exploring the news & events that connect us all
The purpose of [un]·learning isn't about forgetting what you know, or about being wrong, it's a conscious move towards critically examining what influences our expectations, behaviours and beliefs -- about ourselves and other people -- and seeks to challenge what may explicitly or implicitly lie behind them.
Sports team affiliation, much like political alliance, runs deep and strong within the American psyche. There can be such impassioned fidelity towards it that followers may be left blind to its imperfections.
The difficulty with identifying (and defeating) systemic racism, especially for those of us who are not its intended target, comes from the fact that its existence and implementation, by design, is insidious. Its invisibility ensures its longevity.
Talking about racism and addressing racial injustice can be a difficult topic to navigate, especially if you’re White and relatively new to learning about or fighting against how entrenched it is within American society. Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPoC) have been telling us about this for a very long time; that racism is individually and institutionally pervasive. And it kills.
Back in 2016, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe faced a fight to try and stop the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) from being built directly under their primary water supply -- a construction route that would also cross their traditional and ancestral lands, destroying burial grounds and other culturally significant sites. They didn't want the crude… Continue reading Stand With Standing Rock: No DAPL Expansion
Whenever I've taken part in a discussion about equal rights or carried out some research related to the topic, I've encountered declarations from some people -- often determined to derail the discussion -- that there are no groups of people within our modern-day society here in the U.S. that have fewer rights than any other group of people.
Back in early August, without warning or public announcement, the Trump administration quietly introduced a change to the Medical Deferred Action program that allows migrant families to stay in the U.S. to receive life-saving medical care.
President Bolsonaro of Brazil campaigned on a promise to roll back indigenous rights and protections for the Amazon. He ran on a promise to open up the Amazon rainforest for resource exploitation by the agribusiness sector. When he became president in January 2019, he gave control over the regulation of indigenous land reserves, via executive order, to the Ministry of Agriculture which is heavily financed by powerful agribusiness lobbyists.
