Författare: Vinita Srivastava Host Producer Dont Call Me Resilient

Over the last 30 years, we have seen exponential growth of Indigenous media and Indigenous media makers, especially here in Canada which has one of the largest repositories of Indigenous media. This includes films, TV shows, documentaries and even reality TV.

But the road to get here hasn’t been easy.

This is because Indigenous filmmakers, producers and artists have had to navigate the complex and often unfriendly terrain of Canadian media institutions and media production companies.

But their negotiations — and struggles — over the past 30 years have helped make space for a new generation of Indigenous media makers now making shows and films on their own terms.

Darla Contois and Lisa Edelstein in the 2023 production of ‘Little Bird’ (Crave/APTN)
Crave/APTN

These Indigenous creators increasingly have more decision-making power — and more control over how their stories get told as well as the ability to subvert old colonial representations.

In a special episode of Don’t Call Me Resilient, recorded on-site with an audience in Vancouver at Iron Dog Books, we speak with Karrmen Crey, an expert on this new Indigenous media world. Crey speaks about the ways Indigenous creators are using humour along with a sharp critique of pop culture to show just how different the world looks when decision-making power over how stories get told shifts and Indigenous media makers take control.

Crey, who is Stó:lō from Cheam First Nation, is an associate professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C. Her research focuses on Indigenously produced and created media in Canada and the media institutions that Indigenous people have had to navigate to produce their work. Crey is the author of Producing Sovereignty: The Rise of Indigenous Media in Canada.

Resources

From left, Sarah Podemski and D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai from ‘Reservation Dogs’
(Shane Brown/FX)

Producing Sovereignty: The Rise of Indigenous Media in Canada (by Karrmen Crey, 2024)

Rutherford Falls (TV sitcom)

Reservation Dogs (TV show)

“On-Screen Protocols and Pathways” (A report by the Indigenous Screen Office, 2019)

Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance (a film by Alanis Obomsawin, NFB, 1993)

Shine Network

Rutherford Falls | Ultimate Show Breakdown.

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You can listen to or follow Don’t Call Me Resilient on Apple Podcasts (transcripts available), Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts.

We’d love to hear from you, including any ideas for future episodes.

Join the Conversation on Instagram, X, LinkedIn and use #DontCallMeResilient.

Credits

This podcast was recorded in front of an audience at Iron Dog bookstore in Vancouver as part of the Amplify Podcasting School. From left to right: Natalie Dusek on sound, Vinita Srivastava, Karrmen Crey.
(Catherine Zhu/The Conversation), Author provided (no reuse)

This episode was produced in front of a live audience at Iron Dog Books in Vancouver, in partnership with Simon Fraser University’s Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology and the Amplify Podcast Network. Simon Fraser student Natalie Dusek performed tech duties. Läs mer…

Motaz Azaiza, Hind Khoudary and Bisan Owda are all Palestinian journalists who have reported on the war in Gaza. And although Azaiza has had to leave and now reports from afar, Owda and Khoudary still remain in Gaza. They, along with several others, are providing vital information on the devastation Palestinians face everyday.

This is something that many Canadian journalists have been unable to do, mainly because international journalists are not allowed into Gaza, except on controlled expeditions hosted by the Israel Defense Forces. So Palestinian journalists are providing a critical source of information.

This collage shows (left to right) Hind Khoudary, Motaz Azaiza and Bisan Owda, three Palestinian journalists who have reported on the war in Gaza since Oct. 7, providing the world with a window into the devastation. Azaiza has left Gaza and now reports from afar, while Owda and Khoudary remain in Gaza.
@hindkhoudary, @motaz_azaiza, @wizard_bisan1/Instagram

But the stories they are telling are not being picked up by most western news outlets.

And many western journalists have spoken out against what they say is a stifling of Palestinian voices and perspectives in their newsrooms. In February, many CNN staffers felt that the media giant had a pro-Israel slant, according to a report in The Guardian. According to these CNN reporters, Palestinian sources were often met with skepticism while Israeli sources were usually accepted at face value. Others accused the network of censoring journalists who wanted to incorporate more Palestinian sources.

There have been similar accusations from within the New York Times and other major news outlets.

Christiane Amanpour appears on the April 8 episode of ‘The Daily Show’ with Jon Stewart to discuss the U.S.’s delicate treatment of Israel, including journalists and the need for strong political leadership in the Middle East.

These allegations raise a lot of questions.

What is the role of the news media in reporting on war and conflict in other countries?

Who is a reliable source? And what constitutes independent and objective journalism — or does it even exist?

These are questions Sonya Fatah and Asmaa Malik, our guests on this episode of Don’t Call Me Resilient, have spent a lot of time thinking and writing about. They are both professors of journalism at Toronto Metropolitan University whose research focuses on newsroom culture, global reporting practices and equity in journalism. They are co-authors of a recent article in The Walrus detailing press freedom concerns they say go far beyond Gaza.

“The deep injustice that’s being done is that this work [of Palestinian journalists on the ground] isn’t being amplified,” Malik says. “News organizations can amplify those voices, but also augment them and add to them and bring that human perspective to this cold clinical idea of ‘objectivity’ and reportage as we understand it.”

Adds Fatah: “Instead of embracing them and instead of standing up and saying this is a huge crisis and we are in support, there has been silence.”

Resources

Bisan Owda, Hind Khoudary, Motaz Azaiza & Plestia Alaqad on Instagram

“Attacks on Press Freedoms Have Chilling Effects Far beyond Gaza” (The Walrus, Jan. 30, 2024, by Asmaa Malik & Sonya Fatah)

“New York Times to Journalists: What You Can’t Say on Gaza War” (The Intercept, April 15, 2024, by Jeremy Scahill, Ryan Grim)

“Fighting for fair coverage of Palestine” (Briarpatch Magazine, April 10, 2024, by Zahraa Al-Akhrass)

“What Christiane Amanpour—and the Rest of Us—Can Learn From Palestinian Journalists in Gaza” (April 16, 2024, Steven W. Thrasher)

Orientalism (by Edward Said, 1979)

“Newsroom at ‘New York Times’ fractures over story on Hamas attacks” (NPR, March 6, 2024)

“New York Times Brass Moves to Staunch Leaks Over Gaza Coverage” (The Intercept, April 18, 2024)

Listen and follow

You can listen to or follow Don’t Call Me Resilient on Apple Podcasts (transcripts available), Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts.

We’d love to hear from you, including any ideas for future episodes.

Join the Conversation on Instagram, X, LinkedIn and use #DontCallMeResilient.

Credits

Vinita Srivastava is the host and producer. Ateqah Khaki and Dannielle Piper are associate producers. Jennifer Moroz is the consulting producer. Krish Dineshkumar is our sound editor. Theme music: Zaki Ibrahim, Something in the Water. Läs mer…

We’ve been witness to some horrific things in our news feeds lately — around the world, multiple wars are being waged, with people needing to leave their homes to escape the violence. This of course includes Gaza. It also includes Sudan. In other parts of the world — places like Haiti, Venezuela and Afghanistan — people are being displaced by political and economic strife.

The Canadian government has responded to some of these global events with programs to accept some of the asylum seekers.

But there has been deep criticism of these programs because of the disparities between them.

On an earlier episode of Don’t Call Me Resilient, we highlighted the government’s program for Ukrainians. Ukrainian asylum seekers faced fewer requirements than others, and there was no cap on the number of visas. Canada has now issued nearly one million temporary visas to Ukrainians, and so far more than 200,000 people have entered the country. Meanwhile, the Canadian government set aside only 1,000 visas for Palestinians coming from Gaza.

Recent programs designed for Sudan and several South American countries were also granted significantly fewer spots — with onerous requirements for their applications.

Left: Israa Al Saafin, Community Representative at National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) responds to Canada’s temporary visa measures for people living in Gaza with Canadian relatives on Parliament Hill in December 2023. Right: Ukrainian nationals fleeing the ongoing war in Ukraine arrive at Trudeau Airport in Montreal, May 29, 2022.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby and THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes)

These programs come as there’s been an increase in refugee claims to Canada following the closure of Roxham Road and the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Safe Third Country Agreement last year.

According to today’s Don’t Call Me Resilient podcast guest, Christina Clark-Kazak, professor of public and international affairs at the University of Ottawa, refugee policy in Canada has always been politicized, but more so in recent years, evidenced recently in discrepancies between programs for refugees from Gaza and Sudan and those from Ukraine.

One of the first policies the Liberals introduced under then newly-elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was a 2015 special visa program welcoming 25,000 Syrian refugees, which received praise and made international headlines. Here, Trudeau greets a family of refugees from Syria as they arrive at Pearson International airport in Toronto on Dec. 11, 2015.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

Listen and follow

You can listen to or follow Don’t Call Me Resilient on Apple Podcasts (transcripts available), Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts.

We’d love to hear from you, including any ideas for future episodes.

Join the Conversation on Instagram, X, LinkedIn and use #DontCallMeResilient.

Credits

Latifa Abdin is our co-producer on this episode. Jennifer Moroz is the consulting producer. Krish Dineshkumar is our sound editor. Läs mer…

The release of Beyoncé’s latest album, Cowboy Carter, was a much awaited event for a lot of us. There was much anticipation about this being a country album — and a lot of talk about the resistance some radio stations had and still have to that idea. That’s because country music is often falsely seen as “white music,” even though its Black historical roots are well documented.

But Beyoncé’s new album is so much more than a country album. It’s genre-defying: moving easily from country to 90s pop to 70s rock. It honours other Black musical legends, and challenges the segregation we still see and hear in the music industry today.

Beyoncé accepts the Innovator Award at the iHeartRadio Music Awards, April 1, 2024, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
(AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Today’s episode of Don’t Call Me Resilient gets into all of it, with two people who were also keenly awaiting this album’s drop.

Alexis McGee is an Assistant Professor of Writing Studies at the University of British Columbia. Her book is From Blues to Beyoncé: A Century of Black Women’s Generational Sonic Rhetorics.

Also joining the conversation is Jada Watson, Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities at the School of Information Studies at the University of Ottawa. Her current research, called SongData, uses data — like radio airplay, charts, and streaming numbers — to examine representation in the country music industry.

Linda Martell, here in Ebony Magazine, March 1970, became the first Black female artist to chart in the country music industry and the first to play the Grand Ole Opry.
(Public Domain)

In our conversation, Watson, who studies music industry data, said that country music radio is currently playing Beyoncé in its daytime rotation — something she says is rare for Black female country artists. “But they’re only playing Beyoncé. They’re not also playing Tiera Kennedy, Tanner Adell, Reyna Roberts, Brittney Spencer, Mickey Guyton, Rissi Palmer. They’re not playing their music. So it’s really hard to be celebratory within the country industry space because it’s not creating pathways.”

McGee, who looks at the sonic rhetoric of Black women, says the story of Beyoncé’s album is still unfolding: “There’s a particular sound that she is leaning into in this album that I find so cathartic and I want to explore more because she’s changing something with her voice and I think we need to recognize that this is her range, this is who she is…but there’s also something different about it. She’s evolving. And it’s a great evolution.”

Resources

Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ is ‘absolutely magical’: Danyel Smith (interview with Danyel Smith by Jonathan Capehart)

Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop
(by Danyel Smith, 2023)

For Love & Country (Joshua Kissi, 2022)

“Beyoncé Won’t Burn Down the Barn with ‘Cowboy Carter’” (The New Yorker by Doreen St. Félix)

Redlining in Country Music 2.0 (by Jada Watson)

Whose Country Music? (Edited by Paula J. Bishop & Jada E. Watson, Cambridge University Press, 2022)

“CMA responds to allegations it removed social media posts over Beyoncé performance backlash” (CNN)

Color Me Country by Rissi Palmer

Natalie Maines on the racist comments she & Beyoncé got after performing at the CMAs on the ‘Howard Stern Show’

Miss Rhythm: The Autobiography of Ruth Brown, Rhythm and Blues Legend (1996)

Tracks in the episode (in order of mention)

From the archives – in The Conversation

Read more:
Charley Pride – country music has obscured and marginalised its Black roots

Listen and follow

You can listen to or follow Don’t Call Me Resilient on Apple Podcasts (transcripts available), Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts.

We’d love to hear from you, including any ideas for future episodes.

Join the Conversation on Instagram, X, LinkedIn and use #DontCallMeResilient.

Husein Haveliwala is our student intern and assistant producer. Jennifer Moroz is the consulting producer. Krish Dineshkumar is our sound editor. Läs mer…