I want to be clear I’m understanding.
Sarah
Say Coby, Captain Coby…
Ryan
Yeah.
Sarah
Knock it off.
Ryan
Yeah.
Sarah
Stop… stop.
Ryan
Sarah, I want to be clear, you have my full support right now.
Sarah
Please Ryan, say it. Say it to Coby.
Ryan
Okay. Okay! Just hang on a second. We’re having a conversation. There’s a lot of nuance to this conversation. In this circumstance, clearly the way that Coby’s messaging is making you feel is absolutely inappropriate.
Sarah
No! You can’t say, “I’m sorry that he’s making you feel that way.”
Ryan
No, no, no. That’s not what I’m saying, Sarah.
Sarah
That’s just what you said.
Ryan
Sarah. I’m saying clearly it indicates that.
Sarah
(Gets up to leave)
Ryan
Okay. All right. Well, this I mean, this is real for sure. Obviously. Coby, you can see the impact that this is having. I don’t have the background here. Obviously I didn't expect this to happen. I don’t have the… Coby, I don’t know what was said except for that calling Sarah a racist is completely off base. And, you know, walk it back Coby please. And with regard to somebody else, you know, I mean, this is an unprecedented circumstance for me as a host.
You can let me know what you think right now. And, you know, I’m doing my best to show my support for my teammate here and for my colleague Sarah Hoyles. We’re just in our transition into a conversation.
Oumar
So as you can see during that clip, Ryan’s producer, Sarah, was very clearly asking him to denounce this person, Captain Coby, who was calling her racist, really undermining her claims that, you know, the situation was very sexist towards her.
And, you know, all of this kind of went over Ryan Jespersen’s head. And not only that, but he continuously interrupts Sarah, really brushes off any accusations of sexism, and kind of treats the whole situation like it’s a very light disagreement. And, you know, really going back to his preferred term “real talk.” And even after his producer walks off the set and is very clearly unhappy with the situation, he’s still pretty nonchalant about everything, reading ads, you know, talking about how this is a positive thing.
And so I think this really shows how these kinds of attitudes are very negative and toxic in mainstream newsrooms and in mainstream environments can very easily be carried over and perpetuated in independent space. And how, you know, just having this independent label or choosing to go down this path doesn’t necessarily preclude you from experiencing these kinds of things.
And I can speak on this for myself personally. As I transitioned from a more mainstream traditional newsroom into a more independent media and a startup environment as my first kind of media job, I definitely witnessed a lot of really toxic behaviour, a lot of things that I didn’t expect to see from my old kind of environments. Because, you know, you’re always promised when you’re in a kind of independent or startup environment that things are going to be done differently, that culture or, you know, people are treated differently. But yeah, I think ultimately a lot of that is lip service, and I think it just reflects how a lot of these things are really carried over.
Even on this show, when we were doing our first season, I was coming off a string of very toxic experiences in both traditional and this kind of startup media environment. And I think dealing with those situations and having them spill over into a new project that I think was trying to do something entirely different than what was happening at those places, I think ultimately really soured not only my experience, but I think the relationship and the experience that other people had working on the project.
So yeah, I think if we want to create media that’s different, it takes a lot to challenge and change these kinds of things. And also to not just assume that because things are being done under this independent banner, that somehow we’re not going to carry over the baggage and the kind of behaviour from past organizations.
And an update on the situation with Sarah Hoyles and Ryan Jespersen, Sarah announced that she is no longer working with Ryan on the show which, quite honestly, good for her. And we wish Sarah all the best when it comes to whatever is next. Yeah, I hope that she’s able to find a place that respects her perspective and her ideas as a journalist.
How the CBC Criminalizes Black Communities (The Life and Death of Abdinasir Dirie)
🎵 Intro Music
I want to talk a little bit about a CBC documentary that came out in 2010, and it was released by the Fifth Estate, which is kind of an investigative documentary show run by CBC. And the documentary is called The Life and Death of Abdinasir Dirie. And essentially it’s a story of a young Somali teenager from Toronto who came to Alberta to work in the oilsands in Fort McMurray and was murdered in a kind of similar fashion to a lot of young Somali men in the 2010s and early 2000s who were murdered, and their murders went unsolved in Alberta.
The documentary essentially follows his life before the murder and talks to his family and establishes different connections. But, you know, we quickly see in the documentary that there is constant speculation around him being involved in the drug trade. But also, I’d say, like a sensational focus on that as something that provides not only entertainment, but also drives the narrative and gives kind of like the reason for like this reporter to even be, you know, talking to this family or investigating this story generally.
Gillian Findlay (CBC Reporter)
Good evening, I’m Gillian Findlay. The young man’s name is Abdinasir Dirie. And these are the streets where he grew up. By all accounts, he should have been a Canadian success story. He was bright, educated, motivated to succeed, but instead Abdinasir Dirie is dead, one of dozens of young men from this community who went west looking for opportunity and who never returned. What happened? And why are questions that 6 months later, his family still has no answers to? Tonight, we’ll take you inside their story. Deep inside a community and a world that most Canadians have never seen before.
Like many Somali immigrants, their story begins in violence. In the 1990s, warlords ruled Somalia. And as battles for power intensified, no one was safe. As the fighting spread, parents who could picked up their children and fled.
Oumar
After glossing over the kind of quick facts around Somali immigration into Canada, we’re kind of placed into a low income community in Toronto. And essentially, the reporter talks to a Somali man who’s moved from Toronto to Fort McMurray to find work. And the guy tells the reporter that you know, it’s very difficult to find work as a young Black person in Fort McMurray. And when that happens, I find it very interesting. When a statement like that is said in an interview, at least from my perspective, I think it elicits the need to follow up and ask more questions to get more understanding.
I think it’s pretty damning if someone says, “I can’t find a job because of my race” or, you know, it seems like there’s open discrimination here for our ability to actually find good work. But that revelation is kind of ignored completely by the journalist. And we continue to focus back very quickly on the criminality. And that’s kind of the centre point. The thesis is, why are these young Somali men involved in the drug trade? How is their involvement in the drug trade an indication of their parent’s failure and this division between immigrants who are disconnected from their new Canadian children? And yeah, I don’t think there’s really an understanding or even a care to understand the real struggles that these Black people face and the underlying reasons why they’re in this situation to begin with.
Gillian
Jobs were scarce, especially, it seemed, if you were young, and Somali.
Mahmoud Farah (Interviewee)
When you come here, it’s all doors locked. You come, you have to — for three to four months, you’re going to be hunting for jobs, resumes, everything. But most of the time, every door is shut down.
Gillian
Third cook isn’t a bad gig, but it’s a long way from the computer programming career he’d gone to college for.
Mahmoud
I didn’t know that was going to be the case, but the reason is there’s always that stereotype that exists.
Gillian
What do you mean the stereotype?
Mahmoud
Stereotype is if I call for a job, just because I don’t have an accent, they will be like, “okay, yes, the opportunity’s still open, come.” But when they see me, it’s a totally different story. They’ll tell me the job is filled.
Gillian
For the kids from Toronto, the reception was always better here at Halima Hassan’s kitchen.
Oumar
If the questions were explored more. If this reporter asked a follow up question about this man’s inability to find work, I think those questions would obviously point towards these kinds of racist systems that are in place. So I think by not asking those questions and by not following up, you can kind of divert any kind of narrative away from this status quo that’s being kept in place.
So the documentary continues. And essentially, there’s more speculation about the murder. And during the time when they kind of reveal what's happened to the family, they also have a segment that really does this perfect deflection of blame onto the community for how these murders aren’t being solved. When people who are a part of the community talk about the murder and the fact that it’s still unsolved, and when they also talk about the fact that they don’t want to cooperate with the police, the journalist is pretty surprised and shocked. And there’s a whole segment about this idea of snitching or, you know, how the community is somehow to blame because they don’t want to cooperate with police. And how the police need this information, but because of this idea of snitching and its negative connotation, this is preventing justice from taking place.
Gillian
And yet, police seem powerless to stop it. In large part, they said, because the community was unwilling to help. In this world, to be a snitch is to make yourself a target. And you don’t have to run with gangsters to get the point.
Mahmoud
It’s like practically you’re telling on somebody. That’s what they’re saying, that peer pressure. It doesn’t matter how old you are. They’re afraid for their own lives.
Gillian
Legitimately afraid? Should they be afraid?
Mahmoud
They are. That’s the truth.
Oumar
By pushing this narrative forward, it completely ignores this historical reality of the relationship between Black communities and the police in Canada. You know, we’re not really going to talk about the fact that Black people have been surveilled, have been harassed, have been targeted by the police, which would create a pretty natural mistrust or a hesitancy to actually give information or put yourself in harm’s way in that kind of case.
But I think it just really puts the blame for these cases being unsolved very neatly on the community and really absolves the police for their inability to actually do their jobs by just saying, “hey look, we have a community of people who aren’t willing to cooperate.” And that’s just basically it, case closed. We don’t have to look into this deeper, we don’t have to ask any more questions, we don’t have to understand why these people are in the difficult position that they’re in. Because, like I said, I think if we did ask those questions, it would unravel a much more toxic relationship and one that’s rooted in power, that’s placed in largely white people who are in these elite positions.
The documentary continues. And one of the last scenes that I think kind of really stuck with me was when the reporter who’s at the centre of this documentary, who’s kind of carrying us through the story, says that some people might think that Abdi is a would-be gangster. But, you know, we also have to realize that he’s also a son and a brother.
I think when I heard that from the reporter, I think it really struck me for a few reasons. And one of them is kind of how it creates this false dichotomy. And it also attaches this kind of label onto someone where, you know, we can kind of look at it between two lenses. This person can be labeled, you know, under the lens of criminality, therefore that somehow justifies their murder or the situation that they’re in. But then also they can be viewed through the lens of the value that they provide to their family as this son or brother and how valuable you know, as a society we put the family on a pedestal. It’s kind of sad that someone’s humanity in a situation like Abdi’s is only viewed through this kind of binary, when in reality he carries an inherent value that I think we all do.
When I watch everything that I watched in the documentary, I think it really begs the question for me about what point is this documentary trying to make here? And I think it’s kind of confusing when I hear about, you know, all these stories. From my perspective, I’m trying to understand how society has failed these communities. I want to know how, you know, we can effectively dismantle all the barriers that are keeping them in this position or that are preventing them from actually achieving the kind of good jobs or the kind of security and the kind of quality of life that I think they’re entitled to.
What we actually get from the documentary is a pretty clinical, distant observation that’s very dispassionate. And that gives coverage of the community tragedy that ultimately reinforces, I think, a lot of the dehumanizing narratives that are already placed onto these communities. So you don’t take away any real critique or any real insight, I think. But you’re kind of left with more of the status quo, more of these negative perceptions and narratives.
Functionally, I think it serves to preserve that status quo and also show that there isn’t anything that can really be done within the community itself that could possibly help or even from outside the community that can alleviate the situation. That these people are somehow, you know, endlessly doomed to be in this cycle of poverty or of criminality or any of the other negative narratives that I think are placed or upheld by this kind of coverage.
When I see this and then I also see the coverage that we see at CBC today, it’s a little bit difficult. Because what we see today is coverage like CBC’s series Black on the Prairies, which is a series that I think really places forward narratives that celebrate Black life on the prairie, and try to expose positive stories about Black history.
CBC also has a new tag, I would say, on their website called Being Black in Canada. So this is kind of a tag that slapped on to any story of Black success in Canada. So anything from a story about a high school kid getting into Juilliard, a prestigious New York music school, to a Black business being successful.
So when that’s contrasted with this documentary, which I don’t think is an isolated kind of thing, I think this fits within a broader pattern of coverage that we saw before what we’re seeing now. I think it’s difficult to contend with what we have today, because I think what we have today is very uncritical of what was done in the past. And I think by not acknowledging what was done in the past, and by just papering over it with these success stories, we’re not doing what we should have done before, which is challenging and seriously examining the barriers that make us have to even perform these success stories to make the community appear in a positive light when we’ve had decades and decades of negative coverage.
So it doesn’t necessarily do the job that I think it should be doing. So yeah, I think without this critical examination, without acknowledging the past where this actual coverage stems from, I don’t think we’re going to see the kind of reform that we need to see from the media in places like CBC.
CBC’s The Block Claims Black Communities “Can Finally Breathe”
🎵 Intro Music
So February was obviously Black History Month. And I’ve gotten really used to just tuning out everything because white liberals really have a fondness for pushing benign Black narratives down everyone’s throat. And, you know, we’ve seen this and talked about this with things like CBC Black on the Prairies, with Being Black Canada, and these things continue to perpetuate these success stories, these positive spins without actually dealing with the status quo oppression and narratives that are pushed by the media.
And, true to form for that, CBC launched The Block on February 1, which claims to be “Canada’s new home for Black music.” And host Angeline Tetteh-Wayoe says “The Block is home. A place of belonging. It’s community and familiarity. It is a reflection of the depth and breadth of Black cultural contributions and innovations in music. I am so thrilled to be providing a platform to elevate the immense pool of talent in this country that has been largely ignored by traditional terrestrial commercial Radio. Hip Hop saved my life but I have been left gasping for something on the air that represented people who looked like me. With this show we can finally breathe.”
So hearing that quote definitely brought up a lot of feelings for me. Mostly feelings around the fact that, you know, it sounds incredibly corny to say that a show has brought breath to you or, you know, some kind of new revelation about music and culture that has always kind of been happening, that has always been cherished. But now that CBC has decided to prioritize it or even give it, you know, the platform that The Block is going to be, that that has somehow brought something radically different, I think is pretty insulting to a lot of the work that a lot of Black folks have done. But I also think it fits within this larger narrative and this larger idea of conforming, and the role that I think media can play for Black, Indigenous and independent kinds of content creators.
This last part of the quote by Angeline especially stuck with me for how it kind of, I guess, references this line that has been prominent in a lot of Black protests over the years with Eric Garner. The line “I can’t breathe.” And, you know, how it’s used in this way to I guess maybe imply, but imply in a pretty overt way, that The Block — this show about Black music in Canada about hip-hop — how that’s going to bring breath to the Black community. Almost kind of in a way to imply that you know, this show is going to solve or alleviate or make better these problems of police brutality, these problems of poverty, these problems of racism, of oppression. What we’ve needed and the solution to that is being platformed, being given space for a biracial person to have a hip-hop show on a national broadcaster. So, pretty awful implication to use these kinds of words. But I think it fits in within a lot of CBC’s coverage around Black lives and how they approach these issues.
And I was doing some reading recently, and came across what I think is something that’s pretty relevant when it comes to understanding how these narratives fit within a larger picture. So this book called The Fourth Eye: Māori Media in Aotearoa, essentially the chapter and the reading that I was doing was around politics of recognition. So recognition specifically when it comes to Indigenous media or, in this case we can interchange that with an idea of Black media.
So the part about recognition begins in this chapter by saying, “in relation to this chapter, the politics of recognition resemble the politics of appropriation because their central problematic asks, ‘What is at stake in locating Indigenous epistemes within western frames, whether those frames be Western media technology in terms of appropriation or the rhetoric of colonial compensation in terms of recognition?’”
So I think what it’s trying to ask here is what’s at stake when we try to take these Black ideas, or Indigenous ideas in this case, and place them within the Western context? So it continues here with a quote by Dene scholar Glen Coulthard. And it says here he “neatly outlines the language of recognition that has become central to the interface between Indigenous groups and various postcolonial states.”
“Over the last 30 years, the self-determination efforts and objectives of indigenous peoples… have increasingly been cast in the language of ‘recognition’ — recognition of cultural distinctiveness, recognition of an inherent right to self-government, recognition of state treaty obligations and so on… [a process that] promises to reproduce the very configurations of colonial power that Indigenous demands for recognition have historically sought to transcend.”
So reproducing the things that we’re trying to transcend by seeking recognition of Western powers. And it continues here, and this is kind of the last part I think I’m going to try to read from this passage.
“The state, whether tacitly or otherwise, fundamentally expects their ‘sovereign governance’ over all their subjects to remain intact and thus the terms of recognition produced means the ‘foundation of the colonial relationship remains relatively undisturbed.’ Indigenous media with radical intent, that is, indigenous media that desires Indigenous sovereignty or the disruption of state governance cannot, I suggest, exist within this relationship of mutual recognition. Accordingly, central to one definition of indigenous media is independence of will, the freedom and responsibility to represent oneself. The cost of such a definition would undoubtedly be, as such things stand in New Zealand at least, nonrecognition and, therefore, a lack or loss of state funding.”
What we see from programs like The Block or Being Black in Canada is an attempt by the Black community to essentially affirm their existence as subjects of the state. And this becomes a very big problem when we already know that the state that we’re trying to affirm ourselves to is a colonial state that has really been invested in our own oppression and continuing the status quo for a very long time. Not only that, but I think we really delude ourselves by seeking for this confirmation or for this affirmation from people who, like I said before, have been more interested in our oppression for years than trying to find real solutions to the problems that have kept us in this place for so long.
So with everything that we’ve covered in today’s episode, we were kind of hoping to make it so that this is a cautionary tale of the pitfalls that can really easily happen with independent media coverage, obviously with mainstream media coverage. And, you know, we really hope that it serves as something helpful for you when you’re trying to decipher what’s true, but also what’s useful in terms of analysis.
And it’s definitely served as a cautionary tale for us as well. You know, in our attempts to not only challenge ourselves and how we view things and how we cover things on the show, but also to really understand how we’ve done things in the past, and how we can evolve and continue to keep things really critical. So with that being said, we appreciate you listening to the show and we hope to continue doing this kind of work as the season continues.