#but searched and hired from everywhere but Jamaica…

[readingforaneternity]

So I watched the Migration movie today and I was enjoying it up until I met this Jamaican bird named Delroy.

The issue isn’t that he’s Jamaican, bc I’m Jamaican American and I love to see representation of my culture. But it was the voice actor that completly ruined the rest of the movie for me.

His accent was off. And for those of you who don’t know Patois and the Jamaican accent in general, it may be hard even realize, but it sucked.

My issue is that they casted an American who did it. Not even a Jamaican American who was raised with Jamaican family. I’m sure there are so many Jamaican actors and actresses that could have embodied the role so much better.

I don’t only want to see proper POC representation in live actions. I want it in animation too. And that includes language, dialects, and accents.

[fabulizemag]

DC Comics Nubia Is Finally Getting Her Own Graphic Novel

New Post has been published on https://fabulizemag.com/dc-comics-nubia-graphic-novel/

DC Comics Nubia Is Finally Getting Her Own Graphic Novel

Wonder Woman’s twin sister Nubia is finally getting a standalone graphic novel.

DC Comics just released a press statement announcing that Author L. L. McKinney and Artist Robyn Smith will be releasing an #OwnVoices story of Nubia for young adult readers. The book will be available everywhere February 2021 and they are taking pre-orders now. Yes! More Black girl graphic novels!

McKinney and Smith will be adding a fresh, new modern twist to Nubia. Nubia who is also Wonder Woman’s sister has never been in her own individual book and has mostly appeared in Wonder Woman’s stories throughout the years.

The graphic novel will follow a teen Nubia as she navigates a world filled with racism, school violence and a number of social issues that younger readers are impacted by today. McKinney is an highly acclaimed author and most known for A Blade So Black trilogy. She continues to advocate for equality and inclusion in publishing, and created the hashtag #WhatWoCWritersHear. This is the self-proclaimed blerd first book with DC Comics.

“What’s funny is I didn’t initially set out to pitch a Nubia graphic novel,” said McKinney. “I was invited to pitch something else, but I made the decision when writing the pitch itself to add in Nubia. I’ve been a fan since pretty much birth, and I’ve watched her get moved around and appear in various iterations, none of them touching me the same way her original one had. I mean, this was Wonder Woman’s twin sister, just as strong, just as fast, if not stronger and faster. And she was BLACK! So, I added her in to my pitch for the other project. I guess something about her stuck out to the team because they emailed me and essentially asked for a pitch about Nubia.

“Fast-forward and DC loved it. When the hunt for the artist began, I knew I wanted another Black woman on this project. DC was on board from the start and suggested Robyn, whose art I immediately fell in love with. Robyn has breathed life into this story and these characters, and it wouldn’t be half as powerful without her. Everyone loves Nubia, we all want to do right by her, by the readers that have been searching for her the same as I have. I hope fans walk away from this story knowing that first and foremost,” McKinney stated in the official press release from DC Comics.

Smith is a New York based artist by way of Jamaica. She’s known for her own minicomic The Saddest Angriest Black Girl in Town and for illustrating Jamila Rowser’s successful Kickatarter comic Wash Day. Nubia: Real One is also her first project with DC.

“As an Afro-Caribbean artist, I’ve always strived to center the Black community in the comics I make, so being hired to illustrate Nubia was a dream,” said Smith. “When I heard L. L. McKinney was the writer, I was even more excited. Working together has been great, especially since our artistic objectives seem to be the same: all Black everything. In Nubia, I wanted to focus my illustrations on creating something both light and emotionally resonant. Most of my work is heavily influenced by Harry Lucey’s Archie, so finding a way to incorporate that charm and joyful feel into a story centered around more serious issues was important to me. I hope fans reading Nubia feel the same sort of excitement I felt illustrating the characters and their beautifully crafted stories,” Smith added in the press release.

Check out some preview pages here.

[challengeandchangeinsociet-blog1]

Lesson 15, Task 1: Where do I live?

Toronto… Toronto is known for more than just it’s sky line and views. Everybody enduring in an Ontario lifestyle refers to this beautiful city as the centre of everything. The centre of entertainment, the centre of culture, the centre of multi-culture, the centre of amazing food, yet most importantly in this case, the centre of population.Toronto is the largest city in Canada, where 5,928,040 people reside. Toronto is also the fourth largest city in North America. Toronto is a large city that is still growing absolutely tremendously. Toronto is known to be a safe haven, and this is why such a high amount of residents live within the city. Toronto does not limit anybody from living within it. Toronto is the most multicultural city in the world, Toronto is home to a large amount of refugees, a large amount of people from all around the world in search of a better life, and a plethora of immigrants just searching for larger opportunities in life. Toronto is very different in the fact that population is not distributed by age, ethnicity, or sex. It is unique in the fact that all throughout the large city different samples of population are mixed to create one large community. Over time Toronto has experienced some monumental changes that will be looked at into further detail. Even though there has been changes, it is not believed that cultural conflicts reside within the community. Toronto is a place that adapts and molds to it’s demographics, Toronto is the centre of  the cultural mosaic theory.  

Toronto has a very mixed distribution of population. The population in Toronto is not truly concentrated in certain areas based on age and sex. Yet, there is some areas of the city which holds a higher population of a certain ethnicity than others. For example, within Toronto there are certain streets that are referred to “little” and then a country name. For example, there is a street called Ellington West which is referred to as little Jamaica. Little Jamaica has a high caribbean ethnic background population. Another example would be little Greece. Referring to the street of Danforth where there is a high greek population percentage. You also have others, such as china town, little Italy, and the list continues. Other than these well known streets, Toronto is known to be very mixed based on it’s ethnic population. Nearly everywhere you go in Toronto you are sure to see a wide range of different ethnic groups. A chart released by statistics Canada shows the different ethnic groups residing within Toronto based on population and percentage. 12.7 percent Canadian, 12.5 percent English, 12 percent Chinese, 11 percent East Indian, 9.3 percent Irish, 9.3 percent Scottish, 8.3 percent Italian, 4.7 percent Filipino, 4.6 percent German, 4.2 percent French, 4 percent Polish, 3.6 percent Portuguese, 3.4 percent Jamaican, 2.4 percent Ukrainian, 2.4 percent Russian, 2.1 percent Pakistani, 2 percent Sri’Lankan, 1.8 percent other, 1.8 percent Spanish, 1.7 percent Greek. As you can see the city has quite the variation of ethnicities, unlike anywhere else in the world. There are cities that can compare when it comes to amount of ethnicities, but none that can compare when it comes to the balance of all these ethnicities. Another aspect of the mesmerizing city that is mixed is its gender and age. There are 2,876,755 males, and 3,051,290 females that reside in Toronto today. This is quite balanced compared to many of the cities that make up this world. Now looking into the age side of things, 16 percent of the total population ranges from 0-14 years old, 68.9 percent of the population  ranges from 15-64 years old, 14.5 percent of the population ranges from 65-84 years old, and 1.9 percent of the population is 85 years and over. The Median population is 39.4 years old and the average population is 39.7 years old. This shows a middle age, this does not mean most of the population is middle aged, but it means the population is very balanced throughout the city. If you come to Toronto thinking you can make a one word description, it is not possible, this place is home to many, of all ages, all diversities, and all sexes. Yet Toronto has had to work to gain this status.  

From the year of 2011, to the year of 2016 the population of Toronto has grown at a whopping 6.2 percent. When you are talking about millions, that is a lot of growth for one city to endure. In the year of 2011 the population of Toronto was 5,583,064, The population in 2016 when the last census was done, Toronto stood at 5,928,040 residents. This is an actual change of 344,976 people in 5 years. The community and culture within Toronto has not changed at all. What has changed is the work Toronto is doing to invite more people into the city. The main reason for change in the city is the migration rate, and the immigration rate. Many people from smaller towns around the GTA (greater Toronto area) are now beginning to move into Toronto. This reason is mainly because many people work within the city, but commuting has turned into a problem as population continues to rise. Toronto star stated “The Toronto “census metropolitan area,” which includes the city itself and part of the surrounding region, remains the destination of choice for the largest number of immigrants to Canada. Between 2011 and 2016, almost 30 per cent of immigrants — 356,930 people — made Toronto their new home, almost double the total that moved to the Montreal area.” In my opinion, the main reason immigrants want to engorge themselves within the Toronto lifestyle is because there is no Toronto lifestyle. Living in Toronto you can keep the same beliefs, values, and cultural identities you have always had. This city is a safe haven, Toronto star stated “Since Justin Trudeau and the Liberals came to power in October 2015, Canada has opened its doors to almost 50,000 Syrian refugees through sponsorships by the federal government and private community groups.” Many of these refugees made their home in the great city of Toronto. Many Torontonians decided to host and sponsor Syrian refugees when they had fled their home country. This is a prime example of this great sitting deciding not to stoop to the level of the country south of the border that is titled the melting pot. Overall the city has not changed, it has for a long time been diverse, what it has done, is continued to hold the residents of Toronto accountable for keeping the cultural mosaic status; but Toronto isn't just the sunshines and butterflies it is portrayed to be.

Toronto consists of many disappointing features as well. In June 2018 a study came out that released the unemployment rate in the “great” city of Toronto. There was a 6 percent unemployment rate, which equals to 367,538.48 people who remain unemployed in the city. Now you may be thinking, “people need to try harder to find jobs” yet it is the opposite. Jobs need to try harder to find employees. This year the minimum wage in Ontario increased from $11.60 to $14.00. Ever since this has occurred people are getting laid off, left, right, and centre. Companies within Toronto feel that their pocket will be much affected if they continued to hold and hire employees at the rate the government insisted on. Ontario as a whole tried to raise the minimum wage so that people will become more avid job seekers, yet it worked in the complete opposite fashion. Toronto being an extremely large city was affected very heavily by this change that was supposed to be for the better. Ever since this change came into obligation, the unemployment rate in Ontario has been increasing on average 0.2 percent a month. As of right now Toronto has not been able to come up with any broad schemes to get the employment rate back to an all time high. Therefore no change has yet been restored.  

Every large city has its downs, unemployment, poverty, violence, discrimination. It is the cities that keep those stats at a small rate that continue to prevail and power through these negativities. Toronto is a community of love. Even though it is a massive place with millions of people, it feels so small to me. Toronto is a place that welcomes everybody with open arms. Many Torontonians see humans as humans, people as people. Not as shades and cultures. A plethora of different cultures is our culture here in Toronto.  A plethora of different incomes, and living status, is our culture.

By: Elijah Blake