Latest News

Basketball, Know Your Athlete, Martlets

Know Your Athlete: Sirah Diarra

by Chiso Ufondu on

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Basketball wasn’t always in the cards for Martlet basketball centre Sirah Diarra. The 6’1” fourth-year transfer tried her hand at a variety of sports, including soccer, tennis, and figure skating, before joining her high school basketball team. She was not solely focused on sports: Diarra also devoted her time to music.

“I used to play the saxophone,” Diarra said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “I played for five years, up until I was 17.”

Ultimately, Diarra put the saxophone aside when she started investing more time in basketball. Despite her late entrance to the sport, Diarra found that she had a natural talent for it and developed a love for the game.

“I remember thinking, ‘I’m tall, and I’m good at it,’” Diarra said. “I would just sit in the paint, turn around and score, and I loved it.”

After high school, Diarra went on to play basketball at College Champlain St. Lambert. In the summer after her first year of CEGEP, she first thought about playing university basketball; by the following summer, she had set her sights on playing basketball at the next level.   

“When I entered CEGEP, I never thought, ‘I’m going to play [basketball] in the [United States]’ or ‘I’m going to play university basketball,’” Diarra said. “It was never a dream. Over time, it became something that I wanted.”

Diarra was recruited by several schools in the US and Canada, but, ultimately, she headed to South Carolina to play Division I basketball for the Clemson Tigers after she graduated from CEGEP. Basketball in the United States is extremely competitive, but the challenge was highly influential in Diarra’s decision to play in the NCAA.

“I wanted a new experience and to get out of my comfort zone,” Diarra said. “More than anything, it was the challenge.”

Diarra graduated after three years at Clemson University with a BA in psychology. She returned home to Quebec to play basketball for McGill while continuing her education.

Playing Division I basketball in the NCAA, she faced some of the top collegiate players in the world, but the RSEQ boasts its own share of fierce competitors and presents new challenges to Diarra.

“There are some aspects here [in the RSEQ] that are harder,” Diarra said. “In the States, you play a team once, and you’re done, see you next year. Here, you see a team multiple times a month. Now, everyone knows your flaws and strengths, and you have to find a way to adjust to that.”

Diarra entered her first season as a Martlet after undergoing surgery on both of her knees: She had a lateral tear in her left and medial and lateral tears in her right. Diarra faced the challenge head-on and is adjusting to the RSEQ’s fast-paced playing style, averaging 10.9 points and 10.5 rebounds per game. Given the Martlets seven consecutive RSEQ championship wins, the pressure is on for Diarra to continue to perform well.

“Knowing [that] the team has been successful the past seven years is something that’s always in the back of my head,” Diarra said. “No one wants to be on the team that ends the streak. We’re either going to make it happen, or we’re not. It takes everyone on the team to make it happen, but knowing I have a major role to play is pressure added because of the impact I know I can have on this team.”

The Martlets are currently ranked third in their conference behind Laval and Concordia. With the regular season winding down, Diarra will be put to the test as she leads the Martlets in their journey for an eighth straight RSEQ championship.

 

Point-Counterpoint, Sports

Point-Counterpoint: The G.O.A.T in men’s tennis

by Adam Burton, Gabe Nisker, Théo Farineau on

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With 52 major titles between the three of them, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, and Rafael Nadal have cemented their places in tennis history while creating one of the most exciting sets of rivalries in sports. But, only one can be the greatest of all time.

Rafael Nadal: More than just the ‘King of Clay’

Adam Burton

When debating the tennis greatest-of-all-time, many overlook Rafael Nadal. His dominance spans back to 2005, when he won his first Grand Slam at the French Open. Since then, Nadal has added 16 additional major titles to his trophy cabinet. It’s obvious why Nadal is so distinguished: His speed, power, and athleticism pair perfectly with his impeccable technique, perhaps most evident in his deadly backhand.

In the G.O.A.T. discussion, many will be quick to point out that Nadal is second to Roger Federer in number of Grand Slam titles. However, using Grand Slams as the sole measure for greatness is a shortsighted argument because it does not consider other important factors. Nadal trails in the Grand Slam race due to the way that the tournaments are set up: Both the Australian and US Opens are played on hard court, Wimbledon is played on grass, and only the French Open is on clay. Nadal plays best on clay, going 11-0 in French Open championship matches. Federer and Djokovic, on the other hand, dominate the hard court. Eleven of Federer’s 20 Grand Slams are hard court victories, as are 10 of Djokovic’s 15 Grand Slams. Because Federer and Djokovic get to play twice as many tournaments on their best surface as Nadal, they have an undeniable advantage in the Grand Slam race.

Given the unfair advantage granted to Federer and Djokovic, tennis fans merely bestow Nadal with the title of ‘King of Clay.’ To adequately measure dominance, one must consider their head-to-head matches: In the 38 times Federer and Nadal have faced each other, the Spaniard has won 23 matches, while Federer has won only 15. In the big picture, it becomes clearer: Nadal is the greatest tennis player of all time.

Roger Federer: 21 years of incredible influence

Théo Farineau

Roger Federer may only be sixth in the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) rankings right now, while Djokovic and Nadal are first and second, respectively; however, the Swiss player’s case for being the greatest tennis player is simple. Federer is a beacon of longevity: In 1998, at just 16 years old, he became a professional tennis player, and now—21 years later—RF has won 99 titles and counting.

Federer holds nearly every possible record in the sport. His 310 total weeks spent at the top of the ATP rankings, 237 of which were consecutive, supersede any other player’s accomplishments. He is also one of just eight men’s tennis players that can boast a Career Grand Slam in his trophy case. He broke Pete Sampras’ record of 14 major titles with his 2009 Wimbledon win, which many fans thought of as unbreakable. With 20 major titles, three more than Nadal and five more than Djokovic, Federer is the most-decorated player in men’s tennis.

Finally, the biggest contrast between Federer and his competition is their playing style. Federer, Djokovic, and Nadal are incredible athletes, and their rivalry has marked men’s tennis forever. Federer, however, rises above his adversaries. His playing style is stunning to watch: His signature one-handed backhand, one of the most difficult moves to master in tennis, causes as much strife in his opponents as it does admiration from fans. He is a model of class on the court, and his incredibly refined technique inspires young tennis players all around the world.

The rivalry between Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic is one of the greatest in the history of tennis, and the winner will emerge as the greatest player of all time: In terms of both palmares and playing style, it is the Swiss star who edges out the others to claim this honour.

Novak Djokovic: A virtuoso performer

Gabe Nisker

On the first night of the 2016 US Open, Phil Collins performed the opening concert just before Novak Djokovic’s four-set victory over Jerzy Janowicz.

“It was hard to put up a show after Phil Collins, but he’s a legend,” Novak Djokovic said in a post-game interview.

Djokovic smiled and broke into Collins’ song ‘I Can’t Dance.’ With pure confidence, and, in spite of the name of the song, he added a dance move, too. Two-and-a-half years later, Djokovic is a legend, now, too.

As the current world number one, he took just over two hours to defeat Rafael Nadal in straight sets. With this victory, Djokovic extended his head-to-head lead over Nadal to three and claimed a record seventh Australian Open. Now totalling 15 Grand Slam Championships, Djokovic trails Nadal by two, and Federer by five. He also leads in the head-to-head matchup with Federer and is the first tennis player to win all nine ATP 1000 tournaments. He owns the record for most points accrued in a single ATP season and holds the longest winning streak of the trio at 43 consecutive matches. And as the youngest of the three tennis superstars, with a dogged mentality and clean mechanics, Djokovic is nowhere near finished.

‘The Joker’ may not have one signature skill but he also shows no clear weaknesses. Although it was once easy to overlook his all-around talent, it is now time to include him in the greatest-of-all-time conversation.

Tennis fans reopen the greatest-of-all-time debate each time a major championship finishes, boosting the profile of the latest winner. Novak Djokovic may not be able to dance, but his tennis ability more than makes up for it. The Serbian sensation is the artist behind some of tennis’ best matches and has the records to back it up, and it looks like he’s not going to stop anytime soon.

Editor’s Pick

Roger Federer has dominated the tennis circuit for years. Nadal and Djokovic have been worthy competitors, but, in his lengthy career, the Swiss superstar has proved he is the best of the three players. He has earned more trophies than any other player, broken impressive records, and rightfully earned the respect of tennis players and fans around the world for his incredible play and class.

 

A previous version of this article stated that Rafael Nadal won his first Grand Slam at the Australia Open. In fact, it was at the French Open. The Tribune regrets this error. 

 

Album Reviews, Arts & Entertainment, Music

The hollow girl bossery of ‘thank u, next’

by Ariella Garmaise on

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My interest in Ariana Grande was piqued by 2018’s Sweetener, a critically-acclaimed jazz-infused love letter to then-beau, comedian Pete Davidson. thank u, next is the antidote to Sweetener, a cryptic dissection of the infamous broken engagement that has been met with similar praise. And yet, it is at this juncture that I must admit my brief love affair with Grande has also come to an end.

On Nov. 30, Grande released her music video for the titular “thank u, next,” a short that features Grande as various female protagonists in early 2000s rom-coms, lazily pandering for nostalgia’s sake. The video was good in the way that a perfunctory Saturday Night Live impression is good: Director Hannah Lux proficiently recreates Mean Girls, Legally Blonde, Bring It On, and 13 Going on 30 but offers no artistic intervention. Aside from an empty female-power mantra in which Grande chooses herself, and an overdone reference to Pete Davidson’s penis size for salivating fans, “thank u, next” does little in the way of expression.

With the release of “7 Rings,” Grande set the record for most streams in a single week, but the song faced intense criticism. The video appropriates kanji characters, and Grande has since touted an unfortunately-misspelled tattoo—the design, which is supposed to read ‘7 rings’ in kanji, in fact, says ‘barbecue grill.’ Accusations of cultural appropriation have plagued Grande throughout her career, but her empty use of Japanese language and culture is especially vexing when matched with an equally hollow song about being a rich white woman shopping. It’s not just Grande’s kanji that reads as inauthentic, but the entire production; she writhes forcedly, chants unconvincingly of buying diamonds for her bitches, and apes the worst of trap music for an exceptionally-long 30 seconds. The video’s pink fur, diamond-crusted, girl boss aesthetic feels manufactured, and six months too late—Grande has missed the boat on millennial pink.

Despite their uninspired videos, “7 Rings” and “thank u, next,” are perhaps the album’s best tracks—or at least its most distinct. The rest of thank u, next features vaguely-catchy, nearly-indistinguishable songs: I know I enjoyed listening to “imagine,” “bloodline,” and “makeup” but I can’t recall any specifics. “NASA” is another pandering reference to a belated Urban Outfitters trend. On “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored,” Grande croons that “you make me feel some type of way,” a sentiment that wasn’t particularly profound when Rich Homie Quan said it in 2013 and hasn’t appreciated in potency in countless Drake songs since. “needy” is one of the album’s strongest, and her refrain “I can be needy, tell me how good it feels to be needed” is a refreshing break from the album’s vacant girl power-isms a la “God is a Woman.”

References to ex-lovers meant to rouse public interest ultimately hamper the album. “thank u, next” isn’t an ode to empowerment so much as a list of celebrity names; likewise, pithy and transparent nods to famous breakups populate the entire album.

While thank u, next feels like it was produced by a focus group, Grande is not without talent. She just won her first Grammy, and without even attending the awards ceremony where she was set to perform, citing the show’s alleged constraints on her creative freedom. Still, listening to “one small step for woman…. one giant leap for womankind” on the intro to “NASA,” it’s tough to imagine any particularly subversive spirit that The Recording Academy should need to censor.

McGill, News

SUS General Council debates raising fees

by Juliette Naeveke on

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The Science Undergraduate Society (SUS) met on Feb. 6 to add two questions to the ballot for the upcoming SUS referendum. The Council also discussed changing how departments receive funding, an increase in the SUS membership fee, and the renewal of the Lab Improvement Fund.

Increase in SUS membership fees

Vice-President (VP) Finance Dylan Wong moved to include a question about increasing SUS membership fees on the upcoming ballot, which was previously discussed at General Council on Jan. 23. Currently, the SUS membership fee is $12.50 per semester for full-time students, whereas the proposed increase would boost it to $15.50. SUS last raised its membership fees in 2015, and, even with the proposed increase, they would remain well below several other faculties’ membership fees: The Engineering Undergraduate Society (EUS) charges $27 while the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) charges $16.50. Wong predicts that the fee increase will ideally be sufficient for the next four to five years.

SUS President Reem Mandil emphasized the importance of the fee increase, particularly its use to pay the accountant SUS is planning to hire.

“This is really important for SUS because it allows us to remain a credible organization,” Mandil said. “In the past, we had to shuffle the budget around a lot to adjust increasing prices. This fee increase will help to make sure we stay accountable.”  

The motion passed with 21 votes in favour and one abstaining.

Renewal of the Lab Improvement Fund

Another motion, put forth by Mandil, proposed that the renewal of the Undergraduate Society Lab Improvement Fund be featured in the upcoming SUS referendum. At $25 per semester, it is one of the largest fees that science students pay and yet has never been voted on for its 30 years of existence. The money is distributed based on need and goes toward maintaining McGill’s labs. The Faculty of Science matches the fund, dollar for dollar. The referendum question will ask students to approve the fee’s continued existence.

Departmental representatives emphasized the importance of the fee and worried about the potential consequences of terminating it.

“It would actually be quite a large hit on our labs,” Mandil said. “It is a large sum of money, but the labs get a lot more funding to be able to run.”

Despite the concerns, the motion passed with 23 votes in favour, and the question will appear on the referendum for students to vote on.

Changes to the Equalization Fund

Wong also introduced the final motion, which addressed changes to the equalization fund in the finance by-laws. The equalization fund determines how much funding each department in the Faculty of Science gets per semester based on a projected budget that each department submits to the faculty. However, Wong argued that this system is ineffective, as projected budgets are rarely accurate and tend to change significantly.

The proposed system will divide funding according to department size, with the smallest departments receiving the most funding. Some departments may gain funding while others may lose some, but the changes would not amount to more than a hundred dollars for any department.

“It’s not really going to change how much money departments get,” Wong said. “It really just makes it a more dependable system for distribution of money.”

The motion was postponed to give departmental representatives time to examine the exact changes in allocated funds before voting.

SUS Council will meet next on Feb. 20 at 7pm in Leacock 232.

Science & Technology

A future vision of STEM education

by Caroline Lou on

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Nanotechnology is revolutionizing healthcare systems. Self-driving cars are changing how we navigate our roads. The world has entered an unprecedented era of technological innovation, and scientists are making novel discoveries that will extend and improve the quality of our everyday lives.

Ainissa Ramirez, a world-renowned materials scientist and science evangelist, drew in her audience with these scientific anecdotes during her keynote presentation on Feb. 1, the culmination of SUS Academia Week 2019: To Science and Beyond.

A Google search will yield an extensive list of Ramirez’s accomplishments: She has directed the award-winning children’s lecture series Science Saturdays, hosted two popular-science video series entitled Material Marvels and Science Xplained, and was an assistant and associate professor of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science at Yale University. She has also been profiled in many publications ranging from the New York Times to Scientific American, was named one of the world’s 100 Top Innovators by MIT’s Technology Review, and holds six patents.

Her many accolades have not made Ramirez inaccessible: She provided a candid picture of her nonlinear journey to becoming a scientist. She also highlighted the importance of finding a community in university and beyond, and the influential role that mentors can play in students’ lives. Although she primarily focused on the value of STEM education, Ramirez also mentioned the benefits of a holistic education that incorporates the arts as well. Furthermore, she stressed how policy makers need to take systemic barriers, of class, gender, and race, for instance, into account to make high-quality education accessible for everyone.

When asked how to make science interesting to the general public, Ramirez referred to the value of communicating facts and stories that people will be curious about.

“A couple of years ago, I wrote a book about the science behind football [and concussions],” Ramirez said. “Now, I could say, ‘I’m going to talk about biology and neuroscience.’ But, I don’t do that. I talk about why woodpeckers don’t get concussions. That’s the hook, and people get excited by that, and then you can draw them in.”

She also explained that inspiring people to become creative problem-solvers is key to enabling novel scientific solutions. This teaching method implies an increased focus on learning, rather than just test scores.

“We’re so focused on testing that we’ve forgotten about the learning,” Ramirez said. “People are afraid to make mistakes. They want to get a right answer, and they’re always looking for reassurance. That’s the antithesis of what you need for creativity. I talk about making friends with failure [.…] It’s not really about hitting milestones. It’s really about […] developing into the person you want to be.”

As her presentation drew to a close, audience members were left inspired to find ways to use science as a tool for positive change.

“There was definitely this sense of ‘we can change the world’ at the end,” Nadia Bichri, U2 Science and co-director of Academia Week, said. “People were asking very big questions and very specific questions, and she was still like, ‘Yeah! Get on social media, or go to this page, or go to this.’ She was very knowledgeable on where to start all of these changes.”

Janani Ramamurthy, U2 Science and co-director of Academia Week, was delighted at the impact that Ramirez had on attendants.

“It’s really beautiful when you see people who are just there to learn, and they’re taking notes, and it’s not even for a class,” Ramamurthy said. “I think that’s related to the message I want people to take away from the keynote. Just keep pushing yourself and putting yourself out there and don’t be afraid of the possibilities.”

Out on the Town, Student Life

The best dishes at the seventh annual La Poutine Week

by Gabe Nisker on

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In the same New York Times article that suggested that french fries should come in blasphemously-small six-fry servings alongside salads, corporate dietician Elaine Magee added further caution about poutine, which she ranked the least healthy of the many French fry variations.

“This is an example of taking something with fat and salt (french fries), topping it with something that adds more fat and saturated fat (cheese curds), and topping that with something that contributes potentially more fat, saturated fat, and salt (gravy),” Magee said.

With that in mind, I promptly threw caution to the wind, diving head-first into the seventh annual La Poutine Week, held Feb. 1-7. The festival is a celebration of poutine and invites restaurants from across the city to introduce special variations of the dish to their menus. Customers could visit the event website to vote on their favourites, and the team behind the festival also enlisted a group of professional chefs to help identify the best poutine in Montreal.

When I informed friends of my plans to celebrate the week, they told me that I’d be taking years off of my life, and, although I may have actually done so, I still don’t want to hear it. I had to try the latest in gastronomic overkill.

To make my own ‘best poutine’ choice, I settled on a four-point system. The perfect Montreal french fry is brown and crispy on the outside with some fluff on the inside. It must act as a sturdy base for the poutine’s other ingredients. I’m not particularly picky about gravy as long as it’s hot and has a sharp flavour, but the real key to the poutine—the part that holds it all together—is the cheese curd. There should be no other cheese on a poutine: I’ve seen shredded cheese on various poutines, which should be avoided at all costs. The squeakier the cheese curds, the better. Lastly, the unique additions should not take away from the core ingredients; they should complement them.

I started at Dirty Dogs. This St. Laurent restaurant has already mastered gluttony, and their Waffle MacChicken poutine only raised the bar. A ‘small’ is no ordinary small: It is their classic poutine, topped with a waffle, macaroni and cheese, a fried chicken strip, onions, and a drizzle of maple syrup. While the macaroni and cheese is excellent, there was too much salt in the whole dish, and, surprisingly, the sweetness of the maple syrup did not come through enough.

Two days later, on Super Bowl Sunday, I ordered a poutine in a mistake that I can’t decide whether I regret or not. The Burger Bar buffalo chicken poutine had strong potential, but a delivery delay ensured that it wouldn’t meet the mark. Unfortunately, whether it was thirty minutes or sixty, however long it spent in the delivery car was too long. Furthermore, the buffalo chicken was perfectly spicy, but the other core ingredients paled in comparison to offerings elsewhere.

Then came the El Cabron poutine at Taboo Cuisine Rebelle. This dish was a two-for-one special, serving up nachos on top of a poutine base. It delivered on both fronts. The french fry was perfect, the gravy flavourful, and the nacho toppings—once there were no chips left—made for a fun variation on the chili cheese fry. The cheese curds left a little to be desired, however: They were not quite fresh enough for my liking.  

Fried chicken made another appearance at Mon Petit Poulet, which is no surprise given the restaurant’s name. Delivered quickly, thanks to a lack of Super Bowl business, their classic poutine topped with crispy popcorn chicken bites was delicious. The fries were firm and well-done, the cheese curds perfectly squeaky, and there was even spice to the gravy, which I would have liked to see more of throughout the week.

On Feb. 7, the final day of the festival, I concluded that though there were many strong contenders, the poutine from Taboo was the clear winner. It brought the calorie count up to a number that I just don’t want to compute. I need to work out more.

McGill, News

SSMU hosts its first annual National Eating Disorder Awareness Week

by Elizabeth Strong on

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The McGill community observed National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, which runs Feb. 1-7, for the first time with the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) programming. Each day saw a different session related to eating disorders, including a workshop titled “Unboxing Fatphobia,” a discussion panel, and a mental wellness poetry reading put on in collaboration with McSWAY’s Poetry Collective.

Howard Steiger, the Eating Disorders program head at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute and a professor in the McGill Department of Psychiatry, believes that the week-long event is important for bringing awareness to a pervasive yet often misunderstood issue.

“In general, eating disorders are not very well understood by people but affect everyone either indirectly or directly,” Steiger said. “I think it’s a very admirable idea to have a specific moment to sensitize people to the suffering that eating disorders can cause. People have a lot of misunderstandings about what eating disorders represent, and the people that suffer them are sometimes misunderstood and stigmatized.”

SSMU Vice-President (VP) Student Life Cody Esterle echoed Steiger’s sentiments about raising awareness. Their personal experiences motivated her to take a direct interest in the week of programming.

“Raising awareness is also incredibly important to me because, in my personal experience suffering from an eating disorder, I know how incredibly isolating and alienating this mental illness can be,” Esterle wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “The lack of awareness made it both personally hard to understand what I was going through and how to recover from it, but also how my peers reacted isolated me even more. Comments, behaviours, and attempted support showed [a clear] misunderstanding of what I was going through.”

Esterle is an advocate for eating disorder awareness and is responsible for creating the SSMU webpage on eating disorders, which lists various institutes, support groups, and other resources for those who are struggling. Esterle believes there is both a severe lack of resources at McGill and information about off-campus services, which she feels was exacerbated when McGill cancelled its eating disorder program in 2017. McGill justified its decision as one of financial necessity and argued that the program’s components had been reintegrated with other mental health services.

“Through the existence of this program, McGill did not only act as a resource, but also showed that this university and campus cared for its students, and specifically students going through eating disorders,” Esterle wrote. “Through this, [McGill] created more spaces and conversations around eating disorders. When it shut down, it seems that it did not only defund the program, but it shut down the conversation.”

Esterle hopes that SSMU’s recognition of National Eating Disorder Awareness Week will help spark further conversations about the condition.

“My general goal for this week is creating spaces for folks to talk about their experiences, spreading the resources that are available, addressing and highlighting the social [and] or cultural issues around body image, gym culture, attitude and portrayals of mental illnesses, [and] misunderstanding of what an eating disorder is, and showing people that they aren’t alone, that there is recovery, that there are others who have gone through it,” Esterle wrote.

Claire Schnurr, U1 psychology, attended some of SSMU’s programming, including Tuesday’s Discussion Panel on Eating Disorders/Disordered Eating. She expressed a similar conviction that McGill needs to do more to support eating disorder awareness year-round.

“I believe that McGill needs to improve [on] eating disorder awareness, but also upon mental health awareness in general,” Schnurr wrote in an email to the Tribune. “Instead of just one week per year that raises awareness, it needs to be a constant conversation.”

McGill, News

Black History Month highlights racism in Canada

by Helen Wu on

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As part of McGill’s Black History Month 2019, the Black Students’ Network of McGill (BSN) and Black Law Students’ Association of McGill (BLSAM) hosted a panel titled “Racism and Systemic Discrimination: The Canadian Context” on Feb. 4 to shed light on the realities of black lives in Canada. Moderated by McGill law students Balarama Holness and Alida Kamaliza, the panellists included Philip S. S. Howard, assistant professor McGill’s Department of Integrated Studies in Education; Julius Haag, PhD candidate at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies; Fabrice Vil, former lawyer at Langlois Kronström Desjardins; and Shanice Yarde, equity educational advisor at the McGill Social Equity and Diversity Education Office.

The panellists began by addressing Canada’s neglected history of oppression against its black population. Although slavery was legal in Canada until 1834, Howard claims that this shameful past is often excluded from mainstream historical accounts.

“In Canada, we don’t get to find out that there actually was slavery,” Howard said. “There’s an active process by which the historical record was twisted and sponged in order to create that story. What is allowed is the story that we hear more commonly, which is that enslaved people in the U.S.A. escaped here.”

Howard referenced the concept of ‘anti-blackness,’ a different and starker form of discrimination that places black people below the considerations afforded to non-black people. He gave examples of how anti-black attitudes are still prevalent in Canada today.

“Whenever we get situations where we see types of behaviour perpetrated toward black people that you just can’t imagine happening to someone who is non-black, we are talking about anti-blackness,” Howard said. “One example is Robin Maynard, who writes in her book [‘Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present’] about the incident in which a 6-year-old girl in her school in Toronto gets bound by hands and feet by police because she’s dangerous. What does it remind us of?”

Hagg drew attention to the police system to illustrate that systemic racism is still present in many primary social institutions of Canada today.

“When we talk about systemic racism, we talk about racism that is really fully embedded in systems,” Hagg said. “The police institution itself is an institution that is founded on the basis of racist principles. It was meant to maintain the difference between white people and other racialized people in society. We have moved from a system of formal discrimination to discrimination that is embedded in seemingly-neutral laws that don’t specifically mention race by word, but negatively impact people from racialized backgrounds.”

Holness asked panellists to consider how the McGill Faculty of Law could construct a more representative student and staff body. Yarde suggested that the answer does not lie in simply opening the doors to non-white candidates.

“There’s this emphasis on getting these people who are not white, not straight, not cis, not men in so we can increase our numbers, diversify, and be inclusive and equitable,” Yarde said. “But, then we don’t actually do any work or invest any resources to ensure that those people who are coming into these incredibly white, colonial institutions are going to be supported.”

The discussion ended with a question period, during which Howard expressed exasperation over the struggle for the recognition of black lives in Canada.

“I have come to the position in my life where that’s no longer where I want to put my energy,” Howard said. “If there are white folks who want to come along and recognize my value, recognize me as a human being, and want to engage, then let’s go. But I am not spending my energy trying to convince you that I am human. That’s ridiculous.”

Science & Technology

Coding in the deep

by Sarah Usman on

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“Programming a computer to be clever is harder than programming it to learn to be clever,” Hugo Larochelle, a researcher at Google Brain and adjunct professor at Université de Sherbooke, said during his “Beyond Artificial Intelligence: Deep Learning” presentation at SUS Academia Week on Jan. 31.

Deep learning is a subset of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that attempts to mimic the human brain’s ability to comprehend abstract notions. For example, when a human sees a dog, even if it is an unfamiliar breed, they are often still able to recognize the creature as a dog. This is likely because they have seen many dogs before, and their brain has developed a complex algorithm that runs through a series of checklist questions: Does it walk on four legs? Does it have a snout? Does it have a tail it can wag? If it only has one eye, is it a dog with a missing eye or a different creature altogether?

As part of his presentation, Larochelle explained the science behind deep learning where artificial networks of ‘neurons’ are grouped into various layers, each dedicated to processing a particular piece of information. In the case of recognizing a dog, each of the initial questions could be a layer, with one layer considering whether the creature walks on four legs and another considering whether it has a snout. Larochelle’s team aims to provide a deep learning machine with a rich diversity of similar problems in the hopes of training the system to learn a new recognition task faster.

While researchers have studied neural networks and deep learning for over 50 years, the recent buzz around the topics is attributable to the improvement in technology infrastructure and the ability to give machines mass amounts of high-quality training data. Canada, in particular, has led the way in the recent AI advancements. Industry pioneers, such as McGill alumnus Yoshua Bengio under whom Larochelle was a student, are responsible for many of novel AI innovations. Bengio developed a revolutionary language translation system that now forms the basis of Google Translate.

Despite these breakthroughs, Larochelle believes that we still have a long way to improve the efficiency of AI and deep learning.

“A computer is essentially like a really, really dedicated student that will do lots of exercises but is sort of dumb and not learning particularly fast,” Larochelle said.

Deep learning technology has the potential to be applicable in a variety of industries. Larochelle described a particular case in the agricultural industry wherein an engineer trained a neural network system to recognize the shape and size of cucumbers, so that they could be run through an automated process instead of sorted manually. Applications for deep learning can even be found in art, including in musical composition and in tools such as the website deepart.io, where users can upload photographs to transform them into paintings of various styles.

The powerful potential of deep learning also comes with great responsibility.

“We have to be mindful about biases the systems might have that often will come from badly collected data,” Larochelle said.  

To illustrate his point, Larochelle described cases where facial recognition software was better at detecting white males than women or people of colour, due to the unrepresentative data sets which the system received while in training.

The opportunity to learn about the rapidly-growing and increasingly-influential industry of deep learning was exciting for students in attendance.

“We’re really lucky to get to see such people speak at McGill and to get an idea of what we can do with our degrees,” Lily Carson, Arts student, said.

Science & Technology

Love on the brain

by Morgan Sweeney on

More in Science & Technology:

Everyone knows the story: Boy meets girl, boy encounters obstacle; they fight to overcome it, but something goes wrong and someone runs away crying. Ultimately, love prevails, they share a passionate kiss, get married, and live happily ever after. This, Hollywood claims, is love.

Valentine’s Day is marketed as a celebration of love but, for many people, it can also be a source of stress. If they are in a relationship, they might feel pressured to visibly display their affection, or else risk disappointing their partner. If they are single, the day might be a lonely reminder that they don’t have someone to spend their time with. Clearly, love is a lot more complicated than Hallmark makes it out to be.

The Western notion of romantic love, the one that glorifies gender roles and promises hedonic fulfillment after meeting the perfect person, may have originated in the Middle Ages; however, this is somewhat disputed. The Ancient Greeks held a septenary theory of love, which encompassed love for friends, family, the universe, and oneself. Modern scientists look at love as both a biological and socio-cultural phenomenon, that is divisible into three distinct categories: Lust, attraction, and attachment.

The system of love is one of reproduction. Sexual attraction leads to sex, which leads to offspring, which allows the genome, and the species, to continue into the future. Testosterone and estrogen, the two basic sex hormones, initiate feelings of lust and subsequent physical intimacy.

But, with humans, sex is rarely ‘just sex.’ The social and cultural aspects embedded in the act of reproduction usually create complications. Sex often leads to attraction, the second, scientific category of love, stimulated by the reward pathway in the brain. The release of neurotransmitters, including dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine, are what lead to the addictive tendencies young lovers might develop in the beginning of relationships.

“The passionate love we initially fall into is like an obsession: It is characterized by the intense channeling of our attention, affection, and desire toward specific people[….] at the expense of just about everything else,” Samuel Veissiere, assistant professor in McGill’s Department of Psychiatry, wrote in //Psychology Today//.

Evolutionary psychologists posit that the rationale behind attraction has less to do with the needs of the adult and more to do with the needs of human offspring. Unlike many other animals, human children aren’t born ready to go out into the world—they need time and care to mature properly. Having two parents around to raise them is very beneficial for development and this will only happen if the parents stay together after sex.

Attachment, the third, and arguably most important, category of love, is the force that allows for long-term relationships. Attachment is what binds families, friends, and communities together, largely thanks to the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin. It is difficult to overstate the importance of attachment, with studies showing that the production of oxytocin can even help heal fractured interpersonal relationships.

At the end of the day, the infatuation of romantic love is fleeting. Only love built on a foundation of trust and respect will endure over time. For many, love is the best part of life, and it’s worth celebrating, but it doesn’t have to be a rom-com to be meaningful.

 

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