Black lives matter here.
Welcome to the sixth installment of Not Dead Yet, my monthly-ish roundup of compelling writing. If you’re in Kitchener-Waterloo, I hope you’ll join the KW Solidarity March for Black Lives Matter tomorrow — virtually or in person. Show up for Regis Korchinski-Paquet, for Dafonte Miller, for the Black lives under threat in our communities and beyond.
Waterloo Region has already shown that restorative justice can work. Let’s keep building alternatives to armed police. We should live in a world where cops don’t kill any of us.
In How the Modern Remix Came to Be, John Morrison traces a lineage from Jamaican dub, through disco and hip-hop. As with many great innovations, the remix was born thanks in part to an accident in the studio.
… as Treasure Isle engineer Byron “Smithy” Smith was cutting the acetate, he mistakenly left off the vocal track, leaving Redwood with one fresh acetate that only had an instrumental version of the tune (along with another acetate containing the standard mix). When Ruddy played this instrumental version tune later at a dance in Spanish Town, he’d switch between the original vocal version and the instrumental, exciting the crowd and coaxing them to sing along.
The article is full of video clips, so you can listen along while you learn how the remix, as an art form, has changed over time.
In some scenes of Amanda Parris‘ play, Other Side of The Game, young Black activists in Toronto debate tactics with their civil rights-era elders, as they butt heads on the most effective forms of organizing.
Her latest article, An Oral History of the Black Film and Video Network, shares some of that energy. Near the end of the piece, you can sense the frustration from the original founders of the BFVN, that today’s Black creatives haven’t been able to carve out enough space in the film industry and that they’re having to fight the same battles over again.
There were victories amid the struggle for representation, and it’s inspiring to see how all these artists found ways to lift each other up and advocate in all angles of the industry: unions, funding bodies, professional development. Sometimes they could eke out a victory from the dominant white artistic culture. Other times, they’d have to do it themselves through hard work and mutual support.
I’ve never once heard someone tell me, “When I get old, please put me in a long-term care home.” It’s never a first choice.
In What it’s like to lose a parent in a long-term care facility, Terence van Dyke explores those feelings of guilt, of helplessness, of trying to be there for an elderly parent whose needs exceed your ability.
His story highlights how there are seldom good options for most families who need care for their parents. Our economic and social structures aren’t set up for it. So we put them in a nursing home and hope for the best. With COVID-19 still raging, that hope feels dimmer than usual.
It’s been a year since the report on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls was released. Alicia Elliott takes a look at how we’re doing with respect to the report’s 231 recommendations. (Spoiler alert: not very well.)
Canada Asked For A Report On Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women And Girls. Now It’s Ignoring It.
I admit to not knowing much at all about Hong Kong, Taiwan, their colonial histories and their separate relationships with China. So I’ll let Terry Glavin bring us all up to speed with his article, The fight for a free Hong Kong isn’t over just because Canada wants no part of it.
To my untrained eye, Hong Kong’s situation has parallels with Ukraine’s 2014 pro-Europe protests, and the subsequent invasion/takeover of Crimea by the Russian army. Or perhaps China’s treatment of Tibet? Or its persecution of the Uyghur population? If you have some further reading to recommend, please send it my way.
I’d love to hear what you thought about these stories. You can reply directly to this email.
The next Not Dead Yet will come in about four weeks’ time. Until then, why not forward this email to a friend who’d appreciate it?
Cheers,
Sam