introduction to two spirit people

In the fall of 2018, my colleague and I met with Jeff Chalifoux, then one of the co-chairs of the Edmonton 2 Spirit Society. Our conversation led to two "Two Spirit Ceremony and Workshop" days being held at my place of work. 

I attended both sessions and they were amazing and enlightening. Over the months that followed, I read many, many articles about Two Spirit people, mostly by Indigenous academics, of whom many were themselves Two Spirit. I also attended another Two Spirit ceremony at MacEwan University in March 2020, led by Elder Leonard Saddleback.

One of the outcomes of this learning focus is that I wrote a crisp, two page article titled "Introduction to Two Spirit People", which I'd like to share with you. I'd also like to thank Jeff for giving the final draft a helpful once-over!

Read: Introduction to Two Spirit People

I welcome your thoughts and feedback using the Comments section below.

[illustrations and photos of people from minoritized groups]

Minoritized groups are often under-represented in images, whether advertising, magazine articles, or generic images used in reports and brochures.

BlackIllustrations.com is one site that offers illustrations of Black people in different contexts, including office, medical, STEM, education and more. Some sets are free; others have a cost.

https://www.BlackIllustrations.com

(Above: some education-related images from BlackIllustrations.com)

nappy.co is a site that has excellent photos of Black and Brown people, free, for commercial and personal use. 

Collections include Tiny Humans, "Breathe, Stretch, Shake, All Hands, Black in Green Spaces, Food for the Soul, Women at Work, The Perfect Holiday, All Black Lives Matter, I's Married Now, and Good Hair.

https://nappy.co

The Gender Spectrum Collection

Vice Gender Photos Collection
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

"The Gender Spectrum Collection is a stock photo library featuring images of trans and non-binary models that go beyond the clichés. This collection aims to help media better represent members of these communities as people not necessarily defined by their gender identities—people with careers, relationships, talents, passions, and home lives."

https://genderphotos.vice.com/

[a kids book about racism]

 A Kids Book About is a company creating a new kind of kids' books -- ones that focus on the content and ideas. Here's what they say about their approach:

The first thing you’ll notice about our books is that they’re different. We wanted to create books that treated kids like they were smart and spoke to them straightforwardly and honestly. Our books emphasize color, layout, and type to help kids apply the stories to their lives instead of only thinking of the characters in the book. Our books are twice as long as most children books, enabling a deeper dive on each subject. Our books are honest and don’t shy away from the most difficult aspects of each topic.

We bought a copy of "a kids book about racism" and love it! It is very well written and laid out, and I recommend it.

They have similar books on about 20 topics, including bullying, empathy, failure, belonging, and cancer. If you buy one on a different topic, I'd love to hear how you like it -- use Comments below.

Check them out and order directly from them at:

https://akidsbookabout.com/collections/kids-books/products/a-kids-book-about-racism

[bibi - film]

Learning for Justice’s new streaming classroom film, Bibi, tells the story of a Latinx father and son who can talk about anything—but only in writing, in the letters they pass back and forth when conversation seems too much. 

And after Ben, affectionately called “Bibi” by his father, hands his father a letter that reads “I’m gay,” the two don’t talk at all.

Based on the experiences of the filmmakers behind the project, the 18-minute film explores intersectionality in a powerful way, illustrating the beauty and conflict that can arise as we move between languages, places and societal expectations.

Ultimately, however, it’s not just the story Bibi tells that makes the film a strong addition to any classroom library. It’s also the questions it poses: How do we come to be who we are? How do we communicate that to others? How do we respond when others share themselves with us?

For those who work to help young people honor their own and others’ complex and unique identities, Bibi and the lessons for grades 6-12 that accompany it are remarkable resources. The story sparks critical conversations about identity, culture, family and belonging.

A film by Victor Dueñas, Bibi stars J.M. Longoria, Omar Leyva and Oscar nominee Adriana Barraza.    (source)

Find out more:

https://www.learningforjustice.org/classroom-resources/film-kits/bibi/streaming

This page includes lessons for grades 6 - 12 for this film and a link to watch the film for free.

[beck on the gospel & COVID]

"Basically, in the Bible and throughout most of church history, the Christian ethic of love has been one of approach and contact, even in the face of disease and plague. Jesus touches lepers, Christians rush toward plague victims. Love embraces. That's how Christians are taught and morally formed, we love by moving toward each other."

From Richard Beck's post "The Gospel & COVID-19: Part 3, Love as Distance" at
http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-gospel-covid-19-part-3-love-as.html

polywhat?

Hmm, now that's a question, isn't it?

[webinars from the center for artistic activism]

Looking for some good learning opportunities? The Center for Artistic Activism has a great set of webinars related to the arts and activism. They are online and free; some include handouts.

Here's how they describe them:

C4AA Fundamentals is a free webinar series is designed to cover the core concepts of artistic activism for people motivated post-election. We don’t have answers, but we can provide some structure to your thinking and planning around how to creatively, and effectively, respond in the weeks to come.

Here's the first one, embedded from YouTube:

Click here if video does not appear above.

The full list of 25+ sessions can be seen at https://c4aa.org/webinars

Note that some videos are more interesting and challenging than others which can be slow and average. So do not judge the whole series by the one you watched! For example, the first two are average (though the first one is a good intro); the next three videos (3 - 5) are more interesting.

[my brother is a mermaid - movie]

My Brother is a Mermaid is a social realist fairy tale about a transfeminine teenager, as seen through the eyes of their 7 year old brother. Set in a desolate and prejudiced coastal town, the film examines how a child's unconditional love can be an empowering and disruptive force for good. (from movie website)

This movie is doing the festival rounds during 2020 and is expected to be publicly available after that. Having seen the trailer, I look forward to watching this award-winning movie.

Here is the trailer (followed by a link to the full film):

[allegories on race and racism]

Camara Jones in this video does an amazing job of explaining the dimensions of racism, and presents four helpful allegories:



Direct link to video

neither male nor female

[a fifth direction]

If you are familiar with Indigenous teachings, you will know that the four directions feature prominently in many of them. 

For example, a Prayer in the Four Directions by Francis Whiskeyjack refers to east as the physical dimension, south the mental dimension, west the emotional, and north the spiritual. 

Other teachings refer to the relationship between the four directions, the four races, the four seasons, and so on. Often these are mapped onto a medicine wheel such as the one shown to the right.

The poet Eduardo C. Corral wrote a poem which had an interesting line in it. After speaking about someone burning sage and facing the four directions, he writes:

Some Mesoamerican elders

believed there’s a fifth direction.

Not the sky or the ground

but the person right next to you.

The fifth direction as the person right next to us... 

Who has been that fifth direction for you? Who has been there in difficult times and in good times? And for whom can you be that fifth direction, that person to turn to?

This idea also reminds me of the movie The Five Elements. Four of the elements are the traditional elements: fire, water, earth and air. The fifth element is -- well, I won't spoil the movie for you, but it is also an unexpected twist. Watch the movie if you enjoy futuristic films that have interesting characters, a good storyline, an amazing opera singer and more -- all without being dystopian. 

Back to Corral's poem: this concept of the fifth direction really moves the directions from the conceptual and abstract (seasons, four aspects of a person, colours, races) and sacred medicines and people and animals in general, to a very real person - the person next to me. That's where, to use one of my late father's phrases, "the rubber hits the road". 

Poem excerpt from "To Francisco X. Alarcón (1954–2016)" by Eduardo C. Corral. 

Read the whole poem https://poets.org/print/poem/8bae9876-e503-4f9c-8835-28bbe26e24ff

[when god made stones]

Here is the first stanza of a stunning poem by Kaitlin Hardy Shetler:

when god made stones

did he decide ahead of time

which ones were made for throwing

did he weigh each one for maximum impact

a stone for the whores

a stone for the gays

 

Read the rest of this poem on Kaitlin's Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/tufftaffy/posts/10101705545695261

One of a set of poems by her and others with the tag #poemsfortheresistance

the invisibilizer

The Invisibilizer

While the Invisibilizer is a machine in the cartoon above, it is still is a reality for many marginalized people. The racist, cisheteropatriarchal systems that we live in tend to highlight their own while rendering invisible those who are minoritized. 

Verb

invisiblize (third-person singular simple present invisiblizes, present participle invisiblizing, simple past and past participle invisiblized)

(transitive, chiefly sociology) To make invisible; to marginalize so as to erase the presence or contributions of. Wiktionary.org

[brilliant critique of Vogue's whitewashed covers]

"Oslo-based student Salma Noor posted her own version of a Vogue cover on June 2, with the cover line “Being black is not a crime” in support of Black Lives Matter. Noor modeled for the alternative cover herself, with the help of photographer @calvin. Little did she know that the trend would go insanely viral days later—thanks in part to a June 6 internal memo from Vogue‘s editor-in-chief herself, Anna Wintour." (source)

Salma's action started a trend where people of colour did the same, tagging their images with #VogueChallenge. 

[social justice books]

Social Justice Books calls itself "the best selection of multicultural and social justice books for children, YA and educators," and looking at their site makes it obvious that their claim is true.

The site includes curated booklists, an excellent Guide for Selecting Anti-Bias Children’s Books, and more! The booklists (the above picture 14 of the over 60 booklists available) include almost every culture imaginable as well as broader topics like culture/language, hair, holidays, etc.

https://socialjusticebooks.org/