Shameless Issue 41: The Futures Issue

NEWS! ART! MUSIC! CULTURE! POLITICS!

TALKING BACK SINCE 2004

Inside: Honour your past!

Create your future!

Decolonize tomorrow!

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$ 95 WINTER 2020

DISPLAY UNTIL JUNE 2020

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25274 07409

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The

Futures Issue

A union for everyone.

Employed, self-employed or under-employed: everyone deserves fair wages, good benefits and a safe workplace.

Get to know us at unifor.org @Unifortheunion

CONTENTS

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ISSUE 41: Winter 2020

18 The Future is Disabled

What does it say when imagined futures erase disabled folks? BY LEAH LAKSHMI PIEPZNA-SAMARASINHA

24 The Changing of the Guard: Intergenerational Responsibilities

How are our family legacies upheld and cared for? BY WREN PRAGG AND JEAN BOAMPONG

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28 Writing Through Time

Shameless staffers reflect on their past selves BY TEAM SHAMELESS

QUICK READS 02 EDITOR’S LETTER 03 CONTRIBUTORS 04 LETTERS 05 NEWSFLASH: Kenya begins to offer free HPV vaccine, People out do

government in fighting Australian bushfires 06 ACTIVIST REPORT: Rebecca Thomas 07 FIVE SHAMELESS THINGS TO DO 08 ON THE JOB: Lindell Smith, City Councilor 09 THEY’RE SHAMELESS: Introducing a cool Shameless reader

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COLUMNS AND DEPARTMENTS

10 TALKING BACK: A guide to writing for Shameless 12 ADVICE: How do I envision a future in this climate?

13 BODY POLITICS: Rethinking sex education 14 BEYOND THE BOOKS: Indigenous futurisms 15 MEDIA SAVVY: Accountability in news media 16 GREEN SCENE: Environmental justice 17 SPORTING GOODS: Diversity in sports media

ARTS AND CULTURE

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32 SHOW & TELL: Letter to my Future Self 33 DIY: How to write your own perfect future 34 BEST OF THE BLOG: What we’re saying online 36 ARTS PROFILE: Rajni Perera 38 STIR IT UP: The impact of memories, place and traditions on our

relationship to food 39 RECIPE: Apple Chow 40 GET UP: The future of fashion 41 GEEK CHIC: Avatars and identity 42 REVIEWS: Books, music, films, podcasts 46 COUNTERCULTURE CLASSIC: Sun Ra

COVER: JAMIE POLANCIC ART: JULII MCMILLAN, NICOLE MEDINA, VIVIAN ROSAS, MAYA LEMAITRE

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editor’s letter

THE FUTURE IS NOW When I was in the third grade, our teacher had us write books about the future. I’m totally dating myself here, but she asked us to imagine the year 2000 and make an eight-page book that she would sew together. My book had scenes about robots making my bed and picking up the toys in my room. And, even though I really liked doing homework, robots would do that for me, too.

It’s kind of funny to reflect on that book now. When I made it, the year 2000 wasn’t really that far away, but I had anticipated that the clock would strike midnight, 1999 would become 2000, and, just like that, a whole new world.

I often dream of the future. One with way fewer robots than my eight-year-old self wanted, but one that is decolonial and anti-racist and disabled and just and free. I imagine this future in vivid ways — I can see it, feel it, almost touch it — and then, I’m back to reality: a garbage fire of 2020 that I had, even up until last year, imagined so differently.

As I write this letter, big things are happening across this land.

Indigenous land defenders and allies are shutting down rail systems, putting a halt to a toxic economy. Elementary school teachers throughout Ontario are challenging austerity agendas and fighting so that no child gets left behind in public education. On a more local level, community members started a People’s Healing Fund to provide economic support to BIPOC healers in Toronto.

I share a future vision with these groups, but what I’m learning from watching, supporting and participating in these actions is that if we want to see a better 2100, 2050 or even a better 2021, we have to find ways to actively connect the future to our present. We have to live that future now, and protect it as sacred.

As I read through the stories in this issue, our futures issue, I’m grateful for the space to oscillate between honouring yesterday (p. 25), dreaming for tomorrow (p. 19), and acting today (p.6). I’m inspired by the stories of folks who are building a better world by time-traveling through it (p.14). I’m hopeful, and motivated to keep fighting.

As you read through the stories in this issue, I hope you too feel a sense of excitement and hope, inspiration to build a collective vision for tomorrow and motivation to realize it.

Yours shamelessly,

Sheila sheila@shamelessmag.com

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shameless

PHOTOS: JESSICA LAFORET (2019 TALKING BACK FEMINIST MEDIA CONFERENCE)

contributors

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR & ART DIRECTOR

Sheila Sampath(sheila@shamelessmag.com) PUBLISHER

Julia Horel ( julia@shamelessmag.com) EDITORS

Features: Jean Boampong, Front of Book: Nour Abi Nakhoul, Columns: Sarom Rho, Arts: Sennah Yee, Reviews: Gabrielle Marceau, Beyond The Books: Christine Miskonoodinkwe-Smith CIRCULATION MANAGER

Angela Guardiani (subscribe@shamelessmag.com) WEB TEAM

Web Art Director: Beena Mistry, Web Editors: Naz Afsahi, Tina Zafreen Alam, Roxana Parsa, Andi Schwartz, Michelle Schwartz CONTRIBUTORS

Manahil Bandukwala, Maddie Beaulieu, Louise Bigeagle, Katie Chin, Penny Clark, Elle Côté, Erin Cutler, Shannon D’Arcy, Rebecca Esther, Katherine Gladhart-Hayes, Zahra Haider, Kirsten Hemrich, Tessa Hill, Paterson Hodgson, Cécile Iaciancio, Maisie Jacobson, Damien (Seo Young) Jeon, Renny Jiang, Melissa Jones, Yashaswi Kesanakurthy, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Amy Leblanc, Maya Lemaitre, Tan Light, Nicole Medina, Julia Métraux, Julii McMillan, Kalina Nedelcheva, Cleo Peterson, Jamie Polancic, Wren Pragg, Denise Reich, Krystal Reynolds, Vivian Rosas, Emily Rosser, Muriam Salman, Daania Sharifi, Kai Trotz-Motayne, Jaden Tsan, Katie Ungard, Juliette Vermeersch, Madi Wong, Aruna Zehra COPY EDITOR

Lauren Perruzza ARCHIVIST

Sarah Chepesiuk

FUNDING UPDATE FROM TEAM SHAMELESS In mid-2019, the Ontario government reduced funding to the Ontario Arts Council. The resulting changes to arts grants have impacted Shameless and many other artists and arts organizations. Like Shameless, many of these grant recipients are small organizations that rely on project-based funding as a pathway to support and grow into other funding opportunities, as they do not meet minimum revenue thresholds for operating grants

What does this mean for Shameless?

We are not going anywhere.

We know how to hustle and get things done on a shoestring and still produce a wonderful magazine and blog. We will continue to release three issues per year. You can still subscribe and buy Shameless from bookstores or our website.

FUNDRAISING MANAGER

Liz Chornenki CO-FOUNDERS

Nicole Cohen and Melinda Mattos SPECIAL THANKS

Shannon Clarke, Julia De Laurentiis Johnston, Amanda Scriver, Andrew Wilmot Shameless is a feminist magazine for teenage girls and trans youth, published by Shameless Media. Views expressed in the magazine do not necessarily reflect the views of the publishers. All content copyright Shameless Media 2020. Reprinting without permission is totally uncool. Ask first.

ISSN 1710-2022 Printed in Canada by Thistle Printing on recycled paper.

Distributed in Canada by Magazines Canada (www. magazinescanada.ca) and in the United States by Ubiquity Distributors (www.ubiquitymags.com).

Canada Post #41070511 SUBSCRIPTIONS: Canada $18/year, US $25/year, International $40/year; Institutional, school and library rates: Canada: $25/year; US: $35/year, International: $40/year To subscribe, visit www.shamelessmag.com/subscribe or send payment and address to Shameless Media, P.O. Box 68548, 360A Bloor St. W., Toronto, Ontario, M5S 1X1.

For inquiries, email subscribe@shamelessmag.com.

On occasion, we make our subscriber list available to carefully screened, like-minded publications. If you would prefer not to receive such offers, please email us.

WE’D LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU! PLEASE SEND LETTERS TO THE EDITORS, STORY PITCHES AND DONATIONS TO:

Shameless / P.O. Box 68548 Walmer / Toronto, Ontario M5S 3C9 talkingback@shamelessmag.com www.shamelessmag.com

BUT, some of our most important programs are at risk.

With project funds from the OAC, we launched the Youth Advisory Board in 2015. The YAB is now an established and thriving group of young people providing leadership and editorial vision to our work. Every year, the YAB takes on new and exciting challenges such as running events, recording podcasts, and, last year, creating an entirely youth-written issue of Shameless to help us celebrate our fifteenth anniversary.

So how can we help?

We’re so glad you asked! We are already hard at work seeking out other sources of funding, both public and private. In the meantime, you can: (If you live in Ontario) write to your MPP or to the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport (yep, even if you aren’t eligible to vote!) to ask them to restore arts funding to previously planned levels.

• Subscribe to Shameless.

• Share your copies of Shameless with friends.

• Ask your local bookstore or library to carry Shameless.

• Share our messages on social media.

• Become a Shameless donor.

The more financial support we have from our community, the more secure our work and our future will be. Any amount means so much to us and helps to sustain our work! See page 48 of this issue for more information.

We are going to get through this, friends. Your support will be essential in the coming months as we explore all options to continue the work we do to support young, new and underrepresented writers and artists. Thank you for being there with us.

Shamelessly and in solidarity, Team Shameless

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letters

DEAR SHAMELESS, “Very good! The writer hit the nail on the head when it comes to breaking language barriers in the classroom.”

Write to us! Email talkingback@ shamelessmag.com or send snail mail to Shameless, P.O. Box 68548 Walmer Toronto, ON M5S 3C9. Please include your full name, address and age.

Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

—Martina Yvette, commenting on Barriers in the Classroom on shamelessmag.com

ERRATA

In our special youth issue (issue 40), we reprinted an article, “On Race and Feminism” from our Fall 2010 issue. The article was incorrectly credited and the byline should read “Deb Singh.”

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Payment accepted: cheque, international money order or well-concealed cash. Send form with payment to: Shameless Media, PO Box 68548, Walmer, Toronto, ON M5S 3C9. Please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery. Shameless is published three times a year. www.shamelessmag.com

The triple-threat recently discussed personal sacrifice in some of her songs during a December 2018 interview with the online magazine HotNewHipHop: “[Some of my songs talk about] not having time for relationships because I’m so focused,” she said.

“I would say [the album is] a motivational project. I really feel like it is a bossed up type of project that people will listen to and feel inspired to go get it.”

stage for the worst bushfires ever seen in that country, as climate change has brought about hotter, drier weather. In contrast to In January 2020, Meghan Markle and Prince the government’s laid-back response (called Harry announced that they would “step “criminally negligent” by some groups), back” from their roles as senior members of people have mobilized to help volunteer the royal family, intending to split their time firefighters and wildlife in ways big and between the UK and North America and to small. Crafters and makers have organized live a more independent life. sew-alongs to make joey nests, bat wraps, Reactions to #Megxit, as it was dubbed, and other fabric goods necessary for the ranged from Buckingham Palace’s terse rehabilitation of injured and traumatized “discussions … are at an early stage” to people on social media lauding the couple’s Kenya begins to offer free HPV vaccine wildlife. Comedian Celeste Barber organized a fundraiser through social media, and by decision to break with tradition and seek According to the Kenyan independent January of 2020 had raised 46 million AUD some more space for their family to exist newspaper Daily Nation, youth in Kenya (the biggest total to date outside of the rigorous on Facebook’s fundraisroyal norms – espeing platform.) Online cially as Duchess sex worker Kaylen Meghan has been Ward began a trend of subject to rumours and Shameless news from around the world selling nude photos in harassment, much of it

BY ELLE CÔTÉ AND SHAMELESS STAFF exchange for donations racist and sexist, by the made to Australian bushfire charities, raising, media since she began dating Harry in 2016. now have long-awaited access to a free HPV by her account, nearly 1 million AUD before Of course, it would be too much to hope (Human Papillomavirus) vaccine aimed to a torrent of misogynist sex-shaming caused that the not-so-royals would completely prevent cervical cancer. her to shut down the fundraiser. It’s a stunbuck the system. In a statement, Meghan The country-wide rollout of the vaccinaning reminder of how people can organize and Harry vowed that “their commitment to tion was initially planned for early 2018 but, and help each other outside of traditional The Monarch is resolute.” due to high universal demand, was pushed power structures. to the end of 2019.

According to a 2016 study published by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Women in media: Where are they? cervical cancer is a leading cause of cancerLast January, Women’s Media Center related death amongst people with a cervix (WMC) released their report “Divided 2019: in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Media Gender Gap,” with some disconThis is usually attributed to “poor access certing conclusions. to screening services” and “inadequate The report examined the most popular US uptake of available services.” The latter newspapers, newswire services and online issue, underutilization of available services, publications, including The New York Times, is often connected to the stigma surroundReuters and HuffPost. Across the board, ing the disease. “men receive 63 percent of bylines and credCervical cancer is frequently caused by its; women receive only 37 percent.” strains of the sexually-transmitted virus Pat Mitchell, co-chair of the WMC, says HPV. As a result, the cancer is sometimes we must remember the ratio is still widely mistakenly associated with other sexuallyoff when it comes to who creates the PHOTO: DANILEIGH transmitted infections such as HIV. HIV/ country’s media, which can impact how our AIDS continues to carry its own stigma media is created: Hip-hop’s newest phenom, DaniLeigh in places such as Kenya, though efforts to “Too often, the voices we hear and the At just 24 years old, Los Angeles-based rectify this issue continue to progress. images we see are men,” Mitchell said in a artist DaniLeigh has already worked with According to Daily Nation, at least 63 recent WMC press release. “Men largely are the likes of Prince. In November 2018, the percent of Kenya’s cervical cancer cases reporting and telling the story even though performer released her debut album shortly could be avoided if the vaccine intervention women represent more than half the US before embarking on a North American is implemented successfully. population.” tour.

The WMC, founded by Jane Fonda, With Billboard Magazine noting her Robin Morgan and Gloria Steinem, works “rising star status” in January 2019, the People outdo government in fighting to improve the visibility and influence of Miami-born singer, songwriter and dancer Australian bushfires women in media.

To view the report and has no plans of slowing down, which is Beginning in September of 2019, Australia others in full, visit http://www.womensme well articulated in her anthemic track, “The experienced the greatest ecological disaster diacenter.com/reports/archive.

Plan.” in its history. A long drought season set the

newsflash

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry “step back” from royal roles

NEWSFLASH

PHOTO: IAMDANILEIGH.COM

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activist report

REBECCA THOMAS: POET, ACTIVIST, PERFORMER Mi’kmaq poet Rebecca Thomas describes poems that begin on post-it notes, community members as mentors and what is coming next BY AMY LEBLANC When you hear Mi’kmaq poet Rebecca Thomas perform her poetry, it is like she is speaking directly to you. In her poem “I am honoured,” Rebecca Thomas begins with an introduction that reads as both an invitation and a warning: My name is Swift Fox. Proud member of the Mi’kmaq Nation of Mi’kma’ki.

The Wabanaki, people of the dawn with a legacy twelve thousand years long.

And I am honoured.

I am honoured with overpriced beer and shitty hotdogs.

By juiced up ball players and abusive running backs.

By packs of fans, packed into stands doing the tomahawk chop.

I had the privilege of interviewing Rebecca Thomas about her work, where she comes from and what is coming next.

A: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

R: I am the ultimate middle child. I have four older siblings and two younger siblings.

Consequently, I got picked on a lot and I had a lot of responsibility. I was always an emotional kid. I cried at movies and felt compelled to help out a lot of people. I would bring extra snacks to school for other kids, I would bring home handful of garbage I found while walking home because I found litter really upsetting, and I did a lot of chores for my grandfather because he lived alone and I wanted to help him. My passion in activism was born out of trying to get people to understand rather than be confrontational.

I have a tendency not to write people off, regardless of what they’ve done to me, and I am still that softhearted child who just had to grow a thick skin.

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A: Where do you begin a piece of spoken word?

R: Most of my pieces start on my phone or a post-it as a pithy line or concept that strikes me. They are often reactions to big events that have happened in Canadian news and politics with regards to Indigenous peoples. I also write intimate poetry about my relationships to parents, my spouse, my siblings, and my grandfather but I don’t make those public. Not all poetry has to be shared.

A: Which writers and spoken word artists have influenced your work and your practice?

R: I didn’t know a lot of poets before I started writing. But I will say, strong women like El Jones inspired me on how I would go about using my writing. I was going to use my writing to influence people and give voice to my community. I’m not doing this for fame or money because one, I don’t think I’d get far in that regard, and two, the legacy I want to leave is not that of a performer, but rather a strong Indigenous woman who chose to speak up and help her community.

A: Does where you live influence your work? If so, how?

R: Living in Mi’kma’ki absolutely influences my work. I see my Nation, cousins, friends and community members. I am only a car ride away from Mi’kmaq communities and I live in a city with so many strong L’nu. Being immersed in my community and people is a huge part of my identity. I would feel so disconnected from who I am if I lived anywhere else.

A: How has mentorship shaped your work? Do you have influential mentors or are you currently mentoring any writers?

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R: I never had mentors on my work or writing. When I think of mentors, I think of community mentors and inspirations. I think of Albert Marshall, Garrett Gloade, Savvy Simon, Killa Atencio, Molly Peters, my father Redfeather Thomas, my great-grandfather Michael Thomas, Aunt Jane, Loni Vicaire, Pam Toney and Ann Sylliboy. I think of all of those in the community who showed me kindness and patience. I think those who took the time to hear me out and teach me what they know. I think of those who validated my experiences. I think of the residential school survivors who made it out to teach. I think of all the people who came up and introduced themselves to me as cousins and family.

I used to try and mentor people’s writing because I thought I had to. These days, any mentoring I do is more about building young Indigenous people up with regards to their confidence and voice. People write what they need to write and as long as they are telling their story, then they are making our community proud.

A: This issue of Shameless is about “futurisms.” What does that word mean to you?

R: I think of a world where Indigenous ways of knowing and being are common. They are held by Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people respect them.

A: What are you telling your future self/community through your writing and performances?

R: We are stronger than we think and we hold more power than we know. We are still here and we aren’t going anywhere.

BY KRYSTAL REYNOLDS

1. Allowing yourself to indulge in life with intention

3. Not relying on others for gratification

There can be a difference between selfsoothing and self-care, and we might define them differently for ourselves. For instance, we could define self-soothing behaviours or habits as those that bring joy or comfort and help us to cope (think comfort foods, sleeping in, binge watching TV), while self-care may be things that aren’t always enjoyable but that we decide will help us out in the long run (waking up early or sleeping in when we need to, reading, a leisurely bath, moving our bodies or eating brussels sprouts). All are valid and necessary options, but when we notice a consistent pattern of using them to bury our feelings, it may be time to check in with ourselves to make sure we are not causing ourselves harm by ignoring our problems.

It’s an unavoidable part of being alive in 2020 that our image on social media is important to us. For many of us it is considered social capital, as it can help promote/sell/ get opportunities. It’s hard to remember that your image on social media, and the extent to which it is received by others, is different from who you are and what you think of yourself. Being “liked” on social media is a highlight reel. Impress yourself; acknowledge that other people are enduring their own issues and the image they present to the world may or may not be the way their lives look on a daily basis. It’s important to retain a connection to what we think of ourselves through making things, journaling, taking pictures that are only for our eyes, connecting with trusted pals or saying nice things to ourselves when we are alone.

2. Leap into life Dear future self: dedicate more time to trying new things! Your dreams are uniquely designed for you. One trick I use in decisionmaking is thinking about what my future self would think: what would 70-year-old you say about that relationship, purchase, move or new hobby? Remember that sometimes saying no is caring for ourselves in the same way as saying yes. You won’t regret following your own path even if it sometimes leads you astray.

5 shameless things to do

Five Shameless ways to communicate with your future self

4. Being more selective with relationships Sometimes it is really hard to think about the people in our lives and their impact on us.

About our friends, whether we chose them or they were the people who were around us while growing up. If you are second-guessing a long-term connection or want something different, communicate that as best you can, if it is safe to do so. Some people are not meant to stay in our lives forever, and that’s okay. You are allowed to ask for space, to bring new people in to your life, to assert boundaries, to tell people what you need.

5. Accepting failure and loss Life isn’t linear and neither is your path.

Sometimes we’re taken off track for a brief moment whether by our own or by someone else’s doing. Don’t lose sight of your goal and remain steadfast. The secret is that many adults who have “cool” jobs or lives that you envy went through lots of trial and error to get there. Failure is learning. You are strong and resilient. Maybe that loss had a greater purpose. Maybe that grief had no purpose and yet, here you are.

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on the job

LINDELL SMITH Lindell Smith possesses all characteristics needed to be a leader and voice for his community: charisma, passion and drive

BY MADI WONG

From kickstarting a youth music studio to becoming a councillor for District 8 Halifax Peninsula North, Lindell Smith has not shied away from pursuing his passion for helping those in his community.

Smith is a long-time Halifax resident, spending a lot of time in North Preston with his family and studying recording arts at Nova Scotia Community College.

During his post-secondary years, Smith was approached by a closing organization that had leftover money. It was at that time that he and other community members decided to found Centreline Studio to allow youth to have a safe and fun space to create get involved with the arts. The small housing unit that they had to start out with eventually grew into a bigger space. Today, the studio and the youth involved are flourishing with after-school programs and have been invited to travel around the province to perform.

“Any time we got money we gave it back to the youth because we thought it was important that they were valued for their time and their preparation,” he says. “All the adults in that space never made any more than $100 in almost seven to eight years.”

Centreline Studio was not the end of

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Smith’s community outreach and work.

Having grown up in North Preston, Smith saw first hand how his neighbourhood was constantly portrayed in a negative light. He began thinking about how young people could showcase the mentorship and positivity that their community had.

Initially, Smith had no interest in being a part of the government due to the history of how it has treated the Black community. He grew up in a marginalized and low-income area, and spoke about the history of the Black community and its relationship with the municipal government: “I saw the system oppress and hurt people of all different backgrounds so I never thought I’d ever be part of the system. But then I started realizing it’s not the system, it’s also the people that are in it,” he says. “So it’s how we can change not only the people but the view of a politician [by the community], and that’s why I got involved.”

Smith explained that because many marginalized communities have been oppressed and segregated, they can be skeptical of government engagement and feel like their voices do not count when it comes to projects or other municipal issues.

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“I got involved to see how we can change that. One of the things I have done so far is make the city aware of these communities …

Let them know their voice will be appreciated and go to them instead of asking them to come to us,” he says.

One of Smith’s biggest hardships as a councillor was dealing with his own views of what it meant to be a politician. He thought about how he doesn’t have to conform to the typical life of a politician: wearing suits, talking a certain way, being included in specific circles.

“Getting that mental block away was difficult. We are made to see that politicians and people in those high roles are elite,” he says. “But to me, we’re not elite, we’re people and we should never make ourselves feel that way.”

The hard work and obstacles that Smith has endured have proven to be worthwhile as he is now able to pursue his passions and use his power to help the community in a different way than before.

Smith said he enjoys visiting schools to talk to students of all ages about the role of government. He specifically highlights the municipal (city) government since it impacts things most youth are using every day: transit, recreation centres, sidewalks. Smith also said that youth should learn about politics before they reach voting age so they can be aware and educated if they decide to vote.

“Youth can be a part of the political system: it’s important to know what is going on because eventually, they are going to be contributing to our society in some way, and if they’re not involved and just complaining, what are they doing to solve the issue?” he says.

In Halifax, the city recently started a youth advisory council where 12 youth from various demographics and backgrounds can give direct advice and recommendations for council. With over 90 applications received, Smith said that it proved young people want to be involved and have their voices heard.

Looking ahead, Smith said that he wants to continue to spend his free time with his daughter, another part of the future of his community. In fact, he hopes to cross the Atlantic Ocean one day with her and give her the experience of seeing how big the world actually is.

PHOTO: LINDELLSMITHHFX.CA

they’re shameless

I’M SHAMELESS From random idea to literary journal! BY DAANIA SHARIFI

What stops someone from doing what they want? I, Daania Sharifi, want to know the answer. Is it because they are afraid of people discounting their ideas? Or is it because it is just too hard to put in the effort? I have some experience with the answer to this question. When I want to accomplish something, I focus solely on the idea or goal. That is exactly how I created my own teen literary journal just a couple of months ago.

I was sitting down, eating breakfast, and checking the status of artwork pieces I had submitted to literary magazines. As I was

PHOTO: VICTOR O’NEILL COMPANY

doing this, a wild thought came into my head; why not create my own literary magazine?

The thought didn’t seem so wild to me at the time, and it still doesn’t. As soon as I got the idea, I knew the first thing I had to do was set up a web presence for the journal.

I worked the day away on my laptop and phone. The results of that day were a website, an Instagram (@clicheteenjournal), and a Twitter account (@Teen_Cliche). The next day, I spread the word about the journal via my channels. A couple days went by and I realized I should open up staff positions for

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teens who wanted to be involved with the journal.

I opened up an application for editorial roles. Within a couple of weeks, I had a full staff including various bloggers. A couple of days after our first meeting, where we discussed goals and the process of the journal, I opened up the submission season for the first issue. In that meeting, we also discussed how often we would publish (twice a year), what contests we would run and how we would give teens a chance to be heard.

Submissions started rolling in soon, but I realized just producing issues wasn’t enough.

I thought of more ways I could expand the journal. By March 1 I announced the first monthly contest. I also started a blog for the bloggers. Not only would they blog, but a couple of them would interview teens with a lot of different passions. By the end of March, I got over 10 interviews with various singers and actors including Audrey Mika, Ani Peterson, Sasha Bellentine, Dunali Hettiarachchi, Avery Green, Madeline Scarvelli, Caden Allitt, Saf Tajik and many more!

How did I do this (besides the whole explanation above about the process)? Well, I guess I know the answer to this question; motivation. I believe anyone can accomplish anything they want if they truly want it, and only when they stop at nothing to achieve it. So why not find your motivation, your purpose? Do it without thinking of anything that would come out negatively about your passion and realize that it’s okay if you have setbacks or slow days. Motivation doesn’t always come easy or often, but it will come if you show up every day.

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talking back

A GUIDE TO WRITING FOR SHAMELESS

How do I start writing for Shameless?

Start off by mailing our Editorial Director with your interests, contact information and writing samples, if you have them. (Not to worry if you don’t have writing samples yet — we can help you get started!)

Tell us the kind of stories you would like to write, and explain why you’re a good fit for Shameless. If you’re the kind of writer we’re looking for, you’ll be added to our writer’s database.

So how do I actually start writing?

BY TEAM SHAMELESS

Shameless runs on 100% volunteer power. Are you interested in joining an amazing group of diverse, talented, and dedicated people? We maintain a writers’ database that we call on 3-6 times a year to fill specific stories for upcoming issues and our blog, and we’re looking to expand!

How do I know if what I’m writing will work for Shameless?

That’s where we come in! Our amazing editors will work with you to develop your story, whether it’s by offering suggestions, pointing you in the direction of resources, or telling you where you can flesh things out and where you can cut. It’s a collaborative process from beginning to end. However, it’s very important to us that your authentic voice come through in the finished story and you maintain full ownership of the final product.

Anything I should avoid?

Who reads Shameless?

Our readers are people of all ages interested in learning about and engaging with social justice and anti-oppressive politics, but we focus on writing for young women and trans youth between about 13 and 18.

Who should write for Shameless?

Shameless contributors are a big, diverse bunch. We don’t have any rules about who can or cannot write for the magazine — we try to pick the right person for every article or blog post. But if you fit into one of the categories below we would particularly like to hear from you: • You are a young woman or trans youth who wants to get involved with Shameless. Maybe you want to share something you are passionate about with our readers. Maybe you just love to write. We are always looking for young contributors, and we love it when our readers become writers.

• You are an inexperienced writer of any age with a great idea or perspective to share. We are happy to work with less experienced adults who are passionate about our mandate. Maybe you know a lot about something that our readers would be interested in, or you have a personal experience or perspective to share that is neglected by most of the mainstream media.

• You are an experienced writer or journalist of any age. If you are passionate about our work, and file great stories on deadline, we’d love to hear from you.

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Keep an eye on your inbox! As we start planning our next issues, our editors (get to know our staff by checking out the site!) will develop the germ of a story for each section. They will send out an email to the writer’s database asking for someone to take on that story. If the idea is something you feel you can run with (maybe you have some lived experience, you’ve done a lot of reading about the topic, or you’re simply passionate about it and you’re willing to do some research), send back a quick email telling your editor where you’d like to take the piece and what kind of work you’d be able to do for it (interviews, research, etc.)

Yes! Shameless is a progressive magazine with no religious or political party affiliation. Sexist, racist, ableist, classist, homophobic and other exclusionary language will not be tolerated.

We DO NOT accept final drafts or completed pieces. Everything you read in Shameless, whether it’s in print or on the blog, is a collaboration between our editors and our writers.

We DO NOT accept poetry or creative fiction.

Will I get paid for my work?

Shameless is 100% volunteer-run and all the money we earn from sales goes toward printing the magazine. However, it’s tremendously important to our values to pay our contributors for their work, and when our funding allows it, we do offer an honorarium from $10 for a review and up to $50 for a feature. We are also happy to offer subscriptions in lieu of honoraria. And we always send you a complimentary copy of the issue your work appears in!

Great! Let’s get started!

Awesome! Send off that email to our Editorial Director, Sheila Sampath, at sheila@shamelessmag.com. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

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talking back

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Voices from the margins.

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advice

KEEP DREAMING! Even if you think what you want is not possible, make a list of things you want to do and the world you want to live in; write some bucket lists! Even if it seems impossible right now, keep dreaming. They can’t take our dreams away from us.

Work on fighting back.

Being idle keeps us stagnant and doesn’t let us experience what’s possible. It also doesn’t help when we are feeling down. Action cures fear! Remember that action doesn’t always mean rallying or taking to the streets.

Consider and prioritize your safety but also challenge yourself. It could mean talking to family members or neighbours about politics, learning how to garden, doing childcare, connecting with local organizers and grassroots movements or making political art.

Advice from ARUNA ZEHRA Dear Shameless, There are so many awful things happening in the world. Between climate change, fascism, white supremacy growing and politicians attacking our communities, it’s hard to think about how to be positive and keep planning for the future when it doesn’t seem like we have much to look forward to. How do I keep going and make the best of what’s to come? How do I envision a future in this climate?

Wow. Yes. I think so many of us are feeling this way. Things are hard. It’s hard to be a person in this world and think about what’s going to come next or what’s possible when everything seems so grim. You are right to feel this way, your feelings are valid, but they don’t have to be permanent or control how you move through the world. Feel them, and let them move you to take action. Our communities, the earth and our ancestors have been through many, many hard things. They have survived, and so will we. When we feel hopeless, it’s important to take a deep breath,

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ground yourself and focus on the present moment. Sometimes when we think too far ahead, it can get very overwhelming. Here are some things I try to do when it’s becoming hard to dream:

Stay present.

Literally take a moment — a deep breath in and out — and ground yourself exactly where you are in that moment. Let yourself reconnect with the fact that you are safe, in your body, where you are. If you aren’t in a safe place, get to somewhere where you are, drink some water and breathe.

Remember your power!

All these things that happen make us feel like we are powerless, but we are not. We have gifts and skills and can survive and fight back. When you feel powerless, remember that everything changes, and that what your reality is now won’t always be this way.

Find community, friends, allies, family in this struggle.

You aren’t alone. There are others who feel the same and talking together about possibilities can be helpful!

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Feel your feelings.

Don’t push away the hard feelings because you are trying to be “positive.” Capitalism is designed to harm us; if you are feeling it, it means you are human and alive and that’s a good thing! Feel and grieve so you can be free to move forward and make moves!

Know that you are not alone and there is power in our collective love, movements and creation!

Your vision and plans for your future are what will keep us going and fighting.

It’s important to keep moving. Keep challenging. Keep breathing. We are only as strong as the things we believe in. Your vision and dreams for what you want for your life, your community and your future is so necessary for all of us. We need to keep thinking about and creating new possibilities to move us into a new and beautiful reality. As the brilliant Arundhati Roy has said many times, “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” Know that you are not alone, you are powerful and we will get through this. Keep dreaming.

ILLUSTRATION: ERIN CUTLER

body politics

SEX EDUCATION: PASSING THE TORCH Rethinking pedagogy for youth BY MURIAM SALMAN

Last year, my aunt told me that if I was serious about becoming a teacher I should volunteer in her Grade 2 classroom for a year, to see if I could “handle it.” After one year of teaching, I realized that some of the teachers themselves needed a re-education.

I was unsettled by the trend of suspending youth cited as having “behavioural problems” and other disciplinary actions taken against students. I was shocked when, during a health lesson, the Grade 4 homeroom teacher turned to me to answer a student’s question on the function of a penis because of her own discomfort in discussing the topic.

Fast-forward a year. In the early days of January 2019, I was happily living a lazy bedridden lifestyle during my 10-day vacation when I came across a new Netflix release, Sex Education. I was intrigued. I devoured the whole series over a three-night binge. The show covered pressing issues facing teens and young adults today such as suicide, teen pregnancy, masturbation and navigating gender and sexuality, all while delving deep into the lives of its characters and different types of family structures. It also depicted the exact scenario I was witness to where a teacher’s inability to confidently guide youth

ILLUSTRATION: KIRSTEN HEMRICH

through a discussion actually hindered student learning. Sex Education is about young people educating themselves about sex and literally taking questions into their own hands.

As a woman who remembers exploring her sexuality as far back as age six, many of the characters and the questions they grappled with resonated with my past teenage self.

So how was one show able to tackle all this in eight episodes? Clear, open communication. The show created scenarios where teenagers were compelled to be entirely open and vulnerable in spaces where they could pose questions without judgment. Also, it clarified the reality that in the absence of adult educators, kids are forced to make sense of their bodies, desires and interactions. The show teaches young viewers what they can expect in a given situation. For example, one of the scenes getting the most media attention depicts the lead female character undergoing an abortion. The show does what an adult educator should do: it walks youth through the reality of what to expect and gives them the information to make conscious decisions about their body.

While policy makers and politicians in

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Ontario fight over what should be included in the elementary Health curriculum — largely a question over what is deemed “age-appropriate” learning — Sex Education is miles ahead of the Ontario debate. By skipping over the question of what kids are going to be taught, it instead focuses on how they are going to learn it.

Sex Education is a lesson for parents and children about the reality in schools today: that young people are engaging in questions of sex in schools whether the Conservative government wants them to or not. By revoking the updated curriculum, we are losing our chance to guide how our kids learn about sex.

Students should be able to bring the conversations they’re already having with one another into the classroom, and it is the responsibility of educators in the classroom to meet students where they’re at and support them in their learning. By starting from the assumption that kids are already talking and thinking about sex, educators have the potential to support youth by giving them the language to articulate questions about their bodies, while enlightening parents to help them find answers.

When student health and well-being is at stake, we must re-imagine our school system to cater to the most marginalized students.

Students, parents and teachers must come together to fight for an education system that supports youth in becoming happy, healthy adults.

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beyond the books

archal system is embraced and Indigenous women are put back in their positions of leadership. Indigenous People are in positions of leadership in every aspect of society. I see a future where colonizers voluntarily relinquish their power/privilege because they understand that it’s in their best interest for society as a whole to thrive. I see our communities working in harmony and unity with respect.

This work is already starting and will take a long time to happen, but I believe it will be set in place one day.”

Joely BigEagle, from White Bear First Nations

INDIGENOUS FUTURISMS What I’d like to see Canada look like BY LOUISE BIGEAGLE My name is Louise BigEagle and I am a Nakota/Cree from Ocean Man First Nation in Saskatchewan. I have been watching the country and politics of today. It seems as though everyone is torn about whether there should be a pipeline or shouldn’t be, whether gas should go up or shouldn’t and whether our current Prime Minister is good or bad.

It seems like we are all unsure. I know that I worry for the future, my future children and grandchildren’s future and what state they will be living in. Our current water crisis has seen so many reserves under boil water advisories for years, and some children have never experienced the taste of their own running water. Communities like Grassy Narrows have been suffering from mercury poisoning for many years and still have no water treatment plant. It makes me wonder what kind of Canada my children and I will inhabit in 20 years. What kind of water will I be drinking, and will there be a scarcity in fresh water?

Another concern is what kind of leaders we will have in the future. Will it keep being “old stock Canadians” running this country, or will we finally see a young, passionate Indigenous person in leadership, whose only purpose is to make sure Canada is Canada again?

Hopefully, with an Indigenous person in lead-

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ership, their goal will be to make sure we all have the same rights and no one is treated as less than or better than others. This includes everyone getting free medication, seniors no longer living in poverty, Indigenous people having good, clean drinking water on all reserves, and no more forcing hate onto Indigenous people from mainstream media.

I decided to pose the question “How do you, as an Indigenous person, feel about futurism?” to a few fellow Indigenous people.

“What does it mean to you, especially in the political climate that Canada is currently under? Think about environmental justice, decolonization: will this happen, and if so, how would it affect you, your family or the community around you?”

Dominga Robinson, from Pheasant Rump First Nation “I believe in a future where non-Indigenous people truly respect Indigenous people’s connection to this land, our home. I can see towns with streets and buildings with Indigenous names. I can see land being returned. I can see Indigenous sovereignty. I see a world where the colonizers’ systems are dismantled and other worldviews are embraced as equal, if not advanced in running society. I believe in the abolishment of the Indian Act, that the matri-

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“The future generation is going to have to deal with climate change and what we are doing to the world today. I had this conversation with my 26-year-old son and how he feels right now.

He believes that we are okay, but he worries for the future generations. Cities like Toronto seem to be more environmentally friendly in terms of recycling, compost and gardening.

Also, how can we deal with consumerism and how can we get rid of it? I don’t feel affected by consumerism now or in my younger days, like my kids do today. Consumerism is our biggest issue. We are buying disposable clothes that don’t last long, cars that are made cheaper and don’t last like cars did before. We need to be cautious about our consumerism.

What happens in all parts of the world affects us, like the oil crisis. We’re so dependent on other people’s oil, and with the way things are and the agreements that are in place, we can’t even use our own oil. I also worry about whether there will be enough clean water for my children. I don’t think it will be my grandchildren, but it will be my children that will deal with this. Seeing all the boil water advisories is concerning, and even on White Bear there was a boil water advisory. I think the next part of my journey will be understanding my ceremonies and learning songs with the drum I was given from my Uncle Armand. Things like this will help us with futurism.”

As an Indigenous person I would love to see my future with solar energy, fewer pipelines, fewer pump jacks in my community, to drink from the tap without worry and to have a strong leader who does what is best for the future and not what is best for right now. My Canada would not see Indigenous people as obstacles to knock over, but rather, as means to a way. What we want is for Mother Earth to be healthy, so we want to take care of her as best as we can, for as long as we can.

ILLUSTRATION: JULII MCMILLAN

media savvy

FACT CHECKING AFTER THE FACT Accountability and news media BY SARAH CHEPESIUK Information and news have never been so readily available as now. It is overwhelmingly seen as a good thing. Being informed is the best tool against ignorance and oppression. But what if the information we read is wrong? What is our responsibility when it comes to fact checking the news we read? Should we be critical of every post we read? And how do we learn to trust what is out there?

Media comes out now at such a quick pace that it can be difficult to filter through it all and likewise difficult to give some stories the time they need to discern the truth.

We are now able to read what happens hundreds of kilometres away in a way that was not possible even 20 or 30 years ago. It is easy to become fatigued trying to figure out fact from fiction.

As media and news changes, new technology comes about with new ways to access information. It is always good to have a few basic tools to do your own fact checking. When you see a headline that you think might be false, do a quick search for that headline. If no other sources are reporting on this, then it is most likely not true.

You can do the same for images and video; reverse image searches will tell you where the photo was originally published and

ILLUSTRATION: @BYNICOLEMEDINA

if it relates to the story you are currently reading.

If possible, try to find original reporting on a story. Oftentimes, a second- or third-hand report can be injected with unnecessary bias or muddle information as a story is breaking. This is not always the case, but it’s important to be wary of a source and hold writers accountable.

If you do find a news source to have incorrect information, let them know right away. Contact an editor and share the sources and contradicting information you found.

What happens when the false information is coming from someone you know? I have had relatives who continuously post stories or memes that are clearly made to be divisive and rile up negative emotions against oppressed groups. Depending on your relationship with the poster, it might be best to handle this tactfully if you care for them or are trying to preserve a relationship with them. People do not want to look foolish and will often double down on their opinion if they feel they are being embarrassed on a public platform. Decide right away the reason for providing a correction: is it for the sake of being right, or do you want to help them change their mind? When I see

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someone spreading incorrect information, I will find the correct sources or give them the tools to search on their own and try to approach it light-heartedly. If someone is being deliberately obtuse or rude, do not proceed. You do not owe them your time.

Changing people’s minds is difficult and you will not succeed every time. The best thing is to arm yourself with knowledge and be diligent when you see something that is not correct.

So what does this mean for the future?

It is near impossible to see what the future of media will be like, though we are seeing glimpses with new technology available to doctor videos in a more convincing manner. With news shifting more and more to a digital format, diligence starts to take on a different appearance. Video news sharing can be a way to get more information out while simultaneously being much more accessible. As accessibility grows, the need for fact checking will be greater than ever.

Using the same basic techniques one would use for checking print or online articles, it is possible to keep holding journalists and content creators accountable. Being mindful of what we choose to share will go a long way in helping stop the spread of misinformation.

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green scene

THE GRASS WILL BE GREENER Rethinking environmental justice BY JEAN BOAMPONG

As I’ve gotten older, the human responsibility for the environment has been explained to me in various ways. In Grade 3, my teacher taught our class about CFCs, also known as chlorofluorocarbons, which are emitted from freezers and refrigerators. Any time we left the fridge or freezer open, we were harming the ozone layer with zero possibility of reversing the effects. In Grade 8, I was learning about and teaching the three Rs to everyone: reduce, reuse and recycle. This approach to environmental change continued throughout high school.

The future of the planet was spoken of in terms of guilt. I, a young child at the time, didn’t feel like the future was possible. I thought everyone would die a horrible death and all these Earth-saving actions were only appeasing our sense of guilt. They didn’t feel genuine or hopeful; they felt shame-y and dismissive. No amount of darkness was going to help me understand why we were here. But the source of the darkness might.

The first time I actually heard — and learned about — the environment and racism together in the same sentence was in postsecondary school. I will never forget the feeling in my stomach when I learned about

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Africville, the historic neighbourhood in Nova Scotia inhabited by Black Canadians and other people of colour that was deliberately destroyed. The city intentionally disposed of garbage within and around the neighbourhood, which, along with other deliberate acts of hostile city planning, ultimately led to its destruction. The term “environmental racism” made perfect sense to me; it is intentional discrimination against racialized people and their communities which creates environmentally hazardous living conditions through institutionalized practice, legislation and policy.

Alongside this news, I learned about the environmental injustices the Government of Canada has committed against Indigenous communities for literally hundreds of years.

I had an a-ha moment; what I realized, but couldn’t articulate when I was younger, was that I was (un)intentionally being told to look at the smaller person instead of the bigger one who had a whole system working behind them.

A bunch of other light bulbs went off. The suicide rate for young Indigenous people is nine times that of the national average (I learned this in undergrad), and it has every-

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thing to do with environmental racism; life is bleak when it feels like everywhere you turn will harm you (environment) and institutional power is wielded against you (racism).

It also has everything to do with generational trauma. To this day, the Canadian government has dishonoured several treaties regarding land, especially with regard to land ownership and access. There are entire communities in Ontario that don’t have access to clean drinking water (Six Nations) or housing (Attawapiskat). People are still organizing against billion-dollar pipeline deals, an example of one of many broken promises by the current Liberal government. The Grassy Narrows First Nations communities are still dealing with the effects of chemical pollutants being spilled into their water supply in the 60s and 70s, mercury poisoning in particular.

People often respond to environmental justice by briefly acknowledging privilege or by revising and romanticizing past histories.

These unhelpful attitudes come up especially when we talk about settler colonialism. The reality is that some of us are settlers and benefit from that status, while some of us are not and suffer. If we can understand the impact of different forms of oppression have on our physical environment, we can understand that our fight against them is inextricably linked to the struggle for environmental justice. This vision of abundance would look like everyone having access to safe, clean environments with the necessities and luxuries needed to thrive in life.

Justice doesn’t come from a place of fear-mongering and guilt; it comes from our ability to see the mutual benefit of achieving it. That means understanding as fact that large consumer companies are not going to give up their land, and that no level of “responsible [insert action here]” is going to reverse their impact. It also means that so many of our communities, once on the brink of total annihilation, survived in part because of a rooted understanding of the future.

The future doesn’t belong to us. It belongs to those who come after us. The justice we seek, by default, has to be rooted in hope and a strong belief that future generations will build on what we leave for them, and do better than we have gone. Systems change only when change is possible.

ILLUSTRATION: DAMIEN (SEO YOUNG) JEON

sporting goods

WHOSE WORLD? Question of diversity in sports media BY JULIA MÉTRAUX

Sports media is dominated by cis white men.

The 2018 Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) Racial and Gender Report Card, which looked at 75 newspapers and websites, revealed just how shockingly true this is.

Eighty-five percent of sports editors were white, and an even higher number, 90 percent, were men. This report, which evaluated sports media outlets to address the disparity in racial and gender representation in hiring practices, did not consider gender identities beyond “male” and “female” in their analysis.

In brief, there is a glaring gap in women, nonbinary, transgender and people of colour representation in the culture and industry of sports media.

Representation matters because it helps shape whose stories are being told, which teams are covered and what issues are discussed. Because the industry largely operates around content creation and production, we cannot understate the importance of people with lived experiences being in decisionmaking positions to lead what gets covered and how it is framed. Sports producers, broadcasters, editors and writers can offer a more nuanced approach to stories when they feel they can meaningfully contribute their

ILLUSTRATION: JADEN TSAN

expertise and knowledge.

While the statistics may be dismaying, improvement is possible. Steps would include better hiring practices at all levels — from executives, to editors, to on-air personalities — better coverage of women’s teams and greater efforts to cover underrepresented athletes and highlight their stories.

On a structural level, it would have to confront larger social and political forces, such as cisnormativity in professional sports.

Its correlation may not be immediate, but better representation in sports media can lead to better coverage overall. Women players are often given little to no coverage by the press because executives and editors, who are usually men, decide, without evidence or merit, that people aren’t interested in women’s sports. Take the National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL) for example. Even when they win games, NWHL teams rarely make the front page of their hometown newspaper if covered at all. In contrast, their male counterparts in the National Hockey League are plastered on the front page of local and national media.

Commentary on women’s sports is less likely to emphasize the prowess and skills of

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women athletes, and producers tend to show fewer playback reels and game highlights.

How games are framed and broadcasted influence how the spectator and audience are engaged, and ultimately how they experience the thrill and excitement of the sport. Having more women who can change these industry precedents would shift the culture around sports and send a message that women’s sports matter.

While cis women may face discrimination, it pales to the levels that nonbinary and trans people face. As mentioned, the APSE Report Card doesn’t even take into account their representation. We can infer that there is a lack of out trans and nonbinary people who work in the industry and feel comfortable advocating for more inclusive gender parity. After all, the sports world itself is highly cisnormative and there are very few mixed-gender professional teams or leagues.

Most professional sports do not accept trans and nonbinary athletes and, even if they do, athletes face profound discrimination. For example, retired mixed martial arts fighter Fallon Fox faced discrimination throughout her career because she was a trans woman of colour. The majority of mainstream media did nothing to challenge or speak to the injustice she endured. Fox is now an outspoken advocate for trans rights, and only recently has there been more media attention on transphobia in sports.

In smaller scales, progress has been made to confront the exclusion of trans athletes.

U Sports, which is the Canadian governing body of university-level sports, announced that all athletes will be able to compete with any team “that corresponds with either their sex assigned at birth or their gender identity”. This is still exclusionary of nonbinary athletes as there aren’t official nonbinary or agender teams yet, but it’s a start. It’s also a good starting point for more sports outlets to support the initiative not only by giving it greater media coverage but also by opening their doors to non-cis people who aspire to work in the industry. We have momentum; we just have to keep it going.

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The Future Is Disabled What does it say when the future is imagined as a kind of perfection that erases disabled folks?

It says that there are futures that need to be discarded, work that needs to be done willingly and futures that need to be reimagined with intentionality BY LEAH LAKSHMI PIEPZNA-SAMARASINHA There’s a t-shirt I (and many other disabled folks I know) own and love. It reads “The Future Is Accessible.” It feels like a bold statement every time I put it on. A future with no stairs, perfume, special-edto-prison pipeline, abuse of disabled kids in institutions, school and homes, where everyone knows ASL… and my friends and I can get on the bus every single time?!?! What the f*ck??!

I’m rolling an even bolder statement around in my brain: what would a disabled future look like? And/or, what would a disability justice future look like, where disabled, chronically ill, Mad, neurodivergent and Deaf folks, particularly those of us who are BIPOC and queer, were thriving and remaking the world in our image?

These are wild, wild thoughts. So often, disabled people are both hyper visible and erased — our communities and society as well — by the abled. The idea that there are disabled communities, disabled artists, disabled families, movements and histories just sounds like (pardon the pun) crazy talk to everyone else. Ableism says that disabled people are individual health problems and not people facing oppression. This erasure happens even more so when people, including many social justice people, imagine the future. Many are celebrating the idea of a future where we don’t exist, especially with the recent scientific use of gene-editing technologies like CRISPR to alter the DNA of embryos to not be disabled. In so many social justice and feminist science fiction novels that imagine a just future, disabled people also don’t exist anymore, because a future with health care and justice is supposed to eliminate disability. And that’s supposed to be a good thing.

But disability justice activists know that disabled people have existed since there have been people. Prior to settler colonialism, many societies had different ideas about disability, where there was no one “correct” way to have a body or a mind but many different ways (with overlap to how many of the same societies understand that there are more than two genders). We can see this disabled knowledge stretching to today, in many wild Indigenous and decolonial imaginings of a liberated future. In Te Reo Hāpai — The Language of Enrichment, a new Indigenous language initiative created in 2017 by Maori organizer Keri Opai creating new words in Maori about disability, the word for autism is “takiwatanga,” which means “his or her own time and space,” and the word for disabled, “whaikaha,” means “to have strength, to have ability, otherly-abled, enabled.” These words write an Indigenous disabled future and present where disabled and (d)Deaf folks are ordinary gifts, not deficiencies to be eliminated.

As disabled people, we’re told in a million ways we’re lucky to even exist; it’s so common for even nice, social justice-minded people

ILLUSTRATIONS: JAMIE POLANCIC

to think of disabled lives as “fates worse than death” or say “I’d kill myself if I had your disability!” When, as disabled people, we dare to imagine a future that gives us more than the bare minimum of survival, one where we have pleasure, power and shape the world instead of being begrudgingly included by abled people, we are doing a radical, courageous thing that some abled folks can only see as “outrageous” or “entitled.” How dare we?

Our disabled lives are luscious, and we are dreaming new futures into being all the time. I see it in places like @Disabledpersonals, the new disabled personals Instagram account, where so many disabled folks are building love and connection with each other; or in the life of queer, fat, purple-haired, Latinx femme disabled lawyer, activist and mother of four disabled kids, Carrie Anne Lucas. She literally went to law school to fight for her and other disabled parents’ right to parent, when she was originally denied the right to adopt her daughter; a judge viewed her disability as proof that she wouldn’t be a competent parent.

She was also a leader in creating and passing HB 18-1104, the law that now protects disabled parents’ right to parent in Colorado. The Denver, Colorado-based Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center, which gave Lucas the Intersectionality Award in 2016, described her as “maybe the only wheelchair-using Latina with a bumper sticker that reads, ‘just another disabled lesbian for Christ’ dressed in camo, driving her trak-chair into the wilderness in search of the perfect photo.1” Even if our lives are invisible to so many abled people, the radical, rich disabled lives we are creating from scratch and in community are freedom pathways for everyone to imagine lives that are wilder and freer than what we’ve been taught are possible.

The current rise in fascism can make it really freaking difficult to imagine a disability justice future — it’s hard to imagine utopia when you’re living in a constant panic attack. For the past two years since Trump got elected and the Conservative government took power in Ontario, disabled people have been fighting to keep basic income, disability payments, Medicaid, the Americans With Disabilities Act etc. — all hard-won laws and programs that barely scrape the surface of what we need, but which we’ll die without.

However, dreaming not just what we’re against but what we’re for is what’s needed right now. Lucky thing that being unapologetic and brazen, and living wild, magic disabled lives is something disabled folks are great at. I asked some disabled writers, artists and organizers who are doing incredible work in Canada to tell me their wild dreams of a free disabled future. What will it look like when we win?

1 https://jezebel.com/disability-rights-advocate-carrie-ann-lucas-dies-after-1832933366?fb clid=IwAR2dTAo311bk8OVlc8WARACsmb4UyY2Nzi1naAXvrqWTN4NvGWJre-mSi_Q

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Karine-Myrgianie Jean-François and Nelly Bassily of DAWN Canada A future where disability justice won looks like Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous, folks of colour and women, girls, and nonbinary humans living in a world where disability is the norm. Access is no longer a question, but a fait accompli. Gone are the days where our disabled bodies and minds are compared to the able-bodied and able-minded.

We’ve flipped the script; we still like our non-queer, non-people of colour, non-disabled friends, and we’ll have them at our fully accessible dance parties (which include comfy chairs and couches for our aches and pains, subwoofers that make you feel the vibrations, active listeners and personal support workers so we can fully enjoy our time out, plenty of room, fully accessible bathrooms for wheelchair users to

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dance, dance and dance as well as pee with ease, no stairs in sight and clear paths to sway or rest as we please).

Because (please) did you really think this could go on, this able-body and mind domination? It’s not that we’ve flipped the script to exert power and replicate oppressions on our able-bodied and able-minded friends; they, over time, learned not to take up so much space and not be offended or feel left out if we don’t organize with them in mind.

Actually, in our accessible/disabled future, binaries are broken. We fully live on and in the spectrum of possibilities of non-stigmatized minds and bodies. In this spectrum, we are fully connected to one another, which means that decolonization has happened and is still happening, and that patriarchy has been toppled and much more. This interconnectedness that we now live daily means that sometimes our able-bodied and able-minded friends are learning every day, including from their mistakes, and are understanding in how many ways our differences and disabilities manifest. This also means that we have collectively built this future and thus have learned and understood differences and disabilities, and all of us are still doing that important work, even when it is hard, because this future world is ours!

Nelly Bassily is an intersectional feminist, sexual rights, and anti-racism activist and media maker. Born to Egyptian parents in Montreal, immigration, diaspora and identity also inform her activism.

Born in Tiohtià:ke, Karine-Myrgianie is a Black queer woman, optimist and activist, passionate about social justice for minoritized communities. She believes that these communities especially can change our world.

shameless

Clementine Morrigan: When I’m in spaces that centre disability, sickness and madness, I feel the future I’m longing for unfolding in the present. I feel the shame crack open and the flood of relief.

I love to be in spaces where the different ways our minds and bodies feel and exist are welcome and expected, spaces where we are learning, adapting and generous with each other. I love relationships like this; relationships where we get to know each other’s needs and meet them, together.

It’s like how my partner knows to pull up Pete Walker’s Thirteen Steps for Managing Emotional Flashbacks when I’m having a flashback. And how my friends know never to suggest psych stuff to me, because it’s triggering and not helpful. It’s like when this new date ran their fingers gently over the psoriasis flaring all over my skin and said, “How does your psoriasis feel? Is there a way you like to be touched? Are there ways you don’t like to be touched?” It’s conversations that normalize dissociation, sex that plans for it, communities who are willing to slow down and meet us where we are.

I think a lot about trauma futures, futures with less traumatizing violence where people who live with the longstanding effects of trauma are loved and held through that, and where we are also listened to and honoured for what we know about violence and care.

As someone who spent a lot of time suicidal and engaging in really dangerous behaviour, I am amazed that I have a future. I also think about what futures can look like where we don’t “get better” and are still crazy, but where we find different ways of living with our pain. I really, really loved what you wrote about this in Care Work, because

ILLUSTRATIONS: JAMIE POLANCIC

I desperately need to see examples of people growing older and still being crazy, and also having beautiful, powerful lives. I want a future where my pleasure and my joy are rooted in my pain, where the pain and the loss is not gone like it never happened, but in a constant transformative becoming, the literal compost that nourishes my growth and my drive and my love.

I want a future where we can grieve. I sometimes think there’s a big relationship between grief and the future. Like, I need to really grieve everything we’ve lost and are losing in order to create the energy I need to fight for what’s here. The person I am is not the person I would have been if the violence hadn’t happened. There is loss there.

But there is also the creation of something else, something powerful and sacred. Trauma magic. I was listening to an interview with Mary Oliver recently where she talks about surviving her father’s violence when she was a child. She said that if that hadn’t happened, maybe she wouldn’t have been a poet, because being a poet is a solitary pursuit, it was part of her practice of turning away from the human world and toward the nonhuman world, as a way of moving through her trauma. There is loss there. And there is also something so profoundly powerful. She became Mary Oliver the Poet, and she gave herself and the world all those poems.

Clementine Morrigan writes the zine Fucking Magic and is the author of three books: You Can’t Own the Fucking Stars, The Size of a Bird, and Rupture. Visit clementinemorrigan. com for more.

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Sage Lovell, Deaf Spectrum:

Sarah Jama, Disability Justice Network of Ontario:

When thinking about making a more accessible future for d/Deaf folks, I can think of many ways to create this accessible world, and I’m going to mention the main ways to do this.

First of all, we need to ensure that d/Deaf children have access to sign language to prevent them from experiencing language deprivation, which can have disastrous effects on our development and well-being. With language acquisition, d/Deaf children have a better chance of obtaining a prosperous future. Having a language means d/Deaf folks would be able to gain access to education and future employment opportunities.

Now, education needs to become more accessible for d/Deaf folks by meeting their basic educational needs. What does accessible education look like? Having sign language and disability education being part of the K-12 curriculum because we need Deaf and disability representation, which would normalize Deafness and disability. Accessible education also means free education for those who would like to attend Gallaudet University or National Technical Institute of the Deaf and providing interpreters for any of their educational needs without limitations.

Currently, the unemployment/underemployment rate for d/Deaf folks in Canada stands at around 80 percent. Only 20 percent of d/Deaf folks earn enough to maintain a sustainable lifestyle without scarcity. In the future, I hope that more job opportunities open up for d/Deaf people, including positions such as teachers, actors, politicians, doctors, lawyers, interpreters and more. Having d/Deaf representation working in positions of power can significantly shift how the mainstream society perceive us d/Deaf folks because unfortunately, we are oftentimes perceived as unintelligent, weak and helpless. Having d/Deaf folks be part of the decision-making process for all levels of government would lead to creating changes through legislations.

Last, but not the least, we need more Black, Indigenous, People of Colour (BIPOC) working as interpreters. The number of BIPOC interpreters is at a disproportionally low rate in comparison to white interpreters. The d/Deaf BIPOC community needs interpreters that represents them [because] having BIPOC interpreters [means they] understand what it’s like to experience racism, and [they don’t] minimize the racist experiences that d/Deaf folks have with white sign language interpreters.

The Disability Justice Network of Ontario is working toward a world where people with disabilities are free to be. We aim to build a just and accessible Ontario wherein people with disabilities have personal and political agency, can thrive and foster community, and build the power, capacity and skills needed to hold people, communities and institutions responsible for the spaces they create.

For too long, conversations around disabled people have circled around our need to participate in society, predicated on our ability to achieve certain milestones: go to school, get a job, raise a family, have sex or travel to far away places. But these conversations always stop at the tip of the iceberg. What happens once we are in school, are employed, start building a family or express our sexuality? Are we safe and supported along the way? Or is each milestone enough for society to wash its hands? What about our comrades whose bodies and minds are too radical for today’s conceptions of employment, or too radical to sustain nuclear families or who don’t fit in any of the boxes that we keep on being shoved into?

We want to see a world where people are free to be, regardless of their ability to fit into capitalist institutions that say we are nothing if not the right kind of fodder for the system. This looks like universal basic income, dignified and accessible housing, free healthcare and pharmacare, and healthcare systems that treat us like we have value even after we turn 18. This looks like an education system that fosters collectivity, passion and deeply rooted love for those around us. This looks like the abolishment of our prison systems, police and the RCMP, all which have colonial roots and have been created to eliminate bodies and minds that aren’t controllable by the state (hundreds of people with disabilities have been killed by law enforcement in Canada, many who were racialized, simply because their disability was seen as a danger). A world that has disability justice is a world where we are all free to be, regardless of race, religion, geographic location, sexual orientation, age or disability.

DJNO aims to build a just and accessible Ontario, wherein people with disabilities have agency to foster community and build capacity to hold people and institutions responsible for their spaces.

Sage Lovell is an artist, educator and founder of Deaf Spectrum.

They develop meaningful work that continues to evolve, incorporating media, language, theatre and accessibility into art.

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shameless

Syrus Marcus Ware:

Leah:

My disabled future is Black. Black like the holes at the centres of every galaxy; Black like the sticky tar on every piece of cracked and broken asphalt in every working-class hood; Black like a million crips strong, finally finished our fight for disability justice and freedom; Black like the night sky when we can finally rest, lying on blankets in the hot summer night waiting for the Perseid meteor showers to fall.

My disabled future is accessible. Accessible like everyone is selfdetermined; accessible like hot and sexy as we want to be; accessible like being able to wake up and live a free life, in charge of our own destinies. Accessible like we all make it.

My disabled future is trans* with the stardust astrix Marquis Bey describes; trans* like everything and anything is possible; trans* like, “we’re still fucking here,” in the words of Miss Major; trans* like crip gender magic.

My disabled future is life, as long as I want it, and death when I want it.

There is no one disabled future. But in mine, there is guaranteed income, housing, access, food, water and education for all — or — money has been abolished. I get paid to write from my bed. The births of disabled, Autistic, Mad, Neurodivergent, Deaf and sick kids are celebrated; there are memorials and healing and reparation sites in every psych ward, institution, nursing home, youth lockup and “autistic treatment centre” where our people have been locked up and abused.

Anyone who needs care gets it with respect and autonomy, not abuse.

Caregivers are paid well for the work we do, and are often disabled ourselves. Disabled folks are the ones teaching medical school students about our bodies. Schools have been taken apart and re-made so that there’s not one idea of “smart” and “stupid,” but many ways of learning. There is a disability justice section in every bookstore, and a million examples of sick and disabled and Deaf and autistic and Mad folks thriving. I have a really sick lipstick-red spiral ramp on my house. Life is good.

Syrus is a Vanier Scholar, visual artist, activist, curator and educator. Syrus is a core-team member of Black Lives MatterToronto. Syrus is also part of Blackness Yes!/Blockorama.

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is the Lambda Award winning author of Tonguebreaker, Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice, Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home, Bodymap and a lead artist with Sins Invalid.

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The C

Interg R

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Changing of the Guard: generational Responsibilities In several communities, passing along wisdom, family history and memories is an important rite of passage. How are our family legacies upheld and cared for, especially in the digital age? What do intergenerational responsibilities look like in diasporas? BY WREN PRAGG AND JEAN BOAMPONG

In several communities, passing along wisdom, family history and memories is an important rite of passage. It signifies a changing of the guard and solidifies our connections to those who came before.

Some people are able to learn about their social, political or cultural history from their family, biological or chosen, or from their communities through oral traditions, local griots, historians, musicians and the like.

In this age of fast-changing technology, however, we now have the option of learning from our communities digitally. Taking phone calls at three or four in the morning before school may not be as common as receiving WhatsApp texts from a group of distant family members, but they’re both equally likely in today’s digital world. Technology has increased the access that younger generations have to their elders.

With this phenomenon comes great responsibilities; the responsibility to share knowledge, introduce familiesto their communities, preserve history, remember the names of previous generations, write everything down, learn languages and then some. However, without access to information, these responsibilities can feel overwhelming, especially if you are an only child or the child in your family with the most information. It can be confusing to try to understand your place in the world; what is your legacy if you’re unsure of where you begin? What do you “claim” if you don’t know your culture(s) well, including the language? The family tree(s)? Are you the one to do this work?

I’m filled with doubt, anger, excitement and imagination when I

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consider my responsibilities to my elders and ancestors. No one that I have asked knows which ancestor was the first to leave India. No one knows exactly what part of India our family comes from. I like to imagine the likely and unlikely paths my ancestors took to get to the Caribbean. Many of those who arrived from India were poor, with few choices in their homeland. Many were also coerced by the British, falsely promised return passage after a few years earning wages to support their families back home, resulting in a pain that we, the younger generation, are still feeling the effects of.

For this reason, DNA testing services such as 23andMe and Ancestry have become popular among this generation because of their good-enough assurances that they can deliver accurate results about your family lineage, fast. No other generation has had this kind of access; there’s something comforting about it, information thought to be lost being rediscovered and brought back to you.

Furthermore, you can share your results with the rest of the world via social media, which changes a milestone discovery into a communal experience and, sometimes, an international dialogue. While the dialogue must include discussions of the accuracy of these results and the security of your data, it also has to include what happens after you learn where in the world your family is from. Do you now claim this place and culture? Do you now identify similarly to the people there? Can you? Should you? There’s no right answer, but there’s a point where you have to make peace with an ugly fact, that you will never know for sure; you must just trust the truth you discover.

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The distance of diaspora can make you feel split apart, as if there’s always a part of you lingering somewhere else, waiting to be reunited with your body. This is especially the case because over half of the world was literally stripped from their homes, cultures and families. Maybe your names were changed or misspelled by colonial record keepers like the owners of enslaved people in the United States. Maybe your language was prohibited like several Indigenous ones by the colonial practices of Canada, including residential schools. Maybe your ancestors and elders experienced trauma that they are still working to heal.

In 2013, the last of my grandparents passed away from Alzheimer’s. She was the only grandparent I knew as a teenager and then as an adult. One of the things her illness meant for me was that I wasn’t able to ask her all the questions emerged for me as I grew up. I wonder about her childhood, her parents, and what it was like to live through the independence of Trinidad and Tobago.

This dearth of answers makes me feel alone, confused and lost.

Sometimes it’s just easier for me to believe that my grandparents and I would have had a more special bond if I had lived in Trinidad.

But the truth is, I don’t know if they would have understood who I’ve become. It’s freeing and jarring all at once. Even among all the happy memories, and long lines of extended relatives around the world, I sometimes feel like loss and grief are some of my most intimate and constant relations. But it was these feelings that fed my desire to capture stories of elders and to spend time cultivating relationships with those in my communities who are younger than me.

An important part of intergenerational responsibilities is preserving stories. One of my favourite rituals of the year is the Hindu tradition of ancestor worship known as Pitri Paksha. To me it’s a time to recognize the very tangible ties we still have to those who have gone before us. The act of offering food to the ancestors is such a deep show of love. Another example from Trinidad is the Indian tradition of the panchayati raj, which was brought over as a form of communal decision making and conflict resolution. It teaches us that some of the most important lessons to hold on to are the ones that are uncomfortable, and that a lot of difficult family and community stories are lost or altered because they’re hard to acknowledge and discuss.

This is why so often queer members of society have often been remembered through enforced heterosexuality. In many languages around the world, there are historical terms that fall outside of the gender binary, and their historical exclusion is harmful and violent.

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PBS created an entire map of it, but there is so much more work to be done. Traditionally, most griots and storytellers, the carriers of our history, have been men. A lot of what we get access to and know are told through their perspectives and ideas, which are not always friendly and inclusive. Even as there are more womanidentified scholars and historians now than in the past, those who are rewarded with research grants, publishing opportunities and unquestioned authority are most often cis, white men. So, though ancestors may have gotten married in the past, this erasure makes it difficult to confirm if there was evidence of same-sex love in their lives, which makes passing along stories even more difficult.

But times of challenge and change provide a lot of insight into the values, resilience and priorities of a person, family and/or community. Personally, this means being able to share my own experiences of mental health, especially because I know that these experiences are shared by at least a couple of my elders. I want to ensure that those who come after me don’t feel stigmatized if they share these experiences.

Online spaces such as Twitter and Facebook have shifted what this work looks like. Before social media disrupted the internet, these journeys were internal and private. You may have talked to someone in your community, but it was rarely a deep dive because time was always of the essence. And then there’s shame.

In many cultures, it is generally looked down upon to share your “business” with people outside of your family. With social media platforms, people who may have otherwise stayed silent are taking up space and telling their stories. They are serving as points of truths and first sources of histories we would have never known about. Hashtags like #MyMentalStateIn5Words, #WhyIStayed and #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen have and are continuing to change the world. These platforms are, in many ways, serving as historical documentation of our lives and how we connect with others.

Aside from recording histories, both personal and communal, I think that my responsibilities to future generations are largely about providing an environment with the potential for holistic wellbeing. It’s important to me to ask myself how I am impacting the environment literally and figuratively. That means thinking about increasing the food security of my community, cleaning up public spaces and advocating for more public funding for services such as public transportation. Are there other things I can do to reduce the negative impacts and increase the benefits? This is a personal question that will depend largely on your social and economic position,

shameless

“Aside from recording histories, both personal and communal, I think that my responsibilities to future generations are largely about providing an environment with the potential for holistic well-being. It’s important to me to ask myself regularly how I am impacting the environment literally and figuratively.

That means thinking about increasing the food security of my community, cleaning up public spaces and advocating for more public funding for services such as public transportation. Are there other things I can do to reduce the negative impacts and increase the benefits? This is a personal question that will depend largely on your social and economic position, but I think it should be one of the central guiding principles of our decision-making practices.”

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but I think it should be one of the central guiding principles of our decision-making practices.

I also consistently reflect on what oppressive and harmful practices I participate in and benefit from, such as xenophobia, classism, ableism and racism. It’s crucial for me to surround myself with people who will challenge me to learn and do better because it’s easy to become fixated on your own perspective and not push yourself to consider different experiences and possibilities. By making this commitment, I can help to create change on an interpersonal level while also finding ways to collaborate and organize on a large scale.

I, a phenotypical South Asian person, am responsible for naming my privileges and using them in allyship. I have a responsibility to the Indigenous communities that inhabited the lands of Trinidad and Turtle Island before European colonizers enacted genocidal warfare upon them. Europeans attempted to completely erase Indigenous peoples from histories and landscapes. They failed. But the stories and values that protected the lands for many generations before colonization were displaced from the central guiding principles of community. Indigenous understandings of how to sustain communities and land through principles of interdependence and self-determination are full of potential for resistance to exploitative practices such as capitalism and neo-liberalism. It’s my responsibility to fight back against ongoing colonial efforts and anti-Indigenous racism, as well as continue to learn about my relationship to the land as a settler.

I have a deep appreciation of the fluid and overlapping influences that make up both queer and Caribbean cultures. These experiences helped me to comprehend the fullness of my responsibilities to generations before me. What is clear to me is that the resistance and work that has been done to push back against colonial ideas of gender roles and sexuality is ancestral, historical and intergenerational. Taking lessons from that is how I can honour the wisdom of generations before me.

Now, my responsibility to generations to come is to constantly ask the question: what’s lost? I will always try to do my part to find answers, stories, art and representations that allows them to see their reflections and the histories that accompany them.

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Writing Through Time Shameless staffers reflect on their past selves BY JEAN BOAMPONG, ANGELA GUARDIANI, JULIA HOREL, SHEILA SAMPATH AND SENNAH YEE I’ve been engaged in some form of activist work or another for almost two decades now — more than half my life. Community work has been life-giving for me; it’s given me opportunities to form deep and meaningful relations with other people, it’s allowed me to hack away at the most plausible future and allowed me to dream of more possible ones. For me, it’s been a series of cycles: trying, messing up, being accountable, growing, doing better, messing up again (albeit in new ways). It’s a lot of work, and it isn’t always easy.

In 2011, I was at a feminist conference in Ottawa. It was a huge, imperfect gathering of academics, activists, thinkers, makers and do-ers. On the first night, I sat through an amazing panel on Indigenous Feminisms. The panel had some pretty awe-inspiring Indigenous women speaking to colonial trauma and its relationship to sexual violence.

There was an open Q&A session, and in it, one of the videographers, who I met earlier in the day and (admittedly) wrote off as a basic bro, raised his hand to ask a question. I remember feeling surprised seeing his hand in the air and was excited to see that something in the panel had spoken to him.

He fumbled over his words. The gist of what he was saying was that he didn’t realize that violence was so common. He wanted to know why it happens and what he could do to stop it. He used imperfect language; he disclosed the trauma of his friends. He was trying, but he was flailing. I remember cringing in my seat.

Before any of the panelists could respond, a member of the audience stood up. They wanted to address the question directly, and angrily asked the basic bro where he’d been all night, how he

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could ask such a disrespectful question after hearing this brilliant panel speak to these issues for over an hour already, how he needed to educate himself and check himself. The room stood still and I watched the basic bro lower himself back into his seat. The panelists did what they could to smooth things over, and the night continued.

That evening has stuck with me for years. I could see the anger in the audience member, and the frustration at having to see these ideas explained yet again to someone who only decided to pay attention now. That anger and frustration is totally valid. And I also felt devastated watching us lose a potential ally — someone who would likely never ask a question again, someone who would likely never feel safe in an activist or political space again, or someone who may reject feminist spaces moving forward.

I cried in my hotel room that night and, soon after, started working on Letters Lived, a volume of letters from feminist artists, activists and community-builders to their past selves. The book is an acknowledgement that we didn’t arrive at where we are without making mistakes along the way. That feminism, activism and community work is a process that commits to a politic, not a static state of mind. It is an attempt to reconcile our relationships with our past selves, to create new potential for our future selves, and to create more caring spaces for each other.

For our futurisms issue, we invited Shameless staffers to reflect on and honour their past selves. To hold those young people accountable and to give ourselves spaces to grow, heal and do important and intergenerational work. Below are their reflections.

— Sheila Sampath

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Jean Boampong: How do you navigate the question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” as an adult compared to when you were a child?

Sennah Yee: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” was such an exciting question for my past self, especially in kindergarten. I remember saying that I wanted to be a mom when I grew up, because I loved (and still love!) my mom so much.

Then I wanted to be a detective — I thought they solved simple mysteries, like missing toys or lunches, not serious crimes. As I grew older, the question became less exciting and more anxiety-inducing.

In school, we began to feel pressured to know exactly how to answer it, and that the answer had to be a feasible, “respectable” career. Now, I have learned to undo this kind of thinking, and be excited about this question all over again — because it is one that anyone can ask, at any time in their life.

For my future self, this question has been reframed not only to encompass what I want to be, but who and how. I want my tenderness and strength to keep growing. I want to grow with my community and give back to it. I want to grow up and be someone that my past and present self would admire and be inspired by.

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culture,” how do we practice understanding, patience and truthtelling to these old and new versions of ourselves? How do we do that publicly — if at all — and privately?

How do you reconcile who you are and what the idea of you is, especially online?

Angela: Every moment presents us with new versions of ourselves.

We are constantly learning. What’s different about this time is that we are constantly learning in public online spaces. However, this learning is very curated. The assumption is that somehow, we can all tell a person by their social media account. In other words, we can create a profile of someone based on what search engines (i.e., Google) tell us, how popular someone is and anything they’ve ever put online. We get information so fast. And if it’s important and/or new enough, we share it. But what happens when you share something that not only has no digital footprint, but doesn’t align with who everyone thinks you are?

Whatever the response is, one thing is clear: your apologies and steps toward accountability and responsibility may now extend to everyone who comes across this mistake. You may not know each other, but you share digital space and so, you are now known. And that is enough to be responsible to everyone. How does this change our perception of accountability?

Angela Guardiani: When I was younger, the question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” was always answered with things — the things I would have, the things I would accomplish. It was always about the external and capitalist markings of success, whether it was the square footage of the home I would own or the letters after my name. A lot of years and a lot of life has gone by since then, and now I proudly call myself Shameless’ Resident Old. But I am still growing up! What I know about growing up now is that the cliche is right — it is a journey. You never really finish growing as long as there are new things to learn and experience. Now, “growing up” for me means growing outward, not upward, reaching out with kindness, and compassion and understanding.

Jean: Everyone says, “we all make mistakes” until we actually make mistakes. Then the statement becomes “you made a mistake,” followed by reminders, or rather curses, that you can never redeem yourself from them. Any other mistake you make is followed by this reminder. It’s as if at every turn, there’s the same indicator for new mail staring and standing right in front of you. It’s a stifling action that assumes so much about a person’s journey.

What does accountability look like for you now vs. then? How do you hold space for your younger self, a past version of yourself to be held accountable?

Jean: The future is not linear; we experience it every day as we live, thrive and survive. Often, we’re asked some variation of “what do you want to be when you grow up?” and “what would you tell your younger self?” as a way to reflect on the people we’ve become.

However, the relationship we have to our past (present) selves and our relationship to our future selves remains unexplored in those questions. Especially in the age of “receipts” and supposed “cancel

Angela: I wore a racist Halloween costume once. It wasn’t explicitly racist, but it was stereotypical and it was fetishizing and it. Was. Just.

Gross. I’m ashamed of wearing that costume now, for ever thinking that it was a fun, harmless idea, but I know things now that I didn’t know then. I know, now, why it was hurtful to wear a culture as a costume — I understand, now, that I contributed to something that’s yet another aggression in a world that piles them on to racialized people.

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So, I hold myself accountable. That word, to me, means doing the work to understand the larger impact of my actions. It means that I can be personally compassionate to my younger self for her poorly thought-out choices, but when I acknowledge what I’ve done, I can’t make excuses or ask for a pass from the people I’ve hurt. It means putting my money where my mouth is and supporting books/art/film by creators from that community. And it means a simple, heartfelt apology. No excuses. Just a sorry. I’ve seen this kind of accountability from Wab Kinew, who was called out on misogynist lyrics in his early music. Kinew acknowledged that he’d done wrong, and as a political leader he’s trying to craft legislation that makes the lives of women in his community — particularly Indigenous women — better. That’s the kind of accountability I strive for. ADB — Always Doing Better.

Julia: When I was 15, I made a biased assumption about someone on the phone who spoke English with an accent. I made a comment to my mother, while passing her the phone. I did not realize the person on the phone could hear me — and I definitely did not realize that it was the parent of one of my friends, calling to chat with my mother. It was an incredibly thoughtless display of prejudice, and I’m still mortified about it 20 years later. My friend’s mother and my friend both accepted my apology and we remain friends today. Accountability in this case meant owning my actions, apologizing unreservedly and then not only saying I would do better, but doing better, and letting my actions show that I had learned and grown. It meant being uncomfortable for quite a while, wondering if my friend and her mother ( justifiably) thought I was a prejudiced jerk. I remain grateful that I was able to make amends and then had the opportunity to continue to develop my relationship with the people I had harmed, and to re-earn the trust I had lost.

Accountability is not quick or straightforward. In my time at Shameless, I have witnessed the ongoing work of being accountable to our readers, supporters and friends. There was a period of time when the future of the magazine was uncertain, and there was a gap in publishing that resulted in many disappointed readers waiting a long time between issues, or having subscriptions lapse altogether.

The way we practiced accountability was to take ownership of the problems, respond quickly when people came to us with frustration, anger or confusion, and most importantly, to resume publishing and communicating consistently, so that our community knew we are were and we valued them. The biggest thing I have taken away from the process of re-building and expanding our community is that trust

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“That’s the kind of accountability I strive for. ADB — Always Doing Better.” has to be earned. It isn’t enough to say “we’ll do better.” We do better when we commit to doing the best we can and serving the interests of our readers every time we publish an issue. By listening and talking to our communities, we remain accountable.

Jean: No one arrived in the present from a squeaky-clean past. For no one’s entire life did they know why certain words, actions and ideas were wrong or detrimental to people they may or may not know. Those are places you arrive at with a willingness to listen and learn, and in time. More importantly, these are places you arrive at because you see the benefit of being there yourself, even if it means you “lose” something. This is a long way of saying that our futures, then, are not linear; they’re happening all the time. As children, this much is clear because everything seems far away. As adults, this is confusing.

What would you tell your future self?

Sennah: I would tell my future self to take care of the present and the past. Spend some time acknowledging and/or archiving memories, stories and traditions — even the harmful or difficult ones that go purposefully buried and ignored — and learn how to make sense of them, and new meaning of them for the future. I would tell my future self that even though we may not be able to change the past, we can still engage with it in the present and future; the past is never really past!

This idea is both overwhelming and liberating all at once. I would tell my future self that that is okay.

Angela: If I could reach out to Future Me, I’d tell her, look, you’re no doubt going to have failed at some stuff, and if I know you, you’re probably stressing about how you let people down and are thinking about how you could have done better. But Present Me wants to tell you, you did your best and you did it honestly, and when you were wrong, you admitted it and tried to do better. Cut yourself some slack, Future Me. Present Me sends you a hug.

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show and tell

LETTER TO MY FUTURE SELF Written by a member of Shameless’s Youth Advisory Board BY TESSA HILL

Editor’s Note: In 2019, Shameless’s Youth Advisory Board committee held a writing workshop for the YAB to talk about the theme of “futurisms/ the future.” The writing activities centered on writing to your future self. Some of the prompt questions included: what kind of world do you think you’ll live in? What kind of person do you hope to be? What are things about you that you don’t want to change or lose as your grow up? What kind of relationship do you want your future self to have with you? The results were tender and strong, all at once!

To my future self, Lately, I have been projecting myself into your place in order to understand who you might be. It’s an impossible task but I try it anyway. With each day, in the smallest things, I am reminded of how quickly I hurtle towards an unknown future; all the while, I’m comically trapped within the same buildings, around the same people, day in and day out.

The last year of high school is a societal joke.

My routines are so mundane and worn out that it’s a wonder I show up to anything as much as I do. Your possibilities dangle right in front of my face and so I have turned to

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spending my daydreams in imagining you.

I pick a time and place to help determine the situation; your figure is elusive, so, most often, I assume first person. Sometimes it’s a vivid flash. Sometimes I walk the whole hypothetical path in minutes; it’s an interesting form of escapism.

I don’t want you to look back on this time — on me, on all our awkward experiences — and try to separate yourself. Yes, I’m melodramatic. I imagine life as cinema; I see any moment as a scene, any line a rising action, any look to be meaningful. Yes, I have decided I’ve truly understood love a hundred different times. But I don’t want you to use the hormones, the inexperience, the youth to undermine all these thoughts that feel like revelations. I beg you not to reinterpret this pain and longing as small and silly.

Remember the moments with wonder. Know that you are made up of all of this childish innocence.

I guess I am also scared of you. Or, more truthfully, I’m worried of how you’ll be.

Although I pride myself on the ambition, the ability to assume all perspectives and negotiate the world around me, I have started to notice an increasing tendency towards nihil-

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ism. The world is a shitshow and it’s getting to me. It’s not that it hasn’t always been like this, with the great anxiety of every generation, but this seems like a special kind. Sometimes I will picture the world burning instead of everything I might do before it does; I picture your complacency in witnessing it all and, most of all, your inability to stop it. I’m often overcome with the feeling that my dreams won’t ever manifest in the way I want them to. I try to shake off this feeling. There’s no use for it and I know that. But I’m scared that, as I become you, I will slip further and further into it and lose my strength for resilience.

I’m trying to fight this and I hope you will too. I do have a lot of hope. There is no way to predict the future. I can try to pinpoint milestones I might reach, but beyond that I will experience things that are, in a way, beyond imagination. I trust you. I trust you to remember, imagine and grow with a love that will build rather than destroy. I trust you to negotiate the hopelessness and continue to transform it into power. The daydreaming won’t stop — I will keep trying to know you, over and over — but I’m learning to love the unknown. The past, present and future can thrive together if I just let them.

ILLUSTRATION: CÉCILE IACIANCIO

A step-by-step guide to taking care of your present and future self

BY REBECCA ESTHER

diy

HOW TO WRITE YOUR OWN PERFECT FUTURE

Mental Health Resources It took me years to get my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder diagnosed because I was scared to talk about it. I pretended it wasn’t there, until it became so unmanageable that I couldn’t ignore it anymore. When I finally sought help and found a community I could talk to, I felt immeasurable relief.

The issue of cost is a big barrier to receiving mental health care, and is just as prohibitive as stigma. Fortunately, community centres, local and online support groups, helplines and school programs often have excellent resources. Mental health apps like Headspace and Calm have taken off in the last couple years, and some of them are often free.

It’s worth caring for your present and future self’s mental health right now!

Community Connection

My future self is like my best friend: she is me, living her best life, but in the future.

I try to live every day the way she would.

She doesn’t let adversity get in the way of her happiness and growth. Spilled coffee all down her dress? No big deal! Disability flareup? Today is a great day for a rest. There’s always tomorrow. She even helps me help my friends see the bright side when things seem bleak.

Living this way is all about living in the present, while channeling who I’ll be years from now. For me, this entails self care, reading tarot, mental health resources, connecting with my community and learning as much as I can about myself and the world around me.

I hope to inspire you to find ways to connect with your future self and create space for your dreams every day. By no means does your practice have to look the same as mine; everyone’s present and future looks different.

That’s part of what makes it magic!

Self Care Self care has gotten a bad rap for being expensive and frivolous. While it can be, it’s also about doing things your future self will

ILLUSTRATION: JULIETTE VERMEERSCH

thank you for, like taking your vitamins, planning out your week, exploring your passions and nurturing your emotional self. Take 20 minutes each day to tend to your emotional wellbeing. You can set a notification on your phone to remind you (I use the free app Wunderlist). A few emotional self care ideas: paint how you feel, walk around the block, write a gratitude list, listen to music that makes you feel good.

Reading Tarot Tarot is a type of divination that uses a deck of 78 specially-designed cards. Each card has a symbolic meaning, and the reader intuits what the card means to them at that moment in their life.

I take great comfort in tarot, because it shows me what my future could be, based on who I am and what I’ve been doing up until the very moment I drew the card in my hand.

It reminds me that, despite all the things that I can’t choose (like my chronic illness, the stigma attached to poverty and my size) I can choose my next move.

If you’re interested in tarot cards, many mainstream bookstores sell them now, making them more accessible than ever.

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A good friend can make you smile and help you cope when things get tough. Sometimes, it’s hard to be a good friend when you don’t see each other every day because you’re not going to school together anymore, or one of you has moved away. Or maybe you just have more commitments than you used to.

Whatever the case is, it’s vital that you make time to keep up your Snapchat streak, send your BFF a little gift in the mail, or message them an article that made you think of them. It doesn’t have to be a grand gesture, but a way to let them know they’re a priority in your life.

A friendship you can count on is something both your future selves will appreciate.

Another note about community; get connected with causes you care about, whether they’re LGBTQIA+, political, religious/spiritual, medical/disability support, DIY and art or something else. Anything that puts you in a room full of people who are passionate about the same thing you are is bound to be a learning experience and a place where you can meet new friends with similar interests.

Always Learning Whether you’re in school or not, there’s always room to grow. Go to events at your local library. Watch documentaries. Check out free or discounted programs at museums and galleries. Pick up a magazine you may not normally read. Talk to someone whose life experience is different from yours, and truly listen to what they have to say.

There’s no such thing as predicting the future, but it is possible to set yourself up for happiness today. Your future self will thank you!

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best of the blog

BEST OF THE BLOG Check out the great debates on the Shameless blog.

Here are some highlights.

Join the conversation at shamelessmag.com.

EAST ASIAN BEAUTY STANDARDS

By Renny Jiang Originally published on July 12, 2019

“Have you considered fixing your eyes? If you come visit me in China next summer, we can go and get you some double eyelids!” my aunt gleefully said in her signature Chinglish accent.

“Hahaha…haha,” I replied awkwardly. I looked around to see if anyone heard our conversation. How could my mom and dad just continue to smile and wave when someone tells their daughter that she needs plastic surgery? Why wasn’t anyone coming to my defense and insisting that I’m beautiful just the way I am? I spent the rest of the afternoon greeting my extended family from China and enduring their unfiltered comments about my appearance.

Later that night, I tearfully confronted my mom.

“Can you tell your family members to stop talking about how ugly I am? Today, your sister told me to get double-eyelid surgery, your cousin told me that I’m too fat to be pretty, and my grandpa told me that I’d never get a boyfriend if my legs were so big!

Don’t ever let those people into our house again!”

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She held me in her arms as I continued crying.

“Baobao, that’s just the way they are. My family told me those same things when I was your age. As I’ve gotten older, they’ve moved on to lecture me about my wrinkles and stands of white hair. There’s nothing wrong with the way you look. Just ignore them.”

In China and other East Asian countries, publicly criticizing women’s appearances is considered a cultural normality. Most of the time, close friends and relatives are well-intentioned when they comment on something they deem as unflattering. In East Asia, the concepts of “beauty” and “success” are often synonymous because women are constantly expected to please other people. The more attractive a person is perceived to be, the more “likeable” other people find them. That perception of beauty increases their likelihood to marry a rich man and find wealthy friends who want to maintain their superficial images. In South Korea, some jobs even require women to include their headshots in their resumes. It’s often difficult for foreigners to understand East Asian beauty standards because they seem so arbitrary: after all, how can someone possibly quantify the notion of abstract beauty?

Similar to Canada and the US, East Asian countries still present a dominant “white” face as the ideal standard of beauty.

Rather than attempting to develop diverse standards of beauty, most individuals in East Asian countries strive to achieve the same, antiquated look: big eyes, small nose, thin chin, slim legs, and pale skin. Some sociologists speculate that these physical characteristics represent an implicit desire for Asian women to transform themselves

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into the Western ideal of beauty while others believe that these homogeneous beauty standards are an attempt for East Asians to blend into a collective rather than distinguishing each individual. Either way, it’s clear: East Asian beauty standards are not truly indicative of a person’s value.

Often, people, especially developing teenagers, tend to forget the distinction between culturally appropriated self-worth and true self-worth. Every society in the world has developed their own unique standards for characteristics such as beauty, intelligence, and success. People usually conform to these standards, rather than challenging the underlying cultural developments that caused them. When people feel that their characteristics do not align with society’s expectations or the expectations of those around them, their idealized notion of selfworth plummets. Insecurities about beauty standards, in any country or culture, stems from people’s culturally-rooted desire to gain affirmation from other people.

True self-worth, on the other hand, is not a reflection of society. True self-worth stems from the understanding that all humans deserve dignity and respect, regardless of their ability to conform to societal expectations. People should perceive self-worth as a constant in their lives. Their inherent value does not change because someone else changes their opinion. Most people do not have difficulty maintaining their selfworth since true self-worth never fluctuates.

Rather, most people struggle with finding their true self-worth when they are burdened with the expectations of those around them, especially from people who care about them.

In particular, many East Asian teenagers and young women choose to succumb to the overwhelming temptation to conform

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Above: Illustration by Katie Chin

True self-worth, on the other hand, is not a reflection of society. True self-worth stems from the understanding that all humans deserve dignity and respect, regardless of their ability to conform to societal expectations. to societal standards. East Asians who feel that they need to align with one particular set of beauty standards go through excessive means to achieve their desired goals.

Countries like China and South Korea have exceedingly high rates of plastic surgery and millions of cases of anorexia and other body-related issues. On social media, it has become a trend for East Asian women to show their daily makeup routines, which consist of eyelid tape, whitening foundation, and even prosthetic noses and chins.

From a distance, it’s easy to dismiss these beauty standards as superficial and shallow,

but these ideals have been ingrained in East Asian culture for generations. People adamantly believe that following these strict guidelines will bring them success and happiness. But instead of the happiness that they strive for, these strict standards of beauty often bring them a myriad of physical and mental problems. In Japan, where the notion of slimness is considered an essential prerequisite for success, over 30% of women in their 20s are medically underweight. Being medically underweight can cause growth issues, malnutrition, and lead to compromised immune systems. But

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because of the existing beauty standards, some women might not consider their medical issues to be a legitimate problem. Many East Asian women would rather risk these complications than be deemed unattractive by society. These serious health concerns reveal the painful, and often sugarcoated, consequences of strict East Asian beauty standards.

As the daughter of Chinese immigrants, I have been burdened by these standards for my entire life, but I have slowly learned to view them as a cultural normality rather than an indication of my true beauty. Of course, I still struggle with my body. Every time my relatives offer plastic surgery to me as a high school graduation gift or a birthday present, I find myself tempted by their invitation. It takes me a minute to see past the words and recall the cultural origins of their comments. I smile, decline their offer, and remind myself that their words will never encapsulate my true beauty.

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arts profile

RAJNI PERERA Shameless chats with Rajni Perera about dreamworlds, technology and identity BY ZAHRA HAIDER

Rajni Perera is a Sri-lankan born, Torontobased artist who creates fantastical and mythical dreamworlds that serve as a backdrop for hybrid brown bodies. She says that she doesn’t make work so it gets talked about, but either because she needs to eat, or “it’s pressing against [her] from the inside.”

Perera grew up on a steady literary diet of science fiction while exploring the deconstruction of its aesthetics. Her art attempts to initiate a dialogue around hybridity, colonization and oppression simultaneously.

She believes “everyone should be making

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work about that; we live in a colonized and oppressed world.”

A visible concept throughout Perera’s art is that of wondrous dreamworlds. She tells me, “They’re the process in and of itself perhaps; I may have a window into another dimension, or can see between ours and another.

It’s definitely possible. Dreamworlds matter because they are where we can look when we have run out of hope here. Being able to see into another place has definitely helped me get by on this plane. Another reason I think dreamworlds matter is that they facilitate the

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exploration of plurality in terms of identity.

This can mean between any state or many states.”

Another noticeable theme in her art is the seamless blend of mythology and technology. When asked how the two interchangeable elements function in her art, Perera says she attempts to “reinvigorate necessary mythology for the future of diaspora, or maybe better to say just the future, which is diaspora.”

Making art accessible to the common person is important to Perera. “It’s always

PHOTO: CORY VANDERPLOEG

top 5

Policing Black Lives

State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present

by Robyn Maynard “Challenges prevailing narratives of Canadian multiculturalism” — Angela Davis “A comprehensive and necessary book for anyone who cares about the past, present and future of Black life in this country.”

— Black Lives Matter Toronto “Eye-opening and chilling.”

— Andrea J. Ritchie, author of Invisible No More

been a priority,” she says. “I came out of school to an art world that catered to folks who could [afford to] go to school for six years.” Jobs in the arts tend to be the domain of those who have wealth, accumulation and privilege.

“So maybe I do it to tell them all to fuck off, who knows,” she says. “Here’s the thing, art is the most useful when it reaches the most people and can get into their lives and make them think things and do things a little differently. So for someone like me, who comes from lower-income situations, it really is necessary because otherwise, I’m not giving back. There’s no point in having a practice like that.”

As an artist of colour combatting oppressive discourse in a world of whiteness, this is what she advises other emerging artists of colour trying to find their niche to do: “Don’t let white people tell you how to feel about being oppressed and what you should do about it. Organize and become and stay as powerful as you possibly can. Make the wildest work you can — don’t look at what folks are doing at school or in the galleries — the art world is falling through because of fast trends, so don’t get swept into it. Find your identity in your own way. We need all of the ways.”

I inquired how the arts culture in Toronto could better accommodate diversity. Perera says, “We’re trying to change all of that for young BIPOC artists in Toronto in terms of commercial art sales and how this is negotiated, even having amazing and valuable conversations about issues of representation, the ethics of rostering and didactics for audiences. Complicating issues of identity politics, broadening demographics, publicizing POC artist work conscientiously; these are things we like to talk about.”

Now considered a subversive artist in Toronto, Perera says she hasn’t really felt like she’s part of the Toronto art scene. “It took a very long time for me to find a foothold that I hadn’t dug myself, in terms of finding a secure and stable business,” says Perera. “I don’t think I fit in very well. But I would say that I’m beginning to find my place in it. A great example is my gallerist, Devan (of Patel Gallery).

He works very hard. His name in front of the gallery means a lot to me. When I came out of school, no one thought anything of the work and no one knew how to talk about it.”

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Perera’s most recent solo exhibition was titled (m)Otherworld Creates and Destroys Itself, and was featured at Project Gallery in Toronto. Currently, Perera is working on a new series of painted works called Travelers, humanoids or mutated future humans, a series that depicts, in her words, “travelling between worlds that stand in as signifiers of migrant personhood, as well as (and as it connects to) survival of environmental collapse.”

The exhibition will show in Fall 2019 at Patel gallery; Perera will be making objects, clothing and paintings. However, she notes, “I’m excited to sculpt again, get my bike license, go away on road trips and be healthier and happier. That’s more important than killing myself making work nonstop.”

Although futuristic themes are integral to her canvases, when asked how she predicts the future of artistic representation, Perera says, “I don’t know, I’m more concerned about whether my seven-year-old will be able to breathe the air by the time she’s 30, to be honest! But in regards to ideas of artistic representation, let’s be real; the new markets aren’t North American, and they face different kinds of representational issues, outside of being a coloured woman. Women of colour are the artists of the future anyway; our voices kept so low for so long, even in the countries we come from and sometimes especially. Without our point of view, everything has fallen apart. We have to be very loud now and very firm. It’s our time.”

Check out Rajni Perera’s work at www. rajniperera.com

RAJNI PERERA’S 5 FAVOURITE ARTISTS Shary Boyle Oreka James Shahzia Sikander Jean Giraud Hayao Miyazaki

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stir it up

FOOD & INTERGENERATIONAL RELATIONS The impact of memories, place and traditions on our relationship to food BY WREN PRAGG

One of my favourite memories of my grandfather is how he peeled oranges. He would start at the crown and sometimes make it to the end without breaking the peel — a thrill to witness. He would cut it in half, take out the seeds and present it to me. He did this for all 16 of his grandkids. With a gentle, stoic vulnerability, he made sure we were always taken care of.

The peel of a Trini orange is tough and bitter; a metaphor for something, I’m sure.

Once it’s peeled and cut clean down the middle, you bring either section to your

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mouth and suck the juice and flesh out ’til all that’s left is the skin. It’s a more intimate, active and sensual experience to eat unconfined by WASP-y Canadian spaces. No one is afraid of smells, sounds, mess or second helpings. Every time I can devour fruit in the Caribbean, I come alive.

I loved being able to eat my favourite foods at any time, in any place as a kid; Corn Flakes in my grandmother’s Caribbean kitchen, plantain in the Canadian winter. I didn’t think a lot about the origins of food. My most common meal growing up in Scarborough,

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Ontario, was rice with yellow lentil dhal and Trinidadian stewed chicken. Even now this familiar combination brings me comfort.

I found a more whimsical and convenient comfort in mac and cheese. It was the first thing I learned how to make, and it became a staple of summertime lunches in front of The Flintstones when my sister and I were home alone. Every time we visited Trinidad, my relatives would have boxes of the orangetinted pasta in their cupboards waiting for us.

While this points to a larger conversation about the year-round, global availability of

ILLUSTRATION: MAYA LEMAITRE

and making it my own by figuring out the flavours I love the most and emphasizing them.

The future of food for me includes becoming more attuned to food indigenous to the land I currently occupy. To me, the impact of normalizing the idea that people should eat whatever we want, whenever we want is a sign of being out of tune with our planet. I want to learn how to bring the flavours and memories of the Caribbean with me in a sustainable way. That could mean learning how to grow some of the ingredients seasonally, and freezing excess to use at other times of the year. It may also mean adapting recipes to ingredients that are available locally to me, such as the recipe I’ve included here.

In my late-ish 30s, I still hold on to the pleasure of oranges; this connection to fruit, land and spirit by ritualistically choosing, peeling and delighting in an orange. The artificial sweetness of fertilizers, refrigerated trucks and fluorescent lighting can’t come close to the mostly green cousins that still flourish in the equatorial heat. Sometimes they’re dry, flavourless and sour, but it persists. ‘Cause sometimes, and maybe when I need it the most, my taste buds remember the familiar blend of sweet and sour, and I can rest my head while my heart remembers home.

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produce and processed foods, it also means that my food foundation was as mixed up as the Caribbean itself. As one of the main sites of trade and exports during the days of legal slavery/slave trade, and into the time of indentured labour, the Caribbean has been touched by the influences of many cultures. Trinidad and Guyana in particular are islands with populations that are almost an equal mix of Indian and West and/or Central African peoples, with a large population of mixed people. This means the food traditions I know as a diasporic person are touched by those of many divergent and overlapping cultures; that they are not only unique, but flexible. If ancestors and elders could retain food knowledge over oceans and generations, while facing colonization and migration, I know that the memory will live on, even if the food evolves in the process.

It’s been hard for me to recreate the food of my elders/ancestors. The taste changes with place, time, inexperience and “hands;” I’ve always loved the idea that each person adds something special when they make the same dish. Until recently, I’ve stayed away from cooking the food I grew up on because it felt too intimidating, but I’ve come to embrace it by practicing, asking for help from my elders,

APPLE CHOW RECIPE Ingredients: 6 apples (slightly tart ones work best) 3 Chadon beni leaves (culantro) 3 garlic cloves 1 lime 1 dash sugar Hot pepper (to taste) Black pepper (to taste) Salt (to taste)

Instructions: 1. Wash all ingredients.

2. Cut chadon beni into fine pieces and set aside.

3. Peel and cut garlic into fine pieces and set aside.

4. Cut lime in half and extract juice.

5. Cut pepper (to desired heat) into fine pieces and set aside.

6. In a bowl cut apples to desired thickness ensuring to remove the core.

7. Add chadon beni, garlic and pepper to bowl.

8. Add lime juice to bowl.

9. Add a dash of sugar.

10. Add salt and black pepper to taste.

11. Mix well making sure you incorporate all ingredients.

12. Serve immediately or refrigerate to enjoy later!

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get up

FUTURE FASHION What are your dreams for the future of fashion? BY PENNY CLARK

Back-to-school shopping trips were times of potential transformation for me. They meant an opportunity to pick out a new wardrobe, one that would be so on trend that everyone would finally recognize how cool I was. I was living in the future, thinking that I wasn’t good now, but once I found that perfect skirt… then I’d be good.

These days, I feel like I am discovering the person that I am by choosing clothes to represent how I am now, rather than trying to become the different person I feel I should be. I choose clothes based on colour (pond

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green, lavender, navy; I love colour!), fit (not too tight or loose, durable), and the feeling they give me when I put them on. Am I comfortable? I don’t mean that just in a physical sense, but fundamentally: am I comfortable?

Choosing clothing by colour is a great starting point for taking ownership over your fashion. I choose colours that I gravitate to and make my brain feel good. After that, the most important thing is to try it on (seems weird to say, but this is the age of online shopping)! What I really look for is a little happy jolt when I look in the mirror.

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Gradually, I’ve also found a community of supportive friends and coworkers that I feel comfortable being myself with, and I’ve left behind ones who tried to bring me down.

This was a deliberate process and priority for me, and is an approach that mirrors the one I’ve developed towards my personal style; who and what makes me feel most like me?

Sometimes I choose clothes that end up stretching or tearing. I think knowledge of sewing is an important part of fashion of the future. It can also be tied to communitybuilding. My friend Liz Collins is someone I see as a model for this, and I was happy to pick her brain for practical advice.

Liz believes sewing can help us take ownership over our fashion by personalizing or extending the lifespan of a piece.

She alters vintage pieces, mends tears and teaches others by volunteering at a local community sewing hub. This makes her feel a stronger community bond, while also helping to reduce waste. “So many garments get thrown out instead of being repaired, and if you donate something that requires mending there’s a good chance it’s still going to end up in a landfill,” says Liz. “I think many of my friends are feeling the pinch of the expensive cost of living in Toronto and it’s nice to be able to help each other out.”

Her ideal vision of fashion is one that is “slow, thoughtful, fair and recycled.” My dream for the future of fashion is an industry that isn’t a lure, but an anchor that helps people approach their lives in the present with confidence!

ILLUSTRATION: MELISSA JONES

geek chic

(RE)PRESENTATION AND BITMOJI Fantasies and limits in identity-making and avatar creation

BY MANAHIL BANDUKWALA

Creating a Bitmoji was a highlight of being 19. I agonized over every detail, asking different people which shade of brown was closest to my skin tone. I was spoiled with 12 different types of glasses to choose from. When I got my hair cut a few months later, I had so many curly hair styles to pick from.

At 16, I was practicing for my O Level art exam in Karachi, Pakistan. My art teacher, Miss Ambreen, said, as she taught me to paint people: “you need to put an undertone first. Everyone has a dark undertone, even light-skinned people, though they won’t admit it.”

I was all-too acquainted with colourism and the obsession with fair skin. I nodded at Miss Ambreen and covered the paper with a reddish-brown layer of acrylic paint to give the brown undertone she described Pakistani people as having. The skin grew lighter as I built on more layers of highlights and shadows.

The digital world never reflected this range of skin tones. Between the ages of eight and 11, I loved playing online dress-up games. I chose outfits for the skinny dolls from My Scene and Bratz, and styled their long/sleek hair. All the dolls were white, save for one

ILLUSTRATION: @PUNKPANIC

option that was supposed to encompass the race of all non-white people. These dolls always wore sunglasses. I burnt my hair with a straightener and kept my glasses in my pocket, learning to recognize what the blurry shapes around me were. I always settled for what could remotely resemble me.

Comparing each skin tone option to my own when creating a Bitmoji falls under the same category of deliberately painting dark-skinned people. Whether I was 16 or 21, I still got the same question: “why is the skin so dark?” This question wasn’t inherently malicious. It stems from a culture where you represent yourself with the lightest skin tone that is possible to pull off. But Karachi summers always darkened our arms and faces to be noticeably different from our covered thighs and stomachs.

There was so much scrutiny on skin, and as a painter in a very colourist society, I was encouraged to make it lighter rather than darker. The range of skin tones for emojis and Bitmojis available now says, at the very least, that you don’t need to squeeze yourself into a category that doesn’t fit. When I realized I could send brown-skinned thumbs-ups to people, I changed all the colours to brown

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on the keyboard on my iPhone. Sending an emoji feels more powerful than it should when it can be a way to assert my brownness.

The jump from white-skinned dress-up dolls to Bitmojis with a range of skin tones might give some illusion of racial equality, at least in the world of creating avatars. But at my workplace, we use a software where you can set an avatar for your profile. In this software, a white man with a beard has four different avatars to choose from, but a woman of colour has a singular binary option. There is a Black woman on my team, and we both have the same dark-skinned option as our avatars. Perhaps this reflects what I see when I look around my office. Perhaps the availability of different skin tones in these apps matters because of the persistent, wrong idea that women and people of colour are a singular unit. The experiences and lives of Black and Indigenous women are vastly different from one another’s, let alone my upbringing in a well-off area of Karachi. Physical appearance is just one of the factors that affects how we live our lives, but at least to have that represented to some extent is a small step.

Through Bitmojis we can visualize ourselves digitally in ways that are out of scope in the physical world because of financial, social or cultural limitations. It may seem small, but the luxury of building an avatar who looks exactly like me feels like a political act. An avatar is, after all, just another form of external skin.

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reviews BROWN GIRL BEGINS Directed by Sharon Lewis Urbansoul Inc.

Imagine Toronto in the year 2049, where all people of colour have been cast away to live on one of the city’s offshore islands. Brown Girl Begins, the Afrofuturist feature film by director Sharon Lewis, centres on the story of a young Black woman, Ti-Jeanne. She lives with her grandmother who practices Obeah, a spiritual practice developed by enslaved Africans and passed down through generations in the West Indies. Ti-Jeanne is told by her grandmother and other Obeah practitioners that she must sacrifice herself in a possession ritual to save her people. It is the same ritual that killed her mother in front of her eyes when she was a child. Ti-Jeanne is torn between saving her people and ensuring her own survival out of fear that like her mother, she too will lose her life to the spirits.

The movie gives us a narrative we encounter too rarely in Canadian film, one that centres Black women’s empowerment, self-agency and resistance told through the eyes of a second generation AfricanCaribbean teenage girl. As a first generation African-Caribbean woman myself, it is refreshing to see such a different story being told.

The film emphasizes the importance of religion and spirituality to Caribbean people. Though some may rightfully argue religion was a tool for colonizing Europeans seeking to control enslaved Black

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people on plantations, religion in these regions has a more complex origin. Caribbean spirituality has a long and important history that exemplifies the resilience of enslaved Africans, and it remains part of everyday life in the region and throughout the diaspora. When Black people were brought from abundant civilizations in Africa and forced to work under conditions of slavery on plantations in the New World, they had everything stripped from them. During slavery, Black people would be punished for using their traditional religion, and often used canonized religious figures as vessels for their African spirits as a way to trick slave masters into thinking they had completely conformed.

Despite this, they strived to keep much of their culture, with one critical dimension being their spiritual practices and religions. Lewis not only includes Caribbean spiritual practices in the film, but constantly reinforces their importance by framing the entire plot around them.

My parents are Guyanese, and though I was raised to believe I was Catholic, I knew my Catholicism had many undertones that differed from my friend’s Catholicism. I remember an instance when we were driving back to school after a trip and our bus passed by a graveyard.

I yelled out to my friends to bite their nails and make sure not to point so that a Jumbie wouldn’t follow them home (a Jumbie is a generic name given to a spirit whether good or bad). Their response to my remark was to laugh and point at the graves, even though I had told them not to. I don’t think any of them got followed home by a Jumbie, but I remember in the moment doubting myself, and it took me a long time to regain that trust in the “folklore” that my family continuously passed down. In the film, Lewis validates the spirituality by creating a storyline in which Obeah is proven as true.

In fact, educating myself has allowed me to redefine what this spirituality means to me. Caribbean religions go far beyond a belief system, for they also exemplify a history of defiance and a culture of resistance and self-definition that my ancestors fought to preserve.

Moreover, it is a practice in which Black women are central players.

Brown Girl Begins does not mystify or discredit Obeah, but instead dignifies it. These practices have been passed down throughout generations, and in my own community, I can see it fading away. In exploring the future of these practices, Lewis highlights their permanence and relevance, and in that redefines their purpose; they aren’t things we must reclaim, but things that cannot be erased.

KAI TROTZ-MOTAYNE

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[Penguin Random House]

AN OCEAN OF MINUTES Thea Lim [Penguin Random House/ Viking]

Thea Lim’s novel An Ocean of Minutes explores love, class, race, nostalgia and deconstructs the very notion of time. In a flu epidemic-ravaged 1981, Polly is forced to make a difficult decision when her partner, Frank, falls ill. To pay for the medicine that will save his life, she chooses to travel ahead in time to 1998 to work as an indentured labourer for the TimeRaiser corporation. When Polly and Frank’s plans to meet in the future are disrupted, she is forced to navigate a fractured country she barely recognizes alone.

Lim’s writing is beautifully crafted, suspenseful and emotive.

Through her captivating worldbuilding, she skillfully illuminates many of the power disparities which plague our own world. The novel unfolds simultaneously in multiple times and places, and it feels both devastating and inevitable. Lim deftly uses time travel to explore and amplify universal experiences of love, nostalgia and a longing for home. At times, the plot moves slowly and the narrative could be tightened up, but it’s overall a fascinating, beautiful read. MAISIE JACOBSON

SHUT UP YOU’RE PRETTY Téa Mutonji [VS Books/Arsenal Pulp Press]

In the title story of Shut Up You’re Pretty is the line: “There was just something so funny about childhood—how it attempts to prepare you for the slaughter.” This heartstopping sentence perfectly encapsulates Téa Mutonji’s debut collection of linked stories, which follows a young woman’s life in Scarborough after emigrating from Congo. Throughout the book, the reader witnesses the dangers inherent to womanhood and the ones we court as well. Shut Up You’re Pretty is the first book released by artist Vivek Shraya’s VS Books imprint, which aims to mentor and publish young BIPOC writers. And it’s clear that Mutonji has a voice that needs to be heard. Her expertly constructed stories about heavy issues like rootlessness, poverty and abuse are also peppered with strange but undeniable joy; preteens using the words “certainly” and “quite” to sound grown-up, or twenty-somethings tickling each other in greeting.

Particularly wonderful is Mutonji’s treatment of queerness, which is to say that she lets her characters live and breathe their queerness as a simple fact of their identities, as opposed to treating it as an issue that must be constantly addressed. This representation is freeing and I look forward to seeing what’s next from this promising writer.

LAUREN PERRUZZA

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BOOKS

THE PISCES Melissa Broder Lucy is a woman who’s constantly pining for love, unable to focus on herself and sit with the emptiness in her heart. She thinks she’s lucked out when she finds what seems to be the perfect man, someone who obsesses over her as much as she does over him. But her dream boy has some strange secrets that soon disrupt her life.

The protagonist of this story is disquieting in a way that makes the reader stir uncomfortably; she’s at once hideous and deeply human and relatable. She is in an uncanny valley of excess where the characteristics that make us human — self-consciousness, desire for connection, yearning for more — are amplified to a disturbing degree.

Broder skillfully uses this amplification in tandem with a supernatural sheen to give readers what is actually a quietly optimistic story about personal growth, like hiding a bitter but necessary pill inside a sweet cookie. This is a bittersweet fairy tale for a disgruntled modern audience who needs to know that, even when it seems unlikely or impossible, personal transformation is attainable. NOUR ABI NAKHOUL

TRANSCENDENT 3 Edited by Bogi Takàcs [Lethe Press]

The beauty of short fiction lives in the assembly. It isn’t easy to gather different stories about transgender living, thinking and being that fit into a cohesive and graceful anthology, but Bogi Takàcs has done so masterfully. Takàcs compiles a wide range of new authors: some have cool blogs about transgender writing, like Ryley Knowles (www.lalanquist.com); some are Nebula and Hugo Award finalists, like KM Szpara; and some are authors of mainstream novels such as Charlie Jane Anders (writer of All the Birds in the Sky and The City in the Middle of the Night). The stories Takàcs has chosen are not all about one aspect of transgender life and love, but many aspects that range from obsessive fear (“Death You Deserve” by Ryley Knowles) to a deep love for fish (“Hello, World!” by Polenth Blake). Despite this wide range, each disparate story maintains high levels of sincerity, potency and hilarity. MADDIE BEAULIEU QUIVER Julia Watts [Three Room Press]

Julia Watts’ 10th novel is stocked with lilting accents and engaging characterization, catching the reader’s attention from the first line: “When he was young, before he got married and had us kids, Daddy used to train Tennessee Walking Horses.” Liberty and her brothers and sisters are each named after a Christian valour (Charity, Patience, Justice).

Their parents are Evangelical Christians, and in their household, the girls help Mama with breakfast while Daddy and the boys wait at the table. But at her next-door neighbour Zo’s house, the whole family makes pizza together and eats it in the living room while discussing

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the downfalls of the American school system. Although Watts’ plot walks the line between engaging and predictable, and her imagery between straightforward and bland, Libby and Zo are well-characterized and well-spoken children whose collective story is full of reminders about the importance of questioning how each of us was raised. MADDIE BEAULIEU THE UNPUBLISHED CITY, VOLUME 2 Edited by Phoebe Wang, Canisia Lubrin & Dionne Brand [Book*Hug]

After living in Toronto for almost a decade, it feels like home. I have my personal routes around the city that vary from most efficient, most memorable and most evasive; I go out of my way to bypass a particular intersection, or refuse to look directly at that one café. We all have these personal maps in this city of neighbourhoods, and The Unpublished City provides a peek into the deep and meaningful worlds of the neighbours that we pass every day. In it, the contributors share their love and hate for this town, when they’ve felt safe, when they’ve felt vulnerable, and their stories of love and loss.

The culmination of this is a rich history of the city told in a way impossible to achieve from just one perspective, like Nehal El-Hadi’s exposé of the hidden rivers throughout the city or Natasha Ramoutar’s realizations about family discovered through the martial art of capoeira. Had it been less expertly created, a compilation of this sort could come across as fragmented. The Unpublished City, however, creates a perfect map for our city — a little cracked perhaps, more than slightly humbled, but unmistakably ours. SHANNON D’ARCY NÎTISÂNAK Lindsay Nixon [Metonymy Press]

Nîtisânak is a groundbreaking memoir that explores love in its many intricate and difficult forms. It explores queer love, prairie punk scenes, toxic masculinities, the feminine divine and so much more. Author Lindsay Nixon asks “Is there really such thing as NDN love, as trauma, bb love, as love for the unloved?” Nixon brings awareness to the issues that have tainted NDN love (meaning Native love) not only for those from the prairies but for NDNs everywhere. Colonialism and genocide ripped children from their homes in the middle of the night and made them prisoners in a world they didn’t know. Many NDNs were alone, frightened, hungry and cold; some died trying to come home; and those who no longer knew tenderness recoiled from its touch.

She brings up that love is hard because of the cynicism that has set in as a result of intergenerational trauma, the loss of connection to the land and colonialist capitalism. This cynicism has made us question not only ourselves, but those around us. Nixon weaves her experiences of grief and loss throughout the memoir, asks her readers to reflect on whether or not love is attainable and, if it is, what intricacies are involved in obtaining the love that we so often search for in our lives. CHRISTINE MISKONOODINKWE SMITH

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BEFORE I WAS A CRITIC I WAS A HUMAN BEING Amy Fung [Book*hug and Artspeak Gallery]

Amy Fung’s debut essay collection uses her experience as a contemporary art critic to shine an urgent and uncomfortable light onto all settler Canadians. As a Chinese immigrant growing up in Edmonton (Treaty 6 territory), Fung’s upbringing was filled with misconceptions and erasure of the Indigenous peoples of what is now called Canada. She comes to unlearn these narratives as she travels across the country for writing jobs and vacations, critically re-examining colonialism’s impact on the upbringings of her friends, family and herself along the way. Each section dives into a part of Fung’s life as she negotiates being both a settler and an outsider. She contemplates power, privilege and agency in both the Canadian art world and the nation at large. Fung’s incisive book is made to be discussed and shared. Rather than calling out, it calls on settlers to address the myths of self-made identity and colonialism. HAILEY MAH BLACK WRITERS MATTER Edited by Whitney French [University of Regina Press]

“Black writers matter” is a fact, not a statement. It is also the title to this masterful anthology edited by Whitney French. The anthology is separated into three collections titled “Everyday People,” “Letters to Community” and “Black Writers Matter.”

Each piece in these collections is curated with love and careful attention and shines a light on a variety of Black experiences and voices outside of the prevailing narratives of slavery and racism we are so often shown. The pieces in this anthology are full of compassion, honesty and insight from diverse perspectives informed by age, gender and sexuality. This collection includes a portrayal of the Black body in nature through Phillip Dwight Morgan’s essay “Being a Shark: Reflections on Blackness in Canadian Wilderness” an interview conducted by Whitney French which shows us the life of cab driver, Chayo Moses Nywello, and a quiz that explores the experiences of an eating disorder in “The Hunger Games: A Quiz” by Rowan Mcandless. We are often miseducated about the Black experience, and frequently their voices are siphoned away by those that lack the lived experience.

Thankfully this beautiful anthology allows us to learn from some of the best Black voices in Canada. CLEO PETERSON OHPIKIIHAAKAN‑OHPIHMEH (RAISED SOMEWHERE ELSE) Colleen Cardinal [Fernwood Publishing]

Colleen Cardinal’s book Raised Somewhere Else brings awareness to an assimilationist policy that the Canadian government practiced between the 1960s and the early 1980s, which removed Indigenous children from their biological families and sent them

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CARE WORK: DREAMING DISABILITY JUSTICE Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha [Arsenal Pulp Press]

Care Work radiates with the wealth of experience, love and labour of a disability justice champion who is in constant dialogue with a community of thinkers and activists. Leah Piepzna-Samarasinha provides a firsthand history of how the disability justice movement emerged through the struggle and leadership of QTBIPOC femmes. The book forcefully refuses appropriation by the white, classist, heteronormative mainstream. Its style is punchy, personal and passionate and its

politics are refreshingly messy and evolving, infused with pain but also joy. In it you can learn about the many complexities of disability justice: cross-disability solidarity, putting collective care into action, never leaving others behind, writing and organising from your bed when necessary and challenging entrenched activist ableism. You will read about (extra)ordinary sick and disabled people’s life-sustaining care webs, radically accessible performance art and hot sex infused with “the lust of recognition.” Care Work highlights ingenious everyday survival strategies and prefigures futures where everyone can thrive. Read it for tips, resources, research, therapy, pleasure… just read it! EMILY ROSSER

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to be raised somewhere else. The book tells the story of being raised outside of your own culture and of striving to come back home. With a foreword written by renowned scholar and a Sixties Scoop survivor herself, Dr. Raven Sinclair, the book breaks important ground.

In Raised Somewhere Else, Cardinal speaks of hardship, abuse and trauma. She writes about the difficulties she endured growing up outside of her culture as a result of the Sixties Scoop, but she also gives a voice to an unrelenting resilience within herself, both to overcome what she has experienced as an Indigenous woman and to try to heal and come to terms with her past.

This recollection of the abuses imparted on Cardinal and the various traumas that had a lasting effect on her and her family is triggering at times, especially if the reader can relate very closely to these experiences. Overall, this book is a must-read for those who don’t understand the impacts that Canadian assimilationist policies have had on Indigenous peoples as a whole. CHRISTINE

WOMAN WORLD Aminder Dhaliwal [Drawn & Quarterly]

Woman World is a science-fiction graphic novel created from cartoonist and animator Aminder Dhaliwal’s wildly popular Instagram comic. It asks the question: what would a world of only women (both cis and trans) look like? Woman World is a surprising slice-of-life comic set in a post-apocalyptic society where men have been wiped out by a birth defect. The young Emiko discovers the movie Paul Blart: Mall Cop and embraces him as the true representation of what men were like. She asks a stream of questions of Grandma Ulaana, the last survivor from a time when men existed. Meanwhile, the reluctantly popular Mayor Gaia works to organize the community and Ina tries to deal with her feelings for

UPPING THE ANTI is a radical, journal of theory and action which provides a space to reflect on the state of political organizing in Canada. We publish anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, and anti-oppressive works by f organizers and activists from across the world.

winter 2020

Subscribe online at uppingtheanti.org

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the partnered Layla. Dhaliwal’s simple drawing style puts the focus on the stories of her likeable characters, which represent womanhood as it really is, an intersection of identities. Dhaliwal’s humour is clever and carefully timed as she takes the reader through the drama of her characters’ daily lives. KATIE UNGARD

MUSIC RYAN PLAYGROUND 16/17 [Last Gang Records]

16/17 by RYAN Playground, the personal music project of Geneviève Ryan Martel — a Montreal-based DJ, model and fashion designer — is the full-length follow-up to her 2016 EP Elle. And it’s easy to hear why her music has recently been featured on Apple Music and the CBC. RYAN Playground’s blend of contemporary electronica and pop is rule-bending; the music often changes shape within the same track.

“Too Smart,” which opens with layered and pensive vocals, moves into a Nicki Minaj-inspired stutter, before leaning into a garage-pop reminiscent of Fefe Dobson. “Almost Died” and “Tokyo” are both stripped-down ballads, but the first has a reggae-inspired bridge while the second layers in auto-tuned harmonics at the chorus. Each track offers something unexpected, though a melancholy spirit inhabits them all. 16/17 is an intimate album, documenting an emotionally significant period for the artist. It’s been years in the making and worth the wait. TAN LIGHT KINNIE STARR Feed the Fire [Aporia Records]

Feed the Fire is Kinnie Starr’s eighth studio album and the first release since a car accident in 2015 left her with a serious brain injury. After fighting through her recovery, returning to music required something new: a partner. Kinnie worked with Douglas Romanow on the instrumentation, and they deliver a powerful collection of 10 songs that display Kinnie’s edgy pop, alt-rock and hip hop roots. The powerful drums and vocalization on the title track speak to her Mohawk heritage, of which Kinnie has always been proud. Although the album comes after a vulnerable time in her life, there is no self-pity in these lyrics; Kinnie’s ferocity attacks in “Gotta Do Something” and “Vendetta,” shines through tracks like “I’m Ready” (poised to be a queer anthem), and winks flirtatiously in “Kiss It,” a response to the way women are represented in pornography. With lyrics Peaches would be proud of, “Kiss It” will have ladies nodding along as she asserts “You like the way I stand say you like it a lot/ But this is my body/ This is my spot.”

OTHER MIC DROP CBC Podcasts Mic Drop is a CBC podcast made by teenagers, and made for teenagers. In each episode, diverse teens from various backgrounds get to speak their truth. Whether they are talking about difficult familial relationships, mental illness or homelessness, the speakers are unfiltered on issues they have faced or are currently facing. The episodes are excellently edited to be brief yet engaging, and each episode begins with a content warning and sometimes provides helpline numbers and resources. I believe this podcast achieves its purpose; to reach out a hand to others who may be living a similar experience. From the first episode on, Mic Drop lets teens share their vulnerabilities as well as the mettle that drives them. It’s easy to call Mic Drop inspiring, but powerful is more accurate. Whatever age you are, I highly recommend this podcast that insists on being genuine and kind in a world where these qualities may not always be valued.

YASHASWI KESANAKURTHY

EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OK Alienmelon (Nathalie Lawhead) https://alienmelon.itch.io/everything-isgoing-to-be-ok

Blue flames dance against a hot pink background on the homepage of Alienmelon’s Everything Is Going to Be OK. The free zine/game is described by the artist as “a commentary on struggle, survival, and coping with the aftermath of surviving bad things.” The reader is invited to investigate intriguing clickable features in the style of 1990s websites, games and PC programs. There is no linear narrative, but many of the segments involve making choices for an animated rabbit who is caught in impossible situations, such as swimming in lava or flying away with a balloon. Some, such as a page where the reader can summon virtual friends, evoke smiles; others serve as distractions; others articulate fears. If, like me, you appreciate the theme of trauma survival without relentless insistence on “positive thinking,” this zine may truly speak to you. On a technical note, many of the pages have flickering or flashing lights and very bright color contrasts; readers with medical concerns that might be aggravated by such visuals may wish to tread lightly. DENISE REICH

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counterculture classic

SUN RA Afrofuturism is a genre of music, film, visual art and literature that blends elements of science fiction, magical realism and traditions from the African diaspora. Afrofuturism engages with traditions and imagery borne from both chosen and forced migration from Africa, and uses these to imagine an alternate future or a world beyond our own. Afrofuturism continues to be influential for contemporary artists and musicians: we see threads of the genre in Janelle Monáe’s album Dirty Computer, and Solange’s When I Get Home. Films like Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther, and John Akumfrah’s The Last Angel of History, as well as authors like Octavia Butler, Ytasha Womack, Nnedi Okorafor and Maryse Condé are also associated with the Afrofuturist genre. Although the term was not coined until 1994, the year after his death, Afrofuturism is often traced back to the composer, musician, poet and philosopher, Sun Ra. Sun Ra was born in 1914 in Birmingham, Alabama, where he was raised by his grandmother and aunt. He taught himself to read music and play the piano, the electric piano, the celesta, the organ and the rocksichord. He pushed boundaries as a jazz musician in the 1940s, and was named “Moon Man” by his peers. Sun Ra expressed pride in the African origins of jazz and broke ground in the genre as one of the first jazz musicians to use the electronic keyboard and other electric instruments. He founded the Arkestra, which he performed with until his death, and started multiple record labels including El Saturn, founded with Alton Abraham.

He was also a poet, and shared his abstract poems on record jackets, in pamphlets and during his performances. After adopting the name Sun Ra, he denied ties to his prior identity. His new persona was characterized by an evolving story of alien connection: early versions of the story involved an alien abduction, while he later claimed that he was born on Saturn and came to Earth with a message of peace. Both his name and costumes drew on ancient Egyptian mythology and art

work: he wore a Pharaoh’s headdress and was accompanied by people dressed in costumes that referenced Egyptian deities, such as a gold bird mask that suggested the god Horus.

Sun Ra was a strong supporter of Black empowerment and his work often confronted the systemic oppressions that Black people faced, in the form of governmental bodies like the FBI, as well as the media’s images of Blackness that work to limit Black creativity and expression. In works like the film Space is the Place (1974), Sun Ra addresses contemporary issues and anxieties related to technology.

In the film, which was created in the “Space Race” era of the Cold War, Sun Ra arrives on earth in a spaceship while a crowd of reporters and spectators watch in awe. He speaks to Black youth about their lack of representation in the aerospace industry, and attempts to convince them to leave with him to live on a new planet where they can create an alternate world of their own, free from the influence of white supremacy. Just as Sun Ra’s work commented on issues of the time, current Afrofuturist works address contemporary concerns about technology. Janelle Monáe’s album and accompanying “emotion picture” Dirty Computer also features futuristic costumes and technology but doesn’t focus on space. Monáe instead depicts contemporary fears of state censorship of activism, police brutality against people of colour — the Black community in particular — and how these issues could be exacerbated by new technologies and artificial intelligence.

Monáe’s costumes incorporate traditional African textiles, jewelry and hairstyles, as well as punk styles and fashion from the 1990s and 2000s, into her vision of the future. The persistence of Afrofuturism in contemporary art, music and film demonstrates the lasting impact of Sun Ra’s innovative body of work: a fusion of themes and images from both science-fiction and the African diaspora, which also spoke to technology, imagination and Black liberation. KATHERINE GLADHART-HAYES

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