Music teacher suing after performance called ‘racist’

Folksong Land of the Silver Birch played at school

TORONTO • A music teacher is suing her principal and vice-principal, along with the Toronto school board, for defamation over an email they sent following a school play describing one of the songs performed as “inappropriate” and “racist.”

Violet Shearer is suing for $75,000 in damages, with her statement of claim saying the email “suggests that her professional judgment and conduct was both inappropriate and racist.” The statement goes on to say that her “reputation is central to her ability to continue her employment” and this must include an “absence of any suggestion that she is racist or inappropriate.”

The concert was held in May 2016 at High Park Alternative Public School in Toronto and was produced by Shearer. Part of the performance included the well-known folksong Land of the Silver Birch, which is thought to have been inspired by Indigenous poet E. Pauline Johnson.

Following the concert, principal Nancy Keenan and vice-principal Edita Tahirovic sent an email to the school community who said concerns over the song were brought to their attention.

“While its lyrics are not overly racist … the historical context of the song is racist,” their email says. It goes on to note that Johnson performed for mostly non-Native audiences, and in a style that “…depicted Native people and culture in romantic ways, while lamenting the dying out of Native civilization to be replaced by a superior western civilization.”

One of the lyrics says, “High on a rocky ledge I’ll build my wigwam, close to the water’s edge, silent and still.”

The defendants say in their statement of defence that Shearer hasn’t suffered any damage to her reputation, and the claims against them should be dismissed.

The allegations have not been tested in court. Lawyers for the school board, the principal and the viceprincipal said they couldn’t comment.

In her lawsuit, Shearer says was absent from the school on disability leave following the concert, which could give the impression that her absence was in some way related to the concert, and could have “further compounded the irreparable damage” to her reputation. Shearer is also asking for an apology and a retraction.

Land of the Silver Birch is not one of Johnson’s poems. According to Carole Gerson, who has written two books about Johnson, it’s “an anonymous camp song from the 1920s,” and the “unknown author may have claimed to have been inspired by Johnson, but that’s as far as it goes.”

However, the email written by Keenan and Tahirovic explicitly points to Johnson’s work as racist and concerning, which University of Ottawa professor Janice Fiamengo says is “ridiculous.”

“Saying that Johnson lamented the dying out of Native culture is totally wrong,” said Fiamengo, who has extensively studied Johnson’s work and included the poet in one of her books. “She had some very serious works of literature where she explicitly critiqued racism against Native women in particular — she really was a bold advocate for Native people.”

Fiamengo said while perhaps Johnson did romanticize Indigenous culture, it was only done in an attempt to affirm it. The poet was born in the mid-19th century to a hereditary Mohawk chief and an English mother on the Six Nations reserve near Brantford, Ont.

“Of course affirming Native culture involved romanticizing, because she was trying to defend and uphold a culture that was being marginalized and degraded,” she said. “That’s what people do when they’re trying to advocate for their culture.”

Rick Monture is an associate professor of Indigenous studies at McMaster University and a Mohawk. Although he’s unfamiliar with Land of the Silver Birch, he has done extensive research on Johnson’s work and said while it can be seen as controversial, it’s important to keep context in mind.

“There are poems where she alternates between taking a really critical stance of colonialism and there are others where she’s acquiescing to a more assimilative attitude,” he said. “But Johnson was an advocate for Indigenous rights at a time where few people were paying attention to it. She used her platform to educate people as much as she could but it was fraught with a lot of difficulties.”

After reading over Land of the Silver Birch, Monture said, “It’s outdated and cliché, but I wouldn’t call it racist.” Music teacher Violet Shearer is suing her principal, viceprincipal and the Toronto school board for defamation.