Barack Obama and the Jim Crow Media by Ishmael Reed was launched in Montreal on April 14 before a crowd of some 120 people — some were turned away because the Saint-Denis café was too packed. Before Ishmael Reed addressed the crowd, Montreal rapper Jenny Salgado made a very moving presentation of Michèle Lalonde’s famous 1960s poem Speak White. Jenny Salgado.

Another launch was held at the United Steelworkers Hall in Toronto on April 16 before some 100 people. Ishmael Reed was introduced by Phil Taylor of the Taylor Report and by prize winning author, Professor George Elliott Clark. The launch was organized by the excellent Toronto bookstore A Different Booklist, 746 Bathurst Street, Toronto (416) 538-0889.

Montreal and Toronto launches draw hundreds

See interview with Ishmael Reed in the Montreal Mirror, April 8-14.

Montreal Mirror Interview with Ishmael Reed

Praise for Barack Obama and the Jim Crow Media

“Brilliant.” Jill Nelson, journalist, novelist, American Book Award winner.

“Amazed at the many fronts on which [Ishmael Reed] has gathered little-reported facts…. I hope his book will lead to more journalistic self-reflection and intellectual honesty. ” — Werner Sollors, Professor of English Literature and of African and African American Studies, Harvard University

Praise for Ishmael Reed

“With Ishmael Reed, the most persistent myths and prejudice crumble under powerful unrelenting jabs and razor-sharp insight.” — Le Devoir, Montreal

“The brightest contributor to American satire since Mark Twain.” — The Nation

“A great writer” — James Baldwin

Ishmael Reed taught at the University of California (Berkeley) for thirty-five years, as well as at Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth. He is a member of Harvard’s Signet Society and Yale’s Calhoun Society.

For Ishmael Reed, Barack Obama is being tormented, like Michelangelo’s St. Anthony, but by modern reincarnations of the demonic spirits used to break slaves. They were the “Nigger Breakers”—men like Edward Covey, who was handed the job of breaking Frederick Douglass. Now the media play that role, with their whip being a custom-made yardstick that they never used to measure other politicians.

“Isn’t it ironic,” writes Reed: “A media that scolded the Jim Crow South in the 1960s now finds itself hosting the bird…. In terms of its attempt to build a media that “looks like America,” the media are as white as a KKK picnic.”

Ishmael Reed turns his penetrating gaze on Barack Obama’s election and first year in power—establishing himself as the conscience of a country that was once moved by Martin Luther King’s dream. If, as claimed by some, the United States has gotten beyond race, then how should it really be?

256 pages :
Hardcover $39.95 – ISBN 978-0-9812405-9-6
Paperback $19.95 – ISBN 978-0-9812405-7-2

Orders :
LitDistCo: 1-800-591-6250, orders@litdistco.ca

John Andrews of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (Instaar) of the University of Colorado reviewed Marjolaine Saint-Pierre’s book Joseph-Elzéar Bernier, Champion of Canadian Arctic Sovereignty in the February 2010 issue of Arctic, Antarctic and Alpine Research.

“The author should be congratulated for her meticulous research on the life of Captain Bernier, and the translator also deserves a round of applause for a translation that reads well and easily.”

Polar Record published Cambridge University Press (2010) also reviewed Marjolaine Saint-Pierre’s book on Bernier: “this handsomely produced book has considerable value as a detailed record of Bernier’s life and times. (…) the numerous and well chosen illustration provide wonderful glimpses of the world in which he grew up and spent his youth, the nineteenth century world of wooden sailing ships and busy North Atlantic trade.” – Janice Cavell

From: Arctic, Antarctic and Alpine Research

JOSEPH-ELZEAR BERNIER: CHAMPION OF CANADIAN ARCTIC SOVEREIGNTY 1852–1934.

By Marjolaine Saint-Pierre, translated by William Barr. Montreal: Baraka Books, 2009 (originally published in French in 2005). 371 pp. $39.95 Canadian (paperback). ISBN 978-0-9812405-1-0.

Given the political and climatic upheavals of the last few decades, the publication of this biography of Bernier is remarkably pertinent to issues facing Canada and other Arctic nations. Joseph- Elzéar Bernier was a French Canadian who was born in the small hamlet of L’Islet-sur-Mer, on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River in 1852. In this book the author traces the roots of the Bernier family from 1651 when Jacques Bernier landed in Quebec, through the early years of J.-E. Bernier, his subsequent experience as a sailor and captain, and then tracing his passion for Arctic exploration and his importance in ‘‘planting the flag’’ and claiming sovereignty for Canada for what is now its Arctic islands and channels.

This is a meticulously researched book that is richly illustrated by black and white photographs. In addition, it also contains a number of maps that detail the sailing routes and winter harbors that Bernier and the ship Arctic occupied during a number of voyages starting in 1906 and only ending in 1925 when Bernier was 74 years old. It is indeed a remarkable story, and Captain Bernier’s place in Canadian and Arctic exploration should be reaffirmed and reemphasized by this publication.

As a background it should be noted that by an Order of Council in June 1870 Great Britain transferred to the Dominion of Canada all its possessions designated as ‘‘Rupert’s Land and the North-West Territory’’ and a second Order of Council transferred the Arctic islands in 1880 (p. 171). In her discussion of the background to Bernier’s voyages (Chapter 5) Saint-Pierre documents that the object of the Order of Council was to prevent a U.S. claim to these vast, and largely unexplored territories, rather than in a belief that they would have any specific value to Canada. In 1895 the government had divided the Northwest Territories into four districts but this was not immediately followed by any action that would restrict freedom of access to the region by anyone. For example, whalers from the U.S.A. and Britain freely entered the waters with no need for permission of a license.

Captain Bernier’s initial object was to plant the Canadian flag at the North Pole, and he pursued this ambition with great determination starting in 1898. However, the goal of a North Pole expedition was never realized largely because of the vacillations of the Canadian government and the opposition, or reluctance, of Prime Minister Wilfred Laurier.

The name of Captain Bernier is closely associated with his vessel Arctic. This vessel was originally called Gauss, was built in Kiel, Germany, in 1900–1901, and had been used in the Antarctic. Bernier sailed to Germany and took possession of the ship in the spring of 1904. It was 165.5 feet in length with a beam of 37.2 feet; the ship was a three-masted barquentine with an engine that could push her at 7 knots. Given the exploits of this ship it is a tragedy that she was abandoned (see Chapter 23) and was not included in a Canadian Maritime Museum.

For the reader who is interested in the details of the expeditionary cruises, these are documented in Chapters 11 to 16. The chapters are replete with information on the stores that were taken, the track of the ship and ice and weather conditions, the lives of the local Inuit people, including numerous photographs, and how Captain Bernier and the crews coped with the overwintering.

With the steady decrease in ice concentrations in the Arctic Ocean and in the Canadian High Arctic Channels, issues of Arctic sovereignty are now newsworthy and are being discussed at the highest levels of national governments and the United Nations. Whatever the international legal issues that pertain to the conflicting claims of ownership of the various sectors of the Arctic waterways, Canada’s claim to the Arctic islands owes much, if not all, to the vision and persistence of its great French-Canadian polar explorer. Bernier’s position in Canadian Arctic research needs to be elevated; sadly his contribution to exploration is not fully appreciated. The author should be congratulated for her meticulous research on the life of Captain Bernier, and the translator also deserves a round of applause for a translation that reads well and easily.

JOHN ANDREWS
Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR)
University of Colorado, 450 UCB
Boulder, Colorado 80309-0450, U.S.A.

James Jackson talks about THE RIOT THAT NEVER WAS with Tommy Schnurmacher – Click and listen…

James Jackson’s THE RIOT THAT NEVERS WAS got off to a good start when it was launched on November 17 in the Hôtel XIXe siècle on rue Saint-Jacques. Some 70 people turned up to obtain this important new book about a little-known and tragic event that took place right in front of the hotel in 1832.

THE RIOT THAT NEVER WAS by James Jackson reveals exactly what happened and what didn’t happen when British troops shot three innocent Montrealers on rue Saint-Jacques on May 21, 1832. He answers the question about that tragic shooting in a manner that will satisfy those who are similarly interested in answering questions such as: What really happened at Kent State on May 4, 1970 when four students were killed by the National Guard? What really happened in Derry, Northern Ireland, on “Bloody Sunday”, January 30, 1972 when fourteen pacifists where shot by British troops?

Until James Jackson came along,  nobody ever really tried to understand exactly what happened in Old Montreal that tragic day of May 21, 1832.

As a by-election eventually won by Irish immigrant and newspaper editor Daniel Tracey drew to a close in May 1832, magistrates supporting his opponent, loyalist Stanley Bagg, called in the British troops from the local garrison. Ordered to open fire on a supposed mob, the troops killed three innocent bystanders following what has been qualified ever since as a riot. James Jackson establishes that the riot simply never happened and that there was no mob when soldiers opened fire.

His proof is corroborated by affidavits presented to a packed grand jury that exonerated the soldiers and officers and the magistrates who called in the troops. The grand jury comprised a majority of recently arrived English-speaking Protestant farmers even though the three victims were French Canadian and Catholic. Most troubling is the fact that historians have not questioned the official story.

In this historical whodunit, James Jackson is a one-man commission of inquiry, combining the moral indignation of Émile Zola and the writing talent and historical perspective of Pierre Berton.

A fascinating, methodical investigation into a little-known tragedy reveals that truth can prevail even 180 years after the fact.

Scene of the shooting

Rue Saint-Jacques, looking west where the three bystanders were killed. The first building on the right is the old Bank of Montreal building. The vote was being conducted just to the right of the Bank.

James Jackson holds a DPhil from Oxford University. He taught French and Quebec Literature and History for 25 years at Trinity College Dublin. Twice elected president of the Association for Canadian Studies in Ireland, James Jackson now lives in Montreal.

THE RIOT THAT NEVER WAS, The military shooting of three Montrealers in 1832 and the official cover-up
James Jackson

360 pages, 12 photos, maps

Paper $29.95 ISBN 978-0-9812405-5-8

Orders LitDistCo: 1-800-591-6250 orders@litdistco.ca

In bookstores: November 30, 2009

FOR REVIEW COPIES, INTERVIEWS CONTACT:

Baraka Books – 514-808-8504; info@barakabooks.com

Some 50 people crowded into the Paragraphe Bookstore on McGill College for the launch of Joseph-Elzéar Bernier, Champion of Canadian Arctic Sovereignty on Wednesday, September 30. Author Marjolaine Saint-Pierre and translator William Barr of the Arctic Institute explained to those present how important Bernier had been in the establishment of Canada’s sovereignty in the north. They also made it clear that he is still very relevant and that his story is fascinating.

In addition to the book on Bernier, Baraka Books launched America’s Gift, What the World Owes to the Americas and Their First Inhabitants by Käthe Roth and Denis Vaugeois. Käthe Roth spoke for both authors. See the special post on America’s Gift.

It was also the occasion to formally launch A People’s History of Quebec by Jacques Lacoursière and Robin Philpot. Jacques Lacoursière, also present, pointed out that the book is one of the first attempts to provide English readers with an accessible Quebec history book from the point of a French-language Quebec historian. The book appears to have filled a void since it has been on the Gazette’s Bestseller list for eight straight weeks.

Photo: Author Marjolaine Saint-Pierre and translator William Barr.

(excerpt from Käthe Roth’s speech)

I have worked with Denis Vaugeois for many years now, and most of our projects been about the earliest days of the discovery of the Americas by Europeans. Denis has always insisted that quotation marks should be put around the term “New World” when it is applied to the Americas because, after all, these continents were new only to the Europeans who first landed on them, but certainly not to the people who had already been living here for thousands of years. In a way, this book takes that idea to its logical conclusion by celebrating what the “old world” of the Americas has contributed to the rest of the world. In fact, we may consider that the true “new world” is the product of the meeting of these civilizations.

It is easy to think of how the arrival of the Europeans irrevocably changed the lives of the peoples of the Americas. After all, that’s what the history books talk about. The influence of the original Americans over the rest of the world is subtler but just as pervasive. There are foods that we can’t imagine doing without, such as tomatoes and corn. The ancestor of chewing gum can be traced back to the original Americans, as can the use of tobacco. What would winter be like without toboggans, spring without fresh maple syrup! How many ways do we use rubber, invented by equatorial American people! And would our gardens be as bright without indigenous American flowers! The concept of team sports played with balls was taken back to Europe from the Americas, and the organization of original American societies inspired European philosophers.

When the project of L’Indien Généreux came to me, I was really excited about the concept of the book. As work proceeded on the adaptation of the text, however, I found that some of the entries didn’t really translate, and I began to be drawn in to doing research on alternatives that would work better in English. Some of these were due to etymological differences between French and English, but I also found myself wandering further into the exotic areas of South American birds and animals, and down country paths to find North American wildflowers and foods. All in all, after working on this book I certainly look at the way the “new world” and the “old world” fit together quite differently than I did before.

And in fact, I think that is what we hope America’s Gift will do for those who read it. The book is meant to be suggestive rather than exhaustive, and, in a larger sense, to encourage people to discover how two worlds – the “new” and the “old” – combined to make a truly new world More hints. We hope that people will open the book at any page and find out something that makes them say, “I didn’t know that!” and perhaps enjoy the prospect of exploring further.

Thank you.