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I’ve done a lot of work with Food Not Bombs in a few cities, worked with needle exchange programs and anti-stigma AIDS resource centres, and facilitated workshops for queer youth and street-involved youth on self-esteem, safer drug use and sexual health. I’ve also participated in a couple of land occupations opposing developments on Indigenous territories, and I’ve recently been doing a lot of journalism.
(On her G20 charges ) …I’d never thought of wearing a mask during a protest as something that you necessarily do in order to break the law, but covering your face in Canada is becoming increasingly criminalized, not only for protesters but also for Muslim women who want to wear the niqab. Muslim people and protesters are both increasingly profiled as being a threat to the security of the Canadian state, so I think there’s some important parallels to be drawn there.
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- Kelly Pflug-Back, in Behind the Black Mask and Shattered Glass: Pre-sentencing interview with G20 arrestee Kelly Pflug-Back at the Vancouver Media Coop (May 21st, 2012)
this interview was really compelling and interesting and i highly recommend reading the whole thing. i would have never guessed that they were speaking to the same person christie blatchford vilified yesterday.
sometimes i read interviews like this and all i can think is: THIS is who the canadian government is criminalizing. THIS. this is what “my tax dollars” are going towards. criminalizing someone who actively works to ensure poor people have access to food, that people dealing with addiction have safe spaces, that no human being is deemed worthless. people who not only think about the intersections of race, class, gender, privilege, but who act on it. and then end up under house arrest.
it also reminds me of carmelle wolfson’s great series on the g20 accused, two years later. it paints a picture of the waste of time, energy and (state!) money to try and make these activists out to be violent monsters. when you actually look at what they were saying and doing, and look at the state’s response to it, it makes you think twice when you hear the government talking about “security operations.”
what are we accomplishing when the mainstream media only refers to these people as “vandals” or “radicals?” what could we accomplish if we took the time to hear - and really LISTEN to - the stories these people are telling us? what if we acknowledged that we live in a country that fosters massive inequity and access to justice depending on your race, gender, or political views?
if you needed another reason to respect kelly pflug-back: while under house arrest, she has been spamming white-power forums with “awesome 80s gay porn” featuring “the most epic moustaches.”
