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

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

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

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

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,

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

Restrictions vary across the country—here’s what to know before flying After months of Instagram strolling, Netflix-watching and recipe experimentation of quarantine, we are all itching to get away now that the weather is warmer and businesses are reopening. To help you navigate the complicated flight and travel restrictions across Canada, and internationally, we’ve rounded up

August 1 marks the abolition of the enslavement in British colonies, including Canada. Here, three Canadians explain what the day means to them Marking Emancipation Day 2020 will be a very different experience from years past. With the backdrop of simultaneous public health crises—the COVID-19 pandemic, and ongoing police violence—we’re forced to recognize this momentous

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

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

Spoiler: You’ll recognize a lot of them There’s a joke doing the rounds on Twitter at the moment, something to the effect of: “As more and more photos of celebrities emerge looking chummy with Ghislaine Maxwell, I too begin to wonder: Did I also take a picture with her and just don’t remember it?” It’s

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.

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

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

This year, celebrate with an impact louder than fireworks. Step number one: learn about the *real* history of Canada Every year on July 1, our feeds are flooded with images of fireworks, patriotic messaging, barbecues and maple leaf-themed outfits. But as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to keep Canadians physically distanced, the usual hoopla leading up to

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,

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.”

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

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

The Ontario Court has appealed its ruling after a petition that circulated on Thursday garnered nearly 50,000 signatures On June 3, the Ontario Court of Appeal released its decision in the cases of R. v. Sullivan and R. v. Chan. If that news doesn’t ring a bell, you might be more familiar with the headlines

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

“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

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

FLARE asked Black writers to share what they feel is the most pressing issue facing Black women today. This is Toronto-based writer Sharine Taylor’s response I decided to gel down my typically unruly hair. On any other day, I would have worn it in a ponytail, perched high on my head like a crown, but