Commissioner Michèle Audette speaks during ceremonies marking the release of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls report in Gatineau, Que., on June 3, 2019.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
Canada’s federal government is running out of time before the summer session to pass a bill that would pardon those convicted of minor cannabis possession.
The recent maternal health crisis of tennis player Serena Williams was a flash point for many health professionals. A photo of Williams with her daughter from her Instagram account.
Instagram/SerenaWilliams
As we celebrate moms this Mother’s Day, let’s remember that maternal health is a right that many do not enjoy.
Ancestry ad depicts a white man in 19th-century clothing standing in front of a Black woman holding a ring telling her they can leave and be together in Canada.
Ancestry
Canadian audiences did not object to Ancestry’s ad which romanticized Canada as “Promised land,” but they should have.
An academic expert on Islamophobia attended a ‘free-speech’ conference in Toronto, where she was assaulted after challenging speakers for promoting hatred against Muslims.
Shutterstock
Covert power brokers are using cultural, political and economic ideas to influence, shape and inform white nationalist views. They help circulate bigotry by dressing it up as patriotism.
Jazmine Headley, center, who had her toddler yanked from her arms by police at a social services centre said that she went into ‘defence mode.’ Here she joins attorney Brian Neary and her mother, Jacqueline Jenkins, outside a courthouse in Trenton, N.J., Dec. 12, 2018.
(AP Photo/Mike Catalini)
In protecting their children, low-income Black mothers risk being viewed as irrationally overprotective and simultaneously neglectful.
These women used the word intersectionality to indicate solidarity across race and class. Back row: Activist Tarana Burke, Michelle Williams, America Ferrera, Jessica Chastain, Amy Poehler, Meryl Streep, and Kerry Washington; front row: Natalie Portman, activist Ai-jen Poo, and activist Saru Jayaraman.
Golden Globes
Last year, the word ‘intersectionality’ hit the mainstream at the Golden Globes as actors attempted to raise awareness for #MeToo and #TimesUp. But what exactly does intersectionality mean?
Next time you are in Cuba, skip the racist curios and bring back some rum, cigars or local paintings instead.
Photo by Augustin de Montesquiou /Unsplash
Do Canadians like their activism to be communicated in the safest and blandest manner possible?
The historical depiction of ‘the mammy’ is a racist stereotype, with an enduring impact. Hattie McDaniel (right) won an Oscar for her role in ‘Gone with the Wind’ with Vivien Leigh (left).
Selznick International Pictures
The first NAACP meeting was held in Canada but there is no mention of Black Canadians in the books. This historical absence is a symbol of the invisibility of anti-Black racism in Canada.
The boy who went viral: Nick Sandmann shown here in his MAGA cap with fellow students next to Indigenous elder playing the drum.
Instagram/ka_ya11
A recent and powerful exhibit by New York artist Mickalene Thomas at the Art Gallery of Ontario has opened the door for some deep discussions about Black Canadian women and visual representation.
Treaty 4, which covered present-day southern Saskatchewan and a small part of western Manitoba was negotiated and signed at Qu'appelle Lakes. Here Saulteux from Upper Assiniboine River, Oct. 16, 1887 were promised for every ‘man, woman and child $1,200 …blankets and other articles.’
(Library and Archives Canada/Natural Resources Canada fonds/PA-050799).
A recent historical win for Ontario First Nations against the government of Canada is as significant for the legal process, which took into account Anishinaabe law, as it is for the win itself.
Indigenous women’s activism in Canada has a long history. The organizing work of Isabelle McNab, first president of the Saskatchewan Women’s Indian Association, can be seen as the precursor to later activism like this First Nations Idle No More protest for better treatment of Indigenous peoples at the Douglas-Peace Arch near Surrey, B.C., on Jan. 5, 2013.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
Built on historical research, this article tells the resilient, fascinating and rarely told history of Indigenous women’s organizing and resistance in Saskatchewan.
Critics and audiences of the Oscar-nominated film Roma may be missing important Mexican historical and cultural facts.
Director Alfonso Cuarón’s ‘Roma’ has received 10 Oscar nominations. Here, a sociologist explains the hidden historical and cultural context of the film.
In the 19th century, white families in the U.S. could easily acquire real estate. This was never the case for Black Americans.
U.S. National Archives
Old 19th-century agreements between the U.S. government which expelled Indigenous peoples from their land and gave it cheaply to white settlers continue to impact inequalities in the United States.
This photo from May 2018 shows Cyntoia Brown at her clemency hearing at the Tennessee Prison for Women in Nashville, Tenn. On Jan. 7, 2019, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam granted executive clemency to Brown, serving a life sentence for a murder that happened after she was forced into sex work.
(Lacy Atkins /The Tennessean via AP, Pool, File)
Cyntoia Brown has been granted clemency for killing a man when she was a teenager and forced into the sex trade. The case showed why the justice system must stop punishing women for defending themselves.
Canadians seem not to want to talk about race and racism, deferring instead to ‘income’ and immigration status when it comes to measuring education success.
LeonardoBurgos /Unsplash
News of Canada’s successful immigrant students glosses over important stories of racism, for example the ‘streaming’ of Black males. But without more data beyond Toronto, the story is hard to share.
‘(Made in Love)’ is a video installation built around local photography studio images.
Andil Gosine