This year, an art exhibit and series of workshops have been organized to recognize International Day Against Police Brutality in so-called Vancouver, on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) Nations. The show, Honour Their Names, is organized by the Justice For Jared campaign, and is bringing attention to police murder and violence against Indigenous people across the territory colonially known as Canada.
Category Archive: Uncategorized
On January 13th, 2022, the tent city at C.R.A.B. Park beat the Vancouver Parks Board in the B.C. provincial court. Their historic win is precedent-setting. Two General Orders that the Parks Board passed banning overnight sheltering in the park were also nullified. How did we get here? What is the violent history of state repression and the counter-resistance that has led to this monumental victory? And where do we go from here?
Two years into the global pandemic, the BC Provincial Health Services Authority’s strategy has become defined by its contradictions. All social gatherings that depend on and feed voluntary community energies are banned. All social gatherings that feed for-profit business markets are encouraged. All industries that drag workers into harm’s way are exempted altogether from restrictions. The buck stops not with the government or business, but with the individual.
For at least a century there have been two Strathconas in Vancouver: the Strathcona of urban elites and the Strathcona of the working class. At important moments in history the second Strathcona – the neighborhood of immigrants, workers, and Indigenous people – has been able to resist, build alternatives, and stand in the way of state and capitalist plans for the area.