All ‘Us’ – no ‘Them’
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All ‘Us’ – no ‘Them’

A short statement by Coroner Gehane Kamel pierces through long debates within Quebec and in church circles of CC readers. “It’s all ‘us’ – no ‘them,’” she said on CBC radio in response to a question about what needs to change to end discrimination in Quebec’s health care system. The occasion was release of the…

Building Bridges for Antiracism
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Building Bridges for Antiracism

Building bridges has been one of the central themes of my life. Born and raised in Asuncion, Paraguay by Korean parents, I believed that God called me to build bridges and be a bridge between the Korean community and Paraguayan society. I was also a bridge between the first and the second-generation Korean immigrants in…

Dear American partners
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Dear American partners

We the North can be cold and prickly, especially when we talk about American cultural dominance. You see, Canada is a foreign country to you. We call it pop; you call it soda. Our favourite sport is played on ice, yours on grass. We count in metric units, mostly, and French words like poutine signify…

A field manual for racial justice
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A field manual for racial justice

Following the critical success of The Color of Compromise (2019), an exploration of white Christians’ participation in racism and white-dominated churches’ complicity, silence and tacit approval of racism throughout the history of the United States, Jemar Tisby offers this eminently practical exploration and application of his “ARC of Racial Justice” in How to Fight Racism….

Review of March by John Lewis
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Review of March by John Lewis

I recently read the 3-volume graphic novel March by the late civil rights giant and long-serving congressman from Georgia, John Lewis. While in seminary, Lewis helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which spearheaded many iconic moments of the U.S. civil rights movement in the 1960s. March follows the story of Lewis’ years of activism…

Build empathy, fight racism
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Build empathy, fight racism

Who catches your eye first – the boy or the man? Brian Liu put himself in this design twice, though his adult outline is almost eclipsed by his serious six-year-old face. That photo was used on his passport when he immigrated from Hong Kong to Canada in 1993. Adult Brian, partially obscured by the collage…

Growing up Asian-Canadian
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Growing up Asian-Canadian

“Why does your food smell so bad?”“Have you ever eaten dog?”“Where are you from? Where are you really from?”“No offense, but I don’t like being around China-men; they make me nervous.” Despite being born and raised in Canada, I’ve heard comments like these my whole life. As an Asian male, I’m a “perpetual foreigner,” always…

Healing in Colour
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Healing in Colour

Mental Health Week is May 3 – 9, and a new art exhibit is highlighting the intersection of race, faith and mental health. Healing in Colour features “Black, Indigenous, and peoples of colour artists from around the world, [and] the show highlights their experiences, wounds, and journeys of healing,” as stated on the event’s website….

Meet me at Boundaries Blvd.
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Meet me at Boundaries Blvd.

One year and one month. Fifty-six weeks; 396 days; 9,504 hours. That’s roughly how long we’ve been deep in the COVID-19 pandemic. Depending on where you live this timeline may be longer or shorter. I still recall where I was when I received the news. I was co-leading an “alternative spring break” trip with a…

BREATHE!
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BREATHE!

Not long ago the Canadian Lung Association ran an ad campaign with the slogan, “when you can’t breathe nothing else matters.” That ad invoked empathy and requested support for people who had lung disease or some condition that made breathing difficult.  Those billboards always caught my attention. I used to try and hold my breath…

Taking the long view
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Taking the long view

The title suggests a guide to the worthy books of the past, but it is actually Alan Jacobs’ argument for why we should assign any worth to such books. The necessity of his argument, Jacobs explains, is a modern mindset that is overloaded with information, experiencing change at a rapid pace, and inundated with the…

Two Montreal Statues
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Two Montreal Statues

When a bronze statue of Sir John A. MacDonald was pulled down by anti-racism protestors on August 29, it wasn’t the first time Canada’s first Prime Minister lost his head. Erected in downtown Montreal in 1895, the statue has long been a target of vandalism. In 1992 it was decapitated on the anniversary of the hanging of Louis Riel. Since then it has been defaced with paint and graffiti many times.