Anti or Not?

Words matter and how we use them causes confusion.  I was struck by how this works after recently finishing the book, How to Be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X Kendi. It made a much deeper impression than Robin Diangelo’s White Fragility. What both deal with at length is denial, something that Canadians as well as Americans must come to terms with, both in their roles as settlers who felt they had the right to steal lands inhabited for thousands of years by first nations people. While slavery is not as large a part of our history as that of our neighbors to the south, we are not innocent in systemic racism in Canada.  Kendi’s book helps us cut through our denial.

 Kendi, an author, professor, anti-racist activist, and historian of race and discriminatory policy in America, recently assumed the position of director of the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University. His book combines his own upbringing and development as a memoire while also making clear argument about the distinction between “not a racist” and “anti-racist”.  It’s not hard to cite the example of a former president, who after delivering unsavory remarks about some citizens of Baltimore then stated he was the least racist person in the world. Our own gut reaction is to say, “Well at least I’m not a racist”.  Kendi’ book is a history of his own journey from racist to anti-racist. He says he used to be a racist most of the time. He no longer claims to be “not racist.

 What is an anti-racist?  He starts with two basic definitions:

Racist: one who is supporting a racist policy through their actions or inactions or expressing a racist idea.

Anti-racist: one who is supporting an anti-racist policy through their actions or expressing an anti-racist idea.

 Subsequent chapters take us through historical patterns. Assimilation results when one group suggests that another group is culturally inferior or behaves badly, and thus needs to be improved. Its opposite, segregation, suggests that one group will never improve and therefore should be segregated.  An anti-racist idea is that all groups are equal. He characterizes these opposites as dueling consciousnesses.

 He calls race a power construct with false historical roots, including differences in biology, In early childhood, his teacher assumed that his behaviour was bad and suggested that he should behave like an adult.  The converse is that many black adults have been treated as children unable to reach maturity. The bible starts with the notion that all are equal and then puts a curse on Ham who will forever be a slave. Ethnicity also enters the picture with notions of group characteristics.  Some bodies have been characterized as more animal-like or violent. Some group’s cultures are denigrated as not being really sophisticated. A bad individual becomes the poster child for the whole group.  Colour has created hierarchies within the groups themselves – including both blacks and whites. We ascribe divisions within class, space, gender and sexuality. Racism is always present and it is subconscious. To support his argument, Kendi relates amazing stories from his own life to illustrate it. The task for all of us is to bring it into consciousness.

 The struggle is to be fully human and also to see others as equally fully human. The focus has to be on power – not on groups of people – and on changing policy not on changing groups of people. It has to start with a recognition that we know and admit that such policies are wrong. What are policies that suggest certain groups of people are more dangerous or violent or mentally challenged than others?  How can policies that support such ideas be upended? How can pledges for diversity be replaced by policies for diversity? How can stereotypes based on one person – “black angry woman” be demolished as applied to any group?

 In a recent talk, Kendi cited the book’s chapter called “Failure” as the most important one in the book.  He says that to understand failure to remove racism is related to failed solutions and strategies – and that the cradle of these lies in failed racial ideologies.

These are not social constructs.  They are power constructs.  Current solutions offered to us when we feel bad or sad include reading a book, donating to a cause or marching a time or two.  But as soon as we do that we feel better – oscillating between feeling bad and feeling good means that generally we do nothing at all.

 It’s not a sequential march toward progress.  It’s a back and forth pattern.  It’s not saying “I’m not racist”.  It’s admitting, “I am racist and starting to act in a different way”. It’s not hearing stories and feeling sad about miserable mistreatment of others. It’s about attacking policies in any place and at any level where we have agency.  Education may help individuals but it may not affect groups.

 Resistance does work – it takes a long time, but it has to be constant and focus on ideas and policies.  There are two such policies I learned about in the morning paper that require my resistance.  An app to promote cheating is being used in a local university.  It does not recognize black faces. Whatever its merits in stopping cheating, it has to go.  A first nations community in the north is worrying that the vaccine is not on its way to them fast enough because of small population density, even though their caseload of Covid-19 is much too high.  I can send an email to a policy maker re both situations. It’s paltry as an action.  But I now know about ways to start being an anti-racist – and I can begin. Read this book.

 Postscript: I did send an email to the federal director of indigenous services, after finding him on the government website.  I was thanked for writing almost immediately and my short request to act was copied to three other persons in the department. No reply from the province on the cheating app yet.

Beyond Belief

I’m curious how people become immersed in conspiracy theories – whether in large situations like the American election – or small ones like an unwelcome change in an organization.  I was therefore pleased when the New York Times columnist tackled the subject in a recent column.  One of the benefits of the Times is its continuing support of columnists with both liberal and conservative biases.  I was thus more than casually interested in how Ross Douthat would frame this.

He first debunked the notion that the theories come solely from the supply side – social media and biased press and cable networks. It’s not the fault of a top-down power base. There is a demand from the bottom up to support an already existing belief.  He goes on to describe three mindsets that move participants in the direction of conspiracy theories that make sense.  I wish he had spent more time on the hero worship of celebrity, but perhaps he will do so in the future.

The first group he describes are the “Conspiracy Curious Normies”.  These are not diehards but people who see the lack of transparency in government and institutions all the time and wonder what’s behind the curtain of official secrecy.  The lack of detail can arouse a reasonable skepticism.  Politics, of course, encourages this. The party not in power plays the role of official opposition – seldom a loyal one - and the task is to uncover the “there there”.

The second group are the “Outsider Intellectuals”. Such persons, usually with more than a modicum of formal education, place much of their identity on questioning everything. Sometimes, of course, they get it right.  Because much of the discourse is sincere and now happens in social media, others are quick to pick it up and reinforce it. Any person has the power to gain a following in no time – as Kevin Ashton proved with his fictional consultant, Santiago Swallow and his 85,000 followers.  This is a cautionary tale relating to celebrity culture – but it also shows how the faux outside intellectual can dupe us.

The last group Douthat identifies are the “Recently Radicalized”.  To some extent they are the creatures of the pandemic.  Lockdown has had an effect in my own family where teenagers are studying online while all their parents work from home and an older grandson was hired immediately after graduating from university. Another son teaches graduate students online in Hong Kong. I’ll add myself to make ten people all functioning with their own technology at an optimal level.  How common is that? The contrast of impoverished inner city or rural families in any country is staggering. It is an invitation to mistrust authority. Added to that are unusual events – racial unrest, natural disasters and it reinforces the belief that no one is in charge – and that any who are attempting to be – those who talk about resets – are simply moving to take advantage of the situation and are out to get us.

 Douthat concludes that there is more reason here that we are willing to give credit to. The easy thing is to mock it and laugh it away. The more responsible thing is to ponder ways to rebut it.

For the first group, the conspiracy curious, Douthat suggests avoiding the media coverage and going directly to the sources.  If claims are being made in court, what are the lawyers saying to make their case?  If it is legislation, what does the proposed bill say?  If there is lack of transparency, what can be revealed and what is reasonable to withhold and redact?

For the outsider intellectuals, Douthat suggests that they take a breath and recognize that anomalies might be simple errors rather than dastardly plots.  For the recently radicalized, pandemics do create chaos and ascribing mistakes as overreaching attempts to mislead are unfair.  People do get things wrong because they are human and respond in various ways.  If it appears that no one is in charge, it might be due to complexity of the reaction rather than autocracy.

In the long run what we need to focus on is law making – not story telling.

Climate Emergency & Covid-19 - a Crisis of the Spirit

My college, Trinity at the University of Toronto, is currently initiating a Centre for Sustainability, a multi-disciplinary teaching and research facility examining the inter-relationships that the many facets of sustainability involves.  The Alumni Society recently sponsored an online seminar to present some of the issues we face.

Taking the lead was Dr. Stephen Scharper, director of the institute’s sustainability initiative and well known across the campus for his teaching and involvement in several colleges and departments. He called us into a diagnostic moment in which we have agency – a spiritual space, he says.

 It is time to question our role as a human species.  What is our purpose and what is the response we are called to make? What on earth are we doing?  First, epidemiology and ecology are both systems that focus on the common good and we need to learn more about both and how they work together.

 Second, we are no longer nomads separated by distance and lack of knowledge of one another. We live in an earth community – which makes us responsible for social, cultural, political, economic and gender health with a responsibility to work against oppression and seek justice for all. The poor are affected most.

 Third, we lead lives wherever we live with joy, love and hope. The response of our spiritual practices must relate to the natural world as our partner and we need to build new relationships with the economy, the culture and the biosphere.  Thomas Berry is always a primary source in encouraging us to “Befriend the earth” as a subject to be embraced and valued rather than an object to be exploited.

 What is required is balance.  Oikos, the Greek word used for family, property and house – the household becomes a common prefix “eco” for both economics and ecology. There needs to be a balance between them. Scharper defines the economy as “a wholly owned subsidiary of the earth”.

 We are in a position comparable to that of some Old Testament prophets who protested their summons from God by saying, “We didn’t ask to be here”. We are the ones to be here now.

 Joy Fitzgibbon, Associate Director of the Margaret MacMillan Trinity One Program followed.  She echoed the recent reports on the pandemic and agreed that the record of Canada is not great.  Decisions have been made that are both helpful and unhelpful and we need to understand more of both.  Public health tries to deal with trauma and our current situation reminds us of the trauma of the earth itself in need of healing.  Fear, denial and attempts to control are common to both. Public health does not show as much evidence of global policy as environmental protection does – though the latter is more aspirational than effective.  Fragmentation is less effective than collaboration and poor patterns of working together have a history.

Nevertheless she has hope and sees many opportunities to respond in a crisis – to learn, to embrace needs, to alter person life practices, to not waste time, to refashion society and to re-order better relationships between the human and non-human in our environment - and to admit many of the wrong things about the way we live. It’s possible to look at political and social structures and to listen to suffering through the voices of the marginalized, especially the poorest of the poor. She cites Henri Nouwen who describes being led out of the desert by someone who has been there.

 There are good examples for learning.  Among them are the Sustainable Development Goals, Access to Care, the Global Drug Facility and The Johns Hopkins site where one can monitor the progress of countries world side and track their progress in dealing with Covid-19.  In our own country we can learn from places that have done well – the Maritime provinces – and the indigenous communities which in some places has done well with the pandemic by saying the have a “deep respect for the virus”.  They also have much to teach us in their deep respect for the earth.

 Sarah Levy, a graduate of the college and a past president of its Environment Society focuses on her post-doctoral research of animals. The pandemic has reminded us we are among them and subject to all the links in the chain with no vacuums among the levels.  Pandemics are zootic and jump from animals to humans.  We have not absorbed this reality. 

While we may not have shopped at live animal markets for food, we are now living with finger pointing and racial epithets about their counties of origin. But we don’t acknowledge our own culpability in supporting factory farming, industrialized meat production and the use of immigrant farm workers, who are often housed and have been made to work in places that encourage the spread of disease. Sick animals get excluded from the food system only when there are serious outbreaks reaching our attention – like Mad Cow disease – and Canadian mink farms have recently come under scrutiny as dangerous.

 These are not just symptoms but recognition of the spiritual dimension of “The Other”. What will our new normal look like, she asks.  An opportunity is to listen to the animals, who have no voice. We have to be theirs. We love them and indulge them as pets.  But there also needs to be recognition of how they serve us – less for physical labour now than they have done throughout history – but still for food. Their suffering during brief and incarcerated lives harms them – and by extension ourselves, as fellow creatures. We could return to smaller scale farms and develop more plant based diets – helping both the animals and the environment.

 Much food for thought.

Anti-Social Media

As someone always interested in new technology, I set up a Facebook account first -then LinkedIn, then Twitter and then Instagram and Pinterest over the last twelve years.  I still visit the first from time to time and Twitter even less often, and the others hardly ever.  Distant family members draw me to the first two.  My followers are modest in number.  As places for either information or stimulation, the word for these sites that comes to mind in my personal experience is bland.  Canadians offer the odd “tut-tut” comment about life within and beyond their borders but few comments there affect my blood pressure – because, of course, I agree with them.

 I still read one newspaper on a tablet in the morning and scan the headlines of two leading American ones every day. I switch between two Canadian news networks, CNN and PBS in the evening.  Am I in a bubble?  Of course.  Do I know what is going on in other bubbles?  Only what my existing sources tell me.  I have a colleague whom I have talked to for years – who told me recently that he refuses to follow any traditional sources for his news.  He recently joined Facebook – and by linking up with his alternate news sources he now is pleased to have 2300 “friends”. While I am one of them, the algorithms never allow his posts to reach me.  It’s just as well, perhaps, since he says Facebook occasionally shuts down his account for a  few days.

 I came across an article by Charles Warzel, an opinion writer for the Washington Post, who has followed the divisions within social media for years.  He recently decided on an interesting way to experience the divided worlds firsthand. He asked two people to give him the passwords to their Facebook accounts for three weeks leading up to and immediately following the US election. He wanted them to be typical older Americans - not conspiracy theorists - who nevertheless received more news via Facebook than they did in the past.  Both had been mildly conservative but were drifting toward more progressive politics and both voted for Biden because they thought he had more capacity to reach across the aisle.

 The 62- year -old male first saw a picture of grandparents admiring the new baby. Next was a picture of Joe Biden with a For Sale sign photoshopped on top. Then an image of a Democrat wearing a tutu giving the viewer a middle finger, Then images of a dingy hospital, an inner city store with empty shelves, a politician’s palatial residence – all labeled “ SOCIALISM”.  These continued with no context and were interspersed with the usual feed items of the dogs and cooking prowess of friends.

Like many of us, this viewer joined FaceBook some years ago to keep in touch with friends. He took early retirement and when the Covid pandemic struck he found himself with even more spare time and glued to his phone. It started harmlessly but soon he found himself arguing with friends he hadn’t seen for years, whose political views now shocked him. While it started with mild expressions of disagreements and attempts to fact-check sources, he became more involved and addicted to the discourse. He discovered that the anger expressed actually scared him. Post-election claims of fraud were even more frequent and without sources. There were accusations that one should not trust fact checkers. Democrats were linked with Satan.

 The feed of the other baby boomer, a 55 year old woman, was different. She never questioned anything political and consequently had far fewer political entries. Most simply endorsed the Biden-Harris ticket.  Even so, she was distressed by the issues that were debated and the polarization expressed. While Warzel saw little of this on her news feed, she explained that she had left Facebook after it started. She shared how she felt disturbed in the same way that the male viewer was, by seeing old friends and acquaintances espousing conspiracy theories full of hate and meanness.

 Warzel came out of the experience with some learning:

• The worst part of social media is in the comments section. That’s where the infighting is most intense with no attention to content and where the vitriol flies. These are what often get shared and go viral.  Comments are not subject to either moderation or fact checking. One of his colleagues terms it the “Town Hall for Fighting”. 

• We don’t think often about the people whom we admitted into our lives as digital “friends”. At the beginning we are pleased to discover people at a distance or people we knew from past contexts, but they are acquaintances at best. We are often invited to add friends of friends – and suddenly we are part of a network of people who are communicating with us in ways we have never intended.

 Warzel quotes Joan Donovan of Harvards’s Kennedy school describing this as an “economy of engagement’.  We are giving our time and emotional energy to those on our self-created platform.  The cost in some cases may be watching our friends lose touch with reality.  This is not my personal experience of the social platforms I follow but it is easier after hearing these stories, to understand the experience of my American contemporaries.

 But in a recent experience, just through Email, I saw a similar pattern.  People in one of my communities received news that they initially responded to with shock and anger. The immediate response to shoot the messenger, and to scapegoat the perceived henchpersons was remarkable – and reinforced by the ease of sharing gut feelings.  Few perceived that this was perhaps enhanced by our being locked down in a pandemic and giving it more energy and time than we could normally afford.  When a requested public meeting online was set, and when the agenda became a different one, it was not at all unreasonable for some participants to be even more upset, but the result was very much like a social media name calling which now involved bystanders who watched members and long term friends within the community turn on one another.

 How do we recover socially in poisoned environments?  A wise counselor in that situation suggested two ways in a parting address.  He told the story of his own background of participation in a world body with thousands in attendance, where views were so deeply divided that some participants would not even attend. It affected him deeply enough that he proposed a small forum of participants from around the world to meet in person following the gathering.  

The large body met again ten years later, and the difference was palpable.  Some of those taking part in the small discussions had listened to other views with respect and realized that they could hear other perspectives without having to accept them.  The processes followed the South African one called Indaba. Indaba is an African Zulu cultural process for engaging different points of view on a shared concern. It involves listening to the stories and experiences of others and how they came to be where they are.

Over time those who participated in Indaba process became more knowledgeable of others’ views.  It did not result in a melting pot, where everyone now felt the same way. The difference was respect for the reality that we don’t all think the same way. As another wise counselor commented brightly when dealing with two strong opposing views in another situation, “Isn’t it interesting how different we are”.

 The engaging American Episcopal presiding bishop Michael Curry who recently spoke at my College’s annual Larkin-Stewart lecture, perhaps has the last word.

 “We will either live together as brother and sisters (Siblings) or we will perish together as fools – either community or chaos – the choice is ours.”

Learning through Reflection

Watching a recent video on Farnham Street, I noted the emphasis on reflection after decision making.  Shane Parrish observed that if we don’t review the choices we make after the fact, we don’t learn.  Organizations that want to make a difference have the same weakness as individuals as the story in a recent Globe and Mail reveals. When someone like the Auditor General Brenda Lysyk releases a report, it reveals we fail to learn from past experience. Ideally all organizations would have such a function as an auditor general – non partisan, independent and speaking to the wider community.  While taking a mini-sabbatical from some volunteer work, I found the report on how my province is doing in responding to the Covid-19 pandemic revealing – and thought provoking in the way organizations of all sizes operate.

 In an emergency a command structure matters. I remember one I was involved in some years ago and the number was two persons.  That made it clear and fortunately we didn’t have to add to it. Who leads? What is the meeting structure? Who takes minutes? How are decisions followed up?

 Regrettably, this emergency response got off to a bad start.  Ontario was one of the worst sites of the SARS epidemic earlier in the 21st century and recommendations from the Auditor General started in 2003. Among them was a Cabinet Committee for Emergency Management consisting of the Premier plus eight MPPs. That committee finally met for the first time in 2019 and three times in the early part of 2020 for updates and discussion. No minutes were taken. It never took the lead. Efforts instead were led by a group of 21 that expanded to 83 and ultimately to 500.  Some did not know whether they were attending with specific responsibilities or were just there.  Meetings started by teleconference with unidentified speakers or roles and only later moved to video conference.  While the Chief Medical Officer of Health was named Co-Chair, he never chaired. Minutes of decisions were not made.  Discussion, as we know, does not necessarily involve making choices.

 In most organizations changeover in leadership occurs, but often a new team has no mandate or record from the past. Emergency plans were out-dated and staff was insufficient.  To remedy that, the government hired consultants.  I know that is a pattern for trying to fix things and I’ve even been one of them. In this case it was a top of the line firm (*single sourced with no competitive bids) resulting in a billing of $1.6 million to create a plan with its first meeting in April – and another $3.2 million to plan for the opening of schools. Neither plan has ever been released There has been little coordination with municipalities.

 Lessons from the past were simply not learned. The SARS experience suggested taking early precautions even when the world was still learning about a new virus.  Though travel was clearly a source of infections, people were encouraged to go on holidays during the March break. Expertise is often disregarded. The Chief Medical Officer of Health did not exercise his full powers in a medical emergency. Masks were not required until October 2020. Instructions to local authorities were delayed and had been requested as early as May. The Ministry of Health collected data rather than Public Health. Transparency of data was identified as a problem when the CMOH did not release information until Cabinet had approved it. There was a good deal of variety in how local authorities responded, causing further confusion.

 The lessons learned were not carried out over time. The Auditor General’s department reviewed the recommendations of 2003 again in 2007, 2014 and 2017 and focused on the need for updating of contact tracing and laboratory procedures. The latter were still paper based and not integrated with public health information systems.  Good procedures for testing, tracing and isolating could have reduced the spread by 80%.  Targets – always a favorite of governments, were set – but never met, with the worst results in the largest populated areas. By the end of August 2020, Ontario had the third highest number of cases on the country and the second highest rate of deaths per 100,000.  We could have done better.

 But will we?  Rather than reflect, all the government parties have immediately become defensive when they are faced with the reality of choices made in the past.  What if, instead of defending themselves, the party in power could respond, “Yes, most of this is true, much as we don’t like to face it” rather than slamming the Auditor General. The opposition could respond, saying, “We agree and we wouldn’t necessarily have done better” rather than “We didn’t cause all these problems when we were in power in the past – it’s the current government’s fault”.  What if they  all stopped saying “It’s not US and THEM – it’s just US”?  How are WE going to do this better from now on?