We're all racists, recovering or not

We don’t like to admit it, but racism is alive and well in Canada. 

When the prime minister of Canada is caught in photos wearing brown- and blackface makeup, the issue gets attention. 

Few believe he had any ill-intent, but at the very least, it displayed his deep-rooted ignorance at the time. 

In fact, it revealed a lack of understanding in many of us. I only learned about the underlying issues of wearing blackface recently. I thought it was an American problem specific to the African-American experience. In part, this is true, but as I’ve learned it’s much bigger (again, forgive my ignorance). 

We could probably all find moments in our past where we exhibited racist behaviour. It may not have been blatant but would be embarrassing if caught on camera today. In high school I recall acting as stereotypical ethnic minorities in skits. I meant no ill-intent, but would never do it now. 

It’s those public events that are the most damning, as Justin Trudeau would attest. But what about those private acts of racism? The subtle ones that never get revealed? 

What about those times we’ve walked on the other side of the street to avoid a certain person? Or passed up a candidate for a job or public office because they weren’t quite like us? 

These actions speak to the systemic racism in our society and are far more insidious. Racism gains its power through the control of institutions, and for the longest time in history, it’s been controlled by whites. There’s a reason why visible minorities can feel like they’re fighting an uphill battle. 

 It’s probably true that for every inaction as a white person, I need to make up for it with a positive action to combat years of racist history. But I would argue we should be evaluated for the positive change we make today.  

Trudeau is not faultless, but I would be hard-pressed to say his policies and actions as prime minister reflected that of a racist. Opening the doors to Syrian refugees is but one positive example. 

Racist tendencies in today’s political leaders are easily identified. They involve travel bans on “Muslim countries,” calling Mexican migrants “criminals" and "rapists,” and the list goes on. 

In Quebec, racist legislation can be found in Bill 21, where Premier François Legault has fed his population a strong dose of discrimination by banning religious symbols in the public sector. This law targets Muslim women and Sikhs, in particular, who can no longer wear head coverings at their place of work. 

Trudeau has been one of the most vocal candidates to condemn Quebec’s new law, although he should commit to do more. Andrew Scheer has taken a quieter tact, hoping to gain votes where they’ve been hard to come by in the past.  

So what’s worse? Remaining quiet or speaking up?  

One could argue that failing to speak up against racism is the same as supporting it (and we’ve all done it). 

But remaining silent is not newsworthy. It doesn’t have the same impact as a picture or a video, and it won’t give the media days of discussion as they fan over the foolishness of past sins. 

Not that Trudeau’s past sins aren’t important. But they should be viewed in perspective.

Ads becoming an online distraction

My daughter is enticed by commercials. No matter the content. 

Like that Coors Light ad she keeps reminding me of. Yes, my sweet, sober 12-year-old daughter is already entranced by a beer commercial. “The mountains are calling,” she repeats to me, referring to the moment where two women get “called” from their yoga session to partake in some cold ones. The campaign is clearly designed to appeal to women, and possibly young girls. Namaste. 

Unlike my daughter, I don’t usually find ads amusing. Unless it’s an original Super Bowl ad, which are also often duds, I don’t want to see them more than once.  

Back when we had cable with PVR (back in the olden days), there was an easy way to avoid the commercials. Simply record the show ahead of time and then skip the ads. I could get through a football game in 45 minutes! 

Now I’m bombarded with ads through live streaming. Netflix, bless its heart, is still commercial free, but other platforms like YouTube are forcing me to watch their propaganda daily. 

The ads that pop up after my online shopping are annoying, and the videos that sneak up on my screen while I’m trying to read the news are even worse. They’re a real distraction from my Trump news hit. 

Facebook is the most diabolical, showing ads that reflect my personal preferences. This targeted advertising is intended to sway me in ways far more sophisticated than through any other media. It’s how elections can be won and lost (see 2016 US election). 

Lest we think we're not persuadable, one has only to look at the impact of advertising on cigarettes. Marlboro embraced a tough, rugged cowboy to become a leader in the industry, and Camel, interestingly, embraced a fashionable four-legged animal with a hump. I only mention Camel because as a teenager I vividly remember the ads in my car magazines: a swanky camel wearing a leather jacket with a cigarette hanging from his lips. His motorbike sat idly in the background (I have no idea how he would ride it), making him the coolest camel I’d ever seen. Thankfully I never took up the habit, but if I had, I’m sure I’d be smoking Camels. 

Ads get us to consume things we don’t want, don’t need, and, in the case of cigarettes, that can kill us. Yet they’re so ubiquitous in our society that we no longer question their value. Unless you’re my wife, who grew up in the commercial-free USSR (not propaganda free, but commercial free), we’ve never known anything different. 

Advertising speaks to our capitalist society, but does capitalism really require advertising to thrive? On the contrary, perhaps it hinders. 

 Those companies with the deepest pockets, with the money to advertise, typically hold the upper hand. It promotes monopolies as opposed to free competition. It’s not good for the consumer because we ultimately pay for the advertising when we buy the products. Ever bought no-name batteries and felt completely satisfied with your purchase? 

More importantly, advertising damages our democracy. Negative campaign ads taint our views of politicians and only add to our polarized views. Big donors and third-party organizations have too much influence, pushing single issues that may not be in the public’s interest. And those who are particularly strategic in swaying an election, like Russia was in 2016, don’t need to spend much money at all. 

How to end advertising in today’s digital world would be difficult, but not impossible. Wikipedia has somehow managed to get by without any corporate sponsorship, but it’s an anomaly. Consumers/citizens would have to step up to the plate. We’d have to pay higher subscription rates, donate more to non-profit organizations, encourage government subsidies, and maybe even pay more in taxes.

Hmm, on second thought... I think the mountains are calling.

Our trash problems run deep

I remember my late grandfather telling me a story about how people would come to his auction sales with their own metal cups. They had to if they wanted to drink something, as the plastic revolution had not yet begun.  

For a while, our workplace tried to adopt that same old-school approach. For any event that entailed food, we were to bring our own plates and cups. A good thought, but one that ultimately ended up in the trash heap of eco-friendly ideas.

The world’s ambitious recycling plans seem to be heading in a similar direction. 

While recycling has gained prominence – sometimes viewed as the elixir to our wasteful ways – it’s up against some major headwinds. It turns out that a good portion of our recyclables is not actually being recycled. China, our biggest "consumer" of recyclables, has finally said enough is enough and will no longer take our greasy pizza cardboard boxes, along with all the other junk we try to pass as recyclable. 

Philippines President, Rodgrigo Duterte, a leader responsible for thousands of deaths in his country, made a very big deal over some made-in-Canada trash mistakenly sent to his country six years go. Never mind his righteous grand-standing, the escapade showed that we have a bad reputation of mixing waste (yes, even adult diapers) with our recyclables. Or, in this case, of simply mislabeling garbage shipments. 

Our city introduced blue bin recycling only a few years ago. For $8 a month, we can fill a blue bin (same size as our garbage bin) every two weeks. There’s no policing and no hassle. Leave your bin in the alley for longer than a day and you never know what you might find in it (last time we found the leftovers of a wine-making kit). I believe it's a good program, but sometimes wonder where all the "recyclables" end up. 

Fifteen years ago we were surprised to learn that our community glass recycling bins were actually heading to the landfill. Who knew that glass is actually one of the toughest materials to recycle, especially when it’s broken? 

But overall, we’re doing pretty good at keeping our garbage out of the oceans and waterways – most of it is properly buried in landfills or incinerated. Most provinces also have recycling fees for tires, electronics, and beverage containers. These items are now recycled religiously. The power of a deposit has enormous potential. 

 In the future there could be legal requirements for companies to recycle a percentage of their production. This would put some onus on industry to do their part, too. It would certainly be a bolder step than banning one-time plastics, as the federal government has recently proposed. While well-intentioned, this will do little to protect our oceans (95% of ocean garbage comes from less developed countries) and could cause more waste.  

Starbucks, for example, already got rid of its straws but at the same time introduced more plastic into its lids. More resources are actually used to produce cloth and paper bags than thousands of plastic bags. Most of our plastic bags end up in the landfill, but the cloth bags will end up there too... eventually (we've got a closet full of them!)
If we're not careful, our waste problem could become a resource-use problem, contributing to deforestation and higher emissions. We delude ourselves to think we're off the hook just because we no longer use plastic straws.
Protecting the environment often requires whole-sale changes in the way we operate as a society. The little things we do, like bringing our own cup to a party, look good and are good, but too often are just that – little.

Nobody lies to Google

Search engines, as it turns out, are truth tellers. Humans, with no ill intent, lie about 30% of the time. These aren’t typically big, bold lies. They include half-truths, like when you tell everyone on Facebook your kids are the most beautiful children on Earth. Well, to you they are. To the rest of us, they’re a pain in the butt (just kidding?)  

On social networking sites in particular, we’re prone to show only the unblemished, airbrushed side of ourselves. By contrast, we tend to reveal almost everything through our searches, and Google aggregates every mega-byte of this truth for researchers to utilize. 

Since 2009, a program called Google Trends reveals how frequently any word or phrase has been searched by time and location. Seth Stephens-Davidowotitz ended up writing his thesis based on this data, then a book called Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are. “The everyday act of typing a word or phrase into a compact rectangular white box leaves a small trace of truth that, when multiplied by millions, eventually reveals profound realities,” he writes. 
For example, did you think America had overcome its racist past when Obama was elected president? It turns out that Google searches for the N-word took off after his election. In America’s mid-west, both southern and northern states, Google searches showed an unsettling growth in racist queries and jokes.

Did you also think, as polls had indicated, that Hillary Clinton would be the current president of the United States in 2016? That same plotted map of racist attitudes showed exactly where Trump was the most successful. 

Google searches reveal a lot about us as humans. Women are most concerned about how they smell and men are most concerned about the size of a certain appendage. Women are also more concerned about whether their husband is gay than if he’s cheating on them. Is my husband gay? searches are the most common in conservative states like Alabama. Being a gay man in Alabama carries risks, after all. 

 Anxiety-related searches are highest in places with low education, lower incomes and more rural areas. Interestingly, anxiety-related searches rarely increase after terrorist attacks in major European and American cities where these attacks are most prone to occur.  

Google searches also reveal health issues in different regions, affecting various ages and populations. Measles and flu outbreaks can be monitored simply by watching trends in Google searches. 

It’s data like this that can inform social policy. What if, for example, we target funding for mental health in those rural areas where depression and anxiety are most often queried? What if resources are immediately sent to areas where flu symptoms and measles are first Googled? 

Governments can now track the national mood and social issues facing different regions of a nation. This can lead to a more efficient use of resources, just like private companies target specific consumers. 

Trends in Google searches are more effective than any survey (where we still often lie) or focus group (which takes time and money). 

It's time to use all this data for the public good rather than just for profit.