Content warning: Enslavement, medical abuse, racial and colonial violence McGill’s troubled history of abuse and complicity in violence toward Black, Indigenous, and disabled people is nothing new. James McGill enslaved at least three Black people and two Indigenous children, an increasingly recognized and discussed reality within the community, especially following[Read More…]
Tag: colonialism
Truth and Reconciliation Day: McGill’s lost opportunity
McGill University has sent a bold message to Indigenous students and their communities by refusing to close for Truth and Reconciliation Day this upcoming Sept. 30. The federal government created this statutory holiday to give Canadians an opportunity to acknowledge and learn about the tragic history of residential schools. Educating[Read More…]
Tribune Explains: Dr. Charmaine Nelson’s Bicentenary Recommendations
Former McGill Art History Professor Charmaine Nelson, along with some of her students, released a 98-page research document on June 22, titled “Slavery and McGill University: Bicentennial Recommendations.” The document included an investigation of the connection between James McGill and transatlantic slavery, the biographies of people enslaved by McGill, and[Read More…]
10 out of 1726: Confronting McGill’s colonial past and racist present
McGill lost 10 per cent of its Black faculty when Art History professor Charmaine Nelson left to take up a new post at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD) in July 2020. Of the 1726 tenured or tenure-track faculty at McGill, only 10 are Black—a figure unearthed[Read More…]
McGill needs to address its colonial legacy
McGill’s Vice-Principal Academic Christopher Manfredi is very proud of his efforts to advance McGill’s academic commitment to equity and inclusion. Manfredi says so in the McGill Reporter’s recent feature interview “Confronting Colonialism”, where he introduced McGill’s new Provostial Research Scholars in Institutional Histories, Slavery, and Colonialism program. The program will[Read More…]
“Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance” explores a conflict still unresolved
During the summer of 1990, a centuries-long land dispute between Mohawk members of the Kanehsatà:ke community and the Canadian government developed into an armed confrontation that would last for almost three months. The conflict broke out because of a proposed golf course expansion in Oka, a small town roughly 60[Read More…]
‘The Road Forward’ is an ever-vital call to attention on colonial injustices
On the night of Sept. 21, the Arts West Wing hosted a National Film Board screening reminding tearful students of the hardships that Canada’s indigenous population continues to face today. As part of its 7th annual Indigenous Awareness Week, McGill’s Indigenous Student Alliance (ISA) screened The Road Forward (2017), a[Read More…]
McGill Indigenous Studies Program hosts criminologist Lisa Monchalin
On Feb. 24, the McGill Indigenous Studies Program hosted Lisa Monchalin, criminology professor at Kwantlen Polytechnic University and the first indigenous woman in Canada to receive a PhD in criminology, for the presentation of her new book The Colonial Problem: An Indigenous Perspective on Crime and Injustice in Canada. “As[Read More…]