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Falling into School
Mac students return to Hamilton amidst COVID-19 // Pages 12-13
The Silhouette
Thursday, September 24, 2020
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NEWS: McMaster assistant professor muzzles COVID expert Dr. Anthony Fauci // PAGE 6 ARTS & CULTURE: Sitting down with Priyanka, winner of Canada’s Drag Race // PAGES 20-21 SPORTS: Diving into allegations of racism in McMaster Athletics // PAGES 24-25
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Volume 91, Print Issue 1 Thursday, September 24, 2020 McMaster University’s Student Newspaper
Sept. 2, 1980
LOOKING BACK
EDITORIAL BOARD EDITOR-IN-CHIEF | THESIL@THESIL.CA
Justin Parker DIGITAL MEDIA SPECIALIST | DMS@MSU.MCMASTER.CA
Maxine Gravina MANAGING EDITOR | MANAGING@THESIL.CA
Andrew Mrozowski ONLINE EDITOR | ONLINE@THESIL.CA
Kyle West PRODUCTION EDITOR | PRODUCTION@THESIL.CA
Sybil Simpson SECTIONS
NEWS Urszula Sitarz NEWS REPORTER Elisa Do NEWS@THESIL.CA
NEWS EDITOR
FEATURES Adrian Salopek FEATURES@THESIL.CA
FEATURES REPORTER
OPINION Steffi Arkilander OPINIONS@THESIL.CA
OPINION EDITOR
ARTS AND CULTURE ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR Rya Buckley ARTS & CULTURE REPORTER Nisha Gill ARTSANDCULTURE@THESIL.CA
SPORTS EDITOR
SPORTS Krishihan Sivapragasam SPORTS@THESIL.CA
MULTIMEDIA Esra Rakab PRODUCTION@THESIL.CA SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR Erica Mark ONLINE@THESIL.CA PRODUCTION COORDINATOR
CONTRIBUTORS Samantha McBride STAFF WRITER Subin Park
PRODUCTION ASSISSTANT
COVER Photo by Samantha McBride Graphic by Esra Rakab
You think you got it bad? In 1980, amid tuition hikes, the Université de Montréal still accounted for the lowest annual tuition cost at $340 to attend ($1,042.26 when adjusted for inflation). For an extra $256.74 plus tax, you could get yourself a base model MacBook Air.
WE WANT YOU The Silhouette is always looking for volunteers! Visit or website www.thesil.ca or email one of our section editors for more information on how to get involved. NEWS
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LEGAL The Silhouette welcomes letters to the editor in person at MUSC B110, or by email at thesil@thesil.ca. Please include name, address and telephone number for verification only. Letters should be 300 words or less. We reserve the right to edit, condense or reject letters and opinion articles. Opinions and editorials expressed in the Silhouette are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial board, the publishers, the McMaster Students Union or the University. The Silhouette is an editorially autonomous newspaper published by the McMaster Students Union. The Silhouette Board of Publications acts as an intermediary between the editorial board, the McMaster community and the McMaster Students Union. Grievances regarding the Silhouette may be forwarded in writing to: McMaster Students Union, McMaster University Student Centre, Room 201, L8S 4S4, Attn: The Silhouette Board of Publications. The Board will consider all submissions and make recommendations accordingly.
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The Silhouette
www.thesil.ca | Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020
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News
Changes to student supplementary fees in the midst of a pandemic Inability to opt-out of certain fees spark student discussions and dissatisfaction
Elisa Do News Reporter
Following an unprecedented summer for many, students at McMaster University continue their studies via online learning and face adjustments made both within their classrooms as well as the university as a whole. The transition to online learning has resulted in several changes to supplementary fees students are required to pay. One of the biggest changes students face this year includes the Hamilton Street Railway bus pass. In June 2020, McMaster Student Union President Giancarlo Da-Ré wrote to the HSR asking for amendments to the student bus fee. In July, Hamilton councillors voted to temporarily suspend the transit agreements with McMaster University, as well as Mohawk College and Redeemer University. As a result, the 2020-2021 undergraduate student bus pass has been suspended for the period of September through December 2020. Rather than the original fee of $223.92, undergraduate students will pay $120.98 in January 2021 for use of the bus pass in the winter term through to August 31, 2020. Graduate students’ bus passes are still available and are valid from Aug. 22, 2020 until Aug. 21, 2021. In a video shared by the MSU, Jess Anderson, Vice-President (Finance), said that aside from the temporary termination of bus passes, the MSU is also advocating for a discounted monthly transit rate for students; however, there have been no further updates for a discounted rate. All undergraduate students are now required to pay adult
fare when boarding the HSR. It is not yet clear as to how the MSU will handle HSR bus passes for the winter semester now that the school has announced classes will continue to be online. In addition to the undergraduate bus pass, the Athletics and Recreation fee has been a major concern within students’ supplementary fees for the 2020-2021 year. Although McMaster Athletics and Recreation have announced that facilities will be closed until at least Dec. 31, 2020, students are still required to pay an Athletics and Recreation fee with a reduction of 25 per cent. Students are encouraged to participate in a variety of virtual fitness classes offered by the Pulse Fitness Centre. The decision to keep a fee for Athletics and Recreation has sparked multiple student discussions on social media, most of which consist of dissatisfaction from students about having to pay a fee at all. Speaking to the Silhouette regarding what the remaining 75 per cent of Athletics and Recreation fee will cover, Director of Athletics and Recreation, Shawn Burt, said that fees not only go to supporting facilities in a typical school year, but also go to support the infrastructure and staffing of the department. As well, fees support the department’s ability to deliver programming, whether it be virtually or in-person. As for why students cannot opt out of the fee, even if they choose to not participate in the virtual programs, Burt said, “I certainly understand that not everyone uses the Pulse or will use our online programming, but we do have to make an investment into staffing and infrastructure to ensure that we are able to deliver these things, even if not everyone can use them.
It’s really not a usage based fee, and it wouldn’t be reasonable to do it that way simply because accommodating 30,000 students into a fitness space logistically is difficult even at the best of times.” Following the school’s announcement that the winter semester will also be online, Burt expresses that it is not yet clear as to whether Athletics and Recreation will remain closed as well. However, Burt said that adjustments to fees would certainly be looked at: “Not unlike the fall, our expectation is that fees will be impacted as a result of [the school’s] announcement, so whatever needs to be done from our perspective to accommodate students and student-athletes, those steps will be taken at the direction that we receive for sure.” Students are also required to pay the non-MSU and non-McMaster fees, colloquially known as the Bylaw 5
fees. These include the fees for OPIRG, McMaster Solar Car Project, Engineers without Borders, McMaster Marching Band and Incite Publication. Other fee changes include the MSU organization fee which includes operation of student services, club structures, governance apparatus and MSU advocacy work. Originally $133.26 for fall of 2019, the fee has been reduced by 10 per cent, resulting in a fee of $122.45. A breakdown of all supplementary fees for undergraduate and graduate students can be found on the Registrar’s Office Supplementary Fees page. Full-time undergraduate students have the option to opt out of the MSU Health and Dental plan. However, the optout option is only available for those with extended external coverage. Both plans together come to a total of $232. Students have until Sept. 30, 2020 to opt-out of both plans and be
reimbursed the fees. When reached for an interview about the MSU’s involvement with the changes to student fees, VP (Finance) Jess Anderson declined a phone interview.
@TheSilhouette
ESRA RAKAB/PRODUCTION COORDINATOR
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NEWS
www.thesil.ca | Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020
The department of PNB faces a fifth allegation within seven months Allegations highlight the need for systemic and cultural change around sexual violence and discrimination
Elisa Do News Reporter
CW: sexual assault The Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour has now penalized five indiviudals, including at least four suspensions from campus and their positions, due to allegations under the Sexual Violence Policy and the Discrimination and Harassment Policy. Investigations first began in February, when news arose that an associate professor, Scott Watter, was suspended. In June, Watter was charged with two counts of sexual assault that occured in 2017. On July 28, David Farrar, the president of McMaster University released a letter stating that the school will be conducting an investigation into the department’s underlying cultural and systemic issues. “McMaster will not tolerate any behaviour that threatens the security and safety of any member of our campus community. I recognize the courage of the complainants who have come forward, and I want to assure them that their allegations will be fully and fairly investigated and that appropriate action will be taken,” wrote Farrar. While the university has stated they will be conducting an investigation, services around campus such as the McMaster Students Union’s Women and Gender Equity Network look to see what action will be taken to support survivors of sexual violence. WGEN is a service that offers a support group run by and catered to survivors. Content of the support groups are dictated by those within the group and it is entirely peerrun. By doing so, the service encourages an environment where survivors are given the chance to seek support in a way they desire. Speaking to the Silhouette about improvements regarding implementation of survi-
PHOTO C/O MCMASTER DAILY NEWS
vor-centric practices, Yimeng Wang, coordinator of WGEN, said that although the school may be doing its best to support survivors, policies by nature are inflexible. This can put limitations on how much emphasis is truly placed on survivors and their individual needs. Wang believes that putting in place survivor-centric practices means giving autonomy to the person who has been harmed. Allowing survivors to ask for accountability from the person who has caused harm in a way that they desire is an important part of providing them with adequate support. Wang also added that the limitations of policies does not excuse the harm that the school may create. “Neither [the sexual violence policy and the discrimination and harrassment policy] are policies sufficient for creating survivor-centric spaces — that comes from constantly practicing support and listening to survivors’ needs. If harm has been caused in the past, forgiveness or changes in perspective are not owed to the institution that has caused that
harm regardless of changes that have occured since then,” said Wang.
Neither [the sexual violence policy and the discrimination and harassment policy] are policies sufficient for creating survivor-centric spaces — that comes from constantly practicing support and listening to survivors’ needs. Along with the ongoing investigation, protests to defund the police have been occurring across the nation, including within the city of Hamilton. At
McMaster, many students have been calling for the termination of Glenn De Caire, McMaster’s head of parking and security services, due to concerns of discrimination and racial profiling. In addition to discrimination issues, there are concerns from students around how security services responds to disclosures of sexual violence. Wang added that the ways we address harm are often tied to punitive measures and security services. “While some survivors may feel safe and want to take the approach of disclosing to security services and police, a lot of survivors have very rightful concerns and harmful associations and experiences with those systems, especially when we look at the specific people in power at security services at McMaster right now. There are ways in which those ties make it more harmful for survivors to disclose,” said Wang. Advocating for the removal of campus police, a group known as De Caire Off Campus recently shared via social media regarding the harm that special constables have on sur-
vivors’ disclosure experience. The group noted that students have experienced accusations of lying as well as dissuasion to press charges. As well, the group shared several alleged reported incidents of campus police abusing their power, making the service ill-equipped to handle sexual violence. As students begin their fall semester, the investigation into the department of psychology, neuroscience and behaviour progresses while groups such as De Caire Off Campus continue to call for the termination of the special constable program. As the investigation unfolds, McMaster has suggested that those in need of support can reach out to resources such as: • Student Wellness Centre • Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Office (SVPRO) • Sexual Assault Centre Hamilton & Area (SACHA) • Health Safety & Wellbeing or Homewood Health (for employees) @TheSilhouette
The Silhouette
www.thesil.ca | Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020
| 5
Zoom rehearsals and Masterclasses Going online means something different for many, especially for performance-based clubs
SYBIL SIMPSON/PRODUCTION EDITOR
Elisa Do News Reporter
McMaster University has now announced that the winter 2021 term will be online. Students will continue online classes and while the McMaster Students Union has not given official word, many clubs are preparing for the possibility that students will not be able to meet in-person for extracurricular activities, such as clubs. In previous fall terms, the McMaster Students Union hosted a Clubsfest for clubs to present information about their club and recruit new members. With the online fall semester, the MSU offered a virtual Clubsfest via Facebook and Instagram. The MSU has posted descriptions and contact information of various clubs, and will continue to until Oct. 2. Many recreational clubs, such as McMaster Yoga Club
and MacUke, have announced that they will continue to operate with online meetings. However, meetings will look especially different for many performance-based clubs such as the McMaster Marching Band and Absolute Pitch. McMaster Marching Band is open to students of all experience levels and provides them with the opportunity to learn an instrument, as well as perform for local events such as Santa Claus parades. Typically, the band practiced at local churches. This year, there will be no in-person rehearsals or performances at local events. However, the band will continue to practice via monthly Masterclasses, said Mike Cummings, administrative director of the band. Instruments will still be available for students to borrow and the band has a $40 refundable deposit to cover any instrument damage and repair costs.
Funding for the McMaster Marching Band is given through the bylaw 5 fee, which is a nonMSU non-McMaster fee that was decided by a referendum. Cummings explained that the fees not only goes towards staff and uniform costs, but a large portion of the fee is for instruments. “This year we are going to be running a surplus so that next year we can put more into our instrument purchases because those are quite the investment and they take a lot of funds . . . We’re going to really build that up now so we don’t have to say to anyone “Well we’re actually out of alto saxophones, would you mind playing tenor saxophones?” We don’t like to have that conversation,” said Cummings. Absolute Pitch is another performance-based club that has changed rehearsals this year. As a show choir, members of the club are often involved in both singing and dancing during an
in-person school year. The club typically runs a holiday coffee house event in November with a final showcase around March. The final showcase is centred around a theme chosen for the year, and this year, the theme is “best of the decade.” Following the announcement that the winter semester will be online, the club is still in the process of deciding how the final showcase will look like and whether or not rescheduling is possible. Absolute Pitch President, Areeba Sharafuddin, said that the club is also considering other alternatives and should restrictions ease up in future months, the club may choose to film a showcase together rather than do one live. As for the coffee house, Sharafuddin shared that the club may opt for an alternative such as an acapella style video, with members recording individual singing videos and combining them together.
A fee of $25 is usually required for members of the club. However, Sharafuddin expressed that it has not been decided whether a fee will be needed this year due to a reduction in equipment and rentals.
@TheSilhouette
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NEWS
www.thesil.ca | Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020
McMaster professor attempted to muzzle Dr. Fauci Dr. Paul Alexander influenced the American response to COVID-19, sometimes against scientific consensus
PHOTO C/O ANDREW PROPP
Urszula Sitarz News Editor
News broke on Sept. 9, 2020 that an appointee from the Trump administration was trying to dictate what information Dr. Anthony Fauci was able share with the public in regards to the risks children face with COVID-19. That appointee was Paul Alexander, part-time professor in the department of health research methods, evidence and impact at McMaster University. Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health and the United States government’s top expert on the COVID-19 pandemic. Alexander was appointed to the Department of Health and Human Services in March 2020 by Michael Caputo, the assistant secretary of public affairs. Caputo was also new to the department and had no medical background or experience. However, he did work as a top advisor for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Alexander was appointed as a science adviser to help manage the COVID-19
pandemic in America. “The president called me at the end of March and told me I should bring expertise with me. Paul [Alexander] was the first call I made after I got off the phone with the president,” said Caputo in an article written by the Hamilton Spectator.
“The president called me at the end of March and told me I should bring expertise with me. Paul [Alexander] was the first call I made after I got off the phone with the president.” Michael Caputo Assistant secretary of public affairs That expertise has now been the centre of a controversy within the Department of Health and Human Services and the overall response to the
pandemic in America. POLITICO’s Sarah Owermohle broke the story from emails sent by Alexander to various officials. His medical advice and instructions for Fauci are written as scientific fact but contradict mainstream scientific consensus, particularly around masks and the risk of COVID-19 in children. Prior to an interview of Fauci by MSNBC, Alexander wrote that he is opposed to mask-use in children and testing children for COVID-19. He wrote, “can you ensure Dr. Fauci indicates masks are for the teachers in schools. Not for children. There is no data, none, zero, across the entire world, that shows children, especially young children, spread this virus to other children, or to adults or to their teachers. None. And if it did occur, the risk is essentially zero.” That email was sent on Sept. 8, 2020. In an article from Aug. 15, 2020, Nicole Chavez of CNN cited an American Academy of Pediatrics analysis that indicated a 90 per cent increase in COVID-19 cases among children in the United States. Chavez wrote, “several clusters of coronavirus cases
emerged in Florida, Georgia and Mississippi schools within days of starting classes.” In Hamilton, there have been at least two cases of COVID-19 among children in schools. As of Sept. 18, there have been at least 25 COVID-19 cases among students across Ontario’s publicly-funded schools. A previous email from Alexander, dated Aug. 27, wrote that “there is no reason to test people without coronavirus symptoms.” The Center for Disease Control published new guidelines on Aug. 24 with an unclear direction on tests for asymptomatic individuals. Trump has repeatedly attributed high COVID-19 case counts to high testing numbers. As of Sept. 20, 2020 the United States has reached over 6.7 million total cases. Fauci wrote in a statement to CNN “I’m worried it will give people the incorrect assumption that asymptomatic spread is not of great concern. In fact, it is.” In an email from Dr. Hugh Auchincloss, deputy director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, he and Fauci declined an interview citing their full schedule.
On Sept. 16, POLITICO reported that Michael Caputo will take a 60-day medical leave of absence, while Paul Alexander has left the department. It is unclear whether Alexander resigned or if he was let go. On Sept. 24, Alexander is set to appear before the Congressional Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. This appearance is part of the subcommittee’s investigation of alleged political interference by the Department of Health and Human Services against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID-19 response. When the Silhouette reached out for an interview in regards to this article, Paul Alexander declined.
@TheSilhouette
WELCOME TO THE
STUDENT SUCCESS CENTRE At the Student Success Centre, we’re dedicated to helping you thrive and succeed. We know that this year may contain challenges, but we’re here to support you. Here are a few of the ways we can help.
Academic Skills
Financial Wellness
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Online Learning Support: Explore this page for resources, tips, services and more to support your academic performance online. (studentsuccess.mcmaster.ca/ academic-skills/online-learning/) Academic Coaching (Online): Do you need support to develop academic skills? Book an academic coaching appointment at oscarplusmcmaster.ca > Student Success Centre > Appointments > Academic Skills. The Writing Centre (Online): Check in with our writing advisors to get help at any stage of the writing process. Visit oscarplusmcmaster.ca > Student Success Centre > Appointments > Academic Skills to book an appointment.
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New digital resources! •
Careers and Employment •
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Career Drop-ins (Online): The SSC careers team is available to answer your questions and provide guidance every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 1:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. (bit.ly/ssc-career-drop-in) Job Postings: We post hundreds of part-time, full-time, co-op and internship opportunities each year. Check oscarplusmcmaster.ca > Student Success Centre > Employment > Job Postings to discover jobs and apply. Experience Building Opportunities: We also offer ways for you to get involved through mentorship and volunteering, including Career Treks. These are short-term opportunities to gain valuable workplace experience, receive mentorship and learn about a local industry. Check oscarplusmcmaster.ca > Student Success Centre > Volunteering for more information.
@MacSSC
studentsuccess.mcmaster.ca
One-on-one Money Coaching (Online): Book an appointment with our money coach to discuss how to create a budget, build your savings, reduce costs and many other topics. Visit oscarplusmcmaster.ca > Student Success Centre > Appointments > Mac's Money Centre. Online Money Resources: Check out money.mcmaster.ca for online financial resources, including tips, videos, FAQs and more.
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SSC Career Planning Notebook: No matter where you are in your post-secondary journey, whether you’re a current student or a new grad, it’s good to start planning and setting goals for your career. Download this customizable digital resource: bit.ly/career-planning-notebook Digital Challenge Cards: This career discovery and assessment tool can help you consider your career options based on what has purpose and meaning for you. Learn more: studentsuccess.mcmaster.ca/ digital-challenge-cards/ Digital Skills Series: Over the summer, we partnered with Lyons New Media Centre to create a Digital Skills Series for students and recent grads. This series introduces some multimedia basics and how these can be used in both professional and academic settings. Watch the series: bit.ly/digital-skills-series
studentsuccess@mcmaster.ca
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NEWS
www.thesil.ca | Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020
MSU services head online for fall Amidst COVID-19, on-campus services find ways to stay accessible in an online environment Urszula Sitarz News Editor
The online fall term required the McMaster Students Union to adapt and innovate its services, typically run in-person, to continue to provide support, supplies and community to McMaster University students. The MSU runs over 30 services, run by and for students, that offer a range of resources and opportunities, from confidential peer support to first aid. Over the summer months, the parttime managers of each service planned and prepared to convert their in-person programming to online supports. MSU Food Collective Centre In typical years, the Food Collective Centre has run an on-campus food bank and various programs to increase food security in the McMaster community. The FCC has offered both catered programming as well as events, such as the Community Kitchen. PTM Hannan Minhas explained how the FCC will continue to provide these services and be mindful of COVID restrictions. The drop-in food bank service will be closed to students for the fall term due to COVID restrictions. Instead, Lockers of Love will be the primary service to ensure that students and community members can still access the FCC resources. Students and community members can anonymously fill out an order form for non-perishable food items and health supplies. “[The executive team are] trying to make [Lockers of Love] more efficient so students can access food almost the same day or one day later. And we have more lockers so we’ll try to accommodate as many students as we can,” said Minhas. The Good Food Box, which is run in partnership with the Grace Lutheran Church, will run this term as it has in the past. The box is filled with fresh produce and is picked up on campus. The order and pick-up dates for the fall term can be found at the FCC website. The FCC will offer the Community Kitchen workshops online, likely through Microsoft Teams to ensure closed
ESRA RAKAB/PRODUCTION COORDINATOR
captioning. Participants have the chance to cook a recipe along with the instructor, to ask questions and to build skills and confidence in the kitchen. Interested participants reserve their space and fill out a poll for which date and times are preferred, to accommodate all participants regardless of class schedule or time zones. The FCC will increase capacity and maintain community for the workshops this term because of the virtual setting. FCC will also run virtual events and contests, such as Quarantine Cooking, where students create and submit a recipe based on a key ingredient for the chance to win a $25 gift card. MSU Peer Support Services The four peer support services of the MSU have all adapted their programming in a secure and accessible way for this term. Maccess, Pride Community Centre, Women and Gender Equity Network and Student Health Education Centre have all adapted one-on-one peer support to virtual platforms. Flexibility and the needs of the communities that they serve are priorities for each service this term. “We’re just trying to be
open and have conversations with users who seek resources and responding [to users] in ways that maximize their comfort,” said Yimeng Wang, WGEN coordinator. Each coordinator outlined plans and options to accommodate students in different time zones and with various technological resources. Students and community members can reach out for oneon-one peer support or to join identity-specific community groups in varied ways, such as through email, social media, anonymous forms and the platforms used by different services. Disclosure of specifics is not necessary to join a community group. Maccess, WGEN, and the PCC have each developed a Discord server where participants can access one-on-one peer support through text, audio or video chats. These servers will be available in early October and will be accessible by request. SHEC has developed a “Warmline” using tawk.to to offer non-crisis peer support. The Warmline will be fully anonymous through text chat, but support can also be offered via audio or video chats per student request. The Warmline is expected to launch in the coming weeks.
Students and community members can also reach out to join identity-specific community groups offered by different services. These groups are run by volunteers with lived experiences and include a BIPoC-2STLGBQIA+ community group from the PCC, a disabled-2STLGBQIA+ community by the PCC and Maccess and Black and Gendered by WGEN and McMaster Womanists. PCC coordinator Christian Barborini highlighted that participants may not be out or may live in unsupportive environments, so they have accommodated supports to suit individual circumstances, such as text-only in the community group. WGEN also has a peer support group for survivors. The PCC will offer individual check-ins this year. Participants can sign up and will receive a weekly text-based check-in from a PCC volunteer. SHEC coordinator Sydney Cumming hopes to develop a system for students and community members to access the free resources that SHEC has normally provided. This is still in the works; however, Cumming is hoping to have a system by the end of the fall term. Cumming hopes to partner with the FCC’s Lockers of Love and WGEN with their
gender-affirming products that Cumming highlighted as “life-saving”. In addition, the SHEC team hopes to partner with libraries and the Student Wellness Centre to offer various products. All of the peer support services plan to run events this term. Calvin Prowse, Maccess coordinator, planned for more frequent but relaxed events and is excited for the opportunity to have events they weren’t able to do previously. Maccess has a Pet and Plant Appreciation Party planned for later this term. Cumming of SHEC has events planned to distribute resources to students, such as grocery store gift cards. The service coordinators had different preferences for video platforms. SHEC, Maccess, and PCC preferred Teams for its built-in closed captioning. Wang preferred Zoom and Otter.ai for closed captioning. “I think it was really important for us to try to find a way to create a community space in a way that doesn’t add on to Zoom fatigue and gives people a break,” said Prowse. The coordinators are also working to ensure that the various platforms, such as Discord and tawk.to, are compatible with screen readers.
MSU Emergency First Response Team The yellow backpacks won’t be on campus for a while, at least until November when the EFRT advisory board will re-evaluate whether it is safe for responders to be on-call. According to the EFRT Director Kevin Park, the EFRT advisory board has developed return to call criteria. The advisory board is made up of student staff, including MSU representatives and medical doctors, including the EFRT Medical Director Dr. Eddie Wasser. The priority of EFRT and their advisory board is the safety of all responders and community members. The safe reopening evaluation criteria are: risk of COVID-19 to responders, enough personal protective equipment, the population numbers on campus and office space for responders. According to Park, the number of people on campus is used to gauge the capacity of Security Services and the Student Wellness Centre to respond, in case of an emergency on campus. The office space is a concern for Park, as he said that their current space is shared between 30 students and unable to
accommodate social distancing. In addition, Park is concerned about the current spike of COVID-19 cases in Ontario and on university campuses, such as Western University. “We’ve been trying to focus mainly on the things that we couldn’t do before,” explained Park. In light of this, EFRT has increased their social media presence and has changed their training and hiring practices. Current EFRT responders have continued to practice First Aid and CPR. EFRT will run monthly virtual training sessions that will focus on critical thinking skills and knowledge of protocols. Park wants all responders to maintain their standard so that they are ready to go back as soon as possible. For more information on MSU service adaptations, check out the MSU website. When reached for an interview about the MSU’s service changes, VP (Administration) Graeme Noble and AVP (Services) Martino Salciccioli declined an interview.
@TheSilhouette
Does your company or organization want to gain perspective and access diverse talent? Career Treks is a program offered by the McMaster Student Success Centre that provides community partners with free assistance for their short-term projects. McMaster students can support projects such as communications, marketing, beta testing, product development, social media strategy, data analysis, web redesign and more. Projects should not exceed a commitment of more than five hours a week, over four months (no more than 85 hours total per project). Submit your project to get started with Career Treks: https://lnkd.in/eDGRxPW
November
October Mon
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Wed Reading Academic Articles and Textbooks University Essays 101 Digital Networking Mastering the Multiple Choice Test Effective Group Work Banking in Canada
Virtual Interview Prep
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Thesis Thursdays Budget Basics
Career Boosters
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Making My Money Last
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Job Search Essentials Online Course (Students and Alumni) Career Planning Essentials Online Course
Resume Lab Further Education Q&A Panel, Health Care
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Ask Me Anything about Medical School University Essays 101 Reading Academic Articles and Textbooks Time Management and Beating Procrastination Setting Goals for Success
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Coping with Financial Stress
Considering Medical School? Volunteering for Medical School
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9 Alternatives to Medical School
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9 How to Build a Strong Credit Score
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Writing a Clear, Concise, and Contentious Thesis Statement Taking Research Notes Effective Group Work Improved Presentations Further Education Fair
Working in Canada (International Students) Banking in Canada (International Students)
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Considering Grad School
Alternatives to Grad School Career Boosters
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Further Education Fair Where Does All My Money Go?
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Online Financial Reality Expo: Sponsored by McMaster’s Okanagan Committee Investing Basics: Fundamentals of a Solid Investment Portfolio (with Michelle Hung)
10 Crash Course: Citation Quick Tips Crash Course: Essay Revision Resume Lab
17 Crash Course: Writing Take-Home Exams Crash Course: Avoiding Common Writing Mistakes Virtual Networking Execution: Navigating Websites and all about Roboadvisors
Reading Week
Further Education Q&A Panel, Grad School
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How to Use Credit Cards Effectively
24 Summer Job Search
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Five Day Career Skills Challenge
Cheap vs. Frugal
Investing Basics: From Education to Execution (with Michelle Hung)
Strategies for Essay Revision How to Write a Lab Report Study Smarter, Not Harder Mastering the Multiple Choice Test
Finding Ways to Save
Full workshop listing on OSCARplus. Events to be announced throughout the term. Follow us on social media and check your McMaster emails on Monday evenings for the latest updates.
@MacSSC
studentsuccess.mcmaster.ca
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Job Search Essentials Online Course (Students and Alumni) Career Planning Essentials Online Course
Financial Literacy Month Begins!
(International Students)
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studentsuccess@mcmaster.ca
Mastering Short Answer Questions Making the Most of Your Sources Mastering the Multiple Choice Test
11 Essays 101 Time Mangement and Beating Procrastination Effective Group Work Execution: Brokerage Accounts and Types of Accounts (with Michelle Hung)
How to Deal with Debt
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Crash Course: Making Time to Study Crash Course: Using Visual Organizers to Study
Career Boosters
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How To Write a Lab Report Study Smarter, Not Harder
Crash Course: Make Your Own Exam Questions Crash Course: Quick Research-Based Study Tips
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Strategies for Essay Revision Mastering Short Answer Questions Study Smarter, Not Harder Mastering the Multiple Choice Test
27 Career Boosters
The Silhouette
www.thesil.ca | Thursday, Sept.. 24, 2020
| 11
Editorial What’s in a print issue? What to expect from the Silhouette in our first print issue of the year
Justin Parker Editor-in-Chief
Well, it sure has been one interesting summer. While there are many things I could reflect on in this editorial that are changing our world right before out eyes — hopefully for the better — I’ll let our future coverage speak to that. Here I will focus on what this special fall issue is about and what the coming months will look like for the Silhouette. Sept. 24 is certainly a strange date for our first issue. Well, the thing is, it isn’t exactly our first issue. We have been up and running, publishing at our usual weekly pace, as of Sept. 10, the first Thursday of the school year. What makes this issue so remarkable this year is that this is our first print issue. Among the many adjustments that we all have had to make due to this year’s pandemic, the Silhouette’s movement to a temporarily online-only publication is our response to this new COVID
world. In lieu of our usual print publication, you can still find our articles online at www.thesil. ca published every Thursday. We certainly hope you will continue to read our work despite our sudden (and temporary) disappearance from your local newsstand. More than ever, student journalism is at the focal point of an important moment in our history. Visit us to read about anything and everything McMaster and Hamilton across all of our sections! To give you all a taste of our content, this special print issue includes some of our newest articles, in addition to some highlights from our summer publications. From a new start-up that overcame the challenges of a devastating pandemic, to how students are being financially affected by McMaster’s operating decisions; from allegations of racism in the Athletics department, to allegations of sexual harassment in the psychology, neuroscience and behaviour department; we also
have included an opinion article on George Floyd’s death written by our Production Editor. This will hopefully show you just how important the Silhouette is to the McMaster and Hamilton community! We look forward to being back on newsstands in the (hopefully near) future.
to free Raptors fries to Volume 91!!
@TheSilhouette
to Zoom lectures with required video on
to class in pyjamas
to actually wanting in person class
to profs who give 3-4 breaks
to another 4 months of Zoom lags
to securing the PS5
to getting STUNG by a WASP
to #hamilton instead of #hamont to making dinner during seminar to our first thumbs to jams while on mute to patio season
to Justin defunding canada post to everyone in the NFL getting hurt to a silent Sil office to Zoom lectures with required video on to no Saquon
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FEATURE
www.thesil.ca | Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020
Hamilton braces itself for returning students The ongoing and potential impacts of returning students on the city of Hamilton
Adrian Salopek Features Reporter
September, a bustling month typically reserved for McMaster students to flock to Hamilton as they brace themselves for the school year, has already looked completely different from previous years. Despite most courses being completely online, many students are moving back for many reasons including mandatory labs and wanting to live independently. However, they are moving back in smaller numbers than in previous years and the residential areas surrounding McMaster are much quieter than what is typically expected at the start of a school year. With that said, the returning upperclassmen are still leaving a footprint on Hamilton. While some community members are welcoming students and the business they bring with them, others are fearful of a potential spike in COVID-19 cases in Hamilton as students gather around the McMaster area. Undergraduate students are surely predictable creatures. Where there are students present, there is money being spent on their favourite products and food items. The economic impact of McMaster students moving back to Hamilton for the fall semester cannot be ignored or understated. Many businesses have already experienced increasing traffic and revenue, ultimately boosting the city of Hamilton’s economy. One such example is CoCo Fresh Tea & Juice on Main Street West, the iconic bubble tea shop that draws in students as soon as they catch a faint smell of tapioca. “We thought that pretty much all the university’s courses are online right now and so we thought we would not get that many customers,” explained Jason, a supervisor at CoCo’s, “but actually, some of the students still have labs and they
still have to go to school. So, actually people are coming back and business has started getting better.” This is especially important given that many businesses were deemed as non-essential during the earlier months of the pandemic and many suffered losses in revenue or even staff. Hence, the returning McMaster student body is welcomed by many across Hamilton as a way to recover from said losses. “I think pretty much all the local restaurants besides McMaster get more business because the students are coming back,” said Jason. However, it is obviously not only local businesses that are excited about the return of many McMaster students, but also the students themselves. For many, the start of the school year is an escape from the long months of self-isolation and social distancing, which began in March when students were forced to move back to their homes. Months of boredom and frustration have culminated in an exciting new start for students who are settling into their new student homes, seeing old friends and starting a new chapter in their lives. Although this has looked different from previous years, many students are still happy for this change in scenery. “It’s definitely been different being back in Hamilton with everything that’s been going on,” said Isabelle Cavanagh, second-year biology and psychology, neuroscience and behaviour student, “but it’s nice to be back because it’s just nice to see everybody again. I’m mostly looking forward to seeing some of my friends again and being a little independent and having something to do with my time in regards to school.” Despite the joys of starting a new school year, many students are still fearful of the implications of returning to Hamilton alongside so many of their peers as the pandemic still rages on. Where there are gath-
erings, there is a looming risk of contracting COVID-19. “I would mostly be worried about not every student taking it as seriously as [they] should be, with other students deciding to party and hang out in large groups and not respect social distancing and how big your social circle should be . . . it only takes a couple students to ruin it for everybody,” said Cavanagh. For many, this fear is made all the more real by the testimonies of students online witnessing large parties across the McMaster area that challenge public health recommendations and guidelines. “To the students not abiding by COVID-19 regulations, I would just remind them that even though it’s very frustrating to have to abide by some of the regulations, if we don’t abide now, it’s only going to set us back even further into stage two or even stage one,” Cavanagh went on to say. “And then it’s going to be even more frustrating because we’ll have to work our way back up to where we are now.” The return of students and potential lack of respect for COVID-19 regulations is acknowledged by many professionals as a very real threat. From the perspective of public health authorities and health care professionals, it appears younger generations are starting to cease abiding by COVID-19 regulations and ultimately bearing some of the responsibility for increases in active cases. “The majority of cases at least within Ontario, but I think it’s pretty much true across the western hemisphere currently . . . are among those less than 40 years old,” explained Dr. Dominik Mertz, associate professor in the division of infectious diseases at McMaster. “In Hamilton, the largest proportion [of COVID-19 cases] we see is among the 20 to 29 year olds, so that’s definitely the population that has the highest load of COVID these days.” Although it may appear
“In Hamilton, the largest proportion [of COVID-19 cases] we see is among the 20 to 29 year olds, so that’s definitely the population that has the highest load of COVID these days.” Dr. Dominik Mertz Associate professor, Division of Infectious Diseases, McMaster University inevitable that there will be exposure to COVID-19 among returning students with gatherings, parties and growing social bubbles, there are important recommendations that authorities have for students to ensure they remain safe. It is important that students remain informed,
vigilant and listen to recommendations from professionals. “I think it would be an illusion to say “don’t form any new bubbles”,” said Mertz. “Now that people are moving somewhere new, I think the recommendation that may be . . . palatable for people . . . will be try to establish your new circle . . . as quickly as possible and then have a more stable crew of people you interact with on a regular basis.” Although it is important that everyone obeys public health guidelines, it is inevitable that certain rules will not be obeyed by all; humans are social creatures after all. For students who are gathering with others or even attending parties, there
is advice for them as well to ensure they do so as safely as possible. “I think the most pragmatic recommendation other than “stay within that stable group of friends or household members as much as you can” is to avoid indoors for large gatherings,” emphasized Mertz. “Do it outdoors whenever you can; that reduces the risk significantly.” Despite the fears that many students share with respect to COVID-19 exposures as they move back to Hamilton, it is important students embrace this new chapter in their life as fully as they can. The best way to do this is to live day by day, to the best of their ability, in accordance with public health
www.thesil.ca | Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020
The Silhouette
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regulations and ensure they keep themselves and their peers safe. When reached for an interview about the impact McMaster students will have on Hamilton, Mayor Fred Eisenberger was unavailable for an interview.
@TheSilhouette
ESRA RAKAB/PRODUCTION COORDINATOR
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OPINION
www.thesil.ca | Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020
Opinion A case for asynchronous events
If we have the ability to hold more accessible events, what’s stopping us from doing that?
The virtual Welcome Week portal that students used to access asynchronous events STEFFI ARKILANDER/OPINIONS EDITOR
Steffi Arkilander Opinions Editor
This year, McMaster University’s Welcome Week was held entirely online due to the physical distancing restrictions in place for COVID-19. As a result, many events took place through platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Discord, Zoom and Twitch. Events were held in two different ways. There were synchronous events, or events that took place during an allotted time with live representatives, that ranged from as early as 8 a.m. to as late as 8 p.m. On the other hand, some events were asynchronous and a long period of time was provided for first years interested in participating and had no live component to the event. For example, the McMaster Students Union website scavenger hunt, which could have been completed any time during Welcome Week, required students to search through the MSU website to complete tasks. However, asynchronous events seemed to be few and far between, when we should be aiming to hold more events that don’t impose specific timing
restrictions in order to increase accessibility for Mac students. There are many issues with synchronous events. The first issue arises with the fact that the Welcome Week schedule is in eastern daylight time, which automatically puts international students at a loss. During an in-person Welcome Week, many international students are already disadvantaged, as events largely cater to English-speaking students. In addition, domestic and in-province students often know a few students going into McMaster, whether it is a family member, high school classmate or friend, which can ease the transition into university. On the other hand, international students may rely on orientations such as Welcome Week to make friends. Since many events take place during EDT daytime hours, students who have large time zone differences may find it hard to attend events as many events will occur during the night for them. In addition, some platforms used for synchronous events are Twitch and Discord, which are blocked in China. This adds an extra barrier for students who want to
attend events but are living outside of Canada. McMaster has provided the option for students in China to use a free express virtual private network to access McMaster’s online learning resources, but it’s unclear whether this will include extracurricular activities that are not related to academics. It is important to note that many of the synchronous events were held multiple times throughout Welcome Week. For example, the faculty of social sciences held an event titled “Let’s Chat About It” which was held at four different times on Sept. 7. In addition, some Welcome Week events were recorded, which gives students who could not attend access to information they may have missed. While these are good considerations and we should continue to provide multiple options for students, we need to continue to strengthen these accommodations by making them completely asynchronous. Although recorded events are great, they do not provide students with an option to interact and engage with the event other than watching or listening to a video.
Another issue with synchronous events is that many of these events are held either very early in the morning or during normal work hours, which prevents many students from attending. While in past Welcome Weeks events also occurred at these times, it is now likely that more students are working part-time or full time to make up for the financial strain that COVID-19 has had on everyone. Early morning events, on the other hand, can be difficult for students to attend as COVID-19 has had an impact on many people’s ability to have a consistent sleep schedule. What we do know is that we have the capacity to run asynchronous events. The MSU website scavenger hunt proves that we can successfully hold asynchronous events. Making asynchronous events that are interactive and informative makes the event more accessible for students who may not be able to attend events at specific times due to a difference in time zone, a day job or because they’re dealing with sleeping problems. Asynchronous timing of events is something that we
should consider continuing for events taking place throughout the school year. As we continue to physically distance and cope with an ongoing pandemic, many students are facing additional challenges that may not have come up during a normal school year. Some people may argue that asynchronous events are harder to plan — and while that may be true, we shouldn’t avoid planning more accessible events just because they’re more difficult to hold. If Welcome Week is supposed to help first years build community with their peers, we shouldn’t be leaving certain groups out of Welcome Week just because it’s more convenient.
@TheSilhouette
www.thesil.ca | Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020
The Silhouette
| 15
How the Hong Kong security law imperils all McMaster students By criminalizing global activism, Hong Kong’s security law is a serious threat to not only Hong Kong international students, but all McMaster students Mark Choi* Contributor
*Names and identifying details have been altered to protect the privacy of individuals The words that you are reading right now could land me in prison for life. This may seem absurd — life imprisonment for writing a political opinion in a newspaper. However, as a Hong Kong international student, this is a very real risk that I face under China’s sweeping new Hong Kong security law. In June, the Chinese government imposed a draconian national security law upon Hong Kong after months of pro-democracy demonstrations. The law criminalizes vague offenses such as “subversion” or “collusion with foreign forces” and establishes a new secret police unit for its enforcement. This bloodless coup has been internationally condemned as a desecration of Hong Kong’s treaty-guaranteed autonomy. This crackdown on dissent is unprecedented. Hundreds were rounded up the first day the law came into force. Books are being banned, educators are being purged and political persecution is on the rise. The first political figure arrested under the law was 19-year-old student Tony Chung, who now faces up to life in prison for allegedly writing subversive posts on Facebook. For Hong Kong international students at McMaster University, this law is terrifying. It severely restricts what we are able to say or do. The law’s offenses are intentionally vague, in order to encourage self-censorship. The security law also imperils other outspoken McMaster students: Article 38 of the law says it covers literally everyone on Earth. This means anybody at McMaster — not just those with Hong Kong citizenship — risks prosecution simply for criticizing the Chinese government. In fact, the first foreign national hit with an arrest warrant through
Article 38 is activist Samuel Chu, an American citizen based in California; more such warrants are likely coming. Canada has even issued an official travel warning for Hong Kong Canadians transiting through Hong Kong’s airport now risk arbitrary detention and life imprisonment for “activities that are not considered illegal in Canada and that occurred outside of Hong Kong”. Faculty and students at McMaster who are interested in issues deemed politically sensitive by the Chinese government must now choose between permanently avoiding Hong Kong, or dropping such research altogether. In other words, the security law’s extraterritorial overreach degrades academic freedom at McMaster. Additionally, as a student activist at McMaster, I have previously spoken up about Hong Kong. In May, other Hongkonger students and I successfully lobbied the Student Success Centre to take down job postings for the Hong Kong Police Force. I also want to spend time supporting others who similarly experience oppression, such as Uyghurs experiencing genocide in China’s concentration camps, and protests against police violence and systemic anti-Black racism right here at McMaster. Our struggles are not solitary sojourns — rather, we get strength from solidarity with one another. Unfortunately, while this is what I want to do, such activism will make me a target. Until now, Hong Kong had been a vibrant hub for social justice organizers, queer folks and climate activists focused on China. However, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have both recently warned that such activism is now seriously threatened by the security law. After all, the security law criminalizes more than just pro-democracy slogans, it criminalizes dissent. The Hong Kong government, having lost all political legitimacy, now relies solely on its state security
apparatus to maintain power. In such a scenario, a free society is inherently an existential threat. McMaster therefore needs to strengthen academic freedom and space for student activism. There should be particular focus on safety for international students who will not be based in Canada for the online Fall 2020 term. For starters, McMaster should ban the institutional use of Zoom and use more secure platforms instead, such as Teams (which we already pay for). McMaster’s security guidelines for Zoom are, disappointingly, unabashedly ignorant of the fact that not all students will be based in Canada for Fall 2020. For Hong Kong students like myself, we could find ourselves prosecuted for participating in political discussions online if McMaster does not take our safety seriously. McMaster also needs to improve safety for student activists. Last May, three students were ticketed while protesting on campus. This kind of harassment creates a chilling effect, as the threat of police violence discourages students from organizing. Instead of deterring student
activism, McMaster should be actively facilitating it. As Hongkongers face down a grim, authoritarian future — one where political persecution, arbitrary arrest and torture in police detention go from the exception to the norm — I feel conflicted. On one hand, the danger to me and my family is real. In mainland China, the Chinese Communist Party silences dissent by not only targeting activists, but also their families. However, the state wants to silence us due to fear — fear of what we would say if Hong Kong was truly free. For that reason alone, we Hongkongers must keep speaking.
@TheSilhouette
SYBIL SIMPSON/PRODUCTION EDITOR
PHOTO C/O @MCMASTER_SWHK
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www.thesil.ca | Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020
The Silhouette
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McMaster, sexual violence and the fallacy of “without precedent” How McMaster’s response to sexual violence is failing Maddie Brockbank Contributor
CW: sexual violence, racism On June 18, CBC News released an article that stated that Scott Watter, a McMaster University associate professor for the department of psychology, neuroscience and behaviour was formally charged with sexual assault. Since then, three McMaster faculty and one graduate student from the same department have been suspended and banned from campus, pending an investigation into ongoing allegations of sexual misconduct and violations of the sexual violence policy. On Aug. 6, a letter penned by the dean of science was shared by a number of local reporters on Twitter. It indicated that these times are “without precedent at the university” and emphasized the importance of the current investigation into the “culture” of the PNB department. I have found myself wondering how exactly McMaster University’s administration can continue to name these experiences as “unprecedented.” A quick dive into a recent history paints a significantly different picture. In January 2019, the former coach of McMaster’s wrestling team was charged with sexual assault. The assault occurred during his coaching tenure, although details had not been released about whether the survivor was a current student at McMaster. In March 2019, the Silhouette published an article delving into the culture of sexual violence within the Maroons, a student-led group that seeks to connect incoming undergraduate students with the McMaster Students Union and boost school spirit. The survivors that the Silhouette interviewed described being assaulted by fellow Maroons and how the MSU’s investigative processes failed to support them, as they were pushed out of potential solutions.
In 2019 alone, the vice-president of the Equity and Inclusion Office indicated that there were 90 reports of sexual violence on campus. Of those, 60 turned into official complaints and merely five moved forward into a formal investigation. Furthermore, the Sil has previously published on students’ experiences of being failed by the system of reporting, investigating and adjudicating experiences of sexual assault. The system causes survivors to go through an emotionally (re)traumatizing process that enforces a type of gag order on survivors (under the guise of confidentiality) and fails to deploy a rape shield protection (that protects survivors from having their sexual history and past behaviour called into question in an effort to discredit their claims during an investigation). Moreover, this process puts survivors in a long period of limbo and at the end, does not always inform survivors of any sanctions placed on the perpetrator in the event that they are found to be in violation of the policy. The numbers listed above could also be inaccurate and fail to represent the pervasiveness of sexual violence on campus. In the Student Voices on Sexual Violence survey, facilitated across Ontario postsecondary campuses in 2019, McMaster saw 63.7 per cent of respondents indicate that they had experienced sexual harassment on campus during their student tenure. Moreover, 75.7 per cent of McMaster respondents reported that they had witnessed sexual violence or an incident that had the potential to become sexual violence. Sexual violence continues to be one of the most underreported crimes in Canada, with merely five per cent of sexual assaults being reported to police and 83 per cent of survivors never disclosing their experience to a helping professional. It’s clear that statistics we have available about this issue could only be the tip of the iceberg.
ESRA RAKAB/PRODUCTION COORDINATOR
In response to the suspensions of PNB faculty, McMaster’s president, David Farrar, similarly released his own statement on behalf of the university. The letter emphasized the investigation’s exploration of the “culture” of the PNB department and urged students impacted to reach out to the Sexual Violence and Response Office, the Sexual Assault Centre of Hamilton and Area, the Student Wellness Centre and McMaster Security Services, among others. A few things stand out here. Firstly, the mention of SACHA seems to omit the reality that, in 2019, McMaster cut a $9000 contract with SACHA to train Welcome Week reps despite the fact that SACHA played an integral role in ensuring McMaster even had a sexual assault policy. Secondly, the exclusion of the Women and Gender Equity Network, who have carried peer support for survivors at McMaster for several years, fails to acknowledge their contributions to ensuring campus is a safer place for survivors. Lastly, the mention of Security Services reads as quite inconsiderate in the wake of mounting student pressure for McMaster to terminate its contract with head of security, Glenn De Caire, for his stance on racial profiling practices, such as carding, and connections to Hamilton Police Services (where 70 per cent of sexual assault cases were improperly labelled as “unfounded” by HPS in 2019). It’s troubling when McMaster’s administration continues to emphasize that these times are “unprecedented” and that the solution is to merely examine the “culture” of a singular department. Sexual violence is, frankly, an issue impacting
every facet of campus. The experiences discussed above — and my own — speak to this reality. In 2018, I booked a meeting with the then-director of athletics, Glen Grunwald, about how the Marauders could support sexual violence prevention efforts by attending my event on engaging men in anti-violence efforts. Grunwald never showed for the meeting. Another representative in the department promised me that athletics would support the event by getting student athletes to attend. Former football coach, Greg Knox, promised the whole football team would attend. Countless emails to other coaches were left without replies and come the day of the event, zero representatives of McMaster Athletics showed up. When McMaster Athletics is under its own investigation into student athletes’ experiences of anti-Black racism, it feels pertinent to note that these instances are not isolated and are not “without precedent.” Issues of racism and sexual violence are interdependent; they rely on each other to function and are borne from the same system that enables marginalization of and violence against students to occur. In other words, racism enables violence to happen and it affects marginalized students disproportionately. When the system or personnel responsible for redressing instances of violence face allegations of racism themselves, it allows a cycle of violence to continue. McMaster’s continued emphasis on siloing these issues and depicting them as “breaking news” means that they fail to acknowledge that these experiences are the lived reality of generations of students.
Launching yet another (reactive and redundant) investigation into the “culture” of individual parts of campus life, again, discredits the countless narratives provided by students about their experiences of violence and marginalization.Why aren’t their stories enough proof? Why is McMaster responding in this way now, when this isn’t the first time these things have come up? What is the end goal of these investigations and will anything change? Sexual violence in the PNB department, among many other issues affecting McMaster’s campus, is symptomatic of a much larger issue at the university and in the broader Hamilton community. When one in four women will experience sexual violence during their time at a postsecondary institution, it is not unprecedented or isolated. When Hamilton reports the highest hate crime rate per capita in Canada, it is not unprecedented or isolated. When a number of current and former Black, Indigenous and racialized students and student athletes disclose years of racism and abuse at the university, it is not unprecedented or isolated. When McMaster continues to treat these times as “without precedent” and reflective of singular facets of campus, it continues to fail students and invalidate their long-standing experiences of these issues. @TheSilhouette
18 |
OPINION
www.thesil.ca | Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020
George Floyd and chasing nightmares Trying to chase your dreams in a system built to stop you is futile and things need to change
PHOTO C/O UNSPLASH
Sybil Simpson Production Editor
This article was previously published on June 17, 2020. It has been cut down for print. To read the full-length article, visit www.thesil.ca My university was one of the last to close in March due to COVID-19. I went home and revisited the quiet, passive-aggressive racism prevalent in Ottawa. Yet I feared for my black partner’s life where cops patrolled the streets, supposedly ensuring people are ‘safe’. The question is now: safe from what and safe from who? So, when a cop pulls over my partner for speeding, spends too many minutes back at his car, and I’m in the passenger seat fighting a panic attack; no one can tell me I’m being paranoid or have nothing to worry about because I have done nothing. I often do nothing wrong. I am often very impressive but not the ideal candidate. I am often forced to defend
myself against the consequences of allegations before they are even proven, and even if they’re illogical. What I have just outlined to you is my day-to-day life navigating white supremacist and racist establishments, because they are everywhere. At my school, at my job and because I’m a student and experience shared living, sometimes at home. Sometimes my resilience scares me, because no one should have to endure this constant oppression, constant hunting, constant murders, constant suffocation. Yet we do. George Floyd was a person. Interviews and quotes make it clear that he was loved because of how caring and helpful he was. Instead, many news outlets have focused on his athleticism, and how much he needed to improve as a father and in life. It’s like a newspaper memorial for a show dog. It is not a black-specific issue to be a less-than-perfect father. But to watch your father die on live television, lying under the weight of an officer’s
knee to the back of his neck, is a black-specific issue. To then watch that video circulate seemingly everywhere, as if it was game being killed and not your parent, is a black-specific issue. White supremacists cause broken homes and then write laws and create systems to disadvantage people with and from broken homes. The commodification of the dead black body is completely out of hand. They say one of the main reasons why these videos exist is for evidence, because the police establishment has hunted countless black lives without evidence, without consequences, and without remorse. According to the dictionary, the definition of the word ‘hunt’ is to pursue or search and then capture and kill. How do you go about reprimanding the authority figure? Where is the evidence that justified Floyd’s arrest, let alone that would justify his murder? If rules only apply to certain groups or people based on status, and powerful people can use these rules to control groups, then we are the sheep
being kept ‘in order’, not human beings with their own minds and aspirations. Clearly, the system is not working, and it’s beyond the point where the issue is simply a miscommunication because white supremacy is so deeply rooted within the system. We have tried to fit in and move through the system, but it is debilitating mentally, emotionally and too often physically. Instead of wasting our energy on existing by their rules, it’s time we have a say in what the rules are by rewriting them. This time, everyone needs to have a say. But that is only possible if we understand all the ways the system fails us and the ways in which we fail each other as groups, as leaders, as establishments of people; and rewriting the rules without ego but instead to resolve those failings. Doing nothing is no longer acceptable. However, reposting on social media is classified as hardly doing anything, because it lacks your personal tone and influence. Even that is not
enough because you assume that the white supremacist algorithm will circulate your posts, pictures and stories, when you could use the platform to directly connect with people instead — especially those willing to act and organize. It’s about having conversations and not assuming that people are on the same page or fighting the same fight. Figure out actionable steps for today, tomorrow, next week, next month and year, and DO them. This is going to be a long fight. Take your breaks, but exhaustion is not an excuse to stop fighting, especially if you are just now becoming exhausted. The hunt will continue, people will keep dying, and white supremacists and their lies will keep circulating.
@TheSilhouette
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A&C
www.thesil.ca | Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020
Priyanka guest stars amongst Hamilton queens
Andrew Mrozowski Managing Editor
Originally published as part of our PRIDE special issue Pride month is coming to an end, but its impacts can be seen throughout the year with the increase of queer culture coming into the mainstream. One such example is the popularization of RuPaul’s Drag Race, a show that puts drag queens through competition-style challenges, competing to become America’s next drag superstar. The show has recently expanded to Thailand, Chile, the United Kingdom and on July 2, Canada’s Drag Race premieres on Crave. 12 drag queens from across the country will showcase their various drag styles. One contestant, Priyanka, hails from Toronto. Not only has she been crowned Miss Crews and Tangos (2018-2019) and NOW’s 2019 Readers’ Choice winner for Best Drag Performer, but you may know her as a former host of YTV’s The Zone. Priyanka recently decided to do drag as a full-time profession due to its boundless limitations. “Whenever you do something for so long and you have a creative frame, you tend to get bored because your brain is always [wondering], ‘what’s next?’ . . . At the end of my kids TV career . . . I kinda hit my ceiling and the natural progression was to enter drag and see what I can do there. [T]he cool thing about drag is there is no limit on what you can do. You can do everything, which I love,” said Priyanka. July 5 marked the queen’s birthday, having been involved with the Toronto drag scene for three years. In that amount of time, Priyanka has carved out her own space within the queer community while representing people of colour, which is reflected on Drag Race as she is the first Guyanese contes-
tant. Much of Priyanka’s drag is representative of pop stars such as Beyonce or Rihanna; however, she integrates her cultural heritage into each and every performance. “[G]rowing up, you’re so scared to bring your chicken curry to school because you don’t want your white friends to smell it, and now everyone is like “Oh my god Priyanka is the first ever Guyanese drag queen on Drag Race””, said Priyanka. “At this time in my life, I am the proudest to be who I am because I’m representing people who need to be proud of who they are.”
“[G]rowing up, you’re so scared to bring your chicken curry to school because you don’t want your white friends to smell it, and now everyone is like “Oh my god Priyanka is the first ever Guyanese drag queen on Drag Race”.” Priyanka Contestant, Canada’s Drag Race Priyanka recalled her early beginnings as a drag queen, comparing her looks to driving down a long road and seeing roadkill, but then blossoming into a gorgeous gay goddess. She attributes much of what she knows about drag to her drag mother, Xtacy Love, who has been with Priyanka since the beginning of her career. “There was one time where I was painting my face and my
drag mother, Xtacy Love, sat across from me, [watching] me paint and questioned everything I was doing. I wanted to be put up for adoption because it was the worst experience of my life. It was awful, but the thing is because she was questioning me, I was learning so much about makeup and why you’re putting things in the places you’re putting [them] . . . for my kind of drag, you’re sculpting your face to really sell into this illusion,” said Priyanka. Typically Pride month is a busy time of year for drag entertainers. With festivals across the province moving to an online platform, performers have been finding different ways to still participate. Priyanka has been hosting Zoom parties, posting on YouTube, livestreaming on Instagram and performed as a part of Pride Hamilton’s Digital Pride. Priyanka believes that a virtual Pride has its own merits as it allows people to reevaluate the importance of why we have a month dedicated to the 2SLGBTQIA+ community and to focus on how to create inclusivity amongst one another. While it might not be fun staying indoors during a time usually spent celebrating, it’s important to remember Pride’s roots and why we are all here.
While it might not be fun staying indoors during a time usually spent celebrating, it’s important to remember Pride’s roots and why we are all here. Advocacy and drag have always been intertwined within the Queer community. For Priyanka, it’s important to use the platform she has acquired
The Silhouette
www.thesil.ca | Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020
to share information with those who follow her. “Here’s the tea. Drag entertainers are the mascots of the [2SLGBTQIA+] community. People listen to us, people will hear us and they will jump on things . . . drag queens have always been political. We kind of fell into a pocket where it was all lipsync for your lives, sparkly costumes, big wigs and glittery eyeshadow, but as I said before, it’s so good that we’re all at home because drag queens have to use their platforms to help share the information to what’s politically correct,” said Priyanka.
“Here’s the tea. Drag entertainers are the mascots of the [2SLGBTQIA+] community. People listen to us, people will hear us and they will jump on things.” “We are like the approachable popstars, like you can’t talk to Beyonce, you can’t talk to Lady Gaga, but trust and believe when you message the Queen Priyanka, she will hit you back with [a] message because I’m desperate for love”, she joked. Canada’s Drag Race serves as a reminder that there is always time to be loud and proud about who you are regardless of the time of year. For many Canadian queens in particular, the show also offers an opportunity for worldwide exposure and a chance to showcase their talents on a platform that is tried and true.
Canada’s Drag Race serves as a reminder that there is always time to be loud and proud about who you are regardless of the time of year. “Here’s what I’ll say. Canadian TV shows have a reputation of whenever they do a spin off, it looks a little janky .
. . the cool thing about Canada’s Drag Race . . . is the quality of the show is beyond,” said Priyanka. “So now, [Canada’s Drag Race has] opened up this whole new ball game for drag entertainers to really work on their style, get better and thrive to do something, because there was a time where being a local girl in Toronto, you could only do so much but now you can do all of it”. For the Queen Priyanka, getting onto Drag Race felt like the next step in her drag career, both personally and professionally as it was the culmination of a dream. She feels like this is a sentiment that students could apply to their academic lives as well. “I think that being in school is weird. Being in high school, being in med school, being in university and college is also very weird because you’re like, “oh, once I graduate, I have to go find a real job”. But I think that it’s just important to whatever program that you’re in and [whatever] you’re doing, just keep focused, keep your eye on the prize and if your heart isn’t in it, get out while you can because you have to love it to do it for the rest of your life.” UPDATE / SPOILER ALERT: After nine episodes, Priyanka made Drag Race herstory after being crowned the winner of Canada’s Drag Race and is the first Indo-Carribean queen to ever win the title of “Drag Superstar”. The queen did not know until the finale premiered that she won as the crowning is decided after principal production of the show. Each finalist is filmed accepting the crown and walking the runway and when the time comes, the final episode is cut together to make it look seamless. This means that Priyanka had to watch along with all other fans of the show. “Reliving the show weekto-week is quite an emotional and mental journey to be on because you remember it a certain way and then you see it. But thank god, because truly what I watched was what I went through . . . But it was interesting. It was definitely tough to get into watching myself struggle during [improvisation-based challenges]. You’re sitting there trying to be like, “Woohoo, me!” but then you’re like, “Oh god, I’m so bad”,” said Priyanka in an interview conducted by CBC News.
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“Reliving the show week-toweek is quite an emotional and mental journey to be on because you remember it a certain way and then you see it. But thank god, because truly what I watched was what I went through.” With the season of Canada’s Drag Race finished, some of the queens featured on the show are going on a multi-city tour throughout Canadian drive-ins. A stage will be set up that will feature drag performances from Priyanka, host of Canada’s Drag Race Brooklin Heights, as well as a rotating bill varying by city. This comes after much success each queen has had hosting viewing parties of the show over the nine weeks it aired. Priyanka said to the CBC that she plans to use her crowning title to represent both people of colour and the queer community. “I think it’s kind of continuing what I’ve already been doing through the season — sticking up for our community and being a voice and being, you know, the representation that people need to see on TV. Just being that person to give people hope that they can do it too. It doesn’t matter what your skin colour is; you could be as successful as anyone. And also calling out all the haters and making them own their words. That’s what I will do. Oh, and run for mayor.”
@andrewmrozowski
PHOTO C/O BELL MEDIA GRAPHIC BY ANDREW MROZOWSKI/MANAGING EDITOR
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A&C
www.thesil.ca | Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020
Unlocking the artist in everyone
Artist Phoebe Taylor provides an accessible art community with virtual design studio Okay Shoe Rya Buckley A&C Editor
There is a corner of the internet where mindfulness is accessible to all. In this virtual space, art lovers from all walks of life gather to create and participants are not allowed to say they’re not artists. This creative community is called Okay Shoe and it’s the brainchild of artist and Goodbodyfeel instructor,
Taylor has always dreamt of having a design studio and gallery space. However, they realized that these spaces aren’t always conducive to creativity and often have physical and systemic barriers to entry. Phoebe Taylor. Taylor has always dreamt of having a design studio and gallery space. However, they realized that these spaces aren’t always conducive to creativity and often have physical and systemic barriers to entry. Taylor wanted to create an artistic space that was accessible to all. “[M]y inspiration for Okay Shoe was really like . . . all this stuff is garbage and let’s recreate art environments that can actually be for everybody. And what do we need to throw out? And what do we need to rework? And is there any stuff here that wants to stay? . . . I love art. I love making stuff and I think it should be for everybody,” Taylor said. Thus, Taylor created design studio Okay Shoe, which launched on Instagram in January 2020. The name of the space is inspired by Taylor’s own
“I love art. I love making stuff and I think it should be for everybody.” Phoebe Taylor Founder of Okay Shoe experiences. “Shoe” comes from what is left of the signage of an old shoe store on the corner of Barton Street East and Ottawa Street North, which has only said the one word since Taylor was a child. For Taylor, the word “shoe” represents the accessibility of the studio and the concept of pedestrian art.
However, “shoe” did not feel complete to Taylor so they added the word “okay.” The word comes from a difficult time in Taylor’s life when they struggled to wake up every morning. They wished to wake up feeling something in between dread and elation and thus wanted to wake up feeling okay. Taylor enjoyed how the word could be spelled in multiple ways. Even though they have spelled it with four letters so far, they think that may change in
the future. Okay Shoe has multiple components. There is a shop where many items are available at three different price points, aligning with Taylor’s goal of making accessible art. Taylor sells hand-printed t-shirts and notebooks in the shop as well as collections of other objects – such as pillows and stickers – made by other artists. The shop’s staple product is Taylor’s Okay Oracle, a deck of cards with simple prompts such as “over over over” and “parts of many” which are intended to inspire mindfulness. The deck serves as Taylor’s way of reducing the inaccessibility of mindfulness.
intuition,” said Taylor. Taylor also hosts Shoe Talks, an artist interview series on Instagram Live and Okay Hangs, an online artmaking group. During Okay Hangs, Taylor provides a prompt and participants make and share art of any media. It’s in these hangouts that Taylor implements the rule that no one can say they’re not an artist. For Taylor, the Okay Hangs have filled the void left by the temporary closure of studios due to COVID-19. Going forward Taylor will host these groups through the Okay Shoe Portal, which launched on Sept. 1, 2020 via the subscription service Patreon.
“[A] year after finishing my undergrad, I took a yoga teacher training [course] and I found the same thing in the wellness community that I found in the art community. As much as I love both of them, [there are] huge barriers to entry . . . I don’t feel like the Okay Oracle is necessarily barrier free . . . But it is my shot and intention at trying to create a tool for mindfulness that just reflects your own
Like the physical location, the Okay Shoe Portal operates on a sliding scale, allowing folks with different budgets to access the same content while still providing a sustainable art practice for Taylor. The Patreon will also allow Taylor to host digital artists-in-residence. Over a six-week period, these visiting artists will be interviewed by Taylor, host Okay Hangs and create items for the shop and portal’s patrons. The first of
these artists is Rosa Wan, a Toronto-based sketch artist and the founder of art community Cool Objects, which runs interactive drawing events. Wan’s experience facilitating events makes her a perfect fit for Okay Shoe. However, Taylor also wants to host artists who are looking for experience with facilitation. Taylor is currently looking for future artists-in-residence and is open to any artform. It is also important for Taylor to host artists from diverse backgrounds. “I want the artists-in-residence to be reflective of the true diversity of art that is happening in the world . . . I’m very conscious of the people that I’m talking to. Where are the Black artists in the room? Where are the POC? Where are the queer artists in the room? Who’s being represented here? Who has the mic? Or if I have the mic, who can I pass this mic to?” Taylor said. Despite the implementation of a subscription-based platform, Taylor says that there will always be free ways to interact with Okay Shoe, such as the weekly newsletter that they write. Taylor envisions Okay Shoe one day being worldwide with several artists-in-residence. They also hope to have a physical space in the future. Like Okay Shoe’s online space, Taylor envisions the brick and mortar location being not only physically and financially accessible, but also welcoming to all audiences. Unlike the uninviting white walls of many art galleries, Taylor imagines their space looking like Pee Wee’s playhouse — a bright and colourful space where anyone can feel like an artist.
@TheSilhouette
SAMANTHA MCBRIDE/PRODUCTION CONTRIBUTOR
The Silhouette
www.thesil.ca | Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020
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New boutique turns preloved fashion into reloved treasures
Reloved Boutique strives to provide a conscious solution for fashion lovers of all sizes Subin Park Staff Writer
Nestled in the heart of James Street North sits new consignment store Reloved Boutique. The store carries a selection of products by Canadian businesses as well as racks of one-of-a-kind clothing pieces. Curating a collection of beautiful secondhand items is the goal of this boutique headed by mother-daughter duo Raquel and Lateisha Brown.
The store carries a selection of products by Canadian businesses as well as racks of one-of-a-kind clothing pieces. Raquel and Lateisha have dreamt of opening Reloved Boutique for about three years. Although born and raised in Hamilton, Lateisha currently lives in Calgary where there are a plethora of consignment shops. After visiting Lateisha in Calgary, Raquel realized that Hamilton doesn’t offer the same
range of selection for secondhand shopping. Together, they saw an opportunity to introduce a new consignment boutique to the Steel City. Last December when Lateisha was in Hamilton for the holidays, the pair stumbled upon their current location and signed the lease almost immediately. In January, they began setting up the space and launched their Instagram page. Planning for a launch date of March 21, they began collecting items for their spring consignment collection. However, when COVID-19 was declared a pandemic on March 11, the pair had to re-evaluate their opening. Instead of opening their brick and mortar location, they launched an online shop instead. While navigating these new challenges, they were supported by a great landlord and by the local business community. “The [business] community has been really supportive. We are in a bunch of networking groups that are just trying to support each other and give each other advice for the best. Like how to get through this or what this new life looks like,” said Lateisha. Two months after their initial opening date, they un-
locked their physical location in May with additional COVID-19 protocols. As Lateisha is still in Calgary, she handles the behindthe-scenes logistics, finance and social media while Raquel operates the store front. It was important to the mother-daughter duo to create a boutique experience for secondhand shopping. While they do not look for particular brands, they ensure that the items that make it to their racks are carefully curated based on current style trends, brand popularity and condition. “I think that we’ve nailed it in terms of the aesthetic and how we want our stuff to be presented . . . I remember when I was a kid, I was mortified when we would go shopping at a thrift shop. But we created . . . a seondhand shopping experience. . . [that] doesn’t feel like you’re shopping secondhand, nor do the clothes look like they’re secondhand,” said Lateisha. Where Reloved Boutique stands out most is through their mission for size-inclusivity. The fashion industry has continuously underserved plus-sized women and this has unfortunately been a trend in secondhand stores. Reloved Boutique strives to fill the gap in secondhand fashion and allow
everyone to explore sustainable options. They actively promote larger size donations and consignments on their social media to ensure they have stock of all sizes.
Reloved Boutique strives to fill the gap in secondhand fashion and allow everyone to explore sustainable options. Any unsold items at the end of a season that aren’t returned to consignors are donated to a local charity. Right now, the boutique has partnered with Interval House, a shelter for women survivors of intimate partner violence and their children. They hope to donate to different charities on a rotational basis. The response from the Hamilton community has been positive. Since they began accepting items in January, people have been consistently dropping items off. Many of the items they’ve received have been great quality, which has made the pair
even more excited about the store. “The excitement from the community is what sets a fire in me, that they’ve never seen a boutique that looks like ours or they’ve never experienced consignment the way that we do it. I’m really happy and proud that we’ve accomplished that,” said Lateisha. With the amount of clothes they’ve received already, Lateisha sees the store growing larger in the future. As a women-owned business, they also hope that they can host networking events and workshops for women entrepreneurs after COVID-19. Whatever the future holds, having overcome the challenges of COVID-19, Raquel and Lateisha have shown their resilience as business owners and the value of their store to Hamiltonian fashion lovers.
@TheSilhouette
SAMANTHA MCBRIDE/PRODUCTION CONTRIBUTOR
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SPORTS
www.thesil.ca | Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020
Sports McMaster Athletics department faces scrutiny over allegations of racism After racist tweets by a former Marauder were brought to light, former Mac athletes began to share their stories and the university’s lack of response Krishihan Sivapragasam Sports Editor
Since the widespread protests in the United States and globally following the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, many professional athletes have taken it upon themselves to further educate others and raise awareness about the acts of racial injustice plaguing their communities, especially those consisting of police brutality; however, this is not new to many athletes this year. In 2016, Colin Kaepernick began the movement of kneeling during the national anthem, where he was met with support and anguish. Over the years, Kaepernick became a leading civil rights activist despite being blackballed by owners for his outspoken views. “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder,” Kaepernick said in a post-game interview during a 2016-2017 preseason game. “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder,” Kaepernick said in a post-game interview during a 2016-2017 preseason game. Kaepernick’s statement comes two years after many NBA players made a statement in their games where they wore t-shirts saying, “I Can’t Breathe” following the death of Eric Garner, who repeatedly said those words while being put in a chokehold by police officers. A reminder that those three words were also uttered by Floyd four
“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.” Colin Kapernick Former NFL quarterback years later. Likewise to Kaepernick, these athletes still continue to face heavy scrutiny where comments about their salary are made, suggesting that such athletes did not experience systemic racism due to their wealth and financial stability. Fast forward to 2019, Masai Ujiri was blocked and shoved by the Alameda County sheriff from celebrating with his team due to allegedly not having the correct credentials. A new video released in August 2020 showed otherwise where Ujiri was shoved while having his credentials. The public viewed this incident as a classic case of racial profiling, despite status or wealth being present. As we look more recently, following the game seven loss by the Toronto Raptors in the 2020 Eastern Conference Semifinals, the public heavily critiqued Pascal Siakam’s play; however, it was brought to our attention that some fans have gone too far and made racial attacks against him.
The aforementioned stories have shined the light on the racism that athletes face consistently but continues to be ignored. As we look more directly at our own community, former lacrosse team player Steven Archachan was only removed from the team (but not from the university) following the revelation of tweets that featured racist slurs. With that being said, Archachan removed himself from the university and stated he would not be attending in the future. Archachan has since apologized for his tweets, while stating to one of our reporters that he was dealing with issues affecting his mental health and well-being at that time. Kwasi Adu-Poku, a fifth-year kinesiology student at McMaster University and current member of the men’s basketball team, shared his thoughts on the handling of the situation. “When they released the article through CBC Hamilton on the situation, when they described [Archachan] choosing to leave the school, it kind of made him seem like the bigger person in the situation and when you think about the scope of what happened, a lot of people were
impacted by this message,” Adu-Poku said. It wasn’t the best thing to let that person paint themselves in that kind of light . . . a lot of us felt there could have been a stronger response at the time but our school is definitely on the
“let that person paint themselves in that kind of light . . . a lot of us felt there could have been a stronger response at the time but our school is definitely on the trajectory to make a lot of the needed changes and now we’re being held publicly accountable.”
trajectory to make a lot of the needed changes and now we’re being held publicly accountable.” As the case of Archachan began to unfold, former Marauder athletes came forward with their stories. Fabion Foote, a former football player at McMaster, has detailed the systemic racism he faced while on the team. “My DL coach at Mac said I had to sell weed to afford my tuition lol. Keep in mind I never smoked in my life. My friend was in a group chat were a white athlete used the N word. My teammate reported it to the coaches and they some how managed to blame us for it,” Foote stated among a series of tweets discussing the systemic racism he endured while at McMaster. The racial profiling Foote experienced was echoed by John Williams, a former McMaster athlete who penned
Kwasi Adu-Poku Member of Men’s Basketball Team
“My DL coach at Mac said I had to sell weed to afford my tuition lol. Keep in mind I never smoked in my life. My friend was in a group chat were a white athlete used the N word. My teammate reported it to the coaches and they some how managed to blame us for it,” Fabion Foote Former player of the McMaster Football Team
The Silhouette
www.thesil.ca | Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020
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SYBIL SIMPSON/PRODUCTION EDITOR
PHOTO C/O NBA TNT
“One former athlete detailed how a certain post practice locker room day of the week was entitled “White Boy Wednesdays” where only “White Music” was allowed to be played. . . Another Black former female athlete spoke about her feelings of isolation while being on the team and how she felt treated differently by coaches.” John Williams Former McMaster Athlete
a letter via a Google Form, detailing the failures of the university attempting to support the Black and Indigenous community while asking people to support his statement. “One former athlete detailed how a certain post practice locker room day of the week was entitled “White Boy Wednesdays” where only “White Music” was allowed to be played. Another athlete spoke about how when the team travelled to Toronto the other white teammates asked them if they were “going to be shot by any of the brothers?” Another Black former female athlete spoke about her feelings of isolation while being on the team and how she felt treated differently by coaches,” wrote Williams. Williams also claimed that former Director of Athletics, Glen Grunwald, current Director, Mark Alfano and Dean of Students Sean Van Koughnett did not take action on the issues Black football athletes endured while on the team. Following the various critiques, the university announced in July
they are conducting a review into the countless experiences of Black athletes and investigating the racism within the department of athletics, which will be headed by Van Koughnett. He aims to hire more Black leaders in the McMaster Athletics department.
Following the various critiques, the university announced in July they are conducting a review into the countless experiences of Black athletes and investigating the racism within the department department of athletics.
Adu-Poku explained to us his appreciationAdu-Poku for Van Koughnett’s willexplained to us ingnesshis to work with him and openappreciation for Van Koughears regarding a discussion aboutwith celnett’s willingness to work ebratinghim Black history. Adu-Poku also and open-ears regarding spoke toa discussion non-athletes in the McMaster about celebrating Black student community and echoed Black history. Adu-Poku also their hopes that this review spoke to non-athletescould in the Mcact as aMaster blueprint to combat Black studentsystemic community racism and in anechoed academic theirsetting. hopes that this From Foote’s story review could actto asArchachan’s a blueprint racial slurs, it shows that over the in an to combat systemic racism years, racism has never really left the academic setting. McMaster Athletics department. It From Foote’s story to was justArchachan’s a matter of racial time until slurs,serious it shows demands for accountability occurred. that over the years, racism has never really left the McMaster Athletics department. It was just a matter of time until serious demands for accountability @TheSilhouette occurred.
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GAMES
www.thesil.ca | Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020
GAMES ACROSS 3 class location for 2020-2021 5 class attire in 2020 6 need to wear these on campus 7 comic strip about an office
DOWN 1 location we all miss 2 where to find the Sil’s content this year 4 language of Ancient Rome 8 should probably read this for class
There’s never been a more important time to
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Monday - Thursday: 8 am - 2 pm Takeout coffee and baked goods
SPECULATOR EIC LEADING CAMPAIGN TO DEFUND CANADA POST. WILL HE STAMP THEM OUT? A6
THE
THURSDAY
HAMILTON SPEC PECULATOR ULATOR REFUSING TO MOVE OUT SINCE 1934
September 24, 2020
NOTSPEC.COM
Where is our Oracle at Delphi?
When nobody seems to have the answers, might as well consult my horoscope SLAM DUNCAN 2015 undrafted multi-sport free agent
Welcome everyone to our first issue of the Speculator for Volume 91! Amidst our current unprecedented times, I figured we could at least find solace in the horoscope. Since we’re all
still waiting for another Delphic prophesy, I saw a perfect opportunity as Speculator EIC to divine my own! If reality show hosts can run countries, why can’t your fearless Editor-in-Cheese predict the future and offer sage advice? It can’t get any worse, right?
Taurus | April 21 to May 20
You think you had it bad so far? New career opportunities abound for Taurus! However, this year will only get worse for you.
You think you had it bad so far? A new season is usually a perfect time for new opportunites! Unfortunately, this year will only get worse for you.
You think you had it bad so far? The Fall is a perfect time for travel...except for this year, which will only get worse for you.
Cancer | June 22 to July 22 Capricorn | Dec. 22 to Jan. 20
You think you had it bad so far? Try to be flexible with those around you and go with the flow! Unfortunately, this year will only get worse for you.
You think you had it bad so far? Love is mingling in the air with pumpkin spice! Unfortunately, this year will only get worse for you.
Leo | July 23 to Aug. 22
Aquarius | Jan. 20 to Feb. 19
You think you had it bad so far? Despite being a buff and a cool, this year will only get worse for you.
You think you had it bad so far? Use your lion-esque courage and take risks to get out of this funk! Unfortuantely, this year will only get worse for you.
Virgo | Aug. 23 to Sept. 21 Pisces | Feb. 20 to March 20
You think you had it bad so far? You have a secret admirier — so try being fun and flirty when the moment strikes! Unfortunately, this year will only get worse for you.
PROFESSOR FORGETS TO RECORD ZOOM LECTURE A3 BREAKING: YOU CAN NOW MUTE THAT ANNOYING PERSON IN YOUR CLASS A4
Gemini | May 21 to June 21 Sagittarius | Nov. 22 to Dec. 21
INSIDE
You think you had it bad so far? It’s time to get out of your own way! Unfortunately, no matter what you do, this year will only get worse for you.
HOW MANY THINGS CAN YOU DO OFF VIDEO DURING A 3-HOUR LECTURE? THE ANSWER MIGHT SURPRISE YOU B2 CAN PROFESSORS REALLY SEE WHAT YOU WRITE IN THE CHAT? ONE EMBARASSED STUDENT TELLS ALL B4 PROFESSOR SEES STUDENT MAKING FUN OF COURSE IN ZOOM CHAT: YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT C1 IS ONLINE UNIVERSITY BETTER THAN BEING ON CAMPUS? A NEW STUDY SHOWS THAT NO IT IS NOT C5 WHOSE VIDEO DO YOU PIN? DATING IN ZOOM UNIVERSITY D3 IS THAT A CLASSICS REFERENCE? SEE MOM, I STILL AM USING MY DEGREE D4 “I’M NEW TO RACISM”: WHITE 21-YEAR-OLD RESPONDS TO CRITICISMS OVER INACTION D6 RAKUTEN MONKEYS OR UNI LIONS? FIND MY CPBL PICKS INSIDE E3 MICHIGAN FOOTBALL RETURNS IN OCTOBER; FALL TO BE DELAYED UNTIL THEN E4 NHL UNFAIR: THIS IS THE ONE TIME OF YEAR THE LEAFS USUALLY HAVE GAMES, NOW WHAT DO I DO? E7
Libra | Sept. 22 to Oct. 22 Aries | March 21 to April 20
You think you had it bad so far? Talk to family members or friends who might need your support. As for yourself? This year will only get worse for you.
You think you had it bad so far? The universe is on your side and has a surprise for you! Unfortunately, the surprise is that this year will only get worse for you.
Disclaimer: The Hamilton Speculator is a work of satire and fiction and should not under any circumstances be taken seriously. Life’s a joke, so laugh at it.
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