One more thing to get excited about for the upcoming weekend: Angela Davis, activist, writer and professor, is speaking at McGill University this Thursday about the case of Oscar Grant, a young black man who was shot and killed by transit police in California on New Year’s Day 2009.

Aaaaand… Davis is going to be interviewed on my radio show earlier that day! Tune into Venus on CKUT 90.3 FM (you can listen online as well, just follow the directions on the website) around 1:30 this Thursday the 1st. This is a great opportunity to hear an activist icon being interviewed in a non-mainstream- media setting. You can bet you’ll hear questions and answers you wouldn’t get anywhere else.

An activist poster of Davis from the 1970s(?)

From the Media@McGill press release:

“Oscar Grant was a young Black man returning home by way of the Fruitvale BART station after celebrating the New Year. This was the only excuse the cop needed to end Grant’s life execution-style. Maybe Oscar was too loud, too proud, too Black. Maybe he was too calm during the taunts of the police. Or maybe it was for nothing at all.”

Coming only days before the inauguration of Barack Obama – as the world’s media was proclaiming the dawn of a new “post-racial America” – the case of Oscar Grant demonstrated the depth and complexity of the relationship between media, race and power.

Renowned human rights activist Angela Davis will reflect on this issue in a Media@McGill / Beaverbrook public lecture entitled “Media, Race and Power: The Case of Oscar Grant”.

Angela Davis is an American political activist and university professor who was associated with the Black Panther Party for Self Defense and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Today, Davis continues to work for racial and gender equality, gay rights, and prison abolition and is a popular public speaker, nationally and internationally.

Thursday, October 1, 2009 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Room 132, Leacock Building, 855 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, Quebec

There are few jobs in North America where exploitation of gender, race, and class intersect so sharply as in domestic work, where immigrant women from around the world labour in the homes of wealthy families in what are often dismal conditions: low wages, no security, fear of violence and deportation, and overwork. The situation of live-in caregivers (as they’re officially called by the state, erasing the fact that these women work, hard) in Canada briefly made headlines when MP Ruby Dhalla was accused of mistreating Magdalene Gordo and Richelyn Tongso. There has been a lot of academic and activist attention to the struggles of domestic workers in Canada, with groups calling for the elimination of the government program that capitalizes on historically undervalued work and the desperate economic situations of women around the world.

And so it is inspiring to read Lizzy Ratner’s article “The New Domestic Order,” a piece that describes the courage domestic workers in New York City have mustered to fight back against abuses and call for a Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, which could be the first of its kind. Women are calling for “severance and overtime pay, advance notice of termination, one day off a week, holidays, healthcare and annual cost of living increases, among other fundamental rights.” Seems pretty basic, huh? Ratner’s article looks at the history of domestic workers’ struggles for rights in the US and outlines the global political economic conditions that compel so many women around the world to migrate to work in other women’s homes. The story is heartbreaking and exhilarating; well worth a read.

My hometown is all abuzz with excitement for the upcoming Pop Montreal music festival, and I’m happy to say that with a lineup of some of the most impressive female performers around, it gets the Venus seal of approval. Full schedule is available on the website, but I’m giving some of my top recommendations here - check the website for times and locations. One cool thing is that if you can’t afford the often-steep ticket prices for some of the bigger names, you can see many of the artists speaking on panels, keynotes, and symposia for free, and if you bring a tiny mp3 player with you and squint it’s like getting a backstage pass to their show.

The Heavy Hitters
Diamanda Galas: HIV/AIDS activist and OG (original goth) with a 3.5-octave range, not only is she performing but she’s giving a keynote address on the relationship between art and epidemics.
Buffy Ste. Marie: Whether she’s breaking your heart with her voice or breastfeeding her baby on Sesame Street, the iconic singer/songwriter is not to be missed.
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks: Despite claiming to hate most punk rock, Lydia Lunch is about the punkest lady ever. It seems unbelievable that her 1970s band is coming together again to play a show with Montreal art punks AIDS Wolf and Duchess Says, but I guess fairy godmothers really do exist.
Fever Ray: The female half of Swedish band The Knife (remember that song that you danced to for all of Summer 2007?) is known for the visual feastiness of her live shows, as if her haunting songs aren’t enough on their own. Check out the video for When I Grow Up from her self-titled 2009 album.

Under The Radar (but not for long)
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Come and see Shameless at Word on the Street in Toronto tomorrow!

We’ll be at the corner of Queen’s Park Crescent West and Hoskin Avenue from 11am-6pm, and we’ll have back issues of the magazine, as well as copies of She’s Shameless: Women Write about Growing Up, Rocking Out and Fighting Back.

Here’s where to find us:

It’s no secret that I adore Sarah Kramer and her amazing vegan cookbooks. I’ve profiled her pocket-sized Vegan A Go-Go and interviewed her for my Shameless Women column. Now the 10th Anniversary Edition of How It All Vegan has been released and it’s better than ever!

Ten years after its first release HIAV is still one of the most popular vegan cookbooks around and a staple of any vegan cook’s kitchen.

I had the chance to interview co-author Sarah Kramer about the success of the book, the continuing rise in veganism, and even tried a few recipes from my very own treasured copy of How It All Vegan 10th Anniversary Edition (check out a pic of the results below).

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Even in Canada it’s been hard to miss the coverage over the last couple of weeks of the murder of Yale Grad student Annie Le.

In Slate on Thursday, Jack Shafer posted a rant about the extent of the coverage, in which he complains about the media’s obsession with crimes that take place at Harvard and Yale. The opening sentence, “If you plan to be murdered and expect decent press coverage, please have the good sense to be a Harvard or Yale student or professor” really sets the tone for what follows, which misses a lot of the other factors involved in this case.

In a blog post, Colin McEnroe takes Shafer to task for his flippancy, and gets to the heart of what it is about this murder in particular that has everyone scrabbling for the latest updates.

A comment on McEnroe’s blog reads:

“As a working woman, the fact that this horrific crime happened in the work place, during a work day, with lots of people in the building and all those cameras scares the daylights out of me … When I returned to work in Hartford on Wed I discussed this with several women at work. We all seem to feel the same. We are shocked, we are sad, and we are frightened.”

I think this is really important. What Shafer doesn’t get into even slightly, McEnroe points out, is that a lot of people are caught up not on the fact that this happened at an Ivy League university, but that it happened in a building with 75 security cameras. More significantly, it happened in circumstances in which so many women could easily imagine themselves.

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Federal election talk has settled down, and while many were grumbling about going back to the ballots, the right to vote on even a local level is not something everyone has access to.

In just Toronto, there are a quarter of a million people who can play, work, contribute to their communities and pay taxes — but cannot vote in municipal elections. These are permanent residents.

Meanwhile, Canadian citizens who own property but do not live in the city can vote, but permanent residents who do live in the city cannot.

The process of becoming a citizen takes a minimum of three years, but it usually takes much longer.

I Vote Toronto is a grassroots organization that was created in hopes of making community politics more inclusive, and is campaigning to extend municipal voting rights to permanent residents.

This isn’t a new idea. Thirty countries, including the U.S allow non-citizens to vote at a municipal level.

This brings new perspectives into considering whose issues election results reflect. This can soon be especially important in Hamilton, where some city councilors agree that entities who pay taxes and contribute to the community should have the right to vote — but they aren’t talking about permanent residents — they’re talking about corporations.

Those who are in favour of corporate voting think it would give businesses a more positive image to investors. And supporters argue that since businesses pay taxes, they should be entitled to vote.

What kind of message do you think this sends to newcomers? And what do you think about corporate voting versus voting rights for permanent residents?

Every other Thursday I profile a new incredible woman, each from a different walk of life. Different professions, causes, backgrounds, ethnicities, orientations, and anything/everything else!

So without further delay, let me introduce the wonderful Karen Miranda Augustine…

Ritualistic Pop Artist, Writer, and Videomaker Karen Miranda Augustine uses the influences of African beliefs systems, outsider expressionism and counter-culture to create pieces that speak “to the place where earthly conditions converge with the metaphysical.”

Her current solo exhibition AMERICAN EMPRESS: Credit for the Empire’s Troubled Royalty “explores adversity as a rite of passage…contemporary pop culture figures are transformed into a series of credit-card portraits that speak to far-reaching, everyday human concerns: the transcendence of loss, social stigma, mental illness, addiction and personal crisis.”

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Here’s something you Toronto readers may want to check out. It’s an art opening and also a screening of a film made by Jessica Yee, activist, community organizer, and Shameless blogger and contributor.

The Centre for Women’s Studies in Education and The Native Youth Sexual Health Network present:

Youth Resisting Colonialism and Rebuilding Pathways to Hope - A Film Screening and Art Exhibition

Monday, September 21st, 2009
OISE Building, 252 Bloor St. W., Room 2-212
6 pm to 9 pm (film @ 7 pm)

This event exhibits the work of youth reflecting their resistance to violence and colonialism through artistic expression.

The exhibit will be followed by a screening of Building a Highway of Hope, a documentary filmed and directed by Indigenous feminist activist Jessica Yee about the numerous disappearances and murders of Aboriginal women along Highway 16 in British Columbia, followed by a panel discussion featuring Jessica Yee of the Native Youth Sexual Health Network, Charlene Catchpole, Executive Director of the North York Women’s Shelter, and Tannis Nielsen, Artist and Youth Program Coordinator, Native Canadian Centre of Toronto.

The exhibition will continue until October 2, 2009.

Light refreshments will be served. Venue is wheelchair accessible.
For more information contact the Centre for Women’s Studies in Education at: 416-978-2080 or cwse@oise.utoronto.ca