My mom told me that once, when I was a toddler, a stranger advised her to sign me up for modelling. My green eyes, medium-light skin, and curly dark brown hair gave me a certain look, they said, which was super in. My mom said no, despite the fact that mixed-race girls like myself were in demand.

Kimora Lee Simmons, who is Black and Asian, began modelling for Chanel when she was just 14 years old. It was the late 1980s, and soon, she was being mentored by Karl Lagerfeld, reportedly the first designer to put a mixed-race model on the Paris runway. Ten years later, she launched her own clothing brand, Baby Phat. It was an instant hit: people weren’t just obsessed with the clothes, but with Simmons herself wearing them down the runway.

By the early 2000s, when my toddler modelling career was put indefinitely on hold, being mixed-race in the industry was applauded: assuming, of course, that you were the right type of mix. Which is to say that your skin could be modified to suit whatever was most marketable at the moment. At the epicentre of this movement was America’s Next Top Model (ANTM), which Simmons would later be featured on as a judge. By the show’s second cycle, contestant April Wilkner’s half-Japanese, half-white race was regularly discussed. It wasn’t the only time race became a point of fashion on the show. The appearance of changing race through makeup and outfits was a challenge in cycle four.

Naima Mora, a mixed model whose background includes Black, Mexican, Native American and Irish, had her skin lightened with makeup and was posed alongside a blonde, blue-eyed toddler. Mora ultimately won the season. Her look echoed the sentiment across the modelling industry and Hollywood in general: it was the latest trend to be able to look at someone and not be able to tell where they were from.

In 2004, the Guardian dubbed this phenomenon Generation EA— ethnically ambiguous. “The fact that you can’t be sure who they are is part of their seductiveness,” casting agent Melanie Ross said in the article. What was attractive or “exotic” about my mom, a white woman from Ontario, or my dad, a Black man from New York, wasn’t something that I would fully grasp until I was a teenager. I didn’t want to be considered exotic or alluring or sexy as a mixed-race child. I wanted to see a family like mine on TV.

In elementary school, I was the only mixed kid. It was isolating: some kids made fun of my curly hair, others accused me of being adopted. Complete strangers would ask “What are you?” without even asking my name. Later, though, it seemed super common. In high school, there were at least three of us in just the school band. By the time I moved to Toronto for university, I had met tons of people who came from mixed backgrounds like mine.

Despite this, and despite growing up seeing that my identity was trendy in modelling, Hollywood tells a different story. The only time I saw a mixed family on TV actually exploring their identity was in a cartoon called American Dragon: Jake Long, and as much as I loved seeing the misadventures of a boy who was half dragon on his mom’s Chinese side, it wasn’t the same. It’s not that there aren’t mixed people on TV or in movies: Mariah Carey, Rashida Jones, Zendaya, Halle Berry, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and Keanu Reeves are all examples. They also all have one thing in common: they have lighter complexions, allowing them to weave through roles easier than darker- skinned Black actors.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, Viola Davis spoke candidly about not only missing out on jobs because of her darker skin tone, but also how easy it is to get cast in stereotypical roles. “If I wanted to play a mother whose family lives in a low-income neighbourhood and my son was a gang member who died in a drive-by shooting, I could get that made,” she said in the interview. “Let’s be honest. If I had my same features and I were five shades lighter, it would just be a little bit different.”

Colourism—the specific way that skin tone plays into prejudice and discrimination—is perpetuated by the global beauty industry. It acts within the realm of systemic racism: it’s not just that Black people are more likely to experience discrimination and racism, it is that within race, people with darker skin tones are more likely to struggle when compared to other people of colour. As a light-skinned mixed person, I benefit from this system whether I like it or not.

Season five, episode 10 of Black-ish discussed colourism in a way that TV hadn’t seen before. Protagonist Dre Johnson (played by Anthony Anderson), said: “Because we look different, we get discriminated against differently. Like in the case of O.J. [Simpson]. A magazine made his skin look darker to make him seem more villainous.” (That magazine was TIME magazine.)

Black-ish (and its spin-offs), which aired countless episodes focused on racial discrimination, has also been accused of perpetuating colourism itself, partly because of the show’s choice in casting biracial actors in the roles of Dre’s children, while also casting mixed women as the stereotypical exotic love interests.

The casting of mixed actors has sometimes been controversial. In 2016, actress Zoe Saldaña came under fire for her portrayal of Nina Simone in a biopic. Saldaña, mixed with Black and Latina ancestry, was accused of blackface after it was revealed that she was made to darken her skin and wear a prosthetic nose for the role. But at the same time, Saldaña has openly rejected the idea that just because she’s Latina, she can’t also be Black. “There’s no one way to be Black,” she said in an interview with Allure magazine. “I’m Black the way I know how to be.” (She has since apologized for playing the role.)

Saldaña’s words address the complexity of race, something that Hollywood has struggled to grasp. Though it’s common for celebrities to be mixed, they’re almost never cast as such. I would never deny Saldaña’s identity as Black; the issue is that actors aren’t given the opportunity to showcase their complexities in their roles. This contributes to toxic beauty standards of colourism and sends a horrific message, declaring that you’re only as beautiful as your skin’s ability to be marketable to the latest trend. More often than not, the trends involve lighter skin mimicking Eurocentric beauty standards.

In Hollywood, it’s easier to push mixed people into a single box. In Black-ish, the box is Black. For some actors, like Dwayne Johnson, the box depends on the project. His mix of Black and Samoan has allowed him to play roles from ancient Egyptian king (The Scorpion King, 2002) to Greek legend (Hercules, 2014) to Middle Eastern antihero (Black Adam, 2022). But usually, Johnson’s characters don’t have a background where their cultures are discussed, leaving it up to the audience to interpret.

Henry Golding, the British Malaysian star of Crazy Rich Asians, has said people told him that he wasn’t “Asian enough” to play the lead in the movie. “Just because by blood I’m not full Asian doesn’t mean I can’t own my Asianness,” he said in an interview with Bustle. He also said when he played a romantic lead in A Simple Favour alongside Blake Lively—his ideal role— the character’s race wasn’t specified: it was just a character written as a person. “It was never written as an Asian role— it’s never really highlighted that I am an Asian person married to Blake Lively. But that’s what it should be like,” he said.

But what about the mixed-race people who can’t fit comfortably into the ethnically ambiguous box? While actors like Dwayne Johnson and Golding can blend in, there’s more backlash for mixed people who aren’t Hollywood heartthrobs. Names play into casting just as much as skin tone does. Chloe Bennet, who is half white, half Chinese, struggled for years to book acting roles under her birth surname, Wang. The first audition she took after changing her name resulted in a job, she said back in 2016.

To be mixed-race is to be prepared to constantly contradict yourself. It’s always having to repeat yourself when someone accuses you of being too much of one thing or not enough of the other. It’s about never really seeing yourself accurately represented in media because there is no one way to look or be mixed. It’s unfair to say all mixed people in Hollywood should be forced to prioritize one half of their culture while simultaneously trying to prove that the other half exists. Pretending that mixed people aren’t mixed can perpetuate colourism. Dark-skinned Black girls deserve to feel beautiful and see themselves too.

You can’t choose your genetics, but you can choose to call out injustice. Whether we see ourselves reflected in media or not, there are infinite ways to celebrate culture while rejecting the idea that lighter skin is better.

A photo in Beauce, Que.

When I talk to the student in the English classes I teach in Saint-Georges, Que., I try to be as open and approachable as possible. I started the job in September 2016 as part of a program teaching English to French-speaking students, and spent most of my first two months making introduction presentations about my life. I talked about my cultural background; what my life was like in the Toronto area, where I lived before I moved to Quebec; and the jobs I worked before the gig.

During one presentation, I let students know that I am trilingual and that I juggle English, French, and Tamil on a daily basis. My teacher interrupted me. “When you say Tamil, do you mean, tamoul?” he asked. Many students started sniggering and speaking in hushed tones. “I don’t know if you know this,” the teacher added, “but tamoul is a bit of a slur around here to describe any person that is brown or non-white.”

The term originated in the mid-1980s, following the exodus of Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka. It is used today as a slur, particularly toward Arab and Muslim people. I stood shocked, trying to compose myself to finish the lesson.

Before arriving, I knew that racism was an issue in Saint-Georges. I tried not to judge—racism, after all, is a problem in Toronto, too. Still, the adjustment from urban to rural was jarring. I was born in India, raised in Dubai for my first few years, and lived in Toronto ever since. I have had the privilege of living in bigger cities my whole life, where I have interacted with people from different communities and backgrounds. When I moved to SaintGeorges, it was the first time I would be living in a small city. I was unsure of how my brownness would be perceived and how I would be treated by others.

The classroom situation is just one example of the cultural challenges I have faced in Saint-Georges—one that has illuminated the differences between my former urban homes and the small rural city I was learning to call home.

I only heard of Saint-Georges when I received my acceptance letter for the position; during the interview process, I was not told where I would be placed, just that it would be in New Brunswick or Quebec. Naturally, I started looking for everything I could about the region and the city. When I asked on a Quebec Reddit forum about Saint-Georges and Beauce, the region it is located in, one user answered: “Beauce is known for three things: farms, small businesses, and ‘rednecks.’”

I knew I was about to enter a very white region—white enough that Saint-Georges’ riding of Beauce has the highest percentage (99.3 percent) of residents who identify as white/Caucasian, as per the 2011 National Household Survey. Maxime Bernier, now a frontrunner in the federal Progressive Conservative leadership race, is the riding’s Member of Parliament. I wondered days before the move how I, a queer, left-leaning, brown, bearded immigrant would survive, let alone adapt.

I packed up and moved anyway.

***

Learning that part of my identity is considered a slur in Quebec made me frustrated with the cultural ignorance of those around me. I know it is largely a product of the fact that few people in Saint-Georges look like me, let alone understand the intricacies of my culture. Most people that I have spoken to about this, many of whom are college-level students, say that prior to meeting me, they had no idea what being Tamil was, but knew what the word meant to them. It upset me that so many people chose not to look into what the word’s origins were or what it actually means, regardless of age or education.

I spent days dwelling on the moment I learned tamoul’s connotations: the way the students snickered, my shock and unease. I know that my brownness is immediately visible, and I began to wonder if tamoul is what goes through people’s heads when they see me for the first time.

I refused to stay silent. I decided to talk to my class about the meaning of the word. My duty is to be an educator, and this was a teaching moment. For the next few weeks, I would make sure to address tamoul to the class.

“How many people here have heard of the word, les tamouls, before?” I asked my students in the weeks following that initial presentation. They giggled, raised their hands. I then asked if anyone wanted to explain what it meant. The laughter turned into visible discomfort. Few wanted to address it.

“It’s a racist word. We use it to describe, like, Muslims and terrorists here,” one student responded. More digging revealed most students didn’t understand the origins or meaning of the word. One student thought tam referred to Taliban and moul to Muslim, relying on stereotypes to fill in the blanks. Educating these students about my identity and history was exhausting, as a result, but worthwhile: I realized if it were not for me, there was a good chance many of those students would have never known what Tamil actually means.

***

Quebec’s identity as a French province in an overwhelmingly English continent has created a culture of fervent protectionism of anything French. To be Quebecois is widely interpreted as to be a descendant of the white French settlers who started arriving in the 16th and 17th centuries. While there are elements of globalism that affect society in all regions, there are also many regions, such as Beauce, where the majority of residents are born and raised here and tend to interact almost solely with their neighbours. Immigration has been a controversial issue for decades. The nationalist movement goes through waves of support and decline, but most people here sincerely view themselves as a nation within a nation.

It’s with this in mind that I continue my work in Beauce. I remind myself every day that there are few others like me here, and that there is still much work to be done to tackle racism. Education is a great starting point.

On the same day I learned about the connotations of the word tamoul, my teacher made it a point to tell the class why I was there in the first place. “How many of you know of people who are not from Beauce?” he asked. In the class of 20, I saw two hands go up. The teacher then explained it further. “We don’t realize it often, but we are a very insular region,” he said.

It was after that presentation that I wanted to understand more about the region. Doing so has made it easier for me to deal with micro-aggressions that I rarely encountered in Toronto. It has also helped me realize that living in a big city is a privilege. It is a privilege to be able to live in a place where there is diversity, where multiculturalism is celebrated, and where there is immediate access to multiple forms of information and education.

Still, I’m grateful for the opportunity to see how different things are in a region that is just a 10-hour drive from my home.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story stated that French settlers began arriving in the 15th century. This regrets the error.

As a freelance journalist and writer Quammie often writes sharp and critical pieces about the intersections of race and popular culture. Two days after the shake-ups, she published a piece with Vice titled, “Are Diverse Hosts like Shad and Larry Wilmore Set Up to Fail?” “Monday was a bad day for diversity in media,” opened Quammie’s piece, which questioned whether diverse voices brought into major media outlets were supported or left to fend for themselves. Quammie wrote that the industry “has to do more than prop a non-white male on set to show an invested approach to diversification.”

Five years into her career as a freelance writer, Quammie says she’s still hyper-aware of the reputation she’s building, and finds herself constantly having internal negotiations within her head: to write or not to write on particular topics. “Am I being too much?” she often asks herself. “Am I closing myself off from certain opportunities? I’ve had that battle with myself… You don’t want to shut yourself out of opportunities, but you have an opinion and you want to share it.” These questions are only part of the internal negotiation that Quammie admits to having when it comes to her writing—both on her own blog, ’83 to Infinity, and with other media outlets. “I’ve said, ‘Okay, my last three posts: were they all about Black stuff? Should I mix it up?’” She adds that she doesn’t know what’s right and what’s wrong. It’s just a feeling, Quammie says: “Should I speak on this? If I don’t speak on that, then what does that mean? Does it mean I’m a poor representation of my race?” In the end, Quammie, who has written for a wide range of publications including For Harriet, Revolt TV, Chatelaine, and the Globe and Mail, says that authenticity wins out. She goes with what she feels strongly about, and hopes that because she can back up why she said it and how she said it, she won’t lose out on opportunities as a result.

Many journalists and writers of colour, including me, have these types of internal conversations with themselves at least once in their career. From time to time, I look at my portfolio, and wonder: Will I be pegged as someone who can only write about diversity issues? And is that necessarily a bad thing? It’s important for legacy media outlets to understand how pigeon-holing writers and journalists into writing about race and diversity issues can lead to this internal conflict—and can also devalue the breadth of knowledge and experience an individual brings to the table. After all, a white journalist is rarely confined to write only about “white issues.” In fact, when Black Lives Matter Toronto held a sit-in at the Pride parade 2016 to protest several aspects of the organization it deemed racist and oppressive, the pundits sounding off about it across major media outlets were overwhelmingly white.

As more legacy media outlets in Canada feel growing pressure to further diversify their newsrooms and the stories that they tell—take Canadaland’s damning “Just How White is the CBC?” that found 90 percent of the outlet’s staffers were white—diversity must become part of newsrooms’ inherent philosophy. As Toronto-based diversity strategist Tana Turner tells it, the onus of ensuring honest and fair reporting and commentary that doesn’t further perpetuate and stigmatize various ethno-racial communities cannot rest squarely on one diversity reporter. She says feeling like the work starts and ends with hiring this one reporter “lets the other reporters off the hook” because they won’t feel like they need to address diversity in other areas, such as education or crime.

There must be buy-in from the entire newsroom. Shani O. Hilton, head of U.S. news at BuzzFeed News, hit the nail on the head in her 2014 Medium piece, “Building a Diverse Newsroom is Work.” She wrote: “Any newsroom in which the Black staff is expected to speak for Blackness while the white staffers only have to speak for themselves is a newsroom that’s failing.”

***

More than a decade ago, when Camille Dundas got her start in media, she worked for a mainstream broadcast media outlet. While sitting next to one of the station’s producers on a plane flying to Toronto for a training session, she glanced over at a list of all the names of people attending. Next to her name was an abbreviation; she didn’t know what it meant. She was surprised to discover it stood for “diversity hire.” “This was my first job and I actually didn’t know about diversity hiring,” she says. “That it existed. I was very young.” Comments she had overheard in the newsroom— like “that’s why she’s here, anyway” or “she wasn’t really qualified to be here, anyway”—began to make sense. She started to doubt herself. Luckily she received words of encouragement from a mentor that made her shake off her self-doubt. It may be the reason you got in the door, he told her, but it isn’t why you’re here. He assured her that she was valuable, and that she had something of worth to bring to the outlet.

Dundas continues to work in mainstream broadcast media as a news writer and producer, as well as editor-in-chief and cofounder of online publication ByBlacks.com. Despite how that experience made her feel, she says she still thinks the notion of diversity hires in journalism is necessary. But she does think news organizations should be transparent about their intent, especially so that new hires don’t view themselves negatively. “Don’t approach your life or your career as if someone’s doing you a favour,” she adds. “Because they’re not.”

Whether it’s overtly stated or not, this is something many people of colour entering journalism grapple with: wondering whether they’re hired to fill a diversity quota or based on their skillset and abilities. Arti Patel, lifestyle editor at Huffington Post, laughs when asked if the thought ever crossed her mind when she entered the workforce five years ago. “I thought about that as soon as I graduated. Am I being hired because of my colour? Or my resume? Or maybe both?”

Ann Rauhala, who has taught journalism at Toronto’s Ryerson University for the past 16 years, says she makes it a point to acknowledge the deep-rooted bias that racialized students may be up against in pursuing media. She reminds them: “You have a right to be there. Your story, your background, your interests are as legitimate as people in the mainstream.”

Like Hilton and Dundas, Patel says having people of different backgrounds who can bring varied perspectives and voices to a newsroom is important. Her own workplace is noticeably diverse and she says that the types of stories the outlet puts out are a reflection of that. Take for example, a multi-part series, which Patel helped spearhead, on the unique experiences of second-generation Canadians—the children of immigrants. It tackles subjects ranging from interracial dating to never hearing your parents say they’re proud of you. “Stuff like that is brought up through hiring a diverse staff,” she says. “I think when you do hire people of colour or people of different faiths and cultures you get different kind of content, which is great because it’s reflective of what the Canadian audience is about.”

***

Andray Domise got his big journalism break two years ago. He credits much of it to a handful of editors who acknowledged a gap in the diversity of voices and perspectives amongst their contributing columnists—and then set out to do something about it. Domise is a community activist and very vocal on social media about issues of social justice, education, and diversity, among other things. And so, he says, editors from media outlets such as Maclean’s, TVO, and Toronto Life sought him out when they needed commentators on issues such as police brutality and race relations. While Domise is grateful, and says he wishes more emerging and established writers of colour would get similar opportunities, he urges media outlets to see racialized people as more than one-dimensional.

While he notes that it makes sense for a publication looking for comment on a particular story related to race or diversity to seek out a writer with relatable lived experience, race shouldn’t be the only topic people of colour are viewed as experts on. He points out how few Black people he’s aware of at major Canadian media outlets who are writing frequently about things like sports, finance or politics. It’s the idea that, he adds, “if it’s racial it must affect us, but if it’s not racial, then we can rely on the commentary of an overwhelmingly white media who explains the experience of everyone who happens to be listening or reading.” And that is, of course, a big problem.

Quammie sees this play out in terms of both what writers of colour are asked to write about and when they are called upon for quotes as experts. “If we’re only in the media and only called upon to speak when it’s these issues to do with race or being a Black person,” she says, “you’re not seeing my humanity when I have other interests and I have other expertise.” This is why for Patel it’s important to note that diversifying goes beyond just covering race and diversity issues. In practice, that means crafting a lifestyle section that reflects a variety of ethno-racial communities when it comes to both authors of and sources. It means being intentional when selecting stock images. It also means understanding that people of colour are not a monolith—no one person can be expected to be an expert in the experiences and stories of all people of colour.

***

While the internal struggles that writers like Quammie experience are complex, there are steps newsrooms can take to better support racialized people working within them. For starters, Turner says that making the connection between the business of the organization appealing to a broader readership can help naysayers get on board. As of 2011, Statistics Canada reported nearly 20 percent of the population identified themselves as “visible minorities”—a huge segment to risk losing by not ensuring they see themselves reflected in the media. Turner says once people start to see the monetary value attached to diversifying it may help to alleviate the types of micro-aggressions Dundas faced in her first gig. “That’s when racialized people are hired and [not] seen as tokens or treated as the ‘diversity hire,’” she says.

Beyond this, Shenaz Kermalli, who has worked as a journalist for more than 15 years and is currently a professor in the Humber College journalism degree program, stresses the need for diversity to happen across the newsroom hierarchy. Even in the mid to late 2000s, when working overseas at Al Jazeera in the Middle East, Kermalli was surprised by the fact that the majority of the senior level management at the time was white. She says more measures— especially a more concerted effort to hire diverse folks at senior-management levels—are needed to help the racialized candidates already in the newsroom move up the career ladder. Offering mentorship and support to these individuals, as well as recognizing and naming implicit biases are some ways media outlets can start this work. “Once you get past that,” says Kermalli, “you can start having more intelligent discussion, which revolves around how to reflect diversity within diversity.”

Quammie says her experiences pitching stories related to race and ethnicity to white (often women) editors has been pretty positive, but adds that top-down change is essential. It’s important to recognize that even if white editors welcome her ideas it’s often through their particular lens. She says that there’s still an expectation that “this is what they think a Black female writer’s going to write about.” She adds that it’s important to ensure diversification happens in multiple areas. As an organization, she says, “It has to be throughout to impact the richness of whatever it is you’re trying to offer.”

More ethno-racial diversity within all newsroom ranks can result in many benefits, including removing any hints of tokenizing and an increased level of sensitivity in the packaging and production of the news. We need editors to accept more pitches about underrepresented or misrepresented communities and issues. We need more genuine relationships and trust built between media organizations and Canada’s diverse ethno-racial communities. And we need more journalists on the ground level, like me, to no longer feel like there is a glass ceiling placed on where they can go in this field.

For our special 50th anniversary issue, Canada’s brightest, boldest, and most rebellious thinkers, doers, and creators share their best big ideas. Through ideas macro and micro, radical and everyday, we present 50 essays, think pieces, and calls to action. Picture: plans for sustainable food systems, radical legislation, revolutionary health care, a greener planet, Indigenous self-government, vibrant cities, safe spaces, peaceful collaboration, and more—we encouraged our writers to dream big, to hope, and to courageously share their ideas and wish lists for our collective better future. Here’s to another 50 years!

Last fall, I decided not to participate in panels, judging, and other events that failed to feature people of colour. When a conference or event organizer or radio producer got in touch, I would ask about inclusion and decline if the request couldn’t be fulfilled. I readily admit that the choice to decline all-white panels was an overdue recognition of my own hypocrisy. As a female sportswriter, I spend a lot of my energy lamenting the lack of women represented in sports conversations, and often discuss how that exclusion contributes to the mainstream’s toxic, sexist tone. Representation matters greatly to the public perception of who belongs and who doesn’t, and yet so often I see media line-ups, reporting desks, public events, and mastheads packed with mostly—if not entirely—white men.

I’ve never felt reluctance in publicly sharing the ongoing need for institutional change. Yet I realized that whenever I did get an invite, I never asked if people of colour also had a seat at the table. Quite simply, as a white woman, I wasn’t doing the work. And so, when I was asked to judge an annual literary award in late 2015, I said I wouldn’t be able to participate if there weren’t any non-white jurors. I was optimistic, and likely naïve, thinking I would be met with a positive response.

After a brief email exchange, I was promptly cut, losing not only the “honour,” but the paycheque that came with it.

Despite that discouraging start, I kept asking. And here’s the thing: every subsequent event either already had it covered, or gladly obliged. I certainly don’t think I have high power sway when it comes to threatening to pull out of public appearances, nor do I even remotely deserve any special recognition for doing something so small. The fascinating part of my new policy was how easily the request opened up a productive dialogue about diversity and why it matters.

Organizers I interacted with wanted more robust conversations, and were very happy to work to achieve that. No one was offended, uncomfortable, or put out. Events and radio appearances were also a great deal more interesting and relevant, with more perspectives spotlighted, more topics covered, and a mix of voices contributing. In short, things got better—not only for the individuals involved, but for the audiences.

I raise this personal anecdote not because I think I deserve credit. There shouldn’t be a reward for doing the bare minimum. But I want to highlight how easy it can be for people with privilege to confront an exclusionary industry. Often when sports media is critiqued for how white and male it is, excuses come out in droves. Yet, breaking down the status quo benefits the entirety of sports culture in a vital way—widening its audience, broadening the conversation, and making it more accessible to those who have long felt it doesn’t represent them. Deliberately opting out certainly hasn’t hurt my connections, my visibility, my career or my bank account. Imagine the change possible if every high-profile, well-paid, established white male sports personality did the same.

But so much more than benefiting institutions and individuals in tangible ways, diversity is something to strive for because, quite simply, it’s the right thing to do. We shouldn’t do it because it’s easy, or profitable, or capable of bringing us better audience numbers. We should do it because everyone’s experience of sports deserves to be valued and heard. We should do it because inclusion directly contributes to everyone’s safety, comfort, and enjoyment. Because as it stands now, many people love sports with the understanding they are not welcome in a “white man’s domain.”

I regularly correspond with a group of fantastic sportswriters who share how they often feel shut out, beat down, abused, and hopeless. They lean on each other hard when they feel the pull of “why bother,” and offer support to pursue it another day. When you’re a person who discusses the game and doesn’t fit the status quo, you operate with the understanding that a lot of sports culture would rather not have you around. Yet still you work away—banging on doors, swatting at trolls, dodging vile hatred and consistent sexism and racism, all because you love it so damn much.

Institutional support helps make those rampant feelings of exclusion easier to bear, and it’s everyone’s responsibility to work towards the goal of diversity. My humble proposal to those who make up the status quo is this: Consider risking the loss of the space you firmly occupy, because, as my tiny experiment revealed, it can take so little for an enormous potential gain. Despite the oft-discussed anxieties inherent to creating space for others, the ultimate long game reward is a better community for everyone. It is amazing what is possible when we step aside and make some room.

Illustration by Kat Verhoeven

I was maybe, what, eight years old? There I was, standing in my literal cave of a stinky basement—a carved-out hollow of dark, dank stone under my rickety old house—scrounging through books piled high into mountains of dust. I whipped out one book. The cover stood out: A woman with flowing ebony braids is striking an ultimate power pose atop a flying carpet. At her side sat a man with eyes agog in admiration. Aladdin and Jasmine, I wondered? No, far from it. It was so, so much better. Her name was Princess Cimorene, a protagonist girl with gumption, confidence, bravery; she was everything I wanted to be. And that was my introduction to the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, an epic fantasy series and my all-time favourite set of books.

I remember it as the first time, in my burgeoning mind, that I never wanted a book to end. This book was different. There was magic and enchantment, sure, but the true fairytale aspect was Princess Cimorene herself. A girl with some ’tude, some spunk (oh, and, yeah, she fully, coolly befriends dragons). In the following years, however, I’d come to learn Princess Cimorene was a minority. As much as I fell in deeper and deeper love with the genre, I was not heart-eyed at all over the dearth of characters like me. I soon discovered it wasn’t enough for authors to plop a female character into the story (which was rarity enough)—I wanted complex female characters, vulnerable ones, strong ones, ones that felt real and diverse. It felt paramount to me that I, and other readers like me, could see themselves in these stories.

In his November 2012 Tedx talk, “The Mystery of Storytelling,” literary agent Julian Friedmann argues prehistoric caves were the earliest cinemas. Hunters would go in, look at the paintings, and imagine the fear they’d feel when they went out in the bushes. They rehearsed it. It’s the same reason we use literature, theatre, and cinema. “When we’re looking up at the screen,” he says during his talk, “we’re certainly not looking at you, we’re looking at ourselves, because only we are the storytellers.” They gazed up at the walls and, in place of dragons and wizards under the flickering torchlight, they saw beasts, and in them they saw themselves. But where do girls and women, people of colour, and those on the LGBTQ spectrum go when they want to look at themselves?

These days, more and more, fantasy and sci-fi are our pop culture cave drawings of choice. The genre has played an ever-larger role, gradually increasing in dominance since the Second World War, says Lisa Makman, a Columbia-educated Ph.D. and English lit lecturer at the University of Michigan. Just look at cultural staying power of Harry Potter or Game of Thrones’ cult following. We have superhero movies galore, what seem like an endless amount of post-apocalypse books and movies, and a surplus of monster-human and dystopian love triangles. The new Star Wars grossed nearly $120 million at the U.S. box office on its first day. That’s not to mention the hundreds of spin-offs, imitations, and other popular shows and books—we’re saturated. And, yet, in a series of worlds where there are, quite literally, no boundaries, why have so few authors and creators imagined a world of diversity?

Fantasy and sci-fi have nothing and yet everything to do with reality. The twin genres aren’t about escapism; they’re a search for meaning. In them, we see a mirror of the world reflected back— our own modern struggles dancing in the cave light. In many cases, when we read fantasy we’re hoping for a sort of redemption: from war, from nuclear weapons, from broken hearts, from a depleting ozone. There’s a reason dystopian fantasy is on the rise. One of the most influential fantasy writers, J.R.R. Tolkien, coined the term eucatastrophe: “the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears.” He argues that a eucatastrophic state privileges us with a glimpse of truth—one that liberates us from our limitations. That’s why we read fantasy: truth.

Fantasy is all about truth. Alison Gopnik is an American psychologist who, in a 2005 Slate article, argued in favour of the genre. Those enmeshed in the world of fantastical lore, she argued, are more secure in their physical and psychological environments than those with a lessened propensity for the magical. “Children may love fantasy not because they can’t appreciate the truth or because their lives are difficult,” she wrote in the article, “but for precisely the opposite reason.” Such stories are important because, rather than offering readers escape from their woeful environment, they let readers embrace a single-minded determination towards truth. In other words, fantasy lets us work out our shit—but how do you do that when you can’t see yourself in the narrative?

When I got sick in my early 20s, fantasy became excruciatingly important to me. Doctors had no idea what was happening. I felt lethargic and on the verge of falling asleep all the time. I lost my job as a salesperson at Indigo. I couldn’t leave my bed for over two months; even watching TV became too tiring. Even now, way after the fact, doctors still have no idea what happened—the best they can surmise is that I contracted a devastating virus. But what I do know is this strange time in my life let me a lot of time to think. I’d imagine what was happening in my body. I felt like I was living in a corpse, everything was failing, weakening, into nothing. That’s where the image of the snake came in.

In my feverish, weakened state, I kept imagining a glistening snake in my lower abdomen, a venomous serpent. It felt like a mythical battle going on inside my body. Later, I was sure the recurring image was an instinctual urge to fight for my life. I felt on the verge of death and so everything became primal. I would imagine the snake shedding its skin and in it I wished for my own rebirth. When our ancestors looked up at the churning grey sky, they saw anger. In the sun and abundance of crops, they saw benevolence. When we have no answers, we construct tales. Centuries ago, they made gods. For everything prolific and small, we weave stories where answers have yet to present themselves. That’s what I was doing in those months. Without paper or pen, I was writing a fantasy story in my mind, discovering my truth, working it all out.

An interminable hope impelled me toward these stories—I would get better. The mystery illness would abate. Escapism buffers us against reality, even as it continues to be plundered. Fantasy helped make me proactive; I visualized what I could not see. After I recovered, I kept writing stories, but they evolved. I incorporated dragons as main characters in my story, and they would coalesce with female characters. I made these characters wild, defiant, feminine, and strong— exactly the kinds of women I’d always wanted in the books that I read.

In all the various mainstays and tropes in fantasy, women and dragons inhabit close quarters in our psyche—and this relationship has played out time and time again in literary and cultural scenes. Silken-haired Game of Thrones fan favourite Daenerys Targaryen is best known, for example, as the mother of dragons. After her husband dies, she cremates his body and burns herself along with three petrified dragon eggs in his remains. The eggs hatch, and she goes from being a child (who, it must be said, was “given” to said husband as a gift and political pawn), to a boss-ass bitch. It’s the quintessential rise of the phoenix.

Yet even Daenerys, often lauded as a model for awesome women characters, is problematic: she comes with some serious white savior issues, a whole lot of indecision, and much—too much—is made of the men who follow her out of devotion to her beauty and goodness. She’s as much of an example of how far we’ve come as she is of how far we have to go.

I often wonder where, as Game of Thrones continues, she’ll fit into Carl Jung’s theory of the dragon as the arch-enemy of the hero: “[The] mother dragon which threatens to overwhelm the birth of the God, which the Hero must defeat before becoming the Hero.” In Jung’s world, the father figure triumphs over the matriarch—a trend we often see in real life, but also in Sleeping Beauty’s puissant Maleficent. Though she’s recently received an Angelina Jolie remake, this spunky, spiky lady is best known as the evil dragon who battles the heroic prince. And loses.

Dragons are a classic villain, says Jordan Peterson, eminent psychologist and University of Toronto professor. He points to Medusa as a prime example. Even on her best hair days, this lady turned men into stone. She represents what Peterson says is man’s ultimate fear: a woman rejecting them. Taking a Darwinian approach, Peterson theorizes that when a woman rejects a man, he’s also rejected by nature—because, as gatekeepers to reproduction, women symbolize the power of nature, natch. When a (male) knight tames the dragon, he also tames the woman, ensuring survival through his offspring. It’s a fascinating theory, but one that reduces both women and men to their pure biological makeup. I suspect Peterson’s right—it’s a classic case of fantasy, but also one that needs to change.

Too often both women and dragons represent wild natural forces, either within us or outside us, but always ones that must be tamed and conquered. After watching a video clip in which mythologist Joseph Campbell describes the Western dragon as a symbol of the untamed wild, it struck me that in myth women, too, usually symbolize an uncontrolled element of nature. In her seminal book Women Who Run with Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes analyzes the roles of female characters in classic tales. “Wildlife and the Wild Woman are both endangered species,” she writes. “Over time, we have seen the feminine instinct nature looted, driven back, and overbuilt.” To Estes, the Wild Woman has been mismanaged just like the wild lands, relegated to poorest land in the psyche. I can’t help but agree.

It’s truly hard, if not seemingly impossible, to break away from archetypal figures. Since the dawn of stories, through goddesses and sorceresses, powerful women have graced our imagination. And there are shining examples of diversity like my treasured Enchanted Forest Chronicles stories. At the same time, we’ve collectively kept women largely in narrow roles—and that’s not to mention both the stereotyping and scarcity of heroes who are people of colour or LGBTQ. Luckily, I’m not the only one who’s desperate for more diversity. While change seems slow, many authors are starting to defy standard narratives, and many of them are Canadian women.

I spoke to Vancouver-based author and teacher Linda DeMeulemeester about the inspiration behind her award-winning children’s fantasy series, Grim Hill, which follows two sisters who move to a new house and battle supernatural forces. DeMeulemeester was drawn to the power women have in Celtic mythology. While other mythologies portray women with power and supernatural abilities, DeMeulemeester stresses, that power often resides in their ability to weaken men. That’s not what she was after. Instead, legendary Celtic figures like Queen Maeb intrigued her—these mythological women who held wealth, power and influence of their own accord, not in relation to their sexiness. “Influence is the key,” says DeMeulemeester, “that they had power to make important decisions and contributions.”

Influence also means it’s not all about muscles. While it’s nice to see women with sheer physical strength, I’d also like to see more stories where women can depend on cleverness, wit, talent. Ontario-based children’s author Alison Baird agrees. As a young woman, Baird was in love with larger-than-life heroines. She recognizes now that these books, often women-authored, were likely written as a way to address the need for strong, brave, proactive female figures in fiction. But eventually, she became disillusioned with the trend. The heroines felt a little too strong, a little too unrealistic. “I could not, as a nonathletic bookworm,” says Baird, “relate to a woman who could wield a broadsword and handily defeat a male opponent on the field of battle.” The female protagonists in her many fantasy books rely less on physical strength and more on strength of character and cleverness.

This concern harkens back to an age-old question: Can women still have it all? My answer is: why the hell not? Fantasy gives us room to be optimistic: we strive towards admirable characters and learn from evil ones. Fantasy gave us one of TV’s greatest feminists, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a character that flips patriarchy the middle finger,shows that feminine doesn’t equate weakness, is never defined by a man, shares her power with other women, and on. (Though she’s also a pint-sized, white blonde.)

Yet, Buffy went off-air in 2003. More recently we have Marvel’s Jessica Jones, a complex superhero who helps us confront rape culture and sexual trauma. There’s also Rey from Star Wars, who, it should be noted, was criticized for being too awesome—some film buffs, views, and pop culture writers called her a Mary Sue, a term used to deride a woman character who’s good at everything. Apparently, to them, she was unrealistic. Let’s just pause a second to ponder this: In a world full of fantastical scenarios, it was the heroic woman that caused them to stir uncomfortably in their seats. And let’s not even get started on the noticeable lack of Rey toys in the Star Wars sets, despite her status as the main character.

Strong women characters who are in charge of their own fates isn’t a new trend, says Liz Johnston, manager of Toronto’s Mabel’s Fable Childrens Book Store. It’s often one book, though, that makes it mainstream and enlightens the populace, like the recent Hunger Games. (Although it’s worth debating whether protagonist Katniss’s ultimate reward of a husband and babies is a positive message or not.) Johnston says that the number of female protagonists in popular dystopian fiction has helped advance diversity. Once something becomes so widespread and popular, she says, it makes it easier for book publishers to pick it up. She’s noticed many publishers are now starting to move away from books targeted toward males, which is a welcome change.

While recently browsing the children’s section at Indigo, I noticed two categories: “LGBTQIA” and “We Need Diverse Books.” Admittedly, I didn’t know whether to feel happy or uneasy. While I want increased awareness, I also hope the day will come when such classifications won’t exist—that diversity will be just as much a part of fantasy and sci-fi books as plot, spaceships, and magic.

I think about Tolkien, whose work I like but also find uncomfortable. Traversing the plains of Middle Earth while reading Lord of the Rings as an adult, physical descriptions of some characters—the evil ones—snapped me out of my eucatastrophic state. I was transported back to my living room couch, shaking my head. As John Yatt wrote in the Guardian: “Perhaps I’d better come right out and say it. The Lord of the Rings is racist.” Tolkien’s evil characters have dark skin, slant-eyes, broad features, and dreadlocks. After I wrenched the spear of truth from my heart, I thought, “Damn, this Easterling—enemy of the free people, sallow and swarthy, dark hair and dark eyes—sounds just like my uncle.” So maybe, for now, I’m just happy to know children browsing the many colourful covers can find themselves.

Almost universally, white is seen as divine and a force of good, where as darkness is evil. When these features are projected on characters, I start to drift out of these worlds. I’m trying to see myself in the forces of good, but the good doesn’t look like me. My hair is thick, dark, and curly. My eyes are an almost black-brown, cupped in dark circles. I’ve never read a description in a book that refers to my features as angelic, and let’s face it, neither have most readers. Because angelic is an assumption; one of beauty, one of light features, one of worthiness.

Even in writing this article, I realized my sources were a pretty homogeneous group: they were all white. While I’m glad to have spoken to women—and those who identify on the LGBTQ spectrum—it was clear that it’s not just characters of colour who are absent, but writers, critics, booksellers. When Léonicka Valcius started Centennial’s book and magazine publishing program in 2011 she realized the same thing: “I walked into my class—of 60 to 70 people—and saw it was primarily white. There were a handful of people of colour, and a handful of men. That was another ‘huh’ moment.” Later, she came to the conclusion that CanLit “felt like very dead white guys writing about the Canadian experience that meant nothing to me.” That’s when Valcius started the #DiverseCanLit movement, a weekly Twitter discussion about all things diversity in Canada’s publishing world. Valcius says books are like time capsules, and when people look back to CanLit, they should have an opportunity to see how everyone—not just a select few—lived.

Certainly, I’m happy that J.M. Frey exists. Frey is a Guelph, Ont.-based science fiction and fantasy author, as well as a pop culture scholar and a self-described fanthropologist (a term used to describe employing anthropological techniques to study fans and fandom.) She is best known for her book Triptych: a sci-fi novel that follows three narrators as they recount major turning points in the life of a character named Gwen Pierson. Frey’s goal is to write intersectional, feminist novels, but she admits it’s hard to train herself out of writing the genre’s tropes.

She knows it’s frustrating for female readers and writers, especially those who identify as LGBTQ and/or as a person colour, to read or watch prolific fantasy tales. Echoing my earlier thoughts, she asks me: How can an author imagine all these incredible things, yet not imagine a diverse world? While she agrees fantasy is evolving, she also concurs that it’s doing so slowly. “For those of us who want better now, now, now,” she says, “it’s difficult to know we could have much more inclusive media, and more protagonists who are different.”

New Brunswick-based fantasy author KV Johansen adds that “the tendency still exists to use the heterosexual male as the default main character.” Lately, in an attempt to redress past favouritism toward male heroes, publishers are pushing for female protagonists—to the exclusion of men and boys. For Johansen, it’s not a perfect solution. Like me, she hopes we’ll soon outgrow this exclusionary categorization for the sake of equality. She’s not holding her breath, though, noting that there seems to be more reluctance in some segments of “fandom” to accept women, non-white, and non-straight heroes than there is to accept other inverted expectations and clichés—like “aged-and-creaky-archetypes and traditionally villainous creatures.” In other words, readers can get behind a good vampire, but not necessarily a complex, Black, gay, woman hero.

Later, though, when I speak to John Sellers, the children’s review editor for Publishers Weekly, he cautions against getting caught up in what’s meant for boys and what’s meant for girls, or certain categories. Sellers says publishers have an increased interest in diversity in children’s books, including a movement to stop “gender publishing” and start giving kids permission to read what they want to read. Books are packaged more neutrally and even so-called romance books are trending toward typographical covers. “Stories about people of colour, sexuality and identity,” he says, “have been more widely explored in recent years.”

While Sellers and others like him acknowledge the push towards diversification, publishers only make up one part of the equation. Opportunities must exist for readers to see themselves in stories, and for writers to create stories. It’s not enough for those books to be published; they have to be widely promoted, taught in schools, and made easily available. We should all be happy we have people like 11-yearold New Jersey girl Marley Dias, who launched the social action project and book drive #1000BlackGirlBooks after she became tired of reading about white boys and their dogs. She aptly called her assigned school books “monochromatic”.

Whenever we read a fantasy or sci-fi book or watch a movie, it’s our own self-discovery that’s the driving force of these many great quests. Vital to the exploits and the encounters is the identity that is revealed—and challenged—throughout. I’m hopeful that Sellers and others are right: that we’re seeing a change in the genre and using our great imaginations to craft a bigger world. Because everybody, not just beefy white dudes, deserve to open the doors to adventure, just like I did that day in my smelly basement.

Illustration by Matt Daley

Straight, white men still dominate the technology industry. RM Vaughan introduces us to LGBTQ activists around the world who are fighting for change

STUART CAMERON REMEMBERS the first time Unicorns in Tech set up a booth at a major tech/IT conference. “People would stop and see ‘Unicorns’ and think, ‘Oh that looks like fun,’ and then see the subtitle, ‘LGBTQ in Tech,’ and run away! Or ask us why we were there. It was really terrible to see this reaction.” And that was only a few years ago, in very queer Berlin. As a Canadian who has lived in Berlin on and off for years, and who finds the city almost too informal and relaxed, to the point of difference-denying, I found this shocking. My first impulse was to be very Canadian about the story and become righteously indignant. And then Cameron started laughing. Sitting in his sunny Berlin apartment/office/hub with his two 20-something co-workers, the anecdote seems ridiculous to him, a story from a previous generation.

But the ugly truth of the tech/IT industry—that it is still overwhelmingly dominated by straight, white men—hangs over our giggling like a grey cloud. Despite its reputation for being the innovative and inclusive industry that propels our vaunted new Information Economy, most of the tech/IT world looks like the same old boys club. “The gear and the knowledge have changed,” Cameron notes with a shrug, “but the head office looks like 1975, not 2015. In terms of real representation, and money and decision-making power, we’re not even close to where we should be, especially since queers and women have always been present in the industry.”

Cameron, along with Jasmin Meiling and Marty Gormley, are the producers of Berlin’s massive Sticks & Stones, an annual LGBTQ-centric tech/IT Karrieremesse (a perfectly German word for this hybrid conference, career fair and party) that opens its sixth edition in June. From the funds that S&S brings in, the group puts together Unicorns in Tech events. Unicorns in Tech has a simple goal: to create events and meeting spaces in Berlin (and eventually elsewhere) where queers and their allies who are working in tech/IT can network and share information in safety.

Yes, safety. As Cameron points out, “in Berlin, tech is white and male and straight. There is still a shocking reaction of homophobia in that world. And, how does business work? It is built by networking and social circles: So why can’t queers make a ‘club’ the way straight men do?”

But it doesn’t stop at Unicorns in Tech. In May, S&S will launch #UNIT Festival, the world’s first queer tech festival, featuring over 40 speakers, performances, and art from all over the world all in one massive space. If Cameron is building an empire, it’s one that needs building. “We are trying to show the tech community that queers are a large community, a powerful community, and that we don’t want to just hear about ‘diversity’—we will instead make our own world.”

Angie Tsaros, a Berlin-based activist and co-founder of a monthly feminist crafting/gathering, puts it more bluntly. “I used to go to tech conferences and panel discussions and try to participate, but I’m a queer woman who does not look like a business woman, and it’s just too ridiculous to try to talk to a room full of expensive suits. I don’t belong there and they let me know that I don’t belong there very quickly.”
Why is the tech world so backward? Why does an industry based on knowledge sharing still need conferences and advocacy groups to teach them the basic values of diversity? Forget altruism, doesn’t everybody know now that being inclusive is profitable?

“Big tech has stopped pursuing diversity because now they know the right language and how to say the right things, so that they feel they have done their job just by talking about it. Also, when they talk about diversity, you never see any numbers for LGBTQ people,” Cameron shrugs. “I think it is better in North America than it is in Europe. When you tell European straight people you have a queer tech group, they think you are making pornography.”

It’s difficult to say, though, whether it is, in fact, better here. According to Canada’s Top 100, an annual list of businesses that acts as a guide to the “best places to work” in Canada, the “Best Diversity Employers” of 2014 (a list that marks LGBTQ inclusion) has everything from provincial governments to agri-business, all of whom, of course, rely heavily on tech workers. But there are no tech companies or startups
on the list.

Lukas Blakk, a Canadian tech expert who lives and works in San Francisco, and an old pal, recently spoke at a Unicorns in Tech gathering sponsored by SoundCloud. Blakk’s topic was a program Blakk created, in co-operation with a former employer, to build funded, safe spaces for marginalized people to learn how to code and thus gain entry to work in the tech field. The program was a stunning success, and several of the participants are now working in tech.

“Giving people space where they won’t be judged or feel excluded sounds obvious,” Blakk tells me one day while we hike up a massive canyon outside of San Francisco, chased by Blakk’s corgi Shortstack, “but it’s pretty rare. Some of the participants were living without permanent housing, and/or were gender-variant, or single mothers, and/or were underemployed—all people who have these amazing skills that they use every day just to get by. All we had to do was provide the space and the equipment.”

Blakk’s talk at Unicorns in Tech was well received, but Blakk is keenly aware of the pitfalls when social justice meets corporate profits. SoundCloud, the sponsor of the talk, is, after all, a third-party partner with Twitter and iTunes and is valued at between $1-2 billion (depending on which cranky music business executive you ask).

“Events that are purely social and don’t try to leverage the good fortune of being in a very competitive (read: well-paying) industry serve no tangible purpose for the marginalized community members who don’t have access,” Blakk emails me after the talk.

“Social get-togethers allow the company paying the bill to wash their hands of any actual accountability for changes in hiring practices, corporate culture, and civic responsibility,” Blakk continues. “It also lets attendees off the hook where they are being photographed and used as marketing for a very mainstream and privileged, top one percent agenda. Those who need jobs, access to better life quality, are in no way changed or helped by these types of events. I prefer hackathons and learning opportunities so that those who have are sharing back to those who don’t, yet. That, to me, is our responsibility to each other and how we make truly authentic community with others who share our marginalized identities.”

I put the same question to Cameron, and he welcomes it. “When I go to big tech events, I have to do so much explaining about who I am first. I feel safe, physically safe, but not maybe socially safe. I don’t think, however, in Germany, that companies are looking at what we do as a new way to make profits. For Sticks & Stones, companies have to apply to us and prove to us that they have good codes of conduct to protect queers before they can present. So, we profit off of them! What I have is a problem with companies selling products to the queer community, but they do nothing to improve their queer numbers. I hate that. Things are slower in Germany, and everybody here in tech checks to see what the U.S. companies are doing first.”

The core question of safety and, more importantly, of creating queer-inclusive spaces to thrive, remains mostly unanswered—even in Canada. In 2013, for instance, the Information Technology Association of Canada released a damning report on the representation of women in communications technology companies. The percentage of female-identified people on the boards of Canada’s largest tech companies was a mere 16.5 per cent. While there are no parallel statistics for LGBT representation, one imagines it is not much better. Queers-in-tech social groups come and go but appear, (unlike, say, HackerNest, a wildly successful, now international tech social gathering and information sharing group started in Toronto) to receive no corporate sponsorships. That’s not to knock HackerNest. Its open forum style and mission to spread prosperity via technology-sharing attracts a very diverse group of enthusiasts, even if LGBTQ participation is not specifically noted in the group’s PR.

Socializing and networking have value, actual handson activism has a deeper value, but the industry has a long way to go, and both Cameron and Blakk are still very much outsiders trying to bring change to a resistant monolith. “Being one of very few queer people in a company can sometimes feel lonely”, Blakk writes, “[Tech companies] need HR to make this sort of morale-building a priority to the level where people feel they can spend a few work hours a month on projects that improve the culture both inside the company but also build up connections with the larger community around us.”

A bitter irony of the tech boom is that companies tend to choose cities with high “gay indexes” (thanks again, Richard Florida), for their obvious cultural value, and then the actual workers displace the queers who make the city so interesting. It’s been going on for years in San Francisco, and has now reached the point, Blakk says, wherein “the SF tech world is primarily straight and male and it’s disrupting SF itself. We’ve got some amazing history here and people trying to stay here even as houses are being flipped out from under them.”

Berlin, with its low property costs and vibrant culture, is also quickly becoming a new tech wonderland. SoundCloud is based in Berlin, as is EyeEm, Wunderlist, and DeliveryHero, among others. It is also a start-up city for European tech entrepreneurs. And Berlin hosts the annual CEO-packed Tech Open Air festival. Subsequently, Berliners cannot stop talking, in increasingly panicked tones, about the rapid gentrification of their city. In the neighbourhood I live in, on the streets Isherwood once walked, cafes, bars, bookstores, and clubs are being replaced by kindergartens, modular furniture outlets, and“yummy mummy” clothing stores.

Cameron worries about the future he is partially helping to build as well. “The big thing is for the LGBTQ community to look at how we treat other groups ourselves. We have our own problems with sexism and racism, so until we fix our behaviour we can’t fix the behaviour of others. And of course sometimes straight people become interested in what you are building and then gradually take it over, away from you. But that will not happen as long as I can help it.”

Blakk offers a more blunt assessment. “Tech is supposed to be this ‘break all the rules’ industry that’s doing things differently but from most angles it doesn’t look that much different than the wolves on Wall Street I believe they (we) can do better.”

While I’m a sucker for any leftist symposium, I felt a wave of disappointment as the panelists began entering the room. The majority of them were white. Of the 12 speakers, only four were women, all of whom were white.

The reason for my disappointment? Well, here’s a conference about Canada’s foreign policy, particularly our interference in South America, with several discussions about neocolonialism, and there is a largely white panel. I’m hearing talk about embracing a transnational perspective, when the speakers are anything but transnational.

I speak for many leftists of colour when I say that I’m tired of leftist discourse being dominated by white academics. Because leftist ideologies often take an anti-colonial, pro-marginalized voices stance, it’s a shame, to say the least, to see few marginalized voices actually being represented in academic left discourse. This is not to say that there is a lack of people of colour in leftist circles, but simply that our voices often take the backburner in favour of white academics with high-flown university-style rhetoric that greatly alienates the poor and oppressed that we leftists claim to stand for.

On top of that, there was one point where a few of the panelists discussed the extent to which we can call Canada an imperialist state, how imperialist it is, and how long it has been this way. While the panelists did all agree that Canada is an imperialist state, I couldn’t help but secure my face to my palm. The question of how imperialist Canada is or how long it’s been an imperialist state is a redundant one for more marginalized folk. We see no need to debate on naming Canada an imperialist state, when our very realities are a testament to this. We do not have the luxury of debate; we live the consequences of Canada’s imperialism every day.

There was even a point where one panelist said that Canada has been an imperialist state since World War II. World War II? Seriously? Canada’s entire history has been an imperialist one. It’s been an imperialist state since 1867. It’s roots, it’s creation into this constitutional monarchy we call Canada is entirely imperialist and colonial in nature.

Though I enjoyed much of what panelists were talking about—especially appreciating the presentations by Nikolas Barry-Shaw, Dru Oja Jay, Alyson McCready, and Jamie Swift—the lack of diversity only reminded me of the bigger picture of a divided left overwhelmed by the voices of immensely privileged people.

The right has a stronger sense of unity that leftists have not yet achieved. Despite my unapologetic identity as a far-left individual, I stray from Marxist circles, knowing that misogynistic white males so frequently bombard them. I’m cautious among other feminists, knowing that so many subscribe to a feminism that is trans-exclusionary, sex-worker-exclusionary, and utterly Eurocentric.

The left seems more united on economic issues like higher taxation and greater social services, but struggling to be cohesive on social issues. If academic conferences can not include professors, scholars, journalists, and activists who have personally felt oppression, than the larger leftist movement will never follow suit.

Tomee Sojourner. Photo by Anne de Haas.