Please Never Assume I Can Access Care Like Skinny White Straight Abled Canadian Women
For as long as I have lived on this side of the Turtle Island border, Americans have waxed poetic about universal healthcare in Canada, but I moved from Trinidad in 1999, and have yet to experience such access to care. If white, this is where someone usually says they will hold your hand as they say this, but the thought of doing that only makes me want to go back in time to try to retrieve all my wasted spoons from useless handholding with colonizers who abandoned me, rather than confront their utter discomfort with me pointing out their ongoing complicity with my oppression!🔥
The summer after I turned 16 was when I first entered the medical-industrial complex as an employee in the role of dietary aide at Etobicoke General Hospital. Back then, I was extremely pleased to be earning double the hourly wage of my teenage peers, especially as I looked forward to beginning undergraduate studies at York University in the fall. Although I was not thrilled by some of the duties of that summer job, which included shifts in the sweltering dishroom, whereby I was responsible for scraping gross hardened food remnants off the plates, back then, I still believed that if only I worked hard enough on a consistent basis, I could achieve success on Turtle Island.
Unfortunately, in the quarter-century since I was that naïve fat brown queer disabled immigrant young woman, I have been subjected to such inherently ableist white supremacist workplace trauma between the medical-industrial complex and the academic-industrial complex that it can be hard to even risk the possibility of further harm by seeking any care from new potentially oppressive service providers. Since my early experiences as a hospital employee for Etobicoke General Hospital, Peel Memorial Hospital, and Brampton Civic Hospital, were more positive than negative, I was unprepared for how differently I would be treated following completion of my Master’s degree in Social Work (MSW) from the University of Windsor.
While I had experienced some targeting in those early hospital roles of dietary aide and ward clerk, it was in stark contrast to how violently my very existence would be threatened when employed as a registered social worker, committed to anti-oppressive practice, which must always include challenging white supremacy and ableism to actually operationalize "anti-oppressive practice."
The first job offer I ever accepted as a social worker was for a position in the small white city of North Bay, which was about an 8-hour long drive from where I attended graduate school, but, “Beggars could not be choosers” was what I told myself as I made that move from Windsor. Although I had a graduate degree, I was hired in a part-time role, while 2 white social workers with only undergraduate degrees were selected for the full-time positions. In that Discharge Planning department which operated much like a cult from what I experienced there, I would be subjected to my first example of inherently ableist white supremacist workplace harassment as a social worker, by a fellow social worker, as she even disrupted her vacation plans to demand a meeting with me after hearing that I was not as sanguine as she had hoped when asked how I was enjoying my new role. Having embarked on a joint orientation with the 2 white BSW practitioners in the full-time roles, for which, I had initially applied, I met countless allied health professionals over those 1st few weeks. Each and every single one expressed surprise over how I had 7+ years of hospital experience and a graduate degree but was the part-time hire while the younger white social worker with an undergraduate degree and no hospital experience had been hired full-time, which was extremely demoralizing! Nonetheless, whenever I was asked how I was enjoying my new job, whether it was by a physiotherapist, or an occupational therapist, I would intentionally tone down my festering frustration to take a deep breath, smile, and calmly reply, “It is quite a bit different from what I had expected.”
Somehow, even my attempt at a palatable response to all these white coworkers had proven futile, as it instead sparked a wretched wrath from that unethical white social work manager, who proudly, adamantly, considered herself a white ally to the likes of my brown ass! That imagined solidarity must have been why she asked in my job interview if I might take a part-time position over the full-time roles for which I had actually applied, as even those letters after my name could not remotely compare to the white skin of others. It must have been an act of white allyship to demand a meeting with me, in which I was asked if I was not happy in the department, as she noted that she would hate for such unhappiness to impact my ability to do my job, as she reminded me that I was still on probation! I remember sitting there, in that meeting, feeling violated, but knowing I had a lease in that cold white city, and too much student debt, yet no safety nets like most peers who could turn to their parents! Instead, I made up an excuse about how having skipped 3 grades in high school sometimes means that I struggle when not feeling as confident as hoped in a new role, and maybe that was what had come across as unhappiness, when I just needed time to settle in. I remember calling my union after I had regained a tiny bit of my composure, and learning that I could be let go during probation without a reason, and then learning the white grievance officer was related to the very social work manager currently targeting me!
I share these atrocious examples of inherently ableist white supremacist workplace trauma that I suffered from the very first job I accepted as a registered social worker, because unlike the white colleague who would also fail to demonstrate any remote semblance of allyship while I was being forced out of the North Durham Family Health Team 7+ years later, I have never had her option “of being neutral like Switzerland!” In fact, that white woman even had the audacity to tell me she actually envied me because I would win big in a lawsuit and never have to work a day in my life ever again! Maybe technically, she was right, as I have increasingly lost my ability to obtain and maintain employment through such trauma, which impacts my capacity to access the medical-industrial complex given how I now associate it with the risk of further harm that may exacerbate already debilitating disability-related challenges that limit my quality of life, but I suspect that was not what she had envisioned when she had imagined some bright future for me through her ill-informed inherently white supremacist capitalist settler-colonialist lens though. Those dehumanizing experiences of being deemed disposable by privileged “professionals” in the medical-industrial complex over the last 25 years is why I struggle to even attempt to access that mythical universal heathcare in Canada that Americans are often telling me exists over here.
Unfortunately, despite never coming out of quarantine since March 2020, I had contracted COVID-19 by December 2022, (likely during a public transit commute with unmasked folx to access my trauma-informed chiropractic treatment). It happened just after I learnt that my iron levels were as bad as my white friend's following childbirth, for which, she had required blood transfusions, so I entered 2023, facing more challenges with migraine, sleep, etc., which wrecked havoc on executive functioning in the aftermath of white supremacist trauma from "an equity office" at Canada's largest university. Given how working with white editors to publish a story that had been killed by another outlet felt as if it had broken me by February, I was trying to be more intentional about which editors I subjected myself to, especially for stories that hit closer to home for me, in comparison to more privileged writers. As I struggled to get back to freelancing fulltime, while actively working to address my low iron levels with a daily liquid supplement that single remaining close white grad school friend continues to purchase and have delivered to me every month as mutual aid, I read an article about the work of Professor Rachel Goode, a Black social worker and researcher who had navigated an eating disorder herself, which inspired the research she continues to do.
Having had a few positive experiences with Prism, a BIPOC-led newsroom, I reached out to an editor I had worked well with before to pitch a story about how BIPOC folx may slip through the cracks of eating disorders screening given how this 2021 research study had noted that "eating disorders (EDs) are often stereotyped as affecting the SWAG, that is, as affecting mostly skinny, white, affluent girls." 7 months later, my 1st longform story would be published, for which, I remain grateful to Professor Sabrina Strings, Da’Shaun Harrison, Karen Washington, Patrilie Hernandez, Professor Tara Maudrie, and Professor Rachel Goode for sharing their insights with me, as covering that story led me to grasp the disordered eating patterns I had developed while surviving Access Intimacy Abuse., (given how my ex's financial abuse of $183,364+ over 6.5 years before discovering his wedding registry by the time he had married another), which contributed to food insecurity, and was not remotely helped by decades of Ava's anti-fat insults, which is how she weaponized her training as a dietician against a firstborn daughter whose original sin was the audacity to resemble her most hated youngest sister.
Thankfully, my 1st longform story also made me aware of Project HEAL's virtual Body Reborn Community Care program for BIPOC folx, and since that organization had shared my story on social media, I noted that when applying, as I highlighted that borders are humanmade and definitely not by BIPOC folx, as I crossed every single body part imaginable, desperately hoping that those assessing my eligibility for the program would think critically about access.
By April 2024, I was accepted into Project HEAL's Body Reborn Community Care program, which would finally provide me with the care I needed, so please never assume I can access care like skinny white straight abled Canadian women because this fat brown queer disabled immigrant woman had to rely on an American program for such support following rampant trauma here."
As you have likely grasped by now, I am intimately familiar with how rigged these inherently white supremacist settler-colonialist ableist systems remain against my beloved BIPOC LGBTQIA+ disabled communities, based on both my lived experience, and professional expertise. As discussed in Remembering Poet, Renée Nicole Good, finding my power in fascist times means connecting the state-sanctioned violence that killed her with the Disability Justice work I have done for decades, which includes the 9th principle of Collective Access:
If interested in learning about the Disability Justice framework of 10 principles Sins Invalid developed in 2005 that would address fascism, I invite you to attend my 1st free/donations-welcome virtual Disability Justice 101 Workshop for 2026, which is scheduled for 7-9pm EST on Saturday, January 31, 2026, in honour of beloved disabled ancestors like Alice Wong, Patty Berne, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Shafiqah Hudson, Stacey Park Milbern, Ki'tay D. Davidson, Ruby Goorahoo, Audre Lorde, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, etc.
From February 2026, DJ workshops will initially be made available to paid monthly Ko-fi subscribers, so please consider supporting my DJ work here.
If new to my virtual spaces, I give registrants the 1st 5 minutes to arrive before starting, but generally continue to let folx in until the end. Usually, materials are emailed at least a day before, should advance access aid with feeling comfortable to participate. Attendees are welcome to engage on their own terms, i.e., with no implicit expectation of being on camera, communicating verbally or in the chat, etc. Around the halfway point, a 15-minute-long break is facilitated, after which participants are invited to explore a writing prompt during designated quiet time of 10-20 minutes, depending on preferences. Once the timer ends, participants are invited to share what they wrote or discuss how the process went for them, based on capacity, comfort, interest, vibes, etc. Throughout the workshop, my approach is consent-based, i.e., folx are encouraged to read slides, share feedback, etc., and only those who volunteer to do so are invited to engage further, as there is no pressure to participate beyond one's capacity.
If able to contribute to my survival following my ex's financial abuse of at least $183,364, which further disabled me, alongside white supremacist workplace trauma, e-transfers within "Canada" may be sent to krystaljagoo@gmail.com and funds may be sent via PayPal below, so please consider supporting me! 🙏🏾
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