Our Sunday Links

• “When First Nations stand together, supported by non-Indigenous allies, we win” said Grand Chief Serge Simon of the Mohawk Council of Kanesatake in response to TransCanada’s decision to pull the plug on Energy East pipeline
• Under Canada’s regulated migrant farmworkers programs, employers can threaten workers with deportation if they complain about abuse: an excellent piece the people who grow a lot of our food
• With folks like Loblaws CEO Galen Weston pushing back against decent wages, the fight for $15 in Ontario isn’t over. Learn what minimum wage critics don’t want you to know and check out this video on how food service workers at York continue to be at the forefront of this important movement
• “People tell me to stop making things about race all of the time. But when you are not making things about race, you’re making them about whiteness all of the time” Listen to Ijeoma Oluo speak at an “Interrupting Whiteness” conference in Seattle.

• Edmonton: don’t miss this upcoming screening of and panel discussion on Pride Denied: Homonationalism & the Future of Queer Politics
• Because of structural barriers that privilege whiteness in the Canadian art world, Black women curators are rare. But these women have shaped an important conversation responding to “settler-colonial histories and the unique experiences of the Black diaspora.” Yaniya Lee on the women running the show.
• D!ONNE Renee has alleged that she was sexually assaulted by Toronto police officer James Pardy when attempting to attend a monthly TPS Board meeting last month. Activists and community members are demanding meetings be relocated to City Hall, a building that police do not control, and that the Special Investigations Unit make all allegations of sexual assault against police officers  public. More details on what happened and the demands being put forward here. 

#NoMoreSROs #BlackLivesMatter #EducationNotIncarceration pic.twitter.com/qDYihMIgQt

— BlackLivesMatter TO (@BLM_TO) October 6, 2017

• “Often, who is seen as powerful or expert has little to do with experience, muscle, wit, or scholarship, but with what society has already decided. There is no material or intellectual evidence that a person deserves power; we just know this person should have it. Despite my blackness, in his imagination, my queerness erased my knowledge of race and social justice.” On micro-aggressions and survival 
• A weekend with a secret society of Black women 
• A beautiful essay by Gwen Benaway, Trans Girl in Love. 
• “How do I get out of the room as fast as possible without alienating Harvey Weinstein?”  Ashley Judd’s thoughts when the film producer sexually harassed her two decades ago. On the multiple allegations against Weinstein.

• “My body and my wallet aren’t able to get an MFA in creative writing or attend an MFA poetry program. Many of us were built for activist work, movement building, cultural work, and strategy. Many of us are just trying to survive. We have to bring people with us and expand as best we can so our lives and art aren’t isolated.” Kay Ulanday Barrett on ancestry, disability, and identity formation.

Don’t talk about guns after a massacre. Or climate change after storms. Or austerity after firetrap buildings burn. Talk when no one listens

— Naomi Klein (@NaomiAKlein) October 2, 2017

• The story behind a viral picture of Jonathan Smith, who  survived bullet wounds after saving many lives during the Las Vegas shooting.
• The Black  Muslimah Toolkit
• “At a time where fuckboys are rampant, dodging them online is nearly impossible, which makes spontaneous hookups difficult.” How to know if your potential hookup is good in bed.  
• The most recent episode of The Imposter with Aliya Pabani is about power dynamics and humour and is really funny and smart
• Mask’s horoscopes are always on point, and this month’s edition (imho) is not exception!
• Advice for when you want to bind, but you need some help.
• “With a speculum, you just shove it in and expand it as wide as you want to get the visualization you want…With this, you have to put it in and gently move it around, kind of like a joystick.”  The speculum gets a redesign. 
• A how-to on anti-capitalist personal finances and budgeting
• “Women should account for unpaid work, but the key is to account for it accurately and that means having a fulsome look at all forms of labour and how it affects different oppressed groups. Labour, especially for women, cannot be separated from wage labour, race and poverty.” Vicky Mochama on how white women don’t factor in other women when talking about emotional labour.