Letters: June 28, 2001

Park life

I realize that "real" news is not the raison d'être of the Mirror, but I was surprised at the lacklustre reportage in last week's article about police cracking down on nighttime park-goers ["Nightcrawlers nabbed"].

I passed by Carré St-Louis at about 2:30 a.m. last Friday night and there were at least 40 police in full riot gear, so this was obviously not just "part of one of the duties that officers in their patrol accomplish," as the MUC representative that reporter Kristian Gravenor spoke to explained. I asked some eyewitnesses what happened and two separate groups of people told me that the police entered the park at approximately 11:30 p.m. (i.e. well before the midnight curfew) and started hassling people about leaving.

When I showed up they were still holding about five people who were shipped off in a paddy wagon at about 3 a.m. Even stranger was the arbitrary way in which they blocked access to St-Denis. They permitted people to go down the middle of the road, but blocked the corners and sidewalks. The whole thing seemed like practice for the weekend's

St. Jean festivities at Jeanne-Mance Park, not enforcement of the bogus curfew law.

I would hope that in the future a nominally "fuck da po-lice" paper like the Mirror will practice actual journalism rather than just accepting whatever prepared statement the police have ready to offer.

-- Jamie Salomon

Kristian Gravenor responds: The recent police action in Carré St-Louis poses the philosophical and legal questions of whether Montrealers should be permitted to enjoy their parks at night. The article Jamie comments on explored the ongoing, sporadic enforcement of the little known curfew bylaw, a city-sponsored tool employed to punish citizens inside our parks on that and other nights. As the article indicates, the MUC Police remain unrepentant and feel unobliged to justify their inconsistent and selective enforcement of the bylaw.

Defending the garage

This is in response to Hall's ridiculous letter ["Black and white rock"] in last week's paper. Reducing the contributions of white jazz musicians to Pat Metheny proves the level of idiocy we're dealing with. It makes me very sad to think that, in this day and age, some people still believe that certain types of music should be left to certain races of people.

It's clear that Mimi la Twisteuse was only trying to say that blues and R&B are inspirations for some of today's garage/punk bands. You may not like the sound they make, but you should at least respect it for what it's worth: an honest tribute. While Hall is obviously still bitter, and rightly so, at how the music industry of the time stole from African American artists, he should seriously loosen up, stop the paranoid reverse-racism rubbish and remove the huge chip from his shoulder! Garage bands, while they are strongly influenced by '50s and '60s music, are not looking to steal in order to gain commercial success. They're called "garage bands" for crissakes!

--Angélique

In response to Hall's absolutely ignorant diatribe--why are you raving on about what white musicians of the past have done to black music? Have you even heard the Detroit Cobras? They truly pay homage to a part of the history of black music. Their music is honest, fun and true. Unlike many, many of the sanitized white singers of the '50s and early '60s, they don't "steal" the music and make a fortune from it, pushing the original black artists into staying confined to the "race" labels.

Why must everything be so black and white? Don't black musicians borrow music from white artists? Don't people who sample music in R&B use white music? Why should some group in the year 2001 pay for the musical sins of their buckshoed forefathers?

--Ward

In praise of GMO talk

I just wanted to say that I read the article you did on the genetically modified food products, and I must say Naomi Bloch did a fantastic job ["Seeds of doubt," June 21]. I once wrote a journal article on the topic and I found your article to be essentially a great little summary of the issue. Tell her to keep up the good work.

--J. Andres Hannah-Suarez

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