Pull up a chair for Coffee, Some Tea, and GKB.

Allyship is not proved by making room for Black people to speak, but by what happens after the truth has been heard. By Carla Rodney Back in 2022, I shared a short passage from the City of Toronto’s Black Mental Health page. It distinguished advocacy from allyship. Advocacy, it said, is standing up for people who cannot stand up for themselves; allyship is making room and space for people to stand up for themselves. At the time, something about that distinction stood out to m

I was sitting with Dorothy Roberts’s Killing the Black Body when a question came to me: what if Dorothy Roberts were a class? Not a guest lecture. Not one assigned chapter tucked into a week on race. Not a brief appearance in a course whose central assumptions remain untouched. What if her body of work formed the foundation of an entire course? I began imagining that course because Roberts’s books do more than address several important subjects. Read together, four of them fo

My withdrawal from a PhD at U of T wasn’t sudden. It followed months of small denials,shifting rules, delayed responses, and inconsistent policies that formed a pattern of institutional betrayal. Leaving was self-preservation and a call for accountability, for me and for others facing similar barriers. If you’re navigating disability, caregiving, or moving goalposts, you’re not alone. Find resources and community at Grandma Knows Best. Mental health matters, and boundaries ar

Why is it that when older women struggle, we are so easily overlooked? Why do our challenges seem to disappear into the background, seen as less urgent or important? As I faced eviction due to financial hardship, while grieving losses and navigating a global pandemic, I was left wondering why the University of Toronto—an institution I once trusted—saw my struggles as invisible. It felt as though I was expected to be endlessly resilient, pushing through obstacles without quest