I was on CTV’s Canada AM this morning talking about the racist comments made by an aide to Conservative Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon, against Norman Matchewan, a member of the Algonquins of Barriere Lake, who is also a teacher and part-time police officer.

In a conversation recorded by the Aboriginal People’s Television Network outside Cannon’s Maniwaki campaign office during its opening Tuesday, Matchewan asked the aide, Darlene Lanningan, whether he will be arrested if he visits Cannon’s campaign office. She responded:

“If you behave and you’re sober and there’s no problem and if you sit down and whatever, I don’t care.”

The Barriere Lake reserve is about 300 kilometres northwest of Ottawa in Cannon’s riding of Pontiac, and a group including Norman Matchewan had visited the office for a rally.

She went on to say that, “One of them showed up the other day and was drinking.” There were several allegations she made that were much worse after that.

In 1991 the Algonquins of Barriere Lake signed a Trilateral Agreement with the governments of Canada and Quebec, establishing a landmark sustainable development, conservation, and resource co-management process. Not surpisingly, the Government of Canada has regularly tried to ignore their obligations under the agreement. On March 10th, 2008, for the third time in 12 years, the government of Canada interfered in their internal governance, ousting the Customary Chief Benjamin Nottaway and his Council and recognizing a Chief and Council whom the Barriere Lake Elder’s Council say were not selected in accordance with the community’s customs and whom the majority of the community does not support.

Lannigan basically said what I know for a fact: a lot of people, especially near reserve communities who are non-Native, already make stereotypical assumptions of us. This is the environment the youth in our communities are growing up in, but we’re doing such an awesome job of kicking ass in so many things that it’s only a reminder of what we need to resist and stand up against.

As a long time fan of the website Scarleteen, I’m part of 20 to 30 000 visitors this site boasts every day who are looking for real, unbiased, raw information on sex, sexuality, and everything in between. That’s quite a feat for not having any major organization behind them, public funding, or having ever done any advertising.

I’m proud to announce that I, along with an amazing roster of fellow activists, teachers, and just general people in the sexual know-how will be taking part in Sexuality in Color: Writing Outside the Lines at Scarleteen.

It will be a series focussing strictly on people of colour writing about sex from their perspective, and giving voice to the myths, realities, and racism that still permeate the sexual health world.

Heather Corinna, editor (and owner!) of Scarleteen who is White, hit the nail on the head by saying:

Even if you have no personal experience yourself being of color, or don’t talk to people of color in your life about these issues, statistics alone make it very clear that race (and, more to the point, how different races are treated and valued) and our perception of race changes things.

HIV and unplanned pregnancy has hit women of color harder than white women, for instance. Contraceptive and sexual health access can often be tougher for those of color. Being gay, lesbian or bisexual can play out differently being of color and in communities of color. I can see all of those things in the work that I do.

I can read about all of those things in journals or newspapers. I can certainly feel empathy, compassion and upset about racial imbalances… but what I can’t do is acutely feel and experience those things the way my brothers and sisters of color do and can. That’s not a minor quibble: it’s major.

We’re just gearing up to get going, so be sure to stop by later this week and onwards to check us out!

I’m a little late on posting this, but with all the hub-bub and media overkill everywhere, we all know what date I’m talking about.

Only this time, it’s not in America, but in Chile, and the roughly 50 000 people who were arrested, tortured, several murdered, and whose democracy has since been stolen away. Not to mention the more than 2700 people who have been killed since September 11, 1973 in Chile, opposing the US-lead military rule in their country, who overthrew president Salvador Allende to put an Army Commander-in-Chief and dictator into power.

Tito Trico over at the Guardian has an awesome article where he asks; Were the lives of those killed at the World Trade Centre more valuable than the innocents murdered in Chile’s US-backed coup? that’s definitely worth a read.

I won’t say much else but to ask you all to remember those who you think aren’t front of mind on this day.

I know I’m also commemorating my own people, the Mohawks, and the generations of our families who helped build the World Trade Centre (among other landmarks like the Empire State Building and much of the New York City Skyline), some dying over the years, but all rarely given our due for these historic contributions.

You be the judge on who gets to be remembered.

Rebecca Traister has an article about Sarah Palin in Salon where she asks: “how did I, a die-hard feminist, end up terrified at the idea of a woman in the White House?”

What Palin so seductively represents…is a form of feminine power that is utterly digestible to those who have no intellectual or political use for actual women. It’s like some dystopian future … feminism without any feminists.

Traister is a great writer and I heartily recommend the article.

But I couldn’t help but feel a whirling sense of deja vu.

Back in March, the Shameless Team and I had the pleasure of attending WAM. There we heard the legendary Helen Thomas assert that feminists should vote for a female candidate, just because she’s a woman.

At that point, I suddenly became aware of the fact that I was in a woman of colour in a room that didn’t have a lot of women of colour.

At the same conference, the very ugly rift between grassroots feminists of colour and grassroots non-anti-racist feminists was brought to the harsh light of day. And it was that weekend when I really started to feel worried, and a little heartbroken, that the movement I’d poured so much of my life into, didn’t - at present - feel like it was for me anymore.

McCain picked a woman to run as his VP on purpose - in the hopes that Republicans might be able to pick up female voters who were still holding to that dream of a woman in the white house. But when Traister says in her article, “Plz, Palin is a woman but that doesn’t mean anyone should equate her with feminism - in fact, please don’t,” I am reminded of how I felt about Hillary.

(more inside…)

I’m so freakin’, flippin’, can’t-contain-myself excited for this, I can hardly stand it!

Mark it in your calendars with a big red marker all because on September 23rd, AGOKWE is coming to rock your world at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre and you definitely don’t want to miss it!

A new production from the mystical and magical 23 year-old Anishinaabe artist extraordinaire Waawaate Fobister (and he deserves every single accolade that comes his way), Agokwe explores unrequited love between teenage boys from neighbouring reserves. They meet briefly at a post hockey-tournament party where they bashfully confess their desire for each other. However youth, distance and isolation strive to pull the threads apart when tragedy intervenes.

I haven’t even seen this yet and I’m already moved, shaken, and completely inspired. We already know in the queer community how hard it is to be open with your sexuality, but imagine living in any one of our Native communities and the ongoing oppressions that are shoved down your throat every day, on top of what your sexual preference is.

Especially when way back when, you wouldn’t have been persecuted for being who you are since many of our nations used to revere two-spirited people as our medicine people and healers. Hmm, now I wonder how that got taken away?

Agokwe is actually an Anishinaabe word meaning “wise woman” but it is often used to refer to a gay man.

Aww!

Running until October 12th, now is the time to make sure you get your ticket for the show of all shows. Now I KNOW I’ll see you there!

Several friends and colleagues of mine took part in this inspiring and necessary conference in Saskatchewan whose title “Missing Women: Decolonization, Third Wave Feminism and Indigenous People of Canada and Mexico” says it all.

Travel and work conflicts prevented me from being there physically, but I can tell you that I’m emotionally shaken and stirred by the good work that has come out of it, which you can read about here.

I’ve always personally tried to make it a priority to highlight the strong matriarchy that exists in so many of our Indigenous nations. We were the FIRST feminists which is often forgotten in a lot of mainstream feminist dialogue, and it’s a shame especially when you consider what’s happened to many of the women in our communities today.

More than 500 Aboriginal women have gone missing or been murdered over the past 15 years and we have the highest rates of sexual assault and domestic violence against our women than any other race. However what we need to be focussing on now is the things that are happening to prevent these statistics and what we are doing in our communities ourselves to effect positive change.

Where we’ve come from is this strong, ancestral lineage of woman-power culture. Sadly we’ve now arrived at is this consistently prejudicial place where many of us wonder whether, if any of these victims were White, would people care more or do more to seek justice?

A youth patch for the quilt of hope by the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition

You’d be forgiven for not knowing what a blogging carnival is, but lately they’ve been catching on in popularity. Basically, one person introduces a theme and calls for others to blog about it and send them the links, and then they collect them all together into a single post.

Angry Black Woman held a Carnival of Allies back in April, and this week the organizer of yennenga - a LiveJournal community for women of colour - posted the results of a Women of Colour and Beauty Carnival she held after a conversation with a Native friend about cultural values of beauty and attractiveness.

Racialicious has exerpts from some of the best posts.

I’m a huge fan of rap and like many other things in this world, some of it has become commercialized, misogynized, and otherwise distorted from where it started.

Lest we forget that rap was born out of an activist movement. Grandfathers from the early days of its creation include politikin’ movers and shakers like Public Enemy, Grand Master Flash, and KRS-One who courageously spoke out about the grave injustices in oppressed communities of colour.

I get fed up of hearing that rap is only about hating on women or just talks about cash money and cars.

I’m not saying there isn’t a lot of that out there, but I definitely don’t see the same type of subject matter criticism towards various bubble-gum pop stars like Hilary Duff or Miley Cyrus who confuse me every time they sing about not conforming (but maybe they get left alone more with how they present it since they are nice, pretty, light-skinned girls?)

In comes Eekwol, who is an incredibly gifted Native rapper from Saskatoon, giving it to you straight up to let the truth be known. A Cree from the Muskoday First Nation, she not only makes me brim with pride from a cultural and musical perspective, but also as a woman. As you’ll see very quickly from any of her songs or listening to her talk, she clearly owns all of who she is.

Watch her shine in this interview about the role of gender in rap:

And do yourself a favour and stop by her Myspace page to listen on in to some deep tunes that really get to the heart of the issues so many of our communities are facing (the “Respect Your History” song gives me chills every time I hear it).

Flint, Michigan has now joined the ranks of several other US states who have passed bylaws that make the the wearing of baggy, sagging, or low-riding pants illegal.

Police chief David Dicks said that wearing pants below the waist is a crime — a violation of the city’s disorderly conduct ordinance — and can give police probable cause to search saggers for other crimes, such as weapon or drug possession.

You could get 93 days to a year in jail and fines of up to $500 for wearing your pants low (a larger sentence than some sexual assault perpetrators are getting these days).

Now say what you want about agreeing or disagreeing with baggy pants, but believing that’s enough evidence to search people thinking they all must be thugs who commit crimes is just asking for racial profiling.

It’s no secret that youth in communities of colour are going to be the ones feeling the brunt of this racist, ludicrous law, and hey, why not since they are already incarcerated at soaringly higher rates than White youth?!

And trust me, I was equally as angry in my Catholic high school when they prohibited low-cut or belly shirts telling me I looked “promiscuous” and could “distract the boys’ education”. I actually believe in freedom of expression and think there are bigger battles we have to wage in this world.

Thankfully the ACLU has threatened to file suit against the city of Flint if this ordinance sticks and is asking citizens who are being targeted to come forward and tell their stories.