Abstracts
Abstract
This article undertakes a critical examination of prevailing discourses circulated by public authorities and the media during the weeks and months following three instances of Black women and girls being strip-searched by police in Canada: Audrey Smith in Toronto in 1993, three unnamed Black girls in Halifax in 1995, and Stacy Bonds in Ottawa in 2008. By focusing on three primary discourses of disavowal evident in both media accounts and legal records of these cases, this article sheds light on how collusion among the Canadian state, the criminal justice system, and the media culminate in narratives that re-install the national myth of Canada as a benevolent nation. Ultimately, the paper argues that the violence of the strip-search is naturalized through the disavowal of gendered anti-Black violence and liberal discourses of reform are upheld.
Keywords:
- anti-Black racism,
- disavowal,
- gender,
- police violence,
- strip-search,
- state violence
Résumé
Cet article procède à un examen critique des discours dominants véhiculés par les autorités publiques et les médias au cours des semaines et des mois qui ont suivi trois cas où la police a fouillé à nu des femmes et de jeunes filles noires au Canada : Audrey Smith à Toronto en 1993, trois jeunes filles noires non nommées à Halifax en 1995 et Stacy Bonds à Ottawa en 2008. En se penchant sur les trois principaux discours de désaveu que l’on retrouve aussi bien dans les médias que dans les archives juridiques de ces affaires, cet article montre comment la collusion entre l’État canadien, le système de justice pénale et les médias mène à des discours qui rétablissent le mythe national selon lequel le Canada est une nation bienveillante. Enfin, l’article soutient que le désaveu de la violence sexiste à l’égard des Noires naturalise la violence de la fouille à nu et que les discours libéraux de réforme sont maintenus.
Mots-clés :
- racisme envers les Noirs,
- désaveu,
- genre,
- violence policière,
- fouille à nu,
- violence de l’État
Appendices
Bibliography
- Annamma, Subini Ancy, Darrell D. Jackson, and Deb Morrison. 2016. “Conceptualizing Color-Evasiveness: Using Dis/ability Critical Race Theory to Expand a Color-Blind Racial Ideology in Education and Society.” Race, Ethnicity, and Education 20(2): 147-162.
- Ambikaipaker, Mohan. 2021. “Gendered Anti-Blackness and Police Violence in the Formation of British Political Liberalism. In Antiblackness, edited by Moon-Kie Jung and João H Costa Vargas, 198-223. Durham: Duke University Press.
- Brown, Kimberly Juanita. 2015. The Repeating Body: Slavery’s Visual Resonance in the Contemporary. Durham: Duke University Press.
- Campbell v. Jones. 2002 NSCA 128 CanLii. https://canlii.ca/t/5g31
- Canadian Press Newswire. 2011. “Two Halifax Lawyers Accused of Defaming Cop over Strip-Ssearch of Girls.” Canadian Press Newswire, April 3.
- Choudry, Aziz. 2018. “Lessons Learnt, Lessons Lost: Pedagogies of Repression, Thoughtcrime, and the Sharpe Edge of State Power.” In Activists and the Surveillance State: Learning from Repression, edited by Aziz Choudry, 3-22. Toronto: Between the Lines.
- Comack, Elizabeth. 2012. Racialized Policing: Aboriginal People’s Encounters with the Police. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing.
- Cox, Aimee. 2015. Shapeshifters: Black girls and the Choreography of Citizenship. Durham: Duke University Press.
- Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 1993. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review 43(6): 1241-1299. http:// doi:10.2307/1229039
- Criminal Code of Canada, c C-46 (RSC 1985). https://canlii.ca/t/5533n
- Dayan, Colin. 2007. The Story of Cruel and Unusual. Cambridge: MIT Press.
- Dayan, Colin. 2011. The Law is a White Dog: How Legal Rituals Make and Unmake Persons. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- DiManno, Rosie. 1993 “Let’s Avoid Isms in Audrey Smith’s Fight for Dignity.” Toronto Star, A7, Sept. 29.
- Goldberg, David Theo. 2002. The Racial State. Malden: Blackwell Publishers.
- Gulliver, Trevor. 2018. “Canada the Redeemer and Denials of Racism.” Critical Discourse Studies 15(1): 68-86.
- Hesse, Barnor. 2023. “Im/Plausible Deniability: Racism’s Conceptual Double Bind.” Social Identities 10(1): 9-29. doi.org/10.1080/1350463042000190976.
- Hess, Henry. 1993. “Police Report Confirms Strip-Search; Lawyer Says Parts of Jamaican Tourist’s Account Found Contradicted.” Globe and Mail, Oct. 14.
- Hess, Henry. 1995. “Inquiry Dismisses Smith Allegations Against Police. No ‘Clear’ Evidence Found of Strip-Search on Jamaican Woman in Parkdale Affair.” Globe and Mail, A7, Sept. 22.
- Hesse, Barnor. 2023. “Im/Plausible Deniability: Racism;s Conceptual Double Bind.” Social Identities 10(1): 9-29. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350463042000190976.
- Hook, Derek. 2007. “Discourse, Knowledge, Materiality, History: Foucault and Discourse Analysis.” In Foucault, Psychology, and the Analytics of Power, edited by D. Hook, 100-137. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
- James, Joy, ed. 2005. The New Abolitionists:(Neo) Slave Narratives and Contemporary Prison Writings. New York: State University of New York Press.
- Jiwani, Yasmin. 2006. Discourses of Denial: Mediations of Race, Gender, and Violence. Vancouver: UBC Press.
- Jung, Moon-Kie, and João H. Costa Vargas, eds. 2021. Antiblackness. Durham: Duke University Press.
- Kitossa, Tamari. 2005. “Malleus Maleficarum Africanus: The Criminalization of African Canadians and ‘Due Process’ as a Property of Whiteness.” In Law and Criminal Justice: A Critical Inquiry, edited by L.A Visano, 153-172. Toronto: APF Press.
- Laucius, Joanne. 2010. “Watson, Councillors Field Calls, E-Mails Over Bonds’ Incident; Outraged Residents Denounce Treatment.” Ottawa Citizen, B1, Nov. 29.
- Latty, Stephanie. 2023. “Violent Exposures, Exposing Violence: Gender, Anti-Blackness and the Strip-Searching of Black Women and Girls in Canada.” Somatechnics 13(1): 23-41.
- Latty, Stephanie, Sefanit Habtomand Eve Tuck. 2019. “Practice Extending Across the Atlas: Black Girls’ Geographies in Settler Societies.” In Celebrating Twenty Years of Black Girlhood: The Lauryn Hill Reader, edited by M. Billye Sankofa Waters, Venus Evans-Winters, and Bettina L. Love, 305-315. New York: Peter Lang.
- Lazar, Michelle M. ed. 2007. Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis: Gender, Power and Ideology in Discourse. New York: Springer.
- MacLeod, Ian. 2010. “Police, Public Stances on Use of Force Collide; In a Society More Critical Than Ever of the Use of Physical Intervention, Police Must Make Quick Decisions Based on Their Perception of the Degree of Danger. Ian Macleod Reports.” Ottawa Citizen, A1, Dec. 4.
- Mascoll, Philip. 1993. “Jamaican to meet with chief Tuesday.” Toronto Star, A6, Sept. 17.
- Mascoll, Philip. 1994. “Racism by Police Unproved, Chief Says.” Toronto Star, A4, Mar. 19 .
- Maynard, Robyn. 2017. Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada From Slavery to the Present. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing.
- Morton, James. 2010. “A Free Nation Does Not Fear The Police; As a Former Prosecutor And Defence Lawyer I Was Dubious of Police Brutality Claims. Not Any More.” Ottawa Citizen, A17, Nov. 26.
- Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OPIRD). 2019. “Breaking The Golden Rule: A Review of Police Strip Searches in Ontario.” Accessed Aug. 25, 2023 https://www.oiprd.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/OIPRD_Breaking-the-Golden-Rule_Report_Accessible.pdf.
- Ontario Civilian Police Commission (OCPC). 2014. “Reasons for Disposition. In the Matter of Sergeant Steven Desjourdy #1255 and the Ottawa Police Service.” Apr. 8.
- Patterson, Kelly. 2010. “Police Set to Start Racial-Profiling Forum; Timing of New Policy Has Nothing to do With Strip-Search Case, Chief White Says.” Ottawa Citizen, C1, Nov. 18.
- Pugliese, Joseph. 2009. “Civil Modalities of Refugee Trauma, Death and Necrological Transport.” Social Identities 15(1): 149-165.
- Razack, Sherene H. 1998. Looking White People in the Eye: Gender, Race, and Culture in Courtrooms and Classrooms. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
- Razack, Sherene H. ed. 2002. Race, Space, and the Law: Unmapping a White Settler Society. Toronto: Between the Lines.
- Razack, Sherene H. 2015. Dying from Improvement: Inquests and Inquiries into Indigenous Deaths in Custody. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
- R. v. Bonds, ONCJ 561 (CanLII 2010). https://canlii.ca/t/2dmt0 (Can).
- R. v. Desjourdy, ONCJ 170 (CanLII 2013). https://canlii.ca/t/fwvg5 (Can).
- R. v. Golden (2001) SCC 83 (CanLII 2011). https://canlii.ca/t/51xm (Can).
- Sudbury, Julia. 2009. "Maroon Abolitionists: Black Gender-oppressed Activists in the Anti-prison Movement in the US and Canada." Meridians 9(1): 1-29.
- Tanovich, David. 2011. “Bonds: Gendered and Racialized Violence, Strip Searches, Sexual Assault and Abuse of Prosecutorial Power.” Criminal Reports 76(6): 132–150.
- Van Dijk, Teun A. 1993. “Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis.” Discourse and Society 2(4): 249-283.
- Walcott, Rinaldo. 2014. “The Problem of the Human: Black Ontologies and “the Coloniality of our Being.” In Postcoloniality-Decoloniality-Black Critique: Joints and Fissures, edited by Sabine Broek and Carsten Junker, 93-105. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag.
- Walker, Barrington, ed. 2012. The African Canadian Legal Odyssey: Historical Essays. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
- Wilderson, Frank B. 2010. Red, White, and Black: Cinema and Structures of U.S. Antagonisms. Durham: Duke University Press.
- Williams, Patricia J. 1991. The Alchemy of Race and Rights. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.