April 17, 2016
from CJ
- GUTS editor Natalie and I left our cities (Toronto and Halifax) this week and will be living rurally for the next little while. I vow to stay on top of the news but if there is anything I’ve missed please don’t hesitate to add to the comments (as always!). I also want to share that there is a young beaver building a new home in the pond near where we are living. I already feel so many things for this beaver. This story about hero beavers gives me high hopes for our potential future allegiance.
- Attawapiskat declared a state of emergency last weekend, calling for more adequate mental health services in response to high suicide rates in the community. Activists and allies are occupying Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada offices in Toronto, Winnipeg, James Bay, and elsewhere. Follow #OccupyINAC, #attawapiskat, and #GroundZeroINAC for updates.
- This week the Supreme court of Canada made a landmark decision that will affect thousands of Indigenous people living in Canada—but it’s a bit confusing, and there’s been some inaccurate reporting going on. Chelsea Vowel gives a quick breakdown (and clarification) of what the Daniels case actually means for non-status Indigenous and Métis people.
- In case you missed it, we published a powerful piece of resistant spoken word poetry by Mi’kmaq youth and artist, Hannah Battiste. Please listen and share.
- Casey Plett on journalists’ tendency to uphold and debate a false binary between “activists” and “science” when writing about the closure of CAMH’s Gender Identity Clinic—a clinic known for encouraging younger transgender patients away from transitioning. Plett gives a comprehensive list of trans writers and thinkers who have responded to this issue—demonstrating that the only people who are debating the closure, and the only people who see it as controversial, are (unsurprisingly) cis people.
- After weeks of organizing, protesting, and occupation, Toronto is finally starting to listen to Black Lives Matter Toronto’s cries for justice: it was announced this week that there will be a coroner’s inquest into the death of Andrew Loku.
- ICYMI, this is terrible: Victims of sexual assault at Brandon University are required to sign a behavioural contract that forces them to say nothing about the assault except to counsellors.
- Some of our fave Can feminists weigh in: Who should be on Canada’s new banknote?
- This Mothers’ Day, Sunday May 8, there is a stroller rally in defence of maternity leave. Gilary Massa needs your help as she stands up to her bosses and defends everyone’s right to maternity leave. It’s something all our momma’s fought for and now sadly is routinely undermined by “restructuring.” Read more here.
- Hilton Als on Maggie Nelson’s many selves makes me want to read and re-read everything Nelson has ever touched again and again.
- 5 ways that amatonormativity (the assumption that a central, exclusive, amorous relationship is normal for humans) pollutes our relationships. (I endorse the Dr. Who epigraph to this piece 100%)
- Jia Tolentino explains why the corporate vision of “empowerment” is not just apolitical, it’s actually helping to reinforce a market-driven understanding of women’s value to the world: “This version of empowerment can be actively disempowering: It’s a series of objects and experiences you can purchase while the conditions determining who can access and accumulate power stay the same.”
i’m thinking of becoming a neko atsume based protest artist pic.twitter.com/KpEk6pmlUm
— wolf pupy (@wolfpupy) April 1, 2016
- Do you ever miss the internet sites and communities that you used to “visit” when you were younger? Merritt Kopas is making collaborative comics about that.
- The final issue of SQUAT, a birth journal, is here and looks incredible. Check it out!
- “In a lot of ways it feels as though I am just standing here blinking, my hands still in the shape of a promise they were holding that has since disappeared.” Chantal Braganza shares her miscarriage story in A grief like this.
- Melissa Valentine on how the word “survivor” is inadequate for those who bare witness to and will not forget the violences perpetuated by a system that condones and supports black death: “We need a new word for survivor.”
- “What to say when somebody they love is dying—and dying, not now, but on some indeterminate later date? A visual essay on living with cancer.
- “There’s a stigma that you can’t be a smart girl if you’re reading romance.” This piece on America’s first all-romance books store has convinced me to add some erotica to the spring/summer reading list I’m working through.
- Finally: Jessie Graff is a precious cinnamon roll, and we are in love.
Image via Herstory on Instagram