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Race

November-December 2020

Feeding Black and Indigenous families

New volunteer-based project tackles food insecurity during the pandemic

Christine Jean-Baptiste

  Sequestered in each of their own homes, neighbours Antonia Lawrence and Emily Carson didn’t have family around when COVID-19 hit. All they had was the group chat shared between their friendly neighbours. Often, involving inquiries for grocery trips, wanting to share food items, and recipes between each other—a system built on the sentiment that […] More »
September-October 2020

The code to success

Black boys to get involved in STEM

Kevin Philipupillai

Bryan Johnson, CEO and Founder of Black Boys Code · photo by Sean Anthony Photography   As the Black Lives Matter movement spread across different industries this year, 5,874 scientists around the world signed an online pledge in support of #ShutDownSTEM. The one-day strike in June was a call to action against anti-Black racism in […] More »
September-October 2020

A certain swanness

On Korean adoption and beauty

Jenny Heijun Wills

A quarter million Korean adoptees live (or have lived) around the world. Aren’t our black eyes so cute when they get pushed up by our cheeks as we smile for the photo displayed at the office? Don’t we garner the most likes and applause on those mommy blogs when we’re sent to show-and-tell in a […] More »
September-October 2020

Black art matters

Spotlight on Shaya Ishaq

Francesca Ekwuyasi

Shaya Ishaq’s work moves fluidly between mediums—words, ceramics, fibres, jewellery—while maintaining a central locus of honouring Black lineages and sparking light toward liberated Black futures. Tenacious and ever-evolving, Ishaq walked away from journalism school and signed up for a hand-building course at a pottery studio in her hometown of Ottawa. “I really fell in love […] More »
July-August 2020

A letter to Audre Lorde

There's nothing wrong with being unoriginal

Hadiyyah Kuma

Dear Audre Lorde, My fingers ache. All I can do since this pandemic started locally is read and write. And not my assignments and essays; none of those thrill me. None get at what I really want to say; none encapsulate the expanse of human suffering we are seeing on our screens and streets. To […] More »
July-August 2020

Call me Iranian

In my youth, I asked to be called Persian—but not anymore

Nedda Sarshar

I can’t tell you the exact moment when I went from calling myself “Iranian” to “Persian.” I know that it happened post 9/11 and that the decision was made when I went to a predominantly white middle school. Prior to that, the only time I faced real issues with being Iranian was whenever we crossed […] More »
May-June 2020

Between two worlds

The ethics of travelling "back where you came from"

Barâa Arar

I am trying to get my grandfather’s attention at a busy intersection in Tunis, Tunisia. It is 36 degrees and dusty. He is old and frail and has outgrown his home country since he left for Canada 20 years ago. My grandfather once had every winding alley of the downtown core memorized, but he’s unfamiliar […] More »
May-June 2020

I’m not a fake Canadian

Thoughts on travelling as a person of colour

Li Charmaine Anne

I often think of myself as a proud Canadian. Of course, Canada is by no means a perfect—or even racism-free—country, but as a Chinese-Canadian who has had the privilege of travelling widely, Canada remains one of my favourite places. But I’ve learned that introducing myself as Canadian in a foreign country can be surprising to […] More »
March-April 2020

Perfuming my daughter

The scent of sandalwood was a way to connect with my culture and home— I followed its roots to learn more

Nehal El-Hadi

When my daughter was born, I would place tiny dots of sandalwood oil behind her perfect little ears and in the folds of her delicate neck. She was the best smelling baby around; the combination of the natural scent of infant and sandalwood was heady, divine, something you could live in forever. It’s an unusual […] More »
March-April 2020

Lacking representation

South Asian representation on screen is not as sparse as it once was; but what does representation mean if it isn’t any good?

Rachna Raj Kaur

In North America, many Hollywood stars of Indian descent are household names: Mindy Kaling, Priyanka Chopra, Kumail Nanjiani, Hasan Minhaj, and Scarborough native Lilly Singh. According to YouTubers Colin and Samir, Hollywood has realized that Indians—in North America and India—have the buying power to demand representation on screen. I think we’ve always known this, but […] More »
March-April 2020

Why you hate cops but love Brooklyn Nine-Nine

You have to admit, the show has an unlikely following

Niko Stratis

As a child born in the early 1980s and raised by 1990s media, TV taught me one thing: cops are not to be trusted. While we are sold the idea of a hard-working and noble institution of policing through the lens of NYPD Blue, Cops, or even Homicide: Life on the Street, the news taught […] More »