Blog # 119…July 2021

Craig

This year's PRIDE, virtual for the second year,  reminded me of being taken on a date (remember those?) in the early 70's to see Craig Russell at a hotel out near the airport. We were fascinated to see Craig appear convincingly and in quick succession as Judy Garland, Carol Channing, Marlene Dietrich, Barbra Streisand and Peggy Lee. In the language of the day, he was called a female impersonator and viewed as something titillating.  Now, a few decades later, we relish PRIDE, and RuPaul’s Drag Race is pretty mainstream watching for all ages.

Who doesn’t love the art of deception sometimes…dressing up and taking on another identity? Or disappearing completely - tempting in these times of perpetual display, the magic of invisible ink, or black light theatre…being a fly on the wall.

Enza

Back in the day when we used to go out and mix with people in the streets (remember that?) one of my favourite things was going down to Church Street on Halloween with my friend Frank, swaggering around in a sharp suit, dark shirt, pale necktie and fedora, five o’clock shadow achieved with Vaseline and pepper - a dead ringer for Al Capone.  I loved kibitzing with the drag queens, toying with my idea of the tough guy stereotype while they flirted coyly in a parody of Mae West. I have a great photo, buried somewhere, with Enza Anderson, transgender rights activist who ran for mayor of Toronto in 2000.

Kyne

These memories prompted me to think about a blog, and then I heard an interview with Kyne Santos, the Filipino/Canadian drag queen who appears on TikTok.  She’s a self-confessed math nerd and, under all the fabulous costumes and makeup she encourages people to see math as approachable as well as important. She also uses the platform to confront racism and let young queer people know that “It gets better”.

                                                                                                                                                        

Natalie

We have Baltimore to thank for many things…crab cakes, the Orioles in Camden Yards, David Simon’s The Wire, John Waters and Divine and a host of drag queens.  Natalie Wynn’s YouTube

channel Contrapoints explores politics, gender, ethics, race and philosophy, providing reflective arguments to right wing political positions. Taking the form of debates between opposing parties, Natalie plays all the parts herself and was called “the Oscar Wilde of YouTube” for fighting the alt right with decadence and seduction.

We’ve come a distance in our recognition and (sometimes reluctant) acceptance of variation, whether it’s race, gender or any of the other ways we differ from each other...we don't all fit into the same package. The bar has shifted on what gets said and shown and how, thanks in large part to these courageous artists.

As I'm writing this though on the eve of Canada Day, we've been shattered by the murder of four members of a Muslim family in London and the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves of children at residential schools in British Columbia and Saskatchewan. It's shaken our sense of who we are and what progress we've made. I'm struggling with that, maybe you are too?  I'm posting this with the thought that we need to ask ourselves - where do we go from here? 

This year Canada Day is different, a time for reflection rather than celebration. But, lets reflect on what we've done that's good and try and do better - for 9 year old Fayez Afzaal, an orphan with his life ahead of him, and for the thousands of living souls affected by the horrors of residential schools.

This country with all its defects and offenses is still a good place to live, lets make it that way for everyone.

 Blog # 118.1...June 2021

I know you've already heard from me this month, and I usually write about how art surrounds and informs us, but this morning I felt moved to say something else. 

The week has been full of the horror of the murders so close to home - in London. Despite all the coverage, I felt I wanted to know something about the family beyond that they were Muslim. In yesterday's Globe and Mail, I read a few details about their personal lives and discovered that Salman, the father, was a physiotherapist. When I reached out to Sharon Switzer-McIntyre at U of T, I discovered that he was a graduate of their Bridging Program. Sharon was the founder of this program, set up to enable internationally trained PT's to meet the qualifications to practice in Canada. Last Fall I wrote a piece about the Program, including profiles of two recent graduates, from Brazil and India, that's posted on Medium.com. 

We all feel sad and diminished by these deaths, but somehow the pain is deeper now that I feel a kinship with Salman through our shared profession.  A lot of talk this week has circled around how to combat Islamophobia. It's complicated I know, but more personal details about the individuals in this family (and future victims of racially based violence, because there will be some) rather than focusing on their faith will go a long way towards making us feel closer to them, sharing their humanity. We may need to seek out the information and it will be a painful process for us but we owe it to the victims, the country and ourselves.