Thread by @doctorow

Like most Canadian kids in the 70s, I was raised on @Raffi_RC's music - I even went to see him in concert with my folks at Seneca College, near suburban Toronto neighbourhood.

And like most Canadian kids, Raffi kinda fell off my radar as I aged out of his audience.

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Years later, I learned he was the brother of @AnnCavoukian, then Ontario privacy commissioner - a visionary and principled fighter who pioneered the idea of "privacy by design." I thought, "How odd that one sib is a fighter, and the other a gentle kids' entertainer."

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And THEN I discovered Raffi on Twitter, and learned they're BOTH fighters. Raffi's Twitter is a brilliant, fiery, impassioned, hilarious running commentary on progressive politics, the climate emergency, and the terrors of the far-right resurgence.

twitter.com/Raffi_RC

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Raffi is profiled in @Jacobin for International Children's Day, in an interview in which he explains the - now obvious - connection between caring for kids and caring about justice overall.

jacobinmag.com/2020/06/raffi-…

Here are some choice quotes:

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"I was full of admiration for who I call humanity’s 'primary learners' who, at the time of their life when evolution has seen fit to give them play as their essential mode of being, they’re learning the most sophisticated human tasks of speech and language acquisition."

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"Not caring about people is not an option, because we are human. It is our nature to care. So when we envision a society, it ought to work for everyone. Because the opposite is untenable. Whose child would you leave out?"

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"We find these joys to be self evident, that all children are created whole, endowed with innate intelligence, with dignity and wonder, worthy of respect."

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Raffi has a nonprofit foundation devoted to spreading his philosophy of "Child Honoring" and even offers an online course in the subject:

raffifoundation.org/take-the-cours…

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