A Room of My Own: Choked to Death Tanka

written in response to the Gerald Stanley verdict

nation to nation
slides off PM's tongue
so easily
an "Indian" choked to death
by an all-white jury

Note: "In the trial of Gerald Stanley, a white Saskatchewan farmer accused of killing a young Indigenous man named Colten Boushie, the defence used a tool called peremptory challenges to exclude all the visibly Indigenous jurors, resulting in what appeared to be an all-white jury. The jury acquitted Mr. Stanley after a single day of deliberation." For an in-depth analysis of the Gerald Stanley murder trial, see the Maclean's featured article,The Gerald Stanley verdict is a blow to reconciliation—and a terrifying one at that, written by Kyle Edwards, and  for the issue regarding how to reform Canada's jury system, listen to the CBC's Sunday Edition interview with Frank Iacobucci, justice on the Supreme Court of Canada from 1991 to 2004; Annamaria Enenajor, criminal and constitutional lawyer and partner at Ruby Schiller & Enenajor Barristers in Toronto, and Nader Hasan,criminal and constitutional lawyer and a partner at Stockwoods LLP.