Cries for Change 44:55

Well, hello, everybody. Jan Arden here. You're listening to the Jan Arden Podcast. Welcome back. You know, never shall it be said that in a week's time, the entire world can spin on access. I mean, what existed when the three of us got together last week and spoke about

is a completely different conversation right now. I forgot about COVID this week, and I don't even think I need to say to our listeners what I'm talking about. And it is the uprising of...

a group of individuals, Black Americans, Black people globally, marginalized people, people of color, brown and black skin people that have literally come to the end of what they are going to accept anymore.

And it is open to dialogue that I think has profoundly affected the three of us. I'm going to talk about that today because I really want to hear what you have to think, Adam, and what your thoughts on this, Caitlin, are. But for me, I am shook and I have been awoken from complacency, from...

I mean, I will say this. I absolutely do not consider myself a racist, but I learned a new term in the last, gosh, 140 hours. And that is that I don't think I have been an active anti-racist and an effective ally to the black and brown community on this planet because I have been quiet and I haven't participated and I haven't

I haven't turned that switch on in my life where I need to effing care and I need to stand up for people on social media, around a dinner table, in a restaurant, when I'm standing on a street corner overhearing people telling terrible jokes, any kind of racism publicly, I've

I've been quiet. Anyway, that's just how I'm going to start the show off. Really, we welcome you all in. We're going to try and have really candid conversations about this today. And I know we feel inundated, but we should feel inundated. And I don't want this conversation to stop today. This is something that needs to be part of our lives and part of our conversation from here on in.

Caitlin? Yeah, it's been, it has been such a wild week to see the, just the culmination of so much pain and so much anger and mistreatment for so long. And it really does feel like, like now is just so the time for anybody who is bothered by this to stand up and say that you don't, we don't want to see this happen anymore. If you're a good, decent person, if you value family,

the fair and just and appropriate treatment of people, you're just not going to sit here and leave the heavy lifting to be done by everybody else anymore. And I think that's really what it is, is that the black community has understandably been doing all the heavy lifting and they're understandably so tired. You know, they've been doing this for so, so, so long. 400 years, basically.

Yeah. And it's, and, and I think that we talk a lot about, you know, Canada and the U S we're connected by this giant border. What, you know, the U S is this big cultural powerhouse that influences so many things through, through movies and Hollywood. And they're always just kind of this big situation in the room for Canadians. And so sometimes we like to say, and it's true in many ways, like we're better here. It's different here. And it is different here. And in a lot of ways it's better here, but it's,

Saying, well, it's better in Canada is our own form of problematic handling of our of our marginalized communities, because it makes them feel like they like the problems that they have been experiencing their whole life, like their own truth. Their experiences with racism and mistreatment are just being brushed aside by people who haven't been impacted by it at all.

And I work on a morning show in Toronto and we talked about this all week long. We did Blackout Tuesday on our show. We broke format. We did 16 minute long breaks. The co-host on our morning show is named Jamar McNeil. He is an African American from the U.S. He has had horrible situations involving the police when he was living in the U.S. He talked about it openly. He experiences racism in his life and has. And

We received texts while we were talking about it that were supportive and wonderful and great. And we also received texts during our show that were not.

that were shut up, play the music, quit your whining. You know, it's the, the answer of when we talk about black lives matter, that all lives matter. And no one's saying that all lives don't matter, but what they're saying is that if you've had hardships in your life and you're, and you're white, we, everyone understands that we all have hardships in our life. The color of your skin hasn't been one of them. And,

And so that's the point that everyone's trying to make right now. So it's emotional. Emotions are high. They're uncomfortable conversations. For some people, they're brand new conversations and you're not always going to get them right. But just silence isn't an option anymore. You're better to speak on this and get something wrong or screw up your messaging and then be told that and then go, okay, yeah, I should adjust that. I didn't see how that would have been a problem. Then to sit there and say, well, I'm afraid of getting lambasted. So I'm just not going to say anything.

Yeah, those days are over for me. Adam, you have kids. You have two little girls. And obviously the blanketed coverage of this is so necessary and it's been so...

it's been a pendulum of emotions for us to watch the police using so much brutality, but also in some instances, some real tenderness and some real moments of solidarity with the people that they are serving. How do you talk to your kids about this? And obviously this has been going on for nine days now. We're going into day 10.

What are your thoughts? I just want to start by saying I cannot believe that in 2020 this is going on, that racism is alive and well. It's very shocking and upsetting for me to see this. I thought, I mean, I know that racism exists, but the amount of racism that I've

that has come to light and the fact that this is happening and the, do you think you've been blind to it, Adam? I mean, obviously it is a huge, huge, huge systematic problem. And it's, it's interesting for you to say here, you say it that way that you thought it was kind of status quo kind of

somehow had been slowly being solved. Are you shocked at how unsolved and how horrendous racism is? It's bad. I can't believe how bad it is. I can't believe what's still happening. Like, I thought we were way past this. And again, I'm not saying it was completely non-existent, but the fact that it is... But it's interesting. I think it's an interesting opinion that a lot of people are like, what's the problem? There is, you know, and it's... It's a huge problem. I find it very upsetting and unsettling. And I...

I'm like, how can you be racist? Who's racist? How can you be racist? What is wrong with you that you're racist? What, what is your problem? That's how I feel. Have you said anything to your kids? I,

I don't know if they're old enough to really understand what's going on. And I don't want to shelter them too much. But I mean, I don't want to say that people are getting shot and killed and looting and rioting. And we haven't really talked about that so much. I will say this, Adam. Sometimes I think that can be part of the problem, though, too. And I think maybe we are being schooled in that way of thinking, too.

I don't know if it's ever too early to start a conversation. I mean, obviously I'm not a parent. Caitlin and I don't have kids, but I, you know, you see young children, you know, of all ethnicities, you know, in a kindergarten class. And we've seen all these heartwarming little videos of a white little kid hugging a black kid and, you know, a Southeastern Asian kid hugging, you know, it's, it's,

I don't know if it's ever too early to start some kind of a conversation, Adam. If they ask, I would absolutely discuss it. I wouldn't shelter. And I mean, I know that in the past we've had conversations about everyone's equal and everyone deserves respect and it doesn't matter what your background is. It doesn't matter what color you are. It doesn't matter anything about your life choices. You got to respect everyone.

I mean, obviously the things that parents probably have become acutely aware of is that when you talk about systemic racism in our culture, and it is, it's in every facet. I can't even begin to say, oh, I understand. Oh, I get it. I don't get it. I'm a white chick from the prairies, and I absolutely have had privilege. Yes, as a woman, which is the only thing

thing that I would even remotely have to compare to about being a woman in the music business, being a woman in general, being scared to get in an elevator with three guys in it and, you know, feeling unsafe, walking down the street. Caitlin and I talked about this before we started taping the program today, that those little glimpses of fear that women do go through and do experience all through their lives,

that fear because obviously we're not strong enough to defend ourselves in most situations. Black people, brown people, people of color, transgender people, LGBTQ. I mean, these are people that live in a state of fear 24 seven. So this is what I mean by being awoken to this. And my point being is that you as a parent, Adam,

You know, now we realize that your actions, how you and your wife navigate racial inequality, your kids, that's where they learn. When you see these angry guys running down the street or, you know, pushing people down. There was a clip yesterday of this officer pushing this old guy over.

and his head's smashing on the ground, and he just walked past him. And we can get into that a little bit more on the next break, because there are some really important insights being made right now into policing, the amount of money that's spent on policing, the amount of our tax dollars that we spend on policing, and how ineffective it is in many, many situations. And that's part of the new conversation that does need to happen about how can we support

support people, how can we turn concern into action? I think that's going to be a huge step in the whole situation that we have going on right now moving forward, for sure. That image has been, that video, I think, as of today, has been viewed more than 42 million times of that man being pushed over by the Buffalo police. It really caught on. Well, the irony, and we will quickly go to break here, but this was an elderly Caucasian gentleman.

that was pushed over. So it just is the, anyway, we've got lots to talk about today. I'd love to say, you know, we want to keep it lighthearted, but we also want to have a conversation that is very pertinent to all the other questions that you guys are asking out there. I'm afraid of doing the wrong thing. We're going to talk about that when we come back. You're listening to the Jan Arden podcast.

Welcome back to the Jan Arden podcast. I'm here with Adam and Caitlin and a lot has happened this past week. We've been talking about the unbelievable movement, the awakening, the, I don't even know what to call it. I think we have, we've just all been shaken by images that we're seeing and we've been seeing images of police brutality against black people in particular and

For many, many years, we saw this 28 years ago happening in Los Angeles with Rodney King. For those of you that are of a certain age, you might have been a teenager, you might have been in your 20s or 30s. Rodney King was a gentleman, black gentleman, beaten by, I believe it was seven or eight officers again.

within inches of his life and the entire United States erupted and I think a lot of us felt at that time that the momentum was there to to stop the brutality and you have to understand that this preceded any kind of cell phone any kind of social media and yet someone had managed to capture Rodney's beating on a VHS recording like they recorded it on a handy cam so you know

There's been some really interesting images coming out about racism being pictured as a mountain. And on the very tip of the mountain, maybe 2% or 3%, they're saying this is the racism that's actually been caught on footage. And the mountain, the iceberg, so to speak, that's underneath the water is the racism that we do not see every day. And Caitlin, you made a very good point of racism.

you know, just the stuff that we're seeing, the footage that we're seeing. And you were talking about Jamar's getting back to the colleague that you work with on the radio show of his experiences. And as he is giving his testimony of difficulties and the crap that he has faced his entire life, he's getting texts in real time of people telling him basically to shut up

Quit whining and to go away. And this is what people don't understand about racism. Someone would, and even those people sending those texts would say, I'm not being racist. I'd say that to anybody. So how do you talk to speak to that? Well, I roundly block them this, this week we called them out on the air specifically to say, um,

to the listeners who, you know, are hearing the story and sympathize and are empathetic, but don't know how serious and how pervasive it is, especially in Canada. It's the kind of like, meanwhile, in Canada attitude that a lot of people can have, which is like, hey, at least we're not the dumpster fire of the US. And of course, hey, I couldn't be prouder to be Canadian and happier to live here. But we have our own issues. And they're sitting right here on our texts.

So we wanted to make sure that we address that on our show and also said, if that's how you feel and you don't like the content of our show, guess what? Radio is a free service in your home and in your car and you control your exposure to it. So feel free to turn it off and we don't need your texts. But also to share that reality with people and say, this is here. That could be your neighbor texting in. And I'm not going to lie. I've received emails even from the time that he joined our show.

that I hadn't necessarily shared with anybody because they were horrible.

And that was just simply the byproduct of an African American joining our morning show. So like, I know it's here. I've seen it. I see the texts and the emails. I get them on Twitter. And I mean, I live on Twitter because of the nature of my job. So I see the police brutality videos. I look for content that is real and that is actually happening and hasn't been like edited within an inch of its life so that it's cleaned up.

because some news outlets do that and they understand why they do that. But I don't think it's it doesn't accurately reflect what's going on. And the protests in the U.S. are horrible. It's horrible to watch this footage of this this peaceful 75 year old protester in Buffalo being knocked on his skull and having a line of police officers in riot gear walk over his body and refuse him care.

Just a bit of an update on that, everybody. Just going through the Twitter feed this morning, the gentleman was taken to hospital. He's in stable condition, the fellow that was knocked over. And the officer involved was identified.

There's two, yeah. Yeah, the two officers involved, they have been identified, and I believe they are on a leave now and are not. They've been, I wouldn't say fired, but I think they are on some kind of an absence leave and waiting to see what the repercussions of their actions are because obviously they were horrific. But I mean, the conversation has absolutely shifted to, it's interesting to me that the police brutality that is continuing throughout these riots is,

throughout these protests, many of them peaceful, that the police have gone into and literally pulled people's masks down and sprayed them. And I'm trying not to be one-sided here, but we're all looking through the same lens at people filming. Everyone's being filmed. And we have to speak to how policing is done

Yeah.

These men and women that go in to do the policing, they should know the constituents in which they're serving. You know, it's so militarized. I think you spoke to that a bit, Caitlin, and I'll just let you pick it up from there. Well, yeah, I mean, and in the case of that, the man, the peaceful protester in Buffalo, that was not the first messaging from police was that these guys have been suspended with pay.

The first messaging from police two hours after that was released in Buffalo from the official statement of the Buffalo Police Department was that, oh, there was a skirmish and a protester tripped himself.

So part of this cycle of violence with impunity is also then followed by coverup. So then they go, Oh, we had looked at the footage again and we saw what happened. Well, that's because there was a camera there and there's a fabulous reporter who used to be a CTV news reporter named Ashley Rowe, who's now in Buffalo. And she said, what would have happened if we didn't have a camera there? And that's the question that so many people have. And that's part of the question about how can, like you said, policing be more community oriented? How can it be, you know,

How can we support our communities also still support the police officers who are good and who are doing their job? And a lot of times, I mean, which there absolutely is. And I, of course, it's a hard job. It's a hard job. It's an extremely difficult job. And I think, you know, I personally know some, you know, I have an officer here that police is my neighborhood. I'm in rural Alberta and,

And his name is Nathan. I won't say his last name. He comes down my road twice a day. And over the last six or seven or eight years, I have got to know him. And I feel like it would be very difficult for Nathan to push me square in the chest and throw me into a ditch, you know, in some kind of a

an outrageous situation like this without, you know, taking that moment to go, I know who you are. So I do think it needs to be more community oriented. I certainly don't have all the answers, but I think in all fairness, it does have to change from this militarized, you know, the beatings will cease when the morale improves mentality that black people have been facing. People of color have been facing,

for 100 years of policing in the United States, 300 years. I mean, this is an old story. Let's hope that we are taking the veneer off of

a real horrible system that's been going on for years. You're listening to the Jan Arden podcast. We'll be right back. We are so excited to welcome another new sponsor, our friends at Cove Soda. Have I pestered Cove enough to come and join us here at the Jan Arden podcast? I love them so much. They are Canadian, first of all. They are a natural certified organic zero sugar soda, which includes, get this, one big

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A cola or a cream soda, root beer, yes indeedy. And they've got their limited edition summer flavor, which will take you right back to the second grade. You gotta try the ice pop one. Head to janardenpod.com to find out where the closest place to you is where you can go and buy Cove. Go right now. There's certainly been a lot of beautiful, heartwarming experiences

images that have come out of this and I'm glad that people are taking the time to acknowledge kindness of strangers good people helpful people there's been some really great things and some pretty funny things Caitlin's got a great story about

The hashtags of, you know, on Wednesday, there was a substantial group of white people that were hashtagging. I believe it was...

White Lives Matter Wednesday or something. I think it yeah, it was something to the effect of something along like that But this was a hashtag that they wanted obviously to manipulate social media and and anyway, tell them the story about the kpoppers Oh my god, the kpoppers are Korean pop fans or yeah, so kpop Korean pop is a huge widely successful genre of music I mean groups like BTS and Blackpink and like I could go on but they're very very successful groups legions of fans and

across social media and some of the most organized vocal fans. They love their groups so much. And there's so many of them and they frequently take over the top trending hashtags across Twitter. So this week, Tuesday was called Blackout Tuesday. And that was an initiative started by two African American women in the music industry in the U.S. as a way to kind of do a midweek disruption of business because the music industry, especially in the U.S., has directly benefited so much from, you know, African Americans.

Yes.

the hashtag is then used as a way to like aggregate that type of content. So K-pop fans come in and decide that they're going to flood the hashtags, flood any racist hashtags this week, any insensitive or distasteful hashtags this week. If you saw them pop up and start trending, K-pop fans came in, the Robin Hoods of the internet flooded these hashtags with completely unrelated Korean pop star content.

Yeah. Yeah. It was like the most, it was the right spot on Twitter for so many people this week. It was such a good story and such an effective way really to use social media to, uh, to show solidarity using Korean pop videos. I thought it was genius.

So you go on there to find your racist friends, you know, people that are like, who are, let's all the racists in the room. Where, where are my people? And you get schooled on some Korean pop. I love it. It was, it was just, you know, and like you were saying, it sort of touches on if you have to find something to say, okay, well at least I can breathe a sigh of relief here this week. It's solidarity.

And what an unexpected show of solidarity on social media from really, if I'm being honest, one of the most powerful presences on Twitter, which is K-pop fans. So that was kind of cool. I really liked that. Thinking that they're standing like shoulder to shoulder, computer to computer with people was kind of cool. The thing for me in all of this has been, how can I be an ally? How can I not be a cog in the machinery?

how can I not be whiny or, you know, like, I, how can I help? Like, I, I don't expect my black friends to school me and what I can do. I know that I've taken this week to really take the time to educate myself. I've, I've taken the, the lead of a lot of black leaders in America, women, especially that have just said, if you want to know how to help read this, this, this, and this, this is a book you should get. You should, you know,

you know, listen to this, this woman's got a blog and I have spent hours pouring over stuff that I, cause I don't, I think a lot of people felt like, well, how do I help? I, I don't think I'm racist and I, I don't want to be part of the problem. And, and I think what I've taken away certainly this week is, you know, that profound grief that we all felt like this is, this is so horrible to see this happen to any group of individuals. And I think most rational people absolutely feel that way.

But I don't want to be afraid of making mistakes. And that's what I've come away with. I'm going to make mistakes. But when you learn about how to be an ally, how to help black businesses, how to lift people up, how to support with your pocketbook, I think is really essential right now for people to understand. Like there was a woman in Calgary, Julie Van Rosendahl, who I've spoken about on this show before, who posted black owned books.

food businesses in Calgary. And I really found that useful. A lot of people that have restaurants and things that I just, I never thought about it in my life that could really use the financial support. And I find little things like that may seem really insignificant, but I think in the big scheme of things, how we're going to help lift this movement and to lift people of color into, you know,

a much better life and a much more equal, equal opportunities is, is financially and with our pocketbooks. So, you know, if you can donate to black lives matter, there's, there's a lot of websites for youth and black women and black, just, I would do your research and try and donate. And maybe we can even post a few links on, on the podcast, Twitter, just things that I've done. Yeah. I think too, like, you know, a lot of it is also about, um,

About like you said, like, like listening to other people and like believing people when they tell you about their personal experiences in their life and realizing it's not a one-off. This isn't a chorus of people with one-offs. This is a systemic issue and acknowledging that even though it's uncomfortable, it might change how you view the world a little bit and perhaps make you a little bit more skeptical and cynical and some feelings of negativity that that's okay. Like that that's fine because it's honest and that's what's really going on. And also here,

in uh in canada that we still have a lot to work on and also that we have a lot of concrete things we can do like collect more accurate data on um police interactions with people of color um we can make sure that we support mental health initiatives for black people because um they're going through it and historically have been going through it for a long time and on our like show um

we received a really, really positive feedback just about having these conversations and taking the time away from our normal format to do that. We have a lot of people who listen to the show, the morning show with their kids. And they said this, we listen every day around the breakfast table. And this has been a really great way for us to like have these conversations and start these conversations with our kids and talk to them and say like, how does this make you feel? And what do you know? And,

just all that stuff, just starting that conversation, a real honest conversation and accepting that when it makes you feel uncomfortable, it doesn't mean you shut down and you stop having it. You just say like, Oh, like, wow, this makes me uncomfortable. That's truly how you feel. I'm really guilty of that, Caitlin. I think my part in, in all of this, my part of participating in this huge blanketed problem is my complacency. And I guess I always felt like, well,

I would never, I don't feel that way. I would never say anything, but I also have never, you know, really stepped into conversations that are, are not great. They're, they're, they're just disrespectful and distasteful and a bunch of people standing around with a drink in their hands and, and not saying particularly horrific things, but bad enough that you do feel squeamish and they don't say anything. So I have to really question how did I get to a point in my life where

Where I thought my silence was okay. And I think black people are asking us to stop that. Yeah. Than anything else to don't listen. If you're not going to be part of the solution, you, you, you have to speak up and it's just like what you said. You can't sit quietly. You've got to feel comfortable. You've got to be prepared to make the mistakes. You've got to be prepared to ask the questions, which I am now, you know, reach out to your black friends. I,

I mean, I'm in the music business and the arts and I've met so many black musicians over the years that are just absolutely incredible. And I don't think that I've ever sat at a dinner table and had those earnest conversations. I think those very same black musicians felt like this isn't the place for me to table this and I don't feel comfortable enough to talk about the shit that I go through on a daily basis. And I feel bad that

Those conversations weren't started when I met them 15 years ago. They put them aside because they didn't want to make any of us feel uncomfortable. And I'm so glad that we're all feeling uncomfortable now. I'm glad we are.

Yeah, it's too much of a burden for all of our friends and for a whole segment of the population to have to bear this alone. It's also not an effective way to bring about change. And at the core of it, it's that if you're, again, if you value decency, if you're a good and just person at your core,

this should really bother you because this can spiral and it has historically spiraled many times when you say that people can act with impunity, with violence towards an entire segment of your population that pay their taxes that contribute to our society. It's terrible and it's a slippery slope and everybody knows that any thinking person knows that.

So, and shame can be a very powerful feeling. It's a very powerful emotion. So the shame that we all may feel about how we haven't done enough and the things that we let pass and how we've not been good allies, it can make you shut down. And I think that all of us appreciate why it would make you shut down and not want to talk about things because you're ashamed of not doing enough. But also it's such a good feeling to say, I made a mistake, I'm ashamed of it, and I'm going to move forward. That's the only way you can get past it, really. ♪

Welcome back to the last installment of this week's The Jan Arden Podcast. I'm here with Adam and Caitlin. These are not easy conversations to have, especially three white people from Canada. We all have different stories. We all, you know, we're brought up certainly not in the heart of

Really, it's safe to say really diverse communities. I grew up in rural Alberta. We had, I grew up with a lot of Aboriginal people that were absolutely the targets and the focus of racism. I will say that right now without any hesitation. So

I can't sit here and say, oh, I've never seen that. We didn't have a huge black community where I grew up, but we had a very large indigenous community of young boys and girls whose parents were in residential schools. It wasn't that long ago. And so you said earlier on the show when you talk about, oh, Canada, oh, not here, right?

It's not like that here. Well, it is like that here because racism, it operates in the same vicious way right across the board. Yeah. I think racism is unfortunately one of the things that most countries have in common. Oh, very much so. And it's an age old problem. We've seen this for thousands and thousands of years of

of, you know, one ethnic group wiping out the other one. I mean, and it's a problem that does have to be addressed. What I hope comes out of all of this unbelievable heartbreak, the deaths, the sadness, the injustice, the hatred, the fear, I hope the momentum keeps up. I hope we find it as white privileged people to become part of a solution and

And I'm telling all you people listening to this, in whatever small way you can, I don't have all the answers. I'm on such a giant learning curve, I can't even begin to tell you, but I do. I am dealing with shame. Caitlin and I were talking about it a little bit on the break of the shame of inaction, the shame of not saying something because you didn't want to rock the boat, right?

you know, at a party when someone's telling a bad joke or saying something that's clearly horrible. And you kind of stand there with a glass of wine in your hand and you don't say anything because you don't want to

You know, you don't want to draw attention to yourself. You don't want to make the person who's making you uncomfortable, uncomfortable, which is great. Which is crazy. Think about that. You know, like you're making me uncomfortable and then I don't want to make you uncomfortable. So I don't say anything. And it's just, you know, it's part of that maddening cycle.

And I think it's like trying to find, Oh, is there a perfect way to call it out and say, can I find my wording? And how do I come across as non-confrontational? And, but I still want to tell them that I don't like this. And it's all those questions that spiral in your head. And then all of a sudden the moment has passed and you just sat there and had your drink. And, and,

And it like, you know, again, depends on the kind of person you are. If you're an empathetic person and this stuff bothers you, then it bothers you. It like sits there like a Rolodex of things you've done wrong when you're going to bed at night. Or maybe I'm just talking about myself, but no, it's just, Oh no, you're it's time to be uncomfortable. This is time to be uncomfortable. I never in a, in, I never would have ever imagined that we, you know, that the conversation would go from having a pandemic, a global pandemic to,

To a pandemic of a different nature. A pandemic of hatred, a pandemic of, you know, systemic, you know, racial inequality that is global. But the United States, obviously, since the beginning of slavery, has dealt with things that have never been addressed. I mean, they had a civil war in the 1800s. You know, President Lincoln at the time was doing his best to, you know, literally destroy

say to his people that he was governing slavery is not right yes and we are going to fight each other over this issue and we are going to free these people yeah because it's not right but you know as i've heard so many black leaders say in this past 10 days they have never really been free and they've never really experienced the freedom that you and i and adam

experience walking down the street, going into a store. I have a black friend in Halifax. I have a few black friends in Halifax. And my one friend in particular, she said, Jan, I would never wear a hoodie into a drugstore. Like I wouldn't wear a hoodie into Walmart. I'm like, what? She goes, you need to get, we had, she had words with me one night because she really felt like I had my head up my butt, which I did. This was years ago.

And she said, you have no effing idea. I said, you wouldn't wear a hoodie. And I'm so stupid. I'm just like, well, why? She goes, I'm already followed through the store. As soon as I walk in, I have somebody, store security, following me. Nine out of ten times. I was just ignorant to it, Caitlin. I was ignorant to it.

I think it's, we feel this, I don't know if like, I mean, sometimes, you know, the, the whole, when the whole me too movement thing started, I found it frustrating frequently to have, you know, silence from a lot of guys in your life. When you talk about your own honest experiences you've had of being treated differently or, or mistreated horribly for, for being a woman and not having the same opportunities in life and to make,

same amount of money as men and et cetera, et cetera. And I would find it so frustrating when I felt like they were dismissive of your experiences. Like I don't, Oh, well, you know, women have come a long way and it's not that bad anymore, et cetera, et cetera. It's the same thing. And that's the, one of the things I'll try to draw upon for myself when we have these conversations now and say like, that made me feel horrible when it would happen.

and when I would overhear it happening on television. And so now it's that careful wording of, yeah, like I can't possibly understand you have to choose not to wear a piece of clothing when you go through a grocery store or drugstore because someone's going to assume that you're trying to steal something. Like it's horrible. Well, just the small stories that

were so unbelievably hard to believe in my mind, things I have never, ever had to consider in my entire life. Like I touched on earlier in the show, yes, I've absolutely stepped out of elevators. Yes, I've absolutely been scared in a covered parkade, you know, coming out of a movie. I've had those real fears. Well, this is what a black person, a brown person,

Feels like all the time and I don't know how they make the adjustments to make their way through lives So, you know as we sort of wind down this particular podcast I think we all have to look into our hearts and Figure out what it is that we can do. We can't be afraid of making mistakes I think

the time for political correctness needs to be set aside a little bit. And what I mean by that, I hate it when people hide behind the guys. Oh, everyone has to be so politically correct these days. You can't even say anything these days. No, you can't say what you're saying because you're being racist and you're being ignorant and you're being, you're, you're, you're being a horrible person. So don't let people do that to you. Like use that. Well, what I'm saying is,

We have to set aside the possibility, and you touched on it, Adam. You touched on it, Caitlin, about being uncomfortable, being surprised that this is happening. I think we have to change how we've been because how we've been making our way through our lives has not been working for a great majority of the human beings walking this planet.

Yeah, well, that's the thing. You're like, okay, so this hasn't been going particularly well, obviously, for huge segments of the population. It's clearly a weak spot in many societies. And it's an area that we have so much room for improvement on to improve people's day-to-day lives, their ability to get ahead in life, their ability to have autonomy and safety in their communities, stuff that just makes society better.

makes all of our lives better. So it has to change. It has to change. And even if you are not Black yourself, living in a better society is better for everyone, period. Living in a more empathetic society

benefits absolutely everybody. So it just, that's why it's so bothersome to see so many unfair things happening around you all the time. And I think that's why people are so fed up. And that's why you're seeing these massive protests now all over the places, because this is just one more way that the deck is stacked against so many people all the time. And it's, it's, it's so unfair. And if unfairness bothers you, this is a huge piece of it.

And, you know, there's going to be protests happening this weekend. There's one planned today in Toronto. You know, they're boarding up buildings downtown. Our studio right downtown today, while we're on the air, we just hear the sound of drills in the background. They're boarding up our studios and everyone hopes it's peaceful. The peaceful protest that took place in Toronto last weekend was very successful. There's no reason to assume that it could go in another direction right now. The one in Calgary was very peaceful as well. It was one of the biggest protests they've ever seen in the city's history.

And I have to say that it was, you know, people of all ages, people of all ethnicities. And I thought it was handled superbly well.

Yeah, and I think that's all this stuff, that this is part of that huge systemic unfairness that is bothering people all the time. It's giving them anxiety. It's making them unhappy. That's why you're seeing so many people taking part in these protests. It's because it's all part of the same horrible unfairness. And yeah, that's why you're going to see so many people on the streets probably for weeks to come. I hope the protests get more peaceful as time passes. They will. Yeah.

Yeah. Maya Angelou said a wonderful thing. She said, "Every storm runs out of rain."

And I think what she meant by that is just the volatility of the thunder and the lightning strikes and all those things. And then there is a residual, but I absolutely know that the momentum has to stay going. I personally am never going to go back to the way I was. I will never be complacent again. I am going to stand up for people whenever I can. And as often as I can, I'm never going to be complacent.

a person that remains silent because I'm afraid of making my other white friends uncomfortable,

I'm just not going to do it. I'm going to think much harder about the diversity that I need to show in my television show, in my music, to make sure that I open my eyes and be mindful of who we're hiring and who we're giving opportunities to. Anyway, we could have talked about this a lot. I want to thank all our listeners once again for joining us, Caitlin Green, Adam Karsh. We...

We are behind Black Lives Matter, all of us. I think I can speak to the three of us and we're hoping for better times ahead and let's keep the momentum going and let's learn how to be allies and let's all learn how to be anti-racist. You've been listening to the Jan Arden Podcast. Totally do. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.