#inuit youth researchers

[areyougonnabe]

Tell us your favourite fact or piece of information about a polar expedition

this is the one that comes up in conversation the most that the people i'm talking to (fellow polar nerds) don't know - but basically, one of my areas of interest is THIS mfer, Sir Clements Markham. now let it be known i don't like him or "stan" him by any means i think he's for the most part a terrible person lolol but i am fascinated by him and have done a lot of research into his life and work:

most people know him as the guy above, the *ahem* controversial old fogey who was more or less the driving force behind the british end of the heroic age of polar exploration. but when he was a teenager, and looked like THIS:

he was on one of the early Franklin search expeditions in 1850-51, on board the Assistance under Captain Ommanney, sister of the Resolute under Captain Austin. this was his last journey with the Royal Navy - he only lasted about five years, he wasn't really cut out for the lifestyle (except for the parts where he got have intense life-destroying crushes on his superior officers) - but it was definitely the most impactful. it left markham with a singular, youthful and optimistic impression as to what polar exploration was all about. homosocial camaraderie, midwinter entertainment, effortful manhauling, geographical discovery, honor and bravery in service to the Empire. et cetera. (can you see where this eventually is going?)

this myth-through-experience grew and grew over his adult life as he worked his way up through the imperial bureaucracy, first at the India Office and later at the Royal Geographical Society, which was to be his most long-lasting professional association.

he participated in the organization of the Nares expedition in 1875, but when that was a resolute failure he bided his time until the 1890s, when support for antarctic discovery began to grow amongst the scientific establishment.

during the time that he was working on drumming up support for what would eventually become Scott's first expedition on the Discovery, in the mid-to-late 1890s, he was working on a, let's say, "private manual of devotion." this was a lengthy manuscript with an equally lengthy title:

James Fitzjames: the story of the friendship, devoted zeal for the service, high souled courage, self denial, and heroic deaths of 129 British Naval Officers and Seamen - A Romance based on information and on facts so authentic and so numerous that it must be very near to the truth.

as you can probably tell already. this was a piece of work. its first few chapters are indeed "based on information" - biographies of Franklin and his officers, often using details Markham received secondhand from men he'd met who actually knew them. (apparently he went around asking everyone he ever met if they'd known anyone on the FE and could they tell him about them which, relatable)

but then after the ships leave Disko and the historical record, the story turns to pure fancy. markham is, as you may have noticed from the title, absolutely obsessed with James Fitzjames to a psychosexual level. he was the "beau ideal" of an officer to Markham. (they never met!!! i might emphasize!!!!!) according to good old clem, if Fitzjames had been in charge of the expedition entire, it would never have perished - the fate that befell them was due to Franklin and Crozier's aged stiffness and inability to adapt.

going into detail about the rest of this frankly bonkers fanfiction would take ALL DAY i swear to god BUT highlights include: a self-insert character named "Baby" who swears fealty to Fitzjames, at least three midwinter theatricals described in detail incl. crossdressing, egregious and disgusting racism against the inuit, pop culture references, a complete and hilarious mix-up of the expedition ranks due to clem not having access to the full roster (jopson as caulker's mate!!!!), and of course lots and LOTS of men dying piously and nigh-erotically in each others' arms. of course there is no cannibalism whatsoever and the men are devoted to the naval hierarchy until the very end.

anyway, the fetishization of youth and inexperience which is visible in the story is quite glaringly tied to markham's selection of scott for the 1901 expedition. at the very least subconsciously, he wanted to recreate the FE with a "Fitzjames" in charge, thinking that would be the key to success.

and to that we can only say: LO fucking L.

[college-girl199328]

Gov. Gen. Mary Simon says Canada needs to find a way to continue cross-polar collaboration while holding Russia accountable for its invasion of Ukraine.

“In terms of Indigenous Peoples and research and climate change, these are issues that transcend boundaries, really,” Simon said in an interview following her state visit to Finland.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sent Simon to Helsinki in early February to mark the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Canada and Finland. This was alongside a delegation of Arctic research and government officials.

Finland has been actively seeking closer military ties with other western countries following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

That is until last year, when both Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO, with Canada being the first country to vote in support of both joining the group.

Last October, the Finnish government tweaked the Arctic strategy it had released a year prior, saying that the Ukraine invasion meant that the Cold War was underway.

The report calls for Finland to try to keep a “functioning relationship” with neighbouring Russia on matters like climate change and Indigenous Peoples, but little else.

“There will be no return to the prewar reality,” reads the report's English summary, which urged Finland to examine everything with Russia through a security lens. “Even chaos is possible.”

In an interview, Simon said it's clear Canada will need to still collaborate with people within Russia and all Arctic countries on issues like climate change and Indigenous Peoples.

“Something to do in each of the countries is to figure out how you can continue working together when a terrible war is going on (which is) contradictory to the rules-based international order,” she said.

Before becoming vice-regal, Simon did the heavy lifting on Canada's Arctic and Northern Policy Framework, leading dozens of consultations throughout Northern Canada.

Before that, she was Canada's ambassador to Denmark, a role with a large focus on collaborating with the Inuit of Greenland.

Simon noted that the Far North has generally avoided geopolitical conflicts through the decades, but is facing increasing attention as a venue for resource extraction and shipping routes.

“The Arctic has historically been a region of cooperation. Safety and security challenges have recently emerged as the region's strategic importance grows,” she said.

The tension has been particularly notable at the intergovernmental Arctic Council forum, which has been largely on hiatus since Russia's invasion.

The body, which Simon helped found, coordinates circumpolar research, shipping routes and search-and-rescue services among eight countries as well as Indigenous nations.

But all members except Russia have pulled out and started side projects involving things like fisheries without any input from Moscow.

While in Helsinki, Simon met with Finnish President Sauli Niinist to discuss security and climate change.

Simon then headed up to the Arctic Circle to meet with officials working in education and those representing the Indigenous people of the region, the Sami.

She noted Finland's moves toward truth and reconciliation with the Sami people, which she described as being “at the beginning stages,” while also holding lessons for Canada on engaging Indigenous youth.

Finland's coalition government recently attempted to incorporate an existing Sami legislative assembly as part of the country's governance. However, the legislation collapsed this week over the uncertainty of what role the council would hold.

Simon also said Finland's renowned education system might hold lessons for Canada, in reaching higher graduation levels across the country.

Meanwhile, Simon said she wanted to maintain a frank discussion with Canadians. This is a few weeks after Rideau Hall closed down the comment section of all social media accounts, citing harmful vitriol.

“We support constructive criticism; I've always been very supportive of that. If people don't agree with me, I like to hear about it. But it should be done in a very respectful way; it's critical to do that.”

Simon declined to elaborate on how the comments affected her personally but said her staff had coped for “a long time” with a deluge of inappropriate comments.

“We're not trying to block anything here, but I think it's imperative to realize that we also can't let abuse, harassment and misogyny that is harmful in our space continue.”

[womenshomelessness]

References

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Ancil, G. S. (2018). Canada, the perpetrator: The legacy of systematic violence and the contemporary crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2018.

Assembly of First Nations (AFN). (2013). Fact Sheet - First Nations Housing on Reserve. https://www.afn.ca/uploads/files/housing/factsheet-housing.pdf.

Bingham, B., Moniruzzaman, A., Patterson, M., Sareen, J., Distasio, J., O'Neil, J., & Somers, J. M. (2019). Gender differences among indigenous canadians experiencing homelessness and mental illness. BMC Psychology, 7(1), 57-57. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-019-0331-y. 

Brandon, J., Peters, E. J., & Manitoba Research Alliance. (2014). Moving to the city: housing and Aboriginal migration to Winnipeg. CCPA (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives). https://policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/Manitoba%20Office/2014/12/Aboriginal_Migration.pdf.

Bretherton, J. (2017). Reconsidering Gender in Homelesness. European Journal of Homelessness, 11(1), 1-21. https://www.feantsaresearch.org/download/feantsa-ejh-11-1_a1-v045913941269604492255.pdf. 

Burns, V. F., Sussman, T., & Bourgeois-Guérin, V. (2018). Later-life homelessness as disenfranchised grief. Canadian Journal on Aging, 37(2), 171-184. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0714980818000090. 

Clifford, B., Wilson, A., & Harris, P. (2019). Homelessness, health and the policy process: A literature review. Health policy (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 123(11), 1125–1132. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2019.08.011. 

Dyck, L. E., & Patterson, D. G. (2015). On-reserve Housing and Infrastructure: Recommendations for Change, Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples. Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples. https://sencanada.ca/content/sen/Committee/412/appa/rep/rep12jun15-e.pdf.  

Kauppi, C., Pallard, H., & Stephen, G. (2013). Societal constraints, systemic disadvantages, and homelessness. An individual case study, 11(7), 8. 

Levine-Rasky, C. (2011). Intersectionality theory applied to whiteness and middle-classness. Social Identities, 17(2), 239-253. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504630.2011.558377. 

MacTaggart, S. L. (2015). Lessons from history: The recent applicability of matrimonial property and human rights legislation on reserve lands in canada. The University of Western Ontario Journal of Legal Studies, 6(2). 

Mashford-Pringle, A., Skura, C., Stutz, S., & Yohathasan, T. (2021). What we heard: Indigenous Peoples and COVID-19. Public Health Agency of Canada. https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/phac-aspc/documents/corporate/publications/chief-public-health-officer-reports-state-public-health-canada/from-risk-resilience-equity-approach-covid-19/indigenous-peoples-covid-19-report/cpho-wwh-report-en.pdf. 

Milaney, K., Tremblay, R., Bristowe, S., & Ramage, K. (2020). Welcome to canada: Why are family emergency shelters ‘Home’ for recent newcomers? Societies, 10(2), 37. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc10020037. 

Nishnawbe Aski Nation & Together Design Lab (NANTDL). (2018). Nishnawbe Aski Nation response to the First Nations National Housing and Infrastructure Strategy. Nishnawbe Aski Nation. http://www.nan.on.ca/upload/documents/nan-housing_position_paper-final.pdf. 

O’Donnell, V., Wallace, S. (2011). First Nations, Métis and Inuit Women. Component of Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 89-503-X. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/pub/89-503-x/2010001/article/11442-eng.pdf?st=1wx3UPy6.

Palmater, P. (2020). Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada. Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action. https://pampalmater.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/P.-Palmater-FAFIA-Submission-COVID19-Impacts-on-Indigenous-Women-and-Girls-in-Canada-June-19-2020-final.pdf. 

Robson, R. (2008). Suffering An Excessive Burden: Housing as a Health Determinant in the First Nations Community of Northwestern Ontario. The Canadian Journal of Native Studies, 28(1), 71-87. http://ezproxy.lib.ryerson.ca/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/suffering-excessive-burden-housing-as-health/docview/218084458/se-2. 

Schwan, K., Versteegh, A., Perri, M., Caplan, R., Baig, K., Dej, E., Jenkinson, J., Brais, H., Eiboff, F., & PahlevanChaleshtari, T. (2020). The State of Women’s Housing Need & Homelessness in Canada: A Literature Review. Hache, A., Nelson, A., Kratochvil, E., & Malenfant, J. (Eds). Toronto, ON: Canadian Observatory on Homelessness Press. 

Statistics Canada. (2017, October 25). The housing conditions of Aboriginal people in Canada. https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/as-sa/98-200-x/2016021/98-200-x2016021-eng.cfm.

Waegemakers Schiff, J., Schiff, R., & Turner, A. (2016). Rural homelessness in western canada: Lessons learned from diverse communities. Social Inclusion, 4(4), 73-85. https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v4i4.633. 

Yakubovich, A. R., & Maki, K. (2022). Preventing gender-based homelessness in canada duringthe COVID-19 pandemic and beyond: The need to account for violence against women. Violence Against Women, 28(10), 2587-2599. https://doi.org/10.1177/10778012211034202.

[richincolor]

Reawakening Our Ancestor’s Lines and Other AIYLA Titles

When I was in the library the other day, a book cover caught my eye. Somehow I had missed out on this book that was released in 2017. I’m sure I saw the list when it was honored by The American Indian Library Association back in 2020, but I never got my hands on Reawakening Our Ancestors’ Lines: Revitalizing Inuit Traditional Tattooing until this week. It’s a gorgeous book that features Inuit women who are reviving the traditional art of tattooing. The author, Angela Hovak Johnston, learned how to tattoo herself and others and the book shares that journey with others.

For thousands of years, Inuit women practiced the traditional art of tattooing. Created with bone needles and caribou sinew soaked in seal oil or soot, these tattoos were an important tradition for many women, symbols stitched in their skin that connected them to their families and communities.But with the rise of missionaries and residential schools in the North, the tradition of tattooing was almost lost. In 2005, when Angela Hovak Johnston heard that the last Inuk woman tattooed in the traditional way had died, she set out to tattoo herself and learn how to tattoo others. What was at first a personal quest became a project to bring the art of traditional tattooing back to Inuit women across Nunavut, starting in the community of Kugluktuk. Collected in this beautiful book are moving photos and stories from more than two dozen women who participated in Johnston’s project. Together, these women are reawakening their ancestors’ lines and sharing this knowledge with future generations. [publisher summary]

This book is just one of the many that have won or been honored over the years. In case you’ve missed any of the titles, here are a few other YA books that have made the American Indian Youth Literature Award lists:

Apple Skin to the Core by Eric Gansworth (Onandoga)

The term “Apple” is a slur in Native communities across the country. It’s for someone supposedly “red on the outside, white on the inside.” Eric Gansworth is telling his story in Apple (Skin to the Core). The story of his family, of Onondaga among Tuscaroras, of Native folks everywhere. From the horrible legacy of the government boarding schools, to a boy watching his siblings leave and return and leave again, to a young man fighting to be an artist who balances multiple worlds. Eric shatters that slur and reclaims it in verse and prose and imagery that truly lives up to the word heartbreaking.

Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley (Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians)

As a biracial, unenrolled tribal member and the product of a scandal, Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in—both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. When her family is struck by tragedy, Daunis puts her dreams on hold to care for her fragile mother. The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother’s hockey team.

After Daunis witnesses a shocking murder that thrusts her into a criminal investigation, she agrees to go undercover. But the deceptions—and deaths—keep piling up and soon the threat strikes too close to home. How far will she go to protect her community if it means tearing apart the only world she’s ever known?

Soldiers Unknown by Chag Lowry (Yurok, Maidu and Achumawi)

The graphic novel Soldiers Unknown is a historically accurate World War One story told from the perspective of Native Yurok soldiers. The novel is based on extensive military research and on oral interviews of family members of Yurok WW1 veterans from throughout Humboldt and Del Norte counties. The author Chag Lowry is of Yurok, Maidu, and Achumawi ancestry, and the illustrator Rahsan Ekedal was raised in southern Humboldt. Soldiers Unknown takes place during the battle of the Meuse-Argonne in France in 1918, which is the largest battle in American Army history.

Marrow Thieves and the sequel Hunting by Stars by Cherie Dimaline (Metis Nation of Ontario)

Marrow Thieves – Just when you think you have nothing left to lose, they come for your dreams.

Humanity has nearly destroyed its world through global warming, but now an even greater evil lurks. The Indigenous people of North America are being hunted and harvested for their bone marrow, which carries the key to recovering something the rest of the population has lost: the ability to dream. In this dark world, Frenchie and his companions struggle to survive as they make their way up north to the old lands. For now, survival means staying hidden – but what they don”t know is that one of them holds the secret to defeating the marrow thieves.

Notable Native People: 50 Indigenous Leaders, Dreamers, and Changemakers from Past and Present by Adrienne Keene (Cherokee Nation) and illustrated by Ciara Sana (Chamoru)

An accessible and educational illustrated book profiling 50 notable American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian people, from NBA star Kyrie Irving of the Standing Rock Lakota to Wilma Mankiller, the first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation.

Celebrate the lives, stories, and contributions of Indigenous artists, activists, scientists, athletes, and other changemakers in this beautifully illustrated collection. From luminaries of the past, like nineteenth-century sculptor Edmonia Lewis--the first Black and Native American female artist to achieve international fame--to contemporary figures like linguist jessie little doe baird, who revived the Wampanoag language, Notable Native People highlights the vital impact Indigenous dreamers and leaders have made on the world.

Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger (Lipan Apache Tribe)

Elatsoe—Ellie for short—lives in an alternate contemporary America shaped by the ancestral magics and knowledge of its Indigenous and immigrant groups. She can raise the spirits of dead animals—most importantly, her ghost dog Kirby. When her beloved cousin dies, all signs point to a car crash, but his ghost tells her otherwise: He was murdered. Who killed him and how did he die? With the help of her family, her best friend Jay, and the memory great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother, Elatsoe, must track down the killer and unravel the mystery of this creepy town and it’s dark past. But will the nefarious townsfolk and a mysterious Doctor stop her before she gets started? A breathtaking debut novel featuring an asexual, Apache teen protagonist, Elatsoe combines mystery, horror, noir, ancestral knowledge, haunting illustrations, fantasy elements, and is one of the most-talked about debuts of the year.

An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People adapted by Debbie Reese (Nambé Owingeh) and Jean Mendoza from the adult book by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Spanning more than 400 years, this classic bottom-up history examines the legacy of Indigenous peoples' resistance, resilience, and steadfast fight against imperialism.

Going beyond the story of America as a country "discovered" by a few brave men in the "New World," Indigenous human rights advocate Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz reveals the roles that settler colonialism and policies of American Indian genocide played in forming our national identity.

The original academic text is fully adapted by renowned curriculum experts Debbie Reese and Jean Mendoza, for middle-grade and young adult readers to include discussion topics, archival images, original maps, recommendations for further reading, and other materials to encourage students, teachers, and general readers to think critically about their own place in history.

Surviving the City written by Tasha Spillet (Nehiyaw-Trinidadian) and illustrated by Natasha Donovan (Métis Nation of British Columbia)

Tasha Spillett's graphic novel debut, Surviving the City, is a story about womanhood, friendship, colonialism, and the anguish of a missing loved one. Miikwan and Dez are best friends. Miikwan is Anishinaabe; Dez is Inninew. Together, the teens navigate the challenges of growing up in an urban landscape - they're so close, they even completed their Berry Fast together. However, when Dez's grandmother becomes too sick, Dez is told she can't stay with her anymore. With the threat of a group home looming, Dez can't bring herself to go home and disappears. Miikwan is devastated, and the wound of her missing mother resurfaces. Will Dez's community find her before it's too late? Will Miikwan be able to cope if they don't?

To learn about even more books that have received this award, be sure to check out the AILA page.

[left-to-right-studios]

I’ve started an artist residency program at The Station Gallery, our local art gallery.  Essentially, I’ve set up a Patreon for them where I research and recreate indigenous art for people who sign up. I make a lot of different things, from digital and fine art prints, to infographic zines and art kits aimed at sharing this knowledge with others.

My first month’s theme was relief-cut prints. I focused on the artist Kakulu Saggiaktok and Inuit stone-cut prints.

Honestly it’s been wonderful to have the opportunity to rediscover my heritage  and culture as an Ojibwe through an artistic institution. Many of the pieces I’ll be working from will be permanent collection pieces from the gallery, and seeing these works in person is very inspiring. It’s been a real pleasure to look at the works of all our individual nations and see how they’ve contributed to the field of art. 

We’re hoping to meet a donation goal of 25 art kits sent to indigenous youth across Canada by signing up 500 Patreons over the next few months, and if you’re interested in helping us meet that goal, you can sign up for one of our tiers through this link: https://www.patreon.com/StationGallery

[zhaoluna]

Today is Indigenous Peoples’ Day! I chose to honor the Indigenous peoples from Arctic region, including the Inuit and Yup’ik, through my artwork today.

I think it’s super cool that one of the ways that the Inuit are reclaiming their cultural roots are by getting traditional tattoos through the poke method with needles made of bone or sinew. The tattooing stopped 100 years ago because Western missionaries deemed the practice evil, and so it was a dying tradition. Face tattoos are a rite of passage into womanhood; they represent beauty and significant experiences, and are spiritual blessings for a good afterlife. And they’re frikkin badass.

I knew near nothing about these Indigenous groups until I encountered them in academia. In my research on cultural considerations for suicide prevention, I have learned that the most impressive suicide prevention trainings have come from Indigenous peoples. Suicide rates for indigenous groups can be alarmingly high, especially among Indigenous communities that do not control or own their own community resources (Chandler & Lalonde, 2009). Stripping away a people’s power and identity is traumatizing and, unsurprisingly, has huge intergenerational impacts on mental health. Conventional Western approaches to psychology and suicide prevention don’t work for these communities because it repeats that exact problematic pattern of saviorism - of assuming that Western thought is universal and it is the solution for everyone.

When you center the approach on reclamation, decolonization and empowering the people in their own healing journey, this is how they thrive. Yup’ik youth suicide prevention, as determined by the elders, IS reconnection to and celebration of their cultural roots. Their culturally responsive “suicide prevention trainings” do not mean sitting in a room being taught by trainers what warning signs look like in a presentation. It is being led by elders in seal hunting or fishing in the late summer/early fall, or setting fish traps and learning about ice safety in the late fall/early winter (Rasmus et al., 2019). It is honoring and celebrating who they are as their own people and culture.

In my research, I have realized how little I know about Indigenous communities and culture. I’ve set out to actively learn and celebrate way more.

[jkottke]

Where Did You Grow Up?

My friend Joanna Goddard runs a website called Cup of Jo. She started it as a personal blog and has turned it into a site for women with a diverse and interesting group of contributors. However, the truly marvelous thing about Cup of Jo is the comments. That's right, the comments. They are always good, often great, and occasionally sublime. Years and even decades after most websites have removed their comment sections for being toxic and unwieldy, Cup of Jo readers are in there delivering on the original promise of the web as a way to connect humans with one another by providing advice, reflections, stories, and support to each other.

One of the site's best uses of the comments section are on posts that ask a simple question, like Where Did You Grow Up? (See also What Unexpected Relationships Have You Formed During the Pandemic?) I pulled out a few of my favorite comments from this post and shared them below.

My dad is a physicist and biomedical researcher, so we made a few big moves when I was growing up. From Long Island, to Chicago, and then to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (central Canada). I went to tiny town Oklahoma for college before coming back to Sask. It is wild up here, where winter days are often -40 degrees Fahrenheit. In my youth I was torn in half between my longing for city excitement and the call of the wild. These days, I am proud to be raising a 4 year old that knows the rules of camping, and how to act around critters like bears and moose. His first concert was an Inuit band who throat sang in Inuk. We danced as a storm opened up and poured rain on us, the natural light show illuminating the fractal jack pine tree tops. All three of us slept like babies that night in our tent with the storm pounding the forest in the background. The city was fun, but I wouldn't trade my quality of life for anything. I know how to thank the Great Spirit for the grandfather trees of the forest, and how to step lightly where wood frogs lie. I know the feeling of the air changing to autumn or spring on my cheeks, before a single leaf falls or prairie crocus blooms. The knowledge of this place is etched into the fabric of my body, as it will be for my stepson.

...

I grew up in a North Dallas trailer park backed up to a state highway and a freeway with my older brother and young widowed mom. We lived off social security and hotdogs. I thought anyone whose mobile home vinyl siding wasn't peppered with holes from a weed whacker was fancy.

After hours, I played in the construction materials depot next door with my brother and our little band of trailer park buddies. We got a lot of shit for being "trailer trash kids" but we all grew up to become hella cool and kindhearted: amazing parents, teachers, nurses, artists, writers, musicians, therapists, political shit-stirrers, philosophers, world travelers.

We used to catch opossums with rusty cat traps and sneak them into our bathtubs where we would feed them scraps and get hissed at. I recall chasing an armadillo down a hill with a BB gun in the blazing Texas sunshine and thinking no funner game had ever been invented.

We would dismantle the breaks from our second-hand banana-seat bikes and then race each other down the "big hill" and jump into the grass kamikaze-style at the screaming last minute where we would lay in a banged-up heap laughing hysterically in the face of death.

My brother once shot a dove off a telephone wire from our front porch and proceeded to cook it for my first-day-of-high-school breakfast, ironically, because he wanted me to be able to tell that trailer-trash story to my kids someday. I do, and they don't believe me. I've raised my two kiddos in Toronto, The Netherlands, and now Colorado. They think trailers are something you take into the mountains for a glamping vacation. They are also hella cool and kindhearted. I marvel at them.

...

I grew up in a small town in South Alabama. I am from the land of yes ma'ams, covered dish suppers at church, and pulling over for funeral processions. I was raised on a steady diet of collard greens, pimento cheese, grits, pear salad (google it), boiled peanuts, and fried hand pies. To this day there is nothing more delicious - figuratively and literally - than the memory of homemade vanilla ice cream in an old ice cream maker with my dad cutting and dropping slices of peaches picked from our tree. I didn't know enough to be concerned that he was cutting them with his pocket knife. I miss living somewhere that included mac n cheese on a salad bar. I have vivid memories of hearing my grandmother tell stories involving her childhood friend, Nell Lee (known to most of us as Harper Lee). One summer, I rode my horse into town almost every day and got an ice cream cone at the shop owned by my friend's family. My dad was the high school principal and my mother was the deputy sheriff. I was the high school mascot and to this day, I highly recommend any job where the dumber you act, the more successful you are. High school adventures included bonfires in someone's field, hot days at the creek, and constantly driving around the town square. There was one restaurant in town and it opened up late each Friday night to serve a full fried chicken meal to the returning high school football team, band, and cheerleaders after every away game. There was a wrong and a right side of the tracks. It was simultaneously both the most loving community I have known and the most discriminatory.

...

I grew up in Houston on a street full of kids. Houston was playing kickball on a dead-end street and "hide from cars" on summer nights when we were allowed to stay out after dark. Everyone lived in their front yards and garages. A dad only had to prop up the hood of his car, and every man on the block came over and started consulting. This led to impromptu pizza or burger parties. Every Halloween, my dad and our preacher staged a spookhouse in our garage that ALL the kids visited. Our neighborhood was swarmed with kids trick or treating and our group, ranging from 3 years old to 10, roamed for blocks, completely safe, until the year The Candyman ruined trick or treating forever. Every Christmas Eve, we girlfriends swam in Sam's pool, then went caroling on our street with bare feet and wet hair. We thought that was very funny. We rode our banana-seat bikes to stores near us until we graduated to 10-speeds. We went to glossy, over-air-conditioned shopping malls. We had a lot of freedom because things were so accessible.

...

I grew up in Encinitas, CA (north of San Diego) when it was a sleepy, little beach town. I miss all "my" beach spots, friends, and that coastal air. It was one of those places where even if we didn't know everyone, everyone was treated with consideration. It wasn't always idyllic but it was a pretty lucky place to be raised. You could count on anyone being willing to help you. One time my dad's Oldsmobile broke down on a random street. He had no problem walking up to a door, knocking on it and asking to use the phone (hello 1989!). The surfers were still zonked on the couches, but one let my dad in and let him call a friend. He told my dad to leave the car and come back for it whenever he could get a tow truck for the car. No one was mad at being woken up at 7am, they just rolled with it.

You can read the post and the rest of the comments here. I grew up in northern Wisconsin on a farm and then in a small nearby town. We rode our bikes everywhere as kids and our parents had no idea where we were most of the time. The music options were country or heavy metal -- I didn't care for either. The nearest movie theater was in a town 10 miles away and I still remember the excitement of standing in line for Ghostbusters on a sweltering June evening. As a teen, I would go around to all of the vending machines in town (there were only three or four of them) and check the coin returns for money -- any quarters I found would go right into the Ms. Pac-Man machine at Erickson's grocery store. A few people I knew had a vacation house on the lake but we couldn't afford one. School was terrible and cliquey and I never felt like I belonged. I left after high school and aside from summers and a short stint after dropping out of grad school, I never went back. I haven't been for a visit in nearly 20 years and only recently have I been curious about seeing it through adult eyes and revisiting old haunts.

See also this classic NY Times dialect quiz (which I took the other day and it nailed my childhood location within 90 miles) and using only food, where did you grow up? (my answer: hotdish, fried smelt, colby cheese, and summer sausage).

[kurtwagners]

you critize atla all that much which fine whatever you can do that but, your blog is plastered in marvel stuff which also has tons of problems in regards to representation and which mostly is run by white guys, one of which is actually a trump supporter so like, what's valid and what's not? Why do you get to pick and choose what is and isn't problematic to like?

Another thing is why are you so adamant on shitting on communists and anarchists and leftists in general? What do you even believe it that you think makes you so much better and wise that anyone with that sort of ideology? All you do is blog about fandom related things and consume comics by the two biggest media companies on the planet and you think that somehow makes you an authority on anything?

I’m so glad this ask gave me a gateway to rant about comics I criticize marvel and DC literally all the time, this is like the 5th time but I love to say it: Post-9/11 iterations of iconic superheroes of American culture, especially ones like Batman and Iron-man, are literally the manifestation of contemporary myth-making of American capitalism, as well as American-exceptionalism neoliberal copganda. My last super viral post was completely shitting on how Tibet is represented in Doctor Strange, you should check it out (it’s old though so not my best). It’s kind of an academic hobby of mine to rip apart comics because I love media studies a lot. My entire final project for my Tibetan Studies course in uni was on orientalist misrepresentations of Tibet in Western superhero comics such as Doctor Strange and Iron Fist and the “Shangri-La” phenomenon (I can link if you want I’d have to revise some sections though, haha)! Also if you follow my social media you probably see me preaching the book Capitalist Superheroes: Caped Crusaders in the Neoliberal Age by Dan Hassler Forest, it’s one of my favorite pieces of academic media studies writing, it completely breaks down the concept of the American “superhero" using a Marxist lens and I am obsessed with it. Warning though it’s REALLY dense but I think it’s extremely well-researched and really puts into perspective how important media studies can be when analyzing the political characteristics of nations, and how media shapes the minds of youth in their image.

I said multiple times I don’t mind that people enjoy and consume Avatar, I just wanted to point out it’s flaws in representing the Tibetan people, which is rooted in the writers being white. Comics also does this too, and I have written about this problem both on Tumblr and in an academic setting! So many fictional works created in the Western World has political implications that are problematic in nature, which is why I as a fan enjoy it and also enjoy criticizing and dissecting it! It helps me better understand how politics are ingrained in almost every aspect of our lives! You can enjoy things you are critical of, so please don’t worry! 

I agree with you, enjoying superhero comic companies is definitely a double edged sword, because of their problematic existence as corporate entities while they are now hiring more diverse writers and artists for specific projects that give positive representation for marginalized groups, like Ms. Marvel and Ironheart. I personally try my best as a fan of superhero comics to minimize my impact in contributing to the corporate side and white creators pockets by torrenting popular, large comic titles written by white men. I only actively purchase small series that give writers of color and women a salary and a platform, such as my absolute favorite writers Saladin Ahmed, Greg Pak, G Willow Wilson, Eve Ewing, and Ta Nehisi Coates! They’re all excellent writers so check out their comics and outside works! I also don’t watch superhero movies anymore, I just generally don’t like them that much outside of Black Panther, aka the best superhero film.

Time for a promo: My favorite superhero team of all time, the Champions, focusses on characters of color like Kamala Khan, Miles Morales, Sam Alexander, Amadeus Cho and Riri Williams, and is currently being written by esteemed black academic Eve Ewing. The next issue of her Champions reboot is coming out in October 2020. It’s going to focus on how teen superheroes and vigilantes challenge the government and status quo, I’m so excited about it so PLEASE check out your local comic store and buy an issue if you’re interested in supporting comic creators of color writing heroes of color! It really needs financial support after Covid delayed the release. Champions in the past also gave a platform for Indigenous Canadian voices by pulling in Inuit creative Nyla Innuksuk and collaborated with her to create the new Champions member, Inuit superhero Snowguard (my baby), so if you are interested in modern and inspiring indigenous narratives please check out those past issues as well ❤️

And to address your other criticism: not all is how it appears sometimes! I have a more serious political twitter and a fan twitter both, so if you want to see me talk more about politics then fan things please be sure to follow me @chaiiyou on twitter instead! Kind of unrelated but also this is actually a side blog, I have a main blog that’s mostly just pretty photos and aesthetically pleasing stuff @butterchalatte so follow that too if you wish. 

I am a leftist of color (anti-imperialist anarcho-communist would be my best bet but I don’t like labels) myself, who is critical about how Western leftists often romanticize geopolitical situations they are unfamiliar with and nation-states that they have never been to or have been a part of. I hope you understand that leftism, like many things, isn’t a monolith and there are many disagreements and critical discussions happening within the left all the time, groups such as anarcho-communists and marxist-leninist-maoists really aren’t the same. If you happen to fall into the more tankie/authoritarian side of the spectrum, uh I guess sorry if I offended you by criticizing my colonizers lmao but these discourses are fairly common and happen all the time, I’m surprised you’re not familiar with it? Having open, critical discussions within the leftist sphere is what helps us better understand one another and build more substantial praxis together, it’s unhealthy to stick yourself in an echo chamber!

I don’t really get why you’re so spiteful and upset though, I think people who mostly come online to decompress and engage in things like fandom still have a right to have open discussions about politics if they want to. I’m not claiming to be an authority on anything, just sharing my own experiences like everyone else. I wish you well and hope you can find more compassion in your future om mani pedme hum.

Tl;dr: There is no ethical consumption under capitalism

[worklabournewsresearch]

Youth and Indigenous People Collected CERB at Higher per Capita Rates: Statistics Canada

"Recently released data shows that 35.2 per cent of all Canadian workers who earned at least $5,000 in 2019 collected Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) payments between March 15 and Sept. 26, 2020. ... That percentage climbed to 41.5 per cent among First Nations, 40.3 per cent among Inuit and 36.2 per cent among Metis, according to Statistics Canada. Non-Indigenous people received the federal benefit at a rate of 33.9 per cent."

"The federal government agency partially attributed the higher rate of CERB collection among Indigenous people to their overrepresentation in jobs that offer relatively low annual compensation. ... 'Previous research has highlighted the disproportionate social and economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Indigenous people, including a greater impact on their ability to meet financial obligations or essential needs and a slower labour market recovery,' Statistics Canada added in its June 6 report."

"The bureau also noted that the country’s Indigenous population is also significantly younger than the non-Indigenous population which, 'given the greater percentage of CERB recipients among youth across Canada, also helps to explain the greater proportion of Indigenous workers who received CERB payments in 2020.'"

Nunavut News, June 8, 2021: "Youth and Indigenous people collected CERB at higher per capita rates: Statistics Canada," by Derek Neary

Lamb, D. & Verma, A. (2021). Nonstandard Employment and Indigenous Earnings Inequality in Canada. Journal of Industrial Relations, 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1177/00221856211021128 (23 pages, PDF)

The Conference Board of Canada, May 20, 2021: "Technological Change in the North: How STEM Skills Can Help Indigenous Workers Adapt," by Jane Cooper. Dataset (excel sheet download)

The Conference Board of Canada, June 11, 2020: Incorporating Indigenous Cultures and Realities in STEM, by Jane Cooper, (26 pages, PDF)

Photo Source: (2021). CERB [Photograph]. Nunavut News. https://www.nunavutnews.com/news/youth-and-indigenous-people-collected-cerb-at-higher-per-capita-rates-statistics-canada/

[mattattack64-blog]

Hey y’all! I would really appreciate it if y’all could help! Here’s my email for e-transfers mathew_garcia11@yahoo.com if you’re feeling extra generous! I’ve been trying so hard to find a job, but it’s been quite tough considering that my queerness sometimes gets me in trouble. I almost got a job at a taco shop, but because I called the manager out for being frantic with customers and employees, he decided to not hire me on. It’s been a hell of a year and I wish people weren’t, so homophobic and Machistas. I’m sorry I have confidence and assertiveness without being aggressive or arrogant. I think we need to make workplaces less of a hostile and docile environment by connecting with queer people and understanding their need for an inclusive work space! Also here’s an essay I wrote for my Sacred Medicines course! It describes what my work entails and will bring to Turtle Island.

Essay about my journey:

The Journey of A Shaman

My Story of Decolonizing on Stolen Lands of the First Peoples of Canada through Accessing Aztec and AfroBlackfoot Ancestry of Indigeneity From Practicing the Art of Medicine:

The History of Turtle Island is filled of stories of genocide affecting Indigenous Peoples communities and cultures. Mine is one of many told in Central America of Conquistadors who bestowed missionaries that would change the villages that relied on local foods and medicines of Mayan, Aztecan, and Incan descent, into a colonial way of being. Instead their peoples and cultures found themselves at the foot of extinction during the 1400s-1900s on Turtle Island, due to settlers' greed for land. The lands were filled with Indigenous nations which were pushed out due to the colonial settlers from France, Spain, and the British. This forced the displacement of African Peoples on Indigenous lands which resulted in some of them escaping slavery during the settlement of Turtle Island and joining tribes such as the Blackfoot peoples. These peoples took up what is now the Rio Grande river to the flourishing valley in Zacateco; the small village my grandmother grew up in. Before the Mexican Civil War between the Indigenous Peoples and Spanish Settlers she learned how to rely on ancestral knowledge of land, food and medicine. She faced challenges that the missionaries introduced when settling establishments for the Spanish Conquistadors, in her village. It resulted in her losing her father and mother through working in horrible conditions in bean, corn, and rice fields put in place by the church's tyrant ways of controlling the Indigenous population through religion and assimilation of their way of living in a colonial society. My grandmother told me stories of soldiers dismantling their connections to Aztec medicines, foods, and Gods by destroying any traces of that civilization through mass burials and mass burnings of artifacts.

The phrase Turtle Island was first introduced to me at the Free Store and Food Bank in the Student Union Building, d where I found a black cloth. Printed on it was a green land mass depiction of the Americas as a Turtle figured island, encompassing all of what is now Settler Governments. This concept opens my mind up to Indigenous self governance and peace as one lands for the sake of protecting them for future generations. Following the ongoing interactions with organizers of the Food Bank, I managed to bring my expertise as a project and outreach coordinator. I organized discussions on where our food came from to spark the movement of individuals respecting our Food Bank as an Activist establishment against capitalism.

I had the opportunity to be part of Dr. Rennee’s course on Sacred Medicines from her INGH 452 online course at The University of Victoria. She has inspired me to look at and create a career in medicine that doesn’t involve the perspectives of Western Medicines for the sake of saving the medicines we lack in our Indigenous communities that suffer from Settler Colonizer diets implemented through legislation. The Canadian and American governments have been accused of depriving Indigenous communities of their lands, food, medicines and right to practice their rituals.

I grew up mostly living with my grandmother who taught me my morals, customs, and values she got from her father and the people from her village in Zacatecas, Mexico. She told me stories of her great grandmother showing her the ways of the lands by cultivating teas, remedies, and foods to bring nourishment. They would run through fields of corn before new crops were introduced that seemed to take away from the Native plants that were for eating and medicine. I immigrated to what is now known as Canada; this colonial power continues to settle on unceded lands of indigneous communities spread out through Turtle Island. It has been a challenge due to the traumatic similarities my people have faced on Turtle Island that resemble the treatment of the Indigenous communities in Canada.

The missionaries in Zacatecas, Mexico displaced my grandmother who was on a journey to midwifery before a soldier boy stole her hand in marriage after the death of her father. This led to Machismo in my family that I continue to navigate through for the sake of changing my family's ongoing struggles with their own health due to displacement of their original foods and ways of protecting the lands. Machismo degraded the Aztec woman by allowing Conquistador ideologies from Settler Societies to make the Aztec Man more powerful than any other member in the family, it forced him to wield his wrath on anyone who didn't follow his manliness of aggression for the sake of protecting his property and family. They colonized our men in order to create a new persona that fit the colonial ideologies of the new Colonial state, for the sake of keeping a patriarchal government that oppresses its women and Indigenous peoples.

The global displacement of brown and black people was brought about by attacking familial and community based societies that relied on tribal relations to the lands before settlement of westernized societies that encompassed our lands with racist doctrines like the Manifest Destiny. When talking about relieving the colonial way of living I have to take the stigma away from my black and brown communities I am tied to, because of my knowledge and expertise in navigating colonial systems for the sake of creating better conditions for their underrepresented communities that are controlled through Colonial Governance of the Majority, Settler European Anglo Saxon Protestant Vigilantes of Turtle Island.

In my work, the aim is to reduce the stigma of mental illness on communities that have ties to Indigenous roots who come from displaced Indigenous cultures due to their unceded lands. European settlement of Turtle Island has created gaps in our understanding of Indigeous Youths’ Mental Health Issues. If we were to destroy these barriers created by our colonial governments we'd be able to see positive change in underrepresented brown and black communities that harness the potential to spark a movement through Ancestral Healing.

Western ways of organizing data based on research for white middle class Canadian families help come up with diagnosis and treatment for anxiety or depression. This has worked for white privileged families that have in turn displaced, stolen, and compromised indigenous lands. Leaving Indigneous Peoples on Turtle Island with the lack of individualized treatment for specific cultural approaches to anxiety and depression that may arise from living in a colonial settler society based on white supremacy doctrines. The way mental health is conceptualized can depend on culture to culture based on the usage of land for healing. My work as a Shaman is to bring the tangible and visible immenseness of research that claims the benefits of Indigenous led rituals that have been hiding in plain sight. I have compiled articles that discuss the Indigenous communities that would benefit from a forum that would help decrease the rising numbers of suicide among Indigenous youth. In The Science of the Sacred: Bridging Global Indigenous Medicine Systems and Modern Scientific Principles Redvers notes that the; Increase of inuit youth suicide is higher than it has ever been for inidgneous youth,” (Redvers, 2019, Pg.142). We must create a new system that doesn't rely on westernized ways of thinking, but instead on traditional knowledge from elders teachings of the lands and their connections to the lands. The gift of healing is one to be assigned to a shaman who can help see a condition through sacred knowledge (Redvers. In The Science of the Sacred: Bridging Global Indigenous Medicine Systems and Modern Scientific Principles, 2019 Pg.144). It's a bit like when a psychologist compiles data to make a diagnosis, but instead of using evidence based data from empirical research, they instead use sacred knowledge from elders and the shamans/healers in their communities. I believe I am on my own journey to become a shaman with a doctorate degree in Clinical Psychology. I want to bring concrete evidence for holistic practices to gain respect for Traditional Indigneous medicines that live and breathe on Turtle Island. Integrating a new stream of medicine would allow for further decolonization of our healthcare system on Turtle Island. Knowledge and wisdom organized from elders, shamans, traditional healers, and story tellers could be used for customizing and improving Indigenous youths’ health. Taking the steps towards creating a stream of medicine based on using the lands for healing through elder storytelling and ceremony practices, must come from my own knowledge of Psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. Healing can come from storytelling scenarios, schemas, and drawings that help revitalize Indigneous peoples connections they have lost from the lands due to the colonial infrastructures in place today. I have attached an image of a side by side comparison of what I believe the lands want me to be on the right, and on the right is what I have to face when I'm aware of the lies in the colonial settler societies make-believe truths. I drew this when I was going through an intense breakup. I was having to do a lot of soul searching due to my feelings of emptiness after the break up. The love for using drawing to express depressive or anxious episodes has helped me understand my own feelings when I’m no longer able to physically display emotion, which happens a lot of the times when I'm having a depressive episode. I find that Indigenous peoples have faced a lot of hardships with health, therefore in order to ensure that they get the essential healing, we must give back something that they've felt has always been lost, their lands. (I will attach an image of the drawing if requested) description: two faces drawn with colour pencils next to one another, one is covered in leafy natural colors and the other with primary colors. My intention was to depict myself through expression of colors by using them to Demonstrate stresses in my life that I need to deal with.)

Redvers, N. (2019). Chapter 8: The Natural Psychologist. In The Science of the Sacred: Bridging Global Indigenous Medicine Systems and Modern Scientific Principles. North Atlantic Books. Berkeley, CA. (p. 141-162).

[quakerjoe]

50 years ago today, a photograph was taken that would reframe how we humans saw our planet. As I reflect on the year that’s been, I am thinking of all the news reports on the damage being inflicted on our fragile Earth.

---

There is an image you’ve probably seen of a bright marble set against complete blackness. The marble sits in a shadow. It is mostly blue and swirling white, with a hint of green and brown. In the foreground of the photograph is a swath of barren gray. This picture is considered one of the most iconic images in human history. It altered our sense of ourselves as a species and the place we call home, because that marble is our planet seen from the vastness of space, and the gray horizon we see in the foreground is the moon. The photograph has a name: Earthrise.

The image was captured by astronaut William Anders of Apollo 8 on the first manned mission to orbit the lunar sphere, and the photograph can be seen as a mirror image for every vision humans had ever experienced up to that point. From before the dawn of history, our ancestors looked up in the night sky and saw a brilliant moon, often in shadow. But in that moment on Apollo 8, three men from our planet looked back and saw all the rest of us on a small disk with oceans, clouds, and continents.

This image, so peaceful and yet so breathtaking, was taken at the end of a turbulent year. It was Christmas Eve 1968, but from up there you would never know that a hot war was raging in Vietnam or that a Cold War was dividing Europe. You wouldn’t know of the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or Bobby Kennedy. From that distance, people are invisible, and so are cities, countries, and national boundaries. All that separates us ethnically, culturally, politically, and spiritually is absent from the image. What we see is one fragile planet making its way across the vastness of space.

There was something about that photograph that struck deep into the souls of many people about our place in the heavens, and a year later it appeared on a postage stamp (six cents at the time) with the caption “In the beginning God . . .” The photograph is also widely credited with galvanizing a movement to protect our planet. Over the course of the 1960s, people increasingly spoke of a Spaceship Earth, a notion eloquently voiced by United States ambassador Adlai Stevenson in a speech he gave to the United Nations in 1965. “We travel together, passengers on a little space ship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; all committed for our safety to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work, and, I will say, the love we give our fragile craft.” With the Earthrise photograph, suddenly Spaceship Earth was no longer a metaphor. It was there for all of us to see.

The 1960s and 1970s were times of such social upheaval that the environmental movement is often overlooked. But real action was happening. In 1962, Rachel Carson, a trained marine biologist, published one of the most important books in American history, Silent Spring. It focused on the dangers of synthetic pesticides like DDT, showing how these chemicals could insidiously enter an ecosystem and wreak unintended havoc on the health of a wide range of animals, including humans. The book hit like a thunderclap. The reaction from the chemical industry was fierce and unrelenting, but the public uproar was even more substantial.

The moral weight of Carson’s argument changed the equation for how we measured our actions; the health of the earth became part of the discussion. That book contributed to the rising pressure on government officials to act to protect our planet, and in 1970 we saw both the founding of the Environmental Protection Agency (signed into law by President Richard Nixon) and the first Earth Day (organized by Wisconsin’s Democratic senator Gaylord Nelson). The year also saw an important expansion of the Clean Air Act (first passed in 1963). The Clean Water Act would come in 1972. The environment was now an important national priority, and support for it was bipartisan.

For all the talk of Spaceship Earth and Earth Day, however, there was a belief at the time that environmentalism was a series of local battles. When it came to air and water pollution, we worried about the health of the smog over Los Angeles and the chemical runoff into the Hudson River. Over time, we saw environmental threats become more regional, with acid rain and the depletion of the ozone layer. It was hard to imagine, though, that we could harm the planet on a global scale. But all the while, ever since the start of the industrial revolution, an odorless and invisible pollutant was being pumped into our atmosphere with increasing volume — from our tailpipes, smokestacks, and the clear-cutting of forests. We now know that carbon dioxide and the resulting climate change is a threat of a magnitude unlike anything we have ever seen before. Those are the stakes we face today.

In the summer of 2007, I traveled 450 miles north of the Arctic Circle to the Canadian tundra to report on a development that was shocking for any student of history. For centuries, famed explorers had searched for a shipping route from Europe to Asia through the frigid north. It was dubbed the Northwest Passage, and it proved to be a deadly and illusory dream, as many ships and men went in to never return. So when my colleagues and I heard reports that melting sea ice was possibly unlocking the passage, we set about to document the dramatic climate change at the end of the earth. Some of my crew spent days aboard a Canadian Coast Guard research icebreaker, and I met them in the Inuit village of Arctic Bay, population about 700 hardy souls.

What both the scientists and the local inhabitants understood was that a world of ice was undergoing rapid and unpredictable change. I remember taking a walk along a rocky shoreline with an elderly Inuit woman, who pointed at the open water and explained how, even in the summer, it had once been largely ice. She talked of seal pelts that were not as thick because of the warmer water and her worries that her people’s way of life was in danger of being irrevocably lost. Meanwhile, on the research boat, scientists were rushing to understand how this changing climate was affecting marine life and whether they could find clues to the arctic environment of the past by dredging the bottom of the sea.

It is an awesome realization that Earth, which has always seemed boundless, is so susceptible to the negative byproducts of human activity. Perhaps that is what makes it difficult for some to accept climate change. As we walk through nature, it seems so robust and permanent. And for the vast majority of the history of our species, we did not have the power to destroy the planet.

But if you look back to the beginning of the environmental movement, you will see that it sprang from a dawning realization of how damaging humans could be. In the late nineteenth century, the mighty bison of the American West, estimated to once have numbered in the tens of millions, were slaughtered over just a few decades to the brink of extinction. Hunting parties would shoot indiscriminately from train windows as sport, leaving thousands of carcasses to rot in the sun. A seemingly limitless resource suddenly was on the verge of disappearing. By then, a growing spirit of naturalism was capturing the nation’s attention, personified by writers like Henry David Thoreau. And leading citizens in the United States, men with political power like Theodore Roosevelt, decided to act.

They formed conservation clubs that began to have an effect on the federal government. Yellowstone National Park, considered the first national park in the world, was founded in 1872. Yosemite was added in 1890. A movement had been born. But meanwhile, a very different revolution had begun half a world away. The first modern internal combustion engine was built in the 1870s, and in 1886 German engineer Karl Benz patented the first motorcar. Over the ensuing century and decades, as the environmental movement grew in its scope and importance, Earth was getting sicker.

None of this was known when I was growing up. The Texas economy of my youth was literally being fueled by oil, and there seemed to be nothing incompatible with black gold and the health of the wide world outside my door. Some of my earliest memories were of running through the wild meadow that bordered my neighborhood on the outskirts of Houston, looking at bugs, lizards, and, it being Texas, a lot of snakes. There was a creek a little farther out, and when I was young, my mother made it known to me that it was a boundary I dare not cross. Beyond the creek lay deep woods, and as I grew older, I was allowed to wander alone beneath the strong oaks and towering pines, turned loose in nature. In the midst of the woods was the Buffalo Bayou, and I learned how to swim in its languid waters. In truth, the bayou had already been polluted by the oil refineries and chemical plants around Houston. But we boys, frolicking in the water, didn’t know that. We were living out our fantasies of being latter-day Tom Sawyers and Huck Finns.

In that great meadow and the forest beyond, the world seemed exciting and alive. It was teeming with rabbits, squirrels, and the occasional coyote. There were birds in the skies and all those snakes on the ground. Most were harmless, but there were poisonous ones as well — rattlesnakes, water moccasins, coral snakes, and the spreading adder, what we called the “spreadin’ adder.” My mother worried about snakes, but she knew that they were part of the Lone Star way of life. You had to be alert, knowledgeable, careful, and a bit lucky — just like in life.

My father was the kind of hunter who believed that you shouldn’t hunt something you don’t know a lot about, and he instilled in me a deep respect for the natural world. As we walked together on warm summer evenings, his hunting rifle in hand, he would explain the life cycle of rabbits and that the best place to find squirrels was where the “hardwoods met the pine trees,” because squirrels liked the height of the pine trees and the nuts of the hardwoods. Whether this was provable from scientific study, or even whether someone has ever chosen to study such a thing, I do not know. But it was the kind of wisdom that came from a lifetime of observation, and nature tends to make all of us open our eyes and think.

My father also believed that you ate what you killed, and so my mother had a number of recipes that fit both rabbit and squirrel interchangeably. Sometimes we just ate the meat broiled with a side of sliced tomatoes or homemade pickles. Other times it was stewed. More often, it was fried. It might not sound like much, but it was pretty good. My father would also usually get a couple of deer during the hunting season, which was the legal limit. We would eat every bit that was edible, and that could take quite a while. Dad was terrific with a shotgun, so we spent many a time cleaning, then eating, ducks and quail.

In the nature around my house I learned life lessons — an overworked phrase, I grant you, but an apt one. When I was nine years old, my friends and I came across a giant softshell turtle in the Buffalo Bayou. It was the biggest one we had ever seen, and we spent the entire day tracking it. After many foiled attempts, we finally snared it, bound it up, and walked back the mile or so to my parents’ house. We filled a tub with water in the backyard and put it in. We felt like conquering heroes, but that only lasted until my father came home from work. When he saw what we had done, he was furious and explained to me how such behavior could harm a wild animal like this turtle. Even though it was after dark, he insisted that I carry the turtle back to where we’d found it. Now, this wasn’t the equivalent of a valiant effort to save an endangered species, but my father’s instinct was the same: Nature was not there for us to exploit or toy with. It is a lesson I have never forgotten.

Going into the forest with my dad was a backdrop to my young life. It was just what people did. I was expected to be able to identify the species of trees and to know how to avoid getting lost. Nature wasn’t something that you drove to, or planned on seeing, or for which you bought a fancy outdoor wardrobe. I worry that now it is an activity that must compete with soccer practices, homework, piano lessons, and all the other responsibilities that fill up the calendar of a family with children. All those are surely wonderful and rewarding, but so too is just letting your legs wander through the trees and meadows, and having your mind wander as well.

Today most of us encounter few animals and plants in our daily lives, and most of what we do see are either the ones we have domesticated or the vermin and weeds that can thrive in the cracks of modernity. Growing up I was enthralled by the night sky. But now most of us can see only a few faint stars at night, the ones bright enough to make it through the domes of light that enclose our metropolises. For all of human history, the night sky told stories, delineated time, and guided voyagers. Now 30 percent of the people on the planet can’t even see the Milky Way from their homes. And in the United States, 80 percent of us can’t.

We as a nation have done much to exploit the land, despoil it, and pollute it. From wildlife to wildfires, we have been shortsighted in our management. For too long the cost of doing business ignored the cost of that business to the environment. Still, we have been world leaders in conservation, preservation, and environmentalism. And that is what makes this moment in time so baffling and worrisome. Somehow the environment has become yet another point of contention between Democrats and Republicans. It is striking that those who live in urban centers and are more isolated from the natural world tend to vote for Democratic candidates who mostly favor stricter environmental regulations. Meanwhile, those in rural areas tend to vote for Republican candidates who more often advocate for laxer oversight of land, water, and pollution. I am not exactly sure how this came to be. Some of it likely has to do with the coarsening of dialogue between the two major parties on almost every issue, and ultimately the environment gets sorted along those binary lines as well. Research also suggests that those states whose economies are built on oil, gas, coal, and mining tend to be less likely to support environmental regulations, and understandably so. But whatever the cause, it is important to note that these political and social divides over the environment were not always this way.

It was an odd experience watching the heated debate as a cap and trade bill for carbon dioxide emissions and climate change made its way through Congress in 2009. The opposition from Republicans was fierce, with only a handful voting for final passage in the House of Representatives. Dozens of Democrats in conservative districts also voted against the bill. In the end, the legislation barely passed the House and was never even brought up in the Senate. And yet the very idea of cap and trade as a way to deal with environmental problems, where you set limits and allow polluters to trade in credits, had been the brainchild of Republicans. President Ronald Reagan had used cap and trade to phase out lead in gasoline, and President George H. W. Bush had used it to cut the pollutants causing acid rain.

When I sat down recently with George Shultz, who had served as secretary of state under President Reagan, he spoke with pride of the Republican legacy on the environment, stretching back to President Theodore Roosevelt. Secretary Shultz has become a vocal advocate for protecting the planet against climate change, and he reminded me that major environmental progress — from the founding of the EPA to tackling the ozone and acid rain problems, to strengthening clean water and air acts — had happened under Republican administrations.

Questions of the environment boil down to acts of leadership. Most people would say that they want clean air and water. The concerns that you hear about pitting economic growth against environmental protections are legitimate; we need a balanced approach. Our modern lives require that we mine, till, fish, generate electricity, and discard refuse. We will never return to some mythic state of environmental purity. Nor would we want to. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be wiser about how we use our limited resources and protect our planet. I believe that if there was leadership on this issue in both political parties, the American people would rally to action.

We humans seem to have a hard time measuring risk. We can see the dangers in the moment, but threats that stretch over the course of generations are hard for us to judge, let alone act to remedy. Climate change is just such a problem. Even though we already see very worrisome fluctuations in Earth’s functions — extreme weather, vanishing sea ice, rising temperatures, and rising oceans — the most dire effects will not strike with full force until well after I am gone. We can hide from the truth for now, but it will not last. In my interview with Secretary Shultz, he described climate change as a clear and present danger even if many of his fellow Republicans do not see it that way. I asked him how he felt about this state of affairs. He said those who deny climate change now will ultimately be “mugged by reality.” Mugged by reality. It is a strong phrase. The danger is that when the climate deniers are finally mugged, it will be, by definition, too late. Already we are seeing the glaciers melt in Greenland and massive ice sheets breaking off Antarctica.

Often I find myself thinking back to my boyhood out in the forests and meadows and how those experiences spurred in me a love of our natural world. One of the joys of my later life has been the summer days I spend in quiet contentment fishing in the upper Beaverkill River in the Catskill mountain range of western New York State. My eyes are mostly focused on the action in the stream, watching the currents and eddies, casting flies, looking for trout willing to bite. But I often glance up to contemplate the flora and fauna of the riverbank — particularly the birch trees that are rooted just on the edge of the water. They favor the embankments in many northern climes, and sometimes, as I take in the scene, an old African American spiritual comes to mind. I begin singing slowly, “Just like a tree planted by the water, I shall not be moved. I shall not be, I shall not be moved. . . .” The hymn may say I shall not be moved, but I often am, in that strange and mystical way engaging in nature often moves us.

There is an elegance to birches, tall and slender, with their distinctive white bark. I’ve always liked them because my long-departed mother loved them so. Born, raised, and buried on the semitropical Texas Gulf Coast, she never saw a live birch, only pictures in a book. Mother’s favorite tree, however, was the native magnolia, which flourishes all along the Texas Gulf Coast and adjacent piney woods. She loved their strength and the fragrance of their large white blossoms. That scent permeating and enveloping in the heavy humidity of Texas nights is among the fondest memories of my childhood. I smell it often, even when a magnolia is nowhere in sight.

I like to sit out there on the river for a long while, and take a deep breath and close my eyes. Nature doesn’t please only our sense of sight. I can hear the soothing sounds of running water and swaying leaves in the background. Nature has the power to inspire one’s mind and move one’s soul like great music or poetry. It can fill you with humility when you encounter the otherworldliness of the Grand Canyon. It can fill you with awe when you tilt your head back and try to tease out the top of a towering redwood. It can spark your imagination as you try to visualize a time when the entire continent was as wild as Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. And it can fill you with sadness when you see how much the glaciers in Glacier National Park are receding. What are we doing? What have we done?

I am an optimist by nature, and I believe we can find a will to save the planet. We have a strong and growing environmental sensibility in this country and around the world — especially among the young. But there are hurdles, not the least of which come from many of our elected officials. We have seen the undue influence of big money from the fossil fuel industry, along with their allies in government, actively undermine climate science. We have seen crises like what has taken place in Flint, Michigan, call into question our national commitment to equal access to clean water and air. To the countless generations yet to be born, what world will we leave for them? We have seen that we can make progress and repair damage to the environment. But now, when it is needed with an urgency we haven’t really seen before, we are blinking. How can we open our eyes once again to the notion of a fragile planet, our only home?

Apollo 8 was on its fourth pass around the moon when the commander, Frank Borman, initiated a scheduled roll of the spacecraft. On the audio recordings, you can hear William Anders, who was the lunar module’s pilot, react to a sight no human had ever seen before: “Oh my God! Look at that picture over there! There’s the earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty.” Anders called out to the third crew member, Jim Lovell, asking if he had color film. There was a scramble inside the spacecraft to get the picture taken before it was too late. They got their shot.

The astronauts were not looking for Earth when they went on their mission. The space historian Andrew Chaikin said Anders told him later, “We were trained to go to the moon. We were focused on the moon, observing the moon, studying the moon, and the earth was not really in our thoughts until it popped up above that horizon.” We need this vision of a unified and cohesive Earth to pop up once again over the horizon of our global complacency. We need to consider, with awe and humility, the future of our fragile home.

- Dan Rather

(Above is the "Environment" essay from my book What Unites Us)

[thewestmeetingroom]

The West Meeting Room: You Are Enough As You Are

Broadcast September 28, 2019

SPEAKERS Saba, Aisha, Ruvimbo, Tony, Chemi, Gen, Nermeen, Carly

Saba   Hello and welcome to The West Meeting Room, a new weekly show from the Hart House student podcasting team. Today we are broadcasting live from the CiUT Map Room Studios at Hart House. And we are grateful to live, work and study on Dish with One Spoon  Territory. I'm Saba and I'll be your host for today's episode. Today on The West Meeting Room we will be featuring one of a series of conversations we recorded over the summer centered around peer to peer wisdom exchange. U of T can often feel like a difficult and isolating space to navigate. So our podcasting team spent this past summer gathering conversations with students and recent graduates to find out how they cultivate self care in their lives. These students and recent grads invite us into their conversation about taking up space, building meaningful relationships and how to take care of yourself while navigating systems of oppression.

Aisha     My name is Aisha and something I'm proud of that I've started doing in particular, in my fourth year of study, which I just finished, is I'm living a more balanced life. I think my first three years in particular, I was taking - I was kind of in a go go go kind of mindset. Everything was focused on how can I dedicate the most time possible to my academics, to the extracurriculars, to all the research and the activities that will get me into grad school. And my priorities were very much centered there. But somehow, I don't quite know how I had a bit of a mental shift, where I realized that, you know, I may have had certain accomplishments on paper, but I wasn't feeling as fulfilled as I would have been had I been spending more time with family and friends and on my spirituality, and kind of living in the moment a bit more. So I'm proud that I think I've achieved a more balanced lifestyle without necessarily giving up what I was doing before. So my life just feels more holistic right now. Okay,

Ruvimbo My name is Ruvimbo. And something I'm proud of is just being more self aware and more self conscious. Reading this book, very popular best selling book called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I highly recommend it. I'm reading it with my workmates and as a team and we're all just going through it chapter by chapter. Aach one of us taking a chapter and kind of breaking it down, dissecting it and seeing how it could be best applicable to our lives. And so by reading that book, I think I'm becoming more sensitive on myself. Like me as a person, but then how that's impacting my relationships with other people. And so I'm really proud of the fact that I'm able to kind of take ownership of myself, my flaws, my faults, and all the good things, good things and bad things that come with me. And just working on being a better person for myself and for others. Yeah.

Gen     So, um, I kind of don't want to answer this question, because it's kind of hard to find something I'm proud of. Because in past months, I've done a lot of, or not something that I've done is, I did not achieve a lot of things I should be proud of. But I think the one thing that I'm proud of this month is that I got my willpower back, which is very, very difficult I realized. I didn't know until I lost it and I mean, they're just days I just want to wander around at home doing nothing. But I, I believe that my personality is driven by willpower. And without it, I felt like dead. I mean, some people, they're really relaxed because they like that kind of, you know, environment. But for me, I always thought, oh, there must be a reason, there must be a purpose. And once I lost that purpose, I can't do what I do. So I'm, I'm proud that I changed that perspective. There's so much more to just, you know, aiming for one purpose, so I'm proud of that.

Chemi     We’re glad you're here too.

Tony Thank you for sharing. Hi, everyone. My name is Tony. And something I am proud of is I've been thinking a lot about tenderness. And I've been reading this book called On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong. And there's this line he writes, where he says, “sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you've been ruined.” And this line for me, hit me so deeply. And I've been thinking a lot about how I seek tenderness in a lot of ways, and how that relates to a lot of things that I've been working on and healing from. And how, for me, it's just like thinking about how I also felt like I needed to believe that I deserve tenderness and also that I can show myself that tenderness rather than seeking it from other people. While I always appreciate it from people that I love. I think right now, it's like, the ways that I can show up for myself and be tender with myself. And doing that is like, can be really hard work. And so I'm proud of myself for coming to that and also just like being a work in progress. So yeah.

Chemi Alright, tashi delek everyone. Hello, my name is Chemi and very grateful to be sharing this land here. I know that it belongs to the original stewards, the Indigenous communities, the First Nation, Métis and Inuit folks. So grateful in any space that I take up because I come from stolen land myself. So the dynamic is always very interesting. And something that I'm proud of, you know, it's always hard question for me as well. And I would say overall, my identity, who I am as a whole, specifically my rich Tibetan Buddhist traditions. So that's something I'm very proud of, although it is something that I had the privilege of inheriting at birth. That is where I find my strength and keeps me going every single day. And yeah, I think the concept of my people is very interesting because it reminds me the teachings of impermanence, that it's forever changing. Right. And that was, for me, that sort of experience came along when I came to university because for me, my people had always been my community, my Tibetan community. And I'm a community organizer and an activist in that sort of space. And, you know, had experiences organizing rallies for over 2000 people and stuff like that coming into university. But when I came to university, my people became just the athletic society where I played sports. I played competitive sports, tri-campus and things like that. And that was sort of my people. And then I would come and take neuroscience and biochemistry the first few years. So I was like, Okay, I didn't belong here. But this is sort of my clique. But then moving forward in our third year and fourth year, I realized that many of the sort of challenges and issues that my community faces, specifically the youth, when it comes to, you know, being an immigrant family, being most oftentimes the first generation to access higher education, coming from low income families, gentrification happening in their communities. All of these sort of challenges and issues that my community was facing and I was trying to address was the same thing in Scarborough. And I realized, oh wow, there's a whole lot of other communities. They're all just like me or they're all just like my siblings that need that help. And then I thought to myself that maybe this is my chance to go beyond my own community and rejig what I mean by “my people”, because oftentimes, people are brought together through similar sort of experiences of pain and suffering. So in that sort of space, I realized that wow, like, if I can be useful here, why am I exhausting myself in only one community when I could be helping my other Tamil brother or my Tamil sister or Tamil either or, right. And so yeah, I started there. And then I started getting involved and I realized that the work was really just the same and hence why now I’m much more involved on campus along with my community.

Ruvimbo     Thank you, Chemi. It was really interesting how you mentioned how you wanted to go beyond your particular community. And you were seeing similarities in other communities that may be not necessarily where you were from, where you're rooted in, but you saw a need there to support those same things. And I was just wondering if we could maybe, if everyone's comfortable, we could go into that discussion.

Aisha   That question I find really, really interesting, because when I was listening to the question and thinking of community, I was thinking of community in terms of maybe kind of the ethnic sense or the national sense or the cultural sense because of your, Chemi's, earlier answer. And my experience on campus was very much not having found that kind of community at all throughout my entire four years here. And so when I, when I think of kind of supporting my community and the issues that I've personally find very important as like kind of a Muslim Canadian, as a hijab wearing woman, the issues that are important to my community are things that I've had to kind of bring up independently. And it's been very, it would have been very difficult within the spaces that I inhabited on this campus to find other people who maybe had similar perspectives. If I'm thinking, particularly if I'm taking the example of like Islamophobia, for example, I think in my first year in residence within my college, I was the only person there who were a hijab. And to my knowledge, I was the only Muslim woman in the residence or that I was interacting with on a daily. I'm sure there were others who probably didn't want to bring it up. So it was less an experience of finding community in other kind of related groups and more of trying to share pieces of my community with other communities. So one thing that I found really useful was talking about my own experiences and kind of personalizing Muslims to people that maybe you hadn't interacted with them before. Or writing in the college's magazine and kinda drawing people into my community. Like putting Henna on them, letting them try on my Pakistani clothes, and things like that.

Ruvimbo Thank you for sharing that.

Tony   Thank you for sharing that Aisha. I think there's a lot of things that you mentioned that really resonated for me. I think it's tricky navigating academic institutions where I think oftentimes there can be a sense of loneliness, when there isn't kind of that access to a community. And I and I do, I really appreciate that you talked about kind of sharing those pieces of your community to communities. Also recognizing it's a lot of work and it's a lot of labor. It's a lot of, not just like physical or like emotional labor that sometimes is expected. And I wish sometimes that there was kind of this more mutuality of like, folks also doing the work and getting to like, you know, any forms of like, discrimination. It's like it's something that is wrong but oftentimes gets normalized in very subtle ways. And I think that's part of like, where allyship for me is a little bit - there can be a lot of tensions just because there's a lot of ways that folks may claim to be allies but it can be very performative. And I think what I mean by that is like without kind of that mutualness of like working, making the effort to like really dismantling the very things that make people feel lonely in the first place with like - because I think like communities can also consist of, you know, folks of different backgrounds for sure. But there needs to be like, I don't know, this idea of mutualness, I think it's really, really important. And I'd be, and I would love to hear kind of like other folks like, thoughts and ideas kind of around I guess a couple of things - whether it's like -  I know for me, it's like navigating kind of that sense of loneliness. When, you know, that sense of community isn't always obvious and also like, what it means to have other people also show up for you while you're trying to shop for yourself. So now there's like a couple things that I'd be interested in hearing more about.

Ruvimbo   So a piece of advice that, I've actually recently heard this and I've been trying to practice it, is to focus on your circle of influence and not your circle of concern. And just to briefly kind of explain what that means is that there's so many things happening in this world around us in our lives that we're concerned about. But there's not many things you can change. So to focus on your circle of influence is to focus essentially on yourself. Because you're the only thing that you can change. And by focusing on yourself, you can then influence other things around you to change. And so that's something I've been trying to do. I carry my own weather within myself and then not letting outward things affect me. And by doing that I'll be able to have a more positive influence on those things.

Gen     Sorry, I just, I just thought of like a star trek quote for it. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be all nerdy. It's just some - it's kind of difficult isn't it though? Because some people might think the needs of the many outweigh the needs of you. And every time when you try to put yourself ahead of everything people might find you, you know, like, selfish? Or, I mean, I think it's very important to self care and I have been having trouble because I'm always afraid of what other people think of me. So, what makes you, you know, go for that?

Ruvimbo   So it's not so much as being like selfish in the sense of just focus on you. It's you. I can't change you, but I can change me. Right? So rather than, Yeah, it's rather than “it's all about me and I don't care what's happening outwardly” it's, I” can always change those things because they're not me.” The only person I can change confidently is me. So I think that's why I've been going for that often because if someone is upset, having a bad day, I can't make them not have a bad day because if they're having a bad day, that's them. But I can change how I approach them with regards to the day that they're having and not let it then affect me to the point where now both of us are having a bad day.

Tony   I think my – the wisdoms that I’ve received has been, kind of related. I think it's believing in the positive intent of human beings. This idea that it's okay to make mistakes, as long as there is a willingness to be accountable and also like a willingness to repair the harm. And I think a lot about this because I think sometimes making mistakes is part of learning, but also understanding the impact that sometimes our mistakes can have. And that it is really important that when we're able to like to really repair the harm, and it's not necessarily like our self worth, that's on trial when someone tells us like, “Oh, actually, this thing that you did was not okay.” And then just like to learn from that and I think the positive intent comes from, like knowing that we can change and you know, that we don't repeat the same mistakes in the future.  

Chemi Yeah just jumping on that. I think the truth of suffering is that everyone suffers. And then when you acknowledge that you get to see the human side of the other person. And then other pieces of sort of wisdom is that you're not alone. I think a lot of people need to hear that. And when you know that, you know a lot of people are subjected to suffering - not a lot - everyone is subjected to suffering in one way or the other. I think you realize that you're actually not alone. And then the last is that you are your own savior. I think that's something that has really helped a lot when I was growing up, and because of the sort of things that came in order that you know, suffering is part of life and you're not alone allows you to be the bigger person and then actually strive for wisdom and the eradication of ignorance.

Aisha   So one ritual that I started this summer is just carrying a journal with me everywhere. So every single time I think of something that I think is wise or I learned a lesson or I reflect on a day or a conversation that's been particularly impactful, I just write it down. And I find that writing it into permanence and as something that I can look over later, has meant that those lessons are things that I'm carrying with me in the days ahead. And I like to think that it's helping me improve as a person and just generally how I'm going through my life.

Gen Definitely, the commitment that you’re actually putting it on paper really changes like oh you’re storing it up in your brain and you might remember it later, but then I guess drawing it out or writing it out really, really means that you respect that memory.

Aisha Right.

Gen That's beautiful.

Chemi   Being intentional with your mornings, or just being intentional in general. So today, I'm going to smile at one person, or - you'd be you'd be surprised how often days go by without you realizing how much you've actually done things intentionally,right? So intentional mornings are great because knowing what you're going to do, accomplish today. I'm going to, before the day ends I'm going to, I don't know, buy a coffee for somebody- whatever it is. And then the other is when you're going to sleep, things that you're grateful for. So having a grateful list is always helpful.

Tony     I love that, by the way. Being intentional. That's not something I thought of before. And I think for me, kind of similar to what you're both saying around like reflection, I started scrapbooking. Which started off as being like a joke that like I may get married one day and I have to give something to my wedding planner. Something that's like - I've been reading Bell Hooks All About Love and thinking about like, oh, romantic love shouldn't be at the top of the hierarchy. Like that's ridiculous. Like there's so many different forms of love. And so my scrapbook is about my friends and my family who like give me the most beautiful cards and then I just like scrapbook them and then we take photos I put in there and it's a really good reminder for me that there's so many ways to feel love and then, and I'm being taught how to be loving just through like all these different ways that love is showing up in my life. So yeah, scrapbooking. And as a way to you know just like redefine love has been really good for me

Gen I was actually going to comment on your habits. I'm not saying they're similar, but I think that we're actually making an effort to move away from the digital world. Like we're doing like physical things. We're trying to interact with real people trying to interact with nature and I feel like we're moving towards an age where these things can be replaced by I don't know taking a picture and posting it on Instagram or something like that. And I don't know what kids do these days, but I feel like a lot of people don't do physical things for personal reasons anymore because, simply because they can't share it. Like it's, not like you're recording where you're going and then you post it online, or you're not really scanning every page of your scrapbook and post it online. I mean, you might share it on your wedding day, but yeah. It's beautiful. So, um, I find it, I really appreciate that we're always trying to move away from being replaced by these robots or artificial intelligence and we're doing it for ourselves. So you're doing things for yourself and other people. Yeah.

Tony   Thanks for sharing that. I think it's a really, you bring up a very like complicated, like, some complicated relationships that I definitely feel around like, the way that we navigate like technology, social media, and also feeling validation and like intimacy and it's really tricky. And it's like, and not to say that folks who post on social media is like, you know, an issue - it's just thinking about being more critical about our relationship to that. And, and like, sometimes I know, I just like, put them together. But sometimes I need to work in like just handling them apart. And that requires work. Yeah, it's it's complicated. It's Yeah. So thanks for bringing up those nuances.

Nermeen   So mine is kind of something that I started in the summer as well. But I've just been making myself be outdoors every single day. Because I feel like when you're busy especially, it can be a tendency to just be going from place to place and coming back and forth. But I tried to give myself like, half an hour to an hour where I will go outside like while it's still light and do like -you're just going to sit, you can do what you want. Like, I won't go on my phone though. I’ll like either read, like journal or something like that. But I just try to do that to just be in nature a little bit. And I think, I don't know, like it's - I feel like it's helping my mental health a lot just because it gives you that moment where you decompress, and you can just like process things. And I really like that.

Aisha So one lesson that I've been trying to carry forward with new relationships I’m forming or as I'm getting closer to other people, is setting those boundaries proactively either with your words or with your behavior. So that I'm always keeping my own well being in mind, even when I do want to support others.

Ruvimbo That's great. That's good. I think that's important. And having those boundaries set up, up front, like you're saying, is so important because - and I see this quote often - you allow, you, I guess the essence of it is you are giving people permission to treat you a certain way. So if you have boundaries from the beginning, they know this is acceptable. This is unacceptable. This is, I can't cross this line because the other person just cannot handle this. I think that's very important. But as you were talking, one thing I was thinking about as well is understanding the way that you yourself give and receive love. So I've never actually read the book, The Five Love Languages, but I've done like the quiz and read a little bit about it. And I think it's been super helpful because then you can even communicate with people - and again, this goes for all relationships, not necessarily just romantic. Just to say, hey, this is how I receive love. Secause we are more inclined to give love in the way that we want to receive it. So if you are someone who values quality time, and I realized that that's me, my priority is to spend time with people and to be there like physically. Like let’s have this time together. But someone else might value words of affirmation, and the quality time may not necessarily even be top of their list. So me being there for them but not saying anything that's affirming to them isn't really doing much for them. So, and I think that comes with knowing yourself too and assessing yourself and realizing what do I do? How do I want to be loved? And inversely How then can I understand other people's love languages and how they receive love? So I think all of it yeah, it goes to loving yourself, as you were saying earlier, Tony, and just self love is important. And I think if you don't have enough self love for yourself, it's really difficult to then be able to give back to anyone else because you are depleted. You're working from a very empty source. So yourself should be the first kind of basis upon which you're working. And then you have more resources to give, more love to give out to others.

Nermeen   Like what you're saying about setting boundaries with people, I find myself often in the same position of being someone who cares a lot. And I think with love languages as well, like I know mine is acts of service. So if I, if there's something that I can do for people, like I will always do it, even if it means like, I'm not going to sleep. I'm not going to like, be able to finish my own work or whatever. Like I will always try to support people. But I find that that leads to me feeling drained and feeling depleted sometimes. And so I was just wondering if, in general with your own experiences of like setting boundaries if you have any tips or like, anything that you do, or like for yourself or even with other people like what would you say or do to set those boundaries?

Aisha   Sure, I'll jump in, just because this is definitely fresh on my mind. One thing that I found myself doing more and more during my degree was I'm a scheduler, so I like to schedule my days. And if I see myself, it applies to not only self care, but every, all my commitments in my life and I consider a commitment to self care to be one of my commitments. When it comes to academic commitments. If I'm stressed about a certain class, I'm putting a two or three hour block of time in my schedule for the next week to study for that class. Or if I'm feeling drained, where I have in my schedule, like go for a walk with my friend, I'll extend that from one hour to two hours, and just kind of think ahead. But in terms of communicating it, to answer the second part of your question, I found that it's a lot scarier to think about than it is to actually do if someone is genuinely friends with you and you tell them, Hey, I'm feeling really drained. I think tomorrow I'm going to take a self care day. I'm going to go to Harbourfront, get a beaver tail, and I'll see you like on Monday. They're going to, if they're a person who does care about you as much as they probably should, they'll be supportive of that.

Tony   Yeah, I want to say, thank you for sharing those insights. Especially like, I like boundary setting as a way to show that, (what I've been reminded), I care about the relationship and also caring for ourselves, too. So I really like the things that you brought up. Yeah, you know, just opening it up.

Gen   But it's difficult to set boundaries, because Are you saying we're too close? Or I mean, I, I just think I would definitely feel that way. If I were them. I'll be like, Hey, are you saying we hang out too much? Or are you saying that our relationship has gone to the deep end, like in a negative way? So how do you acknowledge or how do you clarify these boundaries with them?

Chemi   Miscommunication is so undervalued I think, in any sense. There is no such thing as perfect communication. Because the moment, like even this moment right now that we're sharing, very grateful for it, first of all, is that whatever words are coming out of my mouth, you folks will interpret it in a different way. Right? Because you will understand it based on your understanding, your experiences from different parts of the world, and all the things that had to come together for you to be here today. Right? So acknowledging that in the first place, like really helps because you know that there's miscommunication in every single place, right? So it's bound to happen, whatever you're like sharing right now is being miscommunicated or misinterpreted in many ways, right? And understanding the nuances of it. So if it's a friend who knows you for a really long time, it is expected that they know, they share many memories with you or they share some experiences so they better understand that you, but, again, better understand you to some degree. But never necessarily the same way that you want it to be. Right. So just understanding that takes one whole like weight off the shoulder because you're like, like, you know - they're not actually receiving everything I'm giving them already in terms of information. And then the other thing is doing, like practicing what you preach basically. What do you need? And actually starting to practice that with your friends. I've seen a quote where it says, before I ran to my friend, for the first time a friend asked me, “wait, like, are you mentally and emotionally sort of able to take on the rant right now?” Just checking in. Like, quick check ins always helps. Right? And that really helps because I do that with my friends. Or I'm just like, I'm ready to burst because politics is politics. And I come into a room just like “hey, like, Wait,  are you ready?” And then they just like, yeah, and then, right? But then there are some days where they’re just like, Nah, I'm actually tired. And I'm like, Okay. And then I'm, all of a sudden, I realized that even I, my rant, just kind of calms down. And it's like a conversation for later that I save. If not, if I really need to rant then I call somebody else. And right, like, it can be done. And then I feel like the next time my friends feel the need to rant and I'm like, drained, these questions are like organically coming where they're like trying to ask me whether or not Chemi like, are you okay? And I'm like, Oh, it worked. On the inside. But on the outside I'm just like, yeah, I'm ready.

Ruvimbo I like that you do that with your friends. And I think it builds like the system that you've built based on honesty as well. Like, if you're not ready, and they say, I'm not ready, you respect that and that allows them to be able to do the same thing for you. And I think that's the essence of it. Just you have to be honest. If you teeter around, like, you know, this is okay some days, whatever and you're not really communicating it, it's easy again, for that miscommunication to come about. I mean, it's always going to be there, like you were saying to me, but I think it's more apparent if you yourself are not confident in what you're saying. And saying, like No right now. I honestly emotionally cannot take this on. And I'm not saying that what you have to say is invalid. I just don't think I'll even be able to support you if you tell me, and I don't think you want that either. For me to be half hearted. You’d be like Yeah, okay. Oh, wow. So bad.100% Listen. And I think people appreciate that. We underestimate how much people do appreciate honesty, right? And just want you to be authentic and tell them what's up. And it may be hard. I think in the beginning, you might not always get that response. But I think like Chemi was saying that if they're really your friends they should be able to understand where you're coming from and to know that you're coming from a good place and it's not every day that you're saying I'm not ready, and I think that's there's something valuable in that.

Chemi   Yeah. And start doing it yourself. I like if you do it, then your friends will start to do that to you. Right, like you can be the sort of the stone that goes in the water and has ripple effects and it comes back. The karma does come back. Something that I've been thinking about lately is ambiguous complacency. Or being complicit, but there's a lot of ambiguity around it. Because there's always like, I've always been sort of clear cut with wherever I say because I do a lot of thinking inside, where I'm just like, no, this isn't right - like a lot of analysis type of thing. Or like fighting with myself. So with that, I've always been like, Okay, if you're not part of the solution you are always part of the problem. And so like I’m always about like, social justice terms and have grown up in a space like that, because every Tibetan that is born after 1959, which is when we lost freedom is an activist, is what we say in our community. So, but this whole concept of ambiguous complacency has come along a lot along a lot these days. Because, you know, you could be in solidarity with certain communities, but you not speaking up in so many spaces is very violent, right? That violence that has the impact it has, like, as leaders and community, are we ready to take the blame? Or like own up to it? Like in certain spaces. But then in some spaces like you have to find the boundary of again? Like, am I emotionally able to take on that labor to educate this person when I really cannot do it? Yeah, was more like around a bit, they just kind of -y'all can jump in and share, please or give me tips because I'm like in that space right now.

Tony   Thanks for that question. I think it's a really, it's a really hard one. But it's also a very important question to ask given the political climate that we're in. Um, I think in a lot of ways, like navigating complacency and like, also like in the context of what it means to negotiate when you're in, caught like in these different relationships of power and balances and negotiating personal safety, but also like what your values are? It's an ongoing question without necessarily answers to. Yeah, it's, but it's bringing up a lot of things. And I think, how do we unpack that? Not even just a complacency, but also the ambiguity around it is kind of what I'm still trying to process.

Nermeen   Um, I think that this is something that like, I do think about often as well. And I think that um, I think it's kind of interesting that it's oftentimes people who are already involved in activism who feel like a greater sense of responsibility. And I think being kinder to ourselves is like really important, because otherwise, I do feel like burnout is real, and like feeling like you can't solve - well, like you want to solve as many problems as you can, but also knowing that that's like physically impossible, and there's so many things in the world that like, even if you were working on like causes that you care about 24/7, there would still be 100 things that you were like, I haven't even addressed this or like done that. And I think that, like, I've definitely experienced having that kind of feeling of being like, even if I'm applying a certain amount of my time and something that I care about, like I - it's not really making an impact, or like thinking that like I can, you know, like, just to give the example of climate change - you can be like, okay, I'll stop eating meat and like, switch to metal straws or whatever. And at the same time, like knowing that there's like, I think there's like 100 companies that are responsible for like 70% of carbon emissions. So like, knowing that statistic, you're like, nothing that I do is ever going to make an impact. At the same time, I do think that it's like acknowledging that no matter what work you do, it has value and that it's making the world a better place even in a small way. And like, allowing that, like the smallness of the action to be big, I think is really helpful. And so I think like it's something that I'm trying to practice more with myself, as well as just being kinder and like, okay, I'm not perfect. I'm not like the perfect activist or like the perfect leader, but at the same time that like, as long as I feel like I'm better today than I was yesterday, I think that's all that matters, like in the long run, because it's all that you can control. Yeah, I don't know if that helps.

Ruvimbo But also to feel like you don't have to. It can be exhausting honestly, to try and explain and educate over and over and over again why people should be caring about certain things. And honestly, I think I got to that place as well. Where I was like Why on earth do I have to keep telling you this? Google it! Dang. It's not like this is stuff that you can’t find if you just didn't, if you literally typed in something on Google. But yeah, I don't think, first of all, you can't solve all of the world's problems. Just by yourself. But as a person, you can make a step towards helping. And I think that's what I've had to consciously tell myself. So just for context, I work in international development, and particularly on the African continent and because that's my background and my kind of positionality, that's a community that I was familiar with and grew up in. But, you know, some of the questions that come my way, or some of the things that people say, especially in this political climate, where the President of a whole country is quoting countries like mine, I won't repeat it because it was a very unkind to say, but - and then having to go around just, you know, just like dispelling all of that and trying to break down all of those things. It's it's emotionally exhausting and just can be traumatizing at times. Because it's like, Why don't you get it? Why don't you get that like, I'm just trying to live? People like me. I just want to live. People in places like mine are just trying to live and why do I have to constantly tell you and validate my, my living my life?

Gen Or prove yourself.

Ruvimbo Exactly, exactly. And it's not fair. I think it's hard because you feel like as an activist and social justice champion, that you should be the one that's telling everyone. If you miss a beat, you failed. But you haven't failed, you haven't. All of the efforts and everything you're doing is valuable, is worthwhile. And don't discount it at all on a comment or the two or three times where you just didn't have the strength to say anything. Because, again, you are not responsible for someone else learning something that they could have easily gone somewhere else to learn. So don't put that kind of pressure on yourself and don't feel like you should be the one solving everything because, yeah, again, it's impossible but you're doing enough and acknowledge you're doing enough. Believe in yourself.

Tony   I oftentimes feel like an imposter when I'm like the only, not just the only like personal color in my class but also like the only queer person of color in that in a class and I feel like an imposter because I forget about how imposter phenomenon is very like symptomatic of like the different systemic issues. I'm like, Oh yeah, academic institutions are built on capitalism, white supremacy, colonization. Calling it all out here. And you know, but, but it's important because I like again, like I think imposter phenomenon, again, is very situated in the individual level. And I think sometimes that can be very like, we blame ourselves but I'm like, I don't know. I think there's like other larger societal structural forces that make certain - not to say that no way like only certain people feel like imposter phenomenon - I, from my experiences I know, like, there's particular, you know, folks in the community that it's very consistent and that feeling kind of like failure and not belonging. And I think that's not like a coincidence. So, yeah, anyways.

Aisha   I think I echo that. So a lot of the time if I'm the only person of color in a space, and I do, since I did kind of grow up in those spaces, it is something that sometimes I'll be used to it. But whenever a mindless comment is made, that kind of triggers a memory and then I'll take a scan of the room and be like, Ah, that's why I'm feeling off. Like, I see. I see. Now I remember.

Gen I think identity, like what do you look like and what you act like is, often there's like a discrepancy between the two and you feel like an imposter. I feel like, I feel like my whole life is being like an imposter, basically, because I grew up in one city and then I was born in another, but I spent equal amount of time. And, and it's I didn't know how it's happened. But it is possible. Because I'm 22, I’ve been 11 years in one city and there has been 11 years in Toronto. And in a way I feel like I am making up false memories just to fit in. And in a way I'm enjoying it myself. And that is why it is a positive problem, because I do remember back in high school people were bringing up there's this power outage in Toronto back in 2003. But I wasn't even here. I'd never even heard of this city back in 2003. But I kind of lied and went along. I was like, Yeah, I remember, I was there. My house flooded, blah, blah. But in a, in a terrible way that I'm enjoying because I felt like it meant I'm in espionage and I don't know if you guys have the same feeling when you're hiding yourself because there's some sort of mystery within you that you felt that you can pretend to belong.

Tony   It's really vulnerable to share that. And I think it's, it's absolutely relatable and not to take away from the experience. Yeah, I felt that when, when I was little I would lie about, like just growing up low income. Like I would always lie about what my parents did. Yeah, it was like a sense of shame, but also that desire to want to belong, right. And so, thanks for Yeah,

Gen And the worst part is that you start to enjoy it, right? You're not like, Oh, I'm so alone, but you start to be like, Oh, I fooled these people. I can actually put up a facade.

Tony   I don’t think there's anything wrong with that, you know. Part of creating those fantasies, there's a reason for that. I think it helps us to like, cope or to feel it, to feel something that we don't necessarily need to justify. So, thanks for sharing.

Ruvimbo I think I felt imposter, the imposter phenomenon in academia actually. And particularly when I was in academia at this institution, again, I was one of, I was the only person of color in a lot of my classes. And so I felt like I didn't really belong there. And that maybe they had made a mistake when they sent me my acceptance letter. So I spent my entire masters year just kind of feeling like, wow, when will I mess up? When is the ball going to drop? And when are they going to find out that this is the worst decision they ever made? And then there was one particular class that actually kind of drove home the point because I was sitting in there and I just didn't, I never understood what was going on. And I would look at everyone giving their contributions and be like, well, I, this confirms it. I was never meant to be here in the first place. And so yeah, and so I think now I've had some, I really want to go and do my PhD, but I'm hesitant about it because I'm concerned that I might not be able to, to live that facade for five years of my life and feel like an imposter the entire time. So that's a little bit about where I felt it.

Nermeen   So I'm Pakistani, but I have never lived there. And so I feel like a really strong sense of imposter syndrome whenever I either go to visit Pakistan where my family lives, or if I'm interacting with people who are Pakistani, and who have like, grown up there. Because there's always this thing of like, Oh, yeah, like you're, you're Pakistani, but you're not funny enough. Like you, you can speak the language, but you can't speak it properly. And I like, I won't get references or things like that. And like, and yeah, because I grew up in the Middle East. And so even over there, like my, a lot of the kids were from South Asian backgrounds, but their parents like either lived in like the US or the UK. And so they would, they would often say like, Oh, yeah, we're not like Brown or we're not Pakistani or Indian. We're British or American. And so I used to kind of like, I would say, as well, I was like, Oh, yeah, I'm Canadian. Because I lived here for three years. I'm not from Pakistan. And so I think like having that weird relationship to my own identity. It is still something that affects me now, even though I've tried to improve the way that I think about my culture and like where I come from, and like my ancestry, it's still something that is, I don't know, it's just weird to me.

Gen Do you find that imposter status is amplified by how they treat you? Like, do they put you on a pedestal and be like, you don't belong?

Nermeen Definitely. I think it depends on the context and the people that I'm interacting with. There's times that I will hundred percent feel that way or people will make a comment, like, oh, it doesn't count like what you say because like, you don't really get it or like you're not really Brown, like you're not brown enough. And I find that like to be quite frustrating, but like, what I do think is that I think the narrative is changing, or a lot more people who come from these kind of like third culture backgrounds, where their like, their parents are from somewhere and they have grown up in a very different culture. Like they're getting to, like have more narratives, and they're in movies and things like that. And so like, I feel like I find myself reflected more there. So that helps me, yeah.

Chemi   Similar feelings. Very existence for me, I think is always resistance. Never seen home. I've never been to Tibet. My parents haven't been. So there is like three different generations of just like moving around different countries. Very interesting. Ahen I was 22, last year actually, before this March, I spent half my life in South India, and half my life in Toronto. Yeah, so when you're saying I was just like, yo ringing bells. Same thing, same thing. Oh, yeah, I remember that every - I wasn't there. But yeah, I remember it. I went to that school too, but I didn’t. I think a lot of that comes from like a lot of internalized pain for everyone. And so when you do see that from someone else, doing you know the same thing, faking it til they make it, I think sharing that pain and knowing, letting them know that you know, it's a safe space for them to not feel like they're an imposter. And then, something that has helped me is self deprecation humor. So, of course with confidence. Now, I'm not saying you beat yourself up in certain spaces, but acknowledging that you are like a whitewashed Tibetan, in Tibetan spaces where people have lived their whole life, you know, with the disadvantages of society. Whereas I was privileged enough to get an education in the West, right. So when I'm there, I'm like, Yeah, I don't get that reference. You know, I'm the white washed person, but teach me about it. Tell me about it. Right. And because of that, I've been able to immerse myself in certain spaces where I'm like, wow, these people don't cut me out. They’re like yo come through. And you know that this is all, like I'm seeing the results or the benefits, reaping the benefits of that sort of understanding in the past few years. So now I'm starting to see it like, inclusion everywhere. And I'm like, not scared to wear Indian clothes when I'm outside. Because I was born there, and I like to rep the culture. But I also know my place. It's not my place to be in, you know, places where Indian folks are leading and organizing. And that that's when I take a step back and make sure I'm an ally and a meaningful ally. Yeah, so definitely helps when you ask those questions and do like a little bit of humor here and there. Just understanding yourself.

Carly   So what what's a kindness you would say to a young self?

Aisha   Just to keep it short and sweet is that you are enough as you are.

Tony   Okay. What I would say to my younger self, is something that a friend that I love once told me -  is that this will feel, it will make old wounds feel loved and lovable again, and it's just that idea of like, knowing that, I think, you know, being my younger self, figuring out my queerness and what it means to be racialized. I think there were a lot of things that I was taught not to love about myself, and that I carried with me and that carried a lot of pain. But knowing that actually, you'll know what love is when you, when it's either that person, that place or a thing makes you feel like all those things that you can love about yourself are in fact lovable. And I think that is something that is very healing and powerful. Just knowing that, yeah, love is being able to know that all the parts that you were taught, weren't lovable are in fact lovable. So yeah.

Ruvimbo   I think I would tell my younger self You are sunshine. And you are, something my best friend said to me, and I had to look at it, You're graceful and spicy. You can exist together.

Aisha     I love it.

Nermeen   I think mine that I would tell my younger self would be, what's meant for you will never miss you and what's not meant for you, and no matter how hard you try to hold on to it or grab onto it, is never going to be yours. And I think that that like applies for me personally to like a lot of relationships. Places that I've lived or wanted to stay, just changes that have happened and like economic, like making peace with the changes would have I think saved me a lot of heartache.

Chemi   Identity is fluid. I there's two parts to it, one that you form, the one that others will label you as. But you are what you make out of it.

Gen I'll just say that the end is not, well the end is the beginning. That's what I'll say to my younger self. Because I had this whole philosophy wrong because I thought the end isjust, you know, the end, but apparently, it opens other opportunities. I just have to be the one to grab them and actually get back up. Cuz there's no definitive ends. But if you don't work on them, then yeah, goodbye. Like, I mean, I'm not saying people won't help but you need to let them help you. Instead of closing it off and just yeah being alone. So the end is just the beginning.

Chemi   And you are up. You’re here today. And the other thing I wanted to say was to you (Ruvimbo). You can do your PhD. Please like why would you ever question? You’re a smart Black like spicy individual. You just said that earlier. And if you feel like that space isn’t in there, I know that there are those spaces that are there specifically for, you know, strong black women that are out there. Who are like in my spaces that would love to, like, connect with you to just be like, you go mama. Like you do what you gotta do, like - and you are there, right? There's - you'd be surprised how many people in this world outside of this space don't actually question themselves as much as we do. Right. And many of the filters and questions that we have for ourselves is we think it's just us in our bubble, but it's not. It's very systemic. And it comes from this sort of world that we live in, right. So that's why I like, I really appreciate the space and thank you all for you know, sharing the space with me.

Ruvimbo Thank you for the encouragement and the wonderful discussion.

Gen Thanks for this platform.

Aisha   Thanks so much. This was really lovely

Saba     Thank you to Aisha, Chemi and Gen for sharing their time and insights with us. And thanks to Tony, Nermeen and Ruvimbo for creating the safe space for this meaningful conversation. And special thanks to Carly Stasko, Braeden Doane, and Day Milman for their help in producing today's episode. These conversations were recorded as part of the Peer Wisdom Talking Walls exhibit. The West Meeting Room is a production of Hart House Stories. Our music was produced by Dan Driscoll. To find out more about our team and the Talking Walls exhibit, please visit harthouse.ca and be sure to follow us on Instagram @harthousestories. I'm Saba-Sadat signing off as your host for our first broadcast of the West Meeting Room. Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you next week.

[mariammagsi]

I came across this poster on Queen St. West in Toronto and I couldn't look away. Posters such as these, strategically placed around the city are pushing people to question Canada's dark, colonial history, as is the incredibly critical art being produced by Indigenous artists such as Kent Monkman and Rebecca Belmore. These artists, activists, thinkers and interventionists are destabilizing and dismantling biased, historical Canadian narratives. In the decade or more of being in Canada, I have recently had the opportunity to establish close allyships with Indigenous friends. Through their research and lived experiences, I am learning about a side of Canada that I was not initially aware of. While the Canadian Citizenship book discusses our shameful history of residential schools, it presents a watered down version, summarized in undignified, short lines, mostly ending with, "Canada has since apologized." The abuse that was carried out on Indigenous children at these schools (the last residential school closed in 1996) was horrific and conveniently left out of textbooks. With more awareness around the topic, Canada's internationally positive reputation is being challenged. Canada’s deputy minister of Indian Affairs Duncan Campbell Scott was quoted in 1920 to have said: “Our object is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic.” While an apology by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is a start, it is not enough. After all, actions speak louder than words. Grave injustices have been committed against Indigenous people. Erasure of language, culture and customs so as to benefit and serve colonial systems of oppression, unsolved cases of thousands of missing, murdered Indigenous women, increased likelihood of sexual assault on Indigenous women, an alarmingly high suicide rate amongst Indigenous youth and deplorable living conditions in some parts of Canada where Indigenous people reside. By deplorable I mean run down schools and homes and no access to clean, drinking water. How can we justify this while being one of the wealthiest countries in the world with a global reputation for excellence in living standards and human rights? Far too often I hear fellow immigrants from my own community refer to Indigenous people as "drunks" and "criminals." "Oh these natives, they're such a menace to Canadian society." "They get so much funding from the government. All their schooling is paid for." "They should be grateful and move on from the past. Look at the state of poor people in the third world countries we come from." "These people don't know the first thing about oppression. They take all the money the government gives them and waste it on drugs and alcohol." It is ironic to see new immigrants settle on Canadian land while demonizing and othering the original custodians of this land. Indigenous people have been dealing with institutionalized racism, discriminatory legislation and federal under-funding for over 100 years. As we mark our 150th birthday as a nation today, I hope that we can work toward addressing these important and urgent issues. Indigenous people are bearing the brunt of genocidal, colonial policies while the rest of us immigrating to Canada are reaping immense benefits such as world class healthcare and education, services that many of our Indigenous communities lack full access to. Our indifference and lack of awareness around these pressing matters has dire consequences for First Nations, Metis and Inuit people of Canada. Today, on Canada's 150th, I am stating a land acknowledgment for the first time in all these years of living, working, giving to and taking from Canadian land. ***I wish to acknowledge this land on which I currently reside and work. For thousands of years it has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit River. Today, this meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous people and I am grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land. (Please correct me if I have stated this land acknowledgment inaccurately) As a tribal daughter of the Indigenous Magsi clan in Balochistan, Pakistan, I stand in solidarity with my Indigenous brothers and sisters in Canada. I wish you a safe, peaceful and more informed #Canada150 long weekend.

[ageless-safes12]

Super Foods to Help Ease Your Way to an Ageless Beauty

Adding another number to their age each year is something that people already expect. But if there is a change that not so many can readily accept, it is waking up one morning realizing that fine lines and wrinkles have already invaded what used to be young and vibrant faces.

So the concept of an anti-aging skin care was born.

While a lot may immediately think about the modern solutions to delay the physical manifestations of age, less is known about certain foods that can help achieve the same result. Here are some of them:

Pomegranate Juice - New studies reveal that a glass of this nutritious drink can help slow down the process of aging. In fact, pomegranate has been previously identified to also aid in relieving stress and in preventing heart diseases. Researchers have also recently found out that this juice can also significantly put the natural wear and tear of DNA at bay.

Green Tea - This healthy beverage contains strong antioxidants that have the capability to efficiently quell inflammation that is often associated with diabetes and relative conditions. Moreover, medical authorities have also proven that green tea can effectively prevent oxidative stress.

Olive Oil - The powerful antioxidants called Polyphenols found in olive oil have been recognized to help in inhibiting age-related ailments. In addition, ageless-safes the olive oil's mono-unsaturated fats were also given credit four decades ago for the low rates of cancer and heart disease in the Greek island of Crete.

Fish - A study aimed at finding out why Alaska's native Inuits were admirably free of heart diseases was conducted about thirty years ago. Today, scientists realize that the reason for such is the Inuits' consumption of an extraordinary amount of fish. Fishes actually abound with omega-3 fats that help in preventing cholesterol build up in the arteries.

Chocolate - Researches identified the Kuna people in the San Blas islands off the Panama coast to have nine times lesser heart disease rate compared to mainland Panamanians. Such remarkable health record was attributed to their regular intake of a cocoa-rich beverage. Cocoa contains flavanols that aid in preserving healthy blood vessels.

Wine - When taken in controlled amount and in moderation, alcohol can protect a person from age-related memory loss, heart disease, and diabetes. Red wine in particular, contains a compound called resveratrol which can help activate genes that have the capacity to slow down cellular aging.

Yogurt - While its age-defying capability has not been directly proven, this healthy food is recognized to be rich in calcium which efficiently prevents osteoporosis. It also contains 'good bacteria' that aid in reducing age-related intestinal illnesses and in maintaining gut health.

Nuts - Relevant researches conducted recently revealed that people who regularly eat nuts gain an extra two and a half years. Experts say these comfort foods can supply the body with abundant unsaturated fats. The health benefits of such fats are closely associated to those of the olive oil. Nuts also contain high concentration of minerals, vitamins, and antioxidants.

Of course, aside from keeping your food choices smart and healthy, you can also take advantage of modern anti-wrinkle formula to achieve more satisfying results. And, among the products dedicated to helping preserve a youthful skin are serums.

The use of serums is an excellent way to achieve the healthy natural outer layer that you want without the need to go through an invasive procedure. Thus, you can readily make your dream skin a reality using a completely safe and budget-wise means that offer an equally stunning output.[http://www.ageless-safes.com]

[kurtwagners]

What did you think of the new issue of Champions?

Oh my god i was so fucking stressed out about miles…when he snapped and pushed both sam and kamala away i could feel my heart break! He really didn’t learn anything from Peter if he thinks its fine to make a deal with mephisto huh… Also I’m really worried about the fate of vivheart now if riri completely rejects viv I will be. so upset. 

It was an exciting issue and I feel like it was a pretty good start for the reboot. I’ve been wanting to rant about Champions though and you kind of opened up this avenue for me with your question so I’m sorry but I’m gonna release it all here:

So I feel like the interpersonal relationships of the core champions members is still not fleshed out enough. Shifting the focus to so many new side members isn't the direction I would have gone in personally… I still really don’t know how a lot of characters feel about each other or work as a team, so introducing so many new members, even if they’re back-ups, is stressful and distracting. For me, the main selling point of teen superhero groups is character relationships and drama over the grandiose “political” or event-based narratives of the x-men or avengers so I dunno. I’m just not really feeling this decision.

This leads to one of my major issues with the entire series: I would prefer if Champions continued to focus on core group stories that involve each member’s own communities rather then constantly enforcing the abstract idea of champions as a larger, global movement. While it's supposed to be inspirational, I feel like Mark Waid’s original execution of this was flawed because the champions didn’t earn their success. A group of mostly nonwhite teen superheroes (and a mutant with a history of being labeled a “terrorist leader”) is immediately loved and supported by the general public? sounds fake but okay. There was no struggle for recognition that made me want to root for this team of underdogs, and when they did struggle it felt hollow and flat bc it was just instances of Waid using these diverse characters as his liberal soapbox for his really basic and uninspiring takes. 

I just don’t really understand why it's necessary for the Champions to participate in superhero foreign intervention when their own communities at home need so much help. Police brutality and the treatment of black people in America, abuses committed by ICE/border police and Latinx rights, post 9-11 rampant Islamophobia, indigenous fist nations/inuit rights in Canada, racism against Asian Americans/Asian identity politics, and homelessness and abuse of LGBT youth are all issues that I feel like could be executed successfully using the Champions as a platform. The key is that each member has a personal connection to the issue, which can help further their character development while addressing an important and relevant matter that young people should be aware of in a nuanced way. Two birds one stone. This CAN be done successfully with proper research and consultation. I’m not saying this type of narrative should be the sole focus for Champions (Weirdworld was fun) but I feel like it could be more successful then “Champions has 35 members and we’re going to _____ country we barely know anything about to save people”. Kamala literally learns her lesson from Red Dagger about how meddling in another country without the proper understanding can be harmful in Ms. Marvel when she goes to Pakistan (her own home country!), but because Jim Zub doesn’t have a grasp on intersectional immigrant identities like G. Willow Wilson does he doesn’t understand why a metaphor for “good-intentioned” American foreign intervention can be insensitive and suspicious. How do these teenagers have access to the resources and funding to execute an international movement anyway?! This all really is Avengers territory… (especially when it comes to US propaganda ie the Western savior complex in relation to foreign aid) The Champions are just really giving me Peace Corps/missionary trip vibes and I hate it, especially since out of all people this diverse group of heroes should have the most sensitivity about this.

Jim Zub has done some things right though, I adore Amka! But I want to know more about her!). These are just my “if I wrote Champions here’s how I would fix it” thoughts. If he just works a little more on characterization and team dynamics I’ll be satisfied.

[shirlleycoyle]

‘It’s Going to Change Everything’: Inuit Face a New and Worrying Climate

It’s time to wake up. On Global Climate Day of Action, VICE Media Group is solely telling stories about our current climate crisis. Click here to meet young climate leaders from around the globe and learn how you can take action.

In Paulatuk, a remote Arctic hamlet in Canada, Inuit Elders remember immense icebergs that once floated along this stretch of the Northwest Passage, the iconic Arctic waterway that links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

“You never see those anymore,” said one Paulatuk resident at a workshop, part of a series that aimed to document Inuit perspectives on the future of the Northwest Passage. The workshops, held in 2015 and 2016, were organized by Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, a nonprofit that protects Inuit rights in Canada.

“The whole aspect of our traditional lifestyle is changing because of the Northwest Passage,” said another workshop participant, this one held in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region of Canada, which sits at the western end of the passage. “Open seas, late freezing, early thaw, longer free water season, or free-ice season… It’s going to change everything.”

Over the past two centuries, the Northwest Passage, which spans roughly 1,450 kilometers, has earned a reputation to outsiders as intractable and haunted due to the capricious interplay of its ice, snow, and sea. The marine ice pack has proved deadly to many who tried to chart the Northwest Passage—most infamously the doomed Franklin expedition—making it an encumbrance to commerce and colonization.

Now, the passage is becoming busier as warmer temperatures reduce the sea ice, enabling more ships to traverse it. The Arctic, as a whole, is an emerging center of commercial activity and a geopolitical stronghold that is already contested between governments. A wide range of corporate, federal, and military interests are mobilizing to capitalize on the Arctic’s growing accessibility to vessel traffic, heralded by the projected loss of ice cover.

Indigenous peoples of the north are finding themselves at the center of a geopolitical climate change bomb that they did not cause. Attuned to the complex patterns of sea ice for millennia, they are now experiencing dramatic shifts to the natural landscape and the larger marine food web they rely on.

As the people with the most intimate knowledge of these coasts and seascapes, the rights and wishes of Inuit must be the top priority in discussions of the Arctic’s future.

“We know what the law of the sea is,” said Dalee Sambo Dorough, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, an NGO that represents approximately 180,000 Inuit across four countries.

“Every international legal instrument should have our views and perspectives at the forefront,” she told VICE News from Anchorage, Alaska. “Everything that happens throughout the entire Arctic Ocean and its coastal seas is interconnected, and we know this.”

Arctic communities have experienced the undeniable effects of the climate crisis for decades. The Arctic is warming at nearly twice the rate of the rest of the world on average—and even three times higher in some communities—causing waterways like the Northwest Passage to lose more ice every year.

Average Arctic temperatures are higher than they have been for tens of thousands of years, according to a 2014 study. This trend was most recently emblematized by a record Arctic temperature of 38 C (100.4 F) in Siberia this June, amid devastating wildfires.

“When climate change becomes more progressive (like we have seen over the years), it’s first noticeable in the Arctic, whether that is the Arctic waters, or the land, but Inuit experience this firsthand before anybody else in the world,” Crystal Martin-Lapenskie, president of the National Inuit Youth Council, told VICE News.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) aims to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels, an increase that is all but inevitable at this point. The next best limit is a 2 C rise, which we may hit by 2100 without major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

“For Inuit, this difference is profound,” said Natan Obed, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, in a 2019 Macleans op-ed. “The difference between a 1.5 C world and a 2 C world is a sea-ice-free summer every 100 years rather than at least once in 10 years.”

Such rapid changes have profound implications for Inuit lives and livelihoods. The thaw of permafrost, a layer of soil that remains frozen all year, is causing damage to people’s homes that may eventually affect millions of Arctic residents. Coastal erosion and extreme weather events have already forced many Inuit communities to move from their traditional lands to new locations.

Subsistence hunting and fishing sustain many Inuit communities, both as food and income, but warmer temperatures are already disrupting Arctic food webs.

In the Alaskan city of Kotzebue (also known as Qikiqtaġruk), the diminishing presence of thick sea ice has interrupted the marine ecosystem, putting the community’s traditional seal hunts and subsistence diet at risk.

“Last year there were so many people who, because the ice left so fast, they just could not get anything,” Kotzebue resident Lance Kramer told VICE News in July. “We had to go miles and miles to find ice and hunt seals there. And even then, we didn’t get what we needed.”

“Never before has that happened in my lifetime or any of our Elders’ lifetimes,” Kramer said.

A bearded seal is roped and pulled to thicker ice. Photo courtesy of Lance Kramer

Some studies predict that, within decades, it will be common for there to be virtually no summer sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean.

Though some inland communities rely more on land animals such as caribou, most Inuit traditions, livelihoods, and diets are deeply interwoven with marine mammals. Narwhal, beluga whales, bowhead whales, ringed seals, and walrus are not only a source of food, clothes, and tools, but an integral part of Inuit ritual life.

“Traditional activities that are synced up with migratory opportunities become out of sync,” said Alex Whiting, who is not Indigenous but has lived in the Arctic for decades and serves as director of Kotzebue’s environmental program.

“There’s a natural rhythm and pattern to not only fish, wildlife, and bird movements having to do with the winter and summer season, but also a whole slew of traditional gatherings and harvesting activities that are synced up, too,” he told VICE News.

“We are thinking about our new accessibility that translates to increased traffic, increased chances of accidents, and oil spills.”

As the Northwest Passage and other Arctic waterways become more accessible to vessels, increased shipping activity will place even more pressure on these vulnerable ecosystems, and the communities interlinked with them.

“Vessels pose multiple potential risks to Arctic marine mammals” such as ship strikes and noise pollution, Donna Hauser, a marine ecologist at the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska, told VICE News.

Arctic marine mammals are “sentinel species,” Hauser noted, which means they are likely to be the first animals to suffer measurable effects of environmental stressors like climate change. This makes them a kind of harbinger of what’s to come for a region’s overall biodiversity.

An uptick in shipping also presents the possibility of major oil spills or other industrial accidents. This is sadly not a hypothetical for Arctic communities; the Exxon Valdez disaster of 1989 still looms large for Indigenous communities upended by it.

“We are no longer thinking of the Northwest Passage as the route that takes us beyond our communities,” said Nancy Karetak-Lindell, a former Member of Parliament for the Canadian territory of Nunavut.

“We are thinking about our new accessibility that translates to increased traffic, increased chances of accidents, and oil spills.”

In the face of these enormous challenges, Inuit communities are developing creative approaches to mitigate the risks of climate change. The establishment of Tallurutiup Imanga National Marine Conservation Area, which covers 108,000 square kilometers at the eastern entry of the Northwest Passage, is one example.

The area “plays a pivotal role in ensuring that food and resources are protected for those who rely on this,” Martin-Lapenskie said.

Further east, the Inuit-led Pikialasorsuaq Commission aims to conserve the biodiversity of a large stretch of open water between Greenland and Canada.

Besides anticipating the negative effects of shipping in the Northwest Passage, Inuit communities also want to ensure that they can share in the benefits of the increased commercial activity, including tourism.

In another Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami workshop, participants were often enthusiastic about welcoming tourists to their communities, but they also expressed concern that visitors would not reciprocate respect for their culture—by disrupting burial sites, taking artifacts, or trafficking drugs.

“They wanna see all those old, cool sites that our ancestors lived in,” said a workshop participant from Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. “But are they disturbing anything? Are they touching anything? We don’t know.”

Workshop participants from many communities also “worried that people might return home with strong opinions on Inuit culture, and on what people should or should not be doing, particularly regarding issues such as the seal hunt.”

Iglu building, 2018. Photo courtesy of Fiona Paton

These concerns foreshadow the urgent need to ensure that Inuit interests and Indigenous knowledge remain central to any development of their traditional lands.

“Indigenous knowledge, as some may be aware, is having experienced firsthand what you see, hear, and do over the course of generations by way of survival,” said Martin-Lapenskie. “Inuit have been very open about the different changes in environment, from land to ice thickness, to waterways—these all have changed over many generations and shared through storytelling.”

“We have a right to a seat at the table.”

Martin-Lapenskie is part of a new generation of activists making huge strides in the international movement for climate justice. She joined other Inuit youth leaders in emphasizing the need for food security, infrastructure, and transportation for Arctic communities at last year’s UN Climate Change Conference in Madrid. Their message is also gaining traction through social media, despite spotty broadband connectivity in many Arctic communities.

These approaches have helped boost the signal of the climate crisis in the Arctic. But there is still more work to be done to ensure that escalating activity in the Northwest Passage doesn’t continue to marginalize the region’s Indigenous peoples.

“This discussion about the Northwest Passage, more often than not, is being thought of in the context of commodities, and the removal of commodities from the Arctic for the rest of the world’s enjoyment and use,” Dorough said. “To some extent, the fact that there are people within the region—Inuit—who inhabit the region, doesn’t even cross the radar screen for those who are calculating shipping times and how much fuel they are going to save per day.”

These short-term interests, weighed against the deep cultural history and natural resources of the region, bring back to mind the ill-fated Franklin expedition. Sir John Franklin, along with Terror commander Sir Francis Crozier, were not strangers to the Arctic; they had racked up years of previous experience in the region.

But the Arctic was not their homeland, a reality that is still reflected in the name “the Northwest Passage,” which is Eurocentric both in its navigational orientation and its implication that the waterway is simply a place to pass through.

For more than a century, the most important clues about the last gasps of the expedition were provided by Inuit who interacted with survivors and found remains of the dead. This Indigenous knowledge not only fell on deaf ears back in England, but was viciously rejected in a smear campaign.

This marginalization of Inuit knowledge still stings today, according to young people who attended an Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami workshop in Iqaluit. Some mentioned how Franklin was known as “the finder of the Northwest Passage,” even though “Inuit knew about it” all along. Others talked about how Elders had passed down orally the location of the doomed ships: “They always knew it was there, but I think they’ve been waiting to be asked.”

Satellite image of the Northwest Passage. Image: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Since Franklin’s time, the Northwest Passage has been navigated by many nations. The sea ice in the region still imposes dangers to its visitors, but the larger threat is clearly the change imposed on these waterways by the actions of the rest of the world. Few may have visited the Arctic in person, but our collective behavioral fingerprints are all over it.

The thawing of the Northwest Passage is attracting the attention of many international stakeholders. But Inuit are not mere “stakeholders,” Dorough emphasized. They are rights-holders who must keep a long view of the future, especially as others look only to the next financial quarter.

Inuit “have a responsibility to safeguard those resources, to safeguard those lands and territories, not only for here and now, but for centuries to come,” she said. “That’s a huge responsibility, and by virtue of that alone, we have a right to a seat at the table.”

Follow Becky Ferreira on Twitter.

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