black slingbacks with lucite heels that have brass lions on them
look at nalo hopkinson’s new shoes, guise
#cancon
MEANWHILE, IN CANADA
Someone is mailing body parts to the Conservative Party of Canada.
It’s been a really weird news day.
I like you.
raganwald » A Woman's Story »
Software developer Reginald Braithwaite tells the story of his mother Gwen, one of the first black female computer programmers in Canada.
Eric Choi, on how to get to Mars »
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The Chaos By Nalo Hopkinson (McElderry; ISBN: 9781416954880; April 2012)
Noted for her fantasy and science fiction for adults, Hopkinson jumps triumphantly to teen literature.
Scotch’s womanly build and mixed heritage (white Jamaican dad, black American mom) made her the target of small-town school bullies. Since moving to Toronto, she’s found friends and status. Now both are threatened by the mysterious sticky black spots on her skin (she hides them under her clothes but they’re growing). When a giant bubble appears at an open-mic event, Scotch dares her brother, Rich, to touch it. He disappears, a volcano rises from Lake Ontario and chaos ripples across city and world, transforming reality in ways bizarre and hilarious, benign and malignant. A lesbian folksinger with Tamil roots becomes a purple triangle with an elephant’s trunk; jelly beans grow teeth; buried streams resurface. Scotch searches for Rich across a surreal, sensual cityscape informed by Caribbean and Russian folklore. Although what they represent and where they come from are open to interpretation, the manifestations are real to everyone and must be dealt with. Hopkinson opens her YA debut conventionally but soon finds her own path, creating a unique vocabulary with which to explore and express personal identity in its myriad forms and fluidity. Anything but essentialist, she captures her characters in the act of becoming. Rich in voice, humor and dazzling imagery, studded with edgy ideas and wildly original, this multicultural mashup—like its heroine—defies category.
”
Can't get enough NDN humour? The best of the #NativerThanYou hashtag is preserved here for eternity »
ETA: Maybe I should include a sampling of those tweets.
- @m_melody: @deejayndn @Ostwelve I gave Edward S. Curtis different clothes because he didn’t look white enough to be my entourage. #NativerThanYou
- @m_melody: Museums didn’t actually steal anything. I just made them put my extra sacred objects in storage. #NativerThanYou
- @thatndnguy: #NativerThanYou Vine Deloria stole my notes in college
- @deejayndn: I beat Atanarjuat the fast runner in a race. #NativerThanYou
- @deejayndn: Elders call the rocks they’re about use in a sweat, “Dee Jay NDNs”.
- @ErinKonsmo: I chose to decolonize my diet by sticking to blueberry & strawberry flavoured condoms. #NativerThanYou @NYSHN #NYSHN
- @atribecalledred: @Ostwelve @m_melody Tobacco is put down and a pray is said when the barber sweeps up my hair.
(via rotiroll)
…Via foodblog Spice City Toronto, here’s a Tumblr of ’shopped movie poster homages to Gandhi Roti, the famed Queen West joint serving up a unique East Indian version of West Indian (Trinidadan) roti.
- WHAT IS THIS I CAN’T EVEN
- The love of roti does strange things to people
- I love Gandhi’s as much as anyone else but if you feel you’ve got to make a point by bashing Island Foods I will CUT YOU, so watch your backs, BlogTO commenters
- I’m hungry.
Have you heard about Attawapiskat? If you’re in Canada, probably; if you’re in the US, probably not. In a nutshell: a Native community in Northern Ontario declared a state of emergency over third world living conditions a few weeks ago and the Canadian government’s response was, “We gave you $90 million, what’s your problem?”
Now there’s an investigation into where federal funding has gone, the reserve is being run by a third party and there are all kinds of batshit racist comments flying around because many people who are unfamiliar with how Native reserves function (and the history of their creation under colonial rule) think it’s ridiculous that anybody could receive federal funding and still suffer.
You can find information on Attawapiskat here and the topic more generally here. A google search will also lead you to a jillion news links where you can sort the wheat from the chaff on your own if you like.
Native issues tend to make it into the news in Canada more than in the US, so while I find this all to be horrible, I also see this as an opportunity for people to learn more about living conditions on reserves and, more importantly, the system that led to them in the first place.
I could rant about this forever but instead I’ll just encourage you to listen and witness and think about the social, economic, political and legal frameworks that led to this situation in the first place. Do some research. Learn about the Native history of the place you call home and about who those people are today. Don’t erase Native history from the landscape and don’t allow the Canadian and US governments to continue to make Native issues invisible.
RIGHT ON!
Dropping my MPP and MP a line.
bedbugsbiting, I see your SHITbARF and raise you Time Lord—easily the most prolific tagger in my neighbourhood.
