In her book Carnal Crimes: Sexual Assault Law in Canada, 1900-1975, acclaimed University of Ottawa Law professor Constance Backhouse examines (among other topics) the life of Rose Marie Roper, an Indigenous woman from British Columbia. In April 1967, Roper’s nude and brutally beaten body was discovered “lying face down … near a garbage dump,” Backhouse […]
“Hell to the no. We’re outta here.”
Fleeing Nova Scotia for Africa, Black Loyalists, in their “reverse migration,” had rendered themselves vulnerable to a still robust slave trade that was not abolished, within the British Empire, until 1834. Think about it.
There was no love lost between me and a bland fruit that routinely found its way into my childhood home in northwest Indiana. That sentiment changed when, at age 21, I nibbled the same fruit (between sips of palm wine) at a gathering in Ghana. “Who knew it tasted so good?” I marvelled while savouring […]
25 Years of 22 Minutes: How “saucy” Newfoundlanders conquered Canadian comedy
I was clueless about three cornerstones of Canadian culture when I immigrated from the U.S. two decades ago: Buckley’s cough syrup, Don Cherry, and This Hour Has 22 Minutes. It didn’t take me long to develop an aversion to the expectorant that touts its bad taste. Ditto for the bloviating hockey broadcaster. As for the […]
The price they paid
As Ellen Page and so many others tell their terrible truths, let's pause to remember those destroyed by sexual abuse.
Entertained and inspired by actor Ellen Page in Juno (2007), I was determined to pen a feature profile about the Halifax native when I moved to Nova Scotia from B.C., in 2012. My proposal green-lighted by an editor at a national magazine, I mailed a formal interview request and samples of my work to a […]
Silence equals death: Can I Be Me and queer people of colour
“‘Women of Color’ have rarely had the opportunity to write about their love affairs.” The line is from an Alice Walker poem of the same title, found in her 1991 collection Her Blue Body Everything We Know and wafted through my mind as I watched Whitney: Can I Be Me, which airs tonight on Crave […]
Man Up: Men must speak out against sexual assault
The young man who, in 2011, reputedly gave a thumbs up sign while sodomizing an inebriated Rehteah Parsons has gone on with his life. Ditto the fellow who took a photo of the assault that was then circulated online and unleashed a barrage of “slut-shaming” attacks against the once cheery Dartmouth teenager. No longer able […]
Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise
White space Raped at age seven, famed author Maya Angelou refused to speak for the next five years. The experience stands at the centre of her debut 1969 novel, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. The instant best seller takes its name from a line in the Paul Laurence Dunbar work, “Sympathy,” and has […]
The first column I never wrote for the Chronicle Herald
A former freelance contributor to the Chronicle Herald, I had two articles poised for publication when unionized employees went on strike last January, a year ago today. I immediately withdrew my work. The first piece — on the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster — appeared on this site. An article about my dental adventures was featured […]
Viola Desmond, Carrie Best, and serving face
A Black journalist and her newspaper championed Desmond's cause
Having abandoned my dream to become a prison warden, I came late to a journalism career. There was one other Black woman at the San Francisco Chronicle when I joined the staff, as a rookie reporter, in the mid-1980s. But having had a falling out with the powers-that-be over the paper’s lackluster coverage of the local Black […]
Touched by The Greatest
Dartmouth High grad Jim Clark photographed Muhammad Ali's last fight.
A devoted fan of the Chicago Cubs, I routinely travelled with my family from our home in nearby Gary, Indiana to cheer the baseball team. One day, when I was about 12, we arrived at Wrigley Field for a game. Back then, vendors hawked popcorn in cardboard containers that, when emptied, were easily transformed into...