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Il Duce redux
What Mr. Gravenor fails to report in "Mussolini's ghost" [Aug. 16] is that these commemorative fascistic relics were part of Mussolini's project to fund fascist clubs in the Americas (to foster a sense of colonialism, although he instituted laws forbidding emigration).
Painting the Italian community as fascist kinda glosses over history, since there were scrimmages and fisticuffs with local Italian communists, knife-wielding lawyers and bomb scares at the Madonna della Difesa church with the offensive fresco: the Duce on horseback representing the Lateran Pact.
Are we to whitewash the fresco like the Ottomans did with the Byzantine churches? I'm a far cry from being fascist, but architecturally, Casa D'Italia is a futurist chef d'oeuvre. If Marinetti can be rehabilitated and celebrated, why then can't we preserve local heritage?
Many Italians gave free labour in building these structures either out of duped ideology or patriotism (to uprooted immigrants these clubs provided solidarity). They should remain as a silent reminder of a darker past. More importantly, when are we going to erect a Sacco and Vanzetti or Petawawa monument?
--Mirella Bontempo
Parade poo-pooed
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of taking part in this year's Pride Parade. Fresh out of the closet barely a year, I was excited to be representing not only the Native Friendship Centre of Montreal where I work on the urban Aboriginal AIDS Awareness Project, but myself as an out and proud bisexual.
As I waved and smiled at the happy crowds, holding up one end of the UAAA banner with my left hand and my "Brought To You Bi" poster in my right, I felt I truly belonged. That is, until I came face to face with the hostility of one individual. What was his problem? Homophobia? No. Biphobia? No. His complaint was against my English sign!
Everything that day was about accepting and celebrating diversity, and being a united queer community. Yet, even in this welcoming and warm environment, a man who rejected my use of my first language attacked me, literally and figuratively. In protest of my English-only sign, this man proceeded to dump water all over me in an attempt to humiliate me, which drew nervous laughter from the crowd around us.
In shock, I shrugged it off and walked away, but was later left wondering about just how welcoming and tolerant our community is when I could be verbally abused like this and no one spoke up against his negative behaviour. I finished the parade feeling exhilarated at taking part in such an exciting event, but part of me was left feeling sad at the thought of one man's intolerance toward my use of the English language.
Shame on you, Monsieur. If you thought you had succeeded in embarrassing me, all you did was give me relief from the heat wave.
--Séri Sarah Jacobs
Clarification:
In last week's People column, Karène St. Pierre of SOS Violence Conjugal was asked how she responds to callers who get discovered on the line with her and start getting beaten up by an abusive spouse. Ms. St. Pierre is reported to have said that she tells them to call back at a better time. To clarify, she tells them to call back at a better time "when it is safe," and then makes the decision on whether or not to notify the police. The Mirror regrets any confusion this may have caused.
Juvenile jackassery?
Your cover story on the Miss Canada beauty pageant ["Skin deep," Aug. 16] imparted little insight unto the reader, save that Mirror reporter Chris Barry is a smarmy jackass. Ridiculing a low-rent beauty pageant is easy pickings to be sure, but an interesting story might still have been written, had Barry actually bothered to talk to any of the people involved.
Instead, Barry does away with pesky quotations, leaving himself two pages to illustrate what a clever, urbane hipster he is (as opposed to the contestants, who are "neither the most stunning nor sophisticated group of chicks" because "most of them come from small towns"). Other subjects are similarly dismissed with grade-school epithets like "he's a fat middle-aged fucker in a bad expensive suit and bowtie." Aren't we all a little tired of this sort of thing?
--Jesse Brown
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