The community my father grew up in went without a school for 40 years. My father, Charlie Wilson, was born into segregation in 1927. He grew up during a time when schools were funded by the communities in which they were located. If your community could not afford to build a facility and pay a […]
Race
Posted inNews + Opinion
King’s College to examine school’s connection to slavery
The University of King’s College is taking a serious look at its own historical connections to the slave trade. The school announced on Monday it’s creating a scholarly inquiry to examine the direct and indirect benefit King’s has received from slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries. According to an accompanying press release, the inquiry […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Mayor on Cornwallis panel: “I don’t really think it’s useful to point fingers”
The Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq Chiefs wants immediate action. Halifax mayor Mike Savage, however, is looking forward to more conversation. On Friday afternoon the Assembly officially walked away from participating in HRM’s historical panel on the legacy of Edward Cornwallis. The Chiefs cited ongoing delays in dealing with city hall and called for the statue […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Abdoul Abdi and the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children
The provincial inquiry into systemic abuses at the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children shouldn’t be granted any extension on its work until they acknowledge another, currently ongoing injustice of the department of Community Services’ own creation. So says Irvine Carvery, who believes the systemic failures that lead to decades of abuse at the Dartmouth […]
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Who checks the street checkers?
It was just about this time last year that Halifax Regional Police released a decade’s worth of statistical data on the use of street checks. In the 12 months since the department has repeatedly shown it has a long way to go to combat racial bias both real and perceived in its policing. But while […]
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Dalhousie’s Accent Clinic sending mixed messages
International students and anthropology professors are having a lot of trouble understanding Dalhousie University’s Accent Clinic. Formerly called the Accent Modification Clinic, the university service was founded four years ago to help students improve their English. But its controversial purpose raises several questions about race, class and the stigmatization of people from other places. Martha […]
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A roundtable discussion with the vanguard of Halifax activism
The major news stories of 2017 highlight how much labour has come off the backs of activists, but they also emphasize how much further we still need to go. From Cornwallis and street checks to white fragility and Pride’s pinkwashing, Halifax has a lot of work to do. Fortunately, the resilient spirit of resistance in this […]
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Here’s to what Halifax is getting right
Most of the news in 2017 has been spent documenting and/or trying to hide from all the horrible garbage fires happening around us. Here, at the end of the year, we instead wanted to raise a glass of kindness to those who are making this city better—the local points of lights in an otherwise abysmally […]
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Policing Black Lives exposes Canada’s history of state violence
As social media defies geographic borders, many Canadians scrolling through their timelines are flogged with anti-Black sentiments coming out of the United States. But before basking in the centuries-old falsehood that Canada is nowhere near as racist as the US, you may want to read Montreal activist and author Robyn Maynard’s debut book, 
Policing Black […]
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How we choose to remember the Halifax Explosion
If a hurricane passes over a deserted island, says Jacob Remes, no one calls it a disaster. According to the historian, a disaster is defined by people—how society responds or doesn’t respond to its impact. In his book, Disaster Citizenship: Survivors, Solidarity and Power in the Progressive Era, Remes examines those issues through the aftermath […]
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Halifax council to undergo cultural sensitivity training
In the fallout from several racially charged statements made by elected officials and more than a dozen conduct complaints submitted to city hall, Halifax Regional Council has agreed to collectively take part in cultural sensitivity training. The idea was unanimously approved Tuesday night after three hours of in-camera discussion. 

 “We could all use a […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
The intentional ignorance of Halifax police street checks
We’ve been here before, many times. On Monday night, Black community members packed into a room at the Cornwallis Street Baptist Church to discuss street checks and racial profiling with researchers from the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission. The community meeting was one of a series of three “Starting the Conversation” sessions conducted this week […]
