Originally intended to simply focus on book reviews, over time, KaliDesautelsReads has morphed into its own entity.
I write about issues that are near to my heart, be they political, feminist, motherhood, mental health, or, as the title holds, books.
A thirty-something Canadian woman in my mid-thirties, I have been “super married” to my high school sweetheart since 2006, and together we have two crazy, clever, kind, hilarious, wonderful kids.
My first book – How Not To Blog: Finding Myself, One Post at a Time is available on Amazon (in eBook formats for you clever tech readers, and paperback for those of us who love that new book smell!)
I have tried a podcast – it’s still on Apple and Google Podcasts – but writing is where my heart is.
My life changed dramatically when my husband was diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer in 2018, and I am now a writer for a leading Canadian Cancer Non-Profit.
I am lucky enough to have a family that loves me and pushes me to be my best, even if it is outside of my cushiony comfort zone. I have a village of friends that nourish me, mentally, and spiritually.
Welcome to my thoughts. Sit down. Stay a while. Enjoy a cup of coffee!
I have found the day increasingly harder to celebrate with blind patriotism the more that I have focussed on uncovering the atrocities meted upon my Indigenous ancestors and brethren. As a Métis Canadian woman, I find the day to be rife with paradox.
I am grateful to live in a nation where I can benefit from socialized health care, (theoretically) equal access to jobs, marriage equality, the regulations as set out by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, paid parental leave, paid caregiver and disability leave, a (sort of) welcoming immigration policy, legal safe injection sites, sensible gun control laws, free(ish) education, among many other things.
But I am ashamed of Canada’s treatment of Indigenous peoples, our lack of action for the Murdered and Missing Women and Girls, or for the opioid crisis, our historic treatment of immigrants, the Japanese Internment Camps, our use of Asian and South Asian labourers to take on some of the most dangerous roles in the building of the nation, every single portion of the Indian Act, our current “green” plan that sees the Federal Government overriding Aboriginal and ecological interests to suit fiscal decisions, to name a few.
So today, while we celebrate the positives about living in this country, we need to also remember that “not being American” is not what it means to be Canadian.
We have to remember that all by ourselves we have history that needs to be shared and discussed and brought to light.
We have a reputation for being “nice”. Now we need to have a reputation for being good, honest, and just, because nice does not equal not racist, not sexist, nor equal. It just means that we hide our skeletons a bit better than some other countries.
So, once more, we mark Canada Day and may we use it to honour the parts that allow us to say Happy Canada Day, and face the parts that force us to say “or not”.
I released my first book this month. I was a contributing author in a book that is now a #1 bestseller on Amazon. I completed a long-running task at work. My blog was nominated for an award. Traffic has more than doubled to the site. My kids are home. My husband is working again and feeling better. We are able to leave our homes and try to reassemble some degree of normalcy. My daughter exceeded expectations in French, and my son is learning to do 3D animation. I was invited to attend writing seminars lead by some of the authors I respect most.
I am happy and proud and grateful for my personal life.
And yet I feel an anxiety that stems from the things that are happening around the world. I worry that I am not doing enough, that I am not teaching my kids well enough. I want them to understand their Indigenous history. I want them to understand white privilege and the racist constructs that’s have built it. I want them to be Anti-Racist. I want to teach them LGBTQIA2S history and understand how to work for equality. I want to teach them about sexism and how to dismantle the patriarchy that teaches them that my son shouldn’t cry and my daughter deserves only 75 cents on the dollar. I want to teach them what it means to defund the police. I want to teach them to stand up for themselves and for others. I want to keep them safe from COVID. I want to teach them how to be safe.
All while teaching them to love themselves and to be kids.
Is that even possible? I don’t know. I hope so, but I don’t know.
So I go outside, and I breathe. And pray to the universe that things will get better. I breathe in the sunset and remind myself that I can only control what I can in my tiny corner of the world. And even that is iffy at best.
I am tired. I really wanted to take a break, and write some fluffy fiction, then watch an episode of Supernatural while I ate my frozen cherries and coconut chunks (trust me, if you are in a hot climate, it is worth a try). I was set to just settle in and be utterly useless for an hour or two, but then? Then I noticed something that stopped me in my tracks, and got my blood pumping with anger and frustration and disappointment in the utter stupidity of people.
I am one of the lucky beta testers of a new app called Journal that allows users to save and organize anything from any site, or app, or even just out of our brains. It is pretty great, and I will certainly be mentioning it again…
Once upon a time, there was a young white-presenting Métis girl. She shared a birthday with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and felt strongly that if the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s happened now, she would have been just like Viola Liuzzo – a young white face marching the Edmund Pettus Bridge with Dr. King, the SCLC, and the SNCC kids.
This young white-presenting Métis girl did not know enough to understand that 5 hours after the March on Montgomery, Viola Liuzzo would be murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan after driving marchers to the airport.
This young white-presenting Métis girl was naive to the fact that she did not, in fact, live in a “post-racial” world. She had the privilege of not facing this.
As this young white-presenting Métis girl grew up, she harboured the sincere belief that since African-Americans (as she understood meant all black…
This post is not mine, I am sharing it because I believe strongly in Ms. Pugh’s message, and this is a way to reblog it across all of the platforms that I have to my name.
Please understand that this is me working to clean up my portion of my mess. Please read this, please sit with it, please digest it, please act on your par of our mess.
Racism is not mine, it is yours, and what you do is not called “help” when it is your mess we are cleaning.
I never use the term “White Ally” when I talk with family and friends. That’s because I detest it. Echoes a little ‘twang’ of dissonance every time it comes my way. My animus is not about…
I am so excited to have had one of my works selected for this amazing project! Thank you, Bren, for your necessary edits and help and letting me know about this!!
This EagleSpeaker Publication is a fundraiser for #BlackLivesMatter and for support to Indigenous People’s in Canada.
An anthology of works and thoughts by Canadian Indigenous writers, poets and artists, Indigenous People for BlackLivesMatter is a beautiful and raw book.
“White people tear up the contract every single day. Black bodies are looted every single day.”
If you are shaking your head over the anger and violence happening in Minneapolis today, watch this video. Ask yourself how it feels to have violence perpetrated against your every single minute that you breathe just because it can be done, and there will be no consequence.
I implore you to stop throwing your understanding of peaceful protest at every situation and remember the Dr. King was a radical. The suffragettes were radicals. Even the goddamn right wing tea party people burned Obama in effigy.
If peaceful taking a knee doesn’t make enough noise, that person is going to stand back up and escalate. Because we have escalated against black bodies, indigenous bodies, Asian bodies, brown bodies, female bodies, LGBTQ2S+ bodies for so long. Eventually, eventually the escalation comes back on us, and we…
Kali J Desautels 