Imagine waking up for work realizing that what you do today is worth less than yesterday. Stephen Wentzell reports on a rally the Quinpool Road Superstore in support of Loblaw and Sobeys grocery store workers across the country who have seen their wages clawed back 15% despite remaining on the front lines of a pandemic.
Thandiwe McCarthy: “Who defines Blackness? It seemed everyone except my family in Woodstock was white and all those people I interacted with told me I was no different from them. So what makes me Black if the people in my life say it doesn’t matter?”
What is it that people in Nova Scotia have against masks? Look around you, in the supermarkets, in Spring Garden drugstores downtown – sure, some people are wearing masks – but most aren’t. Halifax writer Barbara Elizabeth Stewart tries to find an answer to that question.
“What could be more racist than not even acknowledging one of the founding groups in your region? asks Thandiwe McCarthy, writing about his home province of New Brunswick. “We have no place to show our art, no building dedicated to our history, no representation at our universities, no representation in our news, none in our government. At every single level In New Brunswick being Black has been pushed into the shadows, while we have been here contributing to society for centuries.”
Tari Ajadi on the difficult and messy task of health promotion in the middle of a pandemic, ensuring that enhanced police surveillance and harassment does not become another indignity that Black communities face.
“We are all in this together” is one of those common expressions of solidarity used by governments across Canada in response to the coronavirus pandemic. However, that’s not true in practice for all kinds of people, writes María José Yax-Fraser, who takes a closer look at the cases of women who were denied health coverage here in Nova Scotia.
Kate MacDonald on a city without Menz and Mollyz: “So what queer space can we dream into existence now? Without holding back, how big do we dare to dream and how can we get there? I have no answers to these questions. But trust me, I am dreaming. I am playing loud music in my headphones. I am dancing like I am still there.”
How to find Canada, how to believe again
it is where a freedom is rampant,
it is where it is worth what it takes
to rebuild the lives of those families
who somehow have managed to say,
“We can, and we will.”
A new poem by Truro poet Chad Norman, this one dedicated to El Jones.
Tina Renier on what makes initiatives like The Black Lives Matter Community Solidarity Fund so powerful. “What has kept us together as African peoples, especially throughout centuries of trauma from slavery, colonialism and racial capitalism, was our spirit.”
Delighted to present Wash your hands after reading this poem, by Antigonish poet Nanci Lee, and with a gorgeous illustration by painter Leya Evelyn. This is the first of the poems we selected after our call for poems and illustrators earlier this year. We have some catching up to do, so expect more than one poem a month for the next little while.