Tag: Black

Being Black in Canada

Live from the 3.5, 2019 — Intro — Being Black in Canada (Featured Image)

Last updated on February 18th, 2022 at 10:56 pm

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

Black culture is unique—one of the few cultures thrust upon a people and not developed by them. A Jamaican is not a Gambian is not an Australian Aborigine. We’ve got tribes within tribes and languages within languages but somehow lumped together by the colour of our skin.

And we’ve made the best of it. From Canada’s first Negro History Week in 1926 to officially recognising Black History Month in 1995 thanks to the help of the Honourable Jean Augustine, we’ve celebrated our Blackness and looked to remind the world that we’re not just one thing.

But it hasn’t been easy, with “Black Canadian” conjuring up images of The Weeknd or Drake and not so much Cameron Bailey or Michaëlle Jean. You hear about Black Canadians on February 1st, but where do they go for the rest of the year?

And that’s why I’m here working on Live from the 3.5—because if we don’t invest the time to own our stories, who will?

CONTINUE READING to find out what we’re doing for this year’s Black History Month! “Being Black in Canada”

Drekken Pownz & Jemmie Robles | Be Fabulous

Chatting with Casey 0006 — Everybody Wants to be Fabulous (Featured Image)

Last updated on April 21st, 2021 at 09:24 pm

And then sometimes you need to take a step back and handle your ish.

Chatting with Casey 0006—Everybody Wants to be Fabulous—Casey Palmer, June 2018

With Father’s Day come and gone for 2018, I was finally free to take stock of everything going on in the rest of my life, and it was a mess. A to-do list 270 items deep. Friends and family whose voices I hadn’t heard in months. Things were hectic, and I quickly remembered I couldn’t be a good husband, father, son, brother, friend, employee, churchgoer and content creator all at the same time.

So I took the time to handle a few things and while they’re still far from perfect, being able to find some time to get back to the podcast’s always okay by me!

But enough with the preamble—let me tell you why episode six is so good.

CONTINUE READING about Chatting with Casey episode 6! It’s GREAT. “Drekken Pownz & Jemmie Robles | Be Fabulous”

Brown Girl Begins

Brown Girl Begins — Telling Stories of Colour Sans Stereotypes (Featured Image)

Last updated on April 14th, 2021 at 01:01 am

A few days back, CaribbeanTales invited me to see the theatrical release of Brown Girl Begins — the first Caribbean-Canadian sci-fi feature film! Starring Mouna Traoré as the lead heroine Ti-Jeanne, it was a refreshing take on the genre that had me reflect on some things. Check out the review, then go see the film!

A Brown Girl Begins Movie Review

This is more than just a movie review.

Brown Girl Begins—Telling Stories of Colour Sans Stereotypes—Shakura S'Aida as Mami

CaribbeanTales couldn’t have known I was in the middle of deeply searching for a great connection to my roots when they reached out to collaborate. It’s a dope time for content creators who look like us with Jordan Peele’s 2017 horror smash Get Out taking home an Oscar and 2018’s Black Panther smashing every record the world can toss at it, but we can still do more.

Black culture has long challenged anyone who dares try to keep it in a box. Most of what the world calls “Black culture” is culture reshaped and repackaged for public consumption. Hip-hop. Television. Fashion. It all reached a tipping point where Black culture met bold couture, and suddenly we found ourselves without identifiers accurately representing us anymore.

Or at least—that’s the narrative some would have us believe.

CONTINUE READING about Brown Girl Behgins and everything I took away from the experience! “Brown Girl Begins”

February’s Over, But We’re STILL BLACK.

Live from the 3.5 — February's Over, But We're STILL BLACK. (Featured Image)

Last updated on April 4th, 2021 at 10:59 am

When you’re a one-man operation trying to put out a series for Black History Month, there are some things you might not want to do with your February, like:

  1. Hit up a Dad Summit in New Orleans to make dozens of new friends and better understand all the possible ways to be a great Dad,
  2. Take a trip out to Kelowna, BC to keynote a parenting conference and change others’ thinking on what fatherhood means in 2018, and
  3. Think it’s a good idea to take on such an ambitious creative project when it’s the financial year-end at your 9-5… and you’re in charge of keeping the numbers balanced.

But for those of you keeping score at home, that was my situation exactly this February, and though I got a bit of content out in its last few days, there was still so much I could do to move the needle.

Because after all—we’d danced this dance before. The dance we danced every February, schedules packed with dinners, discussions and dialogues as we revel in the attention everyone’s giving us… but what then? What happens when Black History Month’s over and we’re back to our regular lives, the Black Canadian narrative nothing more than a side note to everything else going on? I’m sorry, but as a Black Canadian myself, I’m still Black full-time well after February ends. I’ll celebrate other aspects of who I am as the year goes on from fatherhood to masculinity and back… but what says I should hold back from celebrating my Blackness just because it’s not the month where everyone else is doing it too?

And that’s why I’m thinking… maybe it’s time I tell some Black Canadian stories beyond the work I do each February.

CONTINUE READING about what I’ve learned from this year’s Black History Month AND what I’m going to DO about it. “February’s Over, But We’re STILL BLACK.”

The Chocolate Babies in: It’s Bedtime Now

Quick Clips with Case P #0002 — Beleaf in Fatherhood and the Case for Positive Black Representation (Featured Image)

Last updated on March 10th, 2021 at 09:48 am

So a lot happened at the Dad 2.0 Summit. I made new friends. Finally met up with old ones. And on top of that, I got to meet men I idolised without even realising I was doing it, like Beleaf Melanin and his beautiful family, half of which were there with him at the summit itself!

We exchanged info and became Facebook friends… and if it wasn’t for that, I’m not sure I would’ve been there for what came next.

Quick Clips with Case P #0002—Beleaf in Fatherhood and the Case for Positive Black Representation—It's Bedtime Now (Cover)

See, Beleaf Melanin, the rapper-turned-father-turned-prolific creator behind Beleaf in Fatherhood’s video content… he published a book. And I don’t mean an ebook or some YouTuber tell-all at a publisher’s request… he self-published an honest-to-goodness hardcover children’s book: The Chocolate Babies in: It’s Bedtime Now, featuring himself and his family as the characters within.

CONTINUE READING about Beleaf Melanin’s new endeavour and why I stand by it! “The Chocolate Babies in: It’s Bedtime Now”
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