The Mayor of English Bay

 In Memory of Joe Anderson (1950-2021)

When I first met Joe in 2008, he accosted me outside the boathouse, asking me if I had a key after he saw me going inside. At first, I was annoyed by this challenge from someone I didn't even know, then I quickly realized that he was trying to guard the boathouse and after I showed him my key his attitude quickly changed and he smiled at me apologetically explaining that he just hadn’t seen me before. I told him I hadn't seen him before either and we both laughed about it. After this, we became good friends and even bought a kayak together, which he hardly used at all. 

Joe (Left) and his brother Bob

Joe Anderson had a very colorful life. Born in 1950 in Timmins, Ontario, he left home as a young teen as school was tough for him. He had learning difficulties, which were not yet recognized in the mid-sixties. He got involved with some nefarious people and even associated with the Hell's Angels for a while. He was quite good at working with his hands and crafting so he got various jobs upholstering and traveling across Canada. He did settle down for a while and got married, which was one of the happiest times of his life. Then tragedy struck and Holly passed away.

Joe and Holly

After losing his wife, he became an alcholic like his father and eventually alcohol and drugs took over his life, he became homeless, living on the street and eventually he also did time in prison. He travelled a lot, often hitching a ride to get around and ended up on the West coast of Canada in Vancouver. Despite all the turbulence he endured, through his down-to-earth attitude and simple life philosophy he managed to touch the lives of so many. He decided to quit drinking almost 10 years ago and amazingly managed to go cold turkey without any organizational help. He did have a very supportive group of friends who encouraged him though, and I believe that it was this community of people centered around the boathouse storage at English Bay that he was a major part of, functioned as a sort of AA group he never had. He was quite frank and direct in his communication but also had a playful side and a good sense of humor.

He believed in actions more than words, he told me he looked for that in people to know whether they had integrity. But it was his kindness, loyalty, and generosity that really stood out, as well as his resilience. He was almost a permanent fixture of the boathouse because no matter whatever the weather- Joe would always be there. He is still there even now- on google maps if you look for pictures of the boathouse at English Bay!

Anyone who was a regular visitor of English bay, including the local businesses such as the Cactus club and the Vancouver Parks Board knew Joe. If you were a visitor from abroad and decided to sit down on the bench outside the boathouse to enjoy the beautiful view of English Bay between dawn and sunset you probably had a high chance of seeing Joe. He was there pretty much every day, the one constant we could rely on. All the members of the boathouse have their own stories of Joe, he would assist anyone he saw he thought needed help bringing out their boats or craft, especially the ladies!

He was a real gentleman, behaved with chivalry that is rare these days and never asked anyone for anything in return. He helped both myself and Andre out many times with his collection of tools and his skills in boat craft. He would often find stuff on the beach with his metal detector and either give it away or store it in the boathouse. His kindness to animals, particularly dogs was legendary. He would often look after and walk the dogs of his friends and also give stranger's dogs treats that he kept in the boathouse.

We would treat him and take him out to eat occasionally too, but what he seemed to enjoy most of all was fast food. I guess he appreciated somewhere he could eat without too much fussing around! One time a couple of friends and I took him to a fancy restaurant and Joe hardly ate a bite. When we asked him why he hardly ate anything, he told us, “I don’t like European food!” He would have made Gordon Ramsay blush. 

Years ago, he was attacked by an unknown assailant and ended up in hospital with severe injuries that required a metal plate being attached to his skull. Homeless people are often the target of hate and violence, it is very sad that there are some people who have little or no empathy for those less fortunate. In Joe's favor was the huge bank of good karma he had regularly contributed to. It was because of all of the friends he made that we were able to help him when he needed it the most. One friend Ghizlaine assisted him in dealing with the ministry to get him registered and fast-tracked for housing assistance, Jaeny went with him and advocated for him numerous times for official business. This together with Sherri’s fundraising effort enabled Joe to move into an apartment building with all the provisions of a home. The silver lining through this traumatic event was that his many years of homelessness had come to an end. And notably, it was a community effort which Joe also personally acknowledged.

We all cared for him as he cared for us, not through a sense of reciprocity but because if you met him you just saw a kind, yet vulnerable man, plain-spoken and genuine that you just could not help but like. Sure, he could be grumpy sometimes, particularly when he was still drinking, but that did not change his essential character. It was his way of dealing with his past until he felt strong enough to let go of it. That was a testament to his fortitude and determination. His wisdom was his simple and uncomplicated approach to things, sometimes he would say something that could sound absurd and yet brilliant simultaneously! 

It was quite a thing to witness, to see a man who was once homeless and an alcoholic, finding redemption through his own acts of kindness and creating a community. After he sadly passed away just a couple of months ago, over 50 friends showed up to his ‘Celebration of Life’ standing in the rain and listening to stories about the life and times of Joe Anderson, the mayor of English Bay.

Joe was once ‘accidentally’ offered a job teaching English - thankfully he did not do that. He told me, “I’ve got no teaching certificate, what am I gonna teach? Homeless? I can do that, homeless 101!”

Instead, he gave us all a masterclass in some essential life lessons; how we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, that people are capable of change under the right conditions, and that it takes love to build a community.

 

 

A Race We Can All Win- Part 5 of 5

 The global economic system that perpetuates difference and prejudice

The global economy, based on unfettered capitalism, needs a rethink. Free-market capitalism, based on the control of a country’s trade and industry by private owners, is prone to corruption, as regulatory mechanisms can be avoided. There is so much money in the system already, being hoarded and not spent. Many billionaires will not be able to spend all the money they have in their own lifetimes. That’s a tough break for those poor billionaires. The economist Thomas Piketty argues that the rate of capital return is persistently greater than the rate of economic growth. This means simply that the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer, causing more inequalities of class and race, and even more conflict in the future. 

The regulatory mechanisms already in place, such as trade agreements, World Bank loans, and current interest payments, serve the developed nations who invented them, so the dynamic will be difficult to change. Hypocrisy is built into our system. We believe in the rule of law in a democratic system, but the same regulations applied nationally do not apply internationally; corruption is fine if we do it somewhere else, by propping up dictatorial regimes, selling weapons of mass destruction to our allies, abusing the human rights of others or using tax havens to store our ill-gotten gains.  We also rely on cheap labour and resources that we do not have in our own country, and therefore need to justify conflict and the dehumanization of people that have both the resources and the labour to maintain this differential. The ‘greed is good’ philosophy has dominated for decades in our Western developed nations. Our societies are culturally infused with the doctrine of selfish individualism, and we become fearful when we think about others who may compete with us. “They want what we have” is intrinsic in our racialized culture. When the economic migrants and refugees seek to escape the wars and conditions that we are at least to some degree responsible for, we freak out that they are coming over here! There are so many decisions we make every day that are rooted in fear and greed - a remnant of our primaeval past. There is even a Fear and Greed Index which illustrates how the stock market and the economy are driven: a reflection of the national sentiment in our consciousness. 

 Fear and Greed Index. Credit: CNN

Selfish individualism, vulnerable to these forces of fear and greed, is the driving mechanism of our capitalist economy. It is therefore unsustainable, and will eventually result in its own destruction. Every revolution in history, and perhaps even every conflict, was born out of inequality, and it would be advantageous to acknowledge this for the good of everyone - even the privileged. The irony is that, out of a selfish motive, we need to be altruistic! Adam Smith, the philosophical brain behind capitalism and author of The Wealth of Nations was wrong about individual ambition uplifting everyone else. It does not; it just divides us, and causes more inequality through competition. If you have read his book all the way to the end, you will know he also introduces a caveat that unregulated capitalism will reduce humans into cogs that drive the machine. John Nash, the mathematician depicted in A Beautiful Mind, proposed the idea that Game Theory should be applied to our political and economic choices since our own choices impact and are impacted by the choices of others. This means that the evolutionary stable strategy of how we deal with each other should be influenced more by cooperation and altruism than by selfish or individual choices. Our focus on materialistic aspirations, driven by our consumer culture, is actually making us more divided and unhappy. If we applied Game Theory on an international level, our interactions would not be based on selfish, nationalist motives. Racism would be the first casualty of such a shift in our political strategy, since the spectre of the ‘other’ would not be such a necessary illusion to maintain. Cooperation on an international level can be augmented by the technology we have already developed.

On a side-note, why can’t direct democracy be used on a larger scale? Encrypted block-chain technology is already used in the financial system to secure funds and record each transaction on a decentralized distributed ledger: a great model for how political power could be distributed.  The same encryption we use to protect our most valuable assets, in every bank in the country, could be used to give everyone the ability to vote from home. Would more people making decisions about their own lives result in anarchy? Some politicians say it is a ridiculous idea. It would mean a loss in centralized power and control; it’s scary losing power and dividing it among the masses. I’m not talking about state control, but actual people power. I am advocating for something between representative democracy and direct democracy. There are already examples of it working in US states like New England and countries like Switzerland. Fear that we might actually be capable of running the show in a more egalitarian way just keeps us from realizing this dream. Instead, we trust the same old structures of patriarchal power: the hierarchies that only want to maintain their power and the status quo for as long as possible for their own self-interest. Yes - the military-industrial complex that old Ike (President Dwight D.Eisenhower) warned us about back in ‘61. We are at a fork in the road, and must ask, “Where do we go from here?’”

All over the world identity politics seems to be leading the division between people.  As more right-wing populist governments emerge, the situation seems reminiscent of the global fault lines before the Second World War. Identity politics are indeed complex but one cannot ignore the racial dimension that seems to be a common theme in every country affected by them. We live in the internet age, which should have heralded a new era of information and knowledge that should allow us to make more informed choices. Instead the internet has also served as an insulating bubble; it keeps people separated in enclaves of their own group interests, or media echo-chambers of their own worldview, and they cannot see the bigger picture. Racism and online racial abuse have flourished through this poorly-regulated medium of social interaction. YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and other social media have paradoxically served to isolate us more rather than bring us together. The algorithms that ensure the content in your feed is always relevant have no ethical dimension and feed us with content that plays on our fears and anxieties, regardless of whether the material has been verified or not. Simultaneously, the debate on free speech and political correctness has become mired in the swamp of political thought control. Part of the problem is that there is no consistent framework that works for the good of all, so content remains unregulated and so does cognitive dissonance.

In Orwell’s dystopian 1984 the ruling party declared that 2+2=5. Control over physical reality was unimportant as long as people believed it is true. Numerical constructs just represent abstract ideas anyway, so 2+2=4 exists only in the mind, and if the mind can be controlled then sure, 2+2 can equal 5. This was originally created by Orwell as an argument against the Nazi anti-intellectual propaganda that denied any such thing as the truth exists. All truth was supposed to be subjective, including science and fact. We know from history where the slippery slope from denying humanity to people leads, so we should all be very wary of the application of alternative facts. This is one of the clear and present dangers that social media has unleashed on our political consciousness, but there are many others too.

 In 2017, The Economist published a report about how all these forms of social media have lead to a deterioration in our mental health, contributing to increased anxiety and depression. During the lockdowns due to Covid, there has been an even greater usage of social media, with a corresponding increase in mental health crises of every variety. Wild conspiracy theories abound as socially-deprived and vulnerable people seek catharsis through blame and extreme patriotism. Racist tweets and posts have contributed to stirring up even more division, and gun sales in the US shot through the roof!

Gun Violence Credit: Amnesty International

My good friend Steve, “a simple farmer’s son,” tells me, “We are all human; that is the common denominator between all of us, and therefore that’s all we need to know about how to behave towards each other.” Our cultures are learned behaviours, but that is the point: we can carry on the learning process and learn to live together with one another, and celebrate our diversity. A recognition of equality enshrined in the Declaration of Human Rights was the first step in the right direction. In the classroom and at home, our children learn about themselves and the other cultures they meet. Children are naturally not born racist; they learn how to treat other people of colour through watching their parents’ interactions and hearing what they think about them. If their parents have a diverse group of friends, it is likely that their children will also share this worldview.  Many studies have shown that children are highly emotionally intelligent and pick up both implicit and explicit biases of their parents. In 1968, an Iowa school teacher, Jane Elliot, decided to discuss discrimination, racism and prejudice with her 3^rd Grade class. Since she felt most of the children did not interact with minorities, she began a ‘Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes’ two-day exercise and divided her class based on their eye colour. One group was given preferential treatment and treated as superior on one day, and then the next day the situation was reversed. The results of this simple experiment were so profound that even 16 years later, many of the children who were now adults said they had a life-changing experience. An award winning documentary was made about this, called A Class Divided. Elliot is now regarded as being the forerunner of the diversity training that is now used worldwide in just about every major company. These companies see the benefit of diversity training in both cohesion of their employee teams and warding off legal action and negative publicity. Elliot said,"If you can't think of any other reason for getting rid of racism, think of it as a real money saver."

As racism is a learnt behaviour, can animals they be racist? While living in London, a Jamaican-British friend who had invited me over for lunch at his house warned me that his neighbour had a racist dog. He said the dog would only bark aggressively at him and other Black or brown people; it seemed to ignore white people who passed by. I asked him facetiously if he thought the dog was racist. He told me that of course he didn’t think the dog itself was racist, but he was quite sure that the owner was. He’d had a number of negative interactions with him, and showed me a huge BNP poster proudly displayed in the owner’s front window. He reckoned the dog was just responding to his owner’s anxiety and emotional response around Black people, and was just following the direction of the ‘pack leader’. The 'Dog Whisperer', Cesar Millan would probably agree.

Credit: Patrick Noonan

 We all have the capacity to recognize our own prejudices, question them, and choose a different pattern of interaction if we really want to. Heuristics - mental shortcuts - are a natural part of our thinking. We use reference points based on our own individual experiences, and the experiences of others, to make decisions every day. Many assumptions, generalizations and stereotypes are part of our own heuristic process. Over time, they solidify and our thought processes become hard-wired; as we stop questioning ourselves, which takes time and effort, inertia is much easier. As we get older and more entrenched in our views, and more cynical about the world, it does get much more difficult to change our opinions. If we are fortunate enough to travel, and are open to the experience we learn from different people in their countries, we can understand that we can find the good, bad and everything in between wherever we go in the world, regardless of race or religion - including in the town where we live. Indeed, as a wise man told me, “Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses.” We need a positive view of humanity, rather than a sceptical, pessimistic view that insulates us from ever striving for anything different. If we were all more tolerant and respectful of each other’s differences, and committed to building bridges between people rather than walls, we could achieve this. A philosophy professor in London told me that true sceptics are actually hard to find. Most of them, he said, are merely dogmatists in disguise. Most have opinions that they adhere to, since we all have a tendency to follow ideas that confirm our existing worldview regardless of any objective truth. They would never seek this objective truth, because they are not really sceptics at all. A true sceptic or cynic would have to question their own scepticism! 

Cooperation is what made us successful as a species, not selfishness. Richard Dawkin’s book The Selfish Gene reinforces the argument of ‘survival of the fittest’ and in a revolutionary way reduces all of our behaviours to the simple intention of propagating our genes. Thus we should not be ashamed of our materialistic individual ambitions: it is in our nature, he argues. It fits very neatly with Adam Smith’s individual ambition, which is why I believe it has been so successful as a ‘meme’. The meme was another gift from Dawkins. An Orwellian mechanism for newspeak to propagate itself: perfect for the internet age, and “double plus good”. Cooperation is what allowed hunter-gatherer societies to develop; the ability to hunt, organize, protect and invent new technologies all relied on it. According to some of the latest research in the journal Nature, cooperation is being re-evaluated, not just as part of our evolutionary journey but as a stable strategy for our collective future. A case for a comparative economic approach has already been made. Now it’s just up to some brave and bright economists to challenge the existing order and construct a framework based around cooperation that would work on a global scale.

There is a small group of Islands off the Eastern tip of Papua New Guinea called the Trobriand Islands. In the early 20^th century, Methodist missionaries had taught the local population the very controlled and rule-based game of cricket. The islanders initially played the game as it was taught; a group of anthropologists who went to study them 70 years later found they had changed the game into something quite different! The game still included the basic elements, such as batting, bowling and fielding, but instead of having 11 people on each side, everyone got to play, and the game was more of a show than a competition. They used the game as an opportunity to celebrate their culture, including dancing, chanting, war magic, and basically putting on a fine display. It’s a great ethnographic example of the subversion of rules and cultural creativity, turning a competitive sport into a cooperative pageant. It was titled, “An ingenious response to colonialism”, as the people changed the rules of the game to suit their own values. It also serves to remind us of the intrinsic human quality of adaptation and transformation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCd-K0Du5dI

Our human history has been one of constant migration over thousands of years, from Africa to every inhabitable country and environment; from the hot sandy dunes of the Sahara to the freezing wilderness of the Arctic. We are an adaptable species that can and has lived everywhere. Our adaptations are what created the concept of race in the first place. As part of our own evolution, we also need to adapt to the global reality we live in. If we do not, it will be MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). The choice is simple: evolve and accept that we are one human family, and restructure our economies and governments to deal with this reality, or become extinct. The patriotic nationalism of man-made borders make no sense to me. After living in Canada and then the US, I realized that the ideas many Canadians had of Americans being so different were simply untrue. They shared a lot more with each other than either side would really care to admit. Sure, the political systems were very different, as were some of their laws and cultural influences, but it was not a stretch to see that a Canadian living in Vancouver, for example, did not have a vastly different life than one living in Seattle in the US. They had similar houses and infrastructure, the geography was the same, their popular culture was almost identical. In fact they would have more in common with each other than Americans who live in different states such as Mississippi and New York! I believe we could extend this argument to other countries, and even cross-culturally.

The vista of the mental landscape of how we look at the world around us undeniably varies a little from culture to culture, and country to country, but the fundamentals that make us all human are ultimately the same. It is really our own mindset that creates the ‘difference’.

There is a great moment in the film La Haine about the turbulent life of three friends, who are all minorities living in the projects near Paris. At one point, they pass a billboard that has a picture of the Earth, and under it a caption, “Le Monde est a vous” – The World is Yours. One of the protagonists, Saeed, takes out his spray can and changes it, subverting the message in a glorious act of culture-jamming! 

La Haine Credit: Cinephile.ca

 I do not believe the majority of humans are inherently racist. We are a gregarious species, but we can be greatly influenced by prejudice, which in my opinion is mostly born out of a combination of experience, ignorance and fear. This can be used to foment division and manipulate the masses as much of our history can attest to. Being open and optimistic requires a degree of vulnerability. If we accept there are things we don’t know, it can make us feel uncomfortable and adding negative experience into the mix, then turns optimism into pessimism. It is much easier to follow the herd mentality, triggered by dog-whistle politics to fear and exclude the ‘other’. Nonetheless, it is inevitable that despite the numerous attempts at division, over hundreds and thousands of years we will continue to migrate and intermix until our gene pool is so heterogeneous that it will no longer matter. The concept of the nation state, defined by its human and land boundaries, will probably be revisited as part of this long-term cultural evolution.

I believe that one day it will be as absurd as it was to the indigenous people of this country that humans can really own land: we are merely its custodians for the short time we are on this planet. The next time I need to negotiate our mortgage at the bank, I’m going to try this approach!

One of my favourite places to visit in the East End of London is Brick Lane. The Ska band Madness sang about the area in their masterpiece ‘The Liberty of Norton Folgate’. In the song, they take us on a tour of the area and its people, acknowledging how “in the beginning was a fear of the immigrant”. It used to be called Whitechapel Lane, but was renamed when the local earth was used to make bricks when brick and tile-makers set up shop there in the 15^th century. Brick Lane has had a turbulent history as one of the slum areas of London; there was a constant stream of immigrants from all over the world looking for a better life, due to its proximity to the docklands of the Thames. Jack the Ripper  prowled this impoverished area looking for his next victim in the late 19^th century. Nowadays it’s a vibrant area full of street art and culture, markets, stores and curry houses.

There is a very special building here that personifies the character of the place, originally built in 1743 as a church for French Huguenots fleeing religious persecution after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The Protestant Huguenots had been protected by the Edict in mainly Catholic France after the religious fighting between the two sides had lead to an estimated three million deaths. After almost 90 years of relative peace, Louis XIV declared Protestantism illegal and subsequently many of the Huguenots fled to escape torture and persecution. They settled in this area of Brick lane and built the church here as the centre of their community. Eventually the Huguenots moved west into areas like Kensington and Chelsea, and the next wave of immigrants moved in: Ashkenazi Jews fleeing the pogroms of Eastern Europe during the 19^th Century. The same building soon became the centre of worship for the Jewish community: the ‘Great Synagogue.’ This same community stood against Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists in the Battle of Cable Street. An estimated five thousand fascist ‘Blackshirts’ tried to march through Cable Street to Whitechapel in October of 1936 and they were met by an estimated 20 thousand anti-fascist demonstrators including Anarchist, Communist, Jewish and Socialist groups. Mosley had to abandon the march after a series of battles between the demonstrators and police. Sticks, stones, chair legs, rotten vegetables, rubbish and contents of chamber pots were all used as improvised weapons to repel the police and the fascists.

By the 20^th century a lot of that Jewish community had moved away, and was replaced by new immigrants from Bangladesh. After the end of British colonial rule, India had been divided (or partitioned as they like to call it) into two dominions, India and Pakistan. Pakistan was itself further separated into East and West Pakistan, with India in-between! Naturally, this odd arrangement did not last long as no country could survive being split into two halves 2,200km apart, and the eventual war between the two resulted in the creation of the new state of Bangladesh, and of course the accompanying refugees and migrants. Many of these settled in the same area as their 17^th century sailor forebears had, and the East-End ‘curry capital’  of Banglatown was born. The same building is now a mosque, and next to it is the Altab Ali park, named after a young Bengali man murdered in a racist attack.

Poignantly, high above the entrances of the mosque on a sundial, still inscribed in Latin nearly 300 years later, are the words Umbra Sumus: ‘We are shadows’.

This building stands as a bricks and mortar testament to the connection between all the people who used it as the centre of their communities over the past few hundred years. The building and its different communities reminds me of the thought experiment in philosophy known as ‘the ship of Theseus’. The question is whether an object that has all its components replaced is still the same object. It was introduced in an essay by Plutarch as Theseus’s ship that returned from a great battle in Crete, and was preserved by the Athenians by replacing structural parts and rotten planks with new timber as and when required. Eventually the whole ship was made up of new parts, and the question arose whether it was still the same ship. I wonder if this building that was originally a church, then a synagogue and then eventually a mosque, could be play the same role as Theseus’s ship, about our identity as a people.

Successive waves of migration, displacement, and intermixing have transformed the genetic and cultural identity of people all over the world, so it is not absurd to posit that perhaps the way we look at people, culture and race should also be re-evaluated. In the meantime, while we wait to be outraged by the next race-related event on the news, before the news cycle changes again, I obviously have my own opinion of what could be done.

Logically, emotionally, spiritually and scientifically I cannot accept that any one group, race, class or religion is any better or worse than any other. We are all fundamentally the same in that we all want the same things in life. We may have been hard-wired from our tribal origins to favor our own groups but the wonderful thing about the gift of having a larger neo-cortex than our ancestors is the ability to reason and think. This innate ability can help us to separate historical negative experiences and erroneous conclusions to create a more optimistic view of our future and the amazing possibilities that lie before us through cooperation. There will always be malcontents who foster division for their own nefarious purposes and egos, but that should not prevent us from being courageous enough to strive for something better for all of us. 

Therefore, I suggest adopting a more International and diverse mindset or worldview: our common interests and cooperation are of far greater importance than our short-term disputes. Perhaps we could also all be more open and kinder to the people around us and the services we use every day. Rather than seeing the interaction as a means to an end, instead we can use the opportunity to build rapport. Showing basic consideration for everyone we interact with, regardless of socioeconomic background, will help to ‘level’ our society. Sure, it may sound a little ‘Disney’ at first, but in an increasingly polarized society it is not such a radical suggestion to share a few words beyond a ‘hello’ with our neighbours, or to have a simple conversation with a stranger, particularly if they are from a different background, race or religion. Perhaps that grassroots habit will generate empathy, and who knows? It could be as infectious as a pandemic, extending to all members of our communities, transcending the boundaries of race and culture. Sounds implausible? In our modern social-media driven culture, it should be blatantly obvious that we actually strive for this connection and validation by others in our perceived ‘groups’. So why could it not happen in the real world as well?

The cynics among us will say that this will never happen, because we will always have conflict, that’s what humans have always done. But the truth is the naysayers don’t even want to try. They have convinced themselves that they understand human nature. It is a rather pessimistic approach that shares a view of our purpose and of life as bleak as Shakespeare’s Macbeth lamenting about “…a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing”.

I prefer Gene Rodenberry’s visionary approach. He believed in humanity’s evolution and transformation through an eventual conflict resolution into a more mature species that would ultimately embrace its diversity. He thought of our species as being in the ‘child’ stage, that wants to get what it wants regardless of the consequences. He believed that someday we will grow out of it, and that is the final frontier we need to traverse to reach for the stars.

In 1953, Albert Einstein wrote in his essay to Leo Baeck, “Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions that differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.” Einstein, as brilliant as he was, was not noted for his social commentary. Yet these words reflect a very profound idea. We are somewhat beholden to the ideas of what our close friends and family think and say. We mutually confirm each other's proclivities and influences in thought and behaviour. In this way, our social environment shapes our worldview and our prejudices. However, we can free ourselves of some of those biases by being more inclusive to those who would otherwise be outside our social circle. If there is also a sense of purpose in our social connections beyond our comfort, we can change this. If we make connections with people who are not like us and do not look the same as us, we can enhance our social and cultural understanding. 

 A commitment to personal edification, including community-building and learning through the experiences of others, will facilitate the development of structural changes in our society. This is necessary to change the systemic racism that affects education, jobs, housing and so on. I believe a ground-up approach will lay a strong foundation we can then build on, as everything starts at the level of the individual. Genuine connection with others is a powerful healing force that validates a fundamental truth: we really are all in this together. The only reason we do not have unity is because of our ignorance of each other. So in the spirit of the Troiband Islanders, if we strengthen our values of cooperation through camaraderie, and embrace our differences rather than just tolerate them, we can play by new rules. This is a race we can all win.

 

 

 

A Race We Can All Win- Part 4 of 5

 I had the great opportunity to engage with someone of a different mindset when we moved into our house just outside Philadelphia in a quaint village called Gladwyne. We had just moved in; I wanted to introduce myself to the folks next door, as that’s how I had been brought up, and my parents have always had very cordial relations with their neighbours. I went over to see my neighbour, Ron. I saw him outside in his garden and walked up to say hello. He saw me coming, and as I waved to him, he went inside his house. I was a little surprised but carried on with my gardening. The next day, I saw him again. This time I called out to him, and explained I was his new neighbour. He said, “Oh. I thought you were one of the gardeners.”

Even though a jolt of electricity went through me at his words, since the vast majority of non-white people I have seen in this area are labourers, I did not take too much umbrage at his blatant stereotyping. Still, I wanted to engage him in conversation, to get to know the person living next door to me and my family. I talked to him for a while, and he noticed that I had a British accent. He said he had always wanted to visit London but now he would not go there; there were “too many mooz-lems,” and therefore it was too dangerous. I started laughing, as I genuinely found it hilarious, it seemed so nonsensical to me, like something out of a Monty Python movie. He looked at me in puzzlement as I laughed, and through tears of laughter I told him I was one of those “mooz-lems”. Because I was laughing, any tension was diffused, and we actually carried on the conversation.

I asked him if he got that from watching Fox News and he replied that he did. I had actually watched Hannity to understand the right-wing American perspective, and we had a two-hour long discussion about it on the road outside our houses. I listened to his concerns and he heard my perspective too. I told him he was statistically four times more likely to be hit by lightning than to be killed in a terror incident. We developed a genuine respect for each other; even a kind of friendship.

There was a time when I would never have engaged with someone with views like his, but I have changed, and accept that its better to influence someone else through a positive interaction, for the sake of us all, than to ‘build a wall’. Before he moved away to Haverford, he brought me a gift - a blueprint of my house from almost a hundred years ago, which his mother had kept from the time she was the clerk of Lower-Merion County. It is now displayed on the upstairs wall of my house. I was truly grateful, and it reinforced my conviction that it is much better to talk to people who might be ignorant or misguided, and just haven’t had the opportunity to engage with someone different from themselves.

I also had an experience with the local police on the mean streets of Gladwyne. I was headed to the local café, and as I walked past my own garden gate, I peered over it briefly, and then continued down the street. I saw a friend, Matt, and stopped to have a chat. Just as I left him, I noticed a police car turn out of the road I had just walked down and park up again opposite where Matt and I had been chatting. I carried on to the café.

The very next day, I was following my regular routine when I saw Matt, who called out, “You’ve been racially profiled, dude!” After we had spoken the previous day, he had stooped down to pick up his dog’s poo. When he got up, he was startled, as a cop was standing right there in front of him! The cop questioned him about me; Matt asked him why he was asking these questions, and the cop replied that I had been acting suspiciously. I’m grateful to Matt: whatever he said stopped the policeman from coming after me. I laughed about it at the time, because it was so absurd, and had never happened to me before. I am a visible minority where I live, but if I was black, I would be really angry that I couldn’t walk in my own neighbourhood without being regarded as a potential threat. Given the history of police interactions, I can understand the outrage many black people feel towards things like this. I am very fortunate to have amazing neighbours who are congenial, inclusive and down-to-earth. When I told them about this incident, they were also quite supportive.

In the past few years all these thoughts and memories have weighed heavily on my mind, and I kept thinking I should write about them one day. I finally started writing in November, and then stalled until the pandemic hit; I saw all around me that black and ethnic minority communities were disproportionately affected through years of systemic racism. I felt that I could no longer remain ‘chup’ (‘silent’, in Hindi and Urdu)  about something that affects all of us.

I knew that human beings were essentially one people from the beginning of our existence. The idea was in both religion and in science, yet somehow we had allowed ourselves to be divided by superficial characteristics. The Human Genome Project, the first time our DNA sequence had been mapped to determine all of our physical and functional attributes, was completed in 2003.  When I learnt of National Geographic’s Genographic Project to map our migration patterns using our DNA, I ordered a kit and sent my DNA to a lab to be analysed. The project’s aim was to trace our lineages through thousands of years of human history. Using genetic markers from populations around the globe, the route that our ancestors had taken out of Africa, where all humans ultimately originated from, could be discovered.

Migrations of Early Humans and Homo Sapiens. Credit: Encyclopedia of Ancient History

The significance of this project is truly mind-blowing in this era of fake news! Through research into my own family history, with family trees given by my grandparents, who lived in India, I knew that we had Persian, Burmese, Afghani and Yemeni roots. When I received my DNA profile from National Geographic, the results confirmed this - with a few surprises. I did not know I had Chinese, European and Mediterranean gene markers too! These migration routes started in Africa, and now there was genetic evidence, corroborating the fossil evidence, that all modern humans could be traced back to a genetic Adam and Eve: a lineage called L0 of about 600 individuals, originating around 200,000 years ago, probably in the region of what is now Ethiopia.

Regional Ancestry based on my DNA. Credit: Genographic Project - National Geographic

In my own extended family I have cousins, nieces and nephews who are a mixture of different cultural and racial backgrounds, including Indian, English, Finnish, Chinese, Arab, Jewish and Black. We celebrate this diversity in our family, and enjoy the mindset of cultural inclusivity, which is what I also teach my own children.

The British culture I grew up in is the result of a large number of migrations from early Neolithic farmers: the Beaker culture associated with the proto-Indo-Europeans; Celts; Angles; Saxons; Normans; Vikings; Jutes; and other peoples who settled there. The oldest British skeleton, dating back to 7100 BCE, was discovered in Cheddar Gorge, Somerset, in South West England. ‘Cheddar Man’ now resides in the Natural History Museum in London. Analysis of his DNA indicated that he was a typical member of the population at the time, had brown or black hair, and dark to black skin.

His bust was reconstructed using the data in his DNA and is now displayed alongside his skeleton. Over hundreds and thousands of years in a different environment, with less intense sunlight and low ultraviolet radiation, the melanin content of dark skin decreases, until it eventually loses the majority of its pigment and produces a ‘white’ appearance.

Cheddar Man with his direct descendant, a History teacher who lives near where he was discovered. 

Credit: Imgur.com

Now there is overwhelming evidence that our own ancestors were dark-skinned and originated from Africa, has it made any impact on our attitudes to race and migration? Now that we know we are ultimately all from the same human family, surely we can live in a post-racial world? In Britain there have been many polls on racism over the years, showing that a significant proportion of British people believe that they live in a society where racism and racist attitudes still exist.

June 11^th 2020 Poll about Racism in the UK n=5146. Credit: Statista

These attitudes are also reflected in the rising number of hate crimes in the UK. These numbers, based on Home Office data, were published in the Guardian newspaper last year. Overall, there was a rise in violent racial attacks, verbal attacks, religious hate crimes, and discriminatory behaviour. Just under half (47%) of religious hate crime offences were targeted against Muslim people, and 18% were against Jewish people. Most of the violent hate crimes were against South-Asian and Black people. The numbers have basically doubled over the last five years.

Hate Crimes in the UK.  Credit: Guardian

There is a similar situation in the US, with violent hate crimes reaching a 16-year high, according to The New York Times.

All these man-made racial classifications should be reconsidered. Most of the work done by scientists on race in the Age of Positivism, when the colonial empires of Europe were expanding, and dominating the globe, was catalysed by their own confirmation biases and notions of superiority. Manifest destiny was the interpretation. Their actions justified their own racism, and much of the racism today is a result. The British colonial project was successful. They not only colonized countries, but also the minds of the people they ruled. The immigrants, and their descendants, who followed the colonial programming, are also responsible for the continuation of such a legacy; many have internalized the messages that the billionaire-owned media companies propagate. Before the Brexit vote, most of the right-wing tabloid media bombarded the British people with headlines of hate and division to influence the vote - and ultimately, they succeeded.  

Headlines of Hate Credit: Scisco Media

There is a debate about white privilege here in America. I read Peggy McIntosh’s book White Privilege- Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack  in the 1990s, and as much as I agreed with it at that time, I thought, 'Nobody’s going to take this stuff that seriously, if it doesn't affect them personally.' I was wrong. I now hear my white friends initiate conversations about it by themselves. McIntosh wrote, “I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group.” There are many white people who cannot understand they are privileged at all. Some were not born into money; they had difficult childhoods, endured hardships, or suffered from depression or alcoholism. So where was their privilege? The privilege exists in the unseen: the intangible and historic effects of racism that have morphed into biases that mean your culture, attitudes and values are all widely represented around you. It is unlikely that you will be discriminated against when it comes to housing or employment because of your colour. Your being included or excluded in a social situation will generally have more to do with your personality, rather than where you are from or who you are with.

Credit: showingupforracialjustice.org

Even people from the same racial background endure prejudice because of other factors such as religion or socioeconomic class. Someone who is working class, or from a religious minority, can find themselves struggling as much as immigrants do with very similar problems. This can create an entitlement culture, and I see it in the leafy suburbs of Philadelphia where I live known as the Main Line. Many people who work here, but who do not live here, are routinely treated differently and even discriminated against by those who feel more entitled than them.  I remember one afternoon, I was in the local café talking to the owner Tammin, when a customer came in to complain about the sign he had displayed in his window for the past two years. The sign read: “Hate Has No Home Here”.

Credit: hatehasnohomehere.org

Tammin was actually very gracious with this customer who told him she was offended by the sign as a white woman. She said she was upset, and felt that the sign suggested that America was a hateful country. She asked him where he was from; he told her he was from South Korea and asked her how it was relevant. She then she told him about how she had friends who were from Africa. Tammin listened to her and let her speak at length, which was surprising for me as I couldn’t usually get a word in edgewise with him! He calmly explained to her that not everyone felt the same way she did and there were many people in the community and beyond who had experienced racism and discrimination, including himself and others who came into his café. He even invited her to come back and discuss this with him after he finished work. It was obvious that she did not see this ugly side of America and was even angered by the sign implying its existence. She did not return. 

If we really want change, it cannot just be by standing up against racism. That is a great start, and we should all speak out against it, but for systemic change, we also need to address the inequality within the population and acknowledge that the playing field is not level. Any solution to the racial problem must also include class. Just as the working class in the UK and the US have been pitted against immigrants in competition for jobs and housing, people without hope are led to fear people they believe want what they have; “You come here and take our jobs!” they shout. This fear quickly turns to anger, and anger leads to hate - and the dark side.

But the facts tell a different story. Refugees and immigrants are actually incredibly motivated, and generally quite industrious. It makes absolute sense that people who had the fortitude and the will to travel great distances, overcome many obstacles and challenges, red-tape and bureaucracy, would have the skills and experience to make a positive contribution to the country in which they had sought to make a new life. It would make more sense if there was an alliance between the disempowered working class and the immigrant population, so they could cooperate on building a more equitable system together and enhance each other’s social mobility.

Harvard professor William Kerr has conducted a great amount of research over the years into the impact of immigrants on the economy, and his conclusion is that immigrants are generally a huge boon to the economy worldwide. In his book, The Gift of Global Talent he explains how the influx of foreign talent has transformed science and engineering and increased the flow of capital into the tertiary sector of industry - the services. I volunteered as an advocate for a few NGOs that assisted immigrants and refugees, and was pleasantly surprised at the level of competence, education and ability that the vast majority of them had. I could see no discernible difference in their reasons and motivations for migrating than any of the other previous waves of European migrants historically had, whether it was for economic reasons as migrants, or to escape war, conflicts and disasters as refugees.

According to Kerr, new immigrants are also responsible for almost a quarter of new patents in the US, and tend to be highly entrepreneurial, thus creating companies and jobs. Thus fear against them is fomented as a political tool to manipulate the electorate, rather than being a reaction to a real threat. Immigrants- they get the job done.

Education about our origins, about the migrations of people over time, can help to combat racism and engender cooperation and empathy instead of division. This cannot happen without people speaking out and having conversations with friends, neighbours, colleagues, parents and children. Essentially, community-building that is inclusive of everyone will make us into a happier and healthier society.

Restructuring our socioeconomic system to diminish inequality is necessary, and a commitment to a grass-roots effort will affect change. The alternative, as history has already shown us, repeatedly leads to the horror of war, genocide, slavery, apartheid, and concentration camps, and it is just a matter of time until it is the next people’s turn to suffer. The movement of people is also directly related to both their socio-economic conditions and the wars we engage in, which are often about territorial or resource acquisition. Is it that surprising that after every major war, there is mass migration of people who want to improve their lives? There is a racial dimension to both sides of any conflict. Soldiers fight and kill enemies, and civilians, of a different nationality, who are often of a different race or culture, so there is some level of inherent racism within the institution of war. When the drumbeats of war begin, our media prints stories with jingoistic headlines that demonize our enemy, so all we see are figures to hate. Names like ‘The Hun’, ‘Nips’, ‘Gooks’ and ‘Sand Niggers’ have all been used to label our enemy. It’s much easier to kill a monster than another human being. We have just come up with more sophisticated ways to justify military actions and create economic slaves of the countries and people we can then dominate. Our civilian population is generally protected from this knowledge, unlike the civilians on the other side, who end up being the main casualties of any war. Has anyone noticed that our economies seem to do better right after a war? The most decorated US Marine until 1940, Major General Smedley Butler, wrote a book entitled War is a Racket. He described war as being for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the many. The working class poor often fight the wars for the benefit of the rich, who have bone spurs or some other reason to prevent them from losing their life’s blood. In fact, during the US Civil War, you could get out of conscription if you could pay for some other poor guy to take up arms while you stayed home.

We need to address this madness (repeating the same thing over, and expecting a different result) before we destroy ourselves. Conflicts are increasingly destructive: technology has evolved to the point where we can destroy the Earth and everything on it, 50 times over! We cannot solve the issue of racial conflict and migration without addressing the problems of the economic system we are held in bondage to, that keeps on perpetuating these conflicts, trade-wars and inequalities.