The following photography was submitted by Amir Mhaouek (@analog.overdose). Amir is a Canadian film photographer from Montreal, currently studying photography at Dawson College. He also reports and photographs important events and social movements as part of his photojournalism project. All these photos were taken on either 35mm film or 120 medium format film.
From the artist: "As a photo journalist, I have no choice but to keep my attention on whatever protest is happening, but when I heard of the BLM march going on in Montreal on June 6th, I felt personally compelled to be there. My province, Quebec, has seen a dangerous normalization of racism since our new Prime Minister took office. He has publicly said that systemic racism doesn’t exist, even though 3 independent studies have all concluded that the SPVM, Montreal’s police department, is 4 times more likely to randomly detain and question a Black or Arab man than a white man. The figure goes as high as 5 times when we look at indigenous populations. Quebec City’s police department has never employed a Black man in over 177 years of existence. My experience with the police goes further than reading some statistics, as I am a Muslim Arab man, and I have personally been the victim of systemic racism and police brutality on more than one occasion. Grabbing my camera and some film and documenting this historic event was the least I could do for this amazing movement."
