Category Archives: Activism

Fixing the Cleveland I*****s Racist Team Name

Congratulations, Toronto Blue Jays on another exciting season!

Let’s hope that before the Atlanta B****s or Cleveland I*****s come back to Toronto they will have changed their name. And as I’ve argued in the past, the process of fixing racist team names can itself be a reconciliation moment.

A moment that you can help bring on by sharing the image below with those of your people who still don’t understand why cultural groups are not other people’s mascots!

National Congress of Indians (via the Good Men Project)

A recent poster from the National Congress of Indians (via the Good Men Project) sheds greater light on this issue. Simply put, they argue that having a Cleveland Indians logo is like having a “New York Jews” or “San Francisco Chinamen,” mascots that would be blatantly offensive. I shudder to think what the equivalencies for gays or black people would be.

You can take a look at the image [above] for yourself, a stark reminder that racism is alive and well. We often say that it lives in the cracks, but sometimes it’s right in front of our face, the racism we accept every day.

What the BC Premier’s Reconciliation Smells Like

Kitimat Terminal Information | Kitimat Shipping Agencies || North ...

Quite simply, if a politician dangles child welfare money to anyone, but makes it contingent on embracing a sick LNG plant, what does that smell like to you?

I think it smells the same as when she tells a school board to close schools or else they don’t get seismic upgrading money.

I think you know what that smells like too.

We must completely obliterate the BC Liberal Party. Because children aren’t pawns, except to the BC Liberal Party.

First Nation rejects province’s Pacific Trail cheque after child welfare program hitched to pipeline offer

A ham-fisted attempt to win First Nations support for the province’s liquefied natural gas ambitions has backfired, threatening support for the Pacific Trail pipeline needed to bring natural gas to Kitimat for a proposed LNG plant.

The Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs have returned a cheque to the province and have backed away from a proposed agreement on the pipeline after the B.C. Ministry of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation linked its LNG offer to continued funding for vulnerable children in the northern coastal community.

“When we saw that they had rolled up our child welfare program in the LNG offer, we were dismayed. This is an absolute proof of the sharp dealings across this province to get this LNG initiative,” said Debbie Pierre, executive director for the Office of the Wet’suwet’en.

Source: B.C. child welfare program offer to First Nation backfires over LNG ties – The Globe and Mail

A Glimpse of Last Week in White, Male Supremacy

People, especially people who are white and male: we need to drastically up our game if we are going to move towards equity and away from the increasingly brutal white male backlash that’s been growing.

Last week a number of things happened that reinforce the supremacy of white men, but also the rise in those who challenge it. We need to join the challenge:

  1. Racists are selling t-shirts with an image of Colin Kaepernick in rifle crosshairs.
  2. Ben Carson, while speaking positively about Donald Trump [I know, right?], couldn’t handle a challenging MSNBC female reporter and demanded that her own network cut off her mic.
  3. Lou Dobbs, despite not being a clear supporter of Anonymous, used one of their tactics of distributing and amplifying a phone number and address on the internet. He did it, however, to a woman who accused Donald Trump of sexual assault. Dobbs later apologized, but it was unclear why he felt he needed to apologize.
  4. The Nova Scotia premier dug deep to pull out dripping sarcasm, condescension and mansplaining when a female TV reporter questioned him on environmental policy.

White men have basked in entitlements for centuries. We need to call them on this nonsense: all of us, especially perhaps, other white men.

Let’s make this a more enlightened week!

The War on Women…Which Side Are You On?

But it’s not JUST a war on women. It’s on everyone who isn’t overflowing with entitlements, and it’s largely being waged by white men, who seek to perpetuate male and white supremacy.

You are either actively on the side of the oppressed, or the oppressor. And if you’re silent, you’re with the oppressor.

Let’s up our game for justice and dignity:

“Last night, as the news swarmed online, a friend texted me: ‘There’s a war out there against us.’

“I think she’s right. I think there is a war. I think we’ve been fighting it for some time. I think it’s reached a breaking point.

“This war is not about men and women. This war is about those who believe people of all races, cultures, sexes, genders, classes, and religions deserve kindness and respect, and those who don’t. We have to speak out, for ourselves and for each other.”

How Far Will Men Go to Keep Their Entitlements?

How can you tell that America is suffering from a vast, intense, rageful male backlash against feminism?

How can you tell men are struggling brutally hard to hold onto their entitlements?

[And don’t be too complacent Canadian men; are we really different?]

Well, while this electoral analysis can’t actually manifest next month, when we look at what would happen if only men  or only women voted for president next month, you’ll see what I’m talking about. Read, soak this in, close your gaping jaw and get busy seeking social peace and  reconciliation!

menvote

womenvote

One Million Vaginas Helps Us With Trump

grabhim

 

The wise, inspiring folks at One Million Vaginas have done it again, helping reframe Trump’s attempt to disempower women into an empowerment meme.

Feel free to sprinkle these hashtags as well!

#GrabHimByTheBallot #NeverTrump #RapeCulture #SexualAssault

So please, all my American friends/readers, and all YOUR American friends, help the world out by grabbing November 8th by the ballot:

  1. Don’t vote for Trump.
  2. Don’t vote for Republicans, who have brutally disrespected women for far too long.
  3. If you’re living where a Democracy for America [Bernie Sanders] endorsed candidate is running, support them.

Because it’s 2016…and we still have lots of work to do to fuck the patriarchy.

Lean in! 🙂

 

 

Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day!

I so hope you had a wonderful Indigenous Peoples’ Day yesterday!

In “America” there is a movement to replace the systemically racist Columbus Day. It’s spreading briskly; soon it may reach the 100th Monkey and spread across Turtle Island.

In Canada, we had Thanksgiving Day, for all the cornucopia reasons you can think of.

But as thinking citizens and all around justice-seeking individuals, we all have a role to play in leading our leaders into the pristine pastures of a richer community with greater reconciliation and cultural peace.

And please, let’s not let “America” beat us to the closer-to-utopia place of eradicating systemic racism. Let’s put on our toques, re-tape our hockey sticks and fix Thanksgiving.

And while we’re at it, let’s help Edmonton change their football Eskimos name. Here are some simple tactics to get that done!

And on the way, check out all the “American” places that are ahead of most of “Canada” with Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

 

Columbus Day is Institutionalized Racism

 

Columbus Day is Institutionalized Racism

Columbus memeIn Canada, we celebrate Thanksgiving Day today, a slight improvement on Columbus day, which institutionalizes systemic racism.

Columbus Day celebrates white supremacy. It’s time to stop that now. If you need some elaboration, read this.

Seattle did it 2 years ago. Now Vermont has figured out a first step in a solution: turning Columbus Day into Indigenous Peoples’ Day. The rest of it involves human engagement, some truth, some reconciliation and building a new future with dignity and respect.... 25 Cities Abolish Columbus Day and Adopt Indigenous People Day Instead

So go out there and learn the maps of pre-colonial “Canada,” “USA,” and Mexico.

We Need to Prepare for Those Worse Than Trump

 

It’s one thing to lower the bar, but with Trump, someone pulled out the jackhammer and has dug through the floor.

Donald Trump Went On A Baffling 3AM Twitter Rant About Sex Tapes ...But let’s not assume that Trump is the low ebb or an aberration. He signifies another level altogether of political contempt.

Politicians have a sense of entitlement and natural objection to transparency and accountability, having spent generations rigging the system to let them slide easily into power. Add in rich, white and male entitlements and we see the majority of politicians more than doubling down on arrogance.

But we can’t just presume things will get better after Trump.

  1. He has established a new realm of political behaviour that will allow equally or more repulsive and anti-social miscreants to seek their populist masses to champion.
  2. Current contemptuous politicians will see new capacity to dig even further into the slime in the political culture of their region.
  3. Politicians with integrity will find even more competitors dealing in abject lies which will increasingly go unchecked by corporate media that has been whipped into submission/irrelevance by the brashness of lying politicians and the self-immolating corporate media and their brand new level of apathy towards to truth and fact-checking all to serve the profitability of the corporate media owners’ agenda to serve the interests of their political compradors.

Solutions!

  1. We need to support media with integrity. Don’t expect this to come from corporate media. Look for independent media and amplify their voices. Remember, it was CANADALAND that broke the Jian Ghomeshi debacle.
  2. Use your own personal social networks to share information critical for participating in our civic duty. Not Facebook posts which must meet the elements of their fancy algorithms to even reach your people, try email or text messages or cocktail parties [we should have more of these] or brunches or phone calls to talk about life. And include political truths your people need to know. You don’t have to BECOME the media, you just need to amplify the positive messages.
  3. Next, go directly to political parties’/candidates’ websites to see where they really stand and what they’re saying in particular and in context. Amplify that, criticize that, augment that, demand better policy than that. The same goes for the contemptuous politicians: read their policy, compare it with what they say, and note the contradictions.
  4. Remember, you and me and all of us are the employers of these politicians. They constantly try to encourage us to obey them. This is nonsense. We need to resist that abusive stance and recognize our own power.
  5. Bernie Sanders almost became the Democratic nominee for president. He did that despite the successful work of corporate media and the Clinton/Party coalition to shut down and censor his message. Once he lost the California primary, the Democracy for America movement mobilized to nominate progressive Senate and House candidates. Controlling/influencing Congress could be a powerful element in fixing America. You will encounter people of integrity and vision who could lead us, not necessarily as elected leaders, but mobilizers who can help liberate us all from our pasty, weak democracy and the rise of soft fascism.

Get busy, and don’t be afraid.

And plan a cocktail party!

Update, and a new solution:

Read this #FacePalm piece, and look at this:

trumpeducation

 

Prime Minister Announces Official Name Change to “Justin Harper”

CP

It just used to be that perpetuating Harper’s social, environmental, economic and political policies made me think that Justin Trudeau is merely #TheNewHarper.

But we’re way past that, as we approach the one-year anniversary of the election.

The Prime Minister actually changing his name to Justin Harper is where we’re at now.