#WeAreUofT discusses a piece from Justin Kong, Edward Wong and Veronica Yeung on Organizing the Suburbs where they take up the question of grassroots organizing in Chinese-Canadian communities across Ontario and our most recent elections, which saw a conservative wave sweep the suburbs. They ask what this means for progressive organizing and how to best counter the rise of right-wing ideas including anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiments in these spaces.

Justin Kong is a Toronto-based labour and community activist. 

Veronica Yeung, now living in BC, is an anthropologist part of the Chinese community in Markham. 

Edward Wong is a proud CUPE 3903, doctoral student in Social Work at York University with a background in anti-racism and migrant justice organizing.

Briarpatch piece: https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/organizing-the-suburbs

e.307 - Organizing The Suburbs: Chinese-CDN Communities In Ontario ft. J. Kong, E. Wong & V. Yeung

In 2016 the National Labor Board in the United States ruled that graduate students at private universities could unionize as employees. Since then there have been organizing campaigns to unionize students at many private universities across the US including Columbia, Yale, The University of Chicago, and now Brown University where Stand Up for Graduate Student Employees (SUGSE) has organized a union recognition vote between November 14th and 19th where just over 1,200 graduate student employees will have their say on whether to form a union! 

SUGSE’s role at Brown can be traced back through a number of important political organizing efforts including work to address graduate funding in 2014, the closure of Brown’s Title IX office in the spring of 2017 and now the decision to form a union. Today we feature two English PhD students at at Brown - Lubabah C. and Kiran S. to learn more about this exciting campaign!

e. 308 - #UnionYES! Stand Up For Graduate Student Employees at Brown University ft. Kiran & Lubabah

Art by Micah Bazant.

This interview takes up  the relationship between Toronto’s Annual Pride festival and the Toronto Police Service. We’re examining the fallout between Pride Toronto and racialized members of the LGBTQ2S community in the City of Toronto following Pride Toronto’s decision to allow Toronto Police to participate in the 2019 Pride Festival, taking place in June of next year. 

This decision comes down after Toronto Police were banned from marching in uniform in the 2017 Pride celebration following an action from Black Lives Matter activists. As Toronto gears up for the 2019 Pride festival, this decision was quickly and quietly reversed. We’re joined by two community activists to discuss what happened, the rise of the No Pride in Policing Coalition, and why a growing number of queer/racialized communities in the City are calling for a new kind of Pride. 

Beverly Bain is a Black queer Feminist activist and scholar. She teaches in Women and Gender Studies at the University of Toronto. 

Nick Mulé is the founder and a current Member at Large of Queer Ontario, an associate professor of Social Work and Sexuality Studies at York University and a psychotherapist in private practice.

Green Majority Radio

e.309 - #NoPrideInPolicing: Toronto Police & The Corporate Pride ft. Beverly Bain and Nick Mulé

#WeAreUofT highlights social justice and political organizing at the University of Toronto and in the city of Toronto more broadly. We feature local activists and highlight the work they do fighting for change in their communities.