Category: Life & Love

It was all over social media and the news: a pre-dawn raid, organized and committed by RCMP officers, into the Indigenous camps set up to protect and defend the territory of the Wet’suwet’en. Since January 2019, the Indigenous people, their homelands and waterways have been under threat by the encroachment of Coastal GasLink (CGL), which plans to connect fracking operations in Northern B.C. with a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) facility in the town of Kitimat. In response to the threat, four Indigenous groups set up camps there, and on February 6, 2020 at 4:30 a.m., heavily militarized RCMP invaded the camp with dogs and assault rifles. Six land defenders were arrested in the raid as people were forcibly removed.

For Indigenous peoples, this event felt traumatically familiar, as pre-dawn raids have been a tool utilized under colonialism for over 500 years in our country’s history of genocide and forced land displacement strategies. Yet, in reaction to this violence, a strong sense of allyship developed amidst the crisis and chaos. Earlier this year, hundreds of supporters stood by the people of Wet’suwet’en. There were mass protests, including railroad blockades, and awareness marches in cities across the country. National and international media coverage highlighted the severity of the crisis and contextualized it within the bigger battle against colonialism. Allies and defenders fought in unity to protect the lands and waterways for future generations, and ultimately the RCMP vowed to leave the area.

Then COVID-19 hit and, understandably, the public’s attention was diverted. But the conflict in Wet’suwet’en is still ongoing and despite their claim the RCMP has still been present. Yet for the past several months the media and non-Indigenous allies have been virtually silent. It’s time to bring our attention back to this very important issue, so we spoke with Jen Wickham, a Cas’yihk house member and the media coordinator for the Wet’suwet’en camp, to find out what’s been happening on the Wet’suwet’en territory since March, and why we all still need to be paying attention.

What’s happening now at Wet’suwet’en?

According to Wickham, the conflict continues to swell between the Indigenous community and CGL as the gas giant illegally forges ahead with pre-construction work on the traditional homelands and territory of the Wet’suwet’en people. Wickham explains that “a camp [for temporary workers] is currently being constructed by CGL in the area without permission or consent received from the Hereditary Chiefs and the people of the traditional territory.” Historically, any decisions regarding this land have gone through the hereditary chief system, as the chiefs themselves have not ceded the 22,000 square kilometres of land that makes up the Wet’suwet’en territory. Under ‘Anuc niwh’it’en (Wet’suwet’en law) all five clans have unanimously opposed all pipeline proposals. CGL, however, refuses to honour the sovereignty of the Chiefs, and is moving ahead despite the protests.

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This is especially troubling considering the impact of camps on the safety and well-being of Indigenous women. As highlighted by Brandi Morin in a May 2020 article for Al Jazeera, the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples James Anaya told the National Inquiry into MMIWG that his research revealed a connection between the influx of transient workers and violence against Indigenous women. In the article, Anaya is quoted as stating, “Over the last several years, I have carried out a study and reported on extractive industries affecting Indigenous peoples. It has become evident through information received within the context of the study that extractive industries many times have different and often disproportionately adverse effects on Indigenous peoples, and particularly on the health conditions of women.” Historically, man camps and extractive industries have been a lethal combination for Indigenous women—add to that the fact that CGL is operating illegally, and the threat increases.

In addition to not having permission from the Hereditary Chiefs, CGL also lacks the required permits to complete their work from the Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) in B.C., a neutral agency within the provincial government that they can’t as easily dismiss. According to Wickham, “CGL has not completed the appropriate environmental assessments (assessments which ensure that environmental, economic, social, cultural and health effects are thoroughly looked at before a project begins) through the body of the EAO to receive the tickets to work on the wetlands.” This applies to the entirety of the pipeline project, so although CGL has received overall approval by the EAO, without these permits, and without consent from the Hereditary Chiefs, CGL cannot legally do test drilling—something CGL has planned for September—both within colonial and traditional Indigenous laws. In addition, Wickham explains that “in the colonial legal system the test drilling needs to be approved by the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission (BCOGL), yet that approval hasn’t been given yet. However, CGL still plans to do the test drilling in September without the permits and approval by BCOGL, and even with stop-work orders issued by the provincial government in June following a recent failed environmental assessment.”

Why aren’t the Canadian government and RCMP putting a stop to this?

In December 2018, CGL filed judicial reviews through the B.C. Supreme Court for an injunction that would allow the RCMP to clear the area of the Wet’suwet’en where work on the pipeline would begin. Because of this, arrests can be made and camps can be forcibly taken down. By allowing the injunction, the B.C. government acted in violation of the 1997 Delgamuukw Supreme Court of Canada decision recognizing the unceded territory by the Indigenous peoples of Wet’suwet’en. (Unceded land means that the land was never given to Canada, or the province. It means that traditional processes by the Indigenous peoples of that land overrule colonial laws there.)

It’s important to understand that historically the Canadian government has played an integral role in maintaining practices of colonialism and genocide against Indigenous peoples and their lands in this county, and they continue to play that role today. Where Wet’suwet’en is concerned, even though five of the six band councils in the Wet’suwet’en Nation have signed the agreement for the project with CGL, it is the Hereditary Chiefs who ultimately make the decisions when it comes to the land and the waters in the area. (Band councils are made up of officials elected by those with “Indian status” under the Indian Act, an imposed jurisdiction that many claim is illegitimate. The Hereditary Chiefs, on the other hand, hold an inherited position that pre-dates colonialism.) To reiterate, there has been no free, prior, and informed consent given to CGL by the Hereditary Chiefs, so by leaning on the consent of the band councils and ultimately dismissing the stance of the Hereditary Chiefs (the provincial government has stated that is is working to compromise with the Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs, but nothing has come from their attempts), the Canadian government is continuing to uphold colonialism at the expense of traditional laws.

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The current status of the RCMP involvement at the camps is duplicitous. As noted in a June 29 press release from the Wet’suwet’en Access Point on Gidmt’en Territory’s Facebook page, “since January of 2019, RCMP have conducted several large-scale militarized assaults on Wet’suwet’en territory.” They publicly stated that they would remove themselves in February 2020, however trail cams show a different story. Wickham says that Indigenous people camped at Wet’suwet’en twice witnessed heavily armed RCMP officers going into the Wos smokehouse in the middle of the night in June. In the June 29 press release, it was stated that “the smokehouse belongs to the Cas Yikh people and is critically located in the headwaters of the Wedzin Kwa river to harvest fish and feed Wet’suwet’en families.” CBC discovered that the RCMP claimed they were members of a Quick Response Team assigned to a nearby detachment to do regular patrols and daily checks of the area. This response to their violent intrusion follows the dangerous and destructive history of the RCMP on the lands of Indigenous peoples, committing acts of forceful and violent entry onto the ceremonial and traditional lands of Wet’suwet’en, further creating a distrustful relationship between all parties.

What’s next?

Wickham says that CGL has shared that they plan to have people working in their unlawful man camps by the end of August—despite the 41 violations against their environmental assessments conducted by the EAO. While CGL stated to the people of Wet’suwet’en that they are currently doing all of the required assessment work and submitting reports to the environmental assessment office and environmental mitigation plans for each territory, Wickham says there is very limited faith from the Indigenous land protectors that they will follow through on their claims based on past experiences. That CGL hasn’t followed the traditional legal systems and processes of the Wet’suwet’en people, nor have they honoured UNDRIP’s Free and Prior Informed Consent (FPIC) and the legal systems of the province, doesn’t bode well.

According to Wickham, various Indigenous clans and house groups are fighting back by launching legal action both within the colonial courts and their own traditional legal systems. Per a press release from April 27, these proceedings “are not public, however, we can expect the success or failure of the ratification process to be announced by the nations within the next few months.”

All Indigenous camps remain in place, although because of COVID the participation of community members is lower. Yet, small groups of people remain in the fight to keep the lands and waterways clean. Their presence is just one of the ways the Wet’suwet’en peoples are pushing back against the continued threat of RCMP and private security, and the destruction of their environment. They are also honouring traditional activities, such as gardening, hide tanning, making and setting fish traps, and birch bark basket-making workshops for general community members. These activities have played a role in the ongoing commitment to land-based practices, and have been instrumental for those in camps to maintain a sense of collectivity.

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How can settler Canadians help?

With the lack of media coverage, it would be natural for anyone outside of the Wet’suwet’en area to assume that things have calmed down, which is why it’s important to make an effort to stay informed. The best way to do this is by accessing first-hand reports provided by front-liners at Wet’suwet’en via yintahaccess.com and the Facebook group Wet’suwet’en Access Point on Gidimt’en Territory.

The Facebook group is also a good resource for finding out about virtual rallies you can attend. Although no rallies are currently scheduled, there are petitions to the investors of CGL and LNG Canada that can be signed.

Another way non-Indigenous allies can help is by lobbying government representatives of the Bulkley Valley Regional District to address the RCMP and CGL contributions to the spread of COVID-19 in the communities. Allies are also encouraged to write to their local MPs about the violations occurring in Wet’suwet’en: Reiterate the fact that each clan within the Wet’suwet’en Nation has full jurisdiction under their law to control access to their territory, and that this permission has not been granted.

If you are able to contribute financially, there is a GoFundMe set up to help support the Wet’suwet’en land defenders, with all donations supporting the front-liners in the camps and assisting with legal fees.

It is important that as we do our best to support from afar, even—especially—during the pandemic. Supporting the Wet’suwet’en is ultimately an act of protecting the systems that will keep our families, communities and nations alive for as long as possible.

First I made borscht. I yanked the skin off chicken drumsticks. I hovered over the pot like an anxious parent at the playground, spooning off froth. I sliced cabbage into ribbons and grated beets until my fingertips were magenta and raw. Consulting notes scrawled on Post-Its, I tried to divine what my mother meant when she said the water should be “warm but not hot”—that way the beets would keep their color. Topped with yogurt (in lieu of sour cream) and fresh dill, the result was close but too watery.

Until that Sunday in March, I had never tried to make the soup I ate growing up, or virtually any of my mom’s recipes. As a kid, I found her dishes comforting but banal. We mostly ate a revolving menu of staples she brought with her from Kiev—beets and mayonnaise were in heavy rotation. My mom immigrated to the United States with a 4-year-old daughter and her own mother nearing 80. Trained as a classical music historian, she found work as a translator and then an administrative assistant, occasionally bussing tables at parties for extra cash. As dementia clouded my grandmother’s mind, my mom delivered home-cooked meals to her senior home every few days. She got up an hour early to pack me challah sandwiches and cooked almost every dinner from scratch. But she didn’t have much time or money to experiment in the kitchen.

In the outer boroughs of San Francisco, where we lived, I found the cuisine outside our home more exciting. In middle school, my friends and I stopped for steamed pork buns and bubble tea after class. In high school, we went out for shrimp burritos or dolmas or unagi rolls. When my mom and I briefly moved in with her coworker so I could have my own room, I pined for the exotic (and expensive) foods she served at dinner parties: kabocha squash and wild rice and orange flowers you could eat in salads. As I started learning to cook in my thirties, I still preferred the unfamiliar: salmon with za’atar, soba with plum sauce, Indian dal.

In early March, as the pandemic raced through the country unbridled, my husband and I stocked up on ingredients for kale and chickpea minestrone and Persian beef stew. Then I got a call from my Mom, now 71. She’d heard on the news that a fellow passenger on her recent cruise to Mexico had been one of the first Americans to die of coronavirus. Her quarantine began two weeks before the Bay Area became the first place in the country to shut down. Like so many other families during this pandemic, we disappeared from each other’s lives overnight—reduced to masked apparitions, disembodied voices, pixels on screens.

As isolation set in, instead of pad see ew or injera, I craved the uncomplicated warmth of my Mother’s borscht. She could no longer continue her near-weekly ritual of sending me home with leftovers in old honey jars or sour cream containers. I realized, with a pang of regret, that I had no idea how to recreate the dishes I’d taken for granted.

So I started calling to ask for her recipes. After borscht, she walked me through sautéed cabbage and carrots in tomato sauce, which I served with Trader Joe’s sausages instead of the plump ones in papery casing from the Russian deli. Next I tried turkey kotleti, thickening the ground meat with pulped potatoes and shaping it into ovals. They were pillowy like my mom’s but stuck to the pan.

I moved on to a salad of red cabbage, carrots, and green apples, wondering how she had the stamina for so much grating. Then I tossed celery root with green apples, garlic, and blanched peas, a dish my Mom served on the summer pilgrimages she scrimped for all year, to a shared cabin on a lake outside Yosemite. After that, I mixed a salad of roasted beets with garlic and cilantro, which she always brings over on Thanksgiving. Each dish called for a dollop of mayo or sour cream and some fresh herbs. Before I knew it, months of social distancing had turned into a mother-daughter correspondence course in home cooking.

For the first time, I saw how much my native cuisine relies on the resilient vegetables we’ve been urged to stock, the ones that got my Ukrainian-Jewish ancestors through harsh winters, famines, pogroms, and Stalinism. Growing up in Kiev, my mom told me over the phone, she’d stand in line for hours to receive rations of sugar or eggs. Sometimes she’d walk into her neighborhood deli to find nothing but tomato juice or marinated pickles on the shelves. After the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, when I was one, she had a friend’s relatives ship condensed milk from other Soviet states to avoid exposing me to radiation in local dairy products. My mother’s mother fled a village in Eastern Ukraine in the early 1930s, at the onset of a man-made famine that killed millions, after the leader of her communist youth group warned that her flesh might look too appetizing to the locals. Later, she escaped Kiev with her four-year-old son just before Nazi forces massacred nearly 34,000 Jews over two days in a ravine at the city’s edge. My mother’s dishes carried stories of suffering, but also of survival.

Two weeks after my mom returned from her cruise, she still wasn’t coughing or feverish. A couple friends she’d hugged on board got sick after they landed, but both tested negative for coronavirus. I felt relieved and fortunate. But as the quarantine stretched from weeks into months, my fear simmered. As the world fitfully reopens, even as cases surge in California, it’s approaching a boil.

Since the beginning, I’ve shopped for my mom’s groceries and insisted we meet outside, six feet apart. I’ve delivered face masks and policed her hand-washing habits. But she is bored and craves her independence. A few weeks into quarantine, she regularly began asking if she could shop at the farmer’s market or get away for the weekend or, for some reason, buy a tricycle.

“Not yet,” I would say.

“It’s like our roles are reversed,” she joked.

By July, when I was attempting my mom’s breaded cauliflower recipe, I realized she had begun asking for forgiveness rather than permission. Bread and fresh produce dropped off her weekly shopping list, and she confessed she and her 84-year-old partner had begun going to the bakery, the local produce shop, and the farmer’s market. They started eating takeout with friends in the park—at a distance, she claimed.

Then, a couple weeks ago, we got into an argument. “Our friends are in their 80s, and the whole family came over to their apartment for a birthday dinner, no masks in sight,” she said. Other friends had posted Facebook photos of extended family get-togethers. She questioned whether my response to the virus had veered into “hysteria.”

I lost my temper. “They’re idiots! If they want to ignore science and put their family in danger, that’s their problem.”

“What kind of life is it when you can’t be physically close? Maybe relationships aren’t worth a grosch to you,” she said, using the Ukrainian slang for “penny.”

That stung. It was torture not to hug my mom, and keeping her and her partner healthy was the reason I was being careful. But in the absence of a national shared reality about the facts of the virus, some complain of skin hunger and wave to grandkids through windows, while others party indoors as if nothing is going on. We are all gaslighting each other. And it’s the virus that doesn’t give a grosch.

When we made up a few days later, my mom agreed to do her best to follow the rules. “I’m doing it for you,” she said.

As I called my mom yet again recently, this time for her chicken stew recipe, I realized this was about more than comfort cooking. Being isolated from our loved ones can feel like a trial run for a permanent separation, for the inevitable. Until now, it was easier to engage in magical thinking, to act as if the limits on human life didn’t apply in her case. I can barely linger on the thought, but it’s getting harder to ignore: I’m ultimately powerless to keep her safe.

During these days turned upside down, mastering my mother’s recipes has helped me feel closer to her from a distance, and to stomach the low hum of grief we all now live with. I recently started bringing her stuffed cabbage and pickle soup home with me again, but one day I will have to make these dishes without her help. Someday I will pass them on to my own children. For now, I call her and try to get it all down.

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About two months ago, my dad began to experience a series of strange neurological symptoms. He regularly felt pain radiate up and down his right arm, and occasionally into his neck and jaw. Sometimes his fingers on his right hand would tingle or go numb. The nerve pain was so uncomfortable that he had to take over the counter pain medication twice a day and once before bed so he could sleep. This went on for weeks.

Ever the medical practitioner (he’s a retired oral surgeon), my dad tracked his symptoms closely, and believes they stemmed from a spider bite he received while doing pushups in the basement.

After he showed me a picture of his bright red shoulder where he’d felt the bite, I immediately dove into exhaustive internet research on spider bite toxins, symptoms, and treatments. I am a science journalist and this sort of investigation is not out of the norm for me, but for a few fleeting moments my anxiety-addled brain took over: “What if this is somehow related to COVID-19?” I thought. When I began Googling “nerve pain” and “coronavirus” and seeing correlations I’d hoped not to, I knew I’d reached cyberchondria territory.

Cyberchondria—anxiety stoked by scouring the internet for clues to potential health issue—has been around since at least the day WebMD launched in 1996. But this unprecedented pandemic has caused a noticeable uptick in cases, according to a recent study.

The constant health threat, along with all the rapidly changing information surrounding it, is a prime breeding ground for this sort of hypochondriasis, and it’s hitting people with health anxiety the hardest.

“Anyone who has anxiety or a vulnerability to respond in an overly anxious way might be vulnerable to concerns about what’s going on now,” says Dr. Michael Mayer, Director and Co-Founder of The Reed Center, which specializes in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) as treatment for anxiety-related disorders.

Psychiatrists like Mayer are also noticing that cyberchondria is now manifesting in people who never had a history of anxiety. “We’ve seen [people] who haven’t manifested anxieties in any problematic way, are, in some cases, now experiencing that, and I think [it’s] because there’s a lot of information out there that’s kind of confusing.”

Information about the novel coronavirus changes daily. While that’s understandable for a virus the medical community knows so little about, the lack of stable, concrete information is enough to rattle even the calmest of minds.

It’s natural to want to try to gain some control in such an unpredictable environment by unearthing as much information as possible—even if that information only serves to alarm you further. And the more people excessively consume virus-related media, the more their anxiety impacts their daily lives, the study confirmed.

Cyberchondria boils down to a compulsive disorder, according to Maher. The compulsion is a response intended to reduce fear or anxiety, even though it often results in a heightening of those feelings.

Like any compulsion or addiction, it can be difficult to curtail the behavior, especially if you believe you’re getting something out of it. In the case of the pandemic, for example, you may be inciting your anxiety, but you may also be getting some important information that could help keep you safe, making it easy to justify the compulsion.

But as any CBT advocate will tell you, this vicious cycle can be broken. All it takes is a little brain rewiring.

“CBT teaches people to recognize the relationship between their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors,” says Dr. Stacia Casillo, Director of the Ross Center in New York. “It helps them to understand that it is not the situation itself that causes their anxiety; instead, it is how they interpret and then respond to a situation that contributes to their negative feelings.”

A therapist might employ CBT by assessing the client’s “anxiety cycle,” as Casillo calls it. “The client and therapist create a conceptualization of the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are typical of their anxiety reaction and the thoughts and behaviors that keep that cycle going. A treatment plan would consist of providing psychoeducation on health anxiety, teaching skills to challenge anxious thinking, replacing maladaptive coping behaviors with healthy coping skills, and promoting distress tolerance and acceptance of what they do and do not have control over.”

Clinicians like Casillo and Mayer have had much success using CBT to treat patients with cyberchondria and various other health anxieties. But what about people who can’t afford a therapist or don’t have insurance? A recent study published in the Journal of Psychiatric Disorders suggests an alternative form of CBT that doesn’t involve traditional therapy, and may be just as—if not more—successful at treating cyberchondria.

iCBT, or internet CBT, is an online CBT program designed to give you all the same lessons and tools you might gain working one-on-one with a CBT-trained therapist. The study looked at The Health Anxiety Course, which is a research tool from the Virtual Clinic,an Australian-based mental health research center.

The course is made up of 6 lessons taken over 12 weeks, and teaches skills including “challenging negative thinking patterns about bodily symptoms, exposure to feared situations and sensations” and behavioral strategies to reduce internet searching. It even offers a lesson plan on why less accurate, alarmist health news often comes up first in Google searches (hint: search engine optimization).

At the end of the study, researchers found that those who participated in the iCBT course showed a “significantly greater reduction” in cyberchondria than the control group who received psychoeducation pamphlets, periodic monitoring, and optional support from a clinician.

This is not to say that traditional CBT treatment isn’t as beneficial. The iCBT version may have been effective in this instance simply because it was a more guided experience. What’s clear, though, is how useful CBT can be for anyone with cyberchondria or health anxiety right now.

If you’ve found yourself unable to look away from the New York Times case tracking map, below are some CBT coping techniques that might be helpful for you.

Limit your health searching

“Pick one reputable online medical resource (i.e. Mayo Clinic) to engage in online symptom checking,” says Casillo.

Reduce the number of times (and amount of time) you conduct searches. Try getting it down to once a day for 10 minutes.

Recognize and delay the impulse

If you feel the need to look up something health-related, don’t immediately act on that impulse. Wait an hour and see if the urge is still there at that point.

Put down the phone

It can be much harder to ignore an impulse to search if you’re sitting in front of a screen. Casillo suggests engaging in other activities when you’re feeling anxious that promote well being like exercising, taking a walk outside, playing a game, watching a fun show, or cooking.

Challenge your thinking

“While your initial instinct may be to imagine the worst-case scenario, look for alternative, more neutral reasons why you may be experiencing those symptoms,” says Casillo.

If reading health news scares you, try looking at it from a more subjective place rather than a personal/emotional place.

Get comfortable with the uncomfortable

Uncertainty, especially now, is going to be there no matter what, so we have to find a way to live with it without letting it take over. Mayer likens it to gardening when you know there are bees around. You should be aware of them, but that awareness shouldn’t stop you from doing the thing you enjoy.

“What we want to do is help people respond more effectively by making room for the uncertainty, so they can get back to their life, back to their family, to their friends, to things that they care about,” he says.

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On my sixteenth birthday, my father gave me a ring. It was Black Hills Gold. A yellow band with a heart made of flimsy pink and green gold leaves. This was my purity ring, the ring given to me to represent a pledge to safeguard my virginity. It was my commitment to abstinence and to God to keep myself pure until marriage. I hated it.

Plus, it only sort of worked.

As an ’80s baby, my teen years were heavily influenced by the Christian counterculture of the ’90s. Movements like True Love Waits advocated strict rules on sexual purity as a response to what people like my parents saw as an increasingly promiscuous society. They propelled Joshua Harris—a homeschooled kid, and author of the 1997 book I Kissed Dating Goodbye onto bestseller lists when he was just 21 years old.

The book, which encouraged couples to save even kissing for their wedding day, sold over 1.2 million copies and remains a fundamental text for Christians who want to encourage their children to keep it in their pants until marriage. In 2018, after years of criticism, Harris released a documentary about the book with a pseudo-apology, noting that he never intended to hurt anyone, and ceased publication of the book. Then he got divorced and asked for privacy. I reached out to him multiple times for multiple stories I wanted to write and got no response until finally, he told me he wanted me to respect his privacy. He built his career on telling others what to do, but, okay, now we had to leave him alone. His book, those lessons, have never left me alone. Even when I have begged them to. Even when I, too, have gotten divorced.

But at sixteen, I didn’t know all of this was coming. I knew I didn’t like any of it. But I so desperately wanted to be perfect and holy and right. So I said “thank you” to my parents and wore the ring. Part of me was excited. It was jewelry. I hadn’t received much more than earrings from Walmart at that point in my life, and I craved something that would give me the gravitas and glamour of adulthood. Anyway, what could I have said: “No, I don’t want your ring—I kind of want to fuck around a little before marriage”?

There are, certainly, 16-year-olds with the guts to say something like that to their parents, but I wasn’t one of them. I was a Type A people pleaser who just wanted to do the right thing, so much so that she’d wear a silly ring, cross her legs, and hope Jesus would save her purity.

Again, it only sort of worked.

In college, my purity ring got stuck on a shower loofah. When I extricated it, the leaves were bent. I put it away after that, joking with my friends about the implications of having broken this symbol of my virginity in the shower.

As an undergraduate, I was chosen by my professors to present a paper on the hero’s journey and my obsession with Joseph Campbell at a research conference. I had beaten out two seniors for the spot. My school’s English department was footing the bill. It was the first time my writing had stood out. The first time it meant something. The night before the presentations, I was invited back to a dorm room by some of the other students. At first there were many and then just me and two men.

We were drunk and got drunker. I am not sure exactly what happened. I know I made out with one. There are other flashes of memories too. My clothes are off and I want them on. My body hurts and I am afraid. I go back to my room and lock myself in. I remember the thick metal click of the lock. In the morning, someone tried to open the door. They shook the handle and pounded on the frame with a fist. They didn’t mean anything by it, they yelled. It was just a thing. No one said my name. I don’t think they ever knew it.

I lay in bed. Until they were gone. Then I looked up the nearest Planned Parenthood. I called a cab and overdrew my bank card paying for the ride. They gave me the morning after pill and I went back to the university, where I washed my face with Clean and Clear Morning Burst face wash. For years after, the bright, orangey smell would make me sick. That afternoon, I gave my presentation to a full room. I talked about heroes and choices and destiny. People clapped and told me I would be an academic.

Afterwards, I bled. I hadn’t been expecting my period. I went into the bathroom and put my finger in the thick, oily blood, thankful for the darkness. The wetness. That was when I decided the moment hadn’t happened. To survive, I would forget it. If I thought about it, everything would break. It would be the end of the life I had wanted for myself. The one where I was married to someone God-fearing, a Republican, a Midwesterner. The one where I cooked every night and bought throw pillows and spent hours thinking about paint colors for my walls. The one where I was the perfect mother. So, I decided it didn’t happen. If I had had sex with them, then I was no longer a virgin. If I was no longer a virgin, then the man I was dating would not want to marry me. And I couldn’t handle that.

That man and I did end up getting married. And on my honeymoon, I presented the purity ring to him. Laughing, I told him the story of my sixteenth birthday. He put it away and I never saw it again.

We hadn’t had sex while we were dating. Abstinence was a mandate he took seriously and one I took seriously only because he did. Plus, I was hiding a secret. I was hiding the fact that I had gotten drunk in a dorm room with some boys. I believed I had been assaulted. I couldn’t tell my boyfriend. To admit to that event would have compromised my virginity, compromised my desirability.

Once, in the early years of marriage, I was tempted to say something, to clear the air and unburden myself of a lapse I was beginning to think might not be entirely my fault. In bed one night, I asked my husband a hypothetical question: What if someone had been assaulted? What then?

He told me that he was happy I hadn’t been. He wouldn’t have married me if I hadn’t been a virgin. He wouldn’t have wanted me to be the mother of our children.

I said nothing. After all, maybe nothing had happened. I hadn’t bled that night at the conference. At the time, I believed what I’d been taught about the hymen, that it was a membrane sealing the vagina and that any dick entering or exiting would leave physical evidence of penetration.

When my husband was my fiancé, I had shown him articles that explained what the hymen really was and that described how it could be disrupted by any number of activities, that it was more of a myth about virginity than an actuality. But I only half-believed these articles myself. I was nervous. I didn’t want him to hate me, to devalue me for what I might have lost—what might have been taken from me. It didn’t occur to me until much later that by tying my value to my virginity, I had already allowed him to devalue me.

I was married for twelve years, but I never once told my husband about that night in college. I barely told myself.

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From the book Belabored by Lyz Lenz. Copyright © 2020 by Lyz Lenz. Reprinted by permission of PublicAffairs, New York, NY. All rights reserved.

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Liz Ikiriko is an independent curator, artist and lecturer at Ryerson University. Melanie Carrington is an investigator. Máiri McKenna Edwards is  diversity and inclusivity training coordinator at the University of Toronto. Kara Stewart-Agostino is a personal trainer. Karina Vernon is associate professor of english at the University of Toronto Scarborough. 

In early July, in Toronto’s west-end neighbourhood of Roncesvalles, Home Hardware store owner, Len McAuley, posted a new statement on the store’s exterior marquee. The sign read “All Lives Matter, Be Safe, Be Kind.” A local resident took a photo of the sign which quickly circulated online.

The meaning of “all lives matter” is now well known: it critiques the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement that has taken root locally and internationally to protest the killing of unarmed Black civilians. It misinterprets “Black Lives Matter” as meaning only Black lives matter. But the BLM slogan is a call for justice and a recognition that not all lives are equally at risk when it comes to police brutality. When the Home Hardware sign went up, public outcry from residents of Roncesvalles and neighbouring Parkdale was immediate. McAuley took down the sign and apologized. He later stepped down from his position as chair of the Roncesvalles Village Business Improvement Area (BIA).

Kaswentha—Two Row Wampum or Tawagonshi Treaty—territory, known as Roncesvalles, has been home to working class Polish families who came to Toronto after WWII. But in the past 20 years, it has transformed into an upper middle-class neighbourhood. While the neighbourhood is less ethnically Polish than it once was, it remains less racially diverse than any other neighbourhood in the city. According to the 2016 census survey, only 26 per cent of residents identified as racialized compared to the 50 per cent of people who identify as a visible minority across the City of Toronto.

We are five Black women who have lived across the country, from Victoria to Edmonton to Winnipeg to Toronto. The Home Hardware incident is one example that highlights a greater problem across the country. It provides a chance to address the exclusion and erasure that Black Canadians face from neighbours, in shops and on the playgrounds where we raise our children. It also works to connect the dots between anti-Black racism and the colonial violence that pervades our everyday experience. Here, we discuss how one seemingly small phrase reflects the complex ways that language, ideas and actions continue to oppress Black, Indigenous and people of colour (BIPOC) in Canada.

Liz Ikiriko: I am a bi-racial Nigerian-Canadian who has lived in Regina, Calgary and Toronto. I have endured countless forms of malicious hate as well as ignorant questions that regularly remind me that I am not viewed as a local resident in any place that I live. When my white husband and I bought our home in Roncesvalles 13 years ago, I felt familiarly uneasy in this predominantly white area. How would I be perceived in this space? My discomfort was heightened once I had our fair-skinned son. I would take him for walks, and I would commonly be referred to as the nanny.

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I was saddened to read an article on Medium written by Stephen Dorsey, a local Black Roncesvalles resident, regarding the “all lives matter” debacle. Dorsey suggests that it is our collective responsibility to patiently provide what he calls “on-ramps”, which he defines as spending time guiding the uninformed to be better allies in the fight against racism. Dorsey states that “outrage culture (spewing anger before fully understanding)…leads to more divisions, and the associated negativity impedes progress towards finding common ground and achieving the positive change we all want.”

Attention is often directed to the unfair treatment of a white community member when their racist actions are publicly criticized. Their upstanding neighbourliness is used to excuse acts that are ignorant and sometimes malicious. But insistent rebuke is necessary. It can propel an offender out of their privileged slumber and bring forth a public discourse to address frequently ignored micro- and macro-aggressions that harm so many BIPOC within the community.

Dorsey is wrong: our emotions do not impede progress. Ignorance, even in its most accidental form, is the real offender and deserves no sympathy. There is anger and deep hurt expressed in the silencing of our Blackness and our right to live in the communities where we reside.

Melanie Carrington: Where are you really from? is the question when a stranger (always white) can’t make sense of the fact that I was born and raised in Winnipeg. When I was a child, this question stung, a visceral reminder that my belonging is always in question.

More than 20 years ago, Hazelle Palmer wrote the book But Where Are You Really From? in response to this intrusive line of questioning. This micro-aggression, regardless of whether the inquirer is aware or not, is born of “colonialist and racist assumptions about what Canadians look like and what it is to be Canadian.” The “all lives matter” statement feels like a derivative of this, such is its signal and sting. I have come to understand that the sting represents the enactment of whiteness. In a world where whiteness dominates, my presence is often viewed with suspicion, and this is exactly what makes me vulnerable and unsafe.

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In this “progressive” Roncesvalles neighbourhood, and in the north-end Winnipeg neighbourhood where I was raised, I’ve heard the familiar refrain, “I don’t see colour”. While race has no biological basis, it does have real-world consequences. “Colour blindness”, or a lack of race consciousness, offers me no benefit. Rather, it entrenches the status quo, gaslighting the person who experiences racism and allowing the perpetrator to ignore the way in which they enacted racial violence, thereby maintaining racial inequality.

Regardless of intent, public outcries of “all lives matter” devalues Black life and emboldens those with similar or more fervent views. This is no different than other racist acts I have experienced. What is different are the calls for redress coming from non-Black voices. This is crucial. Solidarity in the form of action means taking risks and recognizing that the outcome is worthwhile. I hope that all those who passionately call for an end to anti-Black racism are equally committed to the daily slog of decentering whiteness and the privilege it affords. The revolution is here, it is time for people to decide how they will take part.

Kara Stewart-Agostino: I have lived in Winnipeg, Kanata and Toronto, and have watched the “good guys” get away with racism wherever I live. Growing up, I was called the N-word by an older boy at school. Another time, a boy threw dirt at me, unprovoked, and called me a b-tch. In both situations, their parents—a teacher and bank manager—could not believe their children would do such things. Therefore, they suffered no consequences.

So it comes as no surprise when neighbours defend and believe that an “all lives matter” sign is put up in benign ignorance because a white business owner has long-standing ties in the community. I’m aware I run the risk of being labelled an “angry Black woman” who is taking out years of frustration on a white man who “made a mistake”. Funny thing is, racism does make me angry. The real “mistake” is in failing to acknowledge that racism exists in every part of Canadian society—even in progressive neighbourhoods; the mistake is in asking BIPOC to continue to give white folks the benefit of doubt; the mistake is in failing to address the systems of power and privilege that perpetuate racism.

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Who owns the buildings on Canada’s main streets? Who is being granted the bank loans to open businesses while commercial real estate and property taxes continue to rise? According to a 2017 Government of Canada survey, only 12.2 per cent of small- and medium-sized businesses in Canada are owned by visible minorities, and only 1.4 per cent by Aboriginal people. The imbalance of economic power in Canada has yet to be addressed. The BLM signs that we now see in storefront windows are welcome sights, but symbolic gestures have minimal impact on the experiences of BIPOC residents.

In Canada, if we want to understand racism, we need to stop giving the “good guys” the benefit of doubt. I don’t care whether “all lives matter” is said in ignorance—it’s just another example of racism in another Canadian neighbourhood. I’m ready to finally feel at home.

Máiri McKenna Edwards: Everyday I benefit from my proximity to whiteness. I am bi-racial and often perceived to be white. I grew up in the rural area of Caledon, Ont. There, I was teased about my Afro, broad nose and lips. However, friends would assure me that I wasn’t “like them”, the other Black people. This was meant as a compliment, but meant that I did not feel safe to be myself. My perpetual feeling of otherness fuels my desire to speak on the impact of racism in all of our lives.

I often benefit from the generosity of my community. Indigenous friends and families have patiently corrected my egregious ”mistakes” like mispronouncing names. I get a distinct sick feeling in my face and chest. I feel the urge to explain, clarify my intent, and find a resolution. Whiteness has the ability to prevent us from seeing when a line has been crossed. It allows us to be ignorant of the racist connotation of a phrase like “all lives matter” used during an age of civil rights action. This can fuel anger and hurt among BIPOC, which is a response often read by the offending party as too hostile. There is comfort in defining the limits of the offence and emphasizing individual remorse, ideally to absolve the sting of the act.

What I’ve also learned from being the target of racism is that absolution is not for the offender to define. The task is to face discomfort without expectation that you will receive guidance from those who have been harmed. We can be accountable to our communities for our actions. The necessary response is to listen and learn about the system from those it silences and to act in solidarity against it.

We’re now over two months into the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement globally. By and large the media has stopped reporting on the marches and protests across North America with the same frequency and urgency as they were two months ago, but they’re still happening and they still matter. And while the spotlight on the demonstrations may have dimmed as of late, one city *does* keep popping up in the news: Portland.

The city in Oregon has been making headlines over the past two months for ongoing protests against police brutality; some of the details of which are pretty scary. Over the past few weeks, reports of and videos taken from the frontlines of demonstrations have shown activists in violent clashes with federal officers (over 100 of whom were deployed by the Trump administration to respond to these uprisings), leading to war veterans being pepper sprayed by law enforcement, journalists maced and shot at with rubber bullets, and several reports that unmarked police officers are “kidnapping” protesters off the streets. (The latter seems to be supported by video evidence). And, frankly, it’s pretty scary to see. But beyond the questions of how the government and police are even able to get away with this, there’s some general confusion about what exactly is actually going on. Here, we have all your answers about the ongoing situation in Portland.

Why are people protesting in Portland, Oregon?

To recap, alongside numerous other cities across the United States and Canada, protests in Portland have been ongoing for two months, in response to the May 25 killing of George Floyd—a Minneapolis, Minnesota man who was murdered by several police officers after allegedly using a fake bill at a store.

Floyd’s murder follows an ongoing and horrifying trend of Black and Indigenous people being harmed and killed at the hands of police across North America.

What is so unique about these protests?

While protests against police brutality and murder have snaked their way through other cities and dissipated, per Global News: “As some protests simmered, Portland’s have only just come to a boil.” This is due to several factors. The city has been extremely socially and politically engaged, holding protests every evening since Floyd’s May 25 death. Because of this engagement, on June 26 Trump issued an executive order which, according to reporting by Oregon Public Broadcasting, deployed officers from the U.S. Marshals Special Operations Group and Customs and Border Protection’s BORTAC to Portland to protect federal property during the protests. Specifically, to deter and detain protesters who were surrounding and encroaching on a federal courthouse in the downtown area, where some had spray-painted anti-police messages. In addition, per Global News, some protesters reportedly broke windows and threw fireworks at armoured police, with additional reports of fires being set in buildings in the city.

In a letter released on July 16, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf said, “Portland has been under siege for 47 straight days by a violent mob while local political leaders refuse to restore order to protect their city. A federal courthouse is a symbol of justice.” Wolf continued, “To attack it is to attack America.”

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And during a July 28 appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, Attorney General William Barr made clear how he considered the demonstrators—not individuals standing up for Black Lives Matter and defending themselves, but enemies of the government—stating: “What unfolds nightly around the courthouse cannot reasonably be called a protest. It is, by any objective measure, an assault on the government of the United States.”

What has the response been since the agents were deployed?

Regardless of how these politicians feel about protesters, one thing remains undoubtedly true: Deployment of these federal agents has led to increased activism on the part of demonstrators—and increased violence in the city. While the protests and increased surveillance have given rise to moments of solidarity among protesters—like the “Wall of Moms,” a group of women wearing bike helmets and goggles, who have begun linking arms and acting as a shield between law enforcement and BLM protestors, chanting phrases like “Hands up, don’t shoot”—it’s also led to several instances of unnecessary violence on the part of law enforcement.

Moms “hands up, don’t shoot” pic.twitter.com/qvJKgJkz5m

— Sergio Olmos (@MrOlmos) July 21, 2020

Protesters have faced tear gas, rubber bullets, batons, pepper balls and flash-bang grenades. And on July 18, a navy veteran was pepper sprayed after trying to peacefully speak with federal agents.

Feds pepper sprayed this Vietnam Veteran/photographer right in the face. His name is Mike Hastie. He was an Army medic. #PortlandProtests pic.twitter.com/CLZwKvuTxH

— Andrew Kimmel (@andrewkimmel) July 26, 2020

Yet, on July 22, President Trump announced further measures. In a White House brief, the president launched Operation Legend—named after a four-year-old boy, LeGend Taliferro, who was shot dead while sleeping in his family home in Kansas City in June—stating that agents from the FBI, Marshals Service and other federal agencies would be deployed to work with local law enforcement to crack down on what he saw as violent crime in the wake of Floyd’s murder and protests. “This rampage of violence shocks the conscience of our nation,” Trump said, before accusing Democrats of being weak on crime. “In recent weeks there has been a radical movement to defend, dismantle and dissolve our police departments,” Trump continued, blaming this for “a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes of violence.”

At the direction of the President of the United States, unidentified federal agents have been deployed to America’s cities, like Washington, D.C., Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon, to interrupt local protests and impose “law and order” for political purposes. pic.twitter.com/aTOWv90RXT

— Mayor Ted Wheeler (@tedwheeler) July 27, 2020

Are police officers actually “kidnapping” protesters?

Since additional federal agents were deployed, one of the alarming allegations circling is that federal agents have moved from the federal buildings they were originally sent to “protect,” with reports that unidentified armed federal agents have been patrolling the streets, yanking protesters into unmarked cars, arresting and detaining them without first identifying themselves as law enforcement. Many online, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have likened this course of action to kidnapping.

I’m not sure I have the right words to explain how important and dangerous the situation in Portland is.

There are unidentified federal agents using full military equipment and weapons against unarmed civilians, including but not limited to extrajudicial kidnapping & beatings.

— Sam White (@samwhiteout) July 19, 2020

According to Snopes—a fact-checking website—claims that officers were picking up citizens unannounced first stemmed from an account by 29-year-old Mark Pettibone, who recounted to outlets like the New York Times his experience being chased by armed people wearing camouflage on the streets of Portland. According to Pettibone, these individuals—who were later identified as a team of federal law enforcement agents—tossed him into a van and took him to a federal courthouse. There, Pettibone alleges he was held in a cell for 90 minutes without explanation as to the crimes he was suspected of. Pettibone also said the individuals never identified themselves as law enforcement personnel.

While there was no video evidence of Pettibone’s encounter with agents, since reports first began emerging of these tactics in Portland several people on social media have shared videos and reports of similar actions in New York City.

I had a dream this happened to me in broad daylight so dirty computer the short film was born . This is insane .
🗣ABOLISHTHEPOLICE
🗣PROSECUTE12 https://t.co/YXDOSYfauv

— Janelle Monáe, Cindi Mayweather👽🚆🤖🚀🪐 (@JanelleMonae) July 29, 2020

As of publication, Pettibone is the only person who has come forward with a first-hand experience of being detained in this manner, but in a federal lawsuit filed on July 17 and obtained by Snopes, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said the state had reason to believe Pettibone was not the only person detained by or released from “anonymous agents” without any explanation during the protests. In her complaint, Rosenblum described the alleged tactics used by officers as “kidnapping,”stating: “Ordinarily, a person … who is confronted by anonymous men in military-type fatigues and ordered into an unmarked van can reasonably assume that he is being kidnapped and is the victim of a crime.” Rosenblum also said the actions were a violation of several civil liberties.

But, the issue is complicated. While Pettibone and bystanders state that federal agents failed to identify themselves and were patrolling around in unmarked cars, in a statement released on July 17, the CBP disputed claims that its officers were operating as unidentified agents, claiming that the person in question (Pettibone, who they didn’t name) was suspected of assaulting federal officers or causing property damage. The CBP also claims officers identified themselves to the person in question, but not the crowd, and were wearing patches that identified them as CBP. Per the CBP, the names of the officers were removed from uniforms to protect their privacy. So while protesters—who are saying they’re being pulled into unmarked vehicles by unidentified armed people—would probably classify these incidents as kidnapping, officials most likely claim that anyone detained is detained lawfully as a suspect.

As for the allegations that protesters were being picked up by unmarked cars, this appears to be true. On July 18, Homeland Security Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli told NPR that officers *were* using unmarked vehicles to pick people up, something he said helps maintain agents’ safety and get out of locations undetected.

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Regardless of whether agents have been identifying themselves to the people they detain, the idea of them neglecting to do so, or detaining people unlawfully, wouldn’t be so out of the ordinary. As many people online pointed out, this sort of action isn’t *that* unbelievable because it’s been happening to Black and Brown bodies for years.

During grad school I was literally picked up off the street in Harlem by plain clothed police officers who didn’t show me a badge, put me in the back of unmarked van, parked in a single spot for like an hour as I sat in van. Thought I had been kid napped. They been doing this.

— Matthew D. Morrison (@DrMaDMo) July 29, 2020

(And not just in the United States. In Canada, Black Canadians are carded at a disproportionately higher rate than other Canadians).

black & brown people have been calling the cops “the jump-out boys” for years because they jump out of unmarked & marked cars, snatch people, and drive off. a decades-old nickname. reject the idea that this is new and bizarre behavior

— no (@miskeencore) July 29, 2020

And what’s this about conditional releases?

In addition to detaining protesters for questionable reasons, according to several reports officials have been employing another tactic in order to curtail protesting in the city. According to a July 28 article by ProPublica, protesters who’d been arrested on minor offences such as “failing to obey” an order (such as failing to get off a sidewalk), were reportedly being told by federal authorities that they were no longer able to protest as a condition of their release from jail. Several protesters interviewed by ProPublica said they felt no other option but to accept the condition in order to get out of jail.

This is “broken windows” policing on steroids, mixed with a violation of the First Amendment. Federal authorities are arresting Portland protesters for minor offenses, then telling them they can’t protest anymore as a condition for their release from jail. https://t.co/kP8WhzjJMC

— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) July 29, 2020

According to legal experts, this move by federal authorities is a violation of the constitutional right to free assembly.

How are city officials responding?

Despite the fact that federal agents were deployed to Portland under the order of President Trump, not all those in political office support what’s going on in the city right now. Portland’s mayor, Ted Wheeler is one of the loudest protesters against the presence of these additional federal forces, decrying them for being unconstitutional.

Commissioner @JoAnnPDX and I are calling for an immediate meeting with Department of Homeland Security leadership on the ground in Portland and with Acting Secretary @DHS_Wolf to discuss a cease-fire and the removal of heightened federal forces from Portland.

— Mayor Ted Wheeler (@tedwheeler) July 28, 2020

And on July 17, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum sued multiple federal agencies for allegedly violating the civil rights of Oregon residents via unlawful tactics, according to USA Today.

And the push back has worked—to some extent, at least. On July 29, the Trump administration agreed to withdraw federal agents from the city. The downside? The announcement came just after another announcement that agents would be similarly deployed to Cleveland, Detroit and Milwaukee. So the cycle continues.

How is all of that legal?

Probably the question on everyone’s minds: Is this all legal? The answer is: We’re not really sure. As Quinta Jurecic and Benjamin Wittes wrote in a July 21 article for The Atlantic: “There will be time to sort out the legalities of the federal government’s actions.” With Rosenblum suing federal agencies and The American Civil Liberties Union suing the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Marshals Service, “between these varied proceedings, the Trump administration will have to answer legal questions like whether it’s really okay for unidentified federal officers and agents to patrol streets, and whether an agency whose mission is to patrol the border is properly used without training for crowd control. The administration will also have to justify the propriety of the individual arrests both in any prosecutions of those detained and in any civil suits filed.”

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But, as the journalists note, whether or not the Trump administration “has the technical legal authority to deploy this show of force in this particular matter does not answer the question of whether it should do so.” What is crystal clear is that regardless of legalities, the government has severely overstepped its boundaries and those of a democratic society.

“The issue is federal overreach,” says Laura Huey, Professor of Sociology at Western University who specializes in policing, mental health and countering violent extremism. “My concern about this is that you’ve got a powder keg situation, because people are upset with what’s going on locally. Then you bring the feds into it. And then basically any attempt by the local police to try to mediate or reduce tensions around the situation goes right out the window; and I can’t help but wonder whether or not the federal government’s actually trying to provoke an incident.”

The issue, Huey says, lies with politicizing policing. “You’ve got a federal government that has decided that it wants to politicize the situation and use police strategies and tactics to deal with it,” she says. “That’s going to have huge negative repercussions on local and state level policing in the United States for probably years to come.” Huey points to already existing paranoia and resistance to data-driven approaches to reducing crime. “People [already] think predictive analytics is this big sort of Matrix thing with mass surveillance and spying, when a lot of times data-driven approaches are basically just computerized forms of crime mapping,” she says. And these recent actions by federal agents are doing nothing to quell that fear. “If you’ve got a federal government that’s deploying agents into a situation where they are obviously engaged in surveillance and literally kidnapping people off the street, try going to city council three years from now and saying that you want to do a data-driven crime mapping approach to dealing with local issues.” The implication being that it won’t happen. Turning to community policing, Huey says: “It’s really hard to be officer friendly at the local school when there’s this perception that it’s a police state and [asking] ‘Why are the cops in the school? Are they there there as part of a school-to-prison pipeline?’ The political consequences are huge.”

The big issue lies in inadvertently conflating the two areas of policing: federal and more localized, with the former (which is more politicized) in effect overreaching their boundaries and using tactics and tools given to them post-911 to deal with terrorism for issues at a local level.

Why should we care?

And, FYI, everyone should be caring about what’s going on in Portland right now. Not only because we’ve seen similar tactics used before (Huey points to the treatment of Vietnam War protesters and incidents like at Kent State University in the 1960s and ’70s, “huge government overreactions and abuses of power”), but also because not paying attention and not addressing it lets the government get away with it.

“What’s happening right now is this unchecked power,” Huey says. “And once you get a taste of it and there’s nothing stopping it and saying, ‘hey we need to look into this,’ basically it continues and it will continue unchecked until the election happens and god knows what’s going to happen then. But basically what we’ve done is we’ve said it’s acceptable to do this because we’re letting it happen right now.”

Although an unpopular opinion, Huey says that other than government checks and balances, “one of the best solutions for this is to have independent police services that aren’t so politically tied to the federal government, provincial government or municipal government.”

“That independence creates a situation that allows police chief to say no,” she continues. “[Because] if [a leader] doesn’t like the decision of a police chief, guess what? They’re usually on a two to five year contract, then you can get them out.” Looking to the United States, where Huey says Trump has essentially removed anybody in power that *could* say no to him, she notes that this situation has largely stemmed from the inability of those in charge to say no against the president. “So it puts [Trump] in charge; and agents and police can’t really say no.”

“The FBI is not Trump’s police force, The Department of Homeland Services is not his police force. Removing that independence is terrible and that’s something that we need to deal with.”

Two years ago, while I was in Vermont for a yoga teacher training, I had my first threesome with a married, cis-het, white couple. I found them on Tinder, as you do. My profile was simple. Me backstage in a tube top dress with a smirky smile. A swimsuit selfie in my friend’s pool. A Down Dog to show my full shape. “Hey yourself,” it read. Theresa. Age 35. Single.

I wasn’t looking for a threesome—I didn’t even consider myself to be bisexual at the time—but I was open to anything. I already had a consistent hook-up buddy back home in Boston, and since I was going to be in Vermont a few times that summer for trainings, I figured it would be fun to have something out there, too. I was driving down I-89 listening to Kid Cudi and feeling just as free as he was in his lyrics. I was in love with my body. Fully owning, for maybe the first time in my life, that I can do whatever I want with it. With whomever (consenting, of course) I want. Summer 2018 was a time when anything I wanted could happen.

She had a septum piercing. Floral tattoos across her breast plate. Chunky glasses that reminded me of mine. He was tall. Bald and kind faced with spacers in his earlobes. Tattoos across his knuckles. “Well, I guess we shouldn’t just say Hey,” they first messaged. We met up for a cocktail.

“Make sure their marriage seems stable!” my friends warned me. Because that is the thing. In the world of online dating, married couples are notorious for bringing in a third person to heal something that is broken within their relationship; we “thirds”—single people interested in joining an existing couple—are often called “unicorns” for a reason. Like a magical, mythical creature, we’re two things at once, here for him and for her. We are filled with glitter. Sparkle and smoke.

After drinks, she and I drove back to their place together. We listened to Janelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer on my Toyota’s Bluetooth speaker. “I love this song,” we said in unison, over and over again.

This was my first time, and their first time, but I had thought it through. I knew my boundaries. “What is off limits for your body?” I asked her.

“Nothing,” she said.

“And what is off limits for you to witness me do with your husband?” I asked, measuring my breath, choosing my words carefully.

“Only the things that he doesn’t want,” she said.

What I didn’t know yet was that I was getting myself into an entanglement.

Last week, after August Alsina’s interview with the Breakfast Club’s Angela Yee, Jada Pinkett-Smith brought herself to The Red Table with her husband Will. August claimed in the interview that, over the course of a several years long relationship, he’d been deeply in love with Jada. A kind of romantic love he’d never before experienced. And he claimed he had Will’s blessing, that the Smiths had agreed their marriage as a romantic partnership was over.

“The only person that can give permission in that particular circumstance is myself,” Jada said, sitting cross legged in her chair, looking comfortable and refreshed in her denim shirt, as Will took measured breaths.

I was pipe-dreaming that this might be a conversation about an intentionally open, non-monogamous relationship. Summer 2020 has been a whirlwind: A global pandemic. The City of New York painting BLACK LIVES MATTER in front of Trump Tower. Murder hornets. A couple of Hollywood sweethearts speaking honestly about how monogamy just doesn’t work for them, and how they found the key to health and happiness in their marriage was in opening it up? Why not?! Summer 2020. The year of the Unicorn.

“So what happened, Jada?” Will asked across the red table.

“[August] just needed some help, you know?” Jada replied, “Me wanting to help his health. His mental state.”

“He was really sick” they said in unison. “Really, really sick,” Jada went on.

Was August actually sick? Sure. I don’t know him and I don’t know his life. But what I do know, is he wasn’t the only one who needed healing.

The couple and I started a WhatsApp chat with a unicorn for the group photo, and conversation flowed easily. After our second time together, he asked if I would consider dating them, an emotional enhancement from the purely-sexual relationship we’d already established. “We could go bowling. And out to dinner. Karaoke,” he offered, when I asked what that might look like. “I think about you when you’re not here,” he went on, “and not just in a sexual way. We want to spend more time with you.”

“I feel like that would be a shift in terms of the parameters we have here,” I messaged back. I was good at this. They had been married for nearly a decade; she’d never done more than kiss anyone other than him, until me. They seemed happy, secure, stable. But, I knew to tread lightly. Some couples figure out that a two person monogamous relationship isn’t what makes the most sense for them. And some couples figure out that temporarily bringing in a third can spice things up for them. Fill a void that has somehow formed between them. Mend a wound they can’t quite heal on their own. But I knew they weren’t ready to come out publicly as having opened their marriage to me.

“And what if I want to hold your hand?” I asked. “Or hers. What if she says something funny and I want to kiss her? What if I bowl a strike and you want to hug me?” Vermont is filled with small towns, and theirs was no exception. We were sure to see their friends at the bowling alley, the pub, the karaoke bar.

It was always unclear to me where they saw the relationship going. I knew they wanted to have kids. So then what? I would move to Vermont and we would raise the children together? I would be the Black “auntie” who came over and had dinner with this all white family, and then spent the night with Mommy and Daddy?

“Cuz this is your red table, and you brought yourself to The Red Table—I think you need to say clearly what happened,” Will asked Jada.

“I got into an entanglement with August,” Jada replied.

“An entanglement??” Will asked laughing, “A relationship!”

“Yes! A relationship, absolutely” Jada admitted. “I was in a lot of pain. And I was very broken.” Will was leaving her, and she was questioning the life she thought they were building together, unsure if the plans they’d had would ever come to fruition.

In the end, it was August who left. The would-be unicorn who finally wisened up, and remembered his role. Unicorns give magic. We don’t get it back.

“Walking away,” August told Angela Yee, “it butchered me.” That’s the difference between me and August; I think he imagined Jada would walk away with him. Hold his hand across a shared table. I think he imagined she would love him the way he loved her. I’m sure he imagined he was more than just their Divorce Doula, a conduit for Jada’s transition between married life and separation. But I didn’t.

Like most humans, I desire a committed relationship, one that is fun and friendly and loving and supportive; one that is sexually satisfying. In the Summer of 2018, I didn’t have that. But they did. They had each other, and while they wanted more of me, they hadn’t thought through what it would be like for me when it ended, or even what it would be like for me as it was happening. She would say something funny, and he would kiss her. He would bowl a strike, and she would hug him. And what would I get?

Tangled up in the sheets of their bed, we were equal thirds with equal goals. I was there for my pleasure, and for theirs. I was their special guest star: they saw to it that I always came first. “Whether you intend it or not,” I told them, “us going on dates would be inherently uneven for me.”

I’d like to say I stayed strong. Gave them a no and stuck to it. But I didn’t. I gave in and we went on a date and I watched their fingers intertwine across the table, as I held nothing but my chopsticks. They were questioning the life they’d built together, unsure if their plans to grow their family would ever come to fruition. I listened, but it wasn’t my job to fix them, or even to guide them through it. Unicorns are great. Our magic lingers. We float in your thoughts even after we’re gone. We can help. But we cannot actually heal you. That’s only gonna come from within.

The couple and I stayed in touch via WhatsApp, saying hello and sharing major life events if we remembered. I’d asked them how they’d feel if I wrote about our experience one day. She gave me their blessing. Last summer, I reached out one last time.

“Things are good with us, Theresa. We had fun times with you, but we are in a different place in our lives now,” she replied.

“Bye, Theresa,” he wrote moments later, “Live and be well.”

I imagined them sitting together in the bed we had briefly shared. I imagined them holding hands. Deciding together what they would say, how they would present a united front. And then I watched as one at a time, they left the group chat. And I was alone, every corner of the virtual room filled with sparkle and smoke. My hands empty.

“Bad marriage for life,” Jada and Will said in unison, as though they’d said it a million times before. They fist bumped across the table. And I imagined August watching this. “The definition of entanglement,” he’d later sing, “It’s when you’re entangled in the sheets.”

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Pretend for a moment you’re a teenager again. You’re still on cloud nine from that amazing concert you went to last week—on a school day, no less—with all of your friends and classmates, not to mention your crush. You sang, you laughed, you heard a pretty moving story about a girl in Kenya, and you sat through some semi-boring speeches—then you finally got to see Shawn Mendes perform live and you definitely made your followers jealous by posting it on IG Stories, Snapchat AND TikTok.

That concert you attended wasn’t a concert at all—not in the traditional sense, anyway. It was a youth rally called WE Day. The price of admission: a few acts of goodwill and volunteering projects you did with your classmates (and the permission slip from your parents).

WE Day, an event that many Canadians have either heard about, watched on television (CTV was a media partner) or online, or have even attended or sent their children to, is the flagship event hosted by Toronto-based WE Charity. It’s held in more than 15 cities across Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, features star-studded performances and motivational speeches from the likes of Selena Gomez, Malala Yousafzai, Nelly Furtado and Justin Trudeau (both as a private citizen and as prime minister) and has been attended by 1 million young people to date.

WE Charity calls WE Day “the greatest celebration of social good”; it’s also been the cornerstone to the organization’s meteoric rise to international fame and strong standing in the humanitarian, entertainment and corporate communities. And, lately, it’s been central in national media coverage about questionable practices that the organization has taken in its quest to change the world.

The charity has been under increasing scrutiny over the past month for having accepted a sole-sourced contract from the federal government that would have seen them distribute nearly $1 billion worth of summer student volunteer grants, sparking the hashtag #WeHaveAProblem. The deal fell through after WE pulled out amid ethics concerns that the Trudeau family has longstanding ties to the charity. In addition to Justin Trudeau’s participation with WE Day, it was revealed that WE paid Margaret Trudeau (Justin’s mother) and Alexandre Trudeau (Justin’s brother) between $250,000 and $320,000 each for their speeches at events. Other speakers were told that they would not be paid; notably, Jully Black posted a video on Instagram about her shady experiences with the organization. And this is all just a wormhole into the complicated, controversial and downright confusing operations of this very prolific Canadian charity.

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What is WE Charity, anyway?

It’s a simple question—but you’ll get a different answer depending on who you are talking to.

If you ask the Kielburgers, or any official mouthpiece for WE, they’ll tell you that they’re an international charity that’s been creating positive change around the world for nearly 25 years. Originally called Free The Children, it was founded by Craig Kielburger in 1995, when he was 12 years old and inspired by Iqbal Masih, a child factory worker in Pakistan who was outspoken about child labour there. (Masih’s death soon after has been shown to be unrelated to his activism, though Kielburger continues to tell the story as if it was.) One of the group’s first activities was starting a petition to free another labour activist imprisoned in India, obtaining about 3,000 signatures.

Today, the organization aims to motivate other young people to similarly get involved in global issues, primarily through WE Schools, “an innovative series of experiential service learning programs that engage educators and youth globally to empower them with the skills, knowledge and motivation to bring positive change in themselves and the world,” according to the website. Plain English explanation: It’s a “free” school curriculum that incorporates WE Charity’s programs, opportunities and overall mission into classrooms—while essentially grooming participants for WE Charity’s international programs and projects. For example, to get access to WE Day, students at registered WE Schools must complete a series of workshops and tasks. Then, during WE Day they are presented with the many opportunities to financially support WE Charity—being inspired to purchase a Youth Volunteer Trip to a WE Village in countries like Kenya, Ecuador and India, or being informed that buying certain products from key sponsors will benefit kids just like them abroad. The strong encouragement to tweet, record and post their experience also gets their friends curious and involved. All of these actions ultimately promote and fund WE Charity’s for-profit arm, Me to We, which Craig founded with his brother Marc Kielburger in 1999.

Here’s where most people get lost. WE is essentially a two-part organization: WE Charity is the public non-profit on one side, and Me to We is the private “social enterprise” (read: for-profit) organization that funds much of the activity of its charitable arm. There’s been much confusion about the relationship and the flow of money between the two entities; Charity Intelligence Canada—a non-profit that evaluates charitable organizations—reported about the “blurred lines,” noting that We Charity paid Me to We $3.6m for travel, leadership training services and promotional goods in 2019. In an interview on CBC’s The Current, CIC Managing Director Kate Bahen noted that while the practice of corporations giving money to their philanthropic arms is commonplace, the practice of charities giving money to their corporate entities is unusual, stating “we haven’t seen the backwash before.” And it gets even more complicated when you consider the Trudeau government’s involvement in all of this. As Bahen said: “When you have two organizations that are so close together, it causes massive confusion; was the government contract with WE Charity, and how was Me to We, the private business, going to benefit from that?”

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That brings us back to the current controversy surrounding the organization. In addition to the government scandal, a number of stories—mostly published by Canadaland since 2018—have profiled WE Charity’s questionable corporate partnerships, workplace culture and their operations abroad in Kenya. In a growing list of allegations and detailed reporting, Me to We has been found to have partnerships with corporations known to employ child labour in the manufacturing of their products (a sadly ironic occurrence since the charity’s original aim was to eliminate child labour); numerous former staff have spoken out to detail various accounts of a workplace operating under a culture of fear, racism and disillusionment; and details emerged about unethical measures the organization has taken to maintain operations in Kenya (one of its first, longest running and most prominent WE Villages locations), including paying local government officials to act favourably towards the organization.

Celebrity endorsement is not as altruistic as it seems

WE Charity’s relationship with politicians and celebrities began quite early. In December 1995, Craig Kielburger went on an eight-week tour to South and Southeast Asia, meeting children living in poverty and hearing first-hand accounts of their experiences. During this tour, Kielburger met with then-Prime Minister Jean Chretien, convincing him to take a public stand against child slavery. From there, Kielburger was featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, wrote the first of his several books on humanitarian aid from a youth perspective, and Free the Children began seeing early success, including numerous private donations.

The first “National Me to We Day” was held in Toronto in October 2007, organized as a way to rally youth—and their local school boards—to meet the challenge of raising money to build schools for impoverished children around the world. To do this, the Kielburgers employed a little star power to inspire the 7,500 youth who attended: Among the speakers and performers were the band Hanson and then-private citizen Justin Trudeau. The event was a success, reportedly leading to the construction of 50 schools, 10 clean water systems and 200 alternative income projects in the developing countries that the charity supports.

Since then WE Day, and its celebrity speakers, has been the key to the charity’s international success, especially through the use of what’s called “charitainment”—the phrase coined by James Poniwozik in Time magazine back in 2005 to describe the phenomenon of celebrity culture mixed with selective activism that serves to promote a celebrity’s personal brand as much as it does the issue with which they’re associated. Notoriety, he writes, is a charitable asset. In this manner, WE Charity’s assets have been amplified exponentially by the presence of celebrities performing and speaking (often about their experiences abroad at the charity’s development projects in Africa and South America) at WE Day events. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship: Not only does celebrity involvement raise the profile of WE, it helps the individual celebrities, too (and not just in the form of a fat cheque). At WE Day, celebrities—including the Kielburger brothers themselves—build their personal brands as compassionate superhumans who are out there saving the world.

I wrote about this eight years ago in my award-winning master’s thesis. After six months researching post-humanitarianism, media events, celebrity advocates and authenticity in humanitarian communication, I concluded that charities often employ many strategies seen in political comms to successfully convince everyday people—and in WE’s case, the coveted, keyed-up and impressionable demographic of people aged 13 to 19—to devote their time, money and, in some cases, lives to a cause and organization they likely didn’t know or care about before. One of the strategies I examined was the use of “varying judgement” by these public figures to shape the thoughts of their audience. We’re getting deep here, but stay with me. Varying judgement is a term that describes messaging that quickly identifies what’s right and wrong within the context of complex discussions. For example, the general gist of WE Charity’s key messaging is that children should be children and not be used for slavery, hard labour or suffer the consequences of extreme poverty; they should be “free” to do what they want (and that this organization should help them do that). Celebs help to point the audience’s attention towards the causes they (and WE) deem most important. As Poniewozik wrote in his TIME article, “In a world of endless woes, you can be overwhelmed into inaction. Or you can make, at some level, an arbitrary choice. [Celebrities] are attention filters, the human equivalent of throwing a dart at a map. A pretty face and a famous name are a convenient excuse to focus on one problem in the midst of a thousand equally unignorable others.” In short: The audience is compelled to believe that if their fave celebrities are giving themselves to this particular cause over all others, it must be the most worthy of their attention, time, money, too.

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Motivation or manipulation?

These celebrity speeches motivate people to act quickly by simplifying the issues. And in doing so, they propagate a problematic portrayal of human suffering informed by Western ideological, normative and (mis)representational framing. For example, while watching a video of Mia Farrow’s speech at WE Day Vancouver in 2009, I noted that when speaking on the conflict in Darfur, she identifies the Sudanese government as the major reason for the suffering of children in said conflict. While it was indeed alarming abuse that needed to be talked about and actioned upon by the international community, Farrow’s speech gave no explanation of the many situations at hand contributing to that particular moment in time (a genocide AND a civil war, not to mention the complex history of Sudan and its people). All that mattered was that the children and their families were suffering, the Sudanese government was the perpetrator, and that *something* needed to be done about it—and that something is determined by what WE Charity deems important, not necessarily what is actually needed to remedy the situation, never mind that an actually sustainable solution would take years to implement. (What’s also important to note is that the sufferers themselves don’t have a say in their own “salvation” here.) It’s a simplistic reduction that motivates the audience to act; but because the audience isn’t aware of the complexities of the situation being described to them, they are instead encouraged to somewhat blindly trust the perspective of the organization, and the celebrities working with it. And that celebrity endorsement counteracts the normally teenage impulse to question why they should do what they’re being told.

Kids can certainly be manipulated into worse things than “saving the world,” but here’s why WE’s maneuvers are so problematic: The combination of charitainment and philanthro-capitalism mixed with the genuine desires of young people wanting to make a difference in their communities and beyond makes for a situation where said desires are used to reinforce Western views of who gets to be saved, who gets to do the saving—and most of all, who benefits from it all (arguably, those at the helm of a successful charitable organization). And when you consider that its programs are hugely ingrained into our public education system—not to mention dangerously intertwined with our federal government—WE certainly deserves the close investigation and criticism it’s currently facing.

WE are not alone—but they are especially problematic

Though WE Charity is currently the one under the microscope, they are not the first organization to employ tactics that combine celebrity culture, humanitarian issues and philanthro-capitalism. The concept has been used by other NGOs for decades, way back to when the United Nations appointed its first celebrity Goodwill Ambassador, movie star Danny Kaye, in 1954.

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Regardless of how they disseminate their message and promote their cause, following the money and activities of a charity should be a relatively easy process—especially when you consider the amounts of federal government funding that’s typically used to assist their activities abroad. Many organizations, though increasingly conflating humanitarian aid with capitalist tendencies, are almost always able to show where and how donations are spent via an annual report, with mundane yet important details of all of their transactions, savings, spending and overhead costs. This usually includes any corporate partnerships the organization has vested interests with and also commercial transactions—the common practice is to tie products and services directly to causes and operations done by the charity; for example, think Girl Guide cookies, UNICEF Canada’s Survival Gifts or Plan Canada’s Gifts of Hope (the one with the talking goat commercial).

WE Charity goes about this in a completely different way. Its for-profit arm, Me to We, uses what they call a “closed loop system that empowers the people [they] work with.” They partner with various companies to use their branding on products in stores in Canada and the United States, and also have several Me to We stores in major shopping centres, selling products made by artisans living in areas where WE Villages operate. Because Me to We is a for-profit business, the revenues from the sales of these items is not disclosed and is not included in WE Charity’s reporting (which, for the record, is done in the form of “transparency reports,” a different format from that of the usual annual report that charities do).

At WE Day, Me to We products are part of the spectacle, being presented/pushed towards their young audiences like a Happy Meal toy—the difference is that at We Day kids are told that their purchases can help someone in need and change the world, when in reality that claim is unverified at best. The motivation of “tracking your impact”—a sort of gamification of the process—further complicates it in that the real impact does not appear to be who is helped, but who profits from the purchases of well-meaning youth.

Do Charities like WE even have a place in 2020?

It all begs the question of whether WE and charities like it should even have a place in our schools or other programming aimed at young people. Especially in 2020, when kids—with endless access to information and inspiration via social media—are already motivated on their own to speak up and act on the issues they care about.

I continue to be inspired by young people every day, especially because they inspire themselves to take on the challenges required to make change, without an organization telling them how to do so. The current global revolution against anti-Black racism started with a group of young people in Minneapolis taking action after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneaoplis Police Department—after sparking protests in all 50 states in the U.S., the protests are now worldwide, corporate entities are having a moment of reckoning, and laws everywhere are being challenged, rewritten or dismantled altogether. Here in Canada, organizations such as Not Another Black Life and Afro-Indigenous Rising are making their own waves to address anti-Black racism through the power of grassroots organization via social media.

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Then there are young environmental activists like Autumn Peltier, Mari Copeny (aka Little Miss Flint), Helena Gualinga and Greta Thunberg, who all started their activism independently, leveraging social media to further their causes and raise awareness to the issues in their communities—to the point that organizations sought out their expertise and experience.

Following the recent uproar, WE Charity themselves seem to have realized that they need to rethink how they operate moving forward; on July 15 in light of the ongoing investigation by the Ethics Commissioner into the federal government’s now-cancelled deal to deliver summer student volunteer grants with WE, the charity announced that they would be undergoing a “governance and structural change,” prioritizing their international development work—and, for the foreseeable future, cancelling all WE Day events, opting to offer school-based service-learning programs through digital platforms instead. But is that shift enough?

With traditional charitable organizations appearing to be either too large, too slow or too unwilling to recognize and adapt to the changes, sentiments and actions in the world moving faster than a viral TikTok video, young people have been taking the lead into their own hands—the difference now is that everyone, young and old, is watching, listening—and finally, finally beginning to act, beyond the rigid and often problematic framework of a charity.

That’s the kind of real change we need to keep pushing for.

As if 2020 couldn’t get anymore bonkers. In a year that’s already given us a global pandemic, the routine killing of Black and Indigenous people by police and an overwhelming amount of Twitter content featuring realistic objects that are actually cake, we now have a conspiracy theory involving online furniture companies and child trafficking to contend with. On July 10, home furnishin retailer Wayfair started trending on Twitter and it was for a pretty nefarious reason. According to Mashable, on July 9, users on Reddit’s r/conspiracy subreddit started positing that the site—or potentially third-party sellers on the site—were secretly part of a child trafficking ring. And this didn’t come out of nowhere. The theory started when a user posted a screenshot of abnormally high-priced cabinets from the Wayfair’s site, noting that the names were unusual and unlike other furniture pieces on the site. According to those on the subreddit, a quick search of the names, which included monikers such as Neriah and Samiyah, found that they were the same names as several missing children.

Is it possible Wayfair involved in Human trafficking with their WFX Utility collection? Or are these just extremely overpriced cabinets? (Note the names of the cabinets) this makes me sick to my stomach if it’s true 🙁 from conspiracy

This led many online to speculate and theorize a truly horrific allegation: that the company is engaged in child trafficking. Soon after starting on Reddit, the theories picked up steam on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. Here’s everything you need to know about the Wayfair child trafficking allegations.

OK, so what exactly is Wayfair?

For those who aren’t into interior design, or just really love Ikea (and who could blame you?), the name Wayfair may not be super familiar. Founded in 2002, the online home store sells furniture and accessories. And unlike Ikea and other furniture stores like Structube, many of the pieces sold on Wayfair.com are from different companies and not their own in-house brand.

This is far from the first time the company has come under scrutiny for reported bad behaviour. In June 2019, employees of the furniture brand walked off the job in protest of the company’s low-key support of the Trump government’s anti-migrant policy and detainment camps. ICYMI, Wayfair had a deal in which they provided government contractors with beds for the camps that house detained migrants at the United States border (camps that have been referred to by U.S. representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as “mass concentration camps”). Despite the fact that at the time, Wayfair employees requested the company terminate this contract, the company did not oblige.

So yeah, not everyone are big fans of the company—and for very valid reasons.

What are the conspiracy theories around Wayfair?

As inhumane and wrong as the detainment camps in the U.S. are, these latest accusations against Wayfair are even more alarming. As mentioned above, theories that Wayfair is involved in human trafficking (specifically the trafficking of children) arose after a user noted utility closets and storage units for sale on the site, priced between $12,000 to $14,500—price points they felt were exorbitant. “Is it possible Wayfair involved in Human trafficking with their WFX Utility collection?” the user wrote alongside a photo of the cabinets in question. “Or are these just extremely overpriced cabinets? (Note the names of the cabinets) this makes me sick to my stomach if it’s true :(.”

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Is it possible Wayfair involved in Human trafficking with their WFX Utility collection? Or are these just extremely overpriced cabinets? (Note the names of the cabinets) this makes me sick to my stomach if it’s true 🙁 from conspiracy

As fact-checking website Snopes notes, because of this initial post, users online started to search for *other* home goods on the site that were similarly oddly priced. As the website notes, one user on Twitter shared a set of pillows and a shower curtain listed at $9,999 (which is a Drake-level price for something like pillow cases). When compared to similar items—listed at only $99.99, for instance—the user decided that the discrepancy in prices must be attributed to the fact that the first listing was actually a listing for purchasing a child. The user tweeted (then deleted): “If you search bungalow rose a bunch of shower curtains and pillows show up priced at $9,999. Wayfair is fucking trafficking children what the FUCK. Same with other things. They all have big price jumps to like 10 grand. Wayfair also supplies the furniture at ICE detention centers, where children are going MISSING from.”

As Snopes states in the same article: “This claim is largely based on the idea that $10,000 is simply too expensive for a cabinet, and that there has to be some other explanation — child trafficking — to justify its cost.”

More allegations soon cropped up on social media. Per MediaWise—a Poynter-run non-profit project that teaches Americans how to sort fact from fiction online—many Twitter users began claiming that searching the Stock Unit Number (SKU) for each Wayfair product on Russian search engine Yandex, which is similar to Google, brought up photos of female children. News organization Newsweek later reported this is untrue.

As the theory gained traction online, many Twitter users claimed that searching the stock keeping unit number (SKU) for each Wayfair product on a Russian search engine would bring up photos of children. Newsweek reported that is not the case. pic.twitter.com/aPO9e0cWWH

— MediaWise (@mediawise) July 10, 2020

And, in addition to all of this, an additional theory arose regarding a specific 2016 review of a filing cabinet, priced at $5,000. Per Newsweek, in 2016 a user named Janna from Walnut Creek, CA (an area outside San Francisco), published a review on this particular product. (FWIW, Janne wrote: “Checked many other sites and this was a great deal! Fast shipping. Thank you!”). In February of this year, a man in Walnut Creek was arrested for  human trafficking, child pornography and attempted kidnapping. According to The Mercury News, this arrest led to the uncovering of a much larger sex trafficking ring in the area.

This Wayfair child trafficking has me in a DEEP black hole pic.twitter.com/xzT5wdOv2j

— priscilla (@prizzkilla) July 10, 2020

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What does a February 2020 arrest have to do with a 2016 review by someone who sounds like a lady from your mom’s book club? Nothing, most likely. But many people online have claimed the two incidents are linked.

There have also been unsubstantiated and unverified reports that Wayfair CEO Niraj Shah has stepped down amid the allegations [FLARE has reached out to Wayfair for comment on this], which has only helped to fuel rumours of trafficking more.

BREAKING NEWS CEO OF WAYFAIR HAS STEPPED DOWN #WayfairGate #wayfair #waytrafficking #HumanTrafficking @Wayfair pic.twitter.com/kkXBnWK0x2

— Rebecca Lemick (@RebeccaLemick) July 11, 2020

And what does this have to do with Ghislaine Maxwell?

Perhaps because this Wayfair conspiracy theory is happening shortly after the arrest of Jeffrey Epstein co-conspirator and former GF Ghislaine Maxwell, there have been attempts to connect Wayfair to the now-deceased disgraced billionaire. A 2003 photo of Maxwell—who was arrested on July 2 on charges that she helped recruit, groom and abuse minors—has gone viral in light of the allegations against the company, with many people online claiming that the man beside Maxwell is president of operations for Wayfair, Bill Hutcherson. But as Heavy states in a July 12 article, this claim is not true. An April 28, 2004 photo round-up in Tatler—taken at the December 2003 Asprey’s New York Flagship launch—in which Maxwell is wearing the same outfit and pictured with the same man, identifies him as George Bamford. Bamford is the founder of Bamford Watch Design, a company that launched in 2004 and which specializes in high-end watch customization.

If this picture is of the “president of operations” (position doesn’t exist) of Wayfair, then why was this picture taken in 2003 when Wayfair was a start up company with 2 employees? Bill Hutcherson isn’t a real person. Their Chief of Operations is this guy, not Bill Hutcherson. pic.twitter.com/8izJmwjezd

— 🇻🇨🇻🇨🇻🇨 (@KingSwankk) July 11, 2020

In addition, Wayfair (which launched in 2002 under the name CSN Stores, according to Heavy), has never had a “president of operations” on its payroll. So, it would appear that the company doesn’t have any overt links to Epstein and Maxwell.

How did these human trafficking theories about Wayfair start?

According to Newsweek, who spoke with Reddit user PrincessPeach1987 (the user refused to reveal their real name), the theory originated after the poster began to search garage storage with their husband. The poster told Newsweek that while they were initially not suspicious of the pricing, additional posts on Facebook purporting similar scenarios caused them to become suspicious. According to the outlet, the user said they are “involved in a local organization that helps victims of human trafficking,” which has led them to be “suspicious most of the time now.” Per the outlet, they characterized their Reddit post as an effort to “see if anyone else had more details.”

The Wayfair conspiracy theory follows several other theories of international pedophilia rings involving celebrities and high-ranking officials, like Pizzagate.

What is Wayfair’s response to the conspiracy theory?

Since news of the theory began circulating, the company has denied any involvement with child trafficking. In a statement to Newsweek, Wayfair said: “There is, of course, no truth to these claims. The products in question are industrial grade cabinets that are accurately priced. Recognizing that the photos and descriptions provided by the supplier did not adequately explain the high price point, we have temporarily removed the products from site to rename them and to provide a more in-depth description and photos that accurately depict the product to clarify the price point.”

So, is this true?

Unlike the IRL facts and legitimate evidence against Wayfair when it came to outfitting migrant detainment camps, these latest theories appear to be untrue (and in fact, Snopes has labelled the allegations definitively as a hoax). Which is good to know and have clarified. Something else that should be made crystal clear? The fact that conspiracy theories like this are *extremely* dangerous. Not only does it spread massive disinformation (often to people who may not be aware of ways to properly fact-check these allegations) thanks in large part to the viral nature and longevity of content on the internet, but they also do a disservice to the very real and very harmful reality of human sex trafficking in North America.

This is the real worry with QAnon stuff.

Most people associate QAnon with wacko talk about clones and JFK Jr.’s ghost rising from the dead, but Q’s narratives are now pervasive with young people because they linger in the ether of the social internet.https://t.co/A5hKT3H6rW

— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) July 10, 2020

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In Canada, human trafficking—especially of children and teens—is incredibly prevalent. 2016 data from Statistics Canada on human trafficking (the most recent stats to date) found that 72% victims of human trafficking were under 25 years old and 90% of sex trafficking victims are females. And circulating unsubstantiated hoaxes like these minimize the importance of, not to mention detract attention and resources away from, these real victims and perpetrators. And, these unsubstantiated conspiracy theories can have almost dire consequences. In 2016, a North Carolina man walked into a Washington D.C. pizzeria with a semiautomatic rifle, handgun and a folding knife, under the guise that he was saving captive children from a satanic sex ring run by Hillary Clinton in the basement of the pizzeria, a theory reported by InfoWars host Alex Jones (InfoWars is a far-right American conspiracy theory and fake news website). As reported by Rolling Stone in a November 2017 article on the consequences of hoaxes and fake news, there were no children being held captive and the pizzeria didn’t even have a basement.

The idea of a furniture company selling children is absolutely appalling—and it’s entirely understandable that people would hear these allegations and get upset. It’s also crucial that people look deeper into allegations and theories on the internet before posting or re-posting said claims.

FLARE has reached out to Wayfair for comment. The article will be updated with their response

In the wake of several deaths of Black and Indigenous people at the hands of the police and RCMP, protests against police brutality have sparked conversations about systemic racism, both in Canada and the U.S.

What these conversations have revealed, unfortunately, is an ignorance around systemic racism, with many public officials casting their doubts about its existence in Canada. For example, earlier this month, RCMP commissioner Brenda Lucki refused to acknowledge its existence in the RCMP—a stance she soon retracted. Afterwards, when she was questioned in Parliament, she referred to a height challenge during a physical fitness test as an example of systemic racism—which, as MP Greg Fergus pointed out, is closer to systemic discrimination than systemic racism. Lucki couldn’t name another example and passed the question on to the RCMP’s HR specialist. (Ontario Premier Doug Ford also rejected the idea that Canada doesn’t have “systemic, deep roots” of racism, like the U.S., before walking that comment back and admitting that systemic racism exists in Ontario and Canada.)

Leaders should know better, but it’s true that the term isn’t widely taught in school. So, how does systemic racism differ from individual acts of racism, how does it work, and why is everyone talking about it?

What is systemic racism?

Systemic racism, also known as institutional racism, refers to the ways that white supremacy (that is, the belief that white people are superior to people of other races) is reflected and upheld in the systems in our society. It looks at larger, structural and institutional operations rather than individual biases and behaviours. “Our education systems, our healthcare systems, our judicial systems, our criminal justice system, our policing systems […] The very institutions that make up the way we live, how we’ve structured society, how we come to make decisions, how we decide what’s fair or just,” explains Brittany Andrew-Amofah, senior policy and research analyst at the Broadbent Institute, a Canadian progressive and social democratic think tank. “These systems are built with an already ingrained bias, a racist lens and embedded with a discriminatory lens that doesn’t provide or allow for equal or fair opportunities for racialized peoples to succeed within.”

In a settler colonial state like Canada, the systems that were put in place at the creation of the country benefited the white colonists—while disadvantaging the Indigenous populations who had lived here for thousands of years prior to colonialism. “Taking land away from Indigenous people across all of the Americas and then bringing in free labour from Africa and enslaving Black people created wealth and opportunities for white people,” says Tiffany Ford, a former TDSB trustee, entrepreneur and activist. Much of our society today continues to reinforce this power dynamic.

For example, Canada’s federal policing system, the RCMP, was created in order to control the Indigenous population in post-Confederation Canada. The RCMP have continued to be perpetrators of violence against Black and Indigenous people over 150 years later. It isn’t just about a few bad cops having “unconscious biases,” as RCMP Commissioner Lucki suggested before releasing a statement that acknowledged systemic racism within the police force. The very system through which the state criminalizes individuals has been racist from its inception.

Read this next: We Must Defund the Police. It Is the Only Option.

How does systemic racism work?

Because racism is entrenched in every system in this country, BIPOC are disadvantaged at every turn. Systematic racism is responsible for wealth inequality (according to StatCan, 23.9% of Black Canadians are considered low income, compared to 12.2% of white Canadians), gaps in higher education (StatCan found that though 94% of Black youth aged 15 to 25 would like to obtain a bachelor’s degree, only 60% thought they could) and higher rates of incarceration (according to StatCan, Indigenous people represent about 26% of those in a correctional facility, though they only account for about 3% of the national population).

“It’s actually a material reality,” says Beverly Bain, a professor of women and gender studies in the department of historical studies at the University of Toronto, Mississauga. “It’s not that you don’t like me because I am Black. You not liking me because I’m Black actually gets in my way of survival. Police not liking Black people means that Black people get killed by police.”

The current COVID-19 pandemic is another example of systemic racism at work. In the United States, Black people are dying from COVID-19 three times more often than white Americans. And while there isn’t a lot of race-based data in Canada, the rates of racialized infection and deaths are likely the same. Bain explains that the pandemic exacerbates existing racial inequalities because of the systems in place, despite the fact that the virus itself doesn’t discriminate by race. “It’s only able to discriminate because of the conditions that these individuals are subjected to on a day-to-day basis,” she says. “It’s only able to attack our lives and to affect us the most and impact us the most and target us the most, because those who are Black and racialized tend to be in jobs that are lowly paid and on the frontlines.”

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Why is systemic racism in the news lately?

After George Floyd was killed by the police in Minneapolis on May 26, local protests sprung up in response and quickly began to spread throughout the U.S. and Canada. Protestors marched in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and called attention to other instances of police brutality (such as the death of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman who was shot to death while she was sleeping at home). In Canada, protests began in solidarity with the American protestors and confronted instances of police brutality closer to home, such as the death of Chantel Moore in New Brunswick.

Andrew-Amofah sees the killing of George Floyd as the “straw that broke the camel’s back” and opened up the floodgates of conversation surrounding race. “I think [systemic racism] is a buzzword right now because we’re naming what this is,” she says. “It’s very easy for individuals to be like, ‘I’m not racist,’ or ‘I have not done a racist thing, how could I be a part of the problem?’ [Talking about systemic racism] removes the individual from the conversation, and it allows us to have a broader and more comprehensive conversation around the country in which we live. It’s not about you per se—it’s about the country, its laws, its practices and policies.”

Though protests began in response to police brutality, they’ve since opened up conversations about racism in all parts of society. And just as no system or institution in Canada is free of racism, no institution has been exempt from being called out and held accountable. That includes the media (see: influencer Sasha Exeter’s callout of Jessica Mulroney’s white privilege), and universities (see: the University of Toronto community’s outrage at Massey College’s appointment of problematic columnist Margaret Wente as a Senior Fellow), as well as our political processes (see: Jagmeet Singh calling Bloc Quebecois MP Alain Therrien racist, and being asked to leave the House for the day after he refused to apologize), and the fashion industry (see: Aritzia and other prominent brands being accused of treating Black employees and customers unfairly across their widespread companies). Conversations that have focused on one person, or brand, or institution, have provided an entry point into conversations about the ways racism has shaped and continue to shape the very fabric of our society.

Read this next: How to Be a Better Friend to Black Women

How can I be a good ally?

First things first: be a good listener. “Listen and not feel like everyone’s trying to blame you,” says Ford. “Just being comfortable with being uncomfortable, it’s really a first step for any learning experience.”

Educating yourself is also an important step in being a good ally. Diversifying the media you consume, reading Black and Indigenous authors and learning about Canada’s racist history (something that isn’t widely taught in school) is a great place to start. “There are increasingly more books available that provide the accurate context in which Canada was created,” says Andrew-Amofah. “Diversifying the information that you take in, podcasts, music—I think that’s always a really excellent place to start. I think before you can act, I think it’s important to educate.”

Check your white fragility at the door, and get over the feeling of discomfort that comes from talking about race and being called out by your BIPOC peers. And it’s not just on white people: Non-Black people of colour also need to unlearn anti-Blackness, and take stock of the ways that their position as non-Black people have privileged them. Calling out racism when you see it, challenging it within yourself and your communities, bringing conversations into your spaces and standing up for your BIPOC peers (even if it means putting yourself on the line or getting into a fight with your family) is also imperative to allyship. “In this moment, what are you doing? How are you posing those questions to yourself? How are you challenging the state as it is?” asks Pascale Diverlus, one of the co-founders of Black Lives Matter-Toronto. “Right now, you hear a lot of calls from Black activists to defund the police. How are you bringing that conversation into your workplace? Are you calling your councillors? Are you donating to the groups that are hoping to push these topics forward?”

The first time I cried during the pandemic, I was sitting on my future in-laws’ white couch in their Manhattan apartment. My fiancé and I were watching the movie about the guy who realizes the Beatles never happened, so he pretends to be the one who wrote their songs. It’s a great concept but a bad movie, though that’s not what prompted my tears. I don’t think any one thought in particular drove me to sobs that morphed into a panic attack. I remember thinking if I got mascara on the couch, the cleaning service could take a significant chunk out of our wedding savings. It was the night after WHO declared the coronavirus a pandemic, and though it hadn’t been a shock, the result of the news was me, here on this incomprehensibly expensive couch, trying to breathe through my sobs.

After ensuring the couch remained stainless post-panic session, my life became about tasks. I helped my fiancé prep for minor surgery, called the rental car company so we could leave the city as soon as they were well enough to sit upright, and drove us all the way home to New England. I bought groceries for two weeks and focused on the lists, ticking off the things we’d need for our new life in quarantine. I avoided daily updates unless I had to write about them, and I began to pull away from Zoom calls when I knew my friends would want to talk about COVID. I controlled the evenings’ movie selections with “light” romantic comedies, and took on writing assignments about Netflix reality dating shows so I’d have to watch mindless things “for work.”

I kept my COVID-related media rotation small: The New York Times, one local news source, and Staying In with Emily & Kumail, a podcast about quarantine hosted by married creative team Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani. On episode five, “2Fast2Serious,” Gordon and Nanjiani read a letter from a listener who describes their “grief” in the time of COVID-19. The kind of grief the world is experiencing right now, Gordon says after reading the letter, is similar to what parents go through when when they find out their kid is queer. “When your child turns out differently than you imagined, which I think is true for parents when their kids come out sometimes, there’s a period of grief, not because you don’t want this kid to be who they are, but because you had pictured something else in your head,” she says.

As Gordon spoke, I saw my dad seven years ago, at a folk music festival where, under the influence of a couple beers, I told him I wasn’t straight. He said he “got it,” and I was “going through a phase.” We didn’t talk about it again until I called home two years later to say I was dating my first girlfriend. Then it seemed to hit him—maybe this wasn’t college experimentation after all.

When I got around to telling my mom, she already knew, likely thanks to my father, and interrupted every request I made to talk with a list of things she had to do. She ducked into the laundry room to escape our conversation so many times, I thought every item of clothing in the house would disintegrate. It took a year for me to tell her. What she said when I finally came out to her—that she loved me but could I please keep wearing dresses like Portia de Rossi—was hardly the difficult part, though she had a textbook understanding of how society expects femme women to dress.

I’m one of the lucky ones. After I told my parents I identified as queer, they continued to tell me they loved me, helped pay my rent, and kept me in food until I finished college. I never had to worry about financial insecurity as a result of coming out. But there was an adjustment period I never understood. Why did it take them years to come to terms with who I was? Why did it take such mental gymnastics to accept the fact that their daughter wouldn’t be marrying her high school boyfriend? I was still me; I was just sharing a little more information about myself. Why was it three years before my mom admitted she’d been grappling with the fact that she’d never have a son-in-law? And when I came home to get over a breakup with my first girlfriend—my first love—why did I get the sense from my family that I wasn’t allowed to be sad?

I’ve been mad about this for years. Sure, I’ve worked it over in therapy like a piece of sticky clay. I’ve moved on. I’ve introduced my parents to the person I’m going to marry, whom they love and with whom my dad pals around at his favorite hometown bars. But I’ve never been able to empathize with them until now. When Gordon compared COVID grief to that of a parent learning their child is queer, I realized my recent habits weren’t different from what my parents did when I came out. I make lists and manage the things I can control. In March, I invented the stories I wanted to hear—surely this whole thing would last two months, surely my fiancé would get their job back—and tried to ignore the rest. Talk of the subject made me nervous, just as the topic of my sexuality had been uncomfortable for my parents.

I still don’t know how to respond when it comes to this pandemic. I know now that it’s not going to end any time soon. I know my fiancé isn’t going back to work in the near future, and any significant travel we had planned is off. I know taking a day off from my freelance work means forfeiting money I need to save during a recession. And I know that, when it comes to my mental health, I’m not okay. But I don’t want to think about any of that. I don’t want accept that my wedding next year might not look like I’d always imagined—with every member of my large chosen family present. I don’t want my idea of the future to change.

My parents and I differ on a few things—currently, political opinions and CDC guidelines—but this pandemic has, despite all its negative qualities, enlightened our relationship. I now understand how shocked they were when their daughter, who used to like princesses and Barbies, told them that indeed, she liked princesses and Barbies. They’d never been privy to the sleepovers I hosted with all my dolls in the same bed, while Ken hung out in the Dreamhouse pool for days. What came as no surprise for me was, for them, the plot twist of a lifetime.

As I write this, I’ve just returned home from running mundane errands with my mask secured tightly over my face. I ran into a group of friends, and we stood around on the sidewalk nervously chattering about nothing. When I got home, I got a text from one of them: “Seeing you just now made my brain short-circuit,” she wrote.“I don’t know how to be a human anymore.” None of us know what we’re doing. This wasn’t supposed to be happening. This isn’t normal, though every day, government officials and health professionals tell us it’s the “new normal.” And what many of us are feeling right now, as a result, is grief. “It’s okay to feel grief for something that is lost, even knowing the reasons you lost it are valid,” Nanjiani told Gordon. That’s when my understanding of my parents’ mindset seven years ago clicked in.

My parents weren’t expecting to have a gay kid. They weren’t expecting me to inform them of a new normal. I know that now. I also know that the way I’m treating myself during this pandemic—gently and with patience—is the way I wish I’d treated them then. Seven years later, I know what it means to live comfortably in your assumptions without considering another reality. Rewriting the rules is scary. Learning new things is scary. Mom and Dad, I’m sorry for not seeing that then.

Now, please wear your masks so you can walk me down the aisle next year.

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As the COVID-19 crisis continues and health care practitioners attempt to divert non-essential traffic to local hospitals and clinics, U.S. residents are finding themselves up against increased hardship when it comes to accessing medical care; and women are learning just how detrimental this can be to their health and wellbeing. Christie, a mother of two, spoke with ELLE.com about the devastation, the medical challenges, and the unique isolation of experiencing a miscarriage during a pandemic.

“I think something’s wrong,” I told my friend over the phone. “I think I’m losing this baby.”

She was empathetic and kind and tried to keep me from assuming the worst. “Early pregnancy is so unpredictable,” she assured me. “You just don’t know!”

This pregnancy was brand new—it had been about two weeks since I’d gotten that first positive test—but something about it just hadn’t been sitting right with me. And that evening, when on a hunch I took a digital test that came back negative, I felt suspended somewhere between fear and a strange sort of validation. I sent my husband out to buy some more tests, and sure enough, as the next few days passed and that second pink line got progressively lighter with each attempt, it sunk in. This was ending. I was having a miscarriage.

My experience with conceiving and birthing hasn’t been complicated; aside from a chemical pregnancy (an early miscarriage that occurs before five weeks) that I had when my husband and I were first married, I’ve had an easy time getting and staying pregnant. Together we have two incredible children, and we were earnestly trying for and excited about the prospect of adding a third and final little person to our family. The world outside the confines of our home is tumultuous and uncertain, I know—but this pregnancy of mine was a gift. It was giving me something to be excited about. I was thrilled at the thought of giving my kids a new sibling and experiencing all those firsts again. The joy and hope it was giving me felt tangible—but out of nowhere, it was suddenly gone.

Had this miscarriage happened outside of a global pandemic, things would surely have been different. The emotional intricacies would be just as complex, but access to the people and services I need would be readily available. Because of COVID-19, however, they’re simply not. My feelings are raw, my body and mind are exhausted.

I’m also scared. Because my family and I are relatively new to the state we live in, I wasn’t yet an official patient of any local doctor, so I’m not able to receive any medical care while I go through this loss. I called the obstetrician I was scheduled to see, only to find out that they wouldn’t see me—nor would anyone else, they said. I’ve been instructed to wait a few weeks, then take another pregnancy test, and immediately go to the ER if there’s any hint of a positive result. My body will either do its job in expelling this unviable embryo or it will succumb to infection, where sepsis could set in and threaten my life. And all I can do is wait. I dread the day I have to take that test, and I fear what could happen in the hours after I do.

In the meantime, I am constantly overwhelmed by the way in which life carries on. My miscarriage doesn’t absolve me of my persistent work and family responsibilities. I’m participating in daily Zoom calls with my colleagues, acting as though nothing has happened to me, and I’m caring steadily for my children, whose needs will always come before my own. My husband is an incredible person, whose attentive nature allows me ample time to rest and be alone, to slip into the bath, perhaps, and to have a glass of wine while I connect with my closest friends through video chats, calls and texts—but even still, there’s nothing that quite takes the edge off when I know what’s waiting for me on the other side of that bathroom door. Because although he is sensitive to my needs, there’s just no denying that our task load as co-parents isn’t evenly weighted. The bulk of responsibility and of mental and emotional labor ends up falling onto me—and so, between my standard work-related and household tasks and my added responsibility of homeschooling my children for the foreseeable future as this pandemic rages on, I’m barely keeping it together.

As my feelings steadily increase, anxiety sets in. I feel dizzy, and I find jitters and mental fog taking over my mind. It’s mental chaos. I routinely feel as though I’m going to pass out, and every week or so I inevitably succumb to another panic attack. And all the while, as the laundry piles up, as meals wait to be planned, as groceries need to be purchased, snacks doled out, sibling squabbles mitigated, floors swept, and little bodies bathed, I beg the universe for an existence that does not so readily require me to be all the people I presently am.

When those feelings persist, I find guilt seeping in. I look at my family—and with a caring husband and two wonderful children, I berate myself for aching for the very thing that so many people cannot have. How is it that I can possibly feel so sad when I have so much? Do I even have the right? It isn’t until that next wave of darkness subsides that I begin to see that guilt as an insidious byproduct of my pain.

Pandemic notwithstanding, suffering a miscarriage is a deeply isolating experience. They are so personal, so empty, and so complex; but adding a shelter-in-place order to it only adds to the confusion and pain. I’m confined to my home, lost and lonely, with somehow not enough and altogether too much time to grieve what I’ve lost. So even though the waves of uterine contractions have subsided and my bleeding seems to be done, hormones swirl through me, causing my breasts and body to swell, and my heart aches for the little being who I’ll never get to hold.

As common as miscarriages are, there’s just no way to know how isolating it feels until it happens to you—but there’s an intimacy among those who’ve been through this even in more normal circumstances, with the presence of a medical care team and extended family and friends. I crave the solace and comfort that comes with access to that care and those trusted people in my life. I know I’m not alone, and that in time I’ll begin to heal, but until this storm passes, the reality is just that I am simply not okay.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io

Content warning: police violence, death.

Here’s a list of BIPOC people who have died during mental health-related interactions with Canadian police in the last three months:

On June 20, Ejaz Ahmed Choudry, who was 62, was shot and killed by police in his apartment in Mississauga, Ont., after police were called to “check on [his] well-being.” On June 12, Rodney Levi, a Metepenagiag Mi’kmaq man, was shot to death by RCMP in Sunny Corner, N.B., in the backyard of a church minister, where he had gone to ask for mental health help and guidance. On June 4, Chantal Moore, a 26-year-old woman from the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation in B.C., was also shot dead by police in New Brunswick, by an officer who came to conduct a wellness check at her Edmunston home. On May 27, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, a 29-year-old Indigenous and Black woman, fell from the balcony of a Toronto apartment after her mother and brother called the police for help as Korchinski-Paquet was experiencing severe mental distress. On May 5, Caleb Tubila Njoko, who was also Black, fell from a balcony in London, Ont.—after his mother called the police because she was concerned about Njoko’s mental health. And On April 6, D’Andre Campbell, a 26-year-old Black man living in Brampton, Ont., was shot in his home after he called 911 for assistance during a mental health crisis.

Interactions between police and people in mental distress have been problematic for a long time. According to a 2018 CBC report, more than 460 people in Canada died during police interventions between 2000 and 2016. Of those killed, 42% of them were mentally distressed.

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That’s particularly troubling because police-involved deaths of Black and Indigenous people are disproportionate to their numbers in the population. According to the Globe and Mail, more than a third of the 61 people fatally shot by the RCMP between 2007 to 2017 were Indigenous. In 2016, they made up only 4.9% of people in Canada. A CBC report showed that of the 461 victims of fatal police interactions between 2000 to 2017, 43 were Black. Black people accounted for about 9.2% of cases, while they make up just 3.5% of the Canadian population.

Non-emergency calls to police regarding mental health crises are often called “wellness checks,” but the term has never been very well defined. And considering how often they end in tragedy, particularly for Black and Indigenous people, advocates have long been pushing for alternatives.

What are wellness checks?

There is no standard definition or protocol for wellness checks across Canada. “A wellness check is a very general term,” says Meenakshi Mannoe, the Criminalization and Policing Campaigner at Pivot Legal Society in Vancouver. She says police have also used the term “in reference to things like street stops and carding,” which are not related to mental health. That said, the term has become strongly associated with mental health calls as police intervention in such crises has risen in Canada.

According to a 2015 report laying out a mental health response strategy for the Ontario Provincial Police, the service has seen a steady growth in calls for services related to mental health, from 8,682 in 2007 to 12,337 in 2013—a 42% increase. That’s meant “a resulting increase in total officer hours spent responding to these occurrences by 65%,” the document states. This trend is true across the country, according to the Mental Health Commission of Canada.

According to Mannoe, this increase is a result of Canada’s underfunded mental healthcare infrastructure, which has rendered police officers mental health first-responders. “They’re working within a system that’s super under-resourced, and they’ve become the line of defence,” says Mannoe.

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What are some of the criticisms of wellness checks?

One major criticism revolves around police training in mental health response. Researchers and critics point to the lack of quality training in “de-escalation,” or techniques that can calmly resolve situations of psychiatric distress. “From what I’ve heard…the attendance of a uniformed armed police officer when someone is in psychiatric distress just serves to escalate the situation,” Mannoe says.

Police know this, at least in Toronto, where former Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci studied encounters between the force and people in crisis. In 2014, he reported that many officers had “a lack of knowledge or ability on how to de-escalate effectively.” That lack can result in the use of force.

Then, there are the issues of racial profiling and over-policing of Black and Indigenous communities. A report commissioned by the City of Montreal, for example, found that Black and Indigenous people were four to five times more likely to be stopped by the police than white people between 2014 and 2017.

While some police do receive training in the unconscious bias that can lead to racial profiling, Mannoe says that’s not enough. “We know that one-time training is totally inadequate for addressing these really deep-rooted societal stigmas,” says Mannoe. This week, CBC reported that Vancouver police training on anti-Indigenous racism consists of a 45-minute video and a one-day session with Indigenous elders.

Because this history of over-policing and violence has led to a deep distrust of law enforcement in Black and Indigenous communities, wellness checks have also been criticized as a barrier to good mental healthcare.

“The last thing you do if you’re Indigenous and you have a family member in crisis is call the RCMP,” says Rod McCormick, a professor of Indigenous health at Thompson Rivers University and the director of the All My Relations Centre in Kamloops, B.C. He points to recent mental health calls on B.C. reserves as an example of why. “In one case, over 50 cops from Kamloops and all the surrounding areas came and shut down the highway. It was a psychiatric incident, but they thought it was hostage taking or something.”

Read this next: We Must Defund the Police. It Is the Only Option.

What are some alternatives to wellness checks?

Better mental health care is one of the reasons given for calls to “defund the police” in order to re-allocate taxpayer money that goes towards law enforcement into community services.

“We live in a world where hospitals were short personal protective equipment during a pandemic, but the police force has unlimited money for tear gas and tanks and other militarized things,” said Syrus Marcus Ware, a core member of Black Lives Matter-Toronto, in a recent interview with TVO. He touched on the recent resignation of Toronto police chief Mark Saunders. “We don’t need to spend $400,000 on a new police chief. We need to reinvest that money into our community.”

Mannoe says that peer-led mental health programs, through which community members respond to people in crisis, would be far more effective than police intervention. She says it’s an alternative that is entirely possible—and has worked for decades in Vancouver, which has been hit hard by the overdose crisis.

“Again, we’ve failed to see meaningful action from the government to address root cause issues like safe supply and decriminalization of drugs, but peers have stepped in to create their own networks of care,” she says.

McCormick says that support workers within the community are needed as culturally relevant “bridges” between those in crisis and the larger mental health system, to help them navigate what services are available and be advocates for those too ill to advocate for themselves.

“If communities had a position like that, they could not only know what mainstream services are out there and how to access them, but they could also be aware of what traditional services are available, like which elders or medicine people do what, what sort of healing ceremonies are available,” he says. The ultimate goal, for him, is that Indigenous people in need of mental health care have someone better to call than the RCMP.

I was born in Indiana, in a village so remote our closest neighbors grew popcorn. After my birth, in a snowstorm that closed interstates, my father rented a monster truck and drove across the fields to retrieve my mother and me from the hospital.

I grew up one state over, in Ohio. Our town was rural, but there was a clear divide between those kids who were country and those who were cool, as clear as which girls wore Guess jeans and which did not (I did not). My friends lived in the nice neighborhood, where you couldn’t even smell the manure spread on the not-too distant fields.Early on I learned to hide where I came from.

Everyone in my extended family, both sides, were farmers, except for my parents. My family grew soy, corn, wheat. They sold Christmas trees in the winter, and picked strawberries in the summer. One of my first memories is riding in the mighty combine as the dusty fields were harvested below my feet. I rode standing up, as if on a crowded bus, my small body pressed against the giant, angled windshield, my grandfather behind the wheel.

It was some time before I learned that not everyone’s family raised meat they ate, that the county fair was entertainment, not work, as it was for my family, who showed and sold animals in 4-H. At the fair, I watched my then-teenaged uncles enter the greased pig contest, trying to catch a piglet coated in grease and let loose in an area: the one who held onto it got to keep it.

I thought my parents had “gotten out” from that life. I was embarrassed by my relatives’ country accents, how they said “ain’t” and “warsh” and “crick”—and how my parents lapsed back into speaking that way when we visited.

As an adult, I tended not to talk about where I came from. My parents were the only ones in the family who had been able to graduate college; one of my grandparents only had an 8th-grade education. Most of the people I met in the cities where I lived, or later in graduate school, wouldn’t understand: how my grandparents kept goats they milked every morning, how my uncle had lost several toes to a combine, how everyone drove old trucks and no one had a lot of money.

I lived in Washington D.C., San Francisco, New York City—places so removed from the land that I remember getting overwhelmed in a grocery store in San Francisco, buying a tomato. I thought of how my mother liked to eat them straight from the ground, not even washing the dirt off. Iused to rise very early, like my parents—farm life ingrained into them, even after they had left it—and go to a park to try to be alone in whatever nature I could find.

I missed the country without knowing why, without wanting to give voice to it. But I was on track to never go home again.

Then in quick succession I got pregnant and separated from my husband (soon divorced). I had to go back to rural Ohio. I ended up living—and still live—in southeastern Ohio, where my son was born in the foothills of Appalachia, a few hours south of where I was raised.

The slight difference in climate meant the growing season is longer where I live now, and it’s much more common to know how to tend for the land, to want to. Neighbors left hand-me-downs on the porch for my son—but they left plant starters too.

Underemployed and with a child to take care of alone, I couldn’t afford a doctor, so when I coughed, a friend gave me slippery elm bark to chew. One afternoon my parents visited when I had goldenrod seeping in a jar with local honey. I planned to strain the leaves, and save the honey to treat colds and seasonal illnesses.

My father grabbed the jar off the mantle. “Is this goldenrod?”

I expected a skeptical look or lecture, but he only confirmed right away what it was for. “For allergies,” he said, and told me about the plant’s astringency.

Finally I was ready to listen.

This spring, my now 9-year-old son found a patch of morel mushrooms in the woods. When I excitedly texted pictures to my parents, they said my grandfathers—both dead for years now—would have been proud: one had been a forager and the other, supplemented farming with ginseng hunting. How had I not known that before?

The work my family has done for generations, growing food for themselves and others, was not something to be ashamed of, but a legacy. It keeps us alive and keeps us connected to the earth and to each other. I’m only sorry it took me years to really learn that.

Just a few days ago we stumbled across some stinging nettles, and I told my son he had had the leaves in a tea many times. Nettle is great for calm. The leaves are so sweet, you don’t even need sugar, I told my son.

“I love being Appalachian,” he said.

It has taken me decades to say what my son announced easily in the woods: I love being from farm stock. I love working the land. Living in remote and rural Appalachian Ohio changed my relationship to the earth, and by extension, strengthened my relationship with my family and ties to my own history.

I love the knowledge of plants passed down to me, and I love that I have passed it to my son already.

He nodded at the nettles without disturbing them, and walked ahead of me confidently down the path.

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For anyone who still thinks that racism “isn’t an issue” in Canada, politician Jagmeet Singh—and his latest encounter in the House of Commons—is here to prove you wrong. On June 17, the leader of the NDP party was removed from the House after refusing to apologize for calling Bloc Québécois Member of Parliament Alain Therrien racist.

ICYMI, Singh was attempting to get all parties in the House of Commons to agree to a motion that recognizes the existence of systemic racism within the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police), with the motion emphasizing that “several Indigenous people have died at the hands of the RCMP in recent months…” In addition, the motion asked Members of Parliament to support a review of the RCMP’s budget and to demand that the RCMP release all of its use-of-force reports. Therrien was the only MP (of 338) who refused to support the motion (the motion did not pass), and according to Singh, made a dismissive hand gesture while doing so—something that prompted the NDP leader to speak out.

In a press conference after the incident, Singh demonstrated the gesture he says Therrien made while objecting—waving his hand like he was waving away a fly or brushing off dirt—and says seeing it angered him. “In that gesture, I saw exactly what has happened for so long. People see racism as not a big deal, see systemic racism and the killing of Indigenous people as not a big deal, see Black people being the subject of violence and being killed as not a big deal, and in the moment I saw the face of racism. That’s what it looks like when someone dismisses the reality that people are going through.”

In the immediate aftermath of his comment in the House, per CBC, the party whip member for the Bloc Québécois Claude DeBellefeuille, expressed her disapproval with Singh’s comments, saying: “I do not believe that a leader of a party can, here, treat another member of this House, call them racist because we don’t approve the motion that was just moved. The NDP unabashedly is treating the member of La Prairie as a racist person and this is unacceptable in this House.”

When Deputy Speaker Carol Hughes—who said she hadn’t heard Singh’s initial comment—said they’d review the record, the NDP leader doubled down on his comment, stating: “It’s true, I called him a racist and I believe that’s so.” When asked to apologize, Singh matter of factly said: “I will not.”

And apparently this is the straw that broke the camel’s back. Singh was removed from the House for the duration of the day, for daring to call a fellow MP a racist.

And Canada, we seriously have a problem. Because for some reason, people are seemingly more offended by being called a racist then by the fact that we continue to live in a systemically racist country; and they’re *much* more concerned about being called a racist than with actually interrogating their actions and the reasons why they may have been called so.

Here’s why the reaction to Jagmeet Singh’s comments are so problematic.

ICYMI, Jagmeet Singh was addressing a *very* real issue

Regardless of whether or not respective MPs think that Therrien is, in fact, racist, what *is* undeniable is the fact that systemic racism within Canadian institutions—and within policing, specifically—is a very real and very serious issue. Singh’s comments and movement for this motion come amidst one of the largest global protests against police brutality in history, over the killings of Black citizens in Canada and the United States at the hands of police and amidst calls to defund the police. And while many Canadians may look to the recent deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in the United States as tragic but indicative of a racism that’s only found south of the border, then they obviously haven’t picked up a history book or looked critically in their own backyard.

In Canada, police brutality and prejudice against minority communities is very much a real issue—and the stats are everywhere. In Toronto, in addition to being carded and surveilled at a higher rate, Black Canadians are 20 times more likely to be shot by police than other communities. And we have seen this in practice—repeatedly. In 2016, when off-duty police officers beat up Dafonte Miller so badly that he lost his eye. In April, when D’Andre Campbell was killed in Brampton, Ont. when police were called to his house for a domestic situation. In May, when Regis Korchinski-Pacquet was killed while Toronto Police Officers were in her family’s apartment, called by Korchinski-Pacquet’s mother to assist in taking the 29-year-old to CAMH for mental support.

Read this next: Rihanna Just Followed This Canadian Leader on Insta

And then there is the despicable way Indigenous people are treated in Canada. They too are killed at higher rates than other Canadians. Singh’s comments and movement for motion came just a few weeks after video dash cam footage was released of several RCMP officers in Alberta using excessive force and beating up Athabasca Chipewyan Chief Allan Adam during a verbal dispute after Adam was stopped for having expired registration tags on his vehicle.

In an October 2019 interview with CBC, El Jones—a journalism instructor at the University of King’s College, who was speaking on racism in Canada—said: “It should be a factual thing to say that Canada is racist. Not only does Canada have a racist history, but Canada continues today to have racist policies.” So the idea that Singh was proposing a motion that’s necessity is very much based in fact, isn’t up for debate—as it shouldn’t be. As Singh reiterated in a press conference later that day: “Yes. I’ve said it really clearly. I repeat it really clearly: Anyone who votes against a motion that recognizes the systemic racism in the RCMP and that calls for basic fixes for the problem … is a racist, yes.”

And the RCMP is a great place to start when it comes to holding law enforcement to accountability, with its $10 million a day budget. (Yes, you read that correctly.). As Singh tells FLARE, “With the RCMP, I want to start there because it is fully within the federal jurisdiction. So we’ve got the power to do something about it right away.”

And, FWIW, the Bloc Québécois has been called out in the past for questionable behaviour

Also not up for debate? The fact that the Bloc Québécois and some of its members have been called out for questionable—and sometimes racist—behaviour in the past. In October 2019, Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet apologized on behalf of five candidates who were then-running to become members of the Quebec-based party after Islamophobic and racist social media posts were uncovered by media outlets. According to CBC, these comments and posts concerned numerous issues, but included: a 2013 incident in which one candidate praised France’s far-right leader Marine Le Pen in a publication promoting secularism, while also commenting that they were worried women would be forced to either wear a veil to go grocery shopping or be throw in jail; another incident in which one candidate shared a baseless article about the intelligence of Muslim people; and yet another candidate who had reportedly shared several anti-Muslim messages and conspiracy theories on Twitter since 2016.

Read this next: We Marched For #JusticeForRegis—Here’s What We Can Do Next

The Bloc Québécois is also the only party to officially support Bill 21, a bill in Quebec which intends to eradicate religious symbols in most public sectors in the province. The highly contested bill came into effect in September 2019. While the bill is meant to apply to all religious symbols, as writer Lucy Uprichard pointed out in a November 2019 article for Chatelaine, it largely affects non-Christian women who wear scarves or veils, which activists and some lawmakers argue gives the bill “a distinctly xenophobic and sexist edge.” (To be fair, none of the other parties outright oppose the Bill. While Singh has said that he will be a “champion” for those in the province who oppose the secularism law, and current PM Justin Trudeau told Hasan Minhaj in a September 2 interview that “in a free society, you cannot legitimize discrimination,” all have said they don’t believe the federal government should step in at this time.)

There’s something supremely off about punishing a racialized person for calling out racism

“I think it’s disappointing that an elected official in the House of Commons cannot call out racism when it’s, happening, without being removed and essentially losing their right to freedom of speech in that moment,” says Amira Elghawaby, a board member for The Canadian Anti-Hate Network. “It definitely speaks to a double standard in our democracy that protects those who want to uphold a status quo that is failing Canadians from a variety of backgrounds—in particular, Indigenous and Black Canadians.” And not only is Singh’s removal disheartening given the fact that he’s an elected official—but also because he’s a racialized man. As many online pointed out, of the current party leaders—who are all cis white men—Singh is the only leader who has actually experienced racism first hand.

NDP leader @theJagmeetSingh is the only federal party leader to experience racism first hand. Worth pointing out, every other party leader who says Singh was wrong in labelling someone or something as racist — their level of expertise on the subject is not the same. #cdnpoli

— Rosa Hwang (@journorosa) June 18, 2020

We as Canadians have seen this, predominantly through his run for prime minister, during which the party leader had members defect to another party—for fear that Canadians wouldn’t vote for a PM who wore a turban—and had a Montreal constituent casually tell him while shaking hands: “You should cut your turban off…. You’ll look like a Canadian,” in October 2019. At the time of the latter incident, Singh was praised for remaining “poised” in the face of casual racism, responding: “Oh, I think Canadians look like all sorts of people. That’s the beauty of Canada.” But the fact of the matter is that he shouldn’t have had to respond at all, because it shouldn’t have happened. Let alone, he shouldn’t *finally* be considered “prime minister material” only when he keeps his cool and bites his tongue in the face of racism—BIPOC people across industries have done that for far too long.

And on June 17, Singh did the *opposite* of his October 2019 encounter; spoke out—and was promptly chastised, demonized and told he was wrong for doing it.

It exhaustingly on brand for Canada that @theJagmeetSingh, a racialized man in leadership, is excepted to apologize for speaking the truth about racism while MP Alain Therrien is not held accountable in Parliament.

Thank you for speaking out Jagmeet. https://t.co/iQbRapVkzw

— Farrah Khan (@farrahsafiakhan) June 18, 2020

The way that Jagmeet Singh is demonized and dunked on by Canadians is a reflection of the white supremacy that runs rampant in this nation

Only in a racist country does a brown man get ejected from parliament for insisting that the denial of systemic racism is racist.#cdnpoli

— michael (@_queerio) June 17, 2020

But the thing is, that you don’t get to decide whether or not your words and actions have hurt a member of a marginalized community, or whether or not your comments and actions are microaggressions. And to dictate that Singh was wrong perpetuates a continuing trend of silencing the voices of BIPOC people trying to speak out against racism. “I think this is the typical gaslighting of minority communities that we experience all the time when we’re trying to bring up issues of systemic discrimination,” Elghawaby says of Singh’s removal and the reaction to his comments. “Whether it’s in our workplace, whether it’s in our justice system or policing or whatever public institutions that we engage with that we are often dismissed.” And, Elghawaby says, that by rejecting this silencing, and calling out racism, “[Singh] really spoke to that frustration that many Canadians feel of consistently being told: ‘this is not the time to raise this issue. This is not the right moment for us to examine this; and no, it’s not because we’re racist, but because…’ whatever excuses are being offered.”

Not only that, but the reaction to Singh’s comments speaks to the prevalence of white fragility. Coined by author Robin DiAngelo in her 2018 book White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, the terms encapsulates “how little it takes to upset white people racially.” In a 2019 interview with Teaching Tolerance, DiAngelo expanded on the phrase, telling the outlet: “We white people make it so difficult for people of color to talk to us about our inevitable—but often unaware—racist patterns and assumptions that, most of the time, they don’t.” This is because, as the author outlines, bringing up racism often ends up punishing the racialized individual. “They’re going to now have to take care of the white person’s upset feelings. They’re going to be seen as a troublemaker,” she says. “The white person is going to withdraw, defend, explain, insist it had to have been a misunderstanding.” Which sounds pretty familiar, doesn’t it?

Because Canada—and some Canadians—are fragile as heck when it comes to their identity as the great white North, because it’s an identity that’s predicated on the notion that Canada is accepting and multicultural. Because we’re supposed to be anti-racist! Our country is sweet and the people say “sorry” a comical amount! Racism isn’t a thing here, right? But it’s an issue that people seem to be more upset about the fact that they’re called racist then they are willing to actually look at and interrogate their actions. And it’s an issue that the House of Commons is in a bigger uproar around an MP being called racist than they are about citizens *still* being called the N-word and killed because of their race. Because how is anything supposed to actually change?

we’re about to have a 48 hr news cycle debating whether you can call a person racist aren’t we

— Olamide Olaniyan (@olapalooza) June 17, 2020

And making this about Singh distracts from the *actual* issue

That’s another reason why making this issue entirely focused on Singh—as opposed to discussing Therrien’s reasoning behind voting ‘no’ when it comes to the RCMP—is problematic; because it distracts everyone from the actual issue: which is the fact that there is systemic racism within Canadian institutions, including policing, that needs to be addressed—because marginalized Canadians are dying.

Here we are again, going down the distraction rabbit hole, instead of discussing the actual issue.

We have to stop Canadian institutions from maiming, murdering and destroying the lives of Indigenous & Black people.

THAT should be the take-away. https://t.co/QdtkEOeDJ6

— Jared A. Walker (@JAWalker) June 18, 2020

As writer and activist Desmond Cole pointed out in a June 18 tweet, this tactic might actually be intentional. In response to a tweet from political journalist Rosemary Barton, who, quoting Bloc leader Blanchet, wrote in part: “But as our whip explained if the leader of the House doesn’t take serious action and the NDP refuses to apologize for the insults, this means anyone in the House can say whatever they like.” Cole tweeted: “just wanna remind everyone that this started with jagmeet singh moving a motion to recognize racism within the RCMP, publicize RCMP use of force reports and settlement costs, and reviews RCMP use of force…toni morrison told us the very serious function of racism is distraction.”

just wanna remind everyone that this started with jagmeet singh moving a motion to recognize racism within the RCMP, publicize RCMP use of force reports and settlement costs, and review RCMP use of force

toni morrison told us the very serious function of racism is distraction https://t.co/xeCPpckhOh

— negro frolics (@DesmondCole) June 18, 2020

Read this next: Ontario’s Jagmeet Singh Responds to Racist Accusations with ‘Love and Courage’

And it just sets a bad example

While the silencing of BIPOC people on issues of racism is, unfortunately, not new, Elghawaby was still surprised by Singh’s removal from the House of Commons, primarily because of the precedent it sets for Canadians *outside* of Parliament—both oppressed and oppressors. “Calling someone out for racism is important and it’s not about heckling,” Elghawaby says. “It’s actually about calling out actions that could potentially and are leading to further harm of Canadians. So if someone can’t call out that action in the House of Commons, then where does that leave the rest of us who are consistently calling out systemic racism and discrimination in our day to day?”

For elected officials, Elghawaby continues, it’s imperative that they understand that their  actions don’t only matter for their constituency, but that it sends a signal to the entire population. “So right now where we do have very active far right groups in this country, very active, racist hate groups who are seriously looking to harm communities [and] reject any responsibility of systemic racism in this country…the last thing we need is for politicians to basically almost give a green light to the idea that systemic racism is not an urgent, necessary issue that we need to address right now.”

While Singh tells FLARE that in this context, he believes what he did was right, he wants to make one point clear—this is much greater than him and one MP. And, while he notes that “change is uncomfortable,” in respect to the reaction from those in the House of Commons and Canadians who are taken aback by being labelled racist, we shouldn’t be getting hung up on the label itself. “I’m more interested in the change than in the label. And if people are struggling with the label, I don’t want that to be our goal,” he says. “I don’t think as a movement the goal is to name people as racist; I think the goal is to tear down racism; meaning how do we build a place where we can all live our best lives? I think everyone wants to live their best lives and they want to see their neighbours, friends and the people that live in our community all live their best lives. And there is a challenge for that—and it’s this systemic racism in policing that [allows] our neighbours to be mistreated simply because of who they are. And that needs to stop. I want to focus more on the goal and the outcome rather than in the label, because if the label is going to catch someone up, I think that we miss out an opportunity to actually bring in some real change.”

Moving forward, Elghawaby says for Canadians generally, it’s no longer enough to just “not be racist.” “It’s absolutely necessary that folks understand that you are either racist or anti-racist,” she says. “There’s no in-between anymore. People are not accepting an in between. Either you are  going to help solve the problem; and if you’re not going to help solve the problem, I’m sorry, you are part of the problem.” Because this isn’t just an issue of a scuffle in parliament. “This is not a matter of quote unquote procedure. It’s not a matter of  a policy here or there,” Elghawaby says. “This is a matter of life and death for Indigenous peoples in Canada [and] for Black people and racialized people in this country.”

Since his removal from the House of Commons, Singh says that he’s received an enormous amount of support, with marginalized Canadians reaching out to thank him for saying something and refusing to apologize for challenging systemic racism. “I can’t apologize [for what I said] because it would be a betrayal of all the people who have been told that they don’t matter who now  feel someone stood up for them and told them that they matter,” Singh says. “And I would not do that to those people.”

FLARE has reached out to the Bloc Québécois for comment. The story will be updated with their response

June 5 would have been Breonna Taylor’s 27th birthday. Would have been. On March 13, the 26-year-old EMT was killed by Louisville, KY police in her home as she slept, after they broke down her door in an attempted drug sting. (According to CNN, police said an unidentified man was shipping drugs to Taylor’s apartment to avoid detection and was using the apartment as his home address.) Police shot her eight times. Since her murder, Taylor’s family has filed a personal injury and wrongful death action against the three officers involved her killing—Brett Hankison, Myles Cosgrove and Jonathan Mattingly—stating via a lawsuit that the actions of the officers “were made in bad faith, were performed with a corrupt motive, were outside the scope of the Defendants’ authority, were executed willfully and with the intent to harm, and were in violation of Breonna’s constitutional and statutory rights.” But, thus far, nothing has happened. And since her death in March, the United States and Canada have seen the deaths of several other BIPOC at the hands of police, including George Floyd and David McAtee in Minnesota and Louisville, respectively, and Regis Korchinski-Paquet—who died on May 27 after police were called to her house for medical help—and Chantel Moore—an Indigenous woman who was killed by police in Edmunston, NB on June 4 after they were called by her long-distance boyfriend to do a wellness check.

The brutal murder of Floyd, which was recorded and spread widely, has launched a movement for social justice and against police brutality across the world. This week, all four officers accused of his murder were charged, and now Americans and allies around the world are calling for justice for Taylor. On June 3, writer Cate Young started the #BirthdayForBreonna initiative, which outlines actionable items and ways to help fight for justice.

Ok! I finally have something concrete to share. Below is the official list of action items for this Friday’s #BirthdayForBreonna initiatives. Do as many as you can and share this widely so others can participate. Let’s make sure to #SayHerName. https://t.co/uJr5qPK2YA

— 🎓Cate Young 🌈🌟 (@battymamzelle) June 3, 2020

On what would have been her birthday, here’s what Canadians can do to help both Breonna Taylor as well as the women in our own country who are the victims of police brutality.

Sign petitions

One of the simplest ways we as individuals can support the victims’ families and their search for justice is by engaging with and signing petitions. While online petitions can sometimes feel like a form of “slacktivism“—i.e. supporting a cause via social media involving little effort or commitment—the impacts of these online petitions can stretch beyond immediate results. As The Washington Post noted in a February 2017 article, petitions do work in terms of spreading awareness about issues and recruiting others to the cause. As well,  they let lawmakers and those in positions of power know that there is support behind a specific issue and calls to action.

Change.org has a Justice for Breonna Taylor petition (with just under 4 million signatures!) that asks for charges to be filed against the officers involved in her killing, payment to her family for wrongful death, a re-assesment of the “no-knock” warrant used in her case and the appointment of appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Louisville Police Department. The petition is open to everyone, including Canadians, and it takes less than two minutes to sign.

And in Canada, there’s currently a petition calling for transparency in the Special Investigation Unit’s investigation into Korchinski-Paquet’s death.

Donate

Another way in which Canadians can help is by donating. In Taylor’s case, this can be either directly to the victim’s family or to the Louisville Community Bail Fund—where donations go towards bailing out protesters who have been on the ground fighting for justice for Taylor.

Canadians can donate to Chantal Moore’s family via a GoFundMe, and to Regis Korchinski-Paquet’s family via the Justice for Regis fund on the same site.

But don’t stop there. Either begin or continue to donate to organizations that help both the Black Lives Matter movement as well as Black communities on a larger scale. In the United States, the Loveland Foundation works to provide therapy and mental health services to the Black community, specifically Black women and girls. And in Canada, organizations like The Healing Collective have started a Black Mental Health Fund.

Read this next: We Marched For #JusticeForRegis—Here’s What To Do Next

Send an email to the people who can make change

Another non-monetary way to support these women is to email the individuals and offices in power. Young’s list of actionable items provides a fully scripted email in your mail app, addressed to the Kentucky Attorney General, Mayor and the Governor and asking them to look into Taylor’s death and lay charges against the officers involved. All users have to do is fill out the the fields with their name and location before sending.

For Korchinski-Paquet, Canadian citizens are urged to email and contact Toronto councillors Gord Perks and Bhutila Karpoche, as well as Mayor John Tory and Attorney General Doug Downey.

For Chantal Moore, Canadians can contact Edmunston’s Chief of Police Alain Yang, Mayor Cyrille Simard and New Brunswick’s Premier Blaine Higgs.

Amplify the victim’s names and the voices of BIPOC online

While #BlackOutTuesday is over (and was controversial in its impact), everyone—and especially non-Black people—should continue to help amplify Black activists, voices and causes online. On June 5, share one of the many gorgeous and heartbreaking graphics of Taylor alongside the hashtags #SayHerName and #BirthdayForBreonna, in order to spread awareness of her case.

Young also urged readers to celebrate Taylor through art, making June 5 officially Breonna’s day. Paint a picture, sing a song, make a fun Tik Tok, just make sure her name and legacy is remembered.

Read this next: Here’s Just One Example of The Racism Black Students Face on Campus

And not just that, but amplify the voices and stories of the Canadian victims, too. In Canada, we often overlook stories of police brutality and racism that happen in our own backyard—measuring ourselves against our neighbours to the south and claiming that we’re somehow better. News flash: We’re not. And it’s important that we share Regis Korchinski-Paquet and Chantal Moore’s names and stories too, so their experiences aren’t erased or overlooked and, ultimately, so that justice can be served.

Educate yourself on police brutality against BIPOC women

It’s been a heavy few months for BIPOC when it comes to police brutality and violence (and, let’s be honest, this has been ongoing for generations—many people outside BIPOC communities are only just seeing or choosing to see it now). While much of the racism and brutality against BIPOC bodies has been aimed at men (a 2019 study found that over the course of a lifetime, Black men face a one in 1,000 risk of being killed during an encounter with police), it’s important to remember that BIPOC women are being victimized as well. #SayHerName arose out of the fact that many people online felt Taylor’s death—and the quest for justice–were being overlooked and forgotten. But it’s important to remember women like Taylor, Toronto’s Regis Korchinski-Paquet, Edmunston’s Chantel Moore and the countless other women in our country and in the States that are being murdered by police.

As important as it is to educate ourselves on police violence and racism in the United States, it’s also imperative that we educate ourselves on racism and police brutality in Canada. Because it exists. And in much the same way people are fighting for justice for Taylor, it’s important for Canadians to follow suit by contacting local officials and monetarily supporting organizations that combat police brutality and racism in Canada.

And on defunding the police

And, on top of contacting the pertinent officials, it’s important for Canadians to research what it truly means when people call to “defund the police.” While the meaning may differ based on who you ask, largely, defunding the police refers to scaling back police budgets, reallocating those funds to other public services. It also refers to dismantling the militarization of the police, and the exorbitant amount of money that goes into arming officers (funds that could be better spent elsewhere).

Read this next: 5 Essential Books About Being Black in Canada, Today

Per the CBC, in Toronto the police service is the  biggest item in the city’s massive $13.5-billion yearly operating budget. To put it in perspective: “Out of an average property tax bill of $3,020, the largest share—about $700—is allocated to police. That’s followed by about $520 for transit. Shelters and housing take up about $150 while about $60 goes to paramedic services.”

This massive budget may be due to the fact that, over the past several years, officers have been allocated to roles formerly held by social workers and health professionals, placed in schools and called out to help individuals suffering from mental health breaks. The idea of defunding the police would see resources taken from police services, individual officers duties scaled back to focus on violent crime, and see the removed funds placed into community supports or towards other services so that when someone is suffering from a mental health condition, there’s enough money, staff and training to have a mental health worker sent out to aid said person—and not a police officer with a gun.

I support defunding the Toronto police budget and reallocating those funds into much-needed community supports. Please read my full statement: #BlackLivesMatter  https://t.co/T1p6rgHr4k

— Josh Matlow (@JoshMatlow) June 5, 2020

So on June 5—and every day after—read up and speak out. Because it’s the literal least we can do for our sisters.

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m not even playing the lottery,” my father Jerry P. Jackson said to my startled ears.

It was the beginning of social isolation in March and he was taking every precaution against Covid-19. He had stocked up on food and wasn’t leaving his house in the Lithonia suburbs of Atlanta. I would drive by and sit in the car to talk to him and he’d wave from a fold-out chair under his carport. He wouldn’t hug me or even give me a fist bump. “I’m in the group that’s most vulnerable to this,” he said, as a 69-year-old who had spent his career working as a public health educator at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Gambling is one of my dad’s favorite forms of entertainment. There is usually a stack of lotto tickets in his SUV, and he often enjoys a game of poker with friends and family. But the lottery and poker were things he had to give up in order to keep himself safe from the virus.

And truthfully his gambling is a habit I judged. The chances of you winning were slim, so why bother?

Which makes my realization even more perplexing: I, too, have been playing the lottery. But instead of scratch offs and powerball numbers, like millions of Black women in America, I gamble by loving the Black men in my life. And the stakes are much higher with our hearts on the line.

We roll the dice that they will come home.

We cross our fingers and whisper prayers that things will go as planned.

And then we grieve when the news serves us another reminder that our society isn’t safe for us. It feels like Black men—and women—are born with bullseyes on our backs.

The recent death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis is devastating and terrifying. His horrendous end under the knee of a sworn civil servant immortalized by cell phone footage and seared to our collective psyche pokes at all of the scars and scabs of the other Black men we’ve mourned. The fathers, brothers, boyfriends, husbands, baby daddies, uncles, cousins, neighbors, bosses, friends, classmates that we’ve loved.

And then there’s the sobering reality that many of the men we mourn are still breathing. Men who could be great husbands, fathers, CEOs, community leaders, if only they weren’t so bent and broken by this system. If only they had a chance to access their full potential.

These are the men who aren’t willing to risk it big by going for their dreams or opening their hearts fully because breathing while Black feels like a risk.

During Covid, I’ve heard from some of the Black men in my past who held their hearts so close they couldn’t see their cards. They text the obligatory, “just checking on you” and “how’s the family?” messages. One even sent a letter. (Yes, really. He had clearly sprayed it with his cologne before placing a stamp.)

“I’ve never met someone like you who had the ability to make me feel so loved, vulnerable and nervous at the same time,” he wrote, almost two years after we broke up. “You had a Black man shook.” We dated for a few months before I hit the wall he held around his heart. I got tired of fighting to get inside and stopped trying. Now I wonder if I can blame him for mitigating risk in a society that has oppressed African Americans since its inception.

I once dated a Black man who prided himself on never having been arrested. His dad had gone to prison for financial fraud, and his son had spent his life doing whatever it took to avoid the same fate. I saw first-hand how running so hard from what he didn’t want paralyzed him from going for what he desired.

In 2014, when Eric Garner, an African American father, was murdered on a New York City sidewalk in an illegal chokehold by a police officer, I asked my then boyfriend to join me at a rally. He declined and I was frustrated that he didn’t want to protest the egregious act. “I live this every day,” he whispered. In that moment, I sensed the impact the trauma was having on him and respected his decision not to join a rally or be active in organizing. I also knew in my spirit a man who wouldn’t fight for his own life, wouldn’t be able to fight for mine either. I soon after threw in my cards in our relationship.

Even more startling then acknowledging how I gamble by loving Black men, is the reality that I have been the dealer in the casino. I spent a decade encouraging Black women to freely love, especially on Black men. As Relationships Editor at Essence for seven years, the global media company serving Black women, it was my job to feed the hope that great love was available for our millions of readers. I took great pride in my role. I would research and report on eligible bachelors and inspiring love stories—the couple who met while both staying in a homeless shelter and now run a real estate company, the single doctors and lawyers who wanted a good woman by their side. But should those stories have come with a warning label?

Because being Black in America comes with unique risks. We are 2.5 times more likely to be murdered by police or arrested than our white counterparts. And that burden can be heavy.

Yet the rewards can outweigh the risks. Being loved and loving the Black men in my life has produced some of my sweetest memories and been one of my greatest emotional gyms. Like many women before me, it’s strengthened my hope, courage, resilience and self-respect.

My dad will eventually resume his lottery playing, but in my mind, he is already a walking winning ticket, like every other Black man in America. He has overcome many odds to still be breathing today. And the only way through this trauma and to a better world is love.

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Since Jeffrey Epstein, the New York financier and convicted sex offender, died by suicide in a Manhattan jail cell in August 2019, scrutiny around who was involved in his alleged underage sex ring has shone a light on a few well-known names, most notably Prince Andrew. The second-born son to Queen Elizabeth II, the Duke of York is one of the highest profile alleged associates in the now worldwide scandal.

Prince Andrew and Epstein reportedly knew each other for 20 years and maintained a connection even after Epstein plead guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution in 2008. Earlier this summer, investigative reporting from the Miami Herald’s Julie Brown brought a revived focus on Epstein and the previous allegations that he hired underaged girls to perform sex acts at his homes between 2002 and 2005. (His crimes were alleged to have taken place in New York state, Florida, London and on his private island, “Little St. Jeff’s.”) In 2015, allegations specifically against Prince Andrew surfaced from one of Epstein’s accusers who claimed she was forced to perform sexual acts multiple times with the British royal. With Epstein and his alleged crimes once again in the spotlight, Prince Andrew, now the eighth in line to the British throne, was also once again front and centre.

“This is, in my opinion, the biggest English royal scandal of the last 20 years,” says Elaine Lui, of popular website LaineyGossip.com, which frequently covers the royal family told FLARE. “I think that the particulars of this story, the way that it’s been covered and the way that it’s been interpreted, says a lot about who we are collectively, and what our attitudes are about sex and girls.” The Canadian television personality says the reason there has been so much coverage of Epstein’s crimes this time around is because there is “political intrigue,” and “not necessarily because they cared about the girls, but because of the other players who Jeffrey Epstein was connected to.”

On December 2, Prince Andrew’s accuser—Virginia Roberts (who now goes by the name Virginia Giuffre)—spoke to the BBC about her allegations against the royal in an emotional interview. Her appearance on BBC’s Panorama came just week after Prince Andrew spoke out publicly for the first time about his relationship with Epstein and the allegations against his former friend in a November 16 BBC TV interview in Buckingham Palace. The interview was pretty much a PR nightmare, and has since become a national joke in the U.K., depicting Prince Andrew, according to CNN journalist Kate Maltby, as “an entitled man-[child], incapable of understanding consequences.” Ouch.

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Since the interview aired, several UK companies have distanced themselves from Prince Andrew, abandoning causes championed by the prince. On November 20, the prince released an official statement saying that he will step back from royal duties for the “foreseeable future,” and stating: “I continue to unequivocally regret my ill-judged association with Jeffrey Epstein.” And just five days after his statement, The Times reported that the Queen has decided to cancel Prince Andrew’s upcoming 60th birthday party amid the scandal. Most recently, on May 31, The Sunday Times reported that Prince Andrew will officially not be returning to his royal duties—ever.

Here’s what we know about Prince Andrew’s connection to Epstein and what might be next for the prominent member of Britain’s royal family.

Accuser speaks out against Prince Andrew 

Although the charges against Epstein were officially dropped following his death, more than a dozen women still had a chance to tell their stories about Epstein and possible co-conspirators to a packed federal courtroom in New York City on August 27. One of the accusers, Giuffre, spoke out about Prince Andrew in particular: “He knows what he’s done and he can attest to that. He knows exactly what he’s done and I hope he comes clean about it.” Guiffre is the girl seen in the well-circulated photo of Prince Andrew, who is now 59, in London in 2001. In the photo, he has his arm around the then 17-year-old’s waist.

One of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, Virginia Giuffre, has said Prince Andrew ‘knows what he has done’.

Prince Andrew has always strenuously denied any wrongdoing.

More here: https://t.co/FP6caOCe0W pic.twitter.com/g5WHLnexiq

— ITV News (@itvnews) August 27, 2019

In 2015 court documents, which were unsealed the day before Epstein reportedly died by suicide, Giuffre said she was pressured by Epstein to have sex with Prince Andrew three times, when she was 17. It has also been confirmed by Epstein’s former pilot that Prince Andrew flew on a private jet three times with Giuffre. Giuffre, who now lives in Australia, said that she was 15 years old and working at Mar-a-Lago (that’s President Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida estate), when she was picked up by Ghislaine Maxwell, the daughter of disgraced media tycoon Robert Maxwell and the woman who is being dubbed Epstein’s madam by his accusers. (Maxwell is also seen smiling in the background of the 2001 photo of Giuffre and Andrew.) Giuffre said she was forced into giving Epstein and his friends massages, which would later lead to sexual encounters.

In a December 2 interview with BBC’s Panorama, Giuffre doubled down on her accusations, stating: “You never forget the face of someone who has heaved over you,” in reference to her sexual assault. Refuting Prince Andrew’s November 16 claims that he’s never met Giuffre, the mom-of-three said, “He knows what happened, I know what happened, and there’s only one of us telling the truth and I know that’s me.”

Read this next: What Trump’s ‘Not My Type’ Defense Against Rape Allegation Says About America

Fergie’s connection to Epstein 

We know that Prince Andrew (who is the father of Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie and ex husband of Sarah Ferguson) met Epstein in 1999. They were reportedly introduced to each other by Maxwell, a close friend of the Prince. We also know that Ferguson, a.k.a. Fergie, also had dealings with Epstein. In 2011, Epstein paid her assistant £15,000 to allow her to restructure some of her debt.

Epstein and Prince Andrew’s relationship

All this attention on Prince Andrew seems like déjà vu for a reason. Media ran story after story about the duke’s ties to Epstein, which grew to a fever pitch in 2011, and prompted him to step down as Britain’s Special Representative for International Trade and Investment in July of that year. What sparked so much interest in Epstein and Prince Andrew’s friendship was the unearthing of photos of the duo walking through New York’s Central Park the year prior, and the fact that Epstein had been convicted of his sex crimes in 2008.

On August 17, the Daily Mail posted a 2010 video of Prince Andrew poking his head out of Epstein’s New York City mansion, bringing renewed interest in those photos of the two men walking through Central Park, which happened within 24 hours of the recording of this new footage. Buckingham Palace released a statement later that day, saying that, “The Duke of York has been appalled by the recent reports of Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged crimes. His Royal Highness deplores the exploitation of any human being and the suggestion he would condone, participate in or encourage any such behaviour is abhorrent.”

In denying any involvement in Epstein’s alleged crimes, Prince Andrew described their relationship as if they were infrequent acquaintances—yet he brought Epstein to the royal family’s vacation home in Scotland, (Balmoral Castle, a 163- year-old 52-bedroom abode) in 1999.

According to Angela Levin, a royal reporter for The Daily Mail, in June 2000, Epstein was present at Dance of the Decades party at Windsor Castle, which was hosted by the Queen to mark several milestone royal birthdays—Prince Andrew’s 40th, Princess Anne’s 50th, Princess Margaret’s 70th and Prince William’s 18th. In December of that year, Epstein attended a party that Prince Andrew threw for Maxwell at Sandringham, the Queen’s 200,000-acre private estate two and a half hours north of London. The trio also reportedly travelled to Phuket, Thailand, to celebrate New Year’s Eve together later that year.

Read this next: How I’m Navigating the Weinstein News Cycle as a Survivor and Advocate

Prince Andrew’s response

After initially releasing a statement on August 24, exactly two weeks after Epstein’s death. Prince Andrew sat down for an interview with BBC on November 16. As the interview took place in Buckingham Palace, it was obviously given the royal tap of approval by the Queen. And she’s probably regretting that now. In the rollercoaster of an interview, Prince Andrew claimed that he didn’t know about a 2006 warrant for Epstein’s arrest—during which time the American mogul attended the 18th birthday of one of Andrew’s daughters—because Epstein hadn’t told him (regardless of the fact that he has an entire palace of people to vet his guests). In the same interview, Prince Andrew denied being BFFs with Epstein, saying it would “be a stretch” to say they were close friends, and referred to his status as a sex offender as “unbecoming behaviour.” In spite of all this “unbecoming behaviour,” the royal said that he doesn’t regret his friendship with Epstein, because of the mogul’s “extraordinary ability to bring people together,” which gave Prince Andrew networking opportunities…

Prince Andrew also denied the claims by one of Epstein’s victims that he had engaged in sex with underage girls under Epstein’s command, refuting the claim that he sweats profusely by saying that a war injury actually limits his sweating. “So I’m afraid to say that there’s a medical condition that says that I didn’t do it,” the royal said. Oh and that photo? He says there’s no way to know whether or not it’s photoshopped…which isn’t exactly an answer.

And apparently, the Queen seems to agree. On November 25, The Times reported that the monarch has decided to cancel the Prince’s upcoming birthday party; opting to host a small family dinner for her son, who’s turning 60 on February 19. That is going to be one sad birthday party.

And on May 31, The Sunday Times reported that the Prince’s brief hiatus from royal duties is becoming a permanent one. According to a new report in The Times, “Prince Andrew, who stepped back from public life last year ‘for the foreseeable future,’ will not resume official duties.” And don’t think that this is a temporary change. Per The Sunday Times‘ royal correspondent: “The royal family has ‘no plans to review’ his position.”