William Osler and Rick Hill

I used to have a copy of Michael Bliss's biography of William Osler, but it was one of the casualties of a big downsizing of my library I did a couple of years ago, so I haven't able to consult it after the Toronto Star began publicizing new exposures about Osler's racist statements and his donations of aboriginal skulls, (some labelled " dug up near Caledonia") to medical/anthropological collections, where they remain. (The Star stories make no reference to Bliss's book, though the article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal does, briefly.)  I recall Bliss found Osler a highly admirable personality, but I don't know if these aspects appeared in his account.

The Star's related story, about the half century of work by Rick Hill, the Six Nations historian, curator, and activist, in recovering and repatriating indigenous skeletal collections from around the world for respectful burial, reminds me of the tributes due to this remarkable historical scholar and activist, who ought to be honoured for his remarkable career beyond just when a headline story involves him. 

  

History of racism: the confederate flag in Canada

That debate over display of the Confederate flag that developed after the Charleston church murders is no longer exclusively American. The Nova Scotia-based Citizens against White Supremacy has launched a campaign to have display of the Confederate flag considered a hate crime across Canada.

Among the leaders of the project is Dalhousie University historian and director of its Transitional Year Program, Isaac Saney, a scholar of Cuban and African history.

A lot of Canadians probably associate that flag mostly with Duke boy cars, Texas barbecue, and immoderate beer consumption.  But there has been an interesting revaluation going on in the United States, much of it driven by historians of public memory, of how closely the Confederate flag maps with resistance to civil rights and to efforts to preserve the triumphs of segregationist and white-supremacy regimes. The removal of Confederate regalia from the South Carolina legislative grounds may be only the start, as retailers stop stocking it and manufacturers abandon its imagery.

Canada has a much more developed tradition of hate-crime legislation and empowered Human Rights Tribunals. Watch for someone to try applying those to Confederate flag displays in Canada.

Chris Rock, historian of "race" "relations"

There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they’re not as crazy. To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before.

Whole interview is here.