He drew a circle that shut me out -
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle and took him in.
Edwin Markham1852-1940, "Outwitted"
(emphasis added)
I want to let you know about this amazing resource put out by International Board on Books for Young People (Canada) (IBBY) in 2018 - a catalogue of the 100 best of Indigenous picture books!
Plus, issued in June 2021, an additional catalogue of the best new 25 books!
From board books to picture books for older readers, this collection is a selection of 100 of the best books by Indigenous authors, many illustrated by Indigenous artists, published in Canada and currently in print. The titles reflect the diverse First Nations, Métis, and Inuit cultures, languages, perspectives, and experiences from sea to sea to sea. Attention was given to including picture books that promote and support Indigenous languages. All titles reflect authentic First Nations, Métis, and Inuit voices and offer insight into their distinct histories and current realities of these communities. (from IBBY website newsletter)
IBBY Introduction to the Catalogue
The Original "From Sea to Sea to Sea: Celebrating Indigenous Picture Books" Catalogue (PDF)
The 2021 "From Sea to Sea to Sea (2021 edition)" Catalogue (PDF)
IBBY Canada Special Edition Newsletter: From Sea to Sea to Sea: Celebrating Indigenous Picture Books
Edmonton has recreated its electoral ward boundaries, and at the same time, named the new wards based on names gifted by the Committee of Indigenous Matriarchs.
I’d like to highlight one new ward in particular:
tastawiyiniwak - ᑕᐢᑕᐃᐧᔨᓂᐊᐧᐠ
You may have heard of the term “Two Spirit”, used to refer to Indigenous people who do not fit a Western gender binary and who had specific roles and responsibilities in their nations. The term is a cross-nation umbrella term for use only by Indigenous peoples, coined in contrast to Western labels and because many original Indigenous words have been lost due to the impact of colonization.
Tastawiyiniwak – pronounced TASS-TAW-WIN-EE-WOK – is the Cree-specific word for those who are Two Spirit. It means “the in-between people”, and “was only used when referring to all of the iskwêhkânak ekwah nâpêhkânak. Each was free to move between gender roles”.
To clarify, iskwêhkânak is the Cree word for “fake woman” (but without the negative connotations) and nâpêhkânak is the Cree word for “fake man”. Depending on the Cree nations, there were up to five additional words for gender beyond the “traditional Western” words male and female. Tastawiyiniwak is a word that refers to all Cree people whose gender roles are other than male or female.
So why was this name gifted to that particular new ward?
Terri Suntjens, Director of Indigenous Initiatives at MacEwan University, explains:
“We have grandmothers within our spiritual realm, within our ceremonies, that sit in different directions. We have the east, the west, the south, the north, the southeast. They each have different responsibilities. They look after different people and have different … responsibilities. And so, the grandmother that sits in the north direction, when the pipe is gifted and held up to the north, is the grandmother that takes care of our LGBTQ2S+ community” (shared at Edmonton Council meeting, Sept. 21, 2020)
For more information:
A little rant:
A common saying that I hear in organizations and companies is, "Diversity and Inclusion are two sides of the same coin".
Here's an example, from an article at the Alberta CPA website (but they aren't the only ones saying this):
Rubbish!
It is true that a coin has two sides and it's not possible to have one side of a coin without the other, but it is certainly possible to have diversity without inclusion.
Think of pre-apartheid South Africa -- there were white people and Black people (= diversity), but the Blacks were not included and the whites, though in the minority, held all the power (no inclusion).
Think of Canada - there is great diversity, but many minoritized people are excluded, some even from basic human needs like clean drinking water.
Think of your company or organization. There is probably much diversity among the employees overall, but most likely, the higher in the organizational structure you go, the more white, male and cisgender it gets. So clearly, there is not inclusion at those levels.
Edmonton has revised its electoral boundaries, and at the same time, renamed all the wards with Indigenous names selected by the Committee of Indigenous Matriarchs.
My new ward is #5, named O-day'min, meaning strawberry or heart berry.
The city's page about the new wards includes explanations of the new names, pronunciation guides, and information about how the name was chosen for that ward.
If you live in Edmonton, check out your new ward using the links at the bottom of this post.
How did this come about?
Recently I had the opportunity to be involved in the design of a logo to be used for internal, diversity and inclusion-related events where I work.
Now, here are some of the constraints. The design will be of an icon - size 550 x 330 pixels - that will appear in a webpage and in an email newsletter. We don't have masses of space nor the option of fine detail and lines of text that would be available on a poster design or a billboard. This clearly will influence the design.
Now, a common rule when designing logos is that you first design in black and white, so that the design's effectiveness is not dependent on colour. This is because often, things created in colour get photocopied in black and white and you don't want to end up with a meaningless or unreadable image. However, in this case, as the design will only appear on computer screens and almost never printed black and white, this rule is not particularly applicable.
I kind of liked this, though it is rather impersonal, as it shows interconnectedness and can indicate diversity abstractly. This is one of the difficulties of a logo or icon for diversity and inclusion in general. It would be much easier to design something for one specific group, such as for disability-related events or Indigenous events. In this case, we either need to show D&I abstractly or in a way that includes a wide variety of specific diversities.
So realizing that the above was too detailed for the size requirement, I contemplated a four piece puzzle but that seemed to lose too much.
Looking to broaden your musical horizons and increase your cultural exposure? Here's just the thing for you:
Reclaimed is a weekly series on CBC Radio that explores the many worlds of contemporary Indigenous music from traditional songs and acoustic sounds to Native hip-hop, R&B, and the dancefloor-filling beats of electric powwow.
Listen free online at:
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-184-reclaimed
Featuring over 80 episodes, each 53 minutes in length.
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)
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.
The Gender Spectrum Collection
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| Vice Gender Photos Collection https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ |
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
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)
This page includes lessons for grades 6 - 12 for this film and a link to watch the film for free.
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.
Some Mesoamerican eldersbelieved there’s a fifth direction.Not the sky or the groundbut the person right next to you.
when god made stonesdid he decide ahead of timewhich ones were made for throwingdid he weigh each one for maximum impacta stone for the whoresa stone for the gays
Grovo has made all 20 of its Unconscious Bias Microlearning lessons available for free.
My birthday present just arrived in the mail, and I'm super excited about it:In collaboration with Kent Monkman and his studio, the Art Canada Institute is publishing a book on the commission and creation of his diptych unveiled at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art this week. Revision & Resistance: mistikôsiwak at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which will be available for sale in March 2020, celebrates Monkman’s groundbreaking paintings with essays by today’s most prominent voices on Indigenous art and Canadian painting. (source: the Art Institute of Canada webpage)
Kent Monkman’s The Rise and Fall of Civilization references the near extinction of the American bison in the 1800s when unsustainable hunting practices, used primarily by white settlers, reduced the number of bison from over 30 million to just a few hundred by the 1880s. During this time, bison or buffalo were hunted for their durable hides and their bones were used for fertilizer and in the manufacture of bone china. The buffalo meat was left to rot, decimating a food source that had sustained Indigenous peoples for generations.
(source)
My great-great-grandfather lived in a small town in Europe and, it turned out based on his journals, liked to record happenings around town along with folk tales that the townspeople told. Here is his entry from January 4, 1876:
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The Curse of the Pyreneesian Piranha
Once upon a time, there was a young man who lived by the sea. He was afraid of the sea, very very afraid of the sea and all that lived with it.
"Give me an egg or a steak or a quail or a beet salad, but keep that sea-stuff away from me and my plate!" he said regularly.
And when he grew up, the very first thing he did with money saved from his first job delivering emails, was to move to the mountains. The Pyrenees, to be precise. To Bordes-du-Lys, France, to be more precise, a little hamlet high up in the Pyrenees and about equidistant from the Bay of Biscay and the Mediterranean Sea and thus, about as far away from the sea as possible without moving to Siberia.
After a few months, he learned the habits and routines of life in Bordes-du-Lys, and took them on for himself.
So he started every day by going to the bakery down the street, to get a fresh brewed coffee and croissant.
Except for one day. A box of chocolate came in the post, anonymously, just as he was about to leave, and he decided, as a special treat, to eat the chocolate for his breakfast
Ta-a-asty, that chocolate. Good dark Swiss chocolate, with little bits of hazelnut embedded in it. Yummmeeeee.
Once the chocolate was all gone into his belly, he put the box on the kindling pile. That's when he heard a loud rumbling outside.
"What is going on???" he asked himself!
He ran outside, looking around. The sky was clear though grey instead of the usual blue. Then, turning around and looking up at the mountain, he saw it. The biggest piranha he had never seen. Bigger than anything of any sort of fish or toothy thing he had ever seen in a book. Bigger than tall skyscrapers and the mountains themselves.
And that was when he knew. By skipping his usual morning jaunt and giving in to the temptation of the chocolate instead, he had broken the rhythm of the universe. And now the universe was coming for him.
The piranha opened its mouth wider,
bigger than the sky,
lunged forward,
and SNAP!
The End.
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Note to regular readers of this blog: I apologize that this post does not fit into the usual theme and genre of this blog. However, I have nowhere else to post my great-great-grandfather's stories.
