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 example, are employed full-time. In other words, we are in the middle of a major food insecurity crisis. And as we head into this holiday season - tradit...
Dec 07, 2023•42 min•Season 6Ep. 11
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 social media influencer as one of the culprits. Teachers say he has a big presence in the classroom. On top of that, there's been an exponential rise i...
Nov 30, 2023•39 min•Season 6Ep. 10
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 recommended fast-tracking research into how psychedelics can help veterans suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). But research also suggests psyc...
Nov 23, 2023•29 min•Season 6Ep. 9
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 religious conflict, but a closer look at the history of the last century reveals that the root of the tension between the two communities is more comp...
Nov 16, 2023•41 min•Season 6Ep. 8
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 “militant anarchists.” But many of those charged say they were simply attending a rally or a concert in support of the Stop Cop City movement. The prot...
Nov 09, 2023•32 min•Season 6Ep. 7
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. And from earlier conversations about “pretendians” - those faking an Indigenous identity - it was clear kinship ties were maybe even more important than...
Nov 02, 2023•33 min•Season 6Ep. 6
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 living in Gaza, under the leadership of Hamas, were faced with an evacuation order for more than a million people. They had their food and water suppli...
Oct 26, 2023•37 min•Season 6Ep. 5
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 publicly built housing toward large corporate-owned buildings. As Prof. Nemoy Lewis, from the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Toronto Metropo...
Oct 19, 2023•38 min•Season 6Ep. 4
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 Canada, have been brought by Black women against the makers of these relaxants. Cheryl Thompson, a professor at Toronto Metropolitan University and author...
Oct 12, 2023•28 min•Season 6Ep. 3
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 far-right politics, including key players in the January 6th Capitol attack and recent racist attacks. Which begs the question: Why are racialized pe...
Oct 05, 2023•31 min•Season 6Ep. 2
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 at the Blue Quills Residential School in Alberta. It's deeply personal and emotional work for Terri, whose own father is a survivor of the school. Terr...
Sep 28, 2023•40 min•Season 6Ep. 1
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. So make sure to follow us on your podcast app. Because a new season of Don’t Call Me Resilient is coming your way Sept. 28.
Sep 21, 2023•2 min
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 racial and gender stereotypes were. I specifically remember watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and cringing at the representations onscreen,...
Jun 29, 2023•30 min•Season 5Ep. 14
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 impacts on racialized communities. So do the weight-loss goals that undergird those shortages.
Jun 22, 2023•28 min•Season 5Ep. 13
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 colonial assimilation project. Languages hold within them philosophies, worldviews, culture and identity. Language also has a lot to do with our relationship...
Jun 15, 2023•30 min•Season 5Ep. 12
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 to see the Indian PM while he’s in the United States. Of course, Modi has his critics too, who point to the populist leader’s far-right policies and ...
Jun 08, 2023•34 min•Season 5Ep. 11
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 participating in sports and still others have banned books with trans content. These bills have at least two things in common. They all aim to make being tra...
Jun 01, 2023•29 min•Season 5Ep. 10
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 that she didn't meet until adulthood. Chin reveals personal family stories against the backdrop of the U.S. eugenics movement and draws a connecting li...
May 25, 2023•36 min•Season 5Ep. 9
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 plan to get marigolds, plant a vegetable garden or create a pollinator patch — all gardens have complicated roots. In fact, the practice of gardening ...
May 18, 2023•31 min•Season 5Ep. 8
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 entirely. Despite a reduction in crime in the last 20 years in Canada, many women attempting to make ends meet for their families end up colliding with th...
May 11, 2023•34 min•Season 5Ep. 7
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 Royal University in Calgary to help unpack some of the meanings behind this resolution. Palestinians were driven off their land Seventy-five years ago, ...
May 04, 2023•33 min•Season 5Ep. 6
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 built from stolen riches - globally - and also from India. In fact, India was such an abundant contributor to the Crown that at the time of its occupatio...
Apr 27, 2023•31 min•Season 5Ep. 5
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 feud. The show is a beautiful meditation on life and survival and highlights universal issues of alienation and loneliness as well as class and race ...
Apr 20, 2023•32 min•Season 5Ep. 4
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 sector. It’s also famously unfair to its workers, the majority of whom are women. Although there has been a lot of talk about female empowerment, the ...
Apr 13, 2023•39 min•Season 5Ep. 3
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 huge symbolic victory. We also examine what this repudiation may mean for members of Indigenous Nations, what prompted this renouncement, and what stil...
Apr 06, 2023•26 min•Season 5Ep. 2
In this episode, migration expert Christina Clark-Kazak explains the devastating consequences of last week's meeting between United States President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The meeting resulted in significant changes to a cross-border agreement and has already impacted the lives of thousands of asylum seekers attempting to make a life in Canada. We explore what these changes will mean for those people searching for a safe home who are now being turned away from Cana...
Mar 30, 2023•32 min•Season 5Ep. 1
Host Vinita Srivastava goes deep with academic experts and those with lived experience to bring you your weekly dose of news, from an anti-racist perspective.
Mar 23, 2023•2 min
A lot of us turn to comedians we know and love to help us laugh at ourselves, our communities or the overwhelm of politics. Just look at the beautiful accolades received by Trevor Noah this month as he bade goodbye to his Daily Show audiences . Noah and other comedians like Roy Wood Jr., Mindy Kaling, Ali Wong, Chris Rock, and Hasan Minhaj put race and other sensitive issues at the centre of their comedy. This gives us - the audience - reason to laugh, whether the jokes are directed towards us o...
Dec 14, 2022•32 min•Season 4Ep. 6
It was 15 years ago: police officers flooded C. W. Jefferys Collegiate in northwest Toronto. Outside, hundreds of anxious parents stood waiting for answers. The news that police delivered – as we now know – was tragic. Fifteen-year-old Jordan Manners had been killed. It was the first time anyone had been fatally shot inside a Toronto school. Jordan’s death stunned his community and the nation. And for many, it punctured the illusion of safety in Canadian schools. Since then, we’ve seen a slew of...
Dec 07, 2022•30 min•Season 4Ep. 5
We’ve all heard the buzzwords: Equity, diversity, inclusion. For some, these terms evoke social change but for others, they conjure empty promises on a glossy corporate brochure or a workplace’s ineffective policy statement at the bottom of a job listing. In 2020, when Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd, worldwide protests against anti-Black police brutality and racism prompted corporations across the world to rush to address anti-Black racism with statements of solid...
Nov 30, 2022•31 min•Season 4Ep. 4
