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Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

Tomb Raider is a surprisingly not terrible video game movie

by Patrick Beacham on

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Following a 15-year absence from the big screen, and five years after the video game reboots by Edios Interactive and, later, Square Enix, Lara Croft has returned to the big screen in Tomb Raider’s latest iteration. Usually, one would come to expect little from a video game movies, especially after the first stabs at a Tomb Raider adaptation, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life (2003), failed to establish a believable character. However, much like Square’s games, this film avoids expected pitfalls, and Alicia Vikander’s Croft leads a triumphant return for the series.

Croft’s story is familiar in this adaptation of the beloved game series: She ventures to a mysterious island to investigate the whereabouts of her father, who went missing in the Pacific Ocean while searching for a mysterious artifact seven years prior. While not the most novel storyline for a Tomb Raider-based project, the film incorporates the best elements of past installments, combining strong plot points from the first movies with the revamped character development of the recent games. Croft’s father (Dominic West) and a rival archaeologist trying to unleash the artifact, Mathias Vogel (Walton Goggins), serve as incredible foils to one another when it comes to their respective values. One is willing to forsake the world for his family, and the other, his family for the world. Between the two stands Lara Croft, who must make impossible decisions as the two men are perched like an angel and devil on opposite shoulders.

The new crew behind the camera, veterans of action films like Kingsman (2014) and the recent James Bond series, knew they had to do better than the Angelina Jolie movies at building a believable Lara Croft. Enter Alicia Vikander, an Oscar-winning actress known in action-movie circles for her ability to move from watery-eyed, convincing vulnerability in one moment to calculated composure in the next. This versatility defines Tomb Raider from the first act. Croft seems tough, but her personal strife affects her deeply. As that internal conflict escalates on the island, Vikander shows audiences just how much it threatens to tear Lara in half, and her gripping showdowns with both foes are nothing short of heart pounding.

Everything about the production places the talent, especially Vikander, at the centerfold. Dialogue is shot and cut in classical fashion. Gunshots punctuate the trauma for a young Lara Croft still new to life-and-death decisions. Close-ups linger to show how each situation challenges each character’s resolve. Cinematographer George Richmond, who has worked with close-up maestro Emmanuel Lubezki on Children of Men (2006), strives to put the audience face-to-face with these characters in a way that helps us understand what words can’t explain, and the camera-work capitalizes on the film’s star power with smart framing.

By no means is the new Tomb Raider an award-winner, but the same can be said of Square Enix’s games, and that hasn’t torn down Hitman or Just Cause or even Lara Croft’s own recent spate of new game titles. Despite the little things holding the blockbuster back from the top tier, Tomb Raider is still a smart, standout action film that gives casual moviegoers and series fans alike a nice breath of fresh air.

McGill, News

McGill bans single-use bottled water from all campus food locations

by helen wu on

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McGill students have advocated for banning single-use water bottles on campus since 2010 and, on March 22, the university finally met their demands. McGill announced that it will begin phasing out the sale of single-use plastic water bottles from all food locations and vending machines on campus, with the goal of completely removing them by May 2019.

The university will also install additional water fountains across campus. This initiative was the result of consultations between the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), the Post Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS), the MacDonald Campus Students’ Society (MCSS), and student stakeholders in November 2017.

Shortly after the ban was announced, the SSMU Sustainability commissioners passed a new Sustainability Policy on March 29 to outline how it will help student clubs and organizations obtain alternative sources of drinking water for their events. According to Caroline Lou, SSMU Sustainability commissioner, this policy mandates it to distribute information on plastic bottles to students, promote the use of tap water, and provide services related to waste reduction.

“We can’t visit every club’s events and meetings to monitor their internal practices, but we’re hoping to eliminate plastic water bottle use through education and awareness,” Lou said.

According to Francois Miller, sustainability director at the McGill Office of Sustainability (MOOS), roughly 85,000 plastic water bottles are sold on campus each year—not including bottles distributed by student clubs or associations. He predicts that the ban will help fulfill McGill’s Vision 2020 Climate and Sustainability Action Plan by lowering the university’s carbon footprint significantly, as each bottle is manufactured and transported using fossil fuels. Moreover, plastic water bottles take at least 450 years to degrade.

Dr. Joe Schwarcz, director of McGill’s Office for Science and Society, believes that the university has taken an environmentally responsible step as he explained the process of manufacturing bottled water.

“[The ban] is absolutely not for good publicity,” Schwarcz said. “The university does not benefit from it, society does. Transporting water is an expensive business because [water] is heavy. We also need to take into account the manufacturing of the bottle, which is an energy-intensive industry. Also, depending on where the water is taken from, you are disrupting the aquifers. There have been cases where you see that surfacers have collapsed due to water being sucked out from underneath.”

McGill is far from the first Canadian school to ban the sale of single-use water bottles on its campus. The University of Winnipeg was the first to ban plastic bottles from its campus in 2009. The University of Toronto followed in its footsteps in 2011, as did Concordia University in 2012.

While Miller acknowledges that McGill’s ban is late in comparison, he noted that there have been smaller initiatives to reduce the use of plastic bottles at specific locations on campus, such as  SSMU’s ban on water bottle sales in the University Centre in 2009.

Although there are many environmental benefits to banning single-use water bottles, studies have shown that there are risks to this policy move. At the University of Vermont, for example, banning water bottles in 2013 led to an increase in sales of sodas and sweetened beverages.

Yet Miller is confident that McGill has taken the steps necessary to ensure that this doesn’t happen. He cited schools like Washington University in St. Louis, where banning single-use plastic water bottles instead lead to lower soda sales.

“[The potential increase in soft-drink sales] was a concern we kept in mind throughout our planning phase,” Miller said. “For this reason, we are supporting the ban by installing or upgrading over 25 new fountains on campus, as well as [selling] cheaper refillable bottles available throughout campus.”

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Caroline Lou is the SSMU Environment Committee chair; in fact, she is the SSMU Sustainability commissioner. In addition, the previous version stated that the SSMU Environment Committee passed a new Sustainability Policy when in fact the Sustainability commissioners passed the policy. The Tribune regrets these errors.

 

Features

With Time, a Task Force

by Kendall McGowan on

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Nearly 200 years ago, James McGill, a fur trader and one of the most prominent slave owners in Quebec’s history, founded McGill University on land traditionally held by Indigenous peoples. On that land, enslaved Indigenous and Black labourers built many of the edifices which still stand on campus, including the Arts building. To this day, the university has not ceded the land that it stands on and during the 2015-2016 academic year, Indigenous students received just 46 of the 9,022 degrees granted by McGill. Last year, a task force created by McGill’s Provost Christopher Manfredi proposed 52 calls to action in order to address this history and the ways in which it continues to harm students on campus.

 

Part I: History

 

In 1859, McGill president and leading Canadian geologist Sir John William Dawson was called to a construction site at the corner of Metcalfe Street and De Maisonneuve Boulevard West, a block away from where McGill’s Bronfman Building stands today. Construction workers uncovered long-buried artifacts indicating the former presence of an Iroquois village: Fire pits, the infrastructure of longhouses, human skeletons, pottery, stone implements, and more. Some of these items are now visible at the McCord Museum.

 

Dawson spent a few months examining the evidence and eventually suggested that the site—which came to be known as the Dawson Site—represents the remains of the village of Hochelaga, populated by the St. Lawrence Iroquoians. In 1535, Jacques Cartier was the first European to discover Hochelaga when he reached the island that is today known as Montreal, after the French King Francis I tasked him with exploring what became New France. As he described it in his writings, Hochelaga was a large village of approximately 3,000 people living in 50 longhouses in a fortified enclosure surrounded by cornfields at the base of a mountain which he called Mount Royal. Scholars still dispute the exact location of Hochelaga, but because of Cartier’s description, most contemporary literature places it in the vicinity of McGill Downtown campus. Regardless, the village disappeared shortly after Cartier’s first visit; it was already gone by the time of his second, and no subsequent explorers were able to find it.

Student Life

Krispy Kremes challenge samosas as McGill’s new go-to snack

by Leanne Young on

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McGill students are known for their love of samosas. The crunchy snack is central to the university’s culture. However, Krispy Kreme doughnut sales are growing in popularity day by day, making their way up the McGill food hierarchy to threaten the dominance of samosas at McGill.

While it is now quite common to find a Krispy Kreme sale when walking through campus, the sales only started recently—the first one this year was held on Sep. 13, 2017 in the McConnell Engineering Building by McGill’s Tashan Dance Company.

“We chose [to sell] Krispy Kremes because it was something different,” Misra Isabel Trana, U1 Arts and VP communications of Tashan Dance Company said. “Everyone sells samosas but not everybody enjoys them, so Krispy Kreme was a nice alternative.”

Although rising in popularity, hosting a Krispy Kreme sale takes a lot more effort than one might expect. For Mary Thieffry, U2 Arts and VP Fundraising for McGill Women in Leadership, getting the doughnuts was the most difficult part of the process. Unlike Pushap, the primary samosa supplier for McGill sales, Krispy Kreme does not deliver directly to campus.

“The closest Krispy Kreme store is almost an hour away from Downtown by public transit,” Thieffry said. “I had to wake up extremely early to go get them and then carry a bunch of boxes in the metro to bring them back to campus.”

Yet, even though transporting the doughnuts was time-consuming, Thieffry admitted that it made up for the labour that goes into holding traditional bake sales.

“Our sale was quite successful, we made as much as a very good samosa sale would make,” Thieffry said, “If you’re looking to sell something sweet, what’s nice about Krispy Kremes is that you and your team don’t have to spend a night baking. Also, Krispy Kreme sales are always popular and sell out fast which means that you can make just as much of a profit as you would during a bake sale in much less time.”

Although many students are willingly hopping on the Krispy Kreme bandwagon, some student groups have sold the doughnuts instead of samosas purely out of necessity. Global Brigades, a student-run club at McGill, ran their first-ever Krispy Kreme sale in the McConnell Engineering Building on March 23. Although they were initially hoping to run their usual samosa sale, the competition for tabling spots left them no choice but to try selling the new food option.  

“We were only able to sell using the sweet table,” Vivian Luong, Global Brigades member said. “We usually sell samosas but you can only sell samosas at the designated samosas-selling table. If the table is already booked by another club then no other club can sell samosas in that area at that time.”

Despite the rising prominence of doughnuts, competition to get a samosa table remains high—an indication that the classic meal still holds a strong seat in the campus snack world. For Olivia Lockbaum, member of the McGill Martlets Field Hockey team, samosas will always remain her favourite go-to tabling option.

“As an athlete, samosas make both a great pregame and post practice snack,” Lockbaum said.“Three samosas can make a lunch, so many students enjoy the typical one-for-one dollar or three-for-two dollar samosa deal, whereas doughnuts are not as fulfilling and cannot really be treated as a lunch.”

Ultimately, the future of the most popular tabling food on campus remains unclear. While samosas are—and always have been—a classic go-to, the excitement of a new option has been enticing for many sellers and hungry students alike.

“Holding a Krispy Kreme sale was definitely better [than a samosa sale],” Trana said. “We were able to sell [the doughnuts] individually and in boxes of dozens. They sold out super fast because everyone loves doughnuts to be honest.”

Out on the Town, Student Life

The Best of Montreal’s vintage stores

by Abeer Almahdi on

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For students and local trendsetters alike, thrift shopping is possibly the best way to find one-of-a-kind vintage items while sticking to a budget. Luckily for Montrealers, the city offers a plethora of local vintage, consignment, and thrift stores. To help students navigate the map of businesses spread across the city, The McGill Tribune found the best Mile End thrift stores based on their budget and style.

Local 23
23 Bernard Street West

Located on the corner of Bernard Street West and St-Laurent Boulevard , Local 23 offers a dynamic space with an endless array of secondhand pieces. Although the store is quite small, its managers have fit an enormous quantity of pieces into that space. Local 23 specializes in ‘90’s vintage clothing, shoes, boots, and accessories. Their styles are ever-changing, with new pieces coming in every week from approximately 25 regular consigners. Most clothing items are priced from 20 to 40 dollars per piece, while accessories sell for slightly less. Unlike many thrift stores, Local 23 has a plus-size jeans rack, which makes it much more accessible to bodies of many shapes and sizes.

Empire Exchange
51 Bernard Street West

As Local 23’s sister consignment store, Empire Exchange is located right across the street, on the corner of Clark and Bernard Street West. Empire Exchange is Montreal’s first and only buy-sell-trade store, meaning that customers can sell their own articles of clothing for an immediate portion of the appraised value or store credit valid at multiple locations. The store specializes in in-season modern and vintage clothing, shoes, and accessories.

Citizen Vintage
5330 St-Laurent Blvd

Focused on repurposing and recycling used clothing, Citizen Vintage offers an alternative to the rise of fast fashion through its environmentally-conscious mandate of recycling and upcycling secondhand pieces. In addition to selling vintage and repurposed pieces, mostly from the ‘60s and ‘70s, the store sells an array of handmade clothing articles from a variety of local designers, promoting the Montreal art scene. Although it is on the pricey side, Citizen Vintage is a great option for sustainable shoppers, and sells sizes up to 16, making it more accessible than many other shops.

Kay Vintage
157 Bernard Street West

With the greatest variety of item prices of all the shops on this list, Kay Vintage offers shoppers a true treasure-hunting experience. Although the space is quite small, the store is stocked from floor to ceiling with everything from five-dollar accessories to 50-dollar dresses and leather jackets. The store’s items are sectioned by price, making it easy and efficient to stick to your budget when shopping there. Its inventory includes hats, dresses, and leather wallets, belts, boots, and shoes. The owner is not only extremely friendly, but is also open to negotiating prices, making this store accessible to even the most frugal thrifter.

Annex Vintage
56 Saint Viateur Street West

Annex Vintage is a hub for vintage clothing-lovers and independent designers alike, showcasing hundreds of pieces from national artists. This shop sells more than just clothes. With jewellery, stationary, apothecary products, pins, patches, artist T-shirts, socks, and many other gift items on display, there is something for everyone. While on the pricier side—with some items selling for 60 dollars—Annex Vintage has a dynamic collection of high quality products that you won’t find elsewhere.

News, SSMU

SSMU Legislative Council votes in favour of student strike for free education

by Julia Kafato on

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At its meeting on March 29, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Legislative Council passed the Motion to Organize the Fight for Free Education and the Cancellation of Student Debt. Council also passed the Motion Regarding the Adoption of a Sustainability Policy and the Motion to Amend the Internal Regulations to Improve Accessibility, Impartiality, and Stability of the Board of Directors (BoD)

 

Council votes to support free tuition and debt cancellation

McGill’s Chapter of Socialist Fightback (SF)—a group advocating for a societal transition to socialism—has campaigned to pass the motion at both the General Assembly (GA) and at Council since March 16. Vishwaa Ramakrishnan, U0 Arts, a member of SF, presented the motion, which councillors discussed in an extensive question period.

SSMU Vice-President (VP) Connor Spencer explained that both the Quebec Student Union (QSU) and the Association for the Voice of Education in Quebec (AVEQ) would have major roles in lobbying the provincial government for the right of students in Quebec to strike. Councillors raised concerns about the legality of a student strike in Quebec after the passing of Bill 78, which was passed following the student strikes in 2012 and prohibits protests on school grounds.

“The best avenues for us to address this is through [QSU] and AVEQ,” Spencer said. “So both of them at their congresses were talking about what specific needs their members want them to bring to the provincial governments to do with the legal rights for students to strike.”

After the question period, Medicine Representative Andre Lametti proposed an amendment to the motion, replacing the call for SSMU to immediately establish monthly democratic assemblies with a call for SSMU to “work towards” establishing monthly democratic assemblies.

“The modalities have not been established yet and this motion taking effect, right now, would mean we would have to start having monthly democratic assemblies, at this present time, which I suppose is what the movers want, but we still have to decide how we are going to do it,” Lametti said.

Following the introduction of this amendment, councillors engaged in heated debate over the accountability and integrity of next year’s SSMU Executive.

“‘Work towards’ has been what has been put in the prior SSMU resolutions for the last 2 years,” Ramakrishnan said. “In those resolutions, there is no concrete action.”

While councillors quickly came to the defence of next year’s SSMU Executive, SSMU VP University Affairs (UA) Isabelle Oke acknowledged students’ general mistrust of SSMU and expressed her support for the inclusion of a firm timeline in the motion, rather than mandating SSMU to take action in an indefinite period of time.

“The issue at hand isn’t necessarily one of questioning the integrity of the [SSMU Executive], but […] it seems like there is little trust in SSMU as an institution,” Oke said. “If we’re being asked to stick to this higher standard, I would speak against the amendment just in terms of taking the small steps [toward increased accountability] that are required to have that relationship with a membership where we can make these changes and they’re taken for what they are.”

Ultimately, the amendment passed with the addition of a line stipulating that the monthly democratic assemblies must take place by Fall 2018. The motion also passed, with 13 in favour, nine opposed, and two abstentions.

 

Council votes to revamp the BoD

Council passed the Motion to Amend the Internal Regulations to Improve Accessibility, Impartiality, and Stability of the Board of Directors. The motion stipulates that the chair of the BoD must be a non-voting member who will not be counted toward the quorum at BoD meetings. It also requires the BoD to include two alumni representatives in an advisory capacity.

SSMU President-Elect and current Engineering Senator Tre Mansdoerfer presented this motion following concerns raised about lack of transparency from this year’s BoD due to meetings being scheduled on Sunday evenings in the SSMU office, when both the University Centre and the Brown Building require keycard access to enter. To address this, one the motion’s amendments specifies that the agenda for all BoD meetings must be made publicly available at least 48 hours in advance.

 

Editorial, Opinion

Behind the picket line: Accessible education requires a concrete action plan

by McGill Tribune Editorial Board on

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Today’s university graduates are suffocating under record-high student debt. A 2015 survey by the Canadian University Survey Consortium indicates that approximately 50 per cent of graduating students have debt and carry an average of $26,819 in tuition debt. Debt delays or impedes important life milestones, such as buying a home, and can take a significant toll on students’ mental health. Given the adverse impacts of rising student debt, it’s no wonder that the prospect of free education is enticing to current undergrads.

On March 26, SSMU members passed a motion at the Winter General Assembly (GA) mandating the Vice-President (VP) External to organize a campaign for free education across Canada and the cancellation of student debt. Proposed by the Socialist Fightback student group, part of this campaign includes mobilizing a one-day student strike in the Fall 2018 semester. Quebec student unions have a history of successfully pressuring the provincial government on tuition, and this campaign has similar potential to incite real change.

Because the GA didn’t meet quorum, SSMU Legislative Council subsequently accepted the Motion to Organize the Fight for Free Education and Cancellation of Student Debt at its March 29 meeting, after amending it to include a timeline. Looking forward over the next few months, it is crucial that SSMU conducts adequate research to determine how to properly lobby the government for such a revolutionary change, and do the leg-work necessary to see this broad-reaching mandate become an effective student campaign.

The resolution acknowledges SSMU’s historical role in fighting against tuition increases, and references a 2015 policy that commits SSMU to supporting universally accessible post-secondary education. It also acknowledges Quebec’s tradition of student activism, alluding to the infamous 2012 “Maple Spring” protests that mobilized over 250,000 students against the provincial Liberal Party’s proposed tuition hike. In the same spirit, the GA motion voices student frustration over “the lack of accessibility of education” and “skyrocketing tuition fees.” According to Statistics Canada, the average Canadian undergraduate tuition has risen 40 per cent in the past 10 years. It is within this context, and in solidarity with universities across Canada, that SSMU aims to mobilize students for the one-day strike and champion a long-term accessible education campaign.

A one-day strike won’t bring about free university overnight. But, if executed effectively, it could raise awareness on the increasing financial burden of post-secondary education for students, and encourage McGill and the provincial government to reconsider Quebec’s tuition rates.

Notably missing from the campaign, however, is current research and information on viable paths toward more accessible—and potentially free—post-secondary education in Quebec, and how free tuition would impact other important aspects of student life, such as quality of education and enrolment. The lack of a concrete action plan risks hindering the movement’s goals. Free university tuition is certainly attractive, and it’s proven to be feasible—as students in countries such as Norway, Germany, and Finland benefit from it. Still, Quebec and McGill present their own unique challenges.

Closer to home, the 2012 strikes’ success at freezing tuition hikes is a testament to the impact that effective student mobilization can have on the accessibility of education. However, further progress on the pricetag of university education in Quebec will undoubtedly require significant adjustment in the public university funding structure. If SSMU wishes to see its bold vision materialize, it must consider its financial aspects as well. Additionally, to attract the provincial attention necessary to enact substantial change, collaboration with other student unions in the province is essential. In moving forward with its campaign for free education, it is crucial for SSMU and its members to conduct research and strategize about how they would wish to see free tuition implemented. At all stages, students themselves must be continually consulted as stakeholders in the process.

Given the preliminary nature of the motion, as a measure to gauge student support, the lack of research included with it is understandable; however, if students wish to see real impact, concrete plans for change must follow. A one-day strike won’t bring about free university overnight. But, if executed effectively, it could raise awareness on the increasing financial burden of post-secondary education for students, and encourage McGill and the provincial government to reconsider Quebec’s tuition rates.

The VP External must also mobilize McGill students, both on the strike, and on the broader campaign for more financially accessible education that the resolution proposes. Substantial change does not happen from one strike in one semester, or in one year, as even the most prominent student activist groups on campus can attest. For this campaign to have the same longevity and impact as causes like Divest McGill or Demilitarize McGill, it must hit the ground running, and then keep running.

SSMU is right to stand behind accessible education and campaign against student debt. While the strike is set to only last one day, it should generate further conversation about the accessibility of education in Quebec and Canada more broadly. As Quebec students have proven, when it comes to fighting for affordable education, they aren’t quick to back down.

 

A previous version of this editorial incorrectly stated that the Motion to Organize the Fight for Free Education and Cancellation of Student Debt was pending an online student vote. Legislative Council passed an amended version of the resolution on March 29.  The Tribune regrets this error.

Sports

Impact: Concussions in youth and collegiate sport

by Miya Keilin on

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Rowan Stringer, a 17-year-old rugby player from Ottawa, suffered a concussion during a rugby match but ignored her symptoms and took to the field again less than a week later. In that second, and ultimately final, match on May 8, 2013, she suffered a second concussion that sent her into a coma—from which she would never wake up.

Stringer is far from the only athlete to have suffered a concussion practicing youth sport. Thirty-one per cent of Canadians who have participated in youth sports report having suffered at least one sport-related concussion, according to a 2015 study conducted by the Angus Reid Institute. While most concussion stories do not end as tragically as Rowan’s, they always threaten permanent damage to the brain. In turn, sports leagues for players of all ages have taken measures to curb the harm caused by concussions.

A concussion is a traumatic brain injury that occurs when a hard impact to the head or body jolts the brain, resulting in a temporary impairment of brain function. The brain is surrounded by three layers of membrane and cerebrospinal fluids that cushion it; however, upon forceful impact, these protective measures are not strong enough to hold the brain in place, allowing it to move within the skull. Such movement can affect the brain’s chemical equilibrium, damage nerve tissue, and cause bruising.

Typically, it takes one to two weeks to recover from a concussion, but optimal recovery times vary depending on factors such as age, mental conditions—including anxiety, depression, sleep disorders, or post-traumatic stress disorder—and the severity of the concussion. Rest is key to the healing process, but patients must often avoid bright lighting, screens, and strenuous brain activity, too.

Alyssa Crichton, BSc ‘18 and Martlet soccer player from 2013 to 2017, suffered a concussion after taking a couple of hard shots to the head in back-to-back games. After the second, she was removed from play and taken care of by a team of doctors and therapists, but her recovery was still long and painful.

“I had a headache every single day for about five months and was constantly in pain because of it,” Crichton wrote in a message to The McGill Tribune. “I couldn’t really do much of anything [….] I have had a lot of bad injuries in my life, but the concussion was a whole new experience.”

Professional sports are leading the way in concussion prevention policy, looking to medical professionals and research for guidance. Teams and leagues across North America have started incorporating protocols into their treatment practices, like the Sport Concussion Assessment Tool (SCAT)—a standardized evaluation form to check athletes for concussions—return-to-play policies, and baseline neurological tests.

These are undoubtedly improvements compared to a decade ago, but professional sports still have a long way to go in addressing concussions. Concussions continue to slip through the cracks because of poorly-written protocols, inadequate implementation, and, in some cases, an appalling lack of policy. For example, the NHL places much of the discretion on teams to decide when a player should fall under concussion protocol. This procedure reduces the chance that the concussed player receives proper care because teams will always push for their players to return to competition as soon as possible. On the other hand, organizations like the MLB and NBA have implemented league-wide policies that strictly dictate when a player should be removed, how long they must sit out, and the conditions of their return.

Youth and collegiate sports leagues have followed their professional counterparts by writing concussion protocols into their own rulebooks. Most policies help responders decide when athletes should be removed from play and how long they should be kept out; however, especially in youth sports, these protocols are often unclear and are not consistently followed.

Dr. Taryn Taylor is the co-owner and medical director of the Carleton Sports Medicine Clinic and chair of the newly-formed U Sports Injury Surveillance Committee. Currently, each U Sports conference individually manages concussion protocols, but the committee is working toward implementing a nation-wide policy. She outlined some of their biggest challenges and priorities in designing new protocols.

“There is very little a physician can do once a concussion has occurred,” Taylor wrote in an email to the Tribune. “The best treatment is prevention. This can be achieved with encouraging fair play and respecting opponents, stronger penalties for unsafe play, rule changes, and skill development [….] Athlete and coach education is important to improve reporting of concussion symptoms to ensure athletes are removed from play if a concussion is suspected and to prevent athletes from playing with a head injury.”

Youth athletes don’t enjoy the luxuries of designated team doctors and trainers caring for their team, but there’s still plenty that can be done to protect them. Every state in the United States—and as of March 2018, Ontario, too—has passed concussion legislation specific to youth sports, detailing protocols on when an athlete should be removed and for how long, as well as requirements for educating parents and coaches on concussion identification and treatment. However, the gamechanger for youth sports will be to ensure that every athlete, coach, official, and parent is confident and consistent in taking a conservative approach when dealing with potential concussions during practice or a game.

“If [athletes] are being told that they are fine, or are being pushed into returning to play, they will convince themselves that they are okay and put themselves at risk of doing more damage,” Crichton wrote.

Because of that competitive inclination to keep playing, and because concussion symptoms lurk below the surface, progress for a safer concussion culture has been slow.

In January 2018, Dr. Scott Delaney, an associate professor in McGill’s Department of Emergency Medicine and team doctor for McGill Athletics, the Montreal Alouettes, and the Montreal Impact, published a study about why professional football players don’t come forward when they suspect they are concussed. The study concluded that players knew that if they did report a suspected concussion they would be removed from play, and that they did not always understand the danger of playing while concussed.

“I think it is still hard for a lot of people who have never had a concussion to fully understand the injury and how terrible it can be, because […] it’s an ‘invisible’ injury,” Crichton wrote. “If you can’t see it, it’s harder to believe that it’s actually there.”

Concussions will probably remain an inevitable part of athletics. Youth, collegiate, and professional sports leagues alike have been making a steady effort in the last 10 years to eliminate concussion-causing impact in sports—but it might be impossible to completely eliminate concussions.

That’s not the present goal, though. Instead, the current focus is on improving the attitudes of athletes and coaches toward concussions—from education, to diagnosis, to treatment.

“We have to somehow change the culture involved in concussions and make people better understand the risk and try to take the pressure off the players if they come forward,” Delaney wrote.

This goal is achievable and shows that the sports world is moving in the right direction. But the work doesn’t end with new legislation. Above all else, everyone in sports must understand and emphasize that, at least when it comes to concussions, health is always greater than glory.

Off the Board, Opinion

National Geographic’s race cover story misconstrues multiraciality

by Emma Avery on

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When I first read Patricia Edmonds’ cover story on Millie and Marcia Biggs—half-black, half-white fraternal twins—for National Geographic’s April 2018 Race Issue, I felt conflicted. As a person of mixed race, with a father from Hong Kong and a mother of largely Scottish descent, I was happy for this family’s opportunity to share their experiences. Although national media are increasingly latching onto stories about race, people of mixed race don’t often get the spotlight.

National Geographic’s cover is undoubtedly an attempt to normalize multiraciality and destabilize false notions of ‘race’ as a natural category. Yet, by focusing on the visual differences between the twins, the article misses more meaningful and nuanced questions of culture and identity that people such as myself often grapple with. Instead, it places mixed race children on a pedestal that risks exoticizing them.

Edmonds claims that people are more accepting of racial differences now than they once were: While the twins understand what racism is, their parents apparently have not witnessed racist behaviour towards their daughters. However, even if based on interviews with the family itself, the picture painted by National Geographic overlooks the complexity of the varied manifestations of racism, or at least racial categorization. If the author is (rightly) asserting that race is an invented category with no scientific basis, it’s odd, then, to title the issue “Black and White.” Paradoxically, the article critiques the way we think about race, while at the same time fixating on the twins’ stunningly contrasting appearances.

As Doreen St. Félix points out in the New Yorker, society latches onto mixed race people with a sort of removed fascination: Liberals vaunt them as “diviners of social progress,” while simultaneously ignoring that multiracial individuals are by no means new, particularly among colonized populations. Yet, our collective trouble with understanding multiraciality is not surprising, given that systems of racial classification have been ingrained in us for so long. Questionnaires ask us to choose from options like “white,” “Black,” “Hispanic,” “Asian,” and the the catch-all “mixed race” because, for statistical purposes, this is all that matters.

National Geographic’s cover is unsettling because at the same time that it affirms the falsity of race as a concept, it focuses entirely on contrasting visual appearances. In this way, it reminds me far too much of my own lifetime of uneasy interactions, during which I’ve lost track of the number of times that perfect strangers have asked me, “What are you?”

The end result is that mixed race people in their day-to-day lives generate a lot of intrigue and confusion. A stranger got mad at me once because he couldn’t guess what race I was, and thought that I was lying to him. Friends—mid-winter—ask me incredulously how I’m so “tanned,” leaving me at a loss for words, as if my skin doesn’t belong on my body. Like any person who doesn’t fit into a box, the twins intuitively know the awkwardness of responding to this disconnect, too, as they often have to clarify that they are in fact sisters.

To suggest that half-white children embody the possibility of a post-racial future betrays the fact that we haven’t yet figured out how to understand them. Because skin colour and visual appearance are readily noticeable, in my own experience, the same weight is not attached to cultural background or identity. Yet, the things that matter—that I want to share with my friends, or pass onto my children—are not my brown skin and dark hair, but my childhood of Chinese martial arts and large family dinners and my dad’s love of Hong Kong.

National Geographic’s cover is unsettling because at the same time that it affirms the falsity of race as a concept, it focuses entirely on contrasting visual appearances. In this way, it reminds me far too much of my own lifetime of uneasy interactions, during which I’ve lost track of the number of times that perfect strangers have asked me, “What are you?”. It’s not that I mind the question, per se—there is a part of me that likes the thrill of being different and unique, and the weird sense of satisfaction I get when I surprise people with my ethnicity. What bothers me is that my skin colour and facial features are dwelled upon at the expense of my cultural background. Because I don’t look Chinese, any real, meaningful connection to my Chinese heritage is assumed to be nonexistent or irrelevant, or worse—a racist joke punchline. Any claims of attachment I might have to that part of myself are somehow less legitimate because I don’t look the part.

The crux of being mixed race—particularly, half-caucasian—is that one is at once neither and both, occupying a weird in-between space that society hasn’t yet figured out how to make sense of. My fundamental discomfort with the National Geographic story—as honest as it is in its intentions—is that it still uses racial appearance as a reference point. Further, it implies that half-white children have overcome racism, when their realities are far more complicated. The more interesting questions are how it feels to be Millie or Marcia—how they navigate between the varying influences in their lives, where they find common ground between them all, and how all of this informs their identity, values, and experiences.

Basketball, Sports

DeMar DeRozan, Kevin Love, and opening up about mental health in the NBA

by Alec Regino on

More in Basketball:

Athletes do not often publicly expose their perceived weaknesses, physical or otherwise, for others to see. So when Toronto Raptors superstar shooting guard DeMar DeRozan tweeted about his struggle with depression during the NBA All-Star Weekend in February, his words sparked a difficult—and extraordinary—discussion. With that red-eye tweet during a weekend designed to celebrate the NBA’s finest, DeRozan unintentionally helped others to acknowledge their own struggles with mental health. In response to DeRozan’s statements, fellow All-Star Kevin Love composed a heartfelt essay outlining his own battles with mental health and anxiety.

“I knew on some level that some people benefited from asking for help or opening up,” Love wrote in The Players’ Tribune. “I just never thought it was for me. To me, it was form of weakness that could derail my success in sports or make me seem weird or different [….] Call it a stigma or call it fear or insecurity […] but what I was worried about wasn’t just my own inner struggles but how difficult it was to talk about them.”

Revelations regarding anxiety and depression from NBA players signify a greater point on how men address their bouts with mental health. Being “tough” and failing to confront one’s problems is a road that men, especially those who epitomize masculinity, continue to haphazardly trudge through.

In broad strokes, NBA stars are cartoonishly presented akin to superheroes. They are in peak physical condition, famous worldwide, and extravagantly wealthy. To some, these NBA players are role models. In a global sport where millions watch their every move, the NBA and its players are uniquely aware of their public perception in a way most other leagues and their athletes are not. LeBron James and Stephen Curry, the league’s two most widely recognized players, leverage their status to discuss social issues.

On the flip side, these NBA players are also perceived by the general public as the apex of what it means to be a man. Hyper-masculine attitudes persist in basketball and make it difficult for some to address “un-masculine” topics. Love compares learning how to be a man to mastering a playbook: “Be strong. Don’t talk about your feelings. Get through it on your own.”

Following that playbook, therefore, means being steadfast on the traits that make one manly: Always show strength. Weakness is the antithesis of what an NBA player is supposed to represent. Add the stigma surrounding mental health to these principles, and players are strongly dissuaded from confronting their battles.

DeRozan and Love, however, display another side to this coin. People make erroneous assumptions of the type of lives these figures lead without considering the notion that they, like everyone else, go through their own battles. No matter how much fame, fortune, or physical fitness a person may have, anyone can be predisposed to mental illness.

As the two stars point out, acknowledging one’s internal battles is not a sign of weakness, but of strength. Not feeling able to talk about mental health is the weakness in itself: It robs us the opportunity to reach out to those in need and robs others of the chance to support us.

“It’s not nothing I’m against or ashamed of,” DeRozan told the Toronto Star on Feb. 25. “At my age, I understand how many people go through it.”

Displaying one’s vulnerabilities is difficult, but the words Love and DeRozan imparted broke barriers that both their fellow players and our broader society can benefit from. Like any physical injury, psychological injuries can and should be mended. Seeing two incredibly accomplished athletes reveal their struggles allows those who look up to them to face mental issues in their own lives. The two essentially implore their fans to challenge the status quo and question the notion that men can’t talk about their feelings or ask for help. Though the players provided the assist, it rests on everyone’s shoulders to carry the conversation.

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