Friday Things

1 day ago | fridaythings.com | Stacy Lee Kong

This is actually an extremely common tactic for colonial forces. As historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz explained in An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, “This reality strikes many as tragic, as if oppressed former slaves and Indigenous peoples being subjected to genocidal warfare should magically be unified against their common enemy, ‘the white man.’ In fact, this is precisely how colonialism in general and colonial warfare in particular work.

1 week ago | fridaythings.com | Stacy Lee Kong

From the death of historically Black neighborhoods like Toronto’s Eglinton West, to the lack of Black representation in politics, to the refusal of major cities across the country to acknowledge the anti-Black bias that is rampant throughout their police systems, being Black in Canada means being subject to a collective and constant gaslighting.

1 week ago | fridaythings.com | Stacy Lee Kong

Here’s an interesting demographic shift that’s currently happening in Canada: according to the Globe and Mail, the population of multi-ethnic people in this country has grown by almost 4 million people over the past 20 years. What’s more, the paper notes, “the longer an immigrant group has been settled in Canada, the more likely its members are to report multiple ethnicities.” This group now makes up 35.5% of Canada’s overall population, per the 2021 Census.

2 weeks ago | fridaythings.com | Stacy Lee Kong

Every year, Toronto Caribbean Carnival—forever known, to me at least, as Caribana—generates about $338 million in economic impact for the city of Toronto. It attracts 1.2 million spectators and participants every year, many from outside of Ontario, and even outside of Canada. And yet, after last year’s festival, social media was overrun with comments from members of Toronto’s Caribbean community saying they would no longer be playing mas in the city.

3 weeks ago | fridaythings.com | Stacy Lee Kong

You know when you like a post on social media, but then you keep reading—or you just think a little harder about what it’s saying—and you have to un-like it, because you don’t actually agree, after all? Because I find myself doing that a lot with tweets about ovulation horniness. This is literally how it feels when your life is falling apart but you’re also ovulating.