Archive for Commentary

April 17, 2017
By Eric Ritskes
No comment
in Commentary, Media

Refusing Canada

“I don’t want no fucking country…” Dionne Brand [i] This is a call for us all to refuse the country, the violence of its founding and maintenance, and its profound, ongoing mechanisms of exclusio...Read More »

January 16, 2017
By Eric Ritskes
2 Comments
in Commentary, Decolonization

“Are You Indigenous?”: Reflections on Settler Responses to Joseph Boyden and Canada 150

Earlier this month I was hanging out with some friends and the conversation veered towards talking Canadian politics, as it often does. At one point in the conversation, Attawapiskat and northern rese...Read More »

June 11, 2015
By Eric Ritskes
No comment
in Commentary, Decolonization, Education, Media

Both Reconciliation and More than Reconciliation: Reflections on the TRC Executive Summary Report

“I want to acknowledge these stories as gifts…” (p. 328) There is power in stories and in their telling, and the Truth and Reconciliation Committee’s (TRC) Executive Summary report is powered by the ...Read More »

October 22, 2014
By Eric Ritskes
27 Comments
in Commentary

Dark Threats and the Normalization of White Terror: Aboriginals, Muslims & South Americans in the #OttawaShooting

‘Breaking’ news hit Twitter and other news venues Wednesday morning, and reports from Parliament Hill began to spill out of gunmen inside and outside Parliament in Ottawa. Reporters on the scene raced...Read More »

January 15, 2014
By Eric Ritskes
44 Comments
in Activism, Commentary

An Open Letter to Neil Young

I have friends who consider you family for the way your music is so influential in their lives, others who consider you among the pantheon of rock and roll gods, and even more who, after your recent d...Read More »

December 29, 2013
By Eric Ritskes
2 Comments
in Commentary, Media

A Story of Becoming Indigenous: A Movie Review of “The Activist” (2013)

It’s a rare occurrence when you have a Hollywood movie that revolves around Indigenous struggle. The Activist, a movie directed by Cyril Morin, is set in 1973 South Dakota, during what has been known ...Read More »

February 12, 2013
By Eric Ritskes
No comment
in Commentary, Education

Trades or Vocational Schooling vs. Academic Streaming: Privilege is Alive and Well

There’s been much debate recently over the ‘streaming’ of students; that is, directing particular students (normally in middle school or high school) to take particular classes (AP vs ‘applied’, etc…)...Read More »

November 22, 2011
By Eric Ritskes
2 Comments
in Commentary

Whiteness, Madness, Violence and Incarceration: The Case of Anders Breivik

I have a colleague with whom I have some fantastic discussions that ramble around from topic to topic. His study is around madness and chemical incarceration, mine around race and anticolonialism and ...Read More »

April 22, 2011
By Eric Ritskes
No comment
in Commentary, Media

Off the Map: A Modern Settler Colonial Narrative

"This is not the ER, this is the jungle." A new show has hit the airwaves this year; from the producers of Grey's Anatomy comes Off the Map, a sort of Grey's goes to South America type of sho...Read More »

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