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The Current Transcript for August 13, 2018

Host: Laura Lynch

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

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VOICE: People are scared to stand up for their rights. People who are pro-white or people who are Trump supporters are terrified they're going to be attacked by these anti-speech totalitarians.

LAURA LYNCH: One year after white supremacists marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, leading to violence and death, a small band of 20 to 30 of them showed up yesterday in Washington, D.C., only to be overwhelmed by thousands who wanted them gone. And they did beat a quick retreat, but the trauma of what happened one year ago still remains for many and we'll turn to that. Coming right up. After that, a different take on your favourite animal to hate.

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VOICE: They're a very soothing animal to be around. If you have any kind of anxiety or anything like that, there's nothing that helps you more than just sitting out there with a racoon and letting them hang on to your knee cap and eating a hot dog.

LL: Jim Blackwood loves raccoons so much he's called the "Raccoon Whisperer." Maybe, just maybe, he'll convince others that the garbage stealing animals, others call vermin, are actually not so bad. That's in half an hour. And then.

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VOICE: What's the good in protest. Well I'll tell you what's the good. We ended the war in Vietnam. We legalized abortion in this country.

LL: You may recognize the voice of Judy Rebick. Unflinching, unapologetic and usually undefeated in her decades at the forefront of major battles for women's rights in Canada. But it may surprise you to learn that at the height of some of her most public roles, Judy Rebick's private voice was distorted by other voices. Eleven others actually. Multiple personalities created to deal with the trauma of childhood sexual abuse. In an hour, Judy Rebick on mental illness, mental health and an effort to fuse the heroes in her head. I'm Laura Lynch and this is the summer edition of The Current.

Back To Top »

Charlottesville resistance 'knocked the alt-right back on its heels,' says prof

Guests: Jalane Schmidt, Claudrena Harold

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: People are scared to stand up for their rights. People who are pro-white or people who are Trump supporters are terrified they're going to be attacked by these anti-speech totalitarians.

LL: One year after white supremacists marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, leading to violence and death, a small band of 20 to 30 of them showed up yesterday in Washington, D.C., only to be overwhelmed by thousands who wanted them gone. And they did beat a quick retreat, but the trauma of what happened one year ago still remains for many and we'll turn to that. Coming right up. After that, a different take on your favourite animal to hate.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: They're a very soothing animal to be around. If you have any kind of anxiety or anything like that, there's nothing that helps you more than just sitting out there with a racoon and letting them hang on to your knee cap and eating a hot dog.

LL: Jim Blackwood loves raccoons so much he's called the "Raccoon Whisperer." Maybe, just maybe, he'll convince others that the garbage stealing animals, others call vermin, are actually not so bad. That's in half an hour. And then.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: What's the good in protest. Well I'll tell you what's the good. We ended the war in Vietnam. We legalized abortion in this country.

LL: You may recognize the voice of Judy Rebick. Unflinching, unapologetic and usually undefeated in her decades at the forefront of major battles for women's rights in Canada. But it may surprise you to learn that at the height of some of her most public roles, Judy Rebick's private voice was distorted by other voices. Eleven others actually. Multiple personalities created to deal with the trauma of childhood sexual abuse. In an hour, Judy Rebick on mental illness, mental health and an effort to fuse the heroes in her head. I'm Laura Lynch and this is the summer edition of The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

Chants of "Jews will not replace us."

LL: That is from an award-winning documentary by Vice News Tonight. The video shows throngs of white nationalists and neo-nazis carrying torches marching on Charlottesville, Virginia last year. On August 11th and 12th, Charlottesville was the scene of a series of violent clashes and a deadly attack. 32-year-old Heather Heyer was killed when a car driven by an alleged white supremacist sped into a group of anti-racist protesters. James Fields was later charged with hate crimes and first-degree murder. One year later, the city and its people are still grappling with what took place in those tense and bloody days. Jalane Schmidt is an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia and an organizer with Black Lives Matter, the Charlottesville chapter. She was involved with the protest last year against the alt-right march. And we have reached her in Charlottesville, Virginia. Hello.

JALANE SCHMIDT: Hello Laura.

LL: What was it like for you this past weekend, looking back at the events of August of 2017?

JS: Well there were commemorative events yesterday and the day before that on Saturday, a service of repair and repentance by some progressive clergy and then in the evening I was with my students who were holding a protest that began around the Jefferson statue where they'd been attacked one year before.

LL: And what was it like for you experiencing all of this one year later?

JS: Well It was really tense. The town was very regimented for the week leading up to the 10th, 11th and 12th. There was six different law enforcement agencies there. This was the fifth largest law enforcement mobilization in Virginia history. The streets in my neighborhood were blocked off. There were checkpoints. They would go through bags and even your wallet and look at ID and this sort of thing and ask questions that you know law enforcement officers. So just very regimented, very militarized, there were armored vehicles, you know them you know carrying semi-automatic machine guns. Some 700 of the Virginia State Police were housed at the University of Virginia in Lambeth Hall. And this is the same police force, which assaulted us with tear gas last year at the Klan march on July the 8th. So there's no love lost between this community and specifically the Virginia State Police. So that's why the student rally, which had been planned to take place primarily around the Jefferson statue at UVA, wended its way toward Lambeth Field to face the dormitories at Lambeth Hall and to call out the complicity of the University of Virginia with overpolicing. So overpolicing was a theme for this whole weekend.

LL: OK. Let's go backwards. Take me back to that counter protest. Tell me what happened to you over the weekend of August 11th last year.

JS: Well I've been working with other activists, other allies, to plan the counter demonstrations all of the summer and it really went into high gear after the Klan rally on July the 8th because that was like a test run almost for us. And we knew that the scale of the Unite the Right rally would be much greater. And so it was you know just kind of frantic and you know maybe you know 60 to 80 hour a week job, you know for those of us who are most involved to get you know just the sort of roles in place that we needed to try to ensure community safety on that day.

LL: And then you face threats. What kind of threats did you face?

JS: Well I get hate in the inbox. The couple days before the 12th last year, I got white supremacist propaganda placed under my windshield wiper of my car, ie. they know where I live. And so I took the bumper sticker for my kids school off my car and I stayed in a safe house for eight days.

LL: You stayed in a safe house. Why? Was is that bad?

JS: Well yes because they docked you and then they publish your address online and they've even made threats against the children of other figures here in town. You know, so you have to take precaution and I had round the clock security that weekend. And so yes, for my own safety, I was advised to you know to not stay in my home. So yeah, so it was very tense last year. So last year I was more concerned about the alt-right. And you know they mentioned me on their podcast, you know on the Christopher Cantwell podcast, you know they talk about me in their press conferences by name. So last year I was more concerned about the alt-right. This year I was much more concerned about the police.

LL: But I'm wondering what kind of emotional toll that experience a year ago has taken on you.

JS: Well I was not expecting. We were so focused on just getting through August the 12th last year that we were not thinking about the emotional aftermath of it. Like many people, I felt traumatized. I mean therapists say you know this you know secondary trauma and PTSD and you know and all this kind of things. So waking up at night, nightmares, sweats, just really jumpy at seemingly unrelated things. I mean just trigger things like just for example I was staying in a safe house with a friend of mine and she's got three teenage boys and they of course you know love their live action roleplay stuff. And I walked into the living room for the first time after she picked me up from the airport, walked into the living room and there's all these you know like plastic helmets and shields and swords, that you know and I just you know just jumped back. You know where sometimes that there's a sharp noise you know I'll hit the ground you know and stuff. So it's just, yeah that trauma was real and basically it wasn't until the six month March mark in February that that kind of started fading because before that when I would wake up in the morning, just the first thing in my mind would just be Nazis. I mean it was just that was the bolt upright and that was the reality, you know. And so finally after February, then when I would wake up you know the Nazis would be maybe the fourth and fifth thing you know, after it's like OK I got to take the kids to school. I got a meeting at 9:00. I got to go to the grocery store and then you know, then several things later, be Nazis so. But it took that long just to get back you know.

LL: Jalane I want to bring in another voice here. Claudrena Harold is a professor of history and African-American studies at the University of Virginia. She's also the co-editor of Charlottesville 2017. It is a new book of essays by UVA professors responding to the events of last summer. And she's also in the studio in Charlottesville with Jalane Schmidt. Hello, Professor Harold.

CLAUDRENA HAROLD: Good morning.

LL: How did you mark the anniversary this weekend?

CH: I think with a great deal of critical reflection. On Saturday, I was actually in Richmond and on Sunday I was in Charlottesville. But in some ways it was hard to mark that day because I too was looking at the heightened levels of security. The heightened level of police presence. And for me as someone who, actually one of my essays in that volume, opens up with May 1970. On May 4, 1974 students were murdered at Kent State University and across the country there were protests, including the University of Virginia. And the level of police presence, the level of you know state troopers, the level of the National Guard, was there and actually the president of the university made a statement against this level of police presence. So in some ways it was very interesting for me to sort of compare what I was seeing in 2018 to sort of a response in 1970. So I thought about, I thought a lot about that. I thought about the Living Wage campaign of 2006, in the spring of 2006, when 17 students were arrested. And I think during that protest I probably stayed outside for about three days with the students. So for me, it was interesting to think about what was going on within the context of a longer history, but also a shorter history.

LL: Claudrena Harold, I'm wondering because you are a professor, what kinds of questions and concerns are you hearing from your students?

JS: Some of the questions and concerns that I've always heard. One, police presence, concern about safety and for some African-American students on grounds, this is not a new concern. In 2015, the spring of 2015, one of our students was brutally arrested on the corner of the university. And so concerns about safety, concerns about the heightened police presence, the hyper-policing of black bodies that didn't start yesterday. Didn't start on Saturday. Concerns about the new administration and its commitment to these issues, its commitment to racial justice. So those are some of the things that I was hearing from students, but I did not hear as much from students in terms of just my personal reaction, probably this weekend as I had a year before.

LL: Now I want to play some tape from a new Vice documentary about the anniversary. This is the Vice reporter, Elle Reeve, speaking with Chris Cantwell, who we heard from before from Jalane, a white supremacist who pleaded guilty to assault and battery for his role in the Unite the Right rally last year. And he was banned from Virginia for five years. Just have a listen to this.

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VOICE 1: How did Charlottesville change the alt-right?

VOICE 2: I think it tested a lot of people and a lot of people were understandably scared by what happened. Right? There's a lot of violence, a lot of chaos, a lot of lawfare. Guys are going to prison over this and there wasn't a whole lot of agreement about how to go forward and that to put it charitably, left us fractured.

LL: Now Jalane Schmidt, what do you make of, do you think there's evidence that the so-called alt-right is actually in retreat.

JS: Well, this may be the only instance in which I and the crying Nazi agree. The counter demonstrations in Charlottesville, although they had tragic results, they were successful. They knocked the alt-right back on its heels. Organizationally, it is fractured. Communities in other locations took a page from our playbook and so in Boston, in Gainesville, Florida, in Michigan State, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, people came out and challenged them in the streets and this repelled the alt-right. Spencer announced after Michigan state, that he was discontinuing his college tour because "it's just not fun anymore." To many encountered demonstrators. The Traditionalist Workers Party splintered apart and its communications director in a conversation with the Southern Poverty Law Center admitted that you guys have won. So I would say that you know notwithstanding the tragedy that occurred last year in Charlottesville, it was a successful mobilization. And it you know, that what had been a cresting movement of the alt-right was thrown back.

LL: And that may have been reflected yesterday, when there was a very small Unite the Right rally held outside the White House.

JS: Absolutely.

LL: Claudrena Harold, what does that tell you about the state of the alt-right?

CH: It tells me that it's doing what white supremacy always does. And it is evolving and it's changing and it remanifests itself in different ways. And the alt-right is not the only sort of organizational manifestation of white supremacy, so there is a retreat. But I think whenever there's a retreat or whenever there's retrenchment, we also have to be ready for a resurgence as well. I sort of take a approach where I think that white supremacy and its manifestations is very dialectical, but I agree with a lot of what Jalane has said.

LL: Now we also spoke with Reverend Phil Woodson. He's the associate pastor at First United Methodist Church in Charlottesville and his church is right across from Emancipation Park in Charlottesville, where that Unite the Right rally was held. He spoke about the ongoing trauma the community has faced, but he also had this to say.

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VOICE: There is a very strong, strong community presence that wasn't there before August 12th of last year. There are people from all walks of life, all creeds, colours, orientations and faiths working together, walking together, supporting each other, praying for each other, feeding each other, housing each other, clothing each other, buying cars for each other, and so even in the midst of all of chaos and all of that terror, from where I sit as a pastor, I saw the seeds of God's kingdom take root. And those seeds have been growing and maturing for the past year.

LL: Jalane Schmidt, you're a person of faith as well, does what Reverend Woodson say have resonance for you?

JS: Yes. What I've seen, particularly among folks in the faith community has been the emergence of a progressive militant, even I would say, a sector of clergy and lay leaders who are willing to literally put their bodies on the line. Also you know just the enriching of networks that had been established amongst us who are planning counterdemonstrations in the lead up to the "Summer of Hate" last year, these networks have expanded and strengthened in the time since because we have had to give court support to one another and you know as Reverend Phil mentioned, you know support each other in other material ways, taking people to physical therapy appointments, who were you know injured, you know providing child care for folks that you know need to go to court. I mean all sorts of ways, you know.

LL: Now, I'm wondering both of you, as you look back and look forward, what do you think the enduring legacy of last summer's violence will be? Claudrena Harold why don't we start with you.

CH: I think that's yet to be determined and I think as someone who's been here for 15 years and have seen movements come and movements go, I think it's yet to be determined. And I think its legacy will be dependent on the type of world that we create in this moment. The legacy will be depended upon the extent to which city government, the extent to which local communities, the extent which activist communities, the extent to which the university, really moves towards substantive change. I think the city is forever changed by this, but I have to be completely honest, this is not the first time that there's been something that's happened in Charlottesville at the University of Virginia, where I said, I think this community is fundamentally changed by this incident. And I think the legacy is to be determined.

LL: And Jalane Schmidt, what do you say?

JS: I see what we activists learned in Charlottesville and its replication in other places and how we learn from one another in the struggle against white supremacy, being a sort of training ground in the further ongoing struggle against fascism and particularly, the authoritarianism, which has emerged in the Trump regime. And so there is a direct connection between the fight against white supremacy and how it's been amplified and mobilized by this presidential administration and our struggle against fascism. So I see a growing cadre of folks who are mobilized, who will be ready to wage the challenge when it comes against the steady encroachment of fascism.

LL: And that goes back to what Claudrena Harold said earlier, which was really is about maintaining vigilance, in spite of what evidence you see that the alt-right may be at retreat.

CH: Exactly.

JS: That's Right.

LL: So what does that look like, maintaining vigilance?

JS: Well for instance you know as Dr. Harold mentioned that you know white supremacy just keeps morphing and this sort of thing. So even though organizationally the alt-right has been kind of thrown back, it has its greatest champion in the Trump administration itself. And we've seen the sorts of policies that have been put into place, you know throwing children into concentration camps, the kleptocracy, I mean all of this stuff and so we need to be prepared for instance, for the moment when Trump finally is successful in firing the special prosecutor. And what are we going to do? We need to be already preparing for that. You know.

LL: Well that's going to take us off in another direction and I'm afraid that we're out of time, but I thank you both for coming in to talk about this today.

JS: Sure. Thanks a lot.

CH: Thanks.

LL: Jalane Schmidt is an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia and Claudrena Harold is a professor of history and African-American studies at the University of Virginia. We reached them both in Charlottesville, Virginia. As you heard, residents of Charlottesville are marking the anniversary of those days of violence and rage and sorrow in different ways. Some took to music to help them cope with the chaos, unfolding around them. Michael Coleman is a musician based in Charlottesville. As violence broke out last year, he turned to his music to find solace for himself and his community. Here is the song, "Good Day To Cry," from Michael Coleman's band, Free Union.

[Song: "Good Day To Cry" by Free Union]

LL: I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current on CBC Radio One.

Back To Top »

Canadian 'Raccoon Whisperer' draws international admirers

Guests: Jim Blackwood, Wendy Hook

LL: Hello. I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

LL: Still to come, feminist-activist, Judy Rebick reflects on the heroes in her head. But first, learning to love your neighbourhood raccoon.

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VOICE 1: Look over there and you get distracted and saw a raccoon coming our way. The raccoon falls straight to the front door.

VOICE 2: There's a new general in charge of a battle being waged in the backyards and back lanes of Toronto. Mayor John Tory has had it with raccoons. Sick of the cute, but cunning creatures, opening garbage cans and rooting through compost bins.

VOICE 3: They're extremely clever, so if you could find a way to keep them out, I think the entire neighbourhood will be grateful.

VOICE 4: Jake had one kind of pinned down and he had his face right in his stomach and I was laying on the ground here.

VOICE 5: The two raccoons were aggressively clawing at her legs. She broke her umbrella fending them off.

VOICE 4: I wasn't sure if they were going to ever leave.

LL: The raccoon is a polarizing animal. Many loathe those clever little garbage eaters, especially here in Toronto or "Raccoon Nation," as it's called when the topic comes up. They're seen as vermin, a threat to health and to property, but there is also a passionate community of raccoon lovers out there. Listen to this.

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VOICE: And there we go. There's that little girl. What you doing? Would you like a hot dog? Do you want a hot dog? There you go. Alright, head for the steps. So anyway last night.

LL: That is Jim Blackwood communing with a furry friend in rural, woodsy Churchville, Nova Scotia. The 65-year-old retired RCMP officer is known to his YouTube fans and he has a lot of them, as the Raccoon Whisperer. Every night he feeds his fans by feeding raccoons and posting videos of the animals devouring the feast he's prepared. One of his videos has been viewed more than 400,000 times. He's become a celebrity among his subscribers and some of them don't just want to see videos, some are actually coming from around the world to visit his little house in the country and feed his furry companions. CBC producer, Mary-Catherine McIntosh visited Jim recently, at the height of Maritime tourist season.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Hi, how are ya? Come on in. You're out in the middle of Churchville, on the River Road. Home of the Raccoon Whisperer.

[Music]

VOICE 1: A lot of people who had met through YouTube are now contacting me and asking to come out and visit the raccoons. So what we do, we both appointments now cause we can't have a lot of people in at the same time, so I try one family a day so. I have a lady here right now from, she's from Cyprus and she's been out every night feeding the raccoons to the wee hours of the morning and she just loves it.

VOICE 2: What are you doing here?

VOICE 3: I've been friends with Jim Blackwood on Facebook and I've been following his videos with the raccoons. And I took the chance to come over to Nova Scotia and have an experience personally.

VOICE 2: Have you ever seen a raccoon?

VOICE 3: No, no, no. It was the first time. I only saw the raccoons from the videos. We don't have a raccoons in Cyprus. Actually we don't have any wild animals except ram. That's a wild goat and a fox. That's all.

VOICE 1: And there we go. There's that little girl. What you doing? Yeah this us the type of videos that we put on YouTube and Facebook. And if I do a video, I do for both at the same time. Every night of the week there's pictures and videos goes up. And if I don't post anything, there was a lady in B.C., called a friend of mine, to see if I was alright cause they thought something happened to me, there was no video. Would you like to take a hot dog out of my hand? Here. That's a good girl.

VOICE 3: I wanted to have this experience. So let's put it this way. And get close to them. It took me 19 hours flight from Cyprus to reach here, but I think it's worth it. I wish people wouldn't hate them.

VOICE 1: Well I have a doorbell that's hooked up and when they walk up to the sensor, you hear this sound and that's the sound that the doorbell makes. So when I hear that, I know they're here. So I'll leave that on there now and then when you hear that ring and they're here.

VOICE 3: Now they can eat from my hand. They got to know me, they're aware of me. And the baby's grabbing my feet, you know, and he's licking my toes.

VOICE 1: They're a very soothing animal to be around. If you have any kind of anxiety or anything like that, there's nothing that helps you more than just sitting out there with a raccoon and letting them hang onto your kneecap and eating a hot dog. The first thing we started off with are chicken hotdogs and I get them at the Giant Tire cause they're a lot cheaper there. And one time they had them on for 50 cents a pound and I went in and they only allowed me two. So the next day, I went in and I said I'll grab two more. Well they took the restriction off, so I cleaned out the cooler and I took home 50 pounds. And also, we do hard boiled eggs. I steam them in the steamer here and they have to be peeled and cut and buttered and well tonight, we're going to make a start with the peanut butter sandwiches. That's usually what we do when we, now my wife showed me this way and we just take the bread out like that and then we grab the peanut butter out of the cupboard here. All of this stuff is donated, the peanut butter. And we don't make it like a regular sandwich, we just take it and spread it on the bread like this and just spread it out even. And then we just cut, fold it in half like this and then cut it here right in the middle. Now we had one raccoon here, Rascal. She lived to be 13 and a half and she would not accept any sandwiches that were had crust on them. So I had to make her regular sandwiches and we had to cut the crust off and then she would eat them then. And another thing she was hooked on was Tim Horton honey cruller donuts and one night I came back, I was coming from Truro and I stopped into Tim Hortons that didn't have any. So I bought her just a regular donut and I gave it to her and she threw it at me. So anyway.

VOICE 2: What do you mean?

VOICE 1: She threw it at me. She wouldn't want it. And so she hit me with it. And so I would, just got in the car and I went to Stellarton and they didn't have any and I went out to Exit 23 at Wendy's Tim Hortons and they had two left. And so I brought one all the way back here to Churchville, here she is sitting on the step waiting for the honey cruller donut. And once I gave it to her, she was happy. So if something ever happened to me, they just go back into eating the way they did before. In fact, they are eating in the woods, as we speak. This is just dessert. But I noticed when I go in the woods, I find there scat and it's full of seeds and other things. I know they're eating out there, you know elsewhere, berries and things like that. And they can eat. You know, I was paying around 250-300 a month. And that's banana bread and our little baby's very fond of this. We've go through one of these loaves a night. When I moved in here in 2000, I'd be, you know my wife and I found love, we got married and she already had the raccoons here and a bunch of cats. She passed away two years later of cancer and, but her wish was that I look after her fur babies and she meant the raccoons. I promised her that would happen and so I've been doing that ever since, in her memory. And I love doing it and I feel like they're my, you know part of my family and I treat them as such. Well not only the people come from all over the world and they send me stuff too and for no reason. Just to be friendly. This cuckoo clock from Germany. It just comes I don't even know who they are, some of them. Yeah this is it here. Came from Taiwan. It's a beautiful shirt and I wear it quite a bit. And then of course, I got these little raccoon collections and they're from various people in the States. One of them sings, "We Wish You A Raccoon Christmas." I just grab a hold of this here.

[Toy sings "We Wish You a Racoon Christmas"]

VOICE 3: It's very exciting. You get, I think it's a contagious disease from Jim. Yeah. I want to feed them you know, it's my joy night. Especially, the baby, which I call child. He loves the cake and it's nice for him.

VOICE 1: My poor mother in law. She was 97 and she had cataracts and she couldn't see very well and I come home from work one night and we had several cats. And Sylvester was outside the door, waiting to get in at midnight and so I let him in and then I saw the raccoon sleeping beside her on the couch, watching television. And I asked her, I said, what's he doing here and she said, who. I said the fella beside you and she thought I meant the cat and she looked and she realized it was a raccoon. But he cleaned out all the cat food in the dish and there was water all over the floor from the water dish. But he and I went to try to move him and I was trying to move him from his back and he growled at me. So he was one of mine, he was used to me, but he didn't want to move off the coat, so I enticed him with a hot dog and gave him a little taste and he followed me outside and we didn't let him in anymore after.

[Doorbell rings]

VOICE 1: There they are now. Come here.

VOICE 3: There's two of them.

VOICE 1: Come on. Come on. Stand up pretty. Come on. Here. Come here little boy. Here you go. Here.

VOICE 3: I'm going to sit here and wait for everybody to come and have their dinner. This is what I think. Jim how would you make out what they like to eat?

VOICE 1: Well what I do was trial and error. We started with peanut butter sandwiches. That was, that's all we fed them at first. And then I said, gosh they gotta eat something else. So we tried hot dogs and the hot dogs took right off and then we tried something else and there he's coming back again. Come on here. Coming up?

VOICE 3: I feel so happy.

VOICE 2: Was this a good trip?

VOICE 3: Yes it was. It was a very good trip and very educational as well. Not just adventurous, but educational too.

VOICE 1: They're my joy in life really. That's what they are. I just love them and I look for them every night of the week and I've never been disappointed. He'll come back up. Come on, look. Look what I got.

[Music]

LL: That was retired RCMP officer Jim Blackwood, known to his YouTube followers as the raccoon whisperer. He was in Churchville, Nova Scotia. Now some people look at a raccoon though and see a feral animal scheming its next garbage raid, while others do see a potential loyal companion. For five years Wendy Hook has lived with Dennis, her pet raccoon. At one point, Dennis became a bit of a celebrity in their hometown of Saskatoon, but despite or maybe because of the fame, Wendy Hook recently lost her fight with the city to keep the animal in her apartment. Wendy Hook is in our Saskatoon studio. Hello.

WENDY HOOK: Good morning.

LL: So let's back up a little. How did you come to have a pet raccoon?

WH: When we lived in Southern Saskatchewan a few years ago, we we had the opportunity to raise a baby. A lady that we knew had found her in their barn and she was brand new. She still had an umbilical cord attached and there was no mother, so she asked if I wanted to raise her and oh my goodness, I couldn't say no.

LL: What was your first impression of her?

WH: I was just, I instantly fell in love with her. I mean she was absolutely helpless. Her eyes were closed, her ears were closed. She had no markings. We weren't even 100 per cent sure she was a raccoon.

LL: And so you decided what to raise her. Was there ever a plan to release her?

WH: You know I didn't take any of that into consideration when we first had Dennis come into our lives. You know, I saw a little creature that needed caring and attention and I gave it to her.

LL: Now before we go any further, I mean Dennis is typically a boy's name, why did you name her Dennis?

WH: Well yhe first, little over two years, we thought she was he. She had a couple of little marks on her lower abdomen that led me to believe that she might have been a boy. She was so tiny there really wasn't anything to go by and Dennis, Dennis the Menace, it just seemed appropriate.

LL: Of course. Alright, so Dennis is a girl. How did Dennis get the public's attention?

WH: Because we had just moved into the city, we had cable installed and the gentleman that came over and installed the cable, when you're living in a one bedroom apartment, it's kind of hard to not notice when you have a raccoon wandering around. So, and he was just so taken and he had a friend that worked at a little local media outlet. You know the local paper in town here. And they came over and they did a little interview and I thought well this is so cute. I mean they want to see Dennis, everybody wants to see Dennis. She's so cute. And they had said to me, you know this will go global. And initially we laughed and we thought well it's going to make it to Global Saskatoon, how great is that? But boom, it really did go crazy.

LL: Were you surprised at how much interest there was?

WH: I was. We were just dumbfounded. We couldn't understand what the fascination was and why us? Because one of the things that we discovered, once we had Dennis, is we discovered that there's a real connected community of people that have raccoons and there's a lot of us out there. So yeah, we were a little surprised that it was us that ended up being in the media.

LL: And yet that led to problems with the city of Saskatoon?

WH: Yeah and you know they did try to accommodate us. They did try to show us different avenues that we could maybe try to get a license. They weren't sure of themselves. So we went through, we tried to get a teaching certificate for her, which she didn't qualify for. I tried to have her.

LL: Wait a second, you tried to get a teaching certificate?

WH: Well, you know like an animal teaching certificate, where you could approach schools and do a little bit of PR that way. But Dennis doesn't meet any of that criteria. She didn't meet any criteria for being my therapy pet. You know like we did, we searched many avenues.

LL: So you had to move? How hard was it to find a place that would take Dennis?

WH: It was darn near impossible. I approached, you know real estate companies. I had posted ads online. I looked everywhere and for the most part the you know nobody was willing to rent to somebody with a raccoon. So we did luck out. We found a really wonderful landlord who, he knew a bit of the story and he had no problem at all.

LL: So where are you living now?

WH: Well you know I live in now, it's a small community about an hour outside of Saskatoon.

LL: And that's all you want to say?

WH: Well you know, I'm in a community where she is not violating any by-laws. People see her. Nobody in this community has an issue with her at all, but my way of thinking is that if somebody was petty enough, cruel enough to put Dennis in a position where she could have been euthanized. So I'm just being really, really careful and I'm not really saying out loud to many people where we are now.

LL: Must have been pretty stressful for you?

WH: It was. It was.

LL: So clearly, keeping Dennis as a pet is controversial. And that is true for even raccoon lovers. I just want to play some tape for you of Haley Hesseln. She runs a rehab for wild orphaned raccoons out of her Saskatoon city home. Hasn't called herself the raccoon lady. At one point she had 54 baby raccoons in her place, but she doesn't consider them pets. She releases them before they mature.

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VOICE: Living with them is difficult cause they do get into everything. I know you have to have latches on the doors and the locks and they will bite and scratch. And so I would not suggest trying to keep one as a pet because they are wild. They're unpredictable. They most often don't like being held once they've become adults and then once they reach sexual maturity, which is about 10 months, they get very much more wild. So when you see this cute little fuzzy baby and you're playing with it and you think what a wonderful pet it will make, that's not the animal you're going to have when it becomes an adult, particularly, if it's not spayed or neutered. They are definitely wild animals.

LL: So you heard Haley Hesseln there, Wendy Hook. Are you scared Dennis is going to turn on you?

WH: No. No. Everything that Haley said is absolutely correct. She's a wonderful lady by the way and she does really, really good work. And I myself have never ever advocated racoons as a pet. Nobody should go out into the bush and pick up this little baby and take it home thinking that you're going to make it into a pet. The difference with Dennis being, we've had her right from, I mean she couldn't have been more than one or two days old. So everything that Dennis knows are things that we have taught her. She is spayed.

LL: What was she like when she was becoming sexually mature?

WH: It's so hard for me to describe. She would be snarling, you know an angry little ball of fury, but at the same time, there would be an underlying little cry. So we knew that she couldn't control what she was going through. I mean it's hormones, it's instinct.

LL: But you have to keep her inside, I guess. You have to keep her inside all the time.

WH: She's always, always been inside with us. She has never been in a cage, she's never been in a kennel. My husband and I are a little bit different in how we raise our little girl. I hate calling her a pet. She's not my pet. I look at her as being in charge. I'm in charge of looking after her, but she's definitely not mine. You know.

LL: But she still is a raccoon. Do you think it's fair to keep her inside?

WH: Well, I take, the life that we have given her is not ideal. It is not what a normal raccoon out in the wild would have. And you know I've often times felt really bad that you know did I take that away from her? But it's the only life that she knows. So she's quite, quite happy. She's the queen of the house.

LL: What is she like as a pet?

WH: She is so sweet. I keep saying that over and over. She's very, very affectionate. She's kind of a little bit like a cat and a little bit like a dog, but yet, nothing like either one. She's quite happy playing with a feather or you know she's quite happy with a chew bone, but there's just, there's a deeper connection with her. When she was smaller, she was very, very vocal. She had lots of noises that she would make. She's gotten a little bit quieter, as she's gotten older, but you know she's more than happy to sit on the couch between Ron and I. You know, it's like she pays attention to what you're saying.

LL: Elizabeth Renzetti was a columnist with The Globe and Mail. Once wrote that the raccoon is Canada's true spirit animal. Do you think they actually deserve a higher stature in this country?

WH: I really do. I really, really do. I know that a lot of people think that they're nuisance animals. I mean anybody that's a farmer or has property out in an urban area or rural area, where you know they can get in. They can do some pretty, pretty significant damage, pretty quick, but at the same time they're very, very intelligent animals. I think they may be are just a step or two below like a primate, as far as their intelligence goes and their ability to figure things out. You know, once they figure something out, forget it. You know with Dennis for example, if she sees us do something. Forget it. Then she knows how to do it and there's nothing you can do to stop her. They have the ability to retain how to solve puzzles. I think for like three years, like they're very, very smart.

LL: So then could you imagine them displacing the beaver, as our national animal?

WH: No I wouldn't go that far. No.

LL: Something about the trouble they get into in people's garbage, I think would prevent that, don't you?

WH: Yeah.

LL: Wendy Hook, thank you for telling us about Dennis.

WH: Oh, you're very welcome.

LL: Bye-bye.

WH: Bye-bye.

LL: Wendy Hook has a pet raccoon named, Dennis, and she was in Saskatoon. You know, I'm no raccoon whisperer, but I seem to have had the ability to call out a raccoon on the weekend in the back deck at my friend's place. Heard a ruckus, thought it was next door on someone's roof and I peered over, made a little sound, like that and there was its face way too close for comfort. Both my friend and I reeled backwards and waited and waited and waited to see what it was going to do and thankfully it actually ambled off back to the back fence and went away. It was nice and fat, so it's been eating well.

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And if you've got stories about raccoons, good, bad, indifferent. You can send them along to us. We're on Twitter @TheCurrentCBC or me @LauraLynchCBC. And you can also go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the Contact Us link. Well, coming up in the next half hour, the incredible inner lives of Judy Rebick. I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

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How Judy Rebick's 11 personalities helped her cope with the abuse she suffered as a child

Guests: Judy Rebick

LL: Hello. I'm Laura Lynch and this is the summer edition of The Current.

CW: Hello. I'm Connie Walker sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current. Around the world, countries, corporations and individuals concerned about the fate of the planet are committing themselves to curbing their carbon emissions. But it's not easy, which is why the idea of carbon capture technology is so tantalizing. The technology has been described as a vacuum cleaner for the

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VOICE 1: The opening of Dr. Morgentaler’s abortion clinic on the upper floors of this house began peacefully enough early this morning. But when Dr. Morgentaler arrived in mid-afternoon he was lunged at by a man holding as pair of garden shears.

[Sound: Yelling]

VOICE 1: Police arrived and searched a house. A man was charged with assault and possession of a dangerous weapon. Dr. Morgentaler was shaken and angry.

VOICE 3: This is what we are up against, fanatics, religious zealots, people who want to deny them the freedom.

VOICE 4: This one is crazy. He was probably inflamed by choice propaganda and it's unfortunate that this happened and creates a diversion from what the real issue is which is the right to choose for women.

LL: It was a disturbing and historic moment in the fight for abortion rights in Canada. Dr. Henry Morgentaler was attacked by a man with garden shears, as he tried to open his Toronto clinic and it pushed pro-choice activist Judy Rebick, the final voice in that clip, into the national spotlight as well. Judy Rebick was walking with Dr. Morgentaler at the time and she shielded him from the attacker. And Dr. Morgentaler thanked her for saving his life. Since that day, Judy Rebick has made waves of her own, across this country, as a feminist and activist lending her voice to causes from abortion rights and violence against women to the rights of the deaf. But she's also come to see her bravery that day and since in a new light as she's uncovered secrets from her past that had been hidden even from herself. Judy Rebick is a former head of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women and founder of the independent news site, rabble.ca. She's written a new memoir, it's titled, Heroes in My Head. Judy Rebick spoke with Anna Maria Tremonti in Toronto in April.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: What happened that day when you stood between Henry Morgentaler and that man who attacked him?

JUDY REBICK: Well he came out and there was a big media scrum as you might imagine and we were crossing the street. And I wasn't really paying that much attention and all of a sudden I heard a hubbub and I turned and I just saw this guy grab Dr. Morgentaler so I pulled his hand off and there was another woman walking on Dr. Morgentaler's other side and she hurried him into the clinic. And I pushed the guy and then I started chasing him which was kind of silly because he did have garden shares which then I saw after I pushed him and as you heard the bit of a tussle with him — the verbal tussle. So I followed him almost to where he lived and then the other woman came and got me because I was kind of not 100 per cent there.

AMT: How did your perceptions of what happened that day change over the years?

JUDY REBICK: It wasn't until that night when I saw it on TV that I really realized that I had stepped really between the garden shears and Dr. Morgentaler in other words I put my life at stake which I didn't really realize I was doing. And many years later when I was diagnosed with dissociation with what we now call dissociative identity disorder but was then called multiple personality disorder I realized that I had this capacity to not feel fear. I was fearless. And so I could be in a situation like that very calm, I thought it was because I was trained as a marshal and you know I was kind of — I can't say that on radio — but I was a tough lady at that time. And I realized that I was dissociated from my feelings, when there's danger something took over that made me like that.

AMT: Well let's talk about more of that. Your view of your past changed as memories started to surface from your childhood. What did you remember?

JUDY REBICK: The first thing I remembered while I was involved in the pro-choice struggle was being abused as a child; like I had a memory of lying down and being touched in a sexual way by a grown man. But I didn't know who the man was and I didn't want to deal with it. Like I was you know in the middle of what was probably one of the most ferocious struggles you have ever had in this country. And that's what I wanted to do. And I was in therapy but I was finishing therapy and I didn't want to deal with it so I put it away as I had put away lots of other memories in the past.

AMT: They would come to you just like in little flashes, right?

JUDY REBICK: Yeah like a flash. Yeah.

AMT: And then it would go away.

JUDY REBICK: Yeah that's right. It could come in a flash and then go away.

AMT: So you were in therapy and you started to understand a few things. What did you come to understand?

JUDY REBICK: Well so I was in therapy in the early 80s. Like in 1980 I suffered a very, very severe clinical depression. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. Nothing. And I didn't believe in therapy. You know I thought it was a petty bourgeois indulgence or something like that but I couldn't function so I had to go into therapy. And in that therapy I realized that I had been burying all my feelings. Other than anger, I was a very angry person, and in the pro-choice movement I had a good target for that. But other than anger I really didn't feel much. So my therapist helped me get in touch with my feelings. Then in 1989 I was involved in a case people may or may not remember Barbara Dodd who we had fought successfully and abortion was now legal in Canada and her boyfriend tried to get an injunction to stop her from having an abortion and she was deaf. I was fluent in [unintelligible]. So Clayton Ruby asked me if I would sit with her in court and explain what was happening in court. After she had the abortion she changed her mind her. Her boyfriend was involved with the anti-choice and he was pressuring her and she changed her mind and she said the women's movement pressured her into it. I was the only one who was with her from the women’s movement and I never even talked to her about the abortion. Her sister said to me he's taken control of her mind and for some reason that just made me really lose touch with the present. And I started to have a huge number of memories of abuse like just one after the other just filled my head. I couldn't think of anything else. And so I went again to a therapist this was a woman therapist that I knew and started in on the therapy and by the second day of the therapy I realized that the man was my father.

AMT: And in the process of doing that you discover that you have disassociated — what's the phrase?

JUDY REBICK: They call it dissociative identity disorder now. But at that time it was called multiple personality disorder.

AMT: Right. And you discover — over time — how many personalities?

JUDY REBICK: 11 personalities. Only about four or five were dominant. Some of them just came once and that was it.

AMT: And this is because as a child your mind basically fragmented into these personalities to protect you.

JUDY REBICK: Yes to protect me. It's very common for children to forget what happened to them; severe trauma to forget for a very long time, right? But so dissociative identity disorder is an extreme version of that. So the little girl forgets that what happened to her the night before. And then when she hears the steps coming to the room she comes back into knowing but it's not her it's someone else. So it's like a child's imagination creates imaginary friends who are conscious of the abuse so she's not conscious of the abuse because for a child it's the feelings of being abused by anyone but especially someone who's supposed to protect you is overwhelming. You can't bear it. You would lose your ability to function. And so I dissociated. And these personalities all but one were children between the ages of five and 12 and they held the memory of the abuse all my life and it didn't get revealed to me until you know at that time all the memories came back.

AMT: So how old were you when you figured this out?

JUDY REBICK: 45.

AMT: And you had been like this career where we all remember — I mean you're at the forefront of the fight for abortion rights; you’re living a very functional life.

JUDY REBICK: Yes, and a very public life.

AMT: Yes. But they didn't surface in public.

JUDY REBICK: No because they came out in therapy and they would introduce themselves to the therapists. You know first they'd say "Where's Jack?" That's my father. Every one of them would say "Where's Jack?" To make sure that I'm safe, right? And then they would introduce themselves their name was quite something. You know like it was like "Hello I'm Simon."

AMT: And to the therapists.

JUDY REBICK: To the therapists.

AMT: You would be sitting there but they would be talking.

JUDY REBICK: That's right. So the feeling of it is someone’s talking through my mouth but I'm not in control of it. Like I feel like I'm somewhere in the back of my head watching but I have no control over it. First I felt I had no control turned out I did have some control but it felt like I didn't have any and I didn't control when they emerged, when they came out, and I didn't control them disappearing.

AMT: You call them the alters.

JUDY REBICK: Yeah.

AMT: The alternates.

JUDY REBICK: That's the term the therapist used: alter personalities. Yeah.

AMT: Ok. Can you name them for us and tell us who they were?

JUDY REBICK: I'll try. Well Simon was the guardian. There's always a guardian personality that knows about the others because they don't all know about the others. I think he was about 12-years-old and very rational.

AMT: He was the first one.

JUDY REBICK: He was first one. He's checking to see if it's safe, and then in no particular order. There was Sophie was kind of you could say flirtatious a bit you know and wanted to have more fun and would come out if let's say I was attracted to somebody. And then there was Priscilla / Portia. She had two names at the beginning. It was Priscilla and then changed to Portia who was younger. I don't know how young and who was very angry. Then it was Him the only one without a name.

AMT: And Him was the angriest.

JUDY REBICK: The angry. Yeah I just had called him rage personified. He hated Marcia. He hated me.

AMT: Marsha's the therapist.

JUDY REBICK: Marcia the therapist. Yeah he was just always furious. And then there was the little one. So Lobo is five-years-old and he could run really fast. And Mary was five-years-old. Another one that was very prominent was trouble who was kind of like a trickster kind of personality but also made me sick. He would make me sick when things got really bad. And as far as I can tell they didn't come out until the therapy sessions but they did act throughout my life and in the stories I tell in the book I try and point out where I think I dissociated, where I might have gone into an alter personality, and then what happens in my adult is I lose time. I can't remember what happened for the last 10 minutes or 15 minutes.

AMT: It's again worth remembering as I was reading your story you're living a full and functional life and I want to back up a little bit because this is not the only thing you talk about. Again we know you as Judy Rebick the woman who has been at the forefront of so many rights issues in Canada and not afraid to speak your mind and not afraid to take on politicians. But you were an activist from a young age; you were also a free spirit of the 60s.

JUDY REBICK: Yes.

AMT: You were trippin’ out on LSD.

JUDY REBICK: [Laughs] I was, yeah.

AMT: I don't think a lot of us would have known that.

JUDY REBICK: I don't think I'd come across like an old hippie [laughs].

AMT: You actually let the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane crash at your place what was it during the Expo 67?

JUDY REBICK: Yeah during Expo 67.

AMT: You had all of them at your place.

JUDY REBICK: Yeah, there was a knock on the door and it was the manager of the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane. They were going to play at Expo and he said we heard from Paul Krassner that Roger — the guy who was with me at that time — is cool and we wonder if you have room for us to crash, we can sleep on the floor it's ok. So I said ok. And I never heard of the Grateful Dead at that time. I knew that Jefferson Airplane had the number one song in the world: White Rabbit. Right. But not Grace Slick she stayed in a hotel which the guys at Jefferson Airplane said with contempt you know [laughs].

AMT: How dare she?

JUDY REBICK: And so I hung out with the Grateful Dead with Jerry Garcia and Mountain Girl who was his partner and Pig Pen and they were. I really liked them. They were really interesting people.

AMT: It's so interesting that these rock bands were so great would just want to crash somewhere.

JUDY REBICK: Exactly, the ethic of the 60s, right? And the other thing I would say is that like they brought tons of food, they cleaned up, like it was part of their lifestyle, right? It was communal living. I think they're the best house guests I ever had [laughs].

AMT: They wanted to take you with them. When they left your place they were going to Timothy Leary's farm, probably to trip out.

JUDY REBICK: Yes. And I started to get in the back seat and I realize they're all tripping on acid. I wasn't sure about the drivers and I just thought this is really dangerous to do this. And that's another thing like I was very because I was fearless I was very adventurous when I was young but something always stopped me from going too far and I think that was the alters actually.

AMT: So how do you explain smuggling hash out of Israel?

JUDY REBICK: [Laughs]. Ok well I was staying at a kibbutz where you could get hash. And that was important to me because like I say I was a hippie. I was going to Greece and Greece then was a dictatorship under the generals so you couldn't get hash in Greece or it got any kind of pot. So I figured why would the Israelis care if I take hash out of Israel and the Greeks would never search my body because I'm female, right? So I bought some hash and I put it in a Kotex pad, in my pants, and I went to the port. As soon as they looked they read my name they called out something and the man came it was a man in a suit so I knew I was in trouble so I had time to think through a strategy. And they started to search my bag and they looked everywhere it could have been you know like they looked at the bread to see if there are holes in the bread, etc. And I was very lighthearted. Oh what are you looking for microfiche? You know like whatever. And then they said go with her. And I said what for? And I knew what for but I said what for.

AMT: Body search.

JUDY REBICK: And she said body search. And I said what? And then I became like an entitled potential immigrant: "I'm Jewish and I'm a college graduate and I was thinking of immigrating to Israel before this. This is supposed to be my homeland. I travelled all over Europe I've never been body search." And I just went on like that like there was no way I hated Israel. I wasn't going to go back. But I just went on and on and I was lucky because the woman was younger than me. I was about 22, 23, and she was about 19. And when I got down to my underpants and I had a bandage on my foot because I stepped on glass and the doctor had bandaged it and she said take off the bandage and I said I'm not risking an infection for this stupidity. So she says ok take off your pants and I just looked her in the eye and I said I am not taking off my pants. And I basically told you want my pants off you take them off. I have my period and I am not. And she said ok. And so I just kept yelling because I can't look relieved, right? So I just kept yelling at everybody yelling, yelling, yelling, and then I got on the boat and I flushed it down the toilet [laughs].

AMT: It's an amazing story. Again it's a side of Judy Rebick we might not know from your professional life.

JUDY REBICK: I'll probably never get into Israel again either [laughs].

AMT: Did those alters play any role in any of those scenes do you think in retrospect?

JUDY REBICK: Oh yeah I think you know customs people are really trained to pick up on fear and anxiety. Well I didn't have any fear or anxiety and so I was able to very coolly assess the situation and think up a strategy which I think I probably would have been too nervous to do if I had been feeling all my feelings so that's an example where it came in. And as I said with the Grateful Dead I think if I had gone to Timothy Leary's farm with the Grateful Dead I may never have come back you know because my brain really was injured you know. And who knows what would have happened if I'd gotten into a situation like that where I couldn't control it, right?

AMT: So they would come out in as you say in therapy but then you began journaling. Tell us a little bit about how they came out that way. Well one of the things we noticed is that they were very anxious to come out. When Lobo came out it was the second one I think to come out.

AMT: The little boy.

JUDY REBICK: The little boy, yeah. And they sort of stuck around for a bit after I left the therapy office and he saw a Dairy Queen and he wanted to go and he sort of came fully into my body and started skipping to the Dairy Queen. So I thought oh like is this going to keep happening. It was my idea to a journal, right? But then Marsha suggested that I also let them come out with very close friends who knew what was happening to me, right? Yeah. So I started to journal because I started to feel like I was dissociating at home because it's a physical feeling… my body feels kind of shivery. And I said Who's there. I just wrote it. Who's there. And the thing is amazing there are some pictures of it in the book as the writings all different, right?

AMT: You didn't even realize that at first.

JUDY REBICK: No I didn't realize that at first. I guess when I was going through the healing and I should say that at the beginning of the healing I was approached to run for president of the National Action Committee a Status of Women which at the time was the largest women's group in the country and my therapist didn't think I should do it. My brother didn't think I should do it. But the therapy itself was such a feeling of helplessness that I thought if I could do something in my life where I feel powerful it will help me because I don't think I could get through this otherwise. So I agreed to do it. So I really couldn't have these alters come out in public [laughs].

AMT: And you made provisions for that, you talked to the executive director, you made sure that you didn't bill it with people who actually stayed in hotels to give yourself the space.

JUDY REBICK: Because sometimes certain men made them afraid and when they were afraid they would come out right. You know so normal thing would be for a president to stay at the house of an executive member. And I said I can't do that it's too risky so I stayed in hotels.

AMT: And through all of this you are essentially; what's the language you were reconciling or you were fusing these personalities like you were integrating.

JUDY REBICK: Yeah well it took a while for them all to come out. And then there's a process of integration. So you have to accept that these are fragments of your personality. You know it's not like somebody else. Not like I'm hearing that I think this is another person. There are fragments of your personality. So you have to accept them — you don't have to. But I mean one method of therapy and the one that Marcia used was you have to kind of make friends with them and listen to them. You don’t have to do what they say but listen to what's bothering them because it's bothering you, right? And over time I think about almost three years process.

AMT: And that was how long ago now?

JUDY REBICK: 1989 to 1992 — when the book ends 1992.

AMT: And they've never come back?

JUDY REBICK: No, I have dissociated since then but I remain conscious. I've lost time once or twice but not for very long.

AMT: Is it a constant thing that you must keep being aware of?

JUDY REBICK: No. I think I'm aware of the feeling of dissociation now and when I start to feel it I know what to do to bring myself back into the present so that's what I do.

AMT: And again you were confronting trauma in childhood. At one point your parents have both died.

JUDY REBICK: Yes.

AMT: But you did confront your father.

JUDY REBICK: Yeah.

AMT: What was that like?

JUDY REBICK: The drive up to my parents place was the most frightened I've ever been in my life; like I was holding onto the wheel really, really hard. I was really frightened. But it seemed like once I saw him and he was an old man and he was kind of feeble at that point. It was like they disappeared. The alters almost disappeared because they saw that he couldn't hurt me anymore so there wasn't a purpose for them anymore. That's what I feel happened at least in part.

AMT: He never admitted to it.

JUDY REBICK: No he never admitted to it.

AMT: Never apologized.

JUDY REBICK: No. Never admitted to it, never apologized. But you know my father was a really tough guy and he had friends you know and he acknowledged that I had been sexually abused but it wasn't him who did it. And I knew my father and he would move heaven and earth to find out who did do it you know. And he wasn't interested in that. He just wanted to deny it. So it wasn't a very convincing denial.

AMT: What about your mom?

JUDY REBICK: I don't believe my mother knew what was happening but she didn't know something was wrong as she admitted to me when I talked to her at that time. I think she didn't have the ability to deal with it and so she didn't. And then later I think once my father died I was able to heal my relationship with my mother. And I was glad for that because I really love my mother, was a wonderful person.

AMT: You talk about the stigma of mental health issues, you don't consider this mental illness.

JUDY REBICK: For me I don't know because I think it's kind of brilliant defense mechanism that a child can do. The child uses the only weapon she has which is her imagination.

AMT: When you talk about stigma you make the point that when you were leading the National Action Committee on the Status of Women which at the time was not universally liked, you got a lot of grief from political opponents, right? I mean are you worried about a backlash of people stigmatizing you like saying “Aha. Judy Rebick.” You know or do you care?

JUDY REBICK: I don't care anymore you know. It would bother me. I'm not saying it wouldn't. Especially Twitter you know it's relentless, right? But I don't think it's a reason not to do. I talk in the book about you know because I was really under threat during the pro-choice movement, people are trying to get me fired from work, somebody try to throw me off that subway platform. It was really serious threats and I talked to Henry Morgentaler about it and said “How do you how do you deal with this?” And he said “Well you know we can't let these people stop us from doing what we believe we have to do.” And that helped me at that time and I kind of feel that way now. You know the stigma on people who have mental health problems is really serious. We just handle it so badly and I think because of my privilege in the world you know I'm white and middle class, I'm well known, all those things, successful, you know all the ways that I have privilege I am able to tell this story. I didn't get marginalized. I could have at any point in the story I could have been marginalized, I could have wound up you know addicted to heroin or in the street. But I didn't.

AMT: You kept you kept fighting for like you know you fought the Meech Lake Accord, Indigenous rights during the Oka crisis. You've spent a life time using your voice to fight for the rights of others.

JUDY REBICK: Yes. It was healing for me like you know I was injured and nobody helped me. And so by helping others not in a social service way but in my case I did it in an advocacy way. It really made me feel better. And I think it does make you feel better. And the fighting, the standing up; one I was fearless and two I had a lot of anger. So it gave me a constructive way to use that anger. You know I don't tell the story in the book. But I was in a meeting with Michael Wilson who was the Victoria finance minister and at a certain point in the meeting, he is a really big guy, he sort of bulks up and moves across the table at me, and I said to him “Minister you know you might use those bully tactics on other people but doesn't work on me.” There was like a gasp in the room like nobody could believe I would talk to a minister like that, right? But I was really good. I had lots of practice standing up to bullies because of my father. So I was good at standing up to bullies and so I say that the injuries that I had and the disorder that I had actually made me a better activist.

AMT: In light of what you've been through and what you have learned about yourself and how you are today writing about all of this. How do you want us to view mental health not mental illness? How do you want us to view mental health differently?

JUDY REBICK: I think we have to say that everybody's brain is different and we perceive the world differently and we have to be more accepting of that behaviour. I'm hoping that by me coming forward with what most people would consider to be a serious mental illness it helps to make that happen. And I think I'd like to see that happen.

AMT: Thanks for being so honest.

JUDY REBICK: I can't help it. [laughs].

AMT: Thanks a lot.

JUDY REBICK: Thank you.

LL: Judy Rebick is a former head of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women and founder of the independent news site rabble.ca. Her memoir is titled, Heroes in My Head. And she spoke with Anna Maria Tremonti in April. Well that is our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Q. From Beetlejuice to Waiting for Guffman to SCTV, Catherine O'Hara has been making us laugh for decades. The beloved Canadian actor and comedian joins host Tom Power to talk about her long career and the new season of CBC comedy, Schitt's Creek, where she co-stars as the devilishly dramatic and supremely confident matriarch of the once wealthy Rose family. Remember, you can always take The Current with you to go on the CBC Radio app. It is free from the App Store or Google Play. Earlier in the show, we learned there are people in Canada and beyond, who really, really like racoons. So we're going to leave you with a ballad about the most famous fictional raccoon of all. Here are the Beatles. I'm Laura Lynch. Thanks for listening to the summer edition of The Current.

[Song: "Rocky Raccoon" by the Beatles]

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Aug. 13, 2018 episode transcript

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