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The Current Transcript for April 29, 2016

Host: Piya Chattopadhyay

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STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

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Prologue

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Dick found out that the library wasn't such a bad place after all. He just needed a little help, and the one who can help everytime is the librarian. She knows where all the different books are and she knows what's in the book.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Well, young Dick might be sad to learn then that Newfoundland and Labrador, half of the provinces libraries are being shut down, but then again it's been half a century since that educational film was shot and today Dick is just as likely to download a book onto his e-reader or onto his phone. Today we're asking about the future of the library in our communities and in our knowledge economies. That conversation is up in just a moment. After that, we will head into the favelas of Rio de Janeiro.

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They took him. They put him in a police car and we never had a chance to bury him because they hid his body.

PC: Her uncle went out to get some food and was never seen by his family again, an atrocity carried out by government security forces in the name of cleaning up the slums so that Brazil could look good when the world turned to look. The death of Amarildo came ahead of the 2014 World Cup and the summer Olympics are on their way to Brazil in just a few months. In a half hour we will focus on a new documentary about the cost of cleaning up Rio slums, a film that really couldn't be more timely. Speaking of timely--

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BEYONCE: Take one pint of water, add a half pound of sugar, the juice of eight lemons--

PC: That is Beyonce making lemonade. Her new audio visual release is resonating with audiences everywhere, and especially with black women. We will convene a discussion on the many timely messages in this week's inescapable but quenching cultural concoction, lemonade. Hello, I’m Piya Chattopadhyay and this is the Friday edition of The Current.

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Can public libraries survive as an institution in the digital age?

Guests: Paul Takala, Beth Jefferson, Bruce Fiske

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PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: It was some sad news for library workers and users in Newfoundland and Labrador this past Wednesday. The province announced it will be closing down over half of its libraries due to budget cuts. Newfoundland and Labrador isn't alone. Back in 2011 when Toronto was struggling with similar budget constraints, this young resident made a heartfelt plea to then Mayor, Rob Ford.

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ANIKA TABOVARADAN: [crying] This branch is so important to me. I’m sorry. If branches were taken away, branches like mine, where are most busy in the city will get even busier. People who don't have internet access at home depend on these computers and libraries to do homework and when I use a computer in a library to do my homework, I’ll be able to get a good job someday, get a good education, and when the day comes to pay taxes, I’ll be glad that years before people paid the extra taxes to keep the system going. I can pay taxes for the kids who depend on the computers in my time.

PC: That was 14-year-old Anika Tabovaradan back in 2011 and she was pleading with Toronto city council to keep her local library branch open. And it really seems that the public is on side. A poll that same year found that 84 percent of Canadians support funding public libraries, but it's not entirely clear what role the library should play in our digital age. We're joined now by two guests to share their thoughts about the future of our libraries. Beth Jefferson is co-founder and CEO of Bibliocommons, it is a company that helps public libraries improve the online experience of their users. She's here in Toronto and Paul Takala is the CEO of Hamilton Public Library and he's the vice-chair of the Canadian Urban Library Council. He's just up the road in Hamilton, Ontario. Hello to you both. Paul, let me begin with you. When you heard on Wednesday that Newfoundland and Labrador was shutting down 54 of its libraries, more than half that they're going to close, what did you think?

PAUL TAKALA: Well, I thought less reading and learning is going to happen in the province and the long term consequences are certainly not positive.

PC: Beth, where are you on this one?

BETH JEFFERSON: Well, these are definitely difficult economic time for Newfoundland, but I think everywhere we've seen is that libraries are some of the most efficient use of tax dollars of any educational institution, and this is a time when they need libraries most.

PC: Paul Takala, you said that there will be less reading and I'm wondering why you think that is if libraries shut down?

PAUL TAKALA: Part of their strategy is saying they will increase access to digital materials, and that's really important and we do that as well, but providing access to digital materials doesn't necessarily replace access to physical books and we know people that who don't have access to a library branch in reasonable proximity, a lot of them used to come into the library to actually get connected to the internet so a lot of people are going to be left without really much access.

PC: Calvin Taylor, who is Newfoundland and Labrador’s library board chair says that everyone in his province, when these 54 shut down, will still be able to access a library within a 30-minute drive from their home. I think his number was 85 percent of people. When you talk about proximity to libraries, is that good enough that you might have to go 30 minutes to go to your library?

PAUL TAKALA: Well, if you're a senior citizen that doesn't drive anymore or you're a young student that is looking for a place to go after school to do homework, a half hour drive may not be very feasible.

PC: Calvin Taylor also says that we're going to have fewer libraries, but that means that the ones that will remain open they can be better; they can be improved. They can improve resources to the remaining ones and that that will, in itself, help increase literacy rates in Newfoundland and Labrador. What do you think of that argument, Paul?

PAUL TAKALA: Well, I think certainly what they're doing though, is they are saving a million dollars cutting a lot of branches. This is an 8.4 billion dollars budget deficit or budget itself and I think what Beth said is that the small amount of money they're saving is a million dollars. Sure, they're going to increase some hours at some other locations but ultimately they are cutting service to the province.

PC: Let’s broaden out a bit. I mean, when libraries close, Beth, what do you think the impact, whether to Newfoundland and Labrador or elsewhere, what do you think the impact is on a community?

BETH JEFFERSON: Well, I think we heard that in the initial clip libraries really have a very deep impact on a surprisingly broad range of people and the local branch library is a very important community hub, like a public park for many. It’s one of the few public spaces that remains big enough to hold us all across generations, across economic divides, where you really bring people together in ways that are increasingly unusual.

PC: Paul, talk to me about that communal experience and how libraries serve communities beyond the books, in a sense.

PAUL TAKALA: Absolutely, and one of the things that makes me proudest to be working in a public library is walking around our branches or a central library and seeing people of all walks of life, of all ages, using the space together. There is a social cohesion that gets enhanced by public library experience. I think it's great that you know, someone of means is sitting at a table reading a newspaper or book beside someone from a very different background and we find, especially nowadays with our increasing senior's population, we have a lot of seniors come to the library just to read the paper, just to be around people. They attend out programs and for some people it's one of the few social engagements that you have.

PC: I mentioned it, and Beth mentioned the digital reading. That's where a lot of people are turning to and perhaps abandoning the traditional library. So, Beth, you're not a librarian, but you work with them and you work with them on hey let's fix your, improve your digital presence. Within that context, are libraries still relevant in terms of a place where you go and get your books and you get them for free and you return them every two or three weeks, or don't and pay your fines?

BETH JEFFERSON: Absolutely. First of all, I think in this era where we're all spending increasing number of hours online, we also are at the same time craving human connection, real human connection, face to face, in person in ways that are new and I think the real opportunity for libraries here is to bridge the online/offline divide and bring people together in new ways where they might meet and connect online but have a place to meet in person as well. That's something that Amazon, e-bay, Facebook can't deliver and that libraries are uniquely positioned to do.

PC: Okay, so you work with libraries on sort of making that bridge, that connection between digital and that communal social experience that many people have when they physically go into a library. What advice do you give them? What can existing libraries do to improve their value to the communities?

BETH JEFFERSON: Well, I think they're already doing a huge amount in this space. It's important to say that almost half of visits of large urban libraries today are online. So, as many visits online as in person and there really is an opportunity when people are browsing their collections online to connect them to the events of the space, to book groups, to conversations that libraries still are investing in. In fact, and Paul will know more, but increasing and increasing and putting increasing investments towards—

PC: Towards the digital stuff?

BETH JEFFERSON: Towards the physical events and using the spaces in new ways. So as you remove, in some time areas they're pulling back on the stacks, but creating greater event space, greater space for local groups to meet in person, book groups, just events of all sorts.

PC: Paul, is that what you're doing in your library?

PAUL TAKALA: Absolutely and I think Beth hit the nail on the head. As we embraced digital and, in our case in Hamilton, we've been an early adopter of e-books and last year about 15 percent of our circulation overall was digital. So, we are embracing that and helping people make the shift when they're ready, but a lot of people still love books. What we're able to do with that digital shift is, we're not necessarily buying less titles, but we're buying less copies because of the shift to digital and so that is freeing up space that's being given back to the community in terms of study space, program space, space for people to work together or study alone.

PC: Do you charge for that stuff, Paul?

PAUL TAKALA: No, we don't and what's great about--one thing about e-books is they expire. There are no fines with e-books so people that make that shift never have to worry about library fines.

PC: I ask that because, of course in Newfoundland and Labrador, this is a budgetary measure that they say we've got to save money in the libraries. People take out books for free and in some libraries, Paul, charge users an access fee to even take books out of the libraries. It's sort of like a rental thing. Do you think that's a good idea? When you think about how municipal governments, provinical governments say, well we have to close these things down because we don't have enough money and everyone has to take a hit, do you think charging user access fees is a good idea?

PAUL TAKALA: I don't and I think the important thing to keep in mind is libraries exist so everyone in the community can have access to information and reading material and things to make them feel engaged with the world around them. If you impose user fees, who are going to be the people that are going to be most hurt by that? It’s going to be the people that probably need those materials the most because they don't have the resources to go to Amazon or go to Chapters and buy books themselves, or go to the movies for that matter. So, charging fees is really counter to the whole essence of what a public library is.

PC: Beth, you do help them through modernizing, I guess, modernize the public face of libraries in the work that you do. I'm asking a broader question but in terms of cutting a wide swath across libraries, but are they willing to embrace leverage is there a tradition of libraries. Are they willing and wanting to change the way that you see that they need to change?

BETH JEFFERSON: Absolutely. Libraries are, and those who use libraries, are very aware of it. In Toronto itself, in Hamilton, all over libraries are experimenting with new models of programming all the time, investing in maker spaces and new digital programming all the time. They're very open and it's challenging though because technology investments and certainly digital experiences have a very high fixed cost of development and libraries are often very fragmented in the systems and the key is really coming together around shared infrastructure.

PC: Paul, how optimistic are you about where libraries are headed and the future of them as they adapt and adopt new things?

PAUL TAKALA: Well, I'm very optimistic and I think one of the reasons is that the world we live in is evolving so rapidly that the need for lifelong learning is certainly not going to be going down and the need as we get more into the digital age, the need for connections and communities to come together to places is just as great as it ever has been.

PC: So there's still relevance in libraries?

PAUL TAKALA: Well, certainly the numbers show us that and people love libraries and we work hard to make sure that we're always helping people prepare for the future, and that's really what a public library is, to help people understand where they are and help them prepare for the future.

BETH JEFFERSON: Just building on that, there is a tremendous need and a growing need for these public spaces, both offline and online. If you think about the kind of great wishes for, or hopes for the internet when 25 years ago when it first came to be, it was this kind of big public space, the agora, where we would all have these great conversations and connect in new ways, and I think increasingly people are seeing that it's turning into one big shopping mall, or movie cinema, and that there is a real need for a non-commercial, neutral, big public space where people can connect in those ways and I think the public library is uniquely situated to fill that role.

PC: Beth and Paul, thank you both.

GUESTS: Thank you very much.

PC: Beth Jefferson is co-founder and the CEO of Bibliocommon and she was here in Toronto. Paul Takala is CEO of Hamilton Public Library. He was in Hamilton, Ontario. Well, as Beth and Paul just mentioned, libraries are expanding. They are offering more than just books and computers nowadays. Some even have a social worker onsite providing support to anyone who needs it. Bruce Fiske is the social worker at the Millennium Library Services in Winnipeg. Bruce is with us now. Hi, Bruce.

BRUCE FISKE: Hi.

PC: So, you're a social worker in a library. What do you do?

BRUCE FISKE: Well, since June 2012, I've been there to receive people from all walks of life. Often there are vulnerable folks you know, or just people that just need help accessing resources in the community.

PC: And who is your clientele?

BRUCE FISKE: When I first started there were folks from the immediate vicinity that sort of heard that there was a social worker, may have seen a poster. Those folks often were just library patrons, regular ones, some of them were from limited means, some were folks who lived in the emergency shelter, some older folks would come in, some newcomers, or just a general person who wondered who I was and why is there a social worker at the library.

PC: And what did you tell them about why there was a social worker in the library?

BRUCE FISKE: There’s a social worker in the library? I hear that quite often. People are surprised to hear it. Most people realize it is a great idea because I think it’s such a central location. Libraries have historically been there for folks of all means and it’s a place where people of all backgrounds can use as a place of sanctuary. It’s a place where people can relax and enjoy themselves and access all kinds of resources and find themselves in times of trouble, looking for answers. It’s a good place, it’s central, it’s historically known as a place for folks to enjoy the world around them.

PC: And I assume, when you say they can access resources, they can come talk to you about whatever they want, and if there happens to be a book that might help them as well, you could refer them to take that out as well.

BRUCE FISKE: Oh well, you know I'm not a librarian per se, I collect those books myself and I find it helpful in the work that I do and when I first started, I wasn’t as much that sort of person. I think the librarian who is the area I work in now if rubbing off on me [laughs].

PC: But there is someone there to help one of your clients, right? You could pass him along?

BRUCE FISKE: Absolutely, the staff here are fantastic. They'll do whatever they can to provide information and resources to the folks I see.

PC: In a given week, how many people are coming to see you on average?

BRUCE FISKE: It fluctuates. There are some days where I might see over fifteen people or something like that, and then other days maybe less, maybe five people or so. Sometimes, I get out and I'll go visit some of the shelters or I'll just walk around the community. I'll get out and make sure that I'm not missing anyone. Sometimes I'll go through the library, a lot of times I work with security very closely. We have a great security department. They get to know the regulars and if they see someone they don't recognize or it looks like there is trouble, they let me know about it. The same goes to a lot of the branch locations of the libraries.

PC: Bruce, what would you say to someone who says, oh for goodness sakes Bruce, my province is in debt, we're in deficit, we need to close these libraries, and having a social worker like you in a library, it just doesn't add up for me. What do you say to that argument?

BRUCE FISKE: You know, I'm thinking what happens to somebody who's vulnerable and really sort of struggling in the system; of falling through the cracks these days when helping folks is networking and inter agency communication and that sort of thing, and you know what? It's often a case where people are, and the mental health system is, overwhelmed and the waiting time is actually quite long to access services for some, and so what do people do during that time? It can be quite a strain on the system if emergency services and that sort of thing isn't in place for them to go, to help them out in the interim. So, I think you know, I'm kind of helping people along during that period and I think in the long term it's a very useful and hopefully it will expand out and maybe we’ll see other social workers more and more often.

PC: Bruce Fiske, good to talk to you, thank you.

BRUCE FISKE: You're very welcome.

PC: Bruce Fiske is the social worker at the Millennium Library Services that is in Winnipeg. Well, we don't want to close the book on this one without including you, so do let us know your thoughts. What do you want from your local public library, what would you miss most if it closed, do you think public libraries should be closed? You can tweet us, our handle is @thecurrent. You can find us on Facebook as well. You can email us by going to our website www.cbc.ca/thecurrent and once you're there you can click on the contact us link to find out all the ways to get in touch with us.

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Documentary exposes human cost of cleaning up Brazil's favelas before Olympics

Guests: Dan Jackson, Michelle Lacerda

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Hi, I'm Piya Chattopadhyay, and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

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PC: Still to come...

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[Music: Beyoncé singing]

PC: Beyoncé is what's up this week. After the megastar dropped a mega new album on the weekend, she launched a culture-wide conversation. The new work comes quick on the heels of her show-stopping performance, Formation, at this year's Super Bowl. That outing was hailed as an affirmation that black lives matter. And Queen Bey's newest outing, Lemonade, speaks to the resilience of black women, especially. So we'll bring together a panel of women on that topic in a half hour's time. But first, to Rio.

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[Crowd chanting in Portuguese]

VOICE 1: [speaking Portuguese]

PC: Deep in the heart of the largest slum, or favela, in Brazil, you have to shout very loud to be heard by the rest of that country, let alone the rest of the world. But that's exactly what those protesters you just heard have been doing. They're protesting the disappearance of one of their own. A bricklayer named Amarildo De Souza. Amarildo was a victim of Brazil's attempt to clean up its favelas and the drug trade inside them in advance of the 2014 World Cup of soccer. A new militarized police force was set up to flush out the drug trade at the time. But as a new documentary called In the Shadow of the Hill shows, the security force would have a devastating impact on the lives of the people that live there, in the Favela of Rocinha. Dan Jackson is that director of the film, In the Shadow of the Hill. And he joins us from Melbourne, Australia. Hey, Dan.

DAN JACKSON: Hi, how are you doing?

PC: I'm okay. So why do you want to make a film about the favelas?

DAN JACKSON: Well, that's a good question. It's something that had always interested me, and it likely stemmed from seeing films like City of God and Elite Squad. I just ended up in South America with a backpack full of camera gear and I decided to just go and have a look. I had planned on making a very short film of five minutes, but as soon as I got there, the place just astounded me. It had such a strong sense of community, which is a sense that I think is really dissipating in the west at the moment, so it really drew me in from the outset. The first time I was there, I stayed for a few months, and then four years later and six trips on, I've made a feature film when I started out to make a five minute short documentary. And I lived there for, cumulatively, over 12 months.

PC: I'm wondering in what other ways you were astounded, in this sense: that the favelas have a reputation for being quite unsafe, and I’m wondering what your experience was like there?

DAN JACKSON: Yeah look, they astounded me both because of the huge warmth and compassion I felt, just inherent on the streets in Rocinha. But they also astounded me because many nights, when living in there, I'd go to go to sleep to the sound of gunfire. I remember early on one of my first trips, I took a wrong turn down an alleyway and found myself surrounded by five or six heavily armed drug traffickers with guns held my head. I guess they'd seen me filming around the streets, and they were suspicious that I had a hidden camera and I was trying to film them doing what they do. So they patted me down and discovered that I meant no harm, and instantly smiles broke out onto their faces, and they started to offer me meat they were cooking on a barbecue and beers from a fridge, and invited me to stay with them. So it was a very strange situation and it was astounding both because of that side, the traffickers and the police and the ones between them, and also the amazing fortitude of the residents who are caught between this battle.

PC: That gunfire that you talk about hearing, that's normal for them, they hear it all the time?

DAN JACKSON: Yeah, I mean… the security situation in the favela does ebb and flow. There was a lot of times I was there, where it was quite stable and you would rarely hear a gunshot. Other times, it was regular to be kept awake all night with machine gun fire. So I mean, it really depends on what's happening at the time. And I don't know, often it's the police shooting at the traffickers and vice versa, it's a very dense and complex situation. Sometimes you'll have police shooting out with the traffickers because the police are sent there to do raids, and after the pacification, they had a more permanent presence within the favela. So it's a very murky dynamic. And you know, when you hear gunfire, you often don't know who's shooting at who, and what for. You just hear it.

PC: Your film focuses on, you just mentioned the word pacification, on the security force that was established to flush out the drug trade in the favelas. Just take us there, Dan. What was happening at this time with this security force and the drug traffickers in the favelas, and for the regular folks that live in the favela?

DAN JACKSON: Yes, so essentially, in 2011, the Brazilian government instituted a series of programs that in my view, their rather Orwellian term was called Pacification Programs. Where large swathes of Rio, the favelas, were controlled by these highly armed drug trafficking armies. And, you know, then to provide security for the upcoming sporting mega events, the World Cup, the Olympics, the police sent in the pacification forces to reclaim these territories. To stop the front page news articles of heavily armed drug traffickers and the shoot outs that were happening all too frequently. And to provide, in my view, an illusion of security in Rio de Janeiro.

PC: And so what kinds of tactics did the police use to clamp down on the drug trade?

DAN JACKSON: So the pacification programs, they happened in a few different waves. So first, they sent in the army, the BOPE, the elite urban warfare specialists, to kind of take back central points of the favelas. Which previously, the police would rarely enter into. After this security perimeter had been established, a special police force known as the Pacification Police came in, and they established a permanent presence within the favela. They built a few bases, they patrol the main streets, they occasionally go into the alleyways. You have to remember, the geography of these favelas is incredibly difficult. Over 90 per cent of the houses of the residents are only reachable by very, very thin alleyways. So police cruisers, the normal ways that a police force would patrol a territory is, it's just impossible there. So they drive up and down the main street, which is one of the only places that you can actually drive a car or a police cruiser, and then there will be kind of groups of them walking around the alleyways. But the place is huge, so it's virtually impossible to police unless you would have put in the presence of thousands and thousands of policemen, and they just don't have those resources at their disposal.

PC: And the hope of the police is, hey, if we're here, the drug traffickers, the dealers, will not be here. They'll go on their merry little way out of the favelas.

DAN JACKSON: Yeah, I think that was the hope. But the reality was that that wasn't what happened. In the four years that I’ve been working on this film, it seems as though the traffickers have really re-established control in certain areas of the favela.

PC: And at the same time, the police are picking up people. This pacification force is going in and picking up people and taking them away?

DAN JACKSON: Well, yes. There was an operation called Armed Peace in which it was a concerted effort to find guns, find drugs, arrest drug traffickers. And they spent two weeks of this Operation Armed Peace searching, doing everything they could, and they'd found nothing. So in my view, they got desperate. They started to pick up people who they thought might have known something about the traffickers, and Amarildo Emerald was one of those people.

PC: And Amarildo is a bricklayer in Rocinha, in the favela, and your film focuses on him. He was taken by the pacification forces. His niece, Michelle Lacerda, led a campaign to find what happened to her uncle. And I want to play you an interview, and for our listeners, as well, with Michelle Lacerda who was in Rocinha when I reached her last week.

PC: Well, before we talk about your uncle, you're in the favela right now. Can you describe what your life is like living there?

MICHELLE LACERDA: [speaking alternate language] [through translator] Living in the favela, well, we have to kill a lion every day. There's a very early steep daily learning curve. But the good thing is that we know everyone, we have a relationship with everyone who lives here, and that's good. On the other hand, there is, of course, our access to clean water or education or culture, that's very difficult. But it is more a pleasure to live here, because we have a community. And we learn, we learn to live in this way.

PC: What does it look like, what does it sound like in your neighborhood?

MICHELLE LACERDA: [through translator] The sounds that we have in the favela, there are the sounds of the day, and there are the sounds of the night. In the day, we hear the dogs barking, we hear mothers calling for their children, the children playing. Then at night, we hear the funk dances, we hear young people talking in the alleys, lots of laughter. But we also hear then the sounds of bullets, because the heavy trafficking that happens in the neighborhood, and also the police who respect the people who live here, who crash into their homes.

PC: Let me ask you, then, what happened to your uncle. Your uncle whose name was Amarildo de Souza. Tell me the story, really from the beginning. Who he was, and then the night he disappeared.

MICHELLE LACERDA: [through translator] On the 14th of July of 2013, my uncle went to fishing. And he came back with the fish, and he was cleaning the fish, and my aunt asked him for something to season the fish. And he had to go out. He went to the little bar next door to get some lemon and garlic. And it was there that the police from the Paz Armada, which is what they call the Armed Peace, they had occupied Rocinha the weekend before, Saturday and Sunday. And these are part of the Police Pacification Unit, we called them the UPP. And they took him to the UPP, to the unit, and they put him in a police car, they took him. And that's all that we knew so, far and it was only much later that we've discovered that he had been tortured and he was killed. And we never had the chance to bury him because they hid his body. We never had a chance for a proper burial.

PC: Let me back up, and just to clarify a few things with you, Michelle. Did your uncle have any connections to the criminal drug cartels or the drug world?

MICHELLE LACERDA: [through translator] He has no connection to the traffickers. But you have to understand that he lived in a risk zone. It's where the traffickers have their selling spots here, and it's where they sell their drugs. And for us, for most of us who live here, we grew up with these people, we know them. So while there is some sort contact, no, no, my uncle, he had no involvement with them.

PC: The day he disappeared, what did the authorities, what did the police tell you had happened to him?

MICHELLE LACERDA: [through translator] On the day that my uncle disappeared, we went to the UPP, the unit of the pacification police, and they said that they had set him free after they interrogated him, after they saw his documents. That was the version they sustained, and that was until there was a police inquiry. They said they had taken him, they had seen his documents, and then they had let him go. And it wasn't until near the end of the investigation, when they were locked into a container, the police, that they admitted to the torture and the death of my uncle.

PC: The version that police gave you from day one, you and your family never believed it. Why not?

MICHELLE LACERDA: [through translator] It's because we know that my uncle Amarildo, we know him very well. And he wouldn't have stayed, not even one day, away from home. He had been picked up before by the police, and whenever that happened, he always came to our house. And he always sought comfort with my mother, in my mother's lap. He had been threatened before, too, and his sons had been threatened. They had said that they were going to kill them. And he had said, you're not going to kill my children. And he had been threatened with death. So when they took him, and when they didn't bring him back, we knew that they took him and they must have killed him.

PC: And so you and your family quickly began to try and figure out what had happened to your uncle. What did you do? How did you try and find out more? Where did you go?

MICHELLE LACERDA: [through translator] After we went to the UPP, and they said that they had let my uncle go, after that, we went to other police stations we went to hospitals, we tried to get information. And then we went to a TV station, more than one TV station, and then one contacted us. Now, all of this happened right away. He disappeared on Sunday, and on Monday, we were at the UPP, the hospitals, and contacting the TV stations. On the Tuesday, that was the first interview that we had, and that was the first protest that we had on the main road that leads to the favela. We closed down that road, that was our first action. And we were asking for answers.

PC: How difficult was it to get answers from the authorities themselves?

MICHELLE LACERDA: [through translator] It was very complicated. The authorities and the people here, the middle class of Rio, they think that if you live in the favela, you are trafficking. And we had to prove that we were not involved in trafficking, and that they shouldn't torture and kill people-- even if they were, they shouldn't torture and kill people, they should arrest them. So we had great difficulty first improving that. But this was a time when Brazil was in the streets. We were demanding change. And my uncle was one person, but he was not the only one. We had help from a lot of people who were indignant with what was happening with the abuse of human rights, there were lots of people who helped us. And in this way, we were able to pressure the authorities to give us an answer.

PC: Your family received an award for raising an awareness for the disappeared in Brazil, the many people who have disappeared beyond your uncle. What has that meant to you?

MICHELLE LACERDA: [through translator] What it means to us, it's this. It's that our struggle is not in vain. I mean, maybe we didn't deserve a medal, maybe because we didn't achieve everything we wanted to achieve. But we didn't remain silent. We cried out. And this helped to raise awareness for lots of other people, other people who had their families who disappeared and they weren't saying anything about it. And this gave them the courage to say something, to know that other people were saying the things, and they could, as well. It was, I mean, since 1964, when the military was taking away the communists, that they had been taking people away. And this was our way of saying enough. That's our way of saying enough.

PC: In the end, Michelle, 24 police officers and the commander of the security forces were charged in the disappearance of your uncle Amarildo. What's happened to them?

MICHELLE LACERDA: [through translator] Of the 24 who were arrested and accused, 13 were convicted. And today, of those 13, there are 10 who are in jail, and they were expelled from the police force, and one is in home arrest because she's pregnant and she's at risk. And I know that because I’m pregnant, too, so I understand that. But I want to make sure that she is really in home arrest. That she is there and that she stays there. Then there was one other one, he had habeas corpus, and one, he died of a heart attack. So that's 10 that are in a common prison. And there are, the corruption of the police is very great here, and the people who are inside are also suffering. I mean, we are not the only ones who suffer in the favela. There are also the ones who are working for the police who also get killed, who are also tortured. It shouldn't be like that. The police should be for our security, but instead, they are for our insecurity.

PC: Thank you, and I'm sorry for the loss of your uncle. Thank you for talking with us.

MICHELLE LACERDA: [Speaking alternate language]

PC: That is Michelle Lacerda, her uncle Amarildo de Souza disappeared from the favela known as Rocinha. Dan Jackson is with me. Dan's new documentary is called In The Shadow of the Hill, and it looks at the story of Amarildo. Dan, let me first just, after hearing Michelle, let me ask you this: how common is it for people like Amarildo to disappear, just gone?

DAN JACKSON: Amarildo is just the tip of the iceberg. Since the announcement of the World Cup and the Olympics, for from 2007 to about 2013, 38,000 people have disappeared in Rio de Janeiro, in one city. So I think we're really looking at an epidemic rather than an isolated case.

PC: How many families are like Amarildo's niece, how many families, how often do they do they find justice? Do they find the people who have done this?

DAN JACKSON: It's exceedingly rare, which is what made the story of Amarildo such a momentous story for not only Rio de Janeiro, but Brazil. In the vast majority of cases, the victim's families will hide in fear, and quite rightly. Because if they were to speak out, then they would be next. They would disappear in the next day. So it's incredibly rare, but since the disappearance of Amarildo and the subsequent protest wave, I think that it has really helped empower a lot of families who didn't know what to do, and a lot of them are starting to find their voice. I still think that there is a huge amount who remain silent, but incremental change is still change.

PC: I want to just briefly ask you about another person in your film. Aurelia shows a different side of the favelas. So can you talk about meeting him, sort of what his role in the favela is, and what it shows about the favelas?

DAN JACKSON: Look, Aurelia is one of the most brilliant people I've ever met. He grew up in an incredible poverty. He had nine siblings, and seven of them died from starvation. So he grew up in incredibly difficult circumstances. But essentially Aurelia has created this huge theatrical performance that gets played out on the streets and through the alleyways of Rocinha, and it is absolutely a spectacle. And within this performance, the subtext is barbed criticisms of the pacification, of the impunity in which the police in Rio de Janeiro act. And to me, it just really spoke to the power of art and the power of community to really inspire change. I mean, I felt his story just showed the lighter and inspiring side of Rocinha, and some of the fantastic culture and some of the fantastic people, and the brilliant things they're doing, that exist in the community.

PC: Your doc is being released in the lead up to the summer Olympics in Rio. Within that context, what is the message you want us, people who watch your film, to take away from that?

DAN JACKSON: Look, it's a tricky question. I hope they will walk away inspired, I hope they walk away angry at the situation in some parts of Rio de Janeiro. I hope they walk away interested in visiting the favelas, and becoming part of that culture. And also pushing for a broader change to really help the lives of some of the residents who were doing it tough over there at the moment.

PC: Dan Jackson, thank you for taking us into Rocinha, and seeing life inside the favela.

DAN JACKSON: Thanks very much.

PC: Dan Jackson is the director of the documentary, In The Shadow of the Hill. He was in Melbourne, Australia. His documentary is screening this week in Toronto as part of the Hot Docs festival, as part of its spotlight on Australia. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay, you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

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Beyoncé's 'Lemonade' gives Black women in Canada a lot to savour

Guests: OmiSoore Dryden, Rania El MUGAMMARr, Letecia Rose

PC: Hello, I'm Piya Chattopadhyay and this is The Friday edition of The Current.

[Music: Hold Up by Beyoncé]

PC: It's an album that needs to be heard as well as seen. And it’s an album that needs to be reckoned with as well. Last weekend, out of the blue, the Grammy-award winning musical superstar Beyoncé released Lemonade. It's what she's calling a visual album. It’s an hour-long video with 12 songs spanning genres from rock to reggae, country to hip-hop. Lemonade melds the personal with the political. Beyoncé, AKA Queen Bey, tackles rumours of infidelity in her marriage, her marriage to entrepreneur and hip-hop mogul Jay-Z and she takes some deep dives into themes of self-esteem, womanhood, police brutality, and she is certainly unapologetic about it all.

[Music: Sorry by Beyoncé]

PC: Beyoncé had a lot of help bringing those themes to the screen especially from other Black women and Black girls. In the song that you’re hearing called Sorry, US tennis star Serena Williams dances alongside Beyoncé. The singer's own daughter and her mother make appearances, as does Canadian model Winnie Harlow, also the mothers of slain Black American men Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and Mike Brown. They’re also part of Lemonade. Since its release last Saturday, Lemonade has prompted countless reactions, from celebration, to conversation, critique, and controversy. Today, we're asking three women to share what they're savouring - or not - in Beyoncé's Lemonade, and why this work really matters beyond the music charts. OmiSoore Dryden is an Assistant Professor of Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies at Thorneloe University in Sudbury. Rania El MUGAMMARr is an artist and community organizer. And Letecia Rose is an equity Educator and Arts Advocate. They're all with me here in the Toronto studio. All groovin’ to Beyoncé. Good morning.

OMISOORE DRYDEN: Good morning.

RANIA EL MUGAMMAR: Good morning.

LETECIA ROSE: Good morning.

PC: Okay, OmiSoore, you were really moving there when we were playing Beyoncé. For someone who hasn't seen Lemonade, can you just describe it briefly?

OMISOORE DRYDEN: That's a great question. I was thinking about that, how would you describe it to someone who has been seen it? I would start with asking if they’d seen Daughters of the Dust, because some of the images were, for me, were reminiscent of that.

PC: Let’s say no is the answer to that question.

OMISOORE DRYDEN: So, the imagery, the way in which Black women are moving, the fluidity of that, right. I was also thinking Eve’s Bayou and, again, some of the contours of light and shadow and camera angles. Somebody was talking to me the other day and they said, it felt to them like they were paintings in movement, which I thought was an interesting way of describing it.

PC: And really as plot points, we see her is playing many different roles. Letecia, what are some of those roles?

LETECIA ROSE: Definitely, you see the activist, you see the daughter, you see the wife, you see the Black woman, and I think the Black woman is the one which is getting the most cheers and jeers - folks really identifying with the various images not just she's portraying, but the other women that she's very strategically put it within the video. But I think there's this side to her, this vulnerability that we haven't seen before, someone who's been very up to this point pretty private, only sharing things that she wants to share. I think what she shows as well is this new side outside of the Sasha Fierce idea of what Beyoncé is. She showing this and what people are coining ‘new Beyoncé, which I think is really interesting.

PC: You said she shows-- I think, like the Black woman. I just want to set this up because this album and what it represents and that the talk about it is that it isn't a monolith, right, it's not one version of a Black woman. It shows many kinds of Black women. Is that what attracted you to this album, Rania, beyond the music?

RANIA EL MUGAMMAR: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I think the visuals are very striking, first of all. And second of all, we're seeing Black women that a lot of people are looking up to. We're seeing Serena Williams, we’re seeing Amandla Stenberg, we're seeing Michaela DePrince, we're seeing a lot of Black women who have been role models for Black women and girls of all ages. So that's the part that really drew me to it and also the part that we're seeing Black women that are not as well-known and celebrated - the queen of Creole cuisine, we're seeing the mothers of slain Black men, we're seeing a lot of women that are being celebrated who typically would not be.

OMISOORE DRYDEN: But we’re also not seeing fat Black women.

RANIA EL MUGAMMAR: We’re not seeing gender-queer Black women.

OMISOORE DRYDEN: She does to one piece—Although, no, I have to watch it again. I have to watch it another six more times. You do see queerness there, but, you're right you don't actually see this kind of transgressive queer sexuality, per se. Although, I think femme is really well-identified. But I read that as a way to reflect to me, but you don't see, you know, this quote-unquote ‘plus size,’ unapologetic Black woman, say, twerking to Sorry, Not Sorry, right. That we don’t see.

PC: That’s an omission to you.

OMISOORE DRYDEN: Yeah. And other people spoke about that.

PC: Okay. Let me ask you this—We’ll talk about some of the themes that she raises in this album and what they mean for us societally. A lot of people don't understand or might not understand why a Beyoncé album can garner this level of attention and conversation. Why are we talking about it on The Current, for goodness sake, some people might say. So, help those help those people out. Why is this significant to you?

LETECIA ROSE: For me, I don't see-- I haven't seen a lot of really interesting narratives about the Black experience. Granted, she's giving a very American perspective, definitely, a very southern perspective. But I think what specifically with Beyoncé with how commercial she is it's catapulted to the fact that we're talking about it right now, the fact that Twitter is blowing up.

PC: But talking about her, what is the ‘it’ for you that we're talking about?

LETECIA ROSE: The ‘it’ for me really is around the resilience of the Black woman. I think that is the theme that really strikes me as her unapologetically saying this is who I am. I'm not sorry. I know there's the idea that song is just related only to the perceived notion of Jay-Z, but I think she's also saying I'm not sorry for who I am. And I think even putting Serena Williams within that video was very strategic and very pointed in this idea that as a Black woman there are a lot of times that we have to be sorry for, quote-unquote, ‘being too loud’ or ‘being too opinionated’—

OMISOORE DRYDEN: Too crazy.

LETECIA ROSE: Or too thick.

[Panel talks over each other]

LETECIA ROSE: There's all these things that we are too much of and I think this idea that she is bringing forth is a conversation about Black women that I have never seen on the mainstream before.

PC: And for, Rania, what's the significance? You're nodding your head with Letecia, but what more significance does it hold for you.

RANIA EL MUGAMMAR: It really spoke to me because we're seeing these multifaceted layered, multidimensional representations of a Black woman. Often we get to see this super flat representation of Black women. We don't get to be intuitive and angry, and happy, and celebratory. We don't get to have these kind of contradictory emotions and identities that humans have. So that's the part of it that really spoke to me and especially we get to be angry, which is something that I think Black women are always afraid to do in a very public way because were just living up against the stereotypes of, oh, an angry Black woman, an angry Black women, and how wonderful it is to be able to own your anger and to have that catharsis and to destroy things and to be like, I'm here and I'm angry and you have to hear me. And then also to be able to hold our pain in ways that are very public. We're told you may be burdened, but be quiet about it. So that's really important.

PC: Some people might say, okay, so, like a music video, an album has done this for you? Rania, to your point, you feel unburdened now, like, I can where my anger. It's given me that freedom. I mean, how did this one thing - maybe it's not one thing - but how did that unleash that freedom for you, OmiSoore?

OMISOORE DRYDEN: When I watched this video I was reminded of other people-- I thought of it as a text. So I was reminded of the times I also felt the same way. So the first time I read - I'm going to throw out some old school text - the first time I read Ain’t I a Woman by bell hooks, I was like, oh my god, this is totally speaking to me. The first time I went through any of Audre Lorde, especially her article The Uses of Anger and how we can use anger to address and disrupt racism, I thought, yes, like, this is amazing to me, right. And so, you know, I think Beyoncé did this really great thing about not only engaging with Black diaspora, right, but also what I would call, like, another so-called, like a transnational Blackness, where she may have situated pieces of this in the American South, like New Orleans. But she's bringing in, you know, Nigeria, right. She's bringing in the words of Warsan Shire, right. She's bringing in this diaspora that speaks back to, I think, the experiences that Black women have come out of the slave economies. So then, of course, you have to talk about Canada. Canada, colonialism is based on a slave economy in colonialism, right. And so, if people are like, why is this on The Current? You're like, well, we need to also remember that Black women are present in Canada, right. And there always seems to be a surprise when Blackness happens in Canada, right, which is when we get this question. You know, I’m sitter here with three great women of colour, three Black women on this panel, we get the question, where are you really from, right. And so, you know, then I think of Beyoncé’s, who do you think I am? Who do you think I am, she swears I won’t, you know, the sorry, I’m not sorry, the embodiment of, yeah, I can be crazy, your word for crazy. Because I'm enraged that you think you can treat me this way. Because you think I deserve such treatment, right. And then you could be like, no, I'm not going to deal with that patriarchy, that white supremacy, that heterosexuality, that heteronormativity. I'm not going to deal with that. I'm going to embody my queer Black femme fierce self, right.

PC: There’s so many themes in this release, Lemonade. She speaks about her husband's apparent infidelity, which I think the conversation amongst many my women friends, who may be black or not or brown or white or whatever, was about we don't hear women talking about that very often publicly as well. So that was a universal appeal for many people I was talking to. I wanted to talk about another theme, and it's a really powerful one, in this album, where Sabrina Fulton who is the mother of Trayvon Martin, and Lesley McSpadden, who's the mom of Michael Brown, and Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, who are holding up pictures of their sons and they're staring right into the camera. Rania, you’re mom and I'm not asking just to speak from that position, but when you saw that what did you make of that?

RANIA EL MUGAMMAR: I think it pushes things that we often forget once they're out of the news in the mainstream, it pushes it back in your face. It says, look at us, we’re here. Our pain is still here. Just because we're not having those conversations in a very public way doesn't mean that we are not still feeling those things, although, I was really struck by the absence of conversation around black women who get murdered by the police. That kind of reinforces the devaluing of our lives and our bodies, even within our own communities. So despite that feeling of like pain, feeling for them, the empathy of it, and then also feeling happy that they're included in these conversations, I also felt absent in a way. That's really important to me. I think we're always thinking of women as people who are feeling for others or feeling their loss, but we are also people who are direct victims of that violence. So that's a conversation that needs to happen.

PC: So, that's where the criticism for you comes in of this album, that you saw yourself and yet at times you didn't see potentially yourself.

RANIA EL MUGAMMAR: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's okay to celebrate and critique something at the same time. And it's okay to demand that kind of representation. It's okay to say, I see these aspects of myself, but I'm still missing parts of me.

PC: Where do you see the criticism, Leticia? Are you just all in on this thing or you're like, well, no, I have some challenges with this album for myself.

LETECIA ROSE: Well, to put this into context. I'm not a big Beyoncé fan myself, which is-- I know.

PC: They’re gasping. They’re gasping. How dare you?

[laughter]

LETECIA ROSE: I’m not a big Beyoncé fan, but I can appreciate her brilliance and I can appreciate the things that she did within this album that is pure genius. And I think, though, and I have to stick up for her, there are so many narratives across the diaspora she can't be expected to speak for everybody. And this is at times a representation of who she is and what she's experienced and what she's going through. And that's what she's reflecting. She can't necessarily be expected to reflect everybody's experience. I think what she does do, though, is create conversation for critique. So, it's not that we all have to agree that what was presented was everybody's truth. I think everyone is going to pick a piece out of this that really resonates with them. But I think what, again, the brilliance of it is it creates conversations that we can be critical about who was who was absent in this video? Who was overly represented? There's a lot of pieces around even just colourism within that video that I felt there were people absent in that video.

PC: Colourism, like shadism?

LETECIA ROSE: Shadism, yes.

PC: So, a different spectrum.

LETECIA ROSE: Definitely. But I also recognize this is her story and what I hope this does is encourage other folks to tell their story. So that way we can have more stories that reflect the diverse experiences not just in North America, but in Canada specifically, because our stories are very different than the American story.

OMISOORE DRYDEN: And she has a machine behind her, right.

LETECIA ROSE: Oh, definitely.

OMISOORE DRYDEN: Now, this is what Junot Díaz was speaking about last night.

PC: Junot Díaz?

OMISOORE DRYDEN: Yeah, sorry. I had the great privilege of hearing him speak and he got asked about Lemonade and he said he wasn’t going to have the Beyhive come after him. [laughs]

PC: The Beyhive being the fans, the rabid fans of Beyoncé.

OMISOORE DRYDEN: But he said she has this machine behind her, this commercial machine that allows her to be able to do this kind of work, right, and in some ways implicate the machine to get this message out. And if we think back to all the artists who currently don't have access to the machine, didn’t have access to this machine, right, and had to get their similar messages out, but in a way that's just not as global, right. Like, it was everywhere.

PC: I think the point there is that for some people this feels exploitative to them for them, from everything from including mothers of slain Black men to Beyoncé’s inclusion of her husband, their marriage-- Just simply exploitative in that you're a superstar that just really wants to sell albums.

LETECIA ROSE: But I don't think there's anything wrong with that though. I think we also have to put who Beyoncé is within context. You know, her role is an artist. It's not to save the world. But what she's doing through her art is bringing interesting pieces that we can talk about. But I think we have to remember that Lemonade is not a biography. It's just art, you know. And I think there has to be a piece where we were a little bit understanding that her job is to make money. Like, she's there to make profit and she's profiting off of these things for sure.

PC: Rania.

RANIA EL MUGAMMAR: I can understand that a lot of artists are after that commercial success, do that kind of palatable, mainstream, accessible and appealing to a large and diverse group of people, rather than just Black women. But I think at the same time art has a responsibility to make you feel something. Art has a responsibility to destruct things, right. I don't think art is just something that's esthetically pleasing or just for that kind of enjoyment and consumption. I think it has a social responsibility to do those things. And even if Beyoncé is not doing all of it, what's happening now is we're seeing this kind of very accessible, very grassroots, think piece-oriented conversation around a lot of the issues that are reflected in Lemonade. We're seeing other Black women who are seeing fragments of themselves reflected, taking it, and then spinning it off and having a bigger conversation. I mean, I really love de-institutionalized learning and we're seeing a whole lot of that happening. We're seeing people on social media, people who are doing their vlogs, sharing their experiences, their reactions, and then on top of that, people are engaging with that content and creating even more knowledge. So I think it serves that particular purpose. But at the same time, I don't think it means that she should be safe from criticism or that we shouldn't demand more.

PC: I want to ask about someone who's included in Lemonade, a Somali-British poet, Warsan Shire, whose words are words are really heavily adapted in this album, this film. How important is it and how significant is that that her work is included in this album?

NM: She's a Black Muslim woman. I'm a Black Muslim woman. And we've had the pleasure of hosting her here in Toronto many times. Warsan has been someone who has spoken to people, young Black Muslim women, people who have had experiences of flight, exile, migration, people struggling with notions of home, people who feel like they don't belong, people who have had experiences of violence. Warsan has a way of speaking to people in a way that will break your heart. But I think she's very accessible and she's very relatable and she's very soft and strong and all sorts of extraordinary things as an artist. And I think at the same time, this is a wonderful thing that we're seeing. Beyoncé’s bringing a platform for these emerging or less mainstream artists to be pulled into the mainstream, because a lot of young Black artists, they work hard. They don't necessarily make a lot of money. But they are professional artists. They're well known, but at the end of the day they're not necessarily financially endowed as Beyoncé is. So, if she can use that platform to support people in those practical ways, that's wonderful. But at the same time, I'm really happy to see those reflections of girls who look like me, girls who talk like me, girls from East Africa, girls from the Horn. That's really critical for me.

PC: This album propelled or got the spotlight on conversations that you all say we don’t hear as often, we don't have in public as often. And that's what we're doing, this week at least. What kind of conversations from this album has been brought to the forefront that we need to keep going, that you think are important?

OMISOORE DRYDEN: It was interesting to me that the critique of Beyoncé was that she was just talking about her own personal life and that was it, right, that's all it was about. She was calling out Jay-Z, that kind of thing. And I think this is the kind of critique that Black women get often, that we're only speaking about personal things, right, that we're not creating theory, that we're not actually speaking about larger systemic issues, right. And so that's the critique, or what I heard the other day on the radio where someone was like, you know, she's just lamenting about how she's become her mother. The visual album is A, not for you, but B, so much more than that. For me, the fact that she so clearly brought in this Yoruba Ifá perspective with Oshun and other African diasporic deities to talk about earth-based spiritual practices that preface the strength of women for guidance, for healing, for clarity, for direction. That's amazing to me, right. The fact that we can refuse these stereotypes of the angry Black woman, the hyper sexualized Black woman, you know, we can refuse that and be like, I am not your stereotype. I have an appropriate response to racism. That is rage, right. You know? I got bag swag.

PC: For you, Letecia, what are the conversations that were highlighted this week that you think need to keep going?

LETECIA ROSE: I think to show that Black women are multifaceted. Depending on which school or which area are coming from, it might just only be about Black women being angry. I think what was really enjoyable for me artistically and just thematically was the journey of emotions, from intuition - like, I think something's happening - to denial. So, she went on an emotional roller coaster and we were visually and listening to this as well, and I think it's to show that we can be angry, but we can also be vulnerable. We can also be forgiving. And I think the forgiveness piece, I think it's being seen as is this sign of weakness, but the ability to forgive-- And I think people all assume that she's talking specifically about Jay-Z. She could also be talking about her father. Let's not forget. So there's a lot of forgiveness that is going around. And then taking all of these emotions and putting it into power. So you see that in the last two songs, not just through Formation, but the ability to say I'm going to take all of these broken pieces and put it together. One thing I just want to add, the sheer brilliance of her-- In Sandcastles there’s the bowl and it had- I don't know if you noticed it – the broken pieces. That's a sign for bringing all the broken pieces together. So, thematically, I think these are the things that we need to be talking about.

PC: Rania, going forward, what conversations that this album inspired or has moved more into the public realm do you think we need to keep adding?

RANIA EL MUGAMMAR: I think what's really important is to remember that these conversations have been happening. Black women are having these conversations. This is not new to us.

PC: I guess more broadly, right, bringing them out into the mainstream.

RANIA EL MUGAMMAR: Absolutely. I think the really critical thing is to remember to listen to Black women when we're having these conversations, to be grateful that people are allowing you into their space and allowing you to share that kind of knowledge. That’s really, really important. And then also to be critical and to ask who's writing Beyoncé’s songs. You know, there are only two women writers on that album and that's a problem for me as an artist. But also to remember that it wasn't just Beyoncé. There's a lot of other artists that came together to make this piece happen. That's really critical.

PC: Thank you to all three of you for coming in and having this conversation. Appreciate it.

LETECIA ROSE: Thank you.

OMISOORE DRYDEN: Thank you.

RANIA EL MUGAMMAR: Thank you.

PC: OmiSoore Dryden is an Assistant Professor of Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies at Thorneloe University in Sudbury. Rania El MUGAMMARr is an artist and community organizer. And Letecia Rose is an equity Educator and Arts Advocate. They were all here around the table in our Toronto studio. Well, that is The Current for this Friday. Let us go back to the album that we've just been talking about, and the rest of the world, actually, has been talking about for much of this week. This is Beyonce with Hold Up. My name is Piya Chattopadhyay. I thank you so very much for lending us your ear here on the Friday edition of The Current.

[Music: Hold Up by Beyoncé]

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Apr. 29, 2016 full episode transcript

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