Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2018

The Current Transcript for December 18, 2018

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Canada has a future for everybody. That's why I want to give it a chance. I want to take the risk because I know there's a future here for me and the baby.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: She's one person. One of tens of millions on the move across the globe. In her case, she's trying to cross over the U.S. border to Canada. Others walk up through South or Central America or walk within Africa. Many huddle on overcrowded boats trying to cross the Mediterranean and when they are at their weakest and most desperate, they often literally fall into the arms of Medecins Sans Frontieres, MSF, Doctors Without Borders. The head of that organization is a Canadian, Dr. Joanne Liu and she fights for such people, even as a growing number of countries and politicians fight to keep them away. Joanne Liu joins me in just a moment. And then the ghosts of summertimes’ past.

SOUNDCLIP

Sounds from a Montreal Expos game.

AMT: Could it be that the Expos will finally reappear in Montreal. For the Expos fans who've never given up, there is magic in the air right now. So listen Stephen Bronfman, Jonah Keri and Perry Giannias, the superfan with the biggest collection of Expos memorabilia, join me in half an hour. And Patty Stonefish stands about five feet tall and if anyone thinks they can mess with her, she will reduce them to a whimper. After being abused so many times, she turned to martial arts. Now she is arming her Indigenous sisters with self-love and empowerment and all they need to know about how to use pressure points to fight back.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: It doesn't matter that I'm a girl, it doesn't matter that I'm a woman, I have strength. Your strength just exists in different ways.

AMT: Meet Patty Stonefish in an hour. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

Back To Top »

MSF president worries world could lose its humanity over treatment of migrants

Guests: Joanne Liu

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Migration is a powerful driver of economic growth, dynamism and understanding. It allows millions of people to seek new opportunities, benefiting communities of origin and destination alike.

AMT: That is the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres in a video marking International Migrants Day, which is today. His message sounds uplifting and hopeful, but it has been a difficult year for people we call migrants and for the politics of migration. The UN's New International Compact on migration has been met with protests from Alberta to Belgium. The southern border of the US has been the scene of would be migrants fleeing canisters of tear gas, while overcrowded rafts continue to ply the Mediterranean Sea. For the past three weeks, the Medicins Sans Frontieres rescue vessel, Aquarius, was out on those waters.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: I don't think any rational person would decide to cross the Mediterranean Sea in a boat that I wouldn't even put on a nice calm lake back in Canada, if they felt they had any other safe alternative. If by calling us a taxi service they're acknowledging that we pull people out of the water who otherwise would have drowned, then we're happy to be a taxi service.

AMT: That is Ruby Pratka on the Aquarius in 2016. Well two weeks ago MSF announced that it was being forced to end operations because of what it called "sustained attacks" on search and rescue by European states. Dr. Joanne Liu is the international president of Medicin Sans Frontieres or Doctors Without Borders and she's with me in our Toronto studio. Welcome.

JOANNE LIU: Good morning. Thank you.

AMT: Sustained attacks on search and rescue by European states, what does that mean? What's happening?

JL: Sustained attack means that since we have been operating in the Mediterranean Sea, we've been at every turn, met some obstacle, administrative obstacle, legal obstacles, but all the time it's been a plot to make sure that we were not being able to bring back and rescue people. The latest one has been a legal prosecution of waste management in Italy, as well as the fact that we have in this just fall twice, our boat flag was removed and we just could not operate anymore without a boat flag. You don't drive a car without a driving license.

AMT: Waste Management, what are they talking about?

JL: They were saying that we were basically mixing our medical waste with other waste. This is a very small, I would say a mistake, but the thing is it's just to exemplify the fact that they will use every single excuse to make sure that we cannot do the lifesaving activity of search and rescue in the Mediterranean.

AMT: How many people was the Aquarius rescuing like a week when you were out there?

JL: Well this year the Aquarius had been rescuing more than 30,000 people and our three boats since 2015 had rescued more than 80,000 people.

AMT: So what happens to those people who are out on those little boats when there is no rescue vessel like the Aquarius out there?

JL: Well it's happening right now as I'm speaking to you. People are in boats and they're waiting for someone to come and rescue them. Many boats right now are passing by ignoring their distress and their signal of distress because the reason is the fact that in the past, commercial boat would pick up those people, but today if they pick them up, they have no safe port to disembark them. So now they don't want to do it anymore.

AMT: So the Aquarius isn't operating, are any boats operating?

JL: Right now, MSF doesn't have any more boats. The only few boats that are back there have very little capacity in terms of search and rescue and more of them are there to witness what's going on and then to talk about this situation.

AMT: So we know that some of those adrift will be picked up by the Libyan coast guard and returned to Libya. What do they face when they get back to Libya?

JL: So this in 2018, there were more than 14,000 people that were rescued in the Mediterrean Sea and brought back to Libya. Libya today is not a safe country. There were a lot of fighting. The government is split and people are brought back to what we call detention center for illegal migration. I visited one of those center and people are packed in filthy non-ventilated dark room. Most of the time they're not fed enough. Most of the time, there's not, you know the basic rule of dignity and I would say humanity in those centers.

AMT: And you're talking about the legal government Libyan centers, there are also clandestine centers. What's going on there? What are they?

JL: Well the clandestine one are the ones we don't have access unfortunately, but the stories that we hear from them are stories of abuses, extortion, sexual abuse, repeated rape, women being, I think the most distressing story I've heard is a woman telling me that every night you know they would come and then sexually abuse us and then in the end they will force us to call our family to beg for more money. That is the story of what is happening to people we're sending back to Libya today.

AMT: Where did they come from to get to Libya in the first place.

JL: Well many people are coming from the sub-Saharan countries of Africa. And so when I was there I remember seeing people from different countries from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Guinea, but it's like a really wide I would say range of countries of people basically it's like a funnel I would say effect of people coming through Libya because in the past as well before the fall of Gaddafi, it was a place to find a job. And then as the power dismantled, people got stuck there and then now what is happening is Libya is thriving on the business of migrant and it's a business basically of predation.

AMT: Now we know the Italian government policy is that migrants picked up at sea should be returned to Libya by the Libyan coast guard, why is that their policy?

JL: Well right now Italy is really having this I would say posture of at all costs, we don't want people to come on our shore and then basically they have foster for this to happen. There's some financial support, there's training to the Libyan coast guard, but as well, support to the detention center. Italy government, but as well the European Union and so what I keep saying and what I said on several occasion, MSF as an institution is saying well the cost of not seeing people coming onto the shore of Europe, it's a human cost. People are sent back and trapped I would say a business of organized crime, on extortion of abuses, while they're trying to make a journey to a better life.

AMT: So they can spend years just going in that circle and being like completely abused when they get, like they escape and then they get thrown right back into it.

JL: That's exactly it, it's a circular pathway of migration. And then basically we spin them in those cycle until basically they escape or they die.

AMT: The Italian government, democratically elected government, the interior minister, his party ran explicitly on these sorts of strict migration controls. Italy has the right to control its migration. Where does Europe go with this? We just see, there's a story in Europe where they've tried to take Angela Merkel to court on allowing thousands of migrants in as a constitutional violation. That was turned down, but increasingly a number of countries are saying we can't do this anymore.

JL: Well we cannot do this anymore and you know I have sympathy for people saying that it's a overwhelming situation to a certain extent, but we need to compare that to some countries who have welcomed three million migrants from Syria like Turkey or in Lebanon, where one in four person is a refugee. So the thing is this is why the value of a double compact migration because it's a non-binding compact and it's basically stating the very basic and the very basic is very simple, is a migrant is not a criminal? A migrant doesn't lose his right as a human being because he or she has crossed a border. Meaning they are entitled to be treated with dignity and humanity and last and for us quite important is the fact that you cannot criminalize people who are bringing aid to migrants.

AMT: Yeah. It is a non-binding compact and Canada is now a signatory to this U.N. Global Compact on migration. If it's non-binding, how effective is it?

JL: Well there's a lot of things that have been I would say put forward and non-binding per say, but it's a way of reaffirming that we are upholding to collective commitment that are human that are bringing dignity and then it's for me a defining moment. There's 250 million migrants around the world. I belong to those living in Geneva and the international prison of MSF and there's the people who are migrant because they're forced. It's what I call survival migration. And so those people are about 68 million, they're refugees and internally displaced people. And the reality is like it or not, those people will not disappear on the problematic of what's going on right now. This is a defining moment because this is how we're going to define our shared humanity, our common humanity. And then it is important because I think in the time of uncertainty, in the time that the global order is changing, where countries of influence are changing, we need to make sure that we are not drifting apart. We need to make sure that we're not walking away from our humanity because not recognising our shared humanity with the migrant is somehow denying our own humanity.

AMT: I have a clip I want you to listen to. There is opposition to the compact globally also in Canada. Listen to Conservative leader Andrew Shear's objections to Canada signing on to it.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: We strongly oppose Justin Trudeau's plan to sign Canada on to the UN global compact on migration. It gives influence over Canada's immigration system to foreign entities. It attempts to influence our free and independent media report on immigration issues and it could open the door to foreign bureaucrats telling Canada how to manage our borders. Canadians and Canadians alone should make decisions on who comes into our country and under what circumstances.

AMT: Dr. Joanne Liu, how do you respond to what Andrew Scheer is saying?

JL: Well you know I think we have to listen with people with some sort of empathy and understanding. Right now the migration issue is a dividing issue. We need to take stoke of that. We need to hear people's fear and concern. The reality, this is all manageable and the global compact is really clear. It's about safe, orderly and regular migration and the reality is if we are to basically enact that, we will create a win-win situation and if we are not to enact that, it's going to be a loss-loss situation because I believe that in Canada, the Canadians do not want to send a mother, a father, back to where they come from, where they're going to be abused, where they're going to be violented or they don't want as well to have a seven-year-old child to die whence she has crossed the border to the U.S. Nobody wants to use and hear those kinds of stories because we have that shared humanity. So what I'm saying is just like no of course you know it needs to be managed, but in no way and he was very clear, Antonio Guterres, the secretary general was very clear in his opening speech at the Global Compact. Myth number one, the Global Compact is not infringing on the sovereignty of a country.

AMT: You just mentioned a child dying. The United States opposed the pact. It didn't sign on. We know a little girl from Guatemala, Jakelin Caal, seven-years-old, died in custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection last week. There are conflicting reports what happened to her. Her father has disputed a claim by U.S. authorities that she had not had anything to eat or drink for several days before being detained by Border Patrol. When you heard that she died, what did you think? How did you react to that?

JL: Well it's dramatically and tragically upsetting, but her story is the story of many other children, mother and father across different borders in the world. And that's what we're fighting. We're fighting the indifference of people suffering and people of migration for survival. And this is why I say that I'm calling upon people's humanity of saying we understand that it's not an open bar, but we understand that we have to response to what is going on right now and I think that is what I call, I would say, our shared responsibility as human being, part of this world. So it's for me, I find it tragic that people are using that are surfing on the wave of populism to bring I would say a negative narrative and I think as well that it's very important that instead of focusing on countries, on the very few countries who are I would say challenging the global compacts, we are not focusing on the 164 countries who are standing tall and strong to implement a safe, regular and orderly migration compact.

AMT: How long have you been working on this stuff?

JL: Well MSF have been working more and more since 2012 and it was clear that we cannot turn a blind eye on this phenomenon of increasing number of people looking for a future. And I always say that migration is a phenomenon that's been existing the world has border. This is nothing new, but what we have to acknowledge and appreciate is that it is universal. That parents are looking for a future for their children. I always say it's unbeatable. There would be, there will be no wall tall enough to stop a father to look for a future for their children. Here in Canada, in Yemen, in Syria, in Central America, universal.

AMT: Long before you started looking at the issues of migration you were in a lot of places where people were destitute facing immediate danger or famine or health issues and I remember you once told me about you know arriving places and they were already lined up with their children waiting for doctors like you to try to treat them. When you go from that to the bigger picture, what do you remember? What do you hang on to from the people that you met as a doctor working in the field with MSF to the president of your organization?

JL: Well when I look in the bigger picture of policies and when I'm trying to push for things in the name of the organization, I always remember a patient I cared for or a population I cared for. And I always say when we are trying to do something or implement a new way of working, I say how does it improve the way we care for a child in Yemen? And if it doesn't, I think we should question ourselves.

AMT: You make the point that there are so many people on the move right now. How do we work with people so that they don't have to flee? How do we get to that place?

JL: Well the thing is we have to look why they're leaving. And then people are fleeing, it was very clear when I was in Central America, is people are fleeing because they are a victim of violence. I was really stunned when I met a father and he told me I couldn't leave anymore with the idea of going to work and coming back and not being sure that my child will be back from school because he might have been abducted. I could not leave with that feeling anymore. And another father who told me, well my daughter was picked by one of the boys, a muchacho, who's part of a gang and he said this is my girl. My daughter is 12-year-old. There's no way she's going to be a girl with a muchacho. And they decided to leave, so they changed place, but there's a difference of a wartime in other area, there you know I would say the collateral damage of a war, but this is personalized violence towards you. There's retaliation because you did not say yes to the gang person and so you have to flee because they are after you.

AMT: Joanne Liu, thank you for sharing what you know. Thank you.

JL: Thank you very much.

AMT: That is Dr. Joanne Liu, she's the international president of Medicin Sans Frontieres or Doctors Without Borders. She's with me in our Toronto studio. Let us know what you think of what she had to say on this international day, International Migrant's Day. Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook. Go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Stay with us, the news is next. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current on CBC Radio One.

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

'A lot of heavy lifting to be done' before Montreal Expos can return, says sports writer

Guests: Stephen Bronfman, Jonah Keri, Perry Giannias

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Still to come, martial arts with a twist. Patty Stonefish may stand just five feet tall, she can hold her own against anyone in a fight and she is spreading a message of self defense and self empowerment. In half an hour we will head inside her studio to hear about her program, Arming Sisters, but first, play ball.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: It was a beautiful day. It was about 70 degrees and the sun was shining. They finished doing the right field stands about an hour before the fans arrived. It was such a festive day and I remember the starting pitcher was a fellow named Larry Jaster and we got off to a big start with a number of runs and then Jaster gave up the bit and then all of sudden St. Louis was ahead and I was very sorrowful at centre, we wound up 8-7.

AMT: Well that's Charles Bronfman the man who helped bring Major League Baseball to Canada, speaking with me two years ago about the Montreal Expos first home opener in 1969. The storied team left Montreal for Washington D.C. in 2004, but diehard Expos fans have never given up hope that big league baseball might someday come back. And now Charles Bronfman's son Stephen has joined with other business leaders and investors to lay the groundwork for that possibility. Last week the group released a study arguing the conditions are ripe for a viable return. Here's the mayor of Montreal, Valerie Plante.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: We're thrilled, you know it's exciting and we will be participating. We need to evaluate what kind of participation, how we will collaborate, but so far so good. We all agree that the need for or it would be a great opportunity for Montreal.

AMT: As for Expo's fans, there was already excitement in the air at the prospect of baseball's return when the Toronto Blue Jays played a preseason game at Montreal's Olympic Stadium this past spring.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Yeah actually I'm 40-years-old and it's pretty much 25 years that I've been a fan of the Expos. So my two sons here, they were born and they love baseball. So we're here tonight to celebrate baseball and we really hope that the Expos will come back. We're going to cheer for the Blue Jays today, but for sure we're going to wait for the Expos to come back.

VOICE 2: What do you think the chances of them coming back are?

VOICE 3: Honestly not very good, but I hold hope.

VOICE 2: What do you think their chances of them coming back here are?

VOICE 4: I have some insights so I better not say, but hopefully the one percent opportunity that a team relocates or expands, I'm like a hundred pe cent positive it's going to happen.

AMT: Well Expos fans were given a little more reason to hope last week after reports that the Tampa Bay Rays are having trouble building a new stadium. And so people are speculating that franchise could relocate north to the great baseball city of Montreal. Stephen Bronfman is the executive chair of the investment firm, Claridge and he is on the line from Montreal. Hello.

STEPHEN BRONFMAN: Good morning, Anna Maria.

AMT: How confident should baseball fans in Montreal be that the Expos are coming back?

SB: Well I've done some press in the last week and I've done some press in the last few years and I always try and temper the excitement, but we have been working for several years with Major League Baseball. Every sort of step that we've taken over these past few years has been positive and I'm a glass half full kind of person and you know I'm hoping that eventually something positive will happen.

AMT: Now we know the Expos have been gone for 14 years and Montrealers have wanted to bring them back for at least ten of them. So what is different now?

SB: Well I think the landscape has changed both in baseball and with our city. We're in a real resurgence here in Montreal. We joke that the crane is now the national bird and we're catching up to your great city in Toronto and Vancouver and the like, you know politically things are calm. You know investment is strong. We're doing a lot of infrastructural rebuild here and I think the timing is right and I think the timing in baseball is right as well.

AMT: And so tell me a little bit more about the study.

SB: Well the study was really positive. I mean we hired CSL, which is a group from Jarry Jones' company called Legends. They're really world-class advisors or consultants when it comes to stadium, not construction, but stadium project. So sponsorships and the like and everything they did was you know the numbers came out really, really strong. They were just you know super excited with the fact that 14,000 people entered online to complete a study that wasn't a two minute study, it was a 20 minute study, that people you know online survey that people referred to and you know which is great for us because we got tons and tons of information, not just about sponsorship issues and like, but also about what fans would want. So the nice thing about having time is that eventually when we do or hopefully build this stadium, we can really tailor it to the wants and needs of the local population.

AMT: And some of what they would want has to do with even the size of the stadium, right?

SB: Well I think the you know it's popular to have sort of a down-sized a stadium. You know we were always sort of you know we had the Olympic Stadium, which wasn't great. I like to think of it as a Jarry Park 2.0 and it was great that you played that clip from dad who was talking about that opening day in 1969 and I'm sure what a joyous occasion it was.

AMT: So there are two ways the Expos could return through expansion or relocation of an existing franchise. Which would you prefer?

SB: We're open. It's kind of in the hand of the league. So you know we're waiting for the tap on the shoulder. We've been doing our homework and been sort of covering all the bases so to speak very methodically. Put a really solid group of business people involved, I think we have some pretty good support on the media side and on the population side and you know we're just doing, as we were told, I mean we've been working with the New York office of Major League Baseball and sort of being again, like I said methodical and doing all we can to ensure the confidence of New York.

AMT: And that's important I guess because Quebec City built a new arena with significant public funding in the hopes of enticing the NHL to return the Nordiques and the NHL has awarded two expansion franchises since then. Neither went to Quebec City. How do you guard against something like that?

SB: Well Field of Dreams was a great movie, but we're not going to be hopeully building it and they will come. We'll wait for the positive news and you know I think our next step is to secure a site. We have a couple in mind and then just move ahead bit by bit, step by step.

AMT: So would the return be contingent on getting a new stadium?

SB: I mean that's the model we could always play for a season or two, depending on timing, at the Olympic stadium. I mean we have a place to play ball, as the Jays have come several years in a row and we've had some pretty good success there, albeit you know two games at a time.

AMT: And we know that governments in the past said no to investing public money to build a new stadium. Do you think the mood in City Hall and the provincial legislature is different now?

SB: You know it's a team effort right, not just on the field, but in the board room. So everyone has a role to play. It's a complicated puzzle and every little piece has to fit sort of into place and you know everyone will have a role to play.

AMT: So when you fit those pieces of the puzzle together, when do you think the Expos could be playing again in Montreal?

SB: That's the gazillion dollar question. I can't answer it. You know we're getting ready and again we get the call from Commissioner Manfred's office, we'll be ready.

AMT: And we did hear your dad there reminiscing. What would it mean to you if you could pull this off?

SB: Well you know this has been sort of a passion project. As much as it's great for the city, for the province, for the country and as a matter of fact, you know I've been investing time, thank goodness I have a day job, but I've been putting some pretty good time into it and heart and I think a lot of people in the city have and it would be great. I mean it's kind of a family project that's been over time and you know dad sort of gave up the reins to other groups and things kind of fell apart over the years. Unfortunate, but you know the climate in the city was different as well. And so we're you know 14-15 years later and I think a lot has changed.

AMT: Okay Stephen Bronfman, we'll be watching. Thanks.

SB: Thanks, Anna Maria.

AMT: Stephen Bronfman, executive chair of the investment firm Claridge. He is leading efforts to bring the Expos back to Montreal and he joined us from Montreal. Claude "Frenchy" Raymondhad a 12 year career as a Major League pitcher. In 1969, he was traded from the division leading Atlanta Braves to the last place Montreal Expos. Not a situation most professionals would look forward to, but when we spoke with him this week Mr. Raymond said the inaugural season was overwhelming.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: You know I came here and the team wasn't going anywhere, but the fans were there. The fans were having fun. You know people were dancing in the aisles. The popcorn, the peanut guy was throwing peanut bags everywhere. You know it was a lot of action around Jarry Park and every time I went to the mound, Lapierre used to play, he's got the whole world in his hands. So whenever I walked from the bullpen to the mound, I felt like I was carrying all the fans from Montreal, all the fans from the province of Quebec, all the fans from Canada. It was great. The fans were outstanding.

AMT: Well the passion of the fans turned the Expos into Canada's team long before the Toronto Blue Jays took that title. Now Montrealers say the city's baseball fans are ready and waiting to take it back, if the Expos finally return. Jonah Keri is a writer for CBS Sports and host of The Jonah Keri podcast. He is also the author of the best-selling book about the Montreal Expos. It is called Up Up and Away. He joins us from Montreal. Perry Giannias is a life-long Expos fan and founder of Expo's Fest, which is an annual charity gala that has raised more than $400,000 for the Montreal Children's Hospital. Mr. Giannias also owns the world's largest collection of Expos memorabilia and he joins us Laval, just outside Montreal. Hello to you both.

JONAH KERI: Hello.

PERRY GIANNIAS: Hi Anna Maria.

AMT: Jonah Keri let's start with you. How much stock do you put in this latest talk of a possible Expos comeback?

JK: Well I mean you have to do with a little bit of a grain of salt and understand that this is a process and reaching out to enthusiastic fans and hearing them say yes, we want a ballpark and we want a team. That's great, but there's a lot of heavy lifting to be done. But the thing that I put my head on is what the commissioner has said. It's one thing for diehard Expos fans to declare this is definitely going to happen, but when you have press conferences, when you have reports, when you have the commissioner of baseball saying, relocation or expansion is an option and when we look at candidates for a city that can fit the bill, Montreal is at or near the top of the list. That wins a lot of credence to the theory.

AMT: Perry Giannias, what do you think, could the Expos really be coming back?

PG: Oh yeah, I can't temper my excitement. The fact that they let us go ahead and make those statements at the winter meetings, you know that got the blessing of the commissioner. So that means a heck of a lot. So I think it's just a matter of time and I hope for Tampa Bay, if not we'll take expansion, we'll take anything, but Tampa's on my radar. So I'm really super psyched.

AMT: Jonah, this isn't the first time fans have had their hopes up though. So what's really different this time?

JK: Quite a bit actually. First of all, the economics of the game have changed. If you look at it before, you had a situation where attendance was everything and now it really is the case of TV revenue and central revenue makes a big difference. You do need to put butts in seats, but if you can find the right media deal that could mean a lot. And there has been rumblings, not too subtly, that Bell, the very large telecommunications and media giant, could be involved and it would make a lot of sense, the same way that Rogers owning the Blue Jays makes a lot of sense from that standpoint. The other thing that's changed is that you have a more committed ownership group. Back in the day, the biggest reason that the Expos failed, wasn't necessarily failure of the fans. It was that once Charles Bronfman left, once he sold the team, you had a consortium of local companies, very well heeled, but no interest in really truly supporting the team, not financially, not the spirit, not anything. Now the group that's lining up really seems committed to all that. So there is optimism there and it's well founded. And the last thing that I would add is that Montreal has changed. I was actually away myself for 20 years. I was born and raised here, I went away to the States and I came back. It's a different city now. It's younger, it's entrepreneurial. It's really up and coming in terms of the business community. It just has a different flavor to it such that now there is a belief that it could be supported in a way that maybe it wasn't supported before.

AMT: So Perry, the Expos have had some extremely charismatic and talented players over the years. Remind us of some of the greats.

PG: Oh boy, where do you start? I guess you start with the original group of guys in 1969, you know we had Coco Laboy. We had Bill Stoneman obviously. You know, having Claude Raymond on the team, which you guys just played a clip from was amazing, a guy from St. Jean. And Claude is one of the best ambassadors for baseball and not only Quebec, but in all of Canada. Move along, when we got the dream of having Gary Carter, Andre Dawson on the same team with Ellis Valentine. Moving on, you know the 80s team, the team that should have won, but for you know for different reasons never never clicked, including in 1981 when we made our only playoff appearance. You know moving star after star after star, we made stars. We made you know Hall of Famers, Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, there's you know Vladimir Guerrero, there's just so many. We you know, I dare a Blue Jays fan to give you the same list I just give you.

AMT: Jonah, there was a lot of sorrow among fans about what happened in 1994. Remind us how that season unfolded.

JK: The Expos had the best record in baseball and then they got screwed. That is the short version of it. The longer version is that it was a wonderful team. It was well built in the early to mid 90s. Larry Walker and Marquis Grissom and Moises Alou and John Wetteland and Pedro Martinez, a really terrific and very young team, one that not only had a chance to win that year, when they had the best record in baseball, but potentially to build a dynasty. And what ended up happening was there was an impasse with the owners. The owners basically didn't want the big market teams, didn't want to share money with the small market teams. So the big market teams and the small market teams got together and said let's take it out of the player's hides and so they put the screws to the players and demanded all kinds of drags on salaries and the players said, well this is not right, we're not going to do this. Rightfully so, by the way and so the players ended up going on strike and the end result was that for the first time in this century basically, there was no World Series. There were no playoffs and this was the time for the Expos. You know if you think about the Atlanta Braves who went on this huge, huge run of division titles and even if you think about the New York Yankees dynasty of the 90s, I would submit to you, that if that season had just played out, all you got to do is play it out and then let that team be, that Expos team. They don't even need to make any major signing, just let those young guys mature together. There is a scenario in which there's no Atlanta Braves dynasty, there's no New York Yankees dynasty and the entire history of baseball is rewritten. But because of horrendous timing and extreme greed by the owners, we never got a chance to see that happen.

AMT: The strike ended up just stopping everything.

JK: It sure did.

AMT: And then Perry, things really unraveled for the team. What happened?

PG: Well I am very sad to start the morning. Thanks a lot, Jonah.

AMT: We'll get you back on track there, but just work with me here.

PG: 1995. That was you know what Jonah just said was 100 percent correct and then you know what, we come back in 95 and are all excited, you know what, OK we're going to pick up where we left off and I still remember the quote from Phillipe in Spring training. Phillipe how are you thinking, you know how you feeling about your team this year? Well he goes, besides losing my starting pitcher, my starting reliever, my starting center fielder and my starting right fielder, I'm feeling pretty good. You know like no team and I want everybody to understand, no fan base would recover from the betrayal of 1995. What they did to us as fans was unacceptable and that started the decline. 94 hurt a lot, but 95 started the downward spiral of the Montreal Expos.

AMT: I got another clip I want to play from the former Expos great, Claude Raymond. After wrapping up his career in 1971, he continued working for the team for decades as a broadcaster and coach until the team left in 2004. Here he is recalling the team's final day.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Well it tore my heart apart. That day I cried all day because in the morning of that last day, we went through the whole organization what we thought they do in the next two or three years, the next four five years, we went through all that. And when that meeting was over about three o'clock in the afternoon, they told us that the team was moving to Washington. And then the interviews started and then I couldn't stop crying. It was one of the worst day of my life.

AMT: Perry Giannias, what was it like for you?

PG: Wow I was angry. I was you know I understand Claude, I was just upset like a lot of other Expos fans. I had you know switched of during that year and I said you know what, it was you know there was sadness, but I was just really ticked off and that feeling didn't go away for years and years. Probably until Gary died. And that was for most, Gary Carter, so that was for most Montreal Expos the same thing. That's when the movement really started to get the Expos back because you know what, it took years to heal and that's when we decided you know what, we were Canada's team. We were the first and we won our team back, but yeah I was pretty ticked off more than I was sad.

AMT: Jonah, so how does Tampa Bay play into all of this?

JK: Well so this happens every time there's a franchise that is struggling in one way or other and in the case of the Tampa Bay Rays and it happens that I've written a book about them too, so I could speak to that a little bit.

AMT: Uh oh, I see a pattern here, Jonah.

JK: Yeah I'm the patron saint of lost causes when it comes to baseball apparently. But in the case of the Rays you've got a team that has had some on field success on a shoestring budget, but they've been dealing with a lousy stadium deal forever. They had the fewest fans within a 30 minute drive by a mile. It's essentially a peninsula where the stadium is. It's also an ugly and lousy stadium and so it creates a situation where attendance is not great and there has been an impasse in terms of where or even if they will build a new stadium and so everybody sitting around trying to figure it out. Just recently there was an announcement that an effort to push for a stadium in downtown Tampa just failed, so now they have to restart the whole thing. But they're getting second and third and fourth chances and they still have a lease that's ongoing at their current stadium until 2027. So it's possible that it might not be as imminent as one would be led to believe, but certainly again, when this stuff happens, the commissioner and the owner will put the screws to the team and try to make it to so that rather to the city and try to make it so that the city and county and the state builds a stadium with public funds and if that were to happen then there would not be relocation and if that doesn't happen then it potentially opens the door for relocation. And if that were to happen, then Montreal becomes you know one of, if not the prime candidate to receive that team.

AMT: So if this happens Perry, what are you going to do with that big collection, going to put it somewhere where everybody can see it?

PG: Oh my God, I'd love to do that.

AMT: Where is it now, Perry?

PG: It's in my basement, much to my wife's delight and you know it's just something that I love to look. Like I never thought they would come back like at one point, so I just went crazy and I said well at least I'll be able to you know look at it and remember what used to be the Montreal Expos, but you know it belongs somewhere where everybody could see it and you know we have a bit of a problem with that in Montreal right now that our history of baseball is really not on display anywhere. And slowly, slowly we're going to be changing that next year with the 50th anniversary of the Montreal Expos. So there's a whole bunch of activities planned. Hopefully get something up at Jarry Park that says that you know what, the Montreal Expos were here because right now there is absolutely nothing to indicate that the Montreal Expos played at Jarry Park. You know there's only a tennis stadium there.

AMT: And so do you have like your most favorite item?

PG: Boy, so many favorite items. I have, I would imagine my favorite item is the last jersey Gary Carter wore to hit a double off Andre Dawson's head in 1992. It was his last hit, his last at bat and then he soon retired. So I guess that's my favorite because he was like my favorite player. So I guess that's my baby.

AMT: Okay and it's all in the basement right now?

PG: Yeah.

AMT: On display?

PG: On display nicely I would say.

AMT: Okay not in boxes, like on display?

PG: No I don't like boxes.

AMT: So we could line up and we can go in your basement.

PG: I don't think my wife would like that too much.

AMT: OK, well we'll have to leave it there. We'll wait to see what happens. Thank you both of you for weighing in on this one.

PG: Thank you, Anna Maria.

JK: Thanks for having me.

AMT: That is Jonah Keri, writer for CBS Sports and host of the Jonah Keri podcast. He is also the author of a best-selling book about the Montreal Expos. It is called Up Up and Away. He joined us from Montreal. Perry Giannias is a lifelong Expos fan. He founded Expos Fest, an annual charity gala that has raised more than $400,000 for the Montreal Children's Hospital. He also owns the world's largest collection of Expos memorabilia. But no you cannot go in his basement and look at it. He is in Laval, Quebec, just outside of Montreal. Now you heard Claude Frenchy Raymond mention the organ music of Fernand Lapierre at those Expos games, got a little more of that playing the Expos theme at Jarry Park.

SOUNDCLIP

Music played by Fernand Lapierre for the Montreal Expos.

Makes you want to go out and buy a hot dog, doesn't it? There you go. In our next half hour, self defence for Indigenous women and ballet shoes for dancers of colour. I'm from Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current on CBC Radio One, Sirius XM, online on cbc.ca/thecurrent, podcast and on your radio app.

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

How a self-defence course is arming Indigenous women with the tools to heal

Guests: Patty Stonefish

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and this is The Current. Patty Stonefish is 27-years-old. She stands about five feet tall, she's covered in tattoos and there's one more important thing to know about her, she can take down a man no matter how much bigger than her he is. She has been studying martial arts and self-defence since she was 13-years-old. Five years ago, she launched her own brand of self defense. It's called Arming Sisters. And it goes against almost everything she was taught. Rather than focusing on how to fight someone off or prevent an attack, Arming Sisters is about healing and empowerment. And it is geared almost exclusively to Indigenous women. After taking her workshops across the US, Patty Stonefish came to Canada for the first time this Fall. She led a group of Indigenous women through a day long work shop in Vancouver. That was hosted by the Pacific Association of First Nation women and that's where The Current met up with her.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Alright so I'm going to cover things that are usually covered in your mainstream women's self defense course. I'm going to tell you how they're usually covered and I'll cover them the way from a healing point of view, from a healing aspect.

[Teaching class]

VOICE 1: I'm Patty Stonefish. I am Lakota, Polish and Russian. I'm originally from North Dakota and I am the founder and I guess everything else right now with Arming Sisters.

[Teaching class]

VOICE 1: But I do not want anyone in here to say they're sorry. Don't apologize to me.

VOICE 2: I can't stand that word.

VOICE 1: I can't stand it either.

VOICE 2: I am a Canadian, I do not like anyone saying sorry.

VOICE 1: There was a point in my life when I wanted to go into the military, but my mom at the time was like okay well if you want to go into the military, you're going to need to learn something, some sort of self defense. I wanted to go in gymnastics, but she put me in tae kwon do. I absolutely hated the first class and the master at the time, the instructor, I think he noticed that and told me to stay after for the sparring class and just see how it was and the competition team and see how that was involved and it involved a lot of self defense. And I fell in love with it.

[Teaching class].

VOICE 1: I'm going to start with verbalisation. Verbalisation is usually taught in women's self-defence course as, no stop, like that's going to stop an attack.

[Laughter].

VOICE 1: It didn't matter that I was the only girl in the course. It never mattered to him. In fact my first competition I ever went to, he was like well there's no other woman in your age group or in your weight range, so I put you in the men's division and I was shocked. What do you mean, but with him, it was nothing. He was always like it's okay, you got it. You're fine. You're a lot stronger. And that showed me, it doesn't matter that I'm a girl, it doesn't matter that I'm a woman. I have strength. I just use it in different ways and it comes from different areas and it was really neat to be able to be shown that, no you have this power.

[Teaching class]

VOICE 1: You're just as strong as anybody else. Your strength just exists in different ways.

[Class shouts NO]

VOICE 1: There's these other parts of defense that we don't think about as well. Yes, we have the physical aspect of women self defense, but the other parts aren't often covered, spiritual self defense. We have to defend ourselves spiritually, emotionally, mentally when it comes to relationships, establishing boundaries, what a healthy relationship looks like, what even a healthy relationship with yourself and being able to vocalize and saying simple things like no.

[Class shouts NO]

VOICE 1: One of my coaches was based in Egypt and I've gone a couple times already through college just to train and vist and I got close to the country. I got out of an abusive relationship after I graduated and it was either restart in Martinsburg, West Virginia or restart in Cairo, Egypt. Why would I turn down Egypt, so I went to Egypt. The Arab Spring started in 2010 actually and echoed into Egypt January 2011 and seeing the women go from almost silent to very powerful and patriarchy became something that was talked about suddenly and it really opened my eyes to a lot of things in the world and a lot of things the way women are treated in society. And so I grew in there somewhere and I was approached at some point to give women's self defense courses and I was like yeah I'll assist, like I have been for years. I'll just assist, whatever. And me assisting means I'm usually pretty quiet and just helping with the moves. It dawned on me, I think I was in a wrist lock and the way he was talking, it was like well what you're saying is you're telling me it's my fault. And I don't agree with this and it's not my responsibility to stop anything. And I just suddenly didn't agree with any of it. But that's the world we live with, this is the culture that we live in, is it’s placed on women as our responsibility to stop this sexual assault. It's our responsibility to end this and it's not. It's our responsibility to continue living and existing and to heal. It's not our responsibility to stop any thing and it is not our fault if we didn't stop anything.

[Teaching class]

VOICE 1: We're going to go over choking next. You're being grabbed from behind. So drop your head. A lot of the times we feel like in this position, but she doesn't have the upper hand and people think that I do, but I don't because my hands are busy. My hands are full. Meanwhile, she's got everything open. She's got her hands, she's got her legs. She has the upper hand here.

[Teaching class]

VOICE 1: I really don't like the idea of utilizing one's self defence as only prevention. There such a bigger part because it can be an extremely powerful tool of healing and that's what it was for me throughout my life, as I've been molested, raped, sexually assaulted numerous times, as most Indigenous women have and having women's self defense there for me has really given me the chance at every point to be as a reminder to be like oh wait, I am strong because after sexual assault, you do feel very weak. You feel weak to your core, not only physically, but emotionally, mentally, spiritually, you feel very weak. And getting to see your physical power in action outside of yourself creates this domino effect where you start questioning, okay well if I'm physically not weak, even though I thought I was, maybe I'm also much stronger than I thought I was spiritually, mentally and emotionally.

[Teaching class]

VOICE 1: We don't learn that we can physically fight back. It's not really a thing. Even women that grew up with brothers are still learning how to fight for men. We've been told that it's not okay to roughhouse and we don't fight with other, we don't have that physicality and I think there's something really important in knowing how to utilize your body as a woman, not as a tool of you know sexuality, we're pretty much told your bodies are good for sexual anything as women. We're not really told that, oh hey, your body can do amazing things like take down a guy that's three times your size. This isn't taught to us and I think that's really important that we get reminded that because it's there. It's instinctual.

[Teaching class]

VOICE 3: My name is Lorelei Williams. You know I have done a lot of self defense courses and then seeing this one, I'm like wow there is a difference between those. I did a self defense course and I was being all cocky. I went to my friend's place and I was like I just learned all these moves and let's see if you could take me down. He took me down in two seconds. You know she's right you know, you're not going to see the perpetrator come. You're not going to get ready like you're not going to know, right. And they're going to get close to you and even when they're that close, you're going to think like oh no this is not happening to me, right. So I like what she's teaching because it's reality.

[Teaching class]

VOICE 1: At the end of the courses I usually share my own personal story because it helps to know that we're not alone and it helps to hear other people's stories to let us know that we are in this together and you're not the only one who experienced this because there's a young girl in here I would tell, I would start with one of my, the first time I was molested, I was 12. And my story is, it was in North Dakota, I was out late at night. My family at the time was very all over the place. But I snuck out at night and I got chased. I heard this truck coming out and I was walking home, I heard this truck coming up and that intuition feeling, it's like something's off. So I started walking faster and faster and sure enough they came up and they were hanging out of their truck, yelling and banging on the side of it. And looking back, they were definitely intoxicated. And I started running and the last thing, I just remember them yelling we're going to kill you squa. And the only thing that I remember was my mom telling me, if you're ever in the path of a tornado, cut to the side. So I ran to the side and I tried to hide, but they, it didn't work. They found me. They molested me and they left. And I went home and I didn't see anything for six years, not even to myself because once you speak something out loud, it's real. You can't deny it anymore, not even to yourself and that's where I was at. And that's my story to tell because so many times, I mean at this point, I've told it so many times I can say it without crying. It's light to me now. The more we tell our stories the lighter they get. So sharing stories is medicine, but it's hard to share those stories and people think that they're alone in these feelings and people always think that they're alone in their experience. So that's one of the stories I tell most often because a lot of us have childhood trauma and to recognize and to hear someone else say that, hey this happened to me too is really comforting. And that's what I like to pass on.

[Teaching class]

VOICE 1: Thank you for sharing this. That's powerful, that's powerful medicine and I know it's hard for you to say. Thank you. After that story I think it is right that we sing again. It's needed.

[Group sings]

VOICE 4: It's very emotional, hearing other people's stories, it kind of brings back those feelings of how I felt going through stuff like that. When I hear her talking about you know saying it's okay to say no and I'm just slowly starting to realize that for myself. So yeah.

VOICE 1: One woman who took my course, the first day she came to the course was her first day sober. She had just gotten out of an abusive relationship due to circumstances surrounding it her kids were taken away in the process and I watched her come alive in that course. And it was amazing to see, but I didn't expect that I would be a part of her life moving forward and that years down the road she is now in college, she has her kids back. She moved across the country. She is thriving and she pinpoints that day as the day that she remembered how strong she was, regardless of what happened to her.

[Class singing]

VOICE 1: A lot of women don't tell their stories. I have many women tell their stories for the first time in these courses. And you see their faces change. You see their body language change for the good because they're releasing a weight. It's like giving them life to these words releases them from you and it's been the same for me. That's been extremely healing for me. We are all in this together and unfortunately many native women are survivors of sexual assault and at this point, we have no choice, but to heal together.

[Class singing]

AMT: Powerful session with Patty Stonefish. She's from North Dakota. What you just heard was her doing a workshop of Arming Women, which is a non-profit organization she created. Thanks to the CBC's Jennifer Chrumka and The Current's documentary editor, Liz Hoath, for bringing us that story. And as you listened to some of those stories, let us know what you think of what they're saying and how Patty Stonefish is going about this. You can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook or go to our website cbc.ca/TheCurrent. This is The Current on CBC Radio One.

Back To Top »

Meet Raven Wilkinson, the black ballerina who blazed a trail long before shoes came in brown and bronze

Guests: Virginia Johnson, Leda Schubert

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Okay ladies, remember come back to your centre from the front to the side. Okay front to the side. Here we go.

[Ballet music]

AMT: At a class this week at the National Ballet School in Toronto, dancers practiced their plies and pirouettes, just as generations have before them, but there's something new afoot in the ballet world. It's one of those little things that can mean a lot. One of the biggest manufacturers of ballet shoes announced that it will be selling its shoes in different colours. Ballet or point shoes, as they're known, are traditionally either light pink or white for ballerinas, but the company, Freed of London, is rolling out two new hues, "ballet brown" and "ballet bronze." Our producer, Sarah Joyce Battersby, dropped by the National Ballet School, for some student reaction.

SOUNDCLIP

[Music]

VOICE: It makes me feel happy cause I think they're opening up the dance world more by adding different colours of shoes, which is great.

AMT: That is 16-year-old ballet student Rachel Zinman. She began taking classes at Canada's National Ballet School when she was in grade six. At the time she was the only black girl in her class. Lisa Marie Jourdain is an instructor at the school.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: I think it's wonderful. Like it keeps the line between the color of the leg and the feet.

AMT: Well for more on how the new shoes are being received in the ballet world, I'm joined by Virginia Johnson. She's a former prima ballerina. She is a founding member and the current artistic director of Dance Theater of Harlem, a New York company that showcases diverse ballet dancers. They're currently on tour in Grand Rapids, Michigan and that's where we've reached Virginia Johnson today. Hello.

VIRGINIA JOHNSON: Good morning, Anna Maria. How are you?

AMT: I'm well and I'm curious to talk about this with you. How did first of all Dance Theater of Harlem come to be?

VJ: Dance Theater of Harlem was founded 50 years ago by Arthur Mitchell and Karel Shook. Arthur Mitchell was the first African American to be a permanent member of an American Ballet Company. And after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Junior in 1968, Arthur Mitchell was trying to figure out what he could do as a ballet dancer to make the kind of difference and the kind of change in the world that Dr. King had done. So he decided to open a school in Harlem, where he would teach the young people life skills, such as focus and discipline and that most potent thing, perseverance, to change their lives. He actually realized that these young people needed role models, they needed something to aspire to. So he took the 400 kids that were gathered around him and they said I'm going to make a company. And he brought in people like myself who had been told, no you can't be part of this art form because of the colour of your skin. You don't belong here. So he created Dance Theater of Harlem company to show the world that it's about opportunity, it's about access. If you have the talent, if you have the training, then why can't you do this?

AMT: And in the beginning the dancers all wore pink and white tights and shoes. How did that change?

VJ: Yes indeed we did start in our very first year, first two years of performances, we were in pink shoes and pink tights. That was the convention as it still is very much today. And Arthur Mitchell had a very big mountain to climb in convincing people that black people belonged in ballet. So he wanted to preserve some of the expectations. But we were actually in London and had a huge success. We were actually brought back to Sadler's Wells by popular demand and at that point, I think that Mr. Mitchelll said, okay they've accepted us, now let me take it to another level. And when we came back to Sadler's Wells in that summer of I think it was 1972, we came back with brown tights, with tights that matched each dancer's skin tone.

AMT: What did it feel like to come out on stage like that?

VJ: Well you know Anna Maria, I was a performer and I was only worried about pirouettes. I didn't really notice what was going on with my legs, I'm sorry.

AMT: But it was a very special moment, right? It was a turning point.

VJ: Well it was a turning point and you know I think that it was embraced by the British audience right away because they could see that this was a manifestation of our entire being. We weren't trying to be something that we weren't. We were actually dancers who were ballet dancers of colour and of many different colours. And even now with the company, one of the things that I love to see when the curtain goes up is that we have people who are very dark, we have people who are kind of more reddish tone, we have people who are more yellow tone in skin. There's just so many hues on the stage and they come together to make something that is quite beautiful because they're moving as one, but they're not identical.

AMT: So there was this importance in keeping the line of the dancers' body in ballet. What does that mean?

VJ: Ballet is very much about line. You know it is about making pleasing shapes in space, in the way that you move through space, but also in the positions that you take and that when you have somebody who looks from the top of their head to the tips of their fingers to the tips of their toes as a unified whole, then you do have that sense of a complete line, not a broken line that's distracted by colour.

AMT: Ballet is such a classical art form steeped in tradition, how do you innovate in a space like that?

VJ: Well Dance Theater of Harlem has been innovating about not just what we look like, but what we bring to the stage. The Dance Theater of Harlem company of course does many classical works, but we also do contemporary works. We do works that are based in contemporary life. One of the first works that I commissioned when I was brought, came in to do become artistic director, was a work that was created to a spoken word with a commissioned score. And it told a story, it told a love story, just the way that Swan Lake tells a love story. This is a story about young people who meet on the subway platform and explore what it is to fall in love, but it was told, not just through movement and music, but also through poetry.

AMT: So when the youngest students walk through the doors at Dance Theater of Harlem, what do they see?

VJ: They see what's possible in the world. I think it's really important for young people especially, to understand that it's a very rigorous art form. It's a very exclusive art form because you have to be talented and you have to work very hard, but it doesn't mean that you have to be excluded because of the colour of your skin.

AMT: So this change in the colour of the shoes that the companies are now putting out, it's not really about the shoes, is it?

VJ: Not at all, but it's very wonderful. It's a nod in the right direction that somebody is investing in a future that is diverse.

AMT: When you were a young dancer, who could you look to on stage for inspiration?

VJ: You know when I was a young dancer, I didn't look at the colour of my skin. I looked at what I loved. I loved the art form of ballet. I loved Margot Fontaine. I loved Maya Plisetskaya. Though I have to admit that when I saw Mary Hinkson, who was an exquisite dancer with the Martha Graham company, she was an African-American. When she stepped on the stage and that was the first time I saw someone who was of colour on the stage, performing that way, I got chills. So I recognized that I needed to see myself out there, even though I didn't know it.

AMT: Did you see Raven Wilkinson on stage as well?

VJ: Yes I was about 13 or 14 and I was dancing with an all black company, I was still in high school, but I was dancing with an all black company in Washington called the Capital Ballet. And these two women, Claire Jones and Doris Hayward brought Raven Wilkinson to Washington to perform with their company because she was an exquisite ballerina, who had a big career in Europe, but was not able to have a career in America. And I remember very vividly standing in the wings, watching her perform, saw a festival in first one Genzano, very famous Bournonville protege and being in such a state of awe, but in such a state of joy that she was there and I could be like her.

AMT: Wow. Well Virginia Johnson, we have someone waiting in the wings who's written a children's story about Raven Wilkinson. So we'll go there next. Thank you so much for your time today.

VJ: It's my pleasure.

AMT: That is Virginia Johnson, artistic director at the Dance Theater of Harlem, a New York City Ballet Company. She joined us from Grand Rapids, Michigan, where the company is currently on tour. Well, when it comes to touring North America as a black ballet dancer, Raven Wilkinson, was a true pioneer. She will turn 84-years-old this February and we spoke to her briefly about what it was like to tour the southern U.S. back in the 1950s.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: You know it has a lot to do with our country's social structure because my big problem was Jim Crow in the south. You know going where the laws say an African-American couldn't dance. And I was with so many foreigners, some of them had just come over from Soviet Poland and hear they could stay in hotels and dance on the stages, that I couldn't.

AMT: That is Raven Wilkinson, a pioneering black dancer in the United States. My next guest wrote a children's book about Raven Wilkinson. Leda Schubert's book is Trailblazer: The Story of Ballerina Raven Wilkinson. It was published earlier this year and Leda Schubert joins us from Plainfield, Vermont. Hello.

LEDA SCHUBERT: Oh thank you so much for contacting me.

AMT: Well I'm really interested to hear the story of Raven Wilkinson. We heard a little clip from her there. How did she get her start?

LS: She loved ballet from the time she was 5-years-old, when her parents took her to see Coppelia and she said, before the curtain even lifted, she heard the tympani, she saw the red velvet curtain, she was sitting on the plush seats and she said she just knew that this what she wanted to do for the rest of her life and she cried. And that's what she did. She became a beautiful dancer.

AMT: And she toured with the company through the southern US. What was the company?

LS: The Ballet Russe.

AMT: Okay and we heard a little bit about what she faced. Tell us a little bit more about what it was like for her.

LS: Terrible. Well it wasn't really terrible because she had the company of the dancers and she loved to dance and that's all she ever wanted to do. But the encounters that she had with racists in the south of America were frightening. One encounter included some Ku Klux Klan members, we think they were Ku Klux Klan members, running up onto the stage and saying, "Where's the negro? Where's the negra?" And that she was circled by the white dancers in the troupe and protected, but imagine the courage that that took to stay on the stage. And occasionally she was sent the company director Serge Denham sent her away and said you can't dance here, go home and we'll pick you up when we come north again. So she was incredibly courageous and the members of the company were courageous and protected her as well.

AMT: Wasn't there a case where, there was actually the KKK actually burned a cross by the hotel where she was staying?

LS: Yes one night she was eating in the hotel restaurant. I think this was in Montgomery and she was sitting at a table and at the tables next to her were some families with young children and she thought they had white laundry on the chairs next to them and then she realized that it was the hoods and robes of the Ku Klux Klan. And that night she saw a cross burn from her hotel window and the next day she did not dance. And I mean it was 1955 and one of the things or actually I think it was in 57 that that event occurred and one of the things she spoke about when I interviewed her was that of course all this was exacerbated by Brown versus the Board of Education, which was encouraging Southern schools to integrate and people were fighting back and that's how they fought back.

AMT: It's interesting as well because she was fairly light skinned and was encouraged at times to pass as white and she refused.

LS: Yes she did. She said she would be lying about who she was and she couldn't possibly do that.

AMT: What made her so strong?

LS: I think of course I can't answer all of those questions, but I think her family, which was her father was a dentist. Her mother was a homemaker. They grew up in a section of Harlem called the Dunbar apartments, which was constructed by the Rockefellers for people of colour who had means and people who lived there with her were quite amazing. I actually I remember vaguely that W.E.B. Du Bois lived there, Paul Robeson, Philip Randolph, Matthew Henson, so she grew up as in part of an active community and I think that helped as well. She went to Columbia for a couple of years, while she was auditioning. She was just, she came out that way.

AMT: But she ended up having to move to Europe to dance.

LS: She did and not because the company let her go, but because she was told she could never be the Black Swan in Swan Lake and she said why not? And they said it's just not going to happen for you. So she went to Holland where she joined the Dutch National Ballet and she had been told by her first, by Serge Denham and by her first teachers, that she would be a beautiful dancer and that she would dance before kings and queens and she did in Holland.

AMT: And you tell her story, is it well known?

LS: I don't think it's well known. It's well known now more because of Misty Copeland, who credits Raven as being her mentor. So when Misty became a prima ballerina, she invited, you know when she first danced Swan Lake on stage, she invited Raven to the opening and Raven came up on stage with her and I think that was a wonderful, wonderful thing for Raven, who thinks Misty is just an amazing human being, as we all do. So I think that Misty's rise to fame has helped Raven become better known.

AMT: And you heard Virginia Johnson, she actually she took in a breath there when I asked her about Raven Wilkinson.

LS: I did. I did hear that. Yes.

AMT: It's quite amazing. So knowing that story about Raven Wilkinson, what does it tell you that it's taken this long for black dancers to find point shoes to match their skin?

LS: Racism is alive and well in this country and I know in other countries as well. It's a tragedy. It's unimaginable to me that it's taken this long to come up with shoes that create that beautiful line in dancers. That we want to encourage dancing from all people and we want a diverse world and I can't believe it's taken this long. But I'm happy that they're now.

AMT: What have you heard from parents and kids who have read your book?

LS: Not a lot, you know young children read the book and they're not likely to reach out to authors, but I have gotten some emails and some Facebook posts from friends who have read the book or have seen young dancers reading the book and it's just it's a wonder to me that Raven can become a little bit more famous, which she so deserves.

AMT: Leda Schubert, it's good to talk to you. Thank you.

LS: Thank you so much.

AMT: That's Leda Schubert and the book she's written is called, Trailblazer: The Story of Ballerina Raven Wilkinson. And I spoke to her last month from Plainfield, Vermont.

[Music]

AMT: That is our program for today. Stay with Radio One for Q. I’m Anna Maria Tremonti. Thank you for listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

CBC would like to acknowledge the support of the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund.

Dec. 18, 2018 episode transcript

More Stories Like This