Official reports have been declaring systemic racism in North America’s education system for more than 30 years. What will it take to change? Even before COVID-19, education experts were sounding the alarm about the future of racialized children in our schools. And the COVID-19 pandemic has only underscored — even deepened — the divide. On this epi…

In this reflective and personal episode of Don’t Call Me Resilient, Prof. Cheryl Thompson of Toronto Metropolitan University and author of Beauty in a Box untangles the wending history of hair relaxers for Black women — and the health risks now linked to them. For decades, Black women have been using hair relaxers to help them “fit into” global mai…

If you don’t pay close attention to news about COVID, you might think the pandemic is nearly over. But for the millions of people worldwide suffering from long COVID, that couldn’t be further from the truth. And the number of those experiencing long-term symptoms keeps growing: At least one in five of us infected with the virus go on to develop lon…

In this episode of Don’t Call Me Resilient, we continue our conversation about forced famine and its use as a powerful tool to control people, land and resources. Starvation has, for centuries, been a part of the colonizer’s “playbook.” We speak with two scholars to explore two historic examples: the decimation of Indigenous populations in the Plai…

Land has so much meaning. It’s more than territory; it represents home, your ancestral connection and culture — but also the means to feed yourself and your country. One of the things that colonizers are famous for is the idea of terra nullius – that the land is empty of people before they come to occupy it. In the case of Palestine, the Jewish set…

Every year thousands of migrants come to work in Canada. From harvesting the food in our stores to caring for the elderly, these workers form a vital part of the economy. Yet despite being critical, they often face harsh conditions, isolation, abuse, injury and even death as a result of immigration policies designed to leave them powerless. Documen…

In this episode of Don’t Call Me Resilient, we take a look at the ongoing struggle for land rights and some of the women on the front lines of that battle. These women are the land defenders fighting to protect land against invasive development. Both our guests have stood up to armed forces to protect land. Their work is about protecting the enviro…

This week on the podcast, meet some of our amazing producers who work to put out Don't Call Me Resilient. We chat about what motivates us to cover race and current affairs. We also revisit some of our favourite episodes from the past. And then every two weeks this summer (starting next week), we’ll be sharing some of their picks as full episodes in…

Can you believe we’ve now produced 65 episodes over 7 seasons? Every two weeks over the summer, we will be re-running some of our favourite episodes from past seasons on our podcast feed. Join us next week for a special bonus episode. You’ll get to meet some of our amazing producers who work hard behind the scenes to produce this podcast. We’ll cha…

In this episode of 'Don't Call Me Resilient', Nisrin Elamin, Assistant Professor of Anthropolgy and African Studies at the University of Toronto, paints a grim picture of life in Sudan today. She says the current war, which exploded on April 15, 2023, is devastating both rural and urban communities. Elamin also identifies small pockets of hope. In …

We’re bringing you an extra episode this week. This episode comes from The Conversation Weekly, our sister podcast from The Conversation UK. The episode, which we're running in full, centres around medically assisted dying. In Canada, medical assistance in dying (Maid) became legal in 2016. And the government intends to extend eligibility to people…

Currently the largest electorate in history is heading to the polls in India, where - of course - politicians and political parties are trying their best to influence voters. Film and popular culture have always provided a reflection of the country's political culture, but in this election, they are being used more than ever to *sway* voters - espe…

Collectively, the global student protests demanding university divestments from Israel are one of the largest mass protests in recent history. Student protesters are risking their futures as they demand their institutions financially divest from Israel and companies connected to supplying weapons and technology to Israel’s government. Last week, in…

As we approach the start of gardening season, we figured it’s a good time to bring you one of our most talked-about episodes about the complicated, colonial roots of gardening - which have affected what we plant and who gets to garden. How we garden is deeply tied to colonialism — from the spread of seeds and species around the world to the use of …

Research shows social media apps are designed to entrap children who are even more susceptible than adults to its harms. Plus, technologies are not neutral: They’re embedded with and actively reinforce structures of racism. A recent survey of Canadian children in grades 7 to 11 found nearly half of participants reported seeing racist or sexist cont…

Over the last 30 years, there has been an exponential growth of Indigenous media and Indigenous media makers, especially here in Canada which has one of the largest repositories of Indigenous media. However, the road to get here hasn’t been easy. Indigenous filmmakers, producers, and artists have had to navigate the complex and often unfriendly ter…

Many news organizations have reported on the Israel-Gaza war. However, many journalists have criticized those same media organizations for how they have covered the conflict, and have spoken out against what they say is a stifling of Palestinian voices and perspectives. In today's episode, Vinita talks to Sonya Fatah and Asmaa Malik, associate prof…

Around the world, people are being forced to leave their homes in droves. We are seeing it happen in Gaza, as Israeli forces continue to wage war. And in Sudan, which has also been wracked by war. Then there are the people fleeing political or economic strife - like those living in Haiti, or Venezuela. Canada has various refugee programs designed t…

The release of Beyoncé’s new album, Cowboy Carter, was a much awaited event for a lot of us. There was much anticipation about this being a country album — and a lot of talk about the resistance some radio stations had and still have to that idea. That’s because country music is considered "white music," even though its Black historical roots are w…

In today's episode, we're continuing the conversation we started last week about using forced famine as a tool to control land, resources and people. For centuries, starvation has been effectively used by colonial powers to control populations, to acquire land and the wealth that comes with that. Today, we’re looking at the decimation of Indigenous…

On Monday, the European Union's foreign policy chief accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war and provoking famine in Gaza. They were some of the strongest words against Israel we have heard from a western power about the situation in Gaza since October. They come on the heels of a UN-backed report that warns that more than one million…

On Sunday, nine years after #OscarsSoWhite, millions of us tuned in to the 96th annual Academy Awards — some to simply take in the spectacle. And some to see how much had changed. The hashtag #OscarsSoWhite started after many people noticed that, for a second year in a row, all nominees for four of five major categories were white. The movement cal…

Follow us today so you don't miss an episode.By Krish Dineshkumar, Jennifer Moroz, Dannielle Piper, Vinita Srivastava, Ateqah Khaki

Monk is the lead character of the new movie "American Fiction," which is based on the 2001 novel "Erasure" by Percival Everett. Monk is a Black man but never feels 'Black' enough: he graduated from Harvard, his siblings are doctors, he doesn't play basketball and he writes literary novels. In fact, his last novel got rejected for not being "Black e…

In this episode which we're running in full, host Gemma Ware speaks with Doseline Kiguru, a research associate in cultural and literary production in Africa at the University of Bristol in the UK, who has co-published research on the history of choral music and the role it plays in Kenyan national political culture. The episode originally aired on …

You may have noticed that food bank lines have grown exponentially this year. In Toronto alone, the number of people who use food banks has doubled since last year and nationwide, the numbers using food banks have jumped by 32 percent from last year and 78 per cent since 2019. And those who are lining up for food defy the stereotypes: many, for exa…

The idea for today's episode started with local Toronto kids, who were reporting experiencing sexist, homophobic and racist attitudes in the classroom, especially from the boys. The research shows they are not alone; the rise in far right ideologies globally has deeply affected school-age students. Many experts point to Andrew Tate, the far-right s…

When a lot of us think about psychedelics, we think about magic mushrooms - and hallucinatory drug trips. But the concept of psychedelics as a tool in therapy is making its way into the mainstream. Online stores have popped up selling psilocybin capsules promising to boost focus. And on a more official front, the Canadian Senate recently recommende…

As violence continues to erupt in Gaza, and more than 200 hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7 remain missing, many of us are seeking to better understand the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has been raging for decades. Some of us assume that the violence between Jewish Israelis and Palestinians — a majority of whom are Muslim — is a …

Earlier this week, nearly five dozen people appeared in a courthouse outside Atlanta, Georgia to answer criminal racketeering charges brought against them by the state. The charges are related to protests against a planned paramilitary police and fire services training facility nicknamed Cop City. Georgia prosecutors have called the demonstrators “…

When the Buffy Sainte-Marie news broke last week, people were stunned. A CBC investigation was accusing the legendary singer-songwriter of lying about her Indigenous roots. Sainte-Marie had already come out on social media and said she had been claimed by the Piapot Cree First Nation in Saskatchewan - something the Piapot First Nation confirmed. An…

It's hard to escape the news coming out of the Middle East. It's everywhere. And it's excruciating to take it all in. First came the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel. 1,400 people were viciously attacked and murdered and at least 200 more were kidnapped and taken hostage. Then came the retaliation by the state of Israel. Almost immediately, those l…

Everybody knows it and almost everyone feels it: we’re in the grips of a major housing crisis. Home ownership is out of reach for so many people and for renters, units are hard to find and expensive. It seems everywhere you turn these days, there’s another rent strike. One of the factors driving this affordability crisis has been a shift away from …

For decades, North American Black women have been using hair relaxers to help them fit into mainstream workplaces and the European standards of beauty that continue to dominate them. More recently, research has linked these relaxers to cancer and reproductive health issues - and a spate of lawsuits across the United States, and at least one in Cana…

The Republican Party in the United States has moved farther right in recent years. And as it has, you would think racialized Americans might be distancing themselves from it and its policies. But at last week’s GOP Primary presidential debates, three of the seven people on stage were candidates of colour. Racialized citizens also have been drawn to…

As we approach the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, we take you inside the ongoing quest to document the children who died in Canada's Indian Residential Schools system. Vinita speaks to Terri Cardinal, director of Indigenous Initiatives at MacEwan University, about the search she led to uncover the unmarked graves of those who perished a…

Here at Don’t Call Me Resilient, we’re busy prepping new episodes for you … Each week, we’ll be taking our sharply focused anti-racist lens to the news stories unfolding around us. We'll be talking to experts, activists and people living these stories … to bring you a deeply contextual view of what’s happening here in Canada … and around the world.…

I love watching a good adventure movie, especially at the start of summer. I have some great memories of eating popcorn in the local suburban movie theatre while we watched aliens take over a spaceship and a group of kids hunt for long-lost treasure in an underground cave. At the same time, even as a kid, I remember thinking how awful some of the r…

It seems like everyone you talk to has considered taking Ozempic, the drug originally created as a diabetes treatment, but now being used as a weight-loss method. Ever since it arrived in Canada, it’s been in incredibly high demand. While Ozempic may be just the next in a long line of get-thin-quick fads, the drug’s shortages have disproportionate …

Language, if we are not thinking about it, can be just a way to get from place A to B, a way to order lunch or a way to pass an exam. But language is much more than a way to communicate with words. This is especially true if you have had your language forcibly removed from you, like the thousands of Indigenous children who survived Canada's colonia…

On June 22, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will make his first official state visit to the United States. And if his visits to Australia last month, to Canada in 2015 and to Texas in 2019 are any indication, he’ll be given a rockstar welcome. U.S. President Joe Biden has already joked that he wants Modi’s autograph because so many people want …

This year we’ve seen an aggressive push to implement anti-trans legislation across the United States. There are currently more than 400 active anti-trans bills across the country. Some legislation denies gender-affirming care to youth – and criminalizes those health-care providers that attempt to do so. Other bills block trans students from partici…

In this episode, author and CUNY professor Ava Chin, a 5th generation Chinese New Yorker, discusses her new book, Mott Street: A Chinese American Family’s Story of Exclusion and Homecoming. The book artfully explores themes of exclusion as it relates to all Chinese Americans, plus personally for Chin with her father, a "crown prince" of Chinatown t…

The May long weekend is the unofficial start of summer. And for those of you with home gardens or access to community space, this is the weekend to dust off your gardening tools and visit the garden centre for the growing season ahead. As we approach the start of gardening season, it’s good time to ask some questions about its origins. Whether you …

Mother’s Day is just a few days away. It can be a complicated day. For some, it could mean a bouquet of flowers or a breakfast in bed. For others, it can mean mourning the loss of a loved one or dealing with a haunted past. And still — for others — like the 66 per cent of incarcerated women in prison who are mothers, it can mean something else enti…

The UN’s recent resolution to recognize Nakba Day on May 15, to mark the anniversary of the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in 1948, helps to acknowledge past traumas but does the resolution have other implications? On this week’s episode of Don’t Call Me Resilient, we meet up with M. Muhannad Ayyash, professor of sociology at Mount Roya…

Although King Charles will have a low-key ceremony on his coronation day this May 6, the Crown Jewels will still figure prominently. An exploration of the story of the jewels tells a tale of brutal exploitation, rape and the original looting. Join us on Don't Call Me Resilient to follow the jewels. Much of what was called the British Empire was bui…

Beef premiered on Netflix this month to rave reviews and quickly became the top watched series on Netflix in the U.S. In Canada, it took the No. 2 spot. Beef is a dark comedy series created by Lee Sung Jin. It follows two L.A. strangers, courageously played by Ali Wong and Steven Yeun, who get into a road rage incident — and end up in an escalating…

Fast fashion is that ever-changing need to have the latest beautiful thing at a bargain price - that club-ready piece of clothing, that status symbol shoe, or that must-have top you just found at the mall. But that cheap statement piece comes at a price. The fashion industry is the second most polluting industry in the world, after the oil and gas …

Last week, the Vatican finally distanced itself from the Doctrine of Discovery — a hundreds of years old decree that justified land theft and enslavement of people who were not Christian. In this episode of 'Don't Call Me Resilient,' political and Indigenous studies scholar Veldon Coburn explains why the Vatican's repudiation of the Doctrine is a h…