Social Justice

Low-Barrier Housing and NIMBYism in Action

NIMBYism, the idea that certain development projects are okay, but Not In My BackYard, is discrimination with a prettier hat on. NIMBYs don’t come right out and say the actual reasons for their opposition; instead, they offer other reasons, perhaps to reduce their own cognitive dissonance because they don’t want to think of themselves as …

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Mental Health @ Home book reviews: Decolonizing Wellness by Dalia Kinsey

Book Review: Decolonizing Wellness

Decolonizing Wellness by dietitian Dalia Kinsey aims to help QTBIPOC (Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous, People of Color) folks reject diet culture and restrictive ideas about bodies and food in order to achieve greater self-love and self-acceptance. The author, who identifies as a genderqueer, pansexual person of colour, wrote this book to fill a gap in …

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Diagram of socially acceptable identities and deviant identities

Racism, Prejudice, and Implicit/Explicit Beliefs

Last week I reviewed White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo. There were some important concepts that she alluded to but didn’t clearly explain, so I decided to do a post, from a social constructionist viewpoint, about how stereotypes and prejudice develop, and why the difference between implicit and explicit beliefs is important. Our societies create categories …

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Mental Health @ Home book review: White Fragility

Book Review: White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, whose background is education and who is white herself, looks at racism and why she believes white people don’t want to talk about it. I went into the book knowing that it was popular but having doubts about the effectiveness of the title at accomplishing the intended effect. White fragility …

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Is Being Politically Correct Helpful or Ineffective?

The push to be politically correct drives some people crazy, while others think that being careful about language is necessary to keep from causing offence. There are all kinds of people out there being intentionally offensive (just look at Twitter), but to what extent should we as a society go hunting for it when it’s …

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Indian Residential Schools: Canada’s National Disgrace

On May 27, Canada was shaken out of its coronavirus haze by a press release from the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc (Kamloops Indian Band) stating that the remains of 215 children had been found buried on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School. The school, operated by the Catholic Church in Kamloops, British Columbia, housed …

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Homelessness & Addiction: A Newspaper Embraces Stigma

Last year I wrote about a police wellness check gone wrong, in which a young woman was dragged half-naked in handcuffs through her building by a police officer. While the woman was apprehended under the Mental Health Act, a story about the matter in the Kelowna Daily Courier used the word “arrested” multiple times, including …

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"The opposite of poverty isn't wealth, the opposite of poverty is justice" – Bryan Stevenson

Poverty Can Be Very Expensive

There are some significant barriers that people living in poverty face when it comes to managing their finances. However, these may not always be obvious, so let’s talk about them. Let’s consider what it might look like to be living in poverty here in British Columbia, Canada, where I live. Provincial income assistance payments, including …

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Marginalized Groups and On-Screen Representation

A fellow blogger wrote a while back about social media claims that a film was whitewashing. It reminded me of a conversation about on-screen representation of marginalized groups that I’d had with someone not long before that, and I thought I’d write about it. Representation issues Let’s begin with the conversation from a while back. …

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Universal income: a guaranteed livable income could take poverty out of the picture

Benefits of Universal Basic Income for People with Mental Illness

I don’t have the economics background to speak to the feasibility of universal basic income, so I won’t try; however, I did want to explore the potential benefits for people with mental illness. What universal basic income is While various implementations have been proposed, at its core, universal basic income (UBI) has several basic characteristics. …

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