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COMIC: And the Appropriation Prize goes to…

A white person!

Hana Shafi@hanashafi

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March-April 2017

New film takes a much-needed glance into Canada’s uncomfortable past with racism and slavery

An inside look at Howard J. Davis's C'est Moi

Melissa Gonik

She strolls softly through a deserted modern-day Montreal. Her outfit—and the way she seems to float through the streets—indicate her lack of connection to this modern scene. This is Marie-Josèphe Angélique, a slave “owned” by François Poulin of Montreal in the early 1730s. Canadian filmmaker Howard J. Davis uses his film C’est Moi as an […] 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 »
January-February 2017

2017 Kick-Ass Activist: LeRoi Newbold

Black Lives Matter Toronto’s LeRoi Newbold offers youth a chance to learn Black history and political resistance outside of the traditional classroom

Tannara Yelland@tyelland

The fifth entry in the Black Panther Party’s (BPP) 10-point platform reads, “We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present-day society.” The seventh is an all too familiar demand for “an immediate end […] More »
January-February 2017

New Toronto play confronts a Ghanaian family’s dream for a better life in North America

Jijo Quayson's Osia debuted at the city's SummerWorks festival to great acclaim

Sharon Kashani

A lullaby sombrely lilts through a theatre as stage lights reveal a teenage Ghanaian girl. She is dressed simply but neatly, in a patterned blue dress and white shoes. There is a venturesome spark in her eyes as she stares toward an audience unseen. She begins to speak dreamily of a fairytale land she imagines by […] 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

Imagine a Canada where words matter

Wishes for the future of our country

Erin Wunker

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 »
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 »
July-August 2015

One year later

Denise Hansen

Denise Hansen examines the Black Lives Matter movement in Canada—and why there’s cause for anger and hope here, too PROTESTS AND MARCHES AND SIT-INS have never really been my chosen course of social action. I can remember my dear family friend Kathy, a valiant social justice advocate, trying over the years to introduce my tender, […] More »
May-June 2015

Whitewashed

Nashwa Kahn@nashwakay

From our education system to our literary community, why is CanLit so white? Nashwa Khan challenges the default narrative JUNOT DÍAZ UNLEASHED A BOMBSHELL on the writing world when he published his essay “MFA vs. PoC” in the New Yorker last spring. The Dominican American author is a creative writing professor, a fiction editor for […] More »
March-April 2015

The trouble with (white) feminism

Hana Shafi

Mainstream white feminism preaches a privileged, exclusive, saviour-based model. And it’s time for it to go MY FIRST INTRODUCTION TO FEMINISM was through Tumblr. At 17, I opened an account, and began the search for feminist blogs. As I tumbled through, I landed on the same images and topics: body hair growth, sexual liberation, pastel-coloured […] More »