Huda Hassan

Huda Hassan is a writer and researcher living in Toronto. She is currently completing her PHD at the Women and Gender Studies Institute at the University of Toronto. Her work considers the meeting points of race, religion, and gender. Her writing calls upon her own experience of being a Black Muslim woman in a rapidly gentrifying city, and often, having to work in predominantly white academic spaces.
VSP chats with Huda about her favourite places in Toronto, and more specifically Scarborough ...

Friday, June 15 marks the last day of Ramadan this year, a sacred month for Muslims to fast from sunrise to sunset. Ramadan occurs on the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, once a crescent moon has been detected. Muslims worldwide, if able, practice good deeds to become a better Muslim, and abstain from pleasures, sin and food as an act to become closer to God. Ramadan has long been understood to me as a month-long opportunity to pause.
I grew up fasting. As a child, I was told I only had t...

It is nearly impossible to log onto Instagram, Twitter and Facebook without stumbling across footage of another murdered Black body. You’re met by desperate pleas, or hashtag movements urging for media and state intervention into what could be another overlooked Black death. Navigating the Internet-while-Black means continuously running into graphic reminders of the wretchedness of being Black and (almost) living.

Paradoxically, the places on the Internet that are home to the visuals of Black...

For the past five centuries being black has meant collectively experiencing grief in ways that the rest of society does not understand and cannot fully comprehend.

Dangers of stereotypes in pop culture

Join us for a screening of Raoul Peck's evocative documentary I Am Not Your Negro, followed by a panel discussion moderated by TIFF Artistic Director, Cameron Bailey. The panel will feature Juno Award–Winning rapper and songwriter Shad Kabango, Canada’s Poet Laureate George Elliott Clarke, and journalist, cultural commentator, and PhD student Huda Hassan.

Let’s say we’ve just met at a cocktail party. How would you describe, in a nutshell, what you do?
I’m a writer, doctoral student and an activist. My work intervenes gender and race.
Where did you go to school and what did you study?
I’m technically still a student! I’m a PhD student at the Women and Gender Studies Institute at University of Toronto. I did my undergrad at University of Toronto, where I studied philosophy, African studies, and political science. I also completed a Masters in Hu...

Who taught you femininity? How do you know femininity? Who called it femininity? Were they femininity? How do you know femininity? What do you call femininity? What is femininity?
These are some of the questions that Kim Ninkuru, a multimedia artist who focuses on movement-based performance and visual-digital art—compels viewers to consider through her work. Currently based in Toronto, but previously from Montreal, Ninkuru is a Black woman of trans experience who often exhibits her art on Ins...

Today marks the end of Black History Month, an annual occurrence that prompts attempts to explore the stories, histories and lives of Black people through efforts that are often short-lived—and often insincere. Black History Month (BHM) is a time for institutions, such as schools, governments and media outlets, to force an interest in the lives of Black people, despite ignoring our existence the rest of the year. For many Black people, it is a month where we tolerate performative BHM content:...

A new video has emerged of Victoria’s Secret models rapping the lyrics to Cardi B’s “Bodak Yellow” backstage during the recent VS show in Shangai—including her usage of the “n-word.”

The video first appeared on Karlie Koss’s blog, showing several models dressed in pink robes backstage, gleefully reciting the lyric “I don’t wanna choose / And I’m quick, cut a n—a off, so don’t get comfortable.” According to Jezebel, the line in which they actually use the n-word appeared in the Kloss’s origina...

http://www.sophomoremag.com/a-woman-s...

Meet Ruchika Gothoskar, Sandy Hudson, Kai Cheng Thom, Huda Hassan, Lina Assi, Nadia Abdel Halim, Farrah Khan, Sarain Fox, and Denise Balkissoon: women leading, organizing, and rallying the fight against oppressive power structures.

Named after Audre Lorde’s poem “A Woman Speaks”, Team Sophomore met with nine writers, artists, researchers, journalists, educators, and counselors behind the movements that have shaped today and continue to shape the future...

In Mychal Denzel Smith's memoir, young black identi...

Trust No Aunty: Maria Qamar has the aunt-idote f...

Banning Shisha In Toronto Is About A Lot More Than ...

On Saturday, Drake buried his long-time friend Anthony “Fif” Soares, who was gunned down earlier this month just east of Toronto, in Scarborough, Ont. While the tragedy required the famed rapper to become a pallbearer, Toronto Police Services (TPS) want him to also take on the role of an anti-violence activist and aid to the ongoing murder investigation—a request that reveals that even at the height of his fame, Drake is still susceptible to the unfair expectation of a moral duty to a city th...