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January-February 2024

Hollywood’s mixed-race problem

Movies and TV try to get it right, but they’re missing the mark

Asha Swann

My mom told me that once, when I was a toddler, a stranger advised her to sign me up for modelling. My green eyes, medium-light skin, and curly dark brown hair gave me a certain look, they said, which was super in. My mom said no, despite the fact that mixed-race girls like myself were […] More »
January-February 2017

What I’ve learned about diversity teaching in a small, rural Quebec town

Young, queer, and Tamil, Badri Nayaranan knew uprooting from Toronto to rural Quebec would be a challenge. What he didn’t expect was a complete re-evaluation of his identity

Badri Narayanan

A photo posted by Jann Lavigne-Stevens (@ykwimm) on Feb 1, 2017 at 3:24am PST A photo in Beauce, Que. When I talk to the student in the English classes I teach in Saint-Georges, Que., I try to be as open and approachable as possible. I started the job in September 2016 as part of a program […] More »
November-December 2016

What should diversity in Canadian media look like?

Why legacy media needs to dismantle tokenism, pigeonholing, and the great glass ceiling

Priya Ramanujam@SincerelyPriya

Bee Quammie’s social media feeds buzzed with chatter. Earlier that day the CBC had announced its decision to replace Shad with Tom Power as the host of its flagship radio show, q. It was less than 16 months after Shad took the position and the same day that, south of the border, Comedy Central cancelled […] More »
September-October 2016

It’s time for people of privilege to give up their space

Representation matters—and it's time to make room for diverse voices

Stacey May Fowles

For our special 50th anniversary issue, Canada’s brightest, boldest, and most rebellious thinkers, doers, and creators share their best big ideas. Through ideas macro and micro, radical and everyday, we present 50 essays, think pieces, and calls to action. Picture: plans for sustainable food systems, radical legislation, revolutionary health care, a greener planet, Indigenous self-government, […] More »
March-April 2016

We could be heroes

Epic fantasy and sci-fi are today’s bestsellers and blockbusters. But in a world that can imagine magic and dragons, why is diversity so hard to find?

Nicole Abi-Najem@NajemNorth

I was maybe, what, eight years old? There I was, standing in my literal cave of a stinky basement—a carved-out hollow of dark, dank stone under my rickety old house—scrounging through books piled high into mountains of dust. I whipped out one book. The cover stood out: A woman with flowing ebony braids is striking […] More »
May-June 2015

Project Diversity

RM VaughanWebsite

Straight, white men still dominate the technology industry. RM Vaughan introduces us to LGBTQ activists around the world who are fighting for change STUART CAMERON REMEMBERS the first time Unicorns in Tech set up a booth at a major tech/IT conference. “People would stop and see ‘Unicorns’ and think, ‘Oh that looks like fun,’ and […] More »

Why the left needs more diversity

Hana Shafi

In late September, the University of Toronto’s St. George Campus, hosted a one-day event called “Uncaring Canada?” Its purpose, as the name suggests, was to examine Canada’s foreign policy, and how perceptions of Canada as a caring, compassionate, and peace-loving nation are, in many ways, wrong—especially as Canada arguably shifts to militarization and neoliberalism. With […] More »

Listen to This #019: Workplace diversity consultant Tomee Sojourner

Graham F. Scott

In today’s podcast I talked with Tomee Sojourner, a Montreal-based activist, educator, and consultant who concentrates mostly on workplace diversity. Tomee is also the founder of the Embracing Intersectional Diversity Project, a group that aims to connect people from different backgrounds and experiences so that they can talk openly and honestly about their differences and […] More »