World

I dreamed I was Agnes Gereb, Hungarian doctor and midwife who was jailed by state authorites for her work in delivering babies in a mother's home -- something that is common around the world, but is criminalized in Hungary.

The only difference was I wasn’t in jail…yet. In the dream, I had a half hour before lock down and I knew there was no time; not for goodbyes, not to complete my life’s work, and certainly not to establish any form of justice.

Luckily, I awoke. But for some reason I’ve not been able to shake the cold and pressing feeling of imminent incarceration. Might it have to do with the fact that earlier that same night, I had agreed to write an article to help free her?

Do you know the tale of Joe Fortes? Well-loved swimming instructor and one of Vancouver’s first Black settlers? English Bay’s first lifeguard?

If not, that may be because much information about Vancouver’s black communities has remained largely elusive from not only the City Archives, but from public memory as well. This February, the Vancouver Observer is celebrating Black History month by commemorating those key African figures who helped shape our vibrant city into what it is today.

"My name was not Eric, but 'Faggot...I was stalked, spit on, ostracized, and physically assaulted,'" said 19-year-old filmmaker Eric James Borges, speaking for an "It Gets Better" video to support lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth who suffer from bullying. 

His dark eyes filled with sadness in the video, he recounts how he was tormented by bullies from his earliest days in school, the attacks intensifying as the years went by. Despite his message urging gay youth not to give up, Borges took his own life just one month after filming the video. 

Borges, born to an "extremist Christian household", was rejected by his family and kicked out of the house shortly after he came out. Despite suffering from severe anxiety and depression, he managed to complete high school early and worked as an intern at The Trevor Project, an organization working to prevent suicide among LGBTQ youth. 

Laura McGinnis, communications director at The Trevor Project, called Borges' death a "tragedy" and issued the following statement: