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Hi, I’m Justine!
I’m a Filipina-Canadian woman who resides on stolen land in Turtle Island, a place largely built by enslaved Africans who were themselves stolen from their own homelands and who continue to be brutalized and murdered under an oppressive system that systemically marginalizes various communities.
I created this newsletter as a way to share my (un)learning journey as I move towards inventing a more equitable future. I’ve developed my 3DR approach – decolonize, disrupt, dismantle, and rebuild – as a framework to guide me in creating the change I want to see both in myself and in the world around me.
Why subscribe?
If you’re on your own journey towards building a more equitable world and looking for more resources to move you along, subscribe and join me. If you’re on this journey and in need of a friend who’s going through it too - triumphs, missteps, and all – subscribe and join me.
Every month or so, I’ll be sharing what’s on my mind in regards to anti-oppression and equity while also providing resources that I’ve developed myself or by others that I’ve found helpful and valuable!
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Learn more about me
Want to learn more about me? Browse around my website or follow me across socials at @justineabigail.
MY 3DR APPROACH
DECOLONIZE
As a woman who was born in the Philippines – a country first colonized by the Spaniards then by the Americans – and who then migrated to Canada, a land stolen and colonized by the British, I have absorbed the colonial supremacist mentality and upheld it throughout my life. This internal work of is the first and most necessary step to creating change.
DISRUPT
Change does not happen overnight. It happens through ongoing and intentional acts of resistance. Whether that is speaking up when injustice presents itself at family dinner or aligning with a business that is shaking up an industry’s problematic standards of practice, there are many different ways we can act to disrupt systems of oppression.
DISMANTLE
Dismantling systems of oppression means moving beyond individual biases and interpersonal conflicts and addressing systemic issues – that is, the practices, policies, and norms that reinforce or perpetuate inequity for specific groups of people. This means moving beyond calls for representation and inclusivity, and towards structural change.
REBUILD
As Audre Lorde so powerfully wrote, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”
We need new tools, new systems, new frameworks, new modes of being to be able to fully realize the change that we want.
We must reimagine, rebuild, and invent equitable futures for our world.