We Have Done Enough by Anique Jordan. Documentation by Nabil Shash.

The energy that fills the room at a book launch surrounded by community is a feeling like no other. Walking into a reconfigured venue with familiar faces, soulful melodies, and warm hugs is one of those experiences I’m grateful to have been a part of before everything changed amid the pandemic. These are the kind of events that remind you just how small a city like Toronto really is. Celebrating a book—an anthology, no less—that weaves perspectives from Black artists, Black organizers, Black parents, Black educators, and Black thinkers was bound to have forged new connections by simply bringing people together under one roof.

That Sunday afternoon in February, Lula Lounge welcomed a number of Black people and allies who came together to hear more about Until We Are Free: Reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada edited by Rodney Diverlus, Sandy Hudson, and Syrus Marcus Ware.

Until We Are Free is meant to be a book through which Black Canada can write itself, wherein contributors share a balance of personal experiences living across Turtle Island, their own reflections being involved with movements for Black life, and the value of understanding Black liberation as inherently connected to Indigenous sovereignty.

After hearing from most anthology contributors, Pascale Diverlus, co-founder and former member of Black Lives Matter – Toronto (BLM-TO), wrapped up the launch with an announcement of yet another project borne out of the group—the creation of Wildseed: Centre for Art and Activism. Embodying its namesake, a novel by Afrofuturist author, Octavia Butler, Wildseed is a multipurpose community hub conceptualized through reflections on Black histories and hopes for radical Black futures.

It’s eerie to think about how much the book and hub launch once felt like the end of an era. Since 2014, Black people and our allies had been on the ground and behind computer screens, disrupting “business as usual” to demand justice for Black people who are disproportionately killed by police. Through six years of public education and activism, it seemed as though public opinion on anti-Black racism had shifted. For a brief instance, it felt like we had entered a moment in which Black people could catch our breath. In a paper for the Yellowhead Institute called “To Breathe Together: Co-conspirators for Decolonial Futures,” PhD candidate Sefanit Habtom and doctoral graduate Megan Scribe describe it as a moment in which we “conspire to breathe life into something new.” Even as we entered a pandemic in which “communal space” was given entirely new meaning, material like Until We Are Free and spaces like Wildseed gave me hope that Black people could use the brief plateau as an opportunity to reflect upon and learn from what had been a global movement. Wildseed and other cultural sites created by Black people across the diaspora remind us that we can leverage our resources to create more livable futures.

The timeline between the launches in early February and early March 2020, and May 2020 when everything changed yet again, made me think of what possibilities open up when we think critically about time. On one hand, the mere concept of time has become much less linear amid COVID-19, during which every waking day feels like an eternity, while months seem to pass with the blink of an eye. On the other hand, revolutionary ideas are made possible when we shift the terrain and think differently about seemingly catastrophic moments—we may as well work with, rather than against, those blurred timelines to imagine our worlds anew.

Bedour Alagraa, assistant professor of Africa and African Diaspora Studies, University of Texas at Austin, shared her thoughts on texts by Walter Rodney, Frantz Fanon, and Eduardo Mondlane to make sense of those critical shifts. During a talk in late 2019, she asked questions like: what happens when we begin understanding labour as cultural practice? Or when we think of struggle as being borne out of cultural expression, rather than the other way around? As a Black woman who uses artistic curation and activism as mechanisms to support, co-create, and engage with spaces rooted in community care, I can see how this era marks a break in which each of us can play a role in creating more breathable futures.

As anxiety-inducing as it had been to work through the uncertainty that went along with the first few months of COVID-19, it was also a pretty introspective blip in time until the week of May 25, 2020. In the wake of George Floyd, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, Tony McDade, and other Black people killed by police on Turtle Island and beyond, it began feeling like we were living in a time loop of Black death. Not only because it felt like just yesterday that some writers, theorizers, and other creators began speaking about the contemporary moment as a post-BLM era. In a much broader sense, it felt like a time loop because Black people have been sounding the alarm about structural violence in Canada, the U.S., and around the world for more than 400 years.

I submitted my master’s thesis during the pandemic, a project that wove together a review of literature and mixed media alongside my own analysis on a convening of Black artists, Black organizers, and Black people who were neither artists nor organizers. Through my research, I gained a better understanding of how radical creative practice—sit-ins, cookouts, protests, festivals, bookstores, newspapers, and after-school programs alike—help to chart a more livable city.

Among the number of new ideas that came out of our conversations, participants who were Black artists shared their experiences entering activist spaces. One participant in particular mentioned that she is limited to predetermined contributions when she is brought into organizing spaces. As a visual artist, she revealed that she is never asked to contribute intellectual work: “I don’t feel like I’m asked to come in to think of how to live a better life with everyone.”

It’s so disappointing to be reminded how often the work of Black artists is devalued. Particularly because it goes against everything Until We Are Free, the creation of Wildseed, and what Black studies scholars like Bedour Alagraa teach us about culture—Black creative practice is as essential as it is expansive.

I had the chance to speak with Toronto-based multidisciplinary artist Anique Jordan about some of the tensions between artistry and activism. When I told her what the participant had shared with me during a focus group meeting, Jordan explained that she resonated with that experience as well. Jordan shared that work by Black artists is often critiqued in extremes where it is read as either missing political commentary or offering too much. Contrary to either extremity, Jordan interprets Black artists as intellectual labourers. “Our work can be leveraged to create new meaning,” she said. “As artists, we’re constantly fine-tuning those skills…. We’re taking risks and offering real sound ideas toward change.”

When I asked what motivated her own creative practice, she went on to share how much she is inspired by the people who she grew up around in Scarborough. Community workers, youth, and block party organizers who wouldn’t necessarily consider themselves artists are some among many to whom Jordan’s work is indebted. I completely echo her sentiments: even though I moved away from the area some time ago, most of my own curatorial and scholarly work is inspired by Scarborough. The East Side is where I first learned the meaning of community.

Black cultural workers and everyday Black people are the primary audience of Jordan’s newest project—a mural that has been installed in front of NIA Centre for the Arts. “It’s affirming. It’s a reminder. We have done enough, and here are all the things we’ve done.”

Now more than ever, Black artists are moving away from work that centres pleading our humanity to general audiences. Just this past summer, activists and artists came together to paint “Defund the Police” outside of Toronto police headquarters and Hamilton City Hall. What I found most distinct about these two actions was that each volunteer surrounding the disruption faced inward while the streets were being painted. Rather than raising awareness by speaking with people who passed by, the organizers seemed to be most focused on ensuring the painters remained energized and that they were kept safe. Similarly, after an online petition to remove a Sir John A. Macdonald statue was met with inaction by Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante, activists circled the statue and pulled it down themselves during a protest to defund the police.

Jordan’s new mural project and the crowd structure for Toronto, Hamilton, and Montreal’s “Defund the Police” actions remind me of the beauty that comes out of inward-facing imaginative practice. In an article on liberation for Canadian Art, Denise Ferreira da Silva, artist and academic at the University of British Columbia’s Social Justice Institute, writes that “creative work returns to the person and to those who knew and love them.” While contending with violence, Black creative practice offers a place through which humanity is re-centred. Da Silva also reminds us just how expansive Black liberation work can be.

I think a lot about Saidiya Hartman’s writing and the attention she pays to sharing stories about Black women who are most often misremembered. Through its own form of literary creative practice, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval speaks of “the chorus” as a vehicle that helps us meaningfully imagine otherwise. “Inside the circle it is clear that every song is really the same song, but crooned in infinite variety, every story altered and unchanging: How can I live? I want to be free. Hold on.”

When it comes to creating futures in which we all live more freely, everyday people and Black artists play just as important a part as activists on the front line. Ultimately, magic happens when we simply bring people together within a creative space—whether within an anthology, at a venue, at a block party or within our own neighbourhoods.

ILLUSTRATION BY CHELSEA CHARLES

We are living in revolutionary times. The ground is shifting beneath us every day. We are seeing a radical shift in our collective consciousness about ideas pertaining to abolition and defunding the police. We are beginning to awaken to the idea that we can solve issues of conflict, crisis, and harm in ways that do not rely on the prison industrial complex and police systems.

Far from being new, these concepts have had recent groundswells globally. From “Black Lives Matter” and “Defund the Police” being painted big and bold across city streets, to colonial statues being toppled, to people organizing collective care circles and mutual aid networks that ensure no one is left behind—including organizing from home and from beds—this movement is so vast and so impressive a footprint that it can literally be seen from space. (Space.com reported that a satellite was able to see Black Lives Matter painted on the road in Washington, D.C. from space.)

Abolition offers a possibility for self-determination, the ability for all of us to live the lives that we choose and that we want. It offers a possibility for the end of slavery—something that was technically abolished but continues through the prison system. Abolishing police and prisons allows us to finally complete the project of the abolition of slavery—and our children’s children will be born free from that system of domination, punishment, and control.

Abolition is being taken up in the most unlikely of places—from the playground, to the family dinner table, to Cosmopolitan magazine. More importantly, it is firmly supported by a bedrock of abolitionist struggle that is 500 years strong on Turtle Island. We are fighting for this new system to be a more just one, one that is rooted in justice and freedom. We are moving steadily towards abolition and our victory seems close and sure. Now is a time to reflect on the history of the abolition movement and what the future could look like if we reach abolition in our lifetime.

Abolition, which is necessarily rooted in Indigenous resurgence, disability justice, and anti-capitalism, is based on the not-so-radical idea that we could treat each other like human beings deserving of love and care and as beings that are inherently valuable. It’s this idea that we don’t need prisons or police to keep our communities safe or secure. It suggests that we could reinvest these resources into community to ensure all of our basic needs are being met. Abolition is rooted in the idea that we could stop relying on punitive measures to solve moments of distress, interpersonal disagreements, and harm. That we could stop caging living beings. I spent a few weeks in August, in the immediate months after revolutionary action sparked in the streets across Turtle Island following the killings of George Floyd and Regis Korchinski-Paquet, speaking with abolitionists from coast to coast about the movement to defund the police and about their wildest abolitionist dreams for the near future. What I found out was not surprising: there are expansive networks of abolitionists, with new additions springing up regularly. I found that these are coordinated and ready to give abolition its final push into place.

I spoke with Morgan Switzer-Rodney, one half of BlackChat, a podcast focused on intergenerational learnings and Black liberatory culture based in western Canada. She explained, “I think it’s something like above 50 percent of Canada is in favour of defunding the police. And so that’s really great. We see different cities in the states who are actually having whole defunding programs becoming a thing. And I can’t look at those things and be like, ‘Wow, there’s nothing to hope for here.’”

Rajean Hoilett is a member of the Toronto Prisoners’ Rights Project. I spoke to him about this moment and how he came to be involved in the abolition movement. “When the carceral system hit me personally, when my brother was locked up and serving a two-year sentence, I had to navigate how hard it was to continue to exist, to continue to maintain a connection with him. I was moved to use those skills, to use my practice as a community organizer to contribute to this movement specifically for prisoners.” He joined the project in December 2019, at first focusing on the exploitative pricing scheme that Bell Canada holds as the provider for prison calls in Canada. After the pandemic hit, the group amplified its efforts. “The pandemic has opened up everyone’s imagination into what kind of world is possible. And the Toronto Prisoners’ Rights Project has been very well placed as a group that has started to do activism and started to do organizing and bringing people together around this particular issue.”

The Toronto Prisoners’ Rights Project has organized several COVID-safe protests during the spring and early summer of 2020 aimed at pushing for decarceration and abolition. Importantly, they used the newfound time and online world that the COVID lockdown brought about to conduct a weekly series of webinars on abolitionist topics from how to get involved in organizing to Black liberation to Indigenous resurgence. These resources aim to build up community capacity to fight for change. “I think what’s beautiful about abolition is that we hold space for everybody. And there’s definitely some space for leadership to be taken and for folks who have been doing this work to help guide all of us as we’re moving forward.” As much as drawing on experienced organizers, there’s room for everyone in this movement. Hoilett continues, “As we’ve been talking to people, as new people have been getting involved in our organizing, folks are like, ‘Oh, I need to read up on transformative justice, and I need to do all my readings about abolition, and I need to do this, and I need to do that, in order to feel like I’m comfortable enough to organize.’” Hoilett makes note that while people feel the need to be completely prepared, the movement encourages people of all knowledge levels to participate, “We need your energy, we need your ideas, we need your thoughts,” he says. The group has provided these resources in a multitude of ways; as well as the weekly webinars they’ve also been organizing a support fund for people just getting out of prison or jail.

Far from a Toronto phenomenon, abolition work is spread all across Turtle Island and Inuit Nunangat. I spoke with Paige Galette, key organizer for the movement for Black lives in the Yukon. She explains, “We have been trained to believe that systems such as police, court, and prisons are created to keep us safe. But when we look at who is placed in these systems—predominately Black and Indigenous People—we can see how these systems rely on Black and Indigenous bodies for their functioning. It’s quite obvious to me whose ‘safety,’ ‘security,’ ‘justice,’ and ‘comfort’ we are upholding.” The police and prison system are steeped in white supremacy and Galette speaks to the disproportionate targeting of racialized people in order to keep white communities in a position of dominance and control. It is their safety that is considered first and foremost.

As we move towards an abolitionist society, one wherein we have eradicated white supremacy, uprooted racism, ableism, and classism, wherein we have ended colonial and imperialist practices, we are already planning for the world we are going to live in in the future. Talking with activists about their ideal abolitionist futures is insightful as they offer us rich fodder for imagining possibilities. As we talk about the future, we dream together about what could be.

I asked the activists I spoke to about their visions and what they were doing to prepare. As for Switzer-Rodney, her preparation is rooted in intergenerational work. “My current work in the movement is focused on bridging intergenerational relationships. Helping bridge that gap is crucial. I’ve been doing a lot of youth education, particularly in relation to abolition and Black liberation.” We do work together in community to prepare but there’s also our personal work to begin this journey. She continues, “I’ve been doing my own deprogramming. I am looking at systems of harm that I perpetuate and am working to dismantle those systems…. In the midst of a revolution, on a path towards abolition, I am trying to get myself right and build up my skills for the resistance so that I have something to provide.”

From the personal to the broader community, we are learning how to be in relation with ourselves and each other again. Ravyn Wngz, an Afro-Indigenous artist and organizer with Black Lives Matter – Toronto says, “One thing that I believe will help us get in better relationships with each other is to treat each other as if we were chosen family. To approach abolition as the most loving thing that we can do for one another. I believe the most loving thing that I can do for you is to set you free. This is what we were asking people to consider—to be a part of this struggle until we are all free.” Wngz encourages us to find familial ties and community connections as part of our work to build a more just society. Hoilett shares the sentiment: “As we move away from relying on the same systems that are hurting us, we can have those transformative conversations about how we see people who have done harm. Can we still hold space for them in our community without writing them off and without exiling them from our community?” He says, “In the future we will find ways of taking care of each other even in the face of harm or conflict. And because of this community care, there would be less harm overall to have to address. We would all have what we needed to survive and thrive.”

Switzer-Rodney is engaged in similar conversations in her community in Vancouver. “My dream is a world where Black people are everywhere and are free from police. I dream of a world where elders are seen and cared for, and are well-respected. I dream of a world where we are taking care of each other, and we are holding each other accountable in ways that are focused around healing individuals, both those who maybe enact harm as well as are harmed…. We will all get in right relations with the people whose land we occupy and work towards sustainable climate and food systems.”

Everyone I spoke with expressed the importance of the longevity of this movement and the impact of the work we are doing now on society around us. Switzer-Rodney said, “I have a sticker that I recently put on my computer, it says ‘Every generation demands liberation.’ I think that even if this current moment—this movement—if it doesn’t succeed in the way that we want it to, it has still planted so many seeds in so many people. It has done a lot of prep work for a lot of youth, youthier youth than me even! And so I think it will just come back. I think abolition will just keep coming.” Considering her words, I’m imagining cutting back raspberry cane in the heat of late summer and seeing it grow back fuller and deeper the next year. Perhaps abolition will be like this?

Hoilett is sure that we will continue pushing towards freedom. He says, “I’m excited. It’s a beautiful thing. I think that most of this future I can’t even imagine. I trust all the people that we sit with in community, I know that we’ll continue to push this forward.” Galette senses an urgency in this moment and says, “We need action. Time waits for no one…. The time to act is now. Start allowing your mind to imagine a world possible without police, prisons, and court systems. It is possible and is happening sooner than you think. Familiarize yourself with words like ‘community safety’ and ‘accountability’ and ‘restorative justice.’ These words exist because they are (and have been for centuries) being put into practice.”

We are on the edge of a new world. As statues topple—such as the John A. Macdonald dethroning in Montreal—and streets are painted in Tkaronto, and communities are gathering in B.C., the Yukon, Halifax, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Hamilton, and beyond demanding justice for the many Black and Indigenous people killed by policing and prisons in Canada—a new world is being birthed. Abolition offers us the chance to build communities founded on love and social justice values. We can finally get free. As Galette encourages us, the time is now to get involved in shaping this change. Switzer-Rodney reminds us, “I see enough people being willing to have conversations and slowly start to move along with it. And so that gives me hope.”

Have these conversations and then prepare yourself, your family, and your community—change is coming. We are all about to be so much freer. It’s time to get ready.

ILLUSTRATION BY DORCAS MARKWEI

“Give your daughters difficult names.

Names that command the full use of the tongue.

My name makes you want to tell me the truth.

My name does not allow me to trust anyone

who cannot pronounce it right.”

      — Warsan Shire

“Mama, why do you always give out Dada’s name at coffee shops?”

My son is clinging to my leg at Starbucks. He’s asking me why, when cashiers invite me to offer a name when we’re ordering a latte, or take-out, I always say, “Um, it’s Bruce.”

I used to stutter, spelling out my name: “M-I-N…” and then falter, switching to his name instead.

I don’t think much of it now. I do it almost without thinking, and try to pay attention when Bruce’s name is called, because
I don’t remember automatically.

I do it because I dread the way they will mispronounce my name.

I dread the way they take what seems like hours to scrawl my name down, yet inevitably get it wrong. I dread them calling me Michelle instead of Minelle. Every time I give out my husband’s name, I hang my head in dog-like shame, but I still do it.

Names I have been called at different times in my life:

Minelley

Mini

Mini-Mouse

Smelly Minelley

Mahtaniman

Minellsey

Minoushka

Junam

Beti

Paki

Chink

This is, in fact, a shortened version of the list.

Grade six. The new girl, R., sports feathered blonde frosted hair, and shiny train-track braces. Her crooked teeth don’t stop her from becoming the most popular girl in school. She singles me out for ridicule. In class, R. takes a small package of crystals meant for an experiment and, when Mr. Coleman isn’t looking, surreptitiously and cleverly tips the small package into the back pocket of my brand new Jordache jeans. The entire class bursts into laughter. I don’t tell anyone.

The next day, R. comes armed with a new weapon; this time, not chemical. It’s a sheaf of a hundred mimeographed pages. A hand-written list titled “A hundred reasons why we all hate Minelle” in bubble letters. She distributes them all over the school.

I try not to remember the reasons listed but they remain on the edges of my memory, particularly when I am hating myself, even at the age of 49.

Some are ridiculous reasons, like #29: because she has a paper route. But reason #67? “She has a stupid name.” That one, that one still stings.

At that moment I would have done anything to change the “n” in my name to “ch.” Anything, anything to rid myself of my history, my connection to my ancestors, to remove the ways I was singled out for my difference.

When my parents divorce, I return to the comfort books I devoured when I was a young teen. My favourite: Gordon Korman’s I Want to Go Home—the story of a boy who is shipped off to camp without his consent, and tries at every turn to escape.

I’m inspired by this character, and boldly tell my mother that I will no longer go by my name. From now on, I will only be referred to and will only respond to this character’s name, Rudy. I solemnly tell strangers my name is Rudy. When they hear me utter this name, they look at me quizzically, then look at my mom’s complexion. Doesn’t match.

I only change my name back to Minelle after my one of my mother’s potential suitors, a man with ghost-like pallor who looks like he’d be more at home on a used car lot rather than on our plastic-covered couch, hears my new name when he’s introduced to me.

“Rudy?” He says, guffawing, spitting out some of the gulab jamun my mother has offered him.

“Rudy? Do you know what that means? Horny!”

He laughs hysterically, wiping the rose-water syrup from his mouth in one long, slow, swipe.

My mother shakes her head quickly at me, as if waking up for the first time. I, too, have never heard this before.

Of course, like the good Muslim girl I am, I decide to discard the name that moment. It won’t be until more than 20 years later that I realize what the used car salesman meant.

He was confusing Rudy with Randy.

“Randy: a noun: to be aroused or excited.” 

I’m thirty-five years old. My white boyfriend and I are arguing about what we are going to name our future child. He likes names like George, James, John. I suggest Amina, if we have a girl. It’s a name I have long loved, an Iranian name popular in my family.

My boyfriend looks at me askance. Tilts his head and then shakes it, no.

“Amina? What kind of name is that?”

Immediately I feel my body tense up. I straighten up and say, “It’s part of my family’s tradition.”

He rolls his eyes and says, “No way. Imagine how a kid with that name would be teased in the schoolyard. There would be no end to it. No kid of mine will be named Amina.”

Not surprisingly, the relationship does not last. It was never meant to, and this was but one of the many signs.

Later, when I marry my husband, this former boyfriend calls me. He wishes me well and says he’s happy for me. I believe him. There is no animosity in his voice. He says, “I see what you named your son. You gave him a white name. I thought you said you’d never do that?”

It is a colonial question that doesn’t deserve an anti-colonial answer. 

My husband and I are discussing names for our child. I think about my dissertation research, on women of mixed race. For that project, I interviewed many women who had changed their names late in life to reflect their mixed race identities more fully. They moved from names like Lisa, Laurie, Sarah, and Mary to names like Aliyeh, Zara, Nyla. I am ready to make a pronounced case for a non-white name with my partner, ready for battle. My child—we now know it will be a boy—will have an Indian or Iranian name.

I am stubborn with Bruce, citing the research, explaining how important names are to a mixed child. We start combing through lists of names.

Nothing resonates for either of us. We try Reza, Hasan, Amir. Say the names out loud. I roll them around in my mouth, like pebbles washed up on the beach shore.

My friend in Hong Kong suggests Ash, short for Ashok—which means without sorrow. I think about how it sounds like Ashraf. A version of that ends up becoming his middle name, but not his first, taking shape as Asher, because I read about the

name in Lois Lowry’s book, The Giver. It means “happy” and it is what I long for my child to be.

When my son arrives on a blustery wintry day at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, with my mom and my best friend by my side (my husband is still in Vancouver, having been called when I went into labour, but not making it in time for the actual birth). I look at my child’s scrawny, wet face, and I am immediately jarred by how white his skin is. I don’t know why I expected to have a child who is darker—my skin is still so light—but I thought I would see more of my Dad in his face.

We don’t name our child for two weeks.

Between nights of sleeplessness, the experience of colic, and the usual challenges of having a baby around, we simply can’t get our act together to name him. I think about how adamant I was before the baby’s arrival about providing my child an Indian and Iranian first name. But I see now that passing on a specific part of my family legacy matters to me—not just a vague gesture to my heritage. My father’s last name matters. Mahtani. I want him to have my father’s last name.

For some reason, I imagine him hanging out with other boys on the soccer field who will only call him by his last name, as boys tend to do sometimes, not his first. I can see it: the soccer ball, heading for the goal post. My son, stopping it, sharply. A team member shouts out: “Way to go, Mahtani! Nice block!”

I awake from my revelry. Yes, that’s it. Mahtani. I no longer care about the first name, only the last.

My husband acquiesces, easily. I thought there would be more of a struggle.

Hello Dr. Minelle Mahtani,

This might seem odd and I hope that you will understand and answer my question.

My name is X, and I live in Stockholm, Sweden. My wife and I are having our second daughter in February, and we are thinking about giving her the name Minelle. We find it to be very beautiful. My parents are from Iran and my wife’s from Bangladesh, although her father is from India. I found you by searching the internet for the meaning and origin of the name Minelle, and it is very hard to get a clear understanding of either. According to a few internet sites the name means “my little girl” or “my sunshine” in French, which gives me reason to believe that the origin is French. Since you live in Canada, do you know if this is correct? My wife and I would be very grateful if you could enlighten us with whatever you know about your first name.

I stare at the email, and write back:

My parents moved to Toronto from London in the 1960s, just before the policy of Canadian multiculturalism was implemented. They had experienced racism in England, and wanted to try to live someplace new where they thought they could have a fresh start. They wanted their first child to have a name that integrated their joy about welcoming a daughter into the world with their commitments to racial and religious harmony, given that my Father was raised Hindu, and my Mother was Muslim. They asked friends for their suggestions.

One of their friends suggested Manal, because they said it roughly translates into wish come true in Arabic. My parents said they looked at each other and knew right away they had found their name. They always told me growing up that I was their wish come true. This meant a lot to me—it made me feel that I had a legacy that bore back to my parents’ deep love for me, and it has given me strength, determination and a strong sense of purpose over the course of my life. I have met other “Manals”—with variations on the spelling. My name is spelled “Minelle” as you know. My parents knew that they were living in a country that was distinguished by bilingualism—French is one of the official languages of Canada. They also were concerned about the pronunciation of the name—they wanted to make sure others could say it. They thought about the name “Michelle”—which has French derivations. So, they altered the spelling somewhat—and Minelle was born, which gestures towards French-Canadian culture. I find it is easy for people to spell and to pronounce (most of the time!). I can easily say, “My name is Minelle – Min – E – double L – E.” I say to people, “It’s like Michelle—but with an N” and that also helps, too. I have loved that over the years people tend to exclaim, “Oh what a beautiful name!” And I feel very proud to say, “It is Arabic.” Because I look slightly—dare I say—racially ambiguous, by proclaiming the derivation of the name, I am gesturing to my background as a non-white person even though I am not Arab. It also provides a way to build bridges with others, and it has led to some beautiful conversations with inquisitive and kind souls over the years.

I hope this helps a bit! I am so thrilled you are contemplating this name.”

A few months later, I get a response back:

Thank you so much for your beautiful words about your name. Here is a pic of my two wonderful princesses Minelle and N…!”

The photo is of two children: a little girl, with dark hair and dark eyes, embracing a baby. The baby has an expression that can only be described as blissful in sleep, her little hands balled up in fists.

I hope she has the strength within those little hands to fight for her name, in the way I have not.

LLUSTRATION BY JULIA GALOTTA

After my father died, I looked for him everywhere. Time crept forward in my one-bedroom apartment and my boyfriend might’ve been the only reason I even noticed the passing of days. His comings and goings signalled whether it was time to grieve at my desk, on the couch, or the bed. My desk, hardly a writing space anymore, became a place to search for my dad. I typed his name into my browser daily.

On one of these days, I was looking through my cloud storage for something when I found an unfamiliar folder in the “shared files” section of my account. It was simply titled “Google Photos.” I clicked and found several more folders and dozens more inside them, all with names like “Christmas_2013_Pics_&_Vids” and “2002 Family Vacation.”

My dad had never mentioned it, but at some point he must have shared these files without my noticing. I could see that they’d also been shared with my brother’s account as well as a cousin’s. There were photos from graduation ceremonies and photos of long-forgotten trips: in one, I’m 12 years old, standing in a shallow pool at a water park in Newfoundland. In another, my brother is balancing on a seesaw as if it were a skateboard. There were even photos I had never seen. I pored over the images for hours, leaving no folder unclicked. My eyes grew tired from staring at the screen.

Up to that point, my dad’s social media, Facebook in particular, had acted like a time capsule. Photos and posts triggered memories, which allowed me to retrace my steps and regain some sanity. I had spoken to my dad in my head many times, begging for some kind of sign so I could know he was at peace. I didn’t have any prophetic dreams. No spirit floated to my window at twilight. But I could find plenty of ghosts online by conjuring them with Google searches. Although part of me must’ve realized this wasn’t healthy, the solace was worth it. As far as the internet was concerned, my father was still alive.
He breathed through photos, silly tweets, and the occasional email.

One of the last comments my dad made on Facebook was about me. “Our beautiful daughter. Twenty-three years old,” he wrote. It was a comment on a post from my mother, who had shared two photos of me with a caption wishing me a happy birthday. The first was a school portrait from elementary school. I wore a white t-shirt underneath a magenta spaghetti-strap dress, and my smile was missing a few teeth. The other photo was a recent snap of me at my aunt and uncle’s house, sitting in a wingback chair and obliging with a smile when someone, probably my mother, asked to take my picture. Here, my hair was pulled out of my face with a floral headband and my teeth were intact, straightened by two years of braces.

I said my dad wrote that comment, but it’s probably not entirely true. By that time, March 2016, my mom was managing most of my dad’s Facebook activity. He likely dictated the comment to her while she typed it and pressed enter.

Two months later, my dad died. He was 58.

My dad had ALS, a motor neuron disease that gradually debilitates muscle movement. His hands and arms were the first to go. They hung at his sides like dead weight, making his shoulders slump toward the ground. For a while, he would still try to answer the landline at home by knocking the receiver off the cradle and shouting into the phone from a standing position. “Dad, where is Mom?” I would ask, exasperated. Eventually, he accepted that he needed help—whether through voice-to-text technology or another person—to answer calls, send texts, and email.

My dad lived with ALS for two-and-a-half years before it killed him. During that time, social media was helpful. In the summer of 2014, the Ice Bucket Challenge took off and it became trendy to care about #ALS. On the internet, there was no way to escape it. Those videos made my dad laugh, and it felt as if people everywhere were supporting my family, knowingly or otherwise. According to the New York Times,

the Ice Bucket Challenge raised over $115 million (U.S.) for the ALS Association, which has helped scientists advance their research on the illness. Meanwhile, Canadians raised $17 million for the ALS Society of Canada. The society promoted a tagline and hashtag: “Every August until a cure.” However, the trend faded. It felt as if many people (even well-meaning, caring people) just forgot about ALS when the social media challenge, and phase, passed.

My mother is something of a Luddite and she’s generally against social media. The night my dad died, his brother made a Facebook post lamenting his passing—before my mom had even called all the extended family. This wasn’t a malicious act on my uncle’s part, but it meant that some relatives found out about my dad’s death through Facebook. My mom had to jump on the phone and make calls she wasn’t ready to make. She soon shared the news of my dad’s death on his own page along with a note asking his friends to keep an eye on the paper for an obituary and funeral details. It wasn’t long after that that my mom was asking my brother and me how to delete my dad’s Facebook page. I think it was just a few days after the funeral. I suggested she “memorialize” the page, but she said: “I just want it gone.” And so, it was. Just like my father. Gone.

I’m not sure how long after my dad’s funeral—maybe one week, maybe two—I discovered those archived photos in the cloud. They were comforting at first, but soon they weren’t enough. They emphasized the distance between then and now, alive and dead.

In an episode of Black Mirror called “Be Right Back,” a woman named Martha uses new technology to imitate the presence of her late husband. It evolves from text conversations to verbal phone conversations. Eventually, Martha orders a physical facsimile. Near the end of the episode, she yells at the vessel of artificial intelligence: “You are not enough of him!” Although that scenario is hyperbolic compared to mine, the character’s words express how I felt as I combed through those memories, reminding myself of everything my dad was. Reminding me of who I was when I still had a father.

I could get lost searching for every fingerprint my dad left on the internet, but it would never be satisfactory. I had to  pull back from that computer screen to find the arms of my partner again, and those of my friends, and my family. The arms of the living.

I still feel as if I’m looking for my dad and trying to maintain a relationship with him, but I believe I’m in a healthier place. Still, there are things I can’t part with. For some time after my dad’s death, his voice was still on the answering machine for my mom’s landline, saying, “You’ve reached Ron, Doreen, Chris and Becky.” I can relate. I’ve yet to change my cell phone’s contact name for that landline: “Mom and Dad.”

I just can’t delete “Dad.”

PHOTO BY SARAH BODRI

We were teaching ourselves something that we didn’t know,” says Kat Estacio, co-founder of Toronto’s Pantayo, a quintet blending traditional Filipino kulintang music with Western pop and rock styles. That’s partly why it took eight years between the ensemble’s first practice in 2012 and the release of their self-titled debut earlier this year. As with many of the best records, though, Pantayo was worth the wait.

The group is made up of Kat Estacio, her twin Katrina Estacio, Michelle Cruz, Eirene Cloma, and Joanna Delos Reyes, all of whom met over the course of several years at Kapisanan Philippine Centre for Arts and Culture’s former location in Kensington Market. They discovered a shared desire to play Filipino kulintang music, and decided to learn together, via YouTube videos and sheet music. Typical kulintang pieces are played on gongs and metallophones, but before too long the group found themselves innovating on tradition.

“As we were exploring, we were putting in our own influences, ’cause we’ve been exposed to pop music, all five of us,” says Kat. “We played the sheet music in a way that made sense to us, added our flavour to it.”

This flavour comes in many forms on their record, which draws inspiration from R&B, hip-hop, and synth-pop. The album covers a lot of ground both stylistically and thematically. On the soulful “Divine,” Cloma beckons a lover over a cool beat. Other tracks like “Taranta” and “Kaingin” feature driving percussion, chant-like vocals, and lyrics about trauma and resistance, inspired by topics like colonialism and missing and murdered Indigenous women.

The record is tied together by its kulintang base, the gongs sometimes serving as a captivating centrepiece, or otherwise an atonal counterpoint to synths and drums.

For Pantayo, learning to play kulintang music was a process of understanding a part of Filipino culture that had previously felt inaccessible. Even band members who grew up in the Philippines were raised on North American pop culture—the band counts The Tragically Hip and Santigold amongst their influences—and kulintang music felt far away.

“I saw those instruments as something ornamental in a room, not really incorporated in daily life,” Kat explains. “But they’re a community-based instrument; people would play them outside after a long day at work.” Kat grew up in Manila, while kulintang music is played predominantly in the southern Philippines.

Approaching the tradition as outsiders, the group took care to reach out to kulintang teachers both in the Philippines and North America. After spending years learning traditional pieces, they began writing material for Pantayo in 2016, working closely with producer alaska B of experimental rock group Yamantaka // Sonic Titan. During the album-writing process, the band grappled with questions of identity: “Who are we? What are we about?” Cruz says they asked themselves. “How can we stay away from making music just because it’s what everyone’s going to like?”

The answer to the questions came through the music itself, and partly through the process of building Pantayo as a group. The band members’ experiences as queer Filipina-Canadians shape their work implicitly. “I’m not the same person that I was when I was in the Philippines,” Kat says. “I am the result of the migration that happened. That story is what we want to tell, apart from the narrative of the songs themselves.”

With the release of the album, their story has reached a wider audience, landing them on the Polaris Prize shortlist and opening up new opportunities. Though the group was disappointed not to attend a Polaris gala in person, they’re already working on ideas for new material, as well as spreading kulintang music to others through educational workshops in Toronto schools. “The fact that we’re able to talk about the tradition and our experience as a band making these songs,” Katrina says. “It’s nothing like I ever imagined.”

Alannah Johnson and Whitney French know the world needs more Black literature. That’s why the Toronto-based writers have launched Hush Harbour, a literary press dedicated to imagining Black feminisms and uplifting works of short fiction. “There are so many Black writers and storytellers to uphold and affirm,” says French. “Among the many nuanced stories within Black communities, Hush Harbour seeks to build a home for all our histories and create a platform beyond binaries and borders.”

A “hush harbour” was a religious gathering place for enslaved populations in the United States. It’s a fitting name for the publishing house, which is fostering a space to celebrate Black existence unapologetically. “We are rooted in a deep understanding of oppressive systems and barriers against us. And still we resist,” reads the press’s mandate. (The press’s name was inspired by a different local initiative called Hush Harbour, an interactive “sonic walk” of Toronto—an audio project and walking tour by multimedia artist Camille Turner which examines the realities of Black life in Canada before the abolishment of slavery in the British colonies.)

By centring Black voices, Hush Harbour will help bridge the gaps of opportunity and pay that Black authors face within Canada’s publishing landscape. After the viral campaign #PublishingPaidMe exposed industry-wide racial disparities last summer, publishing has been forced to reckon with its systemic racism. “We have witnessed the unveiling of inequities within these very rigid systems upheld by CanLit,” says Johnson. “Equitable and ethical economic practices for our Black press have been the guiding foundational pieces in reimagining the future of publishing.”

Black people remain underrepresented at all levels of the publishing industry, from editing to distribution to management roles. Hush Harbour is stepping in to interrupt the status quo in Canada’s literary arts scene, offering a space for Black writers to be our entire, uncompromised selves—but it’s not the first to do so. Johnson and French are building on the legacy of Toronto-based Sister Vision Press, which published writing by women of colour from its inception in 1985 until it folded in 2001. Its iconic writers included Afua Cooper, Djanet Sears, and Dionne Brand.

While filling big shoes, Hush Harbour’s founders will continue to nourish their own writing and multidisciplinary practices. French, the author of the critically acclaimed anthology Black Writers Matter, is at work on an afro-futuristic novel. Johnson is co-founder of the Black Gold Archival Project, which is launching a residency this fall, and is a director at Sisterhood Media TV, a Black-owned and powered production and distribution company.

Hush Harbour is beginning to accept manuscripts this fall, and will be amplifying the work of emerging writers while also supporting established ones. Their first books will publish in fall 2021. They hope that others in the industry follow suit. “We truly see this as a beginning,” says Johnson. “We want to inspire more Black publishing presses to come along and be a part of the industry.”

Image courtesy of Uplift Kitchen

Sequestered in each of their own homes, neighbours Antonia Lawrence and Emily Carson didn’t have family around when COVID-19 hit.

All they had was the group chat shared between their friendly neighbours. Often, involving inquiries for grocery trips, wanting to share food items, and recipes between each other—a system built on the sentiment that sharing is caring.

“We kind of created our own little neighbourhood bubble,” said Emily Carson, co-founder of Uplift Kitchen.

On top of the health pandemic, a racial one emerged. The murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, and many more Black and Indigenous people, created global uproar.

“We kind of looked at each other at one point and said how do we do something to help?” Carson said. “How do we make sure that the people who are on the front lines, either working or protesting are being safe and secure … And so we automatically went to food.”

Food insecurity disproportionately impacts marginalized communities in Canada. A study shows that Black Canadian families are more than twice as likely to go hungry than white households. Similarly, almost half of all Indigenous families in Canada struggle to access food.

According to the co-founders, Uplift Kitchen started out as an initiative to help a small circle of people but bloomed into a delivery service for Black and Indigenous families all over the GTA.

The co-founders both have backgrounds in non-profit work and food service, which they put to use in the creation of Uplift Kitchen.

“When it comes to making sure that people are fed and clothed and housed, it’s a no-brainer for us. We’re lucky to be in a position where we can help other people, and it would be a waste of our talents not to,” said Lawrence.

Photo courtesy of Disability Justice Network of Ontario

When it comes to disability, the majority of conversations centre around accessibility and inclusion. Ensuring workplaces are barrier-free, the ongoing fight for a living wage, and equal treatment are among the primary focus. And this makes sense—how can disabled people navigate a world that is structurally ableist?

That’s exactly what the Disability Justice Network of Ontario (DJNO) is working to dismantle. Highlighting systemic issues around disability narratives: gaps in education, bodily autonomy, intersectionality in all disability-related conversations, and understanding the abuses that Canadian policies have inflicted. And all of this is disabled youth-led.

When co-founder Sarah Jama, 26, was in university, she started questioning why conversations around disability were primarily inclusion-based. “I started to wonder, well, if we’re not burdens on the state but we’re being told that we are,
how do you … unpack that and undo that?”

In September 2018, with co-founders Shanthiya Baheerathan and Eminet Dagnachew, the DJNO was born. Upon receipt of the Youth Opportunities Fund grant, an Ontario Trillium Foundation fund that invests in community-based, youth-led initiatives, the DJNO focused on their main purpose: to politicize young people with disabilities more broadly and, Jama says, to teach youth that, “you can actually interrogate the systems that are causing you problems.” This is the same system that puts the onus on disabled people to demand space in all facets of society.

Shortly after their founding, the Youth Action Council branch was formed, made up of eight young disabled people from around Ontario who have spearheaded programs such as snow removal campaigns last winter, and care-mongering which provides groceries to disabled people. Starting with just a handful of volunteers, the DJNO now has over 200 volunteers of all ages and demographics, from regions across Ontario.

“Disabled people are taught that we’re burdens because of capitalism,” Jama says.

Currently, when inclusivity conversations are had, they focus around the “us” (disabled) versus “they” (abled), and that disabled worth is only measured on the ability to produce in a capitalist world, regardless of whether or not disabled people are included in these conversations.

Educating and demanding a place in the conversations around disability and ableism within institutional structures, governments, and other advocacy groups is a sphere DJNO works within. Weaving disability justice for Black, Indigenous, and LGBTQ2S+ marginalized groups against the carceral system needs to be a foundation of all disability conversations, politically and socially.

Earlier this year, Jama and her colleagues partnered with Ottawa Centre MPP Joel Harden to address the clawback of funding for assistive devices for disabled folks during the pandemic. This reduction in funding includes life-saving assistive devices such as wheelchairs, prosthetics, hearing aids, and the ability to safely monitor illnesses such as diabetes. Motion 86 to reform the Assistive Devices Program “to better meet the needs of people with disabilities, including mandating, funding and enforcing timely access to assistive devices,” was supported by the Ontario NDP caucus.

At the heart of the DJNO is restructuring a system that has restricted disability justice to accessibility, not inclusion, a way to move away from the onus of the disabled to prove disability and more towards underscoring the right for disabled folks to exist. That includes reworking the social model of inability and equitable worth to reconstruct a system where disabled folks have autonomy and a right to exist in different communities, without external dictation of identity.

“Disability justice is stuck in the ’90s in the sense that people are still coming around to understanding very basic concepts and separating [the] value of people with disabilities outside of consumerism,” Jama says. That includes all facets from perceptions of disabled as incapable to policing and “killing of people with disabilities,” Jama continues. It’s a novel perspective, and one that the DJNO is using to spearhead the deconstruction of disability justice from the inside out.

ILLUSTRATION BY JARRED BRIGGS

Dear Celebrities,

The time has come for you to stop posting. We’re tired of it. Stop tweeting, stop snapping, stop dialing up your Rolodex of similarly-famed friends to orchestrate twee, black-and-white videos lamenting any of the society’s various ills. It’s time to take a step back, go to therapy, and realize that while there certainly is a time for your antics to occupy centre stage, that time is not now!

I understand your confusion: in the past decade, celebrity worship has reached critical mass. Social media not only gave us a whole new window into the lifestyles of the rich and famous, but it also gave us a whole new genre of celebrity. With the introduction of the Influencer, we learned that our lives couldn’t be complete without constant voyeurism into the lives of the richer, so-called hotter, and better-dressed. Social capital has become the dominant market force, and attention its most valuable commodity. You could be famous for as long as you were relevant, you were relevant only so much as you could garner attention, and you could get attention so long as you just kept on talking.

But in the wake of the COVID crisis, the Black Lives Matter movement, and more, the general public suddenly has far more important things to worry about than the musings of people whose handbags cost more than our country’s median income. By throwing society’s existing inequalities into stark relief, this period of social unrest has laid bare how out of touch celebrities really are; and, in a social ecosystem where whole empires are built on seeming relatable and down to earth, this has spelled disaster for the celebrity class. Celebrities, I’m sorry. I know how difficult this must be for you, to find yourself irrelevant in a world that once waited on your every move. But I have a simple solution, and I’m giving it to you for free: Stop talking! You’re making everything worse!

Celebrities, you’re so out of touch—so absolutely detached from a reality that doesn’t revolve around you—that it seems like many of you simply can’t fathom the idea that there are times when your opinion isn’t warranted. You can’t imagine why a video of you smugly humming along to a Beatles song didn’t immediately unite the masses in Kumbaya contentment, you balk at the idea of keeping your pseudo-eugenicist COVID takes to yourselves, you fancy racial tensions shattered after posting an aestheticized #BlackLivesMatter post to your curated feeds. It would be almost sad if it weren’t so infuriating. When I see a Kardashian post yet another video in their billion-dollar mansion, desperately trying to make their #QuarStruggles seem relatable to followers entering their third month of unemployment, I can’t help but feel twinges of pity. You’re victims, in your own way: so blinded by years of debilitating narcissism that you can’t figure out how to exist in a world that’s outgrown you.

Celebrities, I hope for you almost as much as for us that the pandemic will be over soon. I truly hope we can go back to a place where I could seriously make myself care about your breakups and dinner plans and expensive shoes, instead of being caught up in the boring, everyday struggles of my own life, like paying rent and affording food. Watching you desperately grasp at straws of relevancy for an audience that grows more disillusioned with your painfully inauthentic empathy by the day hurts me more than it hurts you—so, please, shut up. Log off Instagram. Somehow figure out how to sustain yourself for a couple of months without trying to rebrand as the voice of the people.

Or, even better, redistribute your wealth!

Much love,

Rayne Fisher-Quann