By Cheryl Thompson
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Excerpt: Canada and the Blackface Atlantic: Performing Conflict in Blackface
Excerpted with permission from Canada and the Blackface Atlantic, published in April 2025 by Wilfrid Laurier Press. Thompson, a Toronto Metropolitan...
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Remembering the Harriet Tubman Youth Centre On St. Clair West
From November 1, 1972 to September 30, 1975, a Black cultural hub known as the Harriet Tubman Youth Centre operated in a building located at 15 Robina...
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How can we make Black history matter?
This piece is co-authored by Dr. Cheryl Thompson and Daysha Loppie Many statues have commemorated white historical figures in Toronto’s public spaces...
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Re-naming Yonge-Dundas Square
It’s not often that I strenuously disagree with Spacing editor Dylan Reid, but when I read “To Rename Yonge-Dundas Square, Let’s Follow the Process,” I...
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MAYOR’S RACE: Parsing the politics of Mark Saunders’ performative allyship
Toronto’s mayoral election is historic. So many candidates and so many political affiliations, identities, and experiences. Voting is going to be a...
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Black History Month: Making space for Black music in Canadian radio
By Cheryl Thompson and Francesca D’Amico-Cuthbert In 1983, Toronto radio personality Ron Nelson introduced local audiences to the program “Fantastic...
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Black History Month: Eartha Kitt’s forgotten visits to Toronto
If there is one thing I have missed more than anything else during the pandemic, it is nightlife. In 2020, at least 22 music venues, including clubs and...
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EXCERPT FROM ‘UNCLE’: Aunt Jemima in Chicago
Excerpted with permission from Uncle: Race, Nostalgia and the Politics of Loyalty, published this month by Coach House Books. Thompson, a Ryerson...
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The ‘bashment’ parties of my childhood are Black history
In 2002, reggae artist Sean Paul shot the video for his song ‘Get Busy/Like Glue,’ in Vaughan. Directed by Toronto’s own Director X, the video begins with...
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THOMPSON: What if the Caribana Carnival went back to its roots?
“The watching Torontonians didn’t cheer, didn’t wave,” reported the Toronto Daily Star on August 5, 1967, as “Caribana” left Varsity Stadium on Bloor...
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THOMPSON: Saunders’ departure won’t fix the problem of policing in Toronto
What can be said about chief Mark Saunders’ sudden departure from the Toronto Police Service (TPS)? In truth, I am neither happy nor disappointed about...
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THOMPSON: Policing the boundaries of space and race during COVID-19
When a Black person is killed by police, it feels like Black people are suddenly taking up a lot of space in Canadian media. I’ve had Canadian producers...