I forget how I first followed @jeffperera.bsky.social but I think our first conversation online came up on today's date. December 6 - it's a weird moment we shared despite a gap in age, context, and distance when December 6, 1989 events affected us.
Thoughtful and timely, though not exactly cheering, post from Jeff, as always.
This crossed my timeline just minutes past midnight, as I was reading an article on the Gen-AI enabled online abuse of women and girls. Only days after learning of a young welder in Minnesota brutally beaten to death at work, by a male coworker who "didn't like how she looked at him".
Thirty-six damn years ago we said "First mourn then work for change."
I am so. Damn. Tired. of the mourning part.
I should only ever have learned these names if I had met them as graduates or working in professional roles in the Canadian engineering sector.
Instead I memorized them decades ago while laying white roses at memorial gardens at other engineering schools.
@johannab I didn't know them either, yet I wept. I remember walking out of a U of T engineering building 36 years ago, listening to the news unfold on my Walkman.
@johannab wow, I used to study far right violence, and feel dumbfounded that I didn’t see this talked about more. I know I’m in the US, but this…just fuck. Appreciate you keeping the names alive and sharing
@johannab For those like me who are far away in time or space or both: this is what the memorial is about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89cole_Polytechnique_massacre
