Tag Archives: history

Ethnic Aisle: Do You Know the Navajo?

A few years ago, the window display at Get Outside at Queen and Spadina stopped me in my tracks. There, among the trendy leather moccasins, was a family of Native dolls posed in front of a teepee. There was a bare-chested, six-packed chief dad, a scantily clad, pigtailed mom, and their cute, primitive little kids. I pitched this as a story to a local weekly—I wanted to stop some passers-by and do quick streeters on whether they had the same reaction I did—but they didn’t buy it. So I just went home and muttered to myself.

Native fashion makes me feel weird. It so often reduces a huge and complicated group of people to caricatures. I feel weird, too, because I only know a handful of indigenous Canadians, and only in passing. I’m not trying to adopt anyone’s battles, or be an expert on a topic about which I actually know nothing. But I think it’s fair to say that freezing Native people into Pocahontas poses in order to sell furry mukluks is basically bullshit. Newsflash—we’ve all come into the 21st century together. Or actually, we haven’t: as of this past February, 116 First Nations communities in Canada didn’t have safe drinking water. I think this is what really angers me, that so often Canadians use art, design and culture to reduce Native people to cartoons while ignoring both their painful histories, and their difficult present. Don’t even get me started on Will and Kate watching “aboriginal” dancers (no tribe mentioned), or Stephen Harper putting on a headdress and face paint. No really, don’t get me started. Go look at Kent Monkman’s paintings instead.

Back to fashion: apparently Navajo prints and colours are currently “in.” The adoption of any culture’s art or fashion aesthetic by the mainstream is always cause for an eye-roll. What’s in today is of course out tomorrow, and boo to you, fair-trade Indian cotton, the customers are now bored by your livelihood. The thing is, though, that Navajo design (and embroidered cheong sams, and intricate mehndi) is gorgeous. I’m going to save myself the embarrassment of trying to articulate this fully, as fashion-speak isn’t my forte: let’s just say the colours are vibrant, the prints are bold, the turquoise-and-silver jewelry is stunning, and if you want to know more, hit Google. A good place to start would be the Beyond Buckskin blog, where Jessica R. Metcalfe writes lively and knowledgeable stuff about Native fashion, including celebrating non-indigenous designers who work respectfully with traditional artisans when adopting these ancient arts.

If you’re going to wear Navajo, good for you. It’s some eye-catching stuff. What would make it even better was learning a bit about the history of the people who made it—let’s start with the Long Walk of 1863 and 1864. This is paraphrased from the site Legends of America:

“After years of war and starvation with the United States, 8,500 Navajo and Apache men, women and children were marched almost 300 miles from northeastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico to Bosque Redondo, a desolate tract on the Pecos River in eastern New Mexico. The ill-planned site, named for a grove of cottonwoods by the river, turned into a virtual prison camp. Bosque Redondo was hailed as a miserable failure, the victim of poor planning, disease, crop infestation and generally poor conditions for agriculture. The Navajo were finally acknowledged sovereignty in the historic Treaty of 1868. They returned to their land along the Arizona-New Mexico border hungry and in rags. Today, they are the largest Native American community in the United States.”

That’s a pretty ferocious history, wear it well.

This post is part of the Ethnic Aisle, a blog about race, ethnicity and diversity in the GTA.

Do the Local Motion

So, I was published in a book for the first time – Local Motion, the latest (and last) installment of the uTOpia series put out by Coach House Books.

The book is a DIY-guide to civic activism, lending inspiration to those colouring both inside and outside the lines. There’s a handy, accessible guide to navigating the red tape of City Hall; a piece on how citizens could participate in allocating the city budget; and many, many heart-warming stories of regular people who helped clean up neighbourhood parks, start farmers’ markets, install public art, build skate ramps, and generally make Toronto the kind of place I want to live.

My piece is about looking beyond the sometimes saddening homogeneity of elected bodies, to see the real diversity that’s on the ground, everyday. And, just to toot my own blog here, someone just told me that none other than Matt Galloway said, live and on air, that my essay was his favourite. I’m going to put that one in my back pocket and pull it out when I need a pick-me-up. But really, I found the whole book really optimistic and an excellent kickstart: the day after I got my hands on a hard copy, I signed up to volunteer in the after-school snack program at my local community centre. It’s hard for a hungry kid to grow up to be mayor, after all.

Bylined: Notorious corners

From Saturday’s Globe, a piece (by me!) about whether four historically “bad neighbourhoods” still deserve a bad rep. This was pretty inspiring to write – the tiny, one-table farmer’s market at Jane and Finch caused my heart to swell far more than the yuppie fest that is the Brickworks. And I say that as a veritable yuppie myself.

Church Street, back atcha

On Tuesday, a piece I wrote about Church Street in Toronto ran in the Star.  Historically the city’s gay village, the area has been seeing veteran businesses priced out for quite a while now. My story was about whether that’s a bad thing: namely, whether 20-something queer kids feel a connection to, or need for, the Church-Wellesley village.

The same day, Matt Mills at Xtra wrote a critique. I couldn’t respond quickly, cause working a real job is killing me. But now I have some time, so pretend you still care.

First, Mills should really have worked harder at  spelling my name right all the way through. Especially since he ignored a strong theme in my piece: whether Church is too homogeneous. It’s hard to say that the white men on Church are willing to expand their definition of the village’s identity when Mills can’t even spell a 10-letter surname properly a few times. Without addressing how Church does or doesn’t welcome queers of colour, transgendered people and those without wads of cash, Mills’ critique isn’t really about what I wrote.

That said, my argument wasn’t as tight as I would have liked. A feature at the Star maxes out at 2,000 words, which is tough for a meanderer like me. I find it difficult not to quote every single person I’ve interviewed, but I really need to start seeing chats as background research, not always essential to the reader. Leaving out a great community organization like the 519 was definitely a hole. I was playing phone tag with someone there, and then the deadline bit me. As a writer, it’s a challenge, but a fun one: working within the confines of 21st century space. I think I’m already getting better at it.

However, I never said that it was a bad thing that Toronto’s queers hang out elsewhere (opinions on the Queen/Beaconsfield “Queer West Village” were cut for space). The question was whether Church Street still nurtures sex/gender pioneers. The addition of a trans march at Pride this year was pretty awesome, but Halloweek and a trade show, however fun, don’t convince me. That’s corporatization, which is exactly what I was talking about. It’s gentrification, the same thing that’s happening everywhere else: Greek people hardly live around Danforth anymore; ditto south Asians and Coxwell. Making money on a now-defunct cultural identity isn’t exclusive to Church. Given how important Church-Wellesley has been to this city, I was just wondering if that mattered.

(Photo by Rick Madonik for the Toronto Star)

Racism Vs. Sexism: Big Bad Words

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Anti-sexist and anti-racist human rights movements have regularly been pitted against each other—even in early 20th century America, suffragettes and black men were convinced that only one of them could get the vote. Both groups chose to make a case for why the other faction was less entitled, rather than calling out this divide-and-conquer tactic for what it was.

This train of thought obviously came to a head during the last U.S. election, when everyone and their mom had an opinion on whether America was more “ready” for a black male or white female president, and which was worse, racism or sexism. Since I’ve been lucky enough to experience both, I’m here to set clear up the confusion. The answer is, it depends.

For example, identity-based cuss words. My opinion: women lose. Casual use of misogynist language is far more acceptable than everyday racist slang. There’s one particular person on my Twitter feed that says “bitch” almost every single day, getting his knickers in a knot about free speech and oversensitivity whenever he’s called on it. But when his followers complained about his recent use of “Paki,” within minutes he retracted the term. I’m glad that Asian American protestors were successful in their protest of racist language in a recent movie trailer, but meanwhile, you’re allowed to say “bitch” on MuchMusic.

Excuse my language, but let’s get into it: almost every single guy I know uses the word “bitch” and probably uses the word “pussy.” Just about no one I know would ever insult someone with the words “chink,” or “Paki,” or God forbid, “nigger.” In fact, I would like to extend an honest congratulations to black people for having “nigger” largely eliminated as a casual term for non-blacks—it seems all that hip hop reclaiming worked (although, of course, some would like to see the word abandoned by blacks themselves, as well).

Challenge a man (or a woman, actually) on using the term “bitch,” and the response will be that you’re overreacting, and that the term isn’t “meant” to be sexist. But if sparkly unicorns have magically separated “bitch” from a connection to women, why are “chink” and “nigger” still associated with their identities of origin?

I’m not against swearing. I fucking love swearing. If a person is a jerk and you want to call them a jerk but with authority, go ahead and call them an asshole. But to insult them with an identity-based term is to specifically say, “you are an asshole because you have this identity.” For some reason, it’s wrong to say “chink,” i.e. “you suck because you’re east Asian” but permissible to say “bitch”, i.e. “you suck because you are a woman.” Or “pussy,”—“you’re a coward, so you’re not a man, you’re a woman.” I haven’t thought enough about where homophobic slang fits into the Hierarchy of Hate Terminology. I’d say “fag” is related to “pussy” (demeaning straight men based on gender) and I never hear “dyke,” really—comments welcome, I’m all ears here.

It’s really fucking irritating when men of colour exercise male privilege by throwing around the words “bitch” and “pussy,” yet expect me to sympathize and get all mad about their racist experiences. I’m fed up with seeing women of colour labelled as “traitors” for calling men of colour on their sexism. You gotta give respect to get respect, bro.

But, like I said, in the racism vs. sexism game, it all depends. You know where it’s easier to be a white woman than a person of colour? Publishing. Oh, snap.

Get a spine: Seventeen, September 2009

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Last weekend, a bunch of lady friends and I vegged out by the pool, lazily flipping through a stack of old Sassy magazines. One of us had cleverly hung on to her teenage pile, resulting in the perfect summer afternoon of nostalgic media debate. On the agenda: ’90s fashion, teen angst flashbacks, and how the clever, groundbreaking stylings of Sassy were ground to a halt by conservatism. We also reminisced about YM and Seventeen—the first lightweight, the second staid, both shaken up at the time by Sassy’s rabid popularity.

So, I thought I’d flip through a recent copy of Seventeen and see what teen girls are being told by magazines these days. My first thought is: I am so not a teen. I have no idea who any of these celebrities are. I’m happy to see a Latina on the cover, but I couldn’t tell you one…tv show?…that Selena Gomez has been in.

Good things: Decent diversity in both ads and editorial, with plenty of “real girl” comments and pics sprinkled throughout. While user interactivity is a 21st century no-brainer, I’m still saying Sassy’s reader integration is another reason actual teens are in Seventeen today. Another sign of my aged disconnect is an inability to tell if the clothes here are reasonably priced. Teen-wise, $30 seems decent for a jacket, and none of the jeans are over $80. Barely anything tops $100—this seems realistic to me, but I’m sure many parents would beg to differ. Old-fashioned “magazine” “articles” are scarce, but the two first-person pieces are genuinely moving—a girl whose sports coach secretly filmed her naked, and another struggling with self-harm. The tips on avoiding these problems are a little light, but the stories seem relatable. A one-page short story contest winner by a reader named Kelly Reardon is really tight and quite good.

Things I don’t like: So. Much. Product. I mean SO much. I remember 1990s Seventeen as being quieter, with longer articles. All in all, I consider this less of a general interest mag than a fashion mag, so I shudder to think what Teen Vogue is like. There are pages and pages and PAGES and PAGES of clothes and makeup in here. I’m glad there’s a reference to pepperoni being “weird and full of preservatives” in a healthy lunch chart, but it’s hypocritical when every other page encourages under-18s to regularly smear chemicals on their faces. A new makeup look for every day of the week? I know mags need to please advertisers, but this excessive coverage (no pun intended) hardly has teens’ best interests in mind. Aside from the two first-person pieces, there’s hardly anything “real” here—no politics or environmental articles at all, no A&E coverage aside from pics of celebs’ cool outfits and smooching shots.

Design: neon onslaught. Aside from copious amounts of actual advertorial, plenty of the editorial pages look exactly like ads. Having nail polish spills on the masthead is kinda cool though.

Biggest problem: no grit. Namely, no sex. This is what brought Sassy down—despite having 800,000 subscribers, the magazine lost all of its advertising due to a Moral Majority-orchestrated letter writing campaign. A decade later, publishers have learned their lesson, and the September 2009 issue of Seventeen exists in a world without teen sex. There are a few mentions of french kissing, and one dude says he’s ashamed of his “boners.” No safe sex, no GLBT anything. One mention that being drunk is lame, and then nothing on drugs, either. In an age where teens are supposedly done with dating and rely entirely on no-strings-attached “hookups,” when abstinence-only sex ed is a reality and drugs I’ve never even heard of seem to pop up daily, this is a huge hole. This negligence leaves teens to learn about these things from more nefarious sources, and that is a sad story for everyone.

Verdict: 15 years after Sassy died, everyone is still afraid to treat teenage girls like real people.