creative forces

 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.