This weekend’s featured video is The Skin We’re In, by Desmond Cole and Charles Officer. A documentary about carding and profiling and racism by a Toronto journalist, but with a surprising amount of Nova Scotia content.
We went to last night’s panel on carding at the North End Library. We planned to write about the entire evening, but we ended up with a story focused entirely on the remarkable responses by Halifax Regional Police chief J.M. Blais.
Justin Brake, the fearless Newfoundland and Labrador journalist for the TheIndependent.ca is facing jail for reporting on an occupation of Nalcor buildings at Muskrat Falls by indigenous people. Everybody should care, and Nova Scotians doubly so, because through the Maritime Link these things are a lot closer than they appear.
Today we feature Black Sheroes, a poem by El Jones. “If you’re only telling the history of Black men then there’s a half that you missed.”
Call it rural gentrification. Lucasville, an African Nova Scotian community near Lower Sackville with a proud 200-year history is slowly being erased. But this time at least we have some good news to report. It appears that the stubborn issue of shrinking community boundaries will finally be addressed.
The provincial government is only halfheartedly supporting Black History Month in PEI, says a resident. The Black community on the Island could really use the help. ““The white islanders here need to hear that this is a community that is important and vibrant.”
A quick update on the shameful practice of carding in Halifax. The Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission is looking into it, but it is early day.
Stereotypes, ignorance and bias are very much part of the way many of Nova Scotia’s reporters tell the stories of African Nova Scotians, Mi’kmaq people and immigrants. By and large that was the consensus that emerged during a well-attended panel discussion at the University of King’s College last Friday.
This weekend’s video is about North Preston resident Vicky Simmons and her fervent wish to gain title to her family’s land. It’s part of a larger project, “Untitled, the Legacy of Land in North Preston,”by a group of journalism, television and radio students at the Nova Scotia Community College. Check out the video, and don’t forget to check out the students’ project website as well.
The Passage, a poem from And I Alone Escaped to Tell You, a collection of poetry by writer and filmmaker Sylvia Hamilton. Because it is the start of African Heritage Month, and because it is beautiful.