Articles in Hearsay
As a child, I was drawn to Cookie Monster’s manic love for baked goods, but my most vivid recollection of Sesame Street is Gordon. I can’t remember when I first saw him, whether he was having one of his chats with Oscar about O’s grouchy outlook on life or whether he joined in a song urging us to do something good for ourselves, but I do recall his presence: warm, joyful, thoughtful and firm. Not a caricature or stereotype of a Black man, Gordon represents Sesame Street’s greatest value for me as a father—a world where people of color are celebrated without being tokenized, satirized or exaggerated.
Slums, townships, shantytowns. Living at the edge of society but being in the centre of resourceful entrepreneurship and coulorful life amid dire circumstance. This isn’t always the common association made with slum life (except of course, the simplistic glamorization of shantytown life thanks to Slumdog Millionaire and the like), but it’s well captured in this Foreign Policy Photo Essay. The photos from slums in Venezuela, India, Kenya and Indonesia resonate with a sense of ethereal beauty over anguish.
We trawl the news media so you don’t have to.
A Sorry State :: “Canada is becoming a world leader in official apologies. Do they benefit anyone but the people offering them up?”
The Walrus - December 2009 :: Read the entire story here
Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice — and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.
How do you get there?
We trawl the news media so you don’t have to Twenty years on, the celebrations commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall are in full swing. It seems everyone who was old enough to remember the crumbling wall has some poignant memory associated with the event. Here’s a pick of some memorable commemorative stories surrounding the anniversary.
This is a regrettable act, but by emphasizing details - some from dodgy sources - such as the perpetrator yelling “Allahu Akhbar” and a repeated association of his motives to his Palestinian and Muslim roots, deeper analysis on the psychological effects of war and the poor attempts at integration by the US army is completely left off the radar.
We trawl the news media so you don’t have to.
Facing the Kool-Aid Recovery with Columbia U. Prof. Dorian Warren [VIDEO]
RaceWire, The Colorlines Blog :: Watch the Video here
We trawl the news media so you don’t have to.
The Globe & Mail, Focus - Friday October 16th 2009 :: Nazem Kadri: Canada’s new game face
Every year, as the crisp winds of September arrive and labour day post-summer humdrum is laid to rest - a painful anniversary reminds all of us why the world we live in is a very …
Worldtown has been on a short hiatus due to its people taking too much time bouncing around the globe and too little time producing tales for the site. In any case, we apologize for this interruption and present you with a short list of websites with similar mandates that you should check out ASAP. Without, of course, sacrificing any loyalty to yours truly.
