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I've been watching the calls for removal of John A. MacDonald statues, the red paint thrown on them, the marches and demonstrations, and I hope it is done. I hope more is done than just leaving them there as is. Because that sanitized figure was cast in bronze in our minds too.
In my early comics, I made John A. MacDonald a comic figure. I used what we learned about him. He drank a lot. That was "funny" compared to the Founding Fathers of the US. I don't know - I hate looking at my old comics. I hate those John A. drawings. I'm ashamed I made them.
I took them off the website. But, just look at what a fuckin' fool I am. John A. popped up a few times because I would be contracted to do something about him for a Canadian newspaper or something, and then I'd put it on the site to make for an update too.
I am sorry for these drawings and these sentiments. John A. MacDonald was an architect of residential schools and starvation of Indigenous people, he is not a funny goofy figure. He is not a sanitized figure in bronze. I went through high school and university and I didn't learn-
I had Canadian history courses in university, and I didn't learn. I listened to my professors talk about Sir John A. and make jokes about the drunken things he did during speeches and I read my assigned books and I wrote essays and I came out of school thinking I knew things
And I did not know a god damned thing. And the only reason I learned the truth about Canadian history is because of the tireless efforts of people outside the system who never stopped telling white people the real story no matter how much pushback they got.
The more I did Hark A Vagrant, the more I felt like I knew nothing. When I started, I was a fresh voice comics where there weren't a lot of women. But by the time I wrapped up, I felt that if anyone should be making comics about history, it should not be a white lady
And the more I did Hark A Vagrant the more uncomfortable I got with the years that it spanned. Something I made a decade ago existing side by side with something I made yesterday, and looking as though they were made by a person with the same mind. In short, I needed to leave it.
On top of that, the reason I put up on the website was totally true, we had gone through a personal tragedy in the family,I had not made comics for a while, and I was just a different person. But these reasons were there too, I kept them to myself, but I'm telling them to you now
I'm sorry for making light of something painful. I'm sorry I didn't address it either when I learned the difference.
Canadians are educated in a system that casts white, settler history in bronze, without (or with selected) blemish. They're not just statues. They're how we see ourselves. How are we going to see ourselves for who we really are and what we've done, if we can't topple the idols.
