I’ve been watching the Christmas episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and I highly recommend it. What I’ve learned so far is that extravagant decorations are crucial for ringing in holiday cheer, and it is for this reason that I’ve decided “pink” will be the theme of my own decorations. And now, onto your links for the first week of December:
- This week Justin Trudeau approved Kinder Morgan and Enbridge pipelines. These pipelines are not good for the orcas; are not reconciliatory; and are already being met with resistance.
- Water Protectors continue to resist the Dakota Access pipeline and you can support them here.
- Climate justice is not separate from anti-racism, Tina Oh reflects on her experience representing Canadian youth at COP22.
- The Mama Bear Clan, lead by Indigenous women, patrol the streets of Winnipeg, looking after people by giving out food and blankets, picking up needles, and being a presence on Main Street.
- If you haven’t already, watch the stop-motion video for Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s “How To Steal A Canoe” made by Amanda Strong.
- You can read about one of the ways the Native Youth Sexual Health Network uses beading to facilitate conversations about sex here and you can help fund their radical work here.
- Emma Bracy writes about Lil’ Kim and survival.
- Gender Non Conformity as Peak Blackness, a brilliant piece by Jayy Dodd on the embodiment of gender(s) and Blackness.
- Horoscopes for the revolution brought to you by Corina Dross! And another great piece from Mask Magazine: plant-based advice from healers Antonia Estela Pérez and Jennifer Patterson.
- In one of the most beautiful pieces I’ve read on Barry Jenkin’s Moonlight, Ashon Crawley writes about the ways names enable our own personalized fictions and about the film’s Baldwinian cinematic, “how each of the character phases—Little, Chiron, Black—look out into the world and with such looking, hear and feel and taste and smell it, how that looking is a synaesthetic experience,” in Fictioning Names.
- Here is a conversation between Zaynab Shahar and Madison Mahdia Lynn on their work organizing Masjid al-Rabia, a women-centred and LGBTQIA+ affirming Muslim community.
- If you’re a woman striving for excellence, Serena Williams wrote a letter to you.
- A call for diversity in Canadian journalism because when “Somalian” is an adjective according to the Canadian Press Stylebook, there’s a problem.
- In case you missed it, this week in the Love Issue: Rebecca Jade’s Making Threats, Casey Plett and Morgan M Page’s No One Makes it Out Alive, and Erica Violet Lee’s In Defence of the Wastelands: A Survival Guide.