Media releases

• Photo Opportunity: Chariot Race around Brock circle Saturday

  Friday, May 05, 2017 | By Brock University

  MEDIA RELEASE: 5 May 2017 – R00090

  Nearly 300 high school students are at Brock University this week for the annual Ontario Student Classics Conference, which wraps up Saturday with a chariot race around the Brock traffic circle.

  “We’re honoured to be hosting the conference again at Brock,” says Department of Classics Chair Professor Angus Smith. “It’s a great chance for the high school students to celebrate their interests in Classics and the ancient world.”

  The conference helps students get a deeper understanding of the classical world by bringing together students and teachers from across the province in social events and competitions.

  The OSCC is also an important recruiting opportunity for the Department of Classics.
  “It’s a great chance for us to show these students what a great place Brock would be to come pursue these interests,” Smith says.

  The conference aims to support mens sana in corpore sano — a healthy mind in a healthy body — through friendly competitions.

  Students compete across three categories: academic, athletic and creative. The academic competition includes contests in written Greek and Latin, vocabulary and derivatives, sight translations, mythology, Greek and Roman history and geography.

  Athletic competitions reflect the sports practised by the ancient Greeks and Romans including discus (frisbee), slinging, mini marathons, foot races and swimming.

  The highlight of the annual conference is a chariot race around Brock’s traffic circle scheduled for Saturday at 2:30 p.m., when each school races a chariot they’ve made designed and built.

  Creative competitions encompass visual arts, drama and fashion, with students displaying artwork, audiovisual projects and computer work and performing skits for their peers. Participating schools also create visual displays in Thistle hallways.

  Students also apply what they’ve learned about archaeology, working in teams to complete a simulated archaeological dig behind DeCew residence.

  The conference wraps up Saturday night with a traditional pompa (parade) and award ceremony.

  Media are invited to attend Saturday’s chariot race, which will be held rain or shine.

  For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:
   
  * Dan Dakin, Media Relations Officer, Brock University ddakin@brocku.ca, 905-688-5550 x5353 or 905-347-1970

  Brock University Marketing and Communications has a full-service studio where we can provide high definition video and broadcast-quality audio.

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  Categories: Media releases

• Brock professor releases documentary on 25th anniversary of Yonge Street Riot

  Tuesday, May 02, 2017 | By Brock University

  MEDIA RELEASE: – 1 May 2017: R00088

  Feeling marginalized and targeted, a part of the population reaches its breaking point and takes to the streets in protest.

  It sounds like something that could have taken place today, but Thursday, May 4 marks 25 years since the Yonge Street Riot took place in downtown Toronto.

  “With anti-black police violence and Black Lives Matter in the news 25 years later, now was the time to revisit the events of May 4, 1992 along with its social and historical context, political aftermath and relevance for contemporary struggles against anti-black racism,” says Simon Black, Assistant Professor in the Centre for Labour Studies at Brock University.

  The Yonge Street Riot started as a rally organized by the Black Action Defense Committee with about 1,000 people protesting against the Rodney King verdict and the shooting death of a 22-year-old black man by Toronto police a few days earlier.

  They marched to City Hall, with a handful of protestors causing damage, and then the group grew as it marched along Yonge Street, where things escalated.

  “Many, including police and politicians, called it a riot. Others, myself included, think of it more as a rebellion, an uprising,” Black says. 

  After writing an article about the event, Black was encouraged to produce a documentary to mark the 25th anniversary.

  The film, It Takes A Riot: Race, Rebellion, Reform, will be released in a screening Thursday, May 4 at 6:30 p.m. at Ryerson University. The screening will take place in room LIB 72. It’s free and open to the public, but space is limited.

  A second screening will take place at the Niagara Artists Centre in late May, and the film will eventually be housed on Ryerson’s Akua Benjamin Legacy Project website along with an instructors’ guide and other resources for teaching and learning.

  Black says the documentary asks the question: ‘What does it take for black people to get justice in this society?’
   
  “While media coverage of the day focused on property damage, it was the confrontation of young people with the police that tells the true story of May 4,” he says. “Police were shooting and killing black people with impunity in the City of Toronto, never mind the daily indignities suffered by black people as they were racially profiled and harassed by police.

  “Not much has changed. The question remains: why must things reach a crisis point before government addresses systemic anti-black racism?” says Black.

  Black co-wrote the film with Howard Grandison, who also directed. The two, along with Assistant Professor of Social Work at Ryerson Idil Abdillahi, produced the film. It was funded by The Akua Benjamin Legacy Project at Ryerson and the Social Justice Research Institute at Brock.

  “The story has been told in poetry, literature and has received some scholarly attention but not nearly enough,” Black says.

  Simon Black, Assistant Professor in the Centre for Labour Studies at Brock University, is available for interviews.

  For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:
   
  * Dan Dakin, Media Relations Officer, Brock University ddakin@brocku.ca, 905-688-5550 x5353 or 905-347-1970

  Brock University Marketing and Communications has a full-service studio where we can provide high definition video and broadcast-quality audio.

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  Categories: Media releases