Many news organizations have reported on the Israel-Gaza war. However, many journalists have criticized those same media organizations for how they have covered the conflict, and have spoken out against what they say is a stifling of Palestinian voices and perspectives. In today's episode, Vinita talks to Sonya Fatah and Asmaa Malik, associate professors of journalism at Toronto Metropolitan University whose research focuses on newsroom culture, global reporting practices and equity in journalism. They argue that these press freedom concerns go far beyond Gaza.

Around the world, people are being forced to leave their homes in droves.  We are seeing it happen in Gaza, as Israeli forces continue to wage war. And in Sudan, which has also been wracked by war.  Then there are the people fleeing political or economic strife - like those living in Haiti, or Venezuela.  Canada has various refugee programs designed to take in those seeking asylum from what's happening in their home countries.  But the problem is, they weren't all created equal.  In today's episode, Vinita talks to Christina Clark-Kazak, professor of public and international affairs at the University of Ottawa.  Clark-Kazak says Canada's refugee system has always been politicized - but never more so than now.

The release of Beyoncé’s new album, Cowboy Carter, was a much awaited event for a lot of us. There was much anticipation about this being a country album — and  a lot of talk about the resistance some radio stations had and still have to that idea. That’s because country music is considered  "white music," even though its Black historical roots  are well documented. But Cowboy Carter is about so much more than country music. It honours other Black musical legends — and challenges the segregation we still see and hear in the music industry today.  Vinita is joined by two experts to talk about it all. Alexis McGee is an Assistant Professor of Writing Studies at the University of British Columbia and author of "From Blues to Beyoncé: A Century of Black Women’s Generational Sonic Rhetorics." And Jada Watson is Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities at the School of Information Studies at the University of Ottawa. Her current research, called SongData, uses music industry data to examine representation in the country music industry.

In today's episode, we're continuing the conversation we started last week about using forced famine as a tool to control land, resources and people.  For centuries, starvation has been effectively used by colonial powers to control populations, to acquire land and the wealth that comes with that.  Today, we’re looking at the decimation of Indigenous populations in the Plains of North America –.  and the 1943 famine that took three million lives in Bengal, India, which was then under British rule. These are two vastly different populations that were devastated by a complex set of factors. But both populations had a few things in common: they were thriving with healthy and wealthy communities. And although disease and famine existed before the arrival of Europeans, it cannot be denied colonial powers accelerated and even capitalized on chronic famine and the loss of life due to disease and malnutrition. Through these two examples, Vinita looks at how starvation has been used as a tool in the colonial "playbook." She is joined by James Daschuk, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Health Studies at the University of Regina and the author of Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation and the Loss of Aboriginal Life. And Janam Mukherjee is an Associate Professor of History at Toronto Metropolitan University, and the author of Hungry Bengal: War, Famine and the End of Empire. 

On Monday, the European Union's foreign policy chief accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war and provoking famine in Gaza.  They were some of the strongest words against Israel we have heard from a western power about the situation in Gaza since October.  They come on the heels of a UN-backed report that warns that more than one million people — half of Gaza’s population — face catastrophic starvation conditions. The report goes on to say that without an immediate ceasefire and a major influx of food and to areas cut off by fighting, famine and mass death in Gaza are imminent. Scholars of famine say this is, in fact, the worst food deprivation they have observed in war time since the Second World War. And according to international law, intentional starvation of a population is a war crime. In this episode, Vinita breaks down the use of hunger as a tool of war in Gaza with Hilal Elver, former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food and research professor of Global Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara.

On Sunday, nine years after #OscarsSoWhite, millions of us tuned in to the 96th annual Academy Awards — some to simply take in the spectacle. And some to see how much had changed.

The hashtag #OscarsSoWhite started after many people noticed that, for a second year in a row, all nominees for four of five major categories were white. The movement called on Hollywood to do better: to better reflect America’s demographic realities and also to expand its  depiction of our histories.

The reason: representation in Hollywood matters. What gets put on screens and by whom has reverberating impacts on how all of us see each other and see ourselves.

So .... how did the Oscars do this year? And how is the entertainment industry in general faring when it comes to diversity and inclusion?

It's a mixed bag. Despite some recent wins, a report from Telefilm Canada revealed that Black women have the least representation in TV and film. They also lead the fewest projects and receive the least funding overall.

In today's episode, Vinita breaks down the progress made and the challenges still present especially for women of colour. She is joined by Naila Keleta-Mae, the Canada Research Chair in Race, Gender and Performance and associate professor of communication arts at the University of Waterloo and Mariah Inger, an actor and director and chair of ACTRA National’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging Committee.

Monk is the lead character of the new movie "American Fiction," which is based on the 2001 novel "Erasure" by Percival Everett. Monk is a Black man but never feels 'Black' enough: he graduated from Harvard, his siblings are doctors, he doesn't play basketball and he writes literary novels.  In fact, his last novel got rejected for not being "Black enough."  As a Black man who thinks about race but also rages against having to talk about it, Monk gets so frustrated that he decides to poke fun of those who uncritically consume what has been sold to them as  "Black culture." He uses a pen name to write an outlandish "Black" book of his own - a story about "thug life" called "My Pafology."  But plot twist: the book becomes wildly popular - and Monk ends up profiting from the stereotypes he so despises. The story has so many layers, and in this last episode of Season 6, Vinita breaks it down with  two scholars who are well versed in Percival Everett's work - and the use of Black stereotypes in pop culture. Vershawn Ashanti Young is the director of Black studies  at the University of Waterloo. And Anthony Stewart is a professor of English at Bucknell University.

In this episode which we're running in full, host Gemma Ware speaks with Doseline Kiguru, a research associate in cultural and literary production in Africa at the University of Bristol in the UK, who has co-published research on the history of choral music and the role it plays in Kenyan national political culture. The episode originally aired on Dec. 11. 

Kenya is marking 60 years since its independence from British colonial rule on December 12, 1963. Each year, the country celebrates the occasion with a national holiday, Jamhuri Day. And for much of the past 60 years, patriotic choral music has been a regular feature of those celebrations. In this episode, Gemma and Doseline explore how much one song can tell you about the politics of a new nation -- and who controls what gets remembered and what gets forgotten. 

You can listen to or follow TC Weekly on Apple Podcasts, Spotify YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Further reading:

• All episodes of TC Weekly

Further Research:

Kenya's 'patriotic' choral music has been used to embed a skewed version of history

Kenya at 60: the shameful truth about British colonial abuse and how it was covered up

You may have noticed that food bank lines have grown exponentially this year.  In Toronto alone, the number of people who use food banks has doubled since last year and nationwide, the numbers using food banks have jumped by 32 percent from last year and 78 per cent since 2019.  And those who are lining up for food defy the stereotypes: many, for example, are employed full-time. In other words, we are in the middle of a major food insecurity crisis.  And as we head into this holiday season - traditionally a time for giving and sharing and gathering around food - there is no better time to talk about this and help us understand what we as individuals can do to help. According to the latest Statistics Canada data, almost one in five households experiences food insecurity. Single-mother households are especially affected, as are some racialized homes. Black and Indigenous people face the highest rates of food insecurity, with over 46 per cent of Black children and 40 per cent of Indigenous children living in households that don’t have a reliable source of food.

But for years, advocates have been saying that more food banks is not the answer.  So what is?  In today's episode, Vinita sits down with Elaine Power, a Professor in Health Studies at Queen’s University whose research focuses on issues related to poverty, class, food and health.  She is also the coauthor of  "The Case for Basic Income: Freedom, Security, Justice." Prof. Power says reducing food insecurity requires our political and business leaders to address the root causes – including the ability of household incomes to meet basic needs.  Some of those solutions won't happen overnight, so she also has tips for individuals looking to make a difference now.