I wrote this in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s death: a conservative activist known for his Christian identity and his strong defense of the Second Amendment. He was shot and killed at a university event in Utah as part of his “American Comeback” tour. What quickly followed was a chaotic spectacle of polarization online. Some celebrated his death, others mourned him as a man of God. Still, many insisted that his murder was a karmic inevitability as a result of his advocacy. Though the motive for his murder is presently unclear, what we do know is that his death immediately became a battleground for political labelling.

This is one of the many issues I have with political labelling. It pulls us into the binary logics of the colonial gaze: left or right, good or evil, martyr or monster. It causes us to overlook complexity and disables our ability to focus on our reality, the harm Kirk’s politics mobilized and the simultaneous grief that comes with any death. After reading the reactions to his death, I had sat with this question: if we celebrate the killing of someone we despise, are we also mirroring the very violence we condemn elsewhere? That’s not to invalidate the very harms his actions have taken against my own communities. What happens when those who honour his death neglect to also hold him accountable? What happens to those left with the damage of his legacy? In this binary logic, there is little space for the full spectrum of grief.

Political labels by design seek to simplify and contain our humanity into tidy boxes easily
controlled and regulated. But simplification also produces the erasure of lived realities and lived suffering. One of my Elders reminded me recently of the interdependence between all living beings (yes, not just humans) and the choices that ripple out beyond the temporary labels that we carry. The colonial gaze we’ve all been conditioned by imposes categories of race, gender, identity, and nation by flattening complexity and forcing people into boxes to serve systems, not life.

Therein lies the tension I feel with theory because it alone cannot be our saviour from this predicament. As Black feminist and poet Audre Lorde said, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” If we continue to debate within the confines of identity labels placed upon us – left versus right, liberal versus conservative – we continuously reinforce the systems of categorization in place. The real harms that continue today in prisons, of colonial violence, of alarming housing and food injustices, of inaccessible healthcare, persist unrefuted.

Meanwhile, on the internet, people are fighting over who gets to claim a moral victory over Kirk’s death. But the internet is not the real world. It is one technological aspect of it built in binary code and transformed into a “culture” that profits off of division and rage, while the real world goes on. The orange hue of the sun continues to shine, the trees continue to release oxygen, and communities continue to fight despite ongoing injustices. It’s easy to get lost in the internet delusion and use up all our energy in online reactions, to the effect that we don’t have capacity any longer for the real work of change.

But real mobilization is happening. Here in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal), the tenants’ union SLAM-MATU valiantly fought and won against a 19.8% rental hike as a result of collective organizing. In British Columbia, the Supreme Court recognized the Haida Nation as having complete sovereignty over the terrestrial areas of Haida Gwaii. These actions are not about labels, but are about innate human needs for food, housing, support, and collective care. They are about living in respectful and reciprocal relationships with one another.

So, what do we want to build? An internet world where labels rule and transactions thrive, or a living world where relationships are essential and transformational? What are we able to learn when we stop obsessing over who is right or wrong online, and instead ask what the people around us need? What movements can we organize, here and now, where we are?

Charlie Kirk’s death shows us what happens when labels consume us. In this space, nuance disappears, violence becomes a spectacle, and we lose sight of what liberation demands. True liberation does not grow from ideological purity or choosing the right side of the internet war. It comes from rebuilding our relationships, restoring the deficit of trust between strangers, and cultivating communities of care. Start small. Start local. Start with who is in your life. It’s the micro shifts that make the macro change possible.

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Get Organized! is a workshop series launched by SSMU External Affairs earlier this year. The series offers students a chance to connect with local movements, learn political organizing skills, and build relationships rooted in action. 

“The workshop series started and was kind of inspired by a similar series at the CSU at Concordia that was called Get Radical,” shared Jamila, who works as the Policy and Mobilization Researcher at SSMU External Affairs. “It’s a really clear entry point for anybody at McGill who’s been looking to get involved but finds it overwhelming or doesn’t know who to reach out to or what to join.”

When she first arrived in Montreal, Jamila wanted to be politically active, but found it intimidating to join spaces without knowing anyone. “Get Organized has been a really, really wonderful way for people to just get to know each other and make friends with people that share an interest in being politically active,” she stated.

Each session  featured local grassroots organizations doing movement work, including SLAM-MATU, Students for Migrant Justice, the Immigrant Workers Center, and Mobilizing for Milton Park.

“Each workshop has one or multiple local organizations doing some kind of grassroots organizing,” Jamila explained. They noted how the workshops “make it possible for people to feel more empowered politically by making friends and comrades, learning about things that are already happening, and then learning skills so that they can start things autonomously if they like.”

Though McGill has cracked down on certain forms of campus advocacy, particularly around Palestinian solidarity, Pitre says Get Organized! hasn’t encountered those barriers.

“I think that we’ve been able to put forth some quite radical programming and have really candid discussions about things like protest safety and knowing your rights when interacting with the police, but also McGill security.”

For Pitre and her team, part of the series intends to introduce students to new avenues of involvement beyond what’s already visible. “There are so many other ways for people to get involved … and we wanted to broaden the different range of struggles and local groups that students are aware of so they can get involved in other things.”

Harlan Porfiri, a student from the US, shared that the political context at home deeply shaped their motivation to join: “In the United States, the rise of fascism is particularly concerning. The rise of anti-trans rhetoric and legislation as well as weaning access to reproductive healthcare immediately threatens the well-being of my friends and family.”

Harlan heard about the workshop series through McGill Students for Good Jobs and signed up right away. Sharing their experience, Harlan said they “feel more knowledgeable about the organizing happening in my community and how I can make an impact as a student. I am impressed and inspired by the number of people interested in organizing, as well as the resources available to us as students to do so.”

“The current state of the world often moves me to fear, but I can say with absolute certainty that putting my energy toward community organizing has given me hope and the strength to look forward. It’s a very powerful feeling to be in a room full of people who see some injustice or some lack in the community and agree that they want to do something to fight against or change it.”

When asked what she’d say to someone on the fence about joining, she replied:

“It just feels so empowering to get to know other people and skills that make it possible for you to just do something, without waiting for the opportunity to come up. You look around and see things that you want to change in your community … having other people and skills to make that happen is really empowering.” 

For future workshop or mini-series opportunities, follow @ssmu_ea on Instagram.

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Yellow was Auntie Dean’s favourite colour. It wasn’t just bright or warm — it was her. For my mom, Lisa, yellow is a lifeline to her sister’s memory, a vibrant reminder of the woman who gave everything she had to hold our family together. “She could brighten a room with her smile,” my mom often says:, “Her heart could brighten the world.”

For me, yellow is resilience. It’s the colour of survival, of hope, of love lived out loud in a world that tried to quiet it. Yellow holds the promise that Auntie Dean embodied — a promise to fight for those who couldn’t fight for themselves, to love fiercely, and to leave this world brighter than she found it.

But this story isn’t just about Auntie Dean. It’s about the systems that shaped her, broke her, and ultimately could never contain her. It’s about the harm Black communities have endured and the ways we reimagine, survive, and thrive.

“One of my earliest memories,” my mom once told me, “was watching Auntie Dean be raped.”

My mom was just a child then, too young to understand what she was seeing. Their beds were situated side-by-side in the girls area of the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children. My mom remembers lying in bed as an older boy climbed into Auntie Dean’s. She heard her sister cry, but she didn’t have the words to stop it. When the boy finally left, she crawled into bed beside Auntie Dean, trying to comfort her.

“She was the one who’d been hurt,” my mom said, “but she held me.”

That night set the tone for their relationship. Auntie Dean became my mom’s protector, even when she was the one who needed protecting most. Years later, my mom hit her lowest point, struggling with addiction and trying to raise me and my brother on her own. Auntie Dean stepped in again to support. “She was firm, but she didn’t make me feel worse,” my mom recalled. “She just held me through it, like she always did.”

That love wasn’t just for our family. Auntie Dean had a way of making strangers feel valued. She would take in anyone who needed help — underdogs, outcasts, people the world had cast aside. “She’d give you the shirt off her back, her last five dollars, and a place to sleep,” my mom said. That capacity for love came from a place of survival.

Auntie Dean spent four years in the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children, a place that promised safety but delivered a myriad of atrocities instead. Founded in 1921, it was meant to be a refuge for Black children who entered the care system. Instead, it became a site of systemic neglect and abuse, where children were seen as less than human. The most painful truth is that much of this harm was inflicted by other Black community members, a reality that speaks to the deep-rooted complexity of lateral violence and its role in perpetuating intergenerational harm against Black bodies.

Auntie Dean carried those scars with her for decades. For years, other survivors were silenced, their experiences dismissed. But when two survivors learned that a former staff member who had abused them was working with children again, collective action began to take shape. My aunt became involved because she couldn’t stay quiet any longer. She became one of the lead plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against the home and the Nova Scotia government. It wasn’t just her story she told — it was the collective pain of hundreds of Black children who’d been harmed and ignored.

“She never wanted to tell her story,” my mom said. “She didn’t want to relive it. But she knew it wasn’t about her anymore — it was about all of us.”

Against her doctors’ advice, Auntie Dean continued her cancer treatments while testifying. She travelled across the country, recounting the unimaginable for the sake of justice. Though she ultimately beat breast cancer, the fight took its toll. Reliving that trauma reopened wounds that had barely healed, leaving her body and spirit deeply worn down.

I remember visiting her shortly after, around Christmas time. Despite being declared cancer-free, her complexion appeared grey, her energy was dull, and she coughed in an erratic manner I had never heard before. Shortly after, despite her strength and determination, her struggles with and the resurgence of her cancer ultimately overtook her. In 2015, just a year after hearing Nova Scotia’s public apology, Auntie Dean passed away.

I remember visiting her in a Calgary hospital during her final days. Despite her condition, she encouraged me to sneak her out to a nearby Wendy’s. Auntie Dean was always a rebel who refused to remain silent, and I embraced that same ideology. I couldn’t say no to her request. I followed through, and on our way back, as we said our goodbyes, Auntie Dean looked at me and made me promise to “do nothing but great things.”

I carry that promise with me every day. I think of her when I work with young people, helping them find their voices. I think of her when I walk into a room, trying to make it just a little brighter.

Last year, my curiosity brought me to the site of the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children. Now known as Akoma, it has been reimagined as a community space dedicated to Black empowerment. Akoma, meaning “heart” in Akan, stands as a powerful testament to what’s possible when we dare to transform spaces of harm into places of hope and renewal.

Walking through Akoma, I felt both the weight of its history and the hope of what it could become. There’s a corner of the space dedicated to the survivors — a quiet acknowledgment of the past. But the rest of the site is alive with possibility: Black-owned businesses, community programs, and services that reflect the resilience of our people.

And yet, it’s complicated. My mom told me that many survivors wanted the building burned down and erased from existence. “Sometimes I think they were right,” she admitted. But she also sees the potential in what Akoma has become.

In so many ways, Black resilience is about reimagining what we’ve been given — turning harm into healing, refusing to let systems define us. Black History Month is about honoring legacies like Auntie Dean’s. It’s about remembering the fights for justice that didn’t just happen in courtrooms but in kitchens, classrooms, and living rooms. It’s about survival and transformation.

Auntie Dean always brought our family together, whether it was through a family barbecue or another listening session of the live version of Mariah Carey’s “The Emancipation of Mimi” album. Her love kept us united, and though her absence has led to ongoing rifts, her courage inspired others to find their voices.

Her life taught me that healing is not just a personal journey. It’s also political, communal, and deeply connected to the systems we strive to change.

Yellow isn’t just a color. It’s her legacy. And it’s my promise to carry that legacy forward.

The post The Colour Yellow appeared first on The McGill Daily.

I had the privilege of attending the performance celebrating the launch on September 21, in which an actor and team of volunteers led us up Mont-Royal, immersing us in the stories that form the heart of this project. But it wasn’t just about hearing the words; it was about feeling them through every step we took, with the earth beneath us and the sky above, making the experience deeply meaningful.

As we gathered at the Mordecai-Richler Pavilion, we were met by volunteers wearing orange T-shirts – a reminder of the legacy of residential schools and a commitment to the promise that every child matters. The pavilion had been filled with bannock, jams, and homemade berry punch for attendees. There was an openness in the air – people were sharing stories of what brought them to the event, and why these kinds of gatherings are so important. As for me, I took a moment to acknowledge the power of community: of coming together not just to witness, but to meaningfully engage in something larger than ourselves.

During the launch, I had the chance to speak with the artistic director Alexia Vinci, and explore our shared Mi’kmaq identities. There’s something deeply grounding about those kinds of chance encounters – discovering similarities and differences between my being from Millbrook, and Alexia from Gespeg. We reflected on our variety of experiences, and how that diversity of perspective has enriched our collective understanding of what it means to be Indigenous on these lands. We found that these stories are present in all Indigenous peoples who call this place home.

I especially appreciated how the Tiohtià:ke: Mapping Indigenous Stories project honours both our land-based traditions and our oral histories, weaving the two together throughout various texts. These texts, written by six different Indigenous authors, offer perspectives on Tiohtià:ke/Montreal that challenge what we might know about these lands. Following earlier iterations in 2022 and 2023, the project has now expanded into a podcast series, co-produced with Musique Nomade. As of September 21 two podcasts, Sous les branches du pin blanc (Under the Branches of the White Pine) from Moira-Uashteskun Bacon and L’étoile du jour (The Star of the Day) from Jocelyn Sioui, are available online for all to experience. (But even so, there’s something special about hearing them while being on the very land they speak about that can’t quite be matched.)

Our journey up Mont-Royal was more than a walk; it reminded me of land-based ceremonies at home. As we moved between stops, we listened to the actor give voice to the stories from the second podcast – Jocelyn Sioui’s L’étoile du jour (The Star of the Day). Even when I couldn’t grasp every word due to the language barrier, the tone and raw emotion of the actor’s performance transcended language and I felt connected to something much deeper – something that spoke to the land, to our shared histories, and to the invisible threads that braid us all together.

While I had the privilege of being accompanied by a fellow, bilingual McGill student who helped translate parts of the text, it’s clear that these performances weren’t merely to be heard, but to be felt. You don’t need perfect linguistic comprehension to engage with them: sometimes, letting go of the need to understand every word opens you up to a fuller experience, as I felt it did in my case.

Another important aspect of the experience was connecting with other attendees who were not Indigenous. It was powerful to hear their reflections on how this project impacted them and about their respective roles in reconciliation. Relationships and connections are essential to our worldview, and this experience showed me just how much can be gained from these spaces – how storytelling and connection can foster new understandings and growth amidst fractured relations.

Although the live performances introducing this project are over, the podcasts are still available to be listened to at any time. I would encourage listening to them while walking through your own landscapes – whether up Mont-Royal like we did, or through any place that holds meaning for you. There’s power in engaging with these stories while moving physically across the land, allowing them to shape your experience in real time.

As an Indigenous anglophone in Quebec, I often feel like I’m navigating two worlds. There’s a duality to my experience here, and one that can feel isolating at times. But projects like Tiohtià:ke: Mapping Indigenous Stories remind me that there is strength in choosing to participate in these collective events anyway, even when I couldn’t fully understand the language of the performance. There is power in sitting with discomfort, in letting the land and the stories speak to us in ways that go beyond words.

Sovereignty, after all, is not just about asserting our rights over land – it’s about Indigenous people reclaiming our right to experience and engage fully with the world around us. By connecting with these podcasts, you wouldn’t just be listening to stories: you’ll be actively participating in an act of restoring sovereignty, an act of connection – an act of healing. So take a walk, listen to their stories, and see what they awaken in you: moment by moment, story by story.

To listen to both podcasts, visit www.nikamowin.com.

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