AASK Montreal

Artists and Allies Seeking Knowledge is a community initiative whose aim is to create a space for all to learn skills and contribute towards positive change.

[AASK Montreal @AaskMontreal]

Thank you to @LesHTMlles @FemMediaStudio and @StudioXX_ for helping us put on these conversations! Please write to us anonymously or through email on our tumblr page and emails respectively for suggestions and comments. Thanks!

[AASK Montreal @AaskMontreal]

"There’s no way I can take this back to my original space because that language doesn’t exist there. That’s one of the frustrating things about how wonderful this language is because there are boundaries of where it reaches."

[AASK Montreal @AaskMontreal]

"Part of what is vexing about these conversations is that these are happening in a cultural space/aspirational shared culture values in a fairly limited demographic of people."

[AASK Montreal @AaskMontreal]

"The longest accountability process I have been is with my family."

[AASK Montreal @AaskMontreal]

"compassion is important but that doesn’t negate or stop my rage."

[AASK Montreal @AaskMontreal]

"This goes back to what was said earlier about community, needing to have the people surrounding that person say that they are acknowledging it. Are the people that failed me not going to fail someone else. They aren’t going to let me down."

[AASK Montreal @AaskMontreal]

"I have been thinking about the inequality of who is practicing compassion. How do you meet someone who is not practicing that for whatever reason. If they are causing harm, what are the measures to hold that harm and to protect people and keep them safe."

[AASK Montreal @AaskMontreal]

"When there’s a call to accountability that goes unanswered it’s usually because people aren’t practicing compassion. People who hold power and have no reason to do that work to be accountable. What are measure of containment?"

[AASK Montreal @AaskMontreal]

"Sometimes people are asked not to participate in [certain spheres]. It’s a struggle between wanting to practice compassion and non-punishment while there are people who continue to harm and knowing that harm can radiate outward when that harm is not contained."

[AASK Montreal @AaskMontreal]

"I guess that story reminds me that humans are not disposable, no matter what, even if it feels like you want it to be that way for the sake of healing "

[AASK Montreal @AaskMontreal]

"Some people ask you have to be a conduit to make yourself available, some people don’t have access to this platform. You have to make yourself available so that people who are vulnerable have an in with you. It’s a way that I navigate my privilege."

[AASK Montreal @AaskMontreal]

"If we keep having these conversations amongst ourselves it might be less impactful. We have to weigh our own privilege in each situations.. So I can be like okay today I can take this on and challenge this man in this periphery of my life but other days I can not."

[AASK Montreal @AaskMontreal]

"This goes back to knowing the power that you do have… you know in some situations I might be in a more powerful position to speak with a man about these things that might be more impactful than if someone else with different experiences were to do this."

[AASK Montreal @AaskMontreal]

"The ways in which men of colour are not called out by other people of colour for various reasons. I do participate in this. I don’t want a bunch of white feminists butting into the conversation. But I do realize there’s this massive lack where I do not challenge men at all."

[AASK Montreal @AaskMontreal]

" The questions of callouts, they’re contextual in the sense that the ways we’re talking about it on twitter for some Hollywood actor. The queer feminist circles of Montreal, the conversations there happen differently."

[AASK Montreal @AaskMontreal]

"I tend to engage more on the local. In doing my work, there’s that weird thing where I don’t interact with men, don’t engage, don’t challenge them. Specifically men of colour, that’s never a conversation I don’t bring up in public."

[AASK Montreal @AaskMontreal]

"Think of honouring - remember the lineage that you come from. People you don’t even know were here doing this, they paved the way for you, even if sometimes projects disappear. I take none of it for granted. That’s the problem: I’m waiting for it, this rug is gonna be pulled."

[AASK Montreal @AaskMontreal]

"It’s a question I think about a lot: the tipping point, where are we?... Our sense of temporality is so different. [These projects] exist for 5 years and are really massive and impact the people.Then for some reason the project doesn’t happen anymore.."

[AASK Montreal @AaskMontreal]

"and you talk to another generation and they have no idea about it..."

[AASK Montreal @AaskMontreal]

"That the thing that come to my mind everyone has learning to do. The context that it takes place in matters."