from CJ
- As someone who came late to the Tumblr game, but is having a really great time now that I’ve joined the party, this piece blew my mind and does a great job of honouring the teens, our brilliant and sensitive younger siblings and, it turns out, the geniuses cultivating (and profiting off of) internet humour. Also, that joke about pubes is perfect.
- What are the conditions of Toronto’s warming centres? Read more about the overcrowding crisis in the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty’s recent report on Toronto’s shelter system.
- 2016 is the first year Ontario is officially celebrating black history month. Desmond Cole explains why a change in name might allow Ontarians to actually discuss and honour the struggle of black Canadians on our stolen soil.
- El Jones on the respectability politics that shape mainstream Canadian historical perspectives of racism and influence how black lives are valued today.
- “Bowie’s artistic life was tied up in an ethos of seeing, validating and inducing intimacy with anyone in front of him; the fact that this ethos turned sexual in the case of painfully young teenagers is inseparable from his art.” What should we say about David Bowie and Lori Maddox.
- Kiese Laymon on violence in America:
The reality that white Americans are responsible for some of the most lasting, crazy-making violence on Earth does nothing to negate the reality that black men and boys, like white men and boys, are formally and informally educated by other men, boys, and patriarchal structures, to unrepentantly harm and sexually violate black women and girls.
I believe that’s true of Bill Cosby. I believe that’s true of Daniel Holtzclaw. I believe that’s true of way too many of our uncles and nephews.
And I know that’s true of me.
- “He mostly stopped drinking. We think he stopped hitting.” On assault narratives and what happens after.
- “It is absolutely possible to fight sexism at work, come home, and abuse the help. One could argue that Hillary has done this on a national scale.” Sarah Leonard on the women who are supporting HC and the women who can’t afford to.
- “There’s something almost radical about refusing to follow the current model we have of what a relationship or family should look like. Is it possible that convents could teach women something about how to be with each other?” Anne Theriault talks to a Catholic nun about marriage to God, feminism, and so much more.
- New life goal: don’t show up to work for six years, collect salaried pay, become expert in Spinoza.
- “In Saskatchewan, if you’re Indigenous, you’re 33 times more likely to be incarcerated, according to a 1999 report, the most recent available. This helps explain why prison guard is among the fastest-growing public sector occupations on the Prairies.” How our justice system is set against Indigenous people.
- Mandee McDonald on the danger of instituting mandatory Indigenous courses in universities.
- The Native Women’s Association of Canada and Feminist Alliance for International Action released 22 recommendations to governments about a national inquiry into murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls. Read the full report here.
- Rebecca Solnit on missing perpetrators, mysterious pregnancies, and the Center for Disease Control’s new guidelines to drinking:
I wish all this telling women alcohol is dangerous was a manifestation of a country that loves babies so much it’s all over lead contamination from New Orleans to Baltimore to Flint and the lousy nitrate-contaminated water of Iowa and carcinogenic pesticides and the links between sugary junk food and a host of health conditions and the need for universal access to healthcare and daycare and good and adequate food. You know it’s not.
- Speaking of drinking: Are you a lady who drinks beer? Check out the Society of Beer Drinking Ladies, they’re having an event next week you won’t want to miss!
- Not sure that I Love Dick is a comedy, but apparently it’s going to be one you can watch!