My favourite of 2018 — this goes to 11
(scroll past all of this if you just wanna see the list)
OK, I know what you’re thinking.
Nora. Your 2018 was horrible. Literally nothing good came from it. And really, I agree. My family was out of our apartment for 6 of 12 months thanks to two separate floods. My career took a gigantic shit thanks to a single tweet. I became lodged in two words: one world where I wasn’t important enough to be noticed and another, where I was important enough to send one’s most creative, illustrative death threat. Not important enough to be sought-out for comment, but important enough for Jason Kenney to get out some of his pathetic male rage on.
Yes, 2018 was not great. In 2016–2017, I had done regular appearances on CBC platforms (The Current, The National, The 180 and radio syndication), I had written regularly for The Walrus and, importantly, I cut out toxic progressive organizations from my existence. 2018 started strong and its promise ended with an April tweet — one that’s not incorrect or objectively controversial, but that was so radioactive for Canada’s colonial mainstream press, that they couldn’t deal with the heat. And so, I became radioactive, such that there was truly was a pre- and post-April.
While I hope that this changes, it might not. I was Canada’s most deplatformed, most maligned writer. Not only did no one with any power publicly notice, very few people publicly cared. Articles were spiked. My pitches? Politely declined. I hobbled along, death threats in tow, with so few public defenders, I totally lost any faith in mainstream media to actually defend free speech. I remain exceedingly cynical and bitter. I’m not going to lie and say otherwise. But time heals petty wounds, so who knows — maybe in 2019 Canadian editors will find like a third of a nut and come around. Maybe not. The amazing support of average people who I interact with online kept me afloat, and so if that includes you, I’m endlessly grateful for your words and support.
The thanks I have for editors that did welcome my writing is enormous. Like — ugly cry over the phone while I’m drunk on cheap wine-level enormous. And, I made my own media, or co-made it (which was also shamefully ignored by the industry BUT ANYWAY!) and it was good. Really good.
So: as an hommage to everyone who was awesome in 2018, to my favourite things to write or to think about, here’s my top 11 pieces from 2018 for you to digest and enjoy. Or pretend to read if we’re hanging out soon. The list is in chronological order.
This was a piece compiled from a year’s worth of conviction data from the Ontario Ministry of Labour. We don’t talk about worker health and safety enough, and the mainstream media has almost entirely abandoned reporting on it (shoutout to Sara Mojtehedzadeh from the Toronto Star), so this piece, while extremely basic, is really important.
2. How Quebec City has changed, one year after a deadly mosque shooting
This piece was the most important thing I felt I could write — I tried to capture the smallest silver lining from a horrifying tragedy, based on the community work that I had been involved in. I didn’t realize that I’d do this, for a measly $300, and then Maclean’s would throw me under the proverbial bus not long after, but it’s still worth the read, especially if you dig irony, and thinking through the complexities of a tragedy and how people respond (and what Maclean’s did to me a few months later).
I’ll write a special fu to Maclean’s at the end.
3. No Pride In Policing (redux)
As news broke about Bruce MacArthur’s crimes, everything that radical queer activists were saying about Toronto Police was laid bare with a bodycount. I wrote the article in total agony of this — the indifference police feel towards queer bodies plus the noise that way-too-many white queers made to support the cops was too much.
4. NDP Convention coverage
I had a blast as a journalist at the NDP convention: it was way more comfortable for me than to be present as a participant, anyway. I got there thanks to Rank and File.ca and the Globe and Mail — proudly, I’m sure I’m the only writer in Canada who’s had those two press credentials at the same time.
For Rank and File, I wrote three stories about the debates. You can see them here, starting with this one: http://rankandfile.ca/contentious-debate-over-justice-for-palestine-at-ndp-convention/
Most exciting at the convention was when I became news from the floor. The Palestine debate (which, in a normal world would have been obvious and easy to navigate) caused intense tensions on the floor. I livestreamed some of the debate because there was nothing else to do. I was intimidated by a dude who was like twice my age and four times my size to stop livestreaming, then someone called a point of order on me from the floor. I was flattered. Of course, it was a ridiculous attempt at intimidation, as CPAC was *livestreaming* the convention, but it was a good reminder that the NDP forgets how to deal with leftist critique from the left — if I was more vicious, and younger, they would have made an enemy for life. Lucky for them, I’m extremely reasonable and forgiving.
I must also link to my only Globe and Mail piece ever, which came from the convention too, and which came out on a morning that I was at emerge with my kid. A wonderful moment, never to be reproduced again (as subsequent pitches to the Globe have been unsuccessful). I realized once it was published that I worked too hard to make real journalism, up against a lot of PR flaks hawking their wares … but it’s ok. I’ll try to pitch again soon. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/the-ndps-onlyhope/article38086675/
5. Violence rarely comes from nowhere
I think this is the best thing I’ve written in years. Trying to place what we knew of Alek Minassian into context was difficult, but also really obvious. No one else was saying this kind of thing — and I was in the midst of receiving hundreds of threats from men who were like Minassian. Men who, when I emailed their mothers to ask if I needed to take their sons’ threats seriously, they’d reply with some vague thing about mental health and how I knew how hard it is. The it was never clear to me — is “it” being their mother? Was “it” living with getting messages from these men? Either way, Minassian embodied a lot of issues together, and I’m proud of how I wrote about them. And sad that seemingly no one else was.
Important: I was living under a torrent of threats and garbage and hell at this moment, and still produced this. Because we don’t live in a meritocracy, that counts for shit, but it was proud af for pulling off this article.
Major shoutout to the National Observer who was and who has been amazing to me and my writing. I’m more than grateful.
6. Nora Loreto vs. Jordan Peterson
This was my first article for the Washington Post. And, after the April I had, where thousands of people told me that they’d ensure I’d never work again, I can’t tell you how important it was for me to start writing for WaPo. When Canada spits you out, it’s true, sometimes your only option is the US.
I was asked to write this, which was intimidating. I didn’t have anything to say about Peterson. Or, I didn’t have much to say. After I was convinced to watch some of his videos, I felt, in a powerful and clarifying way, his appeal. He didn’t appeal to me, but I had enough to write about the world’s most famous snakeoil salesman, and so I did this with elan. Did I cry why then byline came out? No, but I did squeal in an airport in Montreal. You can read the story here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/05/24/what-jordan-peterson-doesnt-get-about-men-and-success-in-canada/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b46fb1886874
7. Is the Left failing to train new activists?
Honest-to-God I could do a post about all my favourite episodes of Sandy and Nora. This was one that kept getting mentioned to me so I’m adding it here. It’s a critical listen on what Sandy and I identify as being the biggest issues that the Left has to confront in training the next generation of activists.
Sandy and Nora has been a giant success. It’s fulfilling and fun. It feels like the moment you form a band and everything clicks and no one’s drug addiction is going to get in the way of your success, and you just know that it’s all good. You know? If not — trust me. It’s wonderful. Sandy and I did two live shows this year and did two more talks that weren’t recorded. Comme on dit en français — ça brasse la cage — we got no laurels this year despite our (amazing) audience which we’re also taking as a mark of success. We’re making waves and we’re SO EXCITED for 2019. Keep listening and keep being in touch :)
Here’s the episode: http://sandyandnora.com/episode-23-is-the-left-failing-to-train-new-activists/
This was an important piece for me to write. I don’t think columnists have grappled with the myriad systemic forces that enabled Wetlauffer to kill, and nothing has been fixed to stop it from happening again. My grandmother was living in the same home that Wetlauffer murdered her last victim, so this also hit close to home.
9. Fake free speech and Doug Ford
Free speech was the hot topic of 2018 and I experienced many different ways in which my free speech is crushed. While Doug Ford’s anti-free speech policy should be resisted by anyone who claims to support free speech on campus, as we know it twill be used to crush speech that Ford’s government disagrees with, but it hasn’t been yet. It’s going to be a difficult few years for Ontario college and university campuses and rather than standing up against the attacks, administrators seem to be begging for more pain. Good luck to these folks — they’re going to need it.
We also had a great podcast episode on the issue too: http://sandyandnora.com/episode-32-doug-ford-attacks-free-speech-on-campus/
10. Quebec election coverage
I’m proud of my coverage of the Quebec election — most of what I saw written for an Anglophone, outside-of-Quebec audience was weak, so being able to improve it brought me a lot of joy. Not to mention that I wrote this article on my cell phone — writer achievement level unlocked for sure. The Washington Post article is good.
Again, we talked about it on the podcast: http://sandyandnora.com/episode-33-changing-of-the-guard-in-quebec/ and I also wrote this for the National Observer, to puncture the (incorrect) pronouncements that sovereignty is dead. Vive le Québec libre.
11. Ontario Proud
There are many other articles I wish I had given myself space to promote on this exceedingly long post, but I think I have to finish with Ontario Proud — the two Medium posts that I whipped up to jumpstart the conversation about who this group really is.
Ontario Proud: same as it ever was.
Despite the comments, neither of these are really investigative. I know we’re starved for basic reporting, so I get that that’s why both of these pieces made such a splash, but I didn’t do any digging deeper than a few google searches. Here’s hoping that someone who is actually paid to do this, does this in 2019.
Epilogue.
So there you have it. If you’re still reading (god bless you), here’s what you probably stuck around to see. My final message in 2018 is this: free speech is a myth and the second that someone who is powerful decides you need to be silenced or slapped, you are silenced and/or slapped. This past year, not only have I had a hell of a time getting articles placed outside of the National Observer or WaPo, but I know that stories and segments about me have been spiked and what I continue to experience has been ignored. Only when the story gets so bad do some people pay a little attention. But man oh man — it’s hard out here. I’d love to write what I really think of the widespread cowardice that I see, but I’ll direct my rage to the most pathetic move that was made in 2018: Maclean’s. Maclean’s could have said nothing, but they said this:
And, contrary to what they said, this statement, of course, created more abuse. Many people declared victory for my career having been destroyed. It felt like a punch to the gut. So — to whoever it was at Maclean’s who thought that this was a good idea — I hope your cowardice expresses itself in other aspects of your life and that you’re tormented, ceaselessly, by it. This isn’t journalism that defends free expression, challenges power and speaks truth; it’s an embarrassment.
Here’s to 2019. It’s going to get worse but it’s also going to get better.
