beyond her usual limits

Disguise
A woman with a mouth like a catfish is showing me her whiskers. They work like snake tongues, emerging and retracting from tiny holes at the sides of her mouth. When visible, they move as if sending or smelling. They are incredibly articulate and delicate. They also seem to present a danger, as if able to transmit a poison. I can tell right away, she is not who she appears to be. These whiskers are part of her but also a deliberate disguise. I am hypnotized by the movement of her tiny tongues. I cannot move. I am both terrified and amazed.

-- DEIRDRE LOGUE
feminist filmmaker

STOP THE RAIDS ON WOMEN'S SHELTERS!

Emergency Community Meeting
March 8 (International Women's Day)
17 Phoebe Street, Toronto Rape Crisis Centre
10:00am Sharp

The Shelter | Sanctuary | Status Campaign invites shelter workers, residents, managers, counselors and anti-violence against women advocates and activists to attend an urgent community meeting on March 8th.

It has come to our attention, that the Canada Border Services Agency invaded a shelter for women - on February 27, looking to track down Jane, a single mom and survivor of violence from Ghana.

“It’s so scary,” Jane says, who wishes to keep her real name anonymous but is willing to speak to the media. “I thought the shelter was supposed to be a safe space for me and my baby. I’m scared not just for myself, but for non-status women in shelters everywhere who are facing the same fear,” she continued.

“We have heard of the CBSA waiting outside of shelters, looking to apprehend women without status, but I have never heard of officers actually walking into a shelter to look for women,” says Eileen Morrow, Coordinator of the Ontario Association for Interval and Transition Homes, the largest shelter association in Canada. “This is an unprecedented attack on women in our communities and we demand it end immediately!”

“The women in our shelters are survivors of violence. They are healing from trauma. The last thing we need is the bullies from CBSA barging in her to re-traumatize them," says Bernadette Dondo, a counsellor at Nellies.

“The women’s movement fought long and hard for access to shelter and safety. This is a fundamental right for all women, regardless of immigration status. The CBSA violated this right and the women’s movement is going to hold them accountable,” asserts Fariah Chowdhury, an organizer with the Shelter | Sanctuary | Status Campaign.

Shelter workers, residents and anti-violence against women advocates will be joined by women from Toronto Rape Crisis Centre, Sistering, METRAC –Metropolitan Action Committee Against Violence Against Women and Children and many other women’s organizations demand that Canada Borders Service Agency immediately stop visiting or waiting outside shelters or organizations that provide services to women; that women fleeing domestic abuse and violence be given status immediately and a full and inclusive regularization program be implemented.

For more info phone: 647.836.8781
or email shelter.sanctuary.status@gmail.com

Organized by the Shelter|Sanctuary|Status Coalition, a growing movement of over 120 anti-Violence Against Women organizations that are working to create safe spaces for all women, regardless of immigration status - http://toronto.nooneisillegal.org/sss

Decolonizing Ours Minds conference

ESSU, DTSU, WGSSU, CARSSU, TYPSA, R3 Artists Collective, Moyo Wa Africa, Seven Directions and Night at the Indies are proud to present the second annual Decolonizing Ours Minds conference: Decolonizing Our Minds: Reclaiming Toronto. This edition of DOM will feature 5 panels consisting speakers from the University of Toronto and community at large, with each focusing on distinct facets of Toronto. The panels will critically engage instances of inequity and oppression present in our city and discuss how these are or are not being redressed. Decolonizing Our Minds: Reclaiming Toronto will also provide individuals with an opportunity to liaise with numerous community groups and experience performances from some of Toronto’s most gifted local artists. Also, for the first time ever, DOM is proud to present an official after party!!!!

So come out and join us as we call on the community to band together and resist neocolonialism and the suppression of dissent in an attempt to decolonize our minds!

Date:
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Time:
10:00am - 6:00pm
Location:
William Doo Auditorium, New College, University of Toronto. 45 Willcocks (SW Corner of Willcocks and Spadina. Closest Subway Station: Spadina

Schedule:
10:00am – Seven Directions and R3 Artists Collective: Opening Remarks on the Process of Decolonization
10:30am – DTSU: Toronto Talks: Gentrification and the Diaspora of Regent Park
11:30am – Performance: Amai Kuda et Les Bois
11:45am – ESSU: Metaphors, Narratives, and Community Stories of Disability in Toronto
1:00pm – Lunch by Afghan Women's Catering Group
2:00pm – CARSSU: The Haitian Community and Toronto
3:00pm – Performance: R3 Artists Collective
3:15pm – WGSSU: Gender and Violence in Toronto’s Aboriginal Communities
4:15pm – Performance: TBA
4:30pm – TYPSA: Accessing Excellence in Education
5:30pm – Closing Remarks

Speakers include: Dr. Rod Michalko, Dr. Rachel Gorman, Eliza Chandler, Keren Braithwaite, Horace Henriques, Lindsay Foster, Liza Arnason, Dr. Robyn Bourgeois

DOM: After Party Info

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=312268375805&ref=ts
Have a couple drinks and unwind with music, words of resistance, dance, fun and friends after a day of education and action!

Artists include: Amai Kuda et Les Bois, Pamela Levi, and local Toronto DJs!!!

When: 8:00pm - 1:00am
Where: Hart House Arbor Room
Featuring artists and performers from GTA

--------------

Co-hosted by the Equity Studies Student Union, Caribbean Studies Student Union, Diaspora & Transnational Student Union, Women & Gender Studies Student Union, the Transitional Year Program Student Association, R3 Artists Collective, Moyo Wa Africa, Seven Directions and Night at the Indies

***Lunch and Refreshments will be provided***
***Both the event and after party are accessible***
***There will be ASL interpreters present***

I want your ugly

Last week I went to a Homo fundraiser for Haiti, and had the extreme pleasure (!!) of seeing Lucas Silveira perform Lady Gaga's Bad Romance. This hotness made my month!

Will Munro

(above from his 2005 Blank Generation show - Black Fag – Henry Rollins vs. Vaginal Cream Davis)

Will Munro upcoming show at paul petro gallery
Inside The Solar Temple
February 26 - March 27

Angela Davis at U of T!

Angela Davis is known internationally for her ongoing work to combat all forms of oppression in the U.S. and abroad. Over the years, as a student, teacher, writer, scholar, activist and organizer -- and even prisoner -- she has become a living witness to the historical struggles of two generations of American life. In 1969, Angela Davis came to national attention after being removed from her teaching position at UCLA as a result of her social activism and her membership in the Communist Party. In 1970 she was placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List on false charges, and was the subject of an intense police search that drove her underground -- culminated in one of the most famous trials in recent American history. During her sixteen-month incarceration, a massive international "Free Angela Davis" campaign was organized, leading to her acquittal in 1972.

During the last twenty-five years, Prof. Davis has lectured in all of the fifty United States, as well as in Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and the former Soviet Union. She is the author of five books, including the campus classics Angela Davis: An Autobiography and Women, Race & Class; her other books include Blues Legacies and Black Feminism and The Angela Y. Davis Reader. Her articles and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies.

Currently, Davis is a tenured professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her long-standing commitment to prisoners' rights dates back to her involvement in the campaign to free the Soledad Brothers, which led to her own arrest and imprisonment. Today, she remains an advocate of prison abolition and has developed a powerful critique of racism in the criminal justice system. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Prison Activist Resource Center, and is working on a comparative study of women's imprisonment in the US, the Netherlands, and Cuba.

This is your chance to hear a great speaker and have the opportunity to ask her questions at the end of her presentation.

Tickets
$12.50 student (valid Student ID required)
$17.50 non-student

Group Rates
(available in advance, by phone or in person)
$7.50 groups of 15 or more

Prices increase by $5 at the door, on the night of the event.

general admission

Tickets available at : http://www.uofttix.ca/view.php?id=589

Tickets are also available at the U.T.S.U office (12 Hart House Circle).

Date:
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Time:
6:30pm - 9:30pm
Location:
Bloor Cinema
Street:
506 Bloor Street West
City/Town:
Toronto, ON

Soheila Tavallaei - new drawings SAVAC Member's Solo Exhibition

Tavallaei’s ink drawings explore ideas of censorship and entrapment and courage and defiance as she draws inspiration from protests and movements of dissent that take place around the world. Please join us for the opening reception of SAVAC member artist Soheila Tavallaei's new work, and meet fellow members and friends from the SAVAC community.

Opens:Thursday, January 7, 2010 at 10:00am
Ends: January 30, 2010 at 5:00pm
Location: VMAC Gallery
401 Richmond St. W
Toronto, ON