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The rotating strikes which were supposed to affect many Montreal daycare centres on Thursday were called off as reported by CTV.

On Wednesday night the union representing the daycare workers announced that talks have advanced. This led to the union calling off the walkout as well as those which were scheduled to take place this Monday and Tuesday.

The daycare workers have been holding rotating walkouts over the past ten days to pressure the government to step up negotiations.

The workers have been without a contract for 2 years.

Flickr photo by: University of Saskatchewan

The Partie Quebecois is protesting the expected passage of federal legislation to abolish the long gun registry. Leader Pauline Marois decided to start off the questions period in the national assembly in a different way. She read the names of the fourteen women gunned down at Montreal’s École Polytechnique in 1989.

Marois wants a clarification from the provincial government as to how they’ll better ensure gun control in the province.

Public Safety Minister Robert Dutil says the province will file a lawsuit the moment the bill receives royal assent. They want to stop Quebec’s registry data from being destroyed.

The federal legislation calls for the destruction of all records gathered since the registry was created by the former Liberal government.

For centuries artists have attempted to capture an ideal beauty dependent on prevailing cultural values, perpetuating a single standard of beauty. Black beauty, often ignored and underrepresented, comes to light in an enlightening discourse on beauty in African American culture.

Deborah Willis presented her discoveries as well as her own photography to a live audience at Concordia’s York Amphitheatre in the EV building. Willis was invited to Concordia as part of the Speaking of Photography lecture series organized by the Department of Art History.

Willis is the Chair of the Department of Photography and Imaging at Tisch School of the Arts as well as a professor of Africana Studies at the College of Arts and Sciences at New York University. She is also the author of Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present.

A leading historian in African American photography, Willis’s photographs examine the relationship between beauty and art within the complexities of African American history. Willis’s work isn’t about defining beauty, but more about the discovery of beauty in the historical and cultural narrative of the photographs.

Willis interest in black beauty began as an undergraduate in one of her classes. Noticing a lack of African American artists in her history books, Willis began researching through libraries, newspapers, and various records to uncover an unacknowledged black beauty. Encouraged by her teacher, she wrote a paper on the topic, and after 8 years of research published a book of her discoveries.

The series of snapshots from various photographers presented by Willis show how race, class, gender, popular culture and politics have shaped and framed popular conceptions of African American beauty throughout history.

The mammy figure, introduced in some of her early photographs, shows a public view of black people seen through the eyes of caricature and stereotype. Particular drawings of South African Sarah Baartman, 19th century freak show attraction, see her “unusual” features exploited, exposing the early European connotation of the undesirable black female.

“The body of the black female is seen as labour, seen as grotesque, and seen as funny.” Willis explains.

Willis’s photos also explore the world of the beauty contest. In one case where the winner was black, the KKK subsequently burned down the building that the contest took place in, demonstrating for Willis “the notion of beauty as a political act.”

Challenging the narrow-minded worldview of beauty, some photographs include Pam Grier’s character Coffy and the restyling of the figures Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben, signifying a liberation from societal stereotypes.

From Josephine Baker to Michelle Obama photographs framing beauty through style and the performing of beauty represent the multiplicities of beauty throughout the works.

Willis also considered the story of black men who were noticeably absent from the historical narrative. The photographs featured dapper men and young boys in their Sunday best, posing next to their cars or simply posing for the camera. Black and white photos of a stylish Isaac Hayes on the phone and Muhammad Ali in a classic boxer stance preserves the presence of a masculine beauty in the narrative.

The lack of images of black beauty comes down to “following a tradition,” with Willis stating that it’s easy for curators to just follow the iconic images they know. Of the 250 images featured in Posing Beauty, half of them have never been published before.

Calling her work a somewhat “retroactive manifesto on beauty,” Willis imparts that there is no single narrative of beauty. Her work provokes questions of past and current perceptions of beauty and a closer look at dynamics of beauty on a global scale.

The Quebec government is getting tough on school bullying. CBC reports Jean Charest introduced new anti-bullying methods on Sunday.

The measures will tackle media platforms. They include a television and Internet ad campaign and a website with tips for victims. There will also be an anti-bullying declaration people can sign.

Charest says that everyone has a responsibility to fight bullying. The campaign will cost six million dollars a year, plus one million for the television and internet ads.