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The Current Transcript for June 8, 2016

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

Well they planted a hidden camera in my bedroom, living room, and bathroom, and then they sent me pictures.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: The Secret Service had tried that before with reporters; the hidden cameras, the blackmail, the threats to make it public, but this time the reporter turned the screw and she went public releasing the pictures herself and exposing the naked vengeful ambitions of the highest officials in Azerbaijan. Khadija Ismayilova is a woman who refuses to be intimidated. She's identified massive fraud and a president who has been pocketing profits, and now fresh out of jail after yet another bungled attempt to silence her, she is talking to us. Journalist Khadija Ismayilova joins me in an hour. Now if you've been following the news you'll know that Hillary Clinton is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and that Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican and he has attacked a man's ability to be a judge based on his Mexican heritage. Back in the Sixties, that kind of talk came from George Wallace, a Democrat.

SOUNDCLIP

I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.

AMT: White rage against black civil rights and empowerment dominated the US south in the Sixties. Now, some watching events unfold in the US today, from Trump to Ferguson, see parallels that make them very uneasy. The lessons of white rage and of the hanging bridge in half an hour. But we begin today with a story affecting the teens of Woodstock, Ontario and resonating across this country.

SOUNDCLIP

I get bullied to the point where I would sit there and think of doing self-harm or-- it drove me crazy.

AMT: The uneasy intersection of bullying and suicide has the nation's attention again. Even as those who study anti-bullying programs say they don't work. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and this is The Current.

Back To Top »

Teen suicides in Woodstock, Ont., spur discussion on effectiveness of bullying programs

Guests: Tracy Vaillancourt, Dr. John Leblanc

SOUNDCLIP

[cars driving]

VOICE 1: It's just a big ball of confusion and worry going on and the only people that can understand why this keeps happening are dead.

VOICE 2: I do believe it has a lot to do with bullying for sure, and not enough awareness and help in the school system.

VOICE 3: For me personally, I had teachers who would tell me I wouldn't make it to Grade nine, wouldn’t make it past then because I have a learning disability.

VOICE 4: I feel that they didn't have enough support. Recently, when I went into our guidance office, they told me to go away because they don't want to talk to me. I struggle with anxiety and depression, and it’s just really hard, you know?

VOICE 5: You’re also fantastic! [cheers and whistles]

AMT: Wow. The voices of anguished teens in Woodstock, Ontario as they search for answers. In the last four months, five young people in the small city in the southwestern corner of the province have taken their own lives and officials say there have been many more attempts. Yesterday, students from a number of local schools staged a demonstration. Hundreds walked out of class, calling for more mental health resources. Mental health experts say the causes of suicide are often complex, they can’t be isolated to one specific factor, but many agree that bullying can play a role and that existing anti-bullying programs are not working. Tracy Vaillancourt is the Canada Research Chair in Children's Mental Health and Violence Prevention at the University of Ottawa. We've reached her just outside of Ottawa, hello.

TRACY VAILLANCOURT: Good morning.

AMT: What were you thinking as you listen to those kids in Woodstock just now?

TRACY VAILLANCOURT: I was heartbroken to hear how they're in so much pain, but I was also really pleased to hear the young man yell out his support for the student who is struggling with anxiety and depression. That is going to be an important part of our anti-bullying efforts and our mental health efforts to engage peers.

AMT: This cluster of suicides in Woodstock has been called a suicide contagion, is that an accurate term?

TRACY VAILLANCOURT: It is an accurate term and it's been shown to be a robust event across many different contexts and societies, so we tend to see suicides clustering together especially if they are high profile. So what we're doing today, is we're talking about it which could be problematic, but it also could be beneficial. The evidence isn't out just yet, but we do know in the aftermath of high profile suicides that suicidality increases.

AMT: And what's at work when we see that?

TRACY VAILLANCOURT: Well, we're not too sure. I mean, you started at the beginning of the segment talking about it being pretty complex. Depression is linked to suicidal behaviour and ideology. We also know that when people are thinking about suicide and they hear about stories where somebody has done it, it seems like that might be a good solution for their pain and we know that it's not, but the person who's experiencing that turmoil doesn't have a lot of hope for their future. They're pessimistic about their life and what is going to hold so this seems a plausible solution.

AMT: How much of a role can bullying play in suicide?

TRACY VAILLANCOURT: It definitely plays a role there. There have been several studies have come out that show a link between it. There was a med analysis that just came out and that's basically a summary study of all the studies together, and it indicated that there was indeed a link between being bullied and having suicidal thoughts and behaviour.

AMT: How is bullying actually defined?

TRACY VAILLANCOURT: So bullying is defined as repeated negative actions on the part of one person directed at an individual who has less power, and it's intentional. So this is a really unfair fight that happens over and over again and it's directed at individuals who can't stand up for themselves.

AMT: Give us a sense of the scope of the problem. How many kids and teens are bullied in Canada?

TRACY VAILLANCOURT: So, 30 percent of Canadian youth indicate that they are bullied occasionally, and about seven to ten percent of Canadian youth indicate that they're bullied on a daily basis, so that would mean that over half a million Canadian youth, school age children is who I'm talking about, would be bullied on a daily basis.

AMT: That seems like an awful lot.

TRACY VAILLANCOURT: It is an awful lot. It’s far too many.

AMT: In terms of anti-bullying programs, what are high schools in Ontario required to have by law?

TRACY VAILLANCOURT: So there are many different components. There is this thing called Bill-13, it is part of the Education Act and one of the things that's really good about Ontario is it compels all schools to use the same standard definition, so we can't wiggle our way through saying this isn’t bullying, so we have a clear definition of what we mean. There is also reporting obligation similar to what you'd see with child maltreatment, so people in the school and adults are compelled to tell the principal when they suspect bullying so they don't even have to know for sure that's happening. And then the principal is required by law to do something about it and it can range—there are a lot of different things that he or she can do but it involves progressive discipline, which is often an option that's used, but the parents need to be notified. So we're not keeping this event in silence and just within the-- we're not just keeping it within the school, so the parents are going to be involved, they're going to be notified about the child engaging in bullying behaviour or being the victim of a bullying episode or episodes.

AMT: And what Ontario is doing, is it enough?

TRACY VAILLANCOURT: It's not enough although I think it's a step in the right direction. I think we're doing more than most provinces and most countries, but it's not enough. The evidence suggests that bullying is not getting better in Canada. There was a study that just came out a few years ago that looked at the prevalence rates of bullying across 12 years, and every country was reducing their numbers except for Canada and the United Kingdom. So, I'm not sure why that is the case, but clearly we need to be doing more in Canada to reduce bullying.

AMT: Okay, well Tracy Vaillancourt, stay with us. Dr. John Leblanc is waiting in the wings to talk to us as well. He's a pediatrician with the I.W.K. Health Centre in Halifax. He's also an associate professor in the department of pediatrics at Dalhousie University. He's in our Halifax studio, hi Dr. Leblanc. Let's get you in on this. What are you seeing in your own practice, first of all, in terms of the effects of bullying.

JOHN LEBLANC: Well, in my own practice I see a lot of children with problems with respect to their families, and with respect to school. It's become kind of bread and butter pediatrics, not necessarily because we're seeing an increase in social emotional problems in families, but because on the whole children are getting physically healthier. It really is now a major thing that pediatricians across the country are having to deal with and part of that is because we don't have a sufficient number of mental health workers to deal with all of the problems that arise from families and in schools.

AMT: You studied anti-bullying programs in schools. What did you find?

JOHN LEBLANC: We did a systematic review of several of the popular programs used in North America and actually in Europe, as well. One of the programs is called WITS, it’s an interesting program out of British Columbia by Dr. Bonnie Leadbeater. It's the only one that we made a recommendation for. There were six other programs including a very nice program out of Finland, a friendly schools program out of Australia, a bullying prevention program. We recommended on the whole against these programs, not because they didn't work but because that's probably too strong a word, the issue is that there is an extremely small effect from a pretty major investment in time and resources. For example, the Olweus program might cost a school about $8,000 to $10,000 in the first year to pay for a training course, to bring someone in, and yet in large scale studies in North America and Europe, it's only had a marginal impact on rates of bullying and victimization, like just a few percent decrease in the number of children who report being bullied. So it's less about that these programs don't work, it's more that there's really very little return for a pretty major investment. I think really that goes back again to the nature of bullying as being an intentional act; something that's not going to be easily fixed by an off-the-shelf program.

AMT: Still, to have that many programs that aren't actually showing results seems rather large.

JOHN LEBLANC: It is large and I think that's where we as professionals and where schools and the organizations that work with youth have to very carefully look at whether to implement such programs. The other important distinction is that these are all what are called universal programs. These are programs that are applied across the board to entire school communities, students, teachers, and that's a very important thing for schools to do, but I think the emphasis has to be much more on creating healthy school environments, respect for people and so forth; a much more positive based approach rather than putting all of the energy and universal programs on to dealing with negative outcomes like bullying, which require a more targeted approach.

AMT: Tracy Vaillancourt, what does your research show in terms of how well anti-bullying programs work?

TRACY VAILLANCOURT: As part of consensus committee for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine from the United States, and we just released a report that is a state of the art report on bullying and our conclusions were that most of them don't work, and in fact we come up pretty strongly against zero-tolerance policies. I think that, well I don't think that, I know the evidence isn't strong. We don't have a lot of randomized control trials on these programs so even we're saying they work, I'm saying that they typically don't work. Even the ones that we think work, we haven't really done the right science to say how they work, if they work, at what level, that sort of thing. A lot of times we're just comparing to schools that said they would be in the study without randomizing and looking at School A versus school B and that's not really great science.

AMT: And so when you say they don't work, what's not working? What are they doing and what's just going right by everybody?

TRACY VAILLANCOURT: I'm not too sure. I mean, there are so many components to it. When they actually drill down and look at when they do work, what is working, a lot of times it's a mixed approach. As John was saying that you know we have a lot of these universal programs but we need universal programs with a targeted component to it. There's some really interesting work coming out of Europe showing that our anti- bullying efforts work for a certain segment but the segment we most want to address isn't working. For example, I've done a lot of work on high status bullies and the bulk of bullying takes place, or occurs, or is perpetrated sorry, by individuals who hold a lot of power; who are popular; who are higher on leadership in their school. Studies are showing that group in particular who are doing most of the bullying are actually impervious to the effects of anti-bullying programs. So I mean, these sorts of things is where we're at. We're trying to figure out why they're not working and looking at it more closely. It causes me a lot of concern because the group we most want to move in a sense is that group that [audio cuts out]--

AMT: I'm sorry, you cut out there. The group you want most want to move is which?

TRACY VAILLANCOURT:--is not moving at all. These high status bullies, the kids who wield so much power in their school and are abusing their power, are the ones who are not reducing their bullying as a consequence of being exposed to these programs.

AMT: John Leblanc, what do you think of what she's saying?

JOHN LEBLANC: I agree with Tracy and I think again it goes back to the nature of what bullying is, and because it is an intentional act that means that one has to go into the root for these high status bullies to find out exactly why they're bullying. It's interesting, many of these programs have shown larger decreases in victimization, but very little movement in the rate of children who report bullying, which I think kind of affirms that problem. There is something that a program that is applied across the board is simply not going to reach in these children and youth who have the desire to dominate somebody else with their aggression.

AMT: Well, John, you mentioned something called WITS that does appear to make some difference. What is it?

JOHN LEBLANC: It is a program that's targeted towards children and Grades One to Three, and that's important to realize as a limitation. We're not talking here about a program that has been tried in a high school setting, and it works by having pretty simple sessions in class rooms where the teachers and children read a book about bullying or about social skills and discuss it, and the they also learn the strategy of what to do when they're bullied and that's what the acronym stands for. It stands for Walk away, Ignore, Talk it out, and Seek help. So, there are often simple strategies that are used like that in many programs that help children deal with anger and so forth. I think it works partly because of the age and Dr. Leadbeater has a couple of studies that go out to six years and beyond that still show some effects. Now again, the effects are small. The nice aspect of this program is it does include some elements of social and emotional skills and it's not just focusing on negative behaviours, but it's still a relatively small effect and it is in the younger age group, which I think is where we really need to focus if we are going to have a long term impact on bullying.

AMT: Okay, so I'm a little confused though, because there are programs in a lot of schools, we're talking about Ontario specifically but across the country. I'm guessing there's a lot of money going into programs and consultants. What is everyone in the adult world missing that isn't reaching the children that people are trying to reach?

JOHN LEBLANC: I think they're missing-- I think people are so desperate to do something that when someone comes and offers them a program, they will seriously consider it. And we did a survey of how principals select programs and most of it is done by word of mouth. They call their colleague and say, have you tried this? How is it working? Very little evaluation goes into selecting these programs which is why we developed this bullying prevention tool kit, as well as a strong emotional learning program tool kit, to help administrators select those programs that could be applicable to their school. Part of it is that there's a desire to do something. There is certainly a big marketing push by the vendors of these programs who are very sincere and often develop a program that they put their career into, but are also very invested that their program be implemented. When we released our tool kit a couple of years ago, we were thanked by the Minister of Education because they saw it as a way to really help them deal with what they saw as an almost weekly barrage of people coming to promote the perfect solution for their children. It does mean that when any organization makes a decision about choosing a program, they need to look carefully at the science or consult people who have a little bit of expertise in this area and say, does this program really work? Is it really going to be worth spending $10,000 for schools to do it? If they do wish to implement a program, I think another critical feature is that since the evidence is so weak, if they want to implement a program, I think they're compelled to put in a strong evaluation framework to see if it actually works in their setting.

AMT: Okay, so you just mentioned vendors and $10,000 per school, that's roughly what a school pays to a vendor of a program?

JOHN LEBLANC: That depends on the program. That would be the cost of the first year of the Olweus Prevention Program because it requires two days of training, and it requires an external person to come and do that training, so when you're looking at the airfare, the cost of the curriculum and so forth, that's what it can cost. Whereas, something like WITS is under $1,000 a year. Even though it's not necessarily going have a tremendous impact, this at least is getting the conversation going, it is teaching some social skills to children at a cost of around $750 per year.

AMT: So if we know somebody is benefiting from an anti-bullying program, it may be financially but Tracy Vaillancourt, as you looked at this stuff and you looked at where the evidence does and does not exist, what do parents, and teachers, and administrators need to know that you know?

TRACY VAILLANCOURT: I think John hit it. We also did a study looking at evidence and what educators think is evidence, so we had over 1,700 educators in Ontario and they said that the reason they would adopt a particular anti-bullying program is because a colleague suggested it works, and this is very problematic because what we think works often doesn't work. I think we need to be way better educated about what the influence of science on prevention intervention is very important because it tells us what component works under what conditions, what return you can get, that sort of thing. When you're asking what parents and educators can do is in a sense they need to be, and I don't want to sound flippant, but they need to be a little bit more educated on this end and what works in terms of prevention and intervention. I also think we need to look at this a bit more broadly, so when we think about bullying, bullying is the systematic abuse of power, and we see bullying across the lifespan and we see it every day—

AMT: We’re reporting on it in the news, yeah. And we have to leave it there, but obviously there are questions of accountability that we need to follow up on. Thank you so much for your time, both of you today.

GUESTS: Okay, thank you.

AMT: That is Tracy Vaillancourt of the Canada Research Chair in Children's Mental Health and Violence Prevention at the University of Ottawa and Dr. John Leblanc, pediatrician with the I.W.K. Health Centre in Halifax, associate professor in the department of pediatrics at Dalhousie University. We want to hear your thoughts on what you're hearing. If you or your child have been sought help being bullied, if you are wondering what your school is doing, let us know about your thoughts on adequate care after you’ve heard this conversation. Tweet us, we're @thecurrentcbc. You can find us on Facebook, find us online cbc.ca/thecurrent. Stay with us, the news is next and then we're back. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti, this is The Current.

Back To Top »

Carole Anderson: "white rage" causes racial unrest in the USA

Guests: Carol Anderson, Jason Morgan Ward

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Hello, I'm Anna Maria Tremonti, and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Still to come, sex, blackmail, and videotape; how one investigative journalist took on the first family of Azerbaijan and the price she had to pay. But first, race and rage in the U.S.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: I say indict, convict, send that killer cop to jail. the whole damn system is guilty as - I said indict!

[Crowd chanting]

VOICE 2: People are like, how are you going to get the hearts of people around the country? I'm going to be honest, there are certain hearts I am not going to be able to reach, because I am seen as this angry black person. I'm seen as this rioter or this looter.

CROWD: Shut it down!

VOICE 3: Shut it what?

CROWD: Shut it down!

VOICE 2: It's a justified expression of anger, frustration, of losing black life on a consistent basis.

White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide. Professor Anderson is the Chair of the African American Studies Department at Emory University. She joins us from Atlanta, Georgia. Hello.

CAROL ANDERSON: Hello, how are you?

AMT: Well, I'm well, thank you, and I'm interested to hear your ideas. What did you think about what that black protester had to say, about how white America was looking at those riots in Ferguson in the clip we just heard?

CAROL ANDERSON: I think she was spot on. The way that the issues of race get framed in the United States particularly deals with black rage, black criminality, black violence, black anger. But as I saw what was going on, what I knew was happening really was white rage. Which is, as I say, so many people were focused in on the flames in Ferguson that they missed the kindling. They missed all of the policies that that had happened over a long period of time that in fact focused in on that one moment.

AMT: Give me a description of how white rage operates in America.

CAROL ANDERSON: White rage is very subtle. White rage operates through the U.S. Supreme Court, through local courts, through legislatures, through governor's mansions, through the presidency. It is the ways that policy congeals, particularly in moments of African-American advancement towards their citizenship rights. When African-Americans advance, you begin to see an incredible movement to undercut that advancement. But not the way that we often think of the word rage or racism. We so often here in the United States have confined racism to the Ku Klux Klan; to violence, to throwing the n-word around, through crosses burning on lawns. But this rage, this white rage is in fact very methodical, very clinical, and it cloaks itself in the language of democracy. Protecting democracy, valuing justice, valuing the ballot box. But in fact, doing just the opposite.

AMT: You trace white rage to the days after the end of the civil war.

CAROL ANDERSON: Yes.

AMT: Explain that to us.

CAROL ANDERSON: I traced it there because that's where you see one of those great incredible moments of black advancement. For centuries, African-Americans had been defined as property. Not as human beings, as property; to be bought, to be sold. And then with the end of the civil war with the 13th amendment to the U.S. Constitution that abolishes slavery, now they are human beings and now they are demanding their citizenship rights. And that advancement from property to human being to citizen, it created an enormous backlash that created the Black Codes. and the Black Codes and were these laws in the in the states of the old Confederacy that basically said that an African-American had to have a job and sign a labor contract. And if an African-American did not sign a labor contract, they could be arrested for vagrancy and then auctioned off to the highest bidder. Basically, reconstituting slavery under another guise.

AMT: And okay, and at the same time, the Ku Klux Klan is formed. This is, again, not a coincidence. Explain.

CAROL ANDERSON: Yeah, and to me, what you see what the Ku Klux Klan is the level of violence that it's going to take to try to get African-Americans to go as they say, back in their place. To be subjugated.

AMT: To undermine their progress.

CAROL ANDERSON: Absolutely, absolutely. And what makes this so stunning again, because we focus so much on the Klan, we ignore the policies that go around the Klan that in fact make the Klan possible. That make the kind of violence that the Klan does to black people acceptable with no consequences; in fact, heralded.

AMT: And so in other words, you say the Klan was used essentially to soothe the conscience of America when it came to racism. Because people would say, well, we're not as bad as them. We're not wearing the white hoods.

CAROL ANDERSON: Right, and so that's what you see. When I talk about that, that's when we get past the civil rights movement era in the 1950s and 1960s, where it becomes really clear that as Reagan's political strategist Lee Atwater talks about: in 1954 you could use the n-word; by 1968, you can't. And so now we have to use other language like states' rights, forced busing, neighborhood schools, those sorts of things-- cutting taxes, those sorts of things. But the whole point is that blacks get hurt worse than whites. And with that blacks get hurt worse than whites, understand that whites are collateral damage in this, but the target is blacks. And that it allows then this constriction of racism, because now you're not throwing around the n-word, it allows this this constriction of racism to be just the Klan. So you can have policies that lock black children into dysfunctional schools, impoverished schools, schools that we know don't work. But because those judgments coming down from the U.S. Supreme Court, these aren't folks in white hoods, they're in folks in black robes.

AMT: Okay, so I'm just--

CAROL ANDERSON: [interposing] So it's not racism.

AMT: So we can follow the trajectory, here. So we go through the '60s, the civil rights movement. People point to it as a great time of victories for African-Americans, the passage of the Voting Rights Act. But you're saying that the white rage responded then with laws and different things to try to undermine the empowerment that was moving forward. Am I right?

CAROL ANDERSON: Absolutely. And we're in that moment right now in the United States.

AMT: Okay, what are you seeing? Tell us what you're seeing.

CAROL ANDERSON: So I'll just take one line of the trajectory which deals with the Voting Rights Act that was passed in 1965. And that was in response to the massive disenfranchisement of black voters, where you had, for instance, in Mississippi, fewer than six per cent of African-Americans were registered to vote because of the incredible violence rained down on them and because of the laws in the state. The Voting Rights Act sought to change all of that, and it worked. It worked. Within three years, Mississippi had gone from fewer than six per cent of blacks were registered to vote, to nearly 60 per cent of African-Americans registered to vote. Immediately, you started seeing this push to figure out how do we pull apart the power of the Voting Rights Act? We see that particularly, it came to full being with President Barack Obama's election. Then--

AMT: [interposing] Well, because-- Okay, 2008, Barack Obama is elected, some people say America's in a post-racial period. But you point out there was an effort to undo the election. What do you see?

CAROL ANDERSON: Oh, absolutely. In that election, you saw so many new voters coming into the democratic process. You saw two million new African-American voters, two million new Latino voters, 600,000 new Asian-American voters. You saw those who made below $15,000 a year coming into the fore, coming into the democratic process. The Republican Party looked at this and realized that this was a losing proposition for them, particularly when you have an African-American moving into the White House, which is just almost like cognitive dissonance. And so they began to institute via their control of the state legislatures, and the governors' mansions in so many of these states, a series of laws which they said was to protect the ballot box from voter fraud; but, in fact, what it was designed to do was to curtail access to the ballot box, particularly for African-Americans, Latinos, and the poor. And it has worked.

AMT: You also make the point that things like the Tea Party, the push for less government that Republicans use, actually targets a black middle class.

CAROL ANDERSON: Oh, absolutely. One of the-- the realities in America are that African-Americans are overwhelmingly, particularly this middle class, employed in public, in government. And that's because there is less discrimination in the government sector in terms of hiring, and also in terms of salary than there is in the private sector. And so African-Americans have gone into government employment because there's less discrimination there. And so when you then get the push to have smaller government, it sounds, it's that beautiful colorblind race neutral language that, in fact, has a deep racist basis underneath. It sounds, hmm, wonderful almost. But what's really behind it is in fact a way to then eliminate a slew of jobs where African-Americans are employed. Ronald Reagan did that masterfully in the 1980s, and you're seeing that same push in the 21st century.

AMT: So what does the success of Donald Trump say to you about America and white rage?

CAROL ANDERSON: Oh, we are at a crossroads. What it says is that in that southern strategy that Lee Atwater defined so beautifully, what you saw was a major party in the United States tilling the ground, churning up racist hatred. Legitimizing racism with that euphemistic cover. What Donald Trump has done is to pull back that cover and so it's so visible. This is why you see Paul Ryan coming out, going, no. To say that somebody cannot do their job simply because of their race is textbook racism. You know, basically--

AMT: [interposing] But he still supports Trump, so what does that say to you?

CAROL ANDERSON: Exactly. Because they have so alienated-- not alienated, they have so pulled on the racism in their base, that it says that they know that they cannot come out against it now. It's like they have fed the monster for so long that now the monster has taken over.

AMT: Is there any way to diffuse the power of white rage?

CAROL ANDERSON: Yes, there is. Yes, there is. And that's one of the reasons why white rage has to continue to morph, is because there are large, a large number of Americans who want a better society, who have consistently fought for a better society. And that's what you're seeing right now. The shock of having Donald Trump as the Republican nominee, who is very explicit in his racism and the policies that he wants to implement, and how that feeds into that base, into that throng that the GOP has nurtured. You have a major backlash against that going, no that is not who we are, And that's how we begin to diffuse the power of white rage, is that when we begin to think of the we. That racism requires a divide and conquer, an us versus them.

AMT: Carol Anderson, we have to leave it there. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and your work with us, it's very interesting to hear what you're saying.

CAROL ANDERSON: Oh, thank you so much. That is Carol Anderson, Chair of the African American Studies Department at Emory University. Her new book is White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide. She joined us from Atlanta, Georgia.

SOUNDCLIP

[Music: Strange Fruit by Billie Holliday]

AMT: The song Strange Fruit, Billie Holiday singing there in 1939. The song was a cry of outrage against lynching in the South. Three years after that recording, a crime took place outside the town of Shubuta in Clarke County, Mississippi. It was savage, even by the bloody history of Southern mob violence. But this time the killing site was not a poplar tree, it was a bridge. Jason Morgan Ward tells that tragic and horrifying history in his new book The Hanging Bridge: Racial Violence and America's Civil Rights Century. He is a professor in the History Department at Mississippi State University. Jason Morgan Ward is in Mississippi. And just a warning, some of what we will be discussing today is disturbing. Hello.

JASON MORGAN WARD: Hi, thanks for having me.

AMT: First of all, I guess maybe you could describe the hanging bridge to me.

JASON MORGAN WARD: Sure, it is a steel river bridge with a steel frame and girders that was constructed in the early 20th century. It connects a rural road, a rural pathway just north of the small town of 750 or so.

AMT: And what's the town like? That's Shubuta, right? Shubuta, Mississippi?

JASON MORGAN WARD: Yes, yes. Historically, it was a black majority town, still is today, heavily black majority in a white majority county. It was a railroad stop, a fairly important trading hub. But always a relatively small town between the Gulf Coast and Central Mississippi.

AMT: There was a lynching that was extremely brutal in 1918 during the first World War. What happened?

JASON MORGAN WARD: In 1918, there was a quadruple lynching in this community. Two young men, the oldest in his mid-twenties we think; two women, teens and early twenties, both of whom were pregnant by most reports. And they were killed in retaliation for a murder conspiracy. They were all employed by a local white man. He turned up dead from a shotgun blast from behind, and they were all implicated in this plot, this murder plot.

AMT: And they were hanged, two on each side of the bridge.

JASON MORGAN WARD: Yes, and they were abducted from a tiny jail in this small town that was guarded by a part time law enforcement officer. The abduction, by most accounts, happened around dinner time. It was not a midnight, stealthy abduction, it was dozens of men. Accounts from the time mention men, because there's a delay of several days between the arrest and supposed confession of these young African-Americans and the actual killing. There are accounts that I've heard of white men filtering into the town, booking rooms at the local hotel. So this was certainly a premeditated act.

AMT: Anyone charged?

JASON MORGAN WARD: No, absolutely not.

AMT: There was another lynching, 1942.Same bridge.

JASON MORGAN WARD: Yes.

AMT: What happened?

JASON MORGAN WARD: Yes, 24 later, there's another lynching at the same bridge. This time, the victims are even younger: one is 14, one has just turned 15. Their names were Ernest Green and Charlie Lang. They were accused of attempted rape. The extent of what happened, by all accounts, is that they were by highway bridge and they encountered a 15-year-old white girl on her way home from school. There was an F.B.I. investigation of the lynching, which later, they talked to the girl involved, they talked to her family, they talked to local law enforcement and citizens. No one claimed that the boys came within six to eight feet of this young woman, but the charge was attempted rape. And most likely what happened were a small group of a half dozen including her relatives came to the county jail, the boys were basically handed over by law enforcement, who were the only ones with keys to the jail, and they were taken and hung from the bridge.

AMT: And handed over by law enforcement. No one ever paid a price for those lynchings?

JASON MORGAN WARD: Absolutely not. The difference in '42 is that-- both of these are acts of racial violence that occurred during World Wars, or in the World War One era, the World War Two era. And in World War Two, there's increasing pressure on the White House to show some sort of effort to combat lynching and other forms of racial violence, because it's an issue of international reputation. There's the problem of access propaganda and Nazi Germany, Japan pointing out racial hypocrisy in the United States, black morale.

AMT: You also point out at this point in time, what you have is a lot of white men going off to war, black men working, and a lot of black women who worked as maids leave those jobs because their husbands are making money. And it starts to shift economically, and that worries people. Worries white people.

JASON MORGAN WARD: With war mobilization, there are always economic changes. But in this case with new job opportunities open up, with military employment-- military service is also employment. You have troops sending home pay, you have defense workers migrating to the Gulf Coast and other areas and sending home pay. And so what you have is the reality of economic change, but also this sparks rumors across the south. So if a black domestic worker quits her job because she doesn't have to work for two dollars a week anymore washing dishes or cleaning up a white person's house, this sparks rumors that Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of the president, a vocal civil rights supporter, is secretly encouraging black women to quit their jobs and revolt against their white employers. They called it the Eleanor Clubs, and there are rampant rumours of Eleanor clubs. There are even more menacing rumours about black insurrection, about African-Americans hoarding weapons, about all the white men going off to fight and all the black men staying home; which is a sexual rumour, because the reason they're supposedly getting rejected by the draft is because they all have venereal disease. So you have rampant rumours.

AMT: And you also have this parallel to what Carol Anderson was just talking about, then, that the empowerment creates a backlash of this white rage.

JASON MORGAN WARD: Absolutely, absolutely. And one of the things that's interesting and that connects these generations not just to the civil rights movement but to contemporary racial politics and discussions of racial violence, is that in all of these cases, you have people making sense of what is happening, making sense of these violent incidents, in a historical context. Whether it's whites saying, well, no one would have gotten killed if the blacks weren't getting so uppity. If they weren't pushing for civil rights. You have African-Americans saying we were killed, they were killed in retaliation for African-Americans pushing for civil rights. And so you see parallels to today, where people across the board are blaming the incidents on "agitation" or, you know, very real racial tensions.

AMT: Jason Morgan Ward, we have to leave it there. I have more questions, but I'm out of time. But thank you so much for giving us some historical perspective through this one specific bridge, thank you.

JASON MORGAN WARD: Thanks so much for having me.

AMT: Jason Morgan Ward, his new book is The Hanging Bridge: Racial Violence and America's Civil Rights Century. He joined us from Mississippi. has his new book is the hanging bridge racial violence and America's civil rights century. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti, this is The Current on CBC Radio One.

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Blackmailed and imprisoned by government, Azerbaijan journalist tells her story

Guest: Khadija Ismayilova

AMT: Hello, I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and this is The Current. Our next story is a twisting tale of power, corruption, sex tapes, blackmail, revenge. At the centre of it all is Khadija Ismayilova, an investigative journalist who has been revealing truths the government of Azerbaijan would rather keep hidden. In a 2011 documentary called Amazing Azerbaijan, she outlined her latest investigation into government corruption.

SOUNDCLIP

I'm working right now on a story about the President. I have documents showing that the President’s family is involved in the construction of the Flag Square, which was an enormously expensive project and the government was presenting this as a patriotic project. Well, it turns out that the President's family made money on patriotic feelings of the people of Azerbaijan. I sent inquiries to the government about ownership of the companies, so they knew that I'm doing this and I think they have other tools to know what I’m doing, actually. If they are spending more than they should or they are stealing money, well, of course, I'm writing about it. I’m a journalist. And if they are not happy with that, well, stop stealing.

AMT: Three years after that broadcast, Khadija Ismayilova was arrested on charges of tax evasion and embezzlement. She was sentenced to seven years in jail and while incarcerated she received the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award. Now, after a year and a half behind bars, Khadija Ismayilova has been released from prison. As part of our occasional series Eye on the Media, we wanted her insights into the parallels of investigative reporting in Azerbaijan. Khadija Ismayilova joins me from her home in Baku. Hello.

KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA: Hello.

AMT: Well, listening to that little clip of you there, you are not afraid to say what you find.

KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA: Well, yes, I'm not afraid to say. I think living in fear is much more difficult than doing what I'm doing.

AMT: You have spent a career investigating government corruption in Azerbaijan. Tell us about the story which, in particular, led to these troubles that you faced.

KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA: Actually, the story that put me in trouble was my Panama Papers story, because, in 2011, I did an investigation on the mobile communication company and I found out that the government was lying about ownership of this company. For several years the government declared that German Siemens company is a shareholder. But it turned out that the main shareholders are three Panamanian companies and in 2011 I was able to find owners of the Panamanian company. It was daughters of our president.

AMT: And how much money was going into that family?

KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA: It's a huge amount of money. Before my arrest, I was able to calculate, through different companies, like holdings, construction, tourism, and hotel businesses, plus communication business, plus gold mines, all sorts of companies together, even the DRO calculation showed more than two billion dollars of wealth.

AMT: So, you were actually looking for Panama Papers before the most recent Panama Papers that hit the news?

KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA: Yes, I found offshore companies of our President and 11 companies that his daughters started in Panama. They're behind a lot of businesses in Azerbaijan.

AMT: And so Khadija, it must've been really hard to figure that out. As you continued to follow that paper trail, how did you figure out where to look and how to access that information?

KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA: Well, actually, I found out that Panamanian companies are behind Siemens in 2008 and it took me three years to find a way to go to Panama Papers. And it happened thanks to Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, which I am now a part of, and the OCCRP, they helped to get access to and search in Panamanian business registry.

AMT: Well, all the investigating you did revealed how the president's family is pocketing so much money from these commercial transactions, living in luxury, hobnobbing with the rich and famous all over the world. How does that lifestyle compare to what life is like for the average person in Azerbaijan?

KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA: Well, those who come to Azerbaijan, they see the difference between the city centre and the outskirts. I would say, it's like of five per cent of the country is very wealthy and the others are struggling for piece of bread. And a lot of people are trying to survive and that's how the government managed to silence all these people, because the government keeps people busy with struggle to find a piece of bread. And when I look at the business of our ruling elite, I see that those businesses are not very well managed, actually. They are not making as much money as they could with all these opportunities they have, because they enjoy a monopoly, because nobody can interfere to the sphere of business there. They are dealing with-- They entered the business without any bidding procedures. They enjoy state contracts and so on. Despite all of these opportunities and corruption they don't do well. And so the main goal of the country's ruling elite is not to make that much money. The main goal is to deprive other people from making money. Because when ordinary people are having an opportunity to earn money, wellbeing brings independence and they would start asking questions, they would start making donations to civil society, and so on. And that is what the government does not want.

AMT: So, given that, how did President Aliyev’s administration react to the stories that you published?

KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA: When the first story investigation about them was published it was even before Panama Papers. It was about the airline company that was privatized piece by piece and the state-owned bank was co-privatized by the President’s daughter. Then the first time they responded they said, well, it’s the President’s daughter, but has a right to do business, so you cannot blame them for having business. In other investigations, they refused to comment. So, they've been ignoring the process. But what they did, they started sending me threats, like, do you want to be dealt with? And so on. And then there was blackmail and that was the worst thing they could do to a woman in Azerbaijan and they did it.

AMT: What did they do?

KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA: Well, they planted a hidden camera in my bedroom, living room, and bathroom, and then they sent me pictures from the video stills and also included a note saying I should behave or I will be defamed. So, I immediately went public with that threat and said, I'm not ashamed of anything I've done. So, the pictures were showing me in my bedroom with my boyfriend. It's not that easy in Azerbaijan. It's a conservative country and people here don't welcome relationships without marriage.

AMT: So, they thought they could silence you and intimidate you. Instead, you went public?

KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA: Yes, that's what happened. There could be another goal as well, because the pictures were received at the address where my brother lives, actually. And one of the expectations could be that my brother would kill me or someone else from the family would kill me, because honour killings are taking place in this country. And another would be that I would refrain from doing journalism further on and there was another expectation of them that people would not respect me as they used to.

AMT: You knew that was the reaction they wanted and might get and yet you didn't back down. I don't think I can underline how courageous that was of you, in living where you live.

KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA: Yes, that was a tough decision. That was a tough decision, but, well, I couldn't do the other way. It would be a nightmare life afterwards. I wouldn't be able to live in fear. It would be much more difficult.

AMT: What was the public reaction to what you did, Khadija?

KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA: I got a lot of support and the most surprisingly, I've been supported by three religious communities along with the rest of the civil society. I got support of the Islamists in the country and that was quite surprising given that I’m an atheist. I don't know what I would do if I wouldn't be supported, but I didn’t know that there will be support. I decided to face the challenge as it is and it turned out that the government was ashamed for what they did.

AMT: Can you tell me what has happened to some of the other journalists who have been trying to investigate government corruption?

KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA: Well, they react with blackmail cases before me. There were two blackmail cases when perpetrators went public with their videos and it was shown on the TV channel ran by the President’s cousin. And these guys, they stepped back and they are no longer journalists. And we have had a journalist who was killed in 2005, with five bullets in his mouth. Elmar Huseynov was killed and he was investigating the President’s family business. And, actually, when he was killed, I decided that I will do that job because-- I felt guilty because I thought that if we wouldn't leave him alone in the field, he wouldn't be killed, because the government knew for sure that if they kill him, there will be silence and there was a silence for a while.

AMT: Yeah. So, last December when they arrested you, what did they charge you with?

KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA: Oh, it's…. It's a very complicated story because they charged me with the inciting to suicide. It was a former colleague who attempted to suicide because his girlfriend decided to break up with him. And then he came up with the complaint letter to the prosecutor's office saying that I harassed him so much that he decided to suicide. And I was arrested with that, which was not true, actually. I didn't see the guy for a long time. And anyways, two months after my arrest, the guy went public with a confession that it was the government's order and the guy was forced to do that. It was clear from the very beginning.

AMT: They also charged you later with illegal entrepreneurship and tax evasion, misappropriation of property, abuse of position. What did that have to do with anything?

KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA: Well, basically, they understood that they went nowhere with the first charge. So, they came up with four new charges and it was about the financial issues of Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty I’ve been working with. I was bureau chief, Baku Bureau Chief, for Radio Liberty for two years, from 2008 to 2010, and they claim that there was a tax evasion taking place there and I was responsible for that. But, in fact, like it wasn’t my job to deal with any financial issues, because I was I was assuming only editorial responsibilities there. It wouldn't make sense to hide taxes or evade taxes. It's not a tax payer in terms of profit tax because it’s and NGO, it’s non-profit.

AMT: Right. Despite the fact that this was political and clear to people on the outside, they found you guilty and sentenced you to what you thought was going to be seven and a half years in prison. What was the prison like?

KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA: Well, it was definitely better than what prison was in my imagination, but it was a prison. It was an overcrowded and understaffed, underfunded facility. It lacked everything, actually -lack of toilets, lack of food, lack of everything. Plus, lack of communication. And the most difficult part was, for me, was that in the past six months when I was in prison after pre-trial detention, I didn't listen to my music. So that was the most difficult part of it.

AMT: Now, while you were in there, Khadija, the Panama Papers that we all came to hear about, with the connection to Mossack Fonseca, were released. How did you react to the release of those papers while you were in prison?

KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA: Well, that was the first time, maybe, when I thought that I would want to read them. Before when I was doing my Panama stories, I've been asking people who know Spanish to read them. And I thought that there was a lot of job to do, a lot of work to do, and I decided to study Spanish to be able to read them myself.

AMT: So, you were preparing for more investigative reporting on the inside?

KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA: Yeah, absolutely. Why would I waste the time? And when I got to released I was eager to continue.

AMT: I want to ask you as well, were you getting support, while you were in prison, from people within Azerbaijan?

KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA: Absolutely. Absolutely. My family was sort of surrounded with my friends and students and colleagues here in Azerbaijan and was overwhelmed with the scope of-- with the huge support coming from outside. It's surprising because you expect them to be scared and to stay away from troubled family, because that's what's mostly people are forced to do. But the most wonderful part was to see the investigations published in the newspaper, because that was my biggest concern, that I will be arrested and people will be scared, other journalists will be scared. Nobody will do investigations. And what do I see? The newspapers, they republished all the investigations and I was so happy that the work is going on.

AMT: So, there was something called Project Khadija when you were jailed and then they continued the work you had started.

KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA: Well, it's an honour to me that so many wonderful journalists decided that they actually linked my name to their work. I'm reading through the page of the OCCRP where the Khadija Project is placed. It's just a wonderful thing. I mean, I was overwhelmed with pride and joy that it definitely was worth it to be in prison and know that things are going on. And I think that was the reason why the government had to release me, because they didn't achieve any of their goals. They thought that there would be fewer investigations - there were even more. They thought there would be less criticism towards the government - there were even more. So, it didn't work with me. They didn't achieve any of their goals and that's why they decided that it's less costly for them to release me than to keep me in prison.

AMT: What impact has that reporting had on President Aliyev’s position internationally?

KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA: Well, now there are calls for sanctions and there is a lot of criticism regarding the dirty investments coming from different countries where the country's officials are robbing their people and then take their dirty money to countries like the United Kingdom, Germany, France, United States. So, I think they always feel that one day the people of those countries, like these democracies, will say don’t bring your dirty money here. Get out with your dirty money. So, this is one of the things that is important. Another thing that is important is that they fear sanctions. They are afraid that one day the government of the United States or the European Union countries will deny them visas and then they will not be able to enjoy products of democracy and transparency, good healthcare or good education. There are calls in the United States and European Union to start sanctions against such corrupt leaders or such corrupt officials. But, again, it has most impact internally, because people of the country, they were fed with the legend that things are bad because the president doesn't know what is going on. His surrounding people are doing bad things. If only he would know, it would be different. And with investigations that reveal that his family was an immediate profiteer of the problems in the country, then it turned out that he knew and he profited from the problems. So, then, I think, that was the end of the legend. And it was eye-opening for most of the people. And ironically enough, the government deprived of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty of its licence and the opposition newspapers are prevented from circulation, and they think that-- And there is no single independent TV channel. So, the government thinks that by controlling the media they could prevent the people from knowing all this. And then the internet destroyed this plan. Plus, by arresting me they made me even more popular.

AMT: There are other journalists who remain in jail. How many?

KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA: Ok, there are at least six of them, as far as we know. Plus, there are some writers and free speech prisoners. So, they're not journalists or bloggers, but they are free speech prisoners. And the most famous journalist who is in prison is Seymour Hazy. He is Editor and Chief for Azadliq Newspaper. It’s an opposition newspaper and Seymour was also a presenter of Azerbaijani, our satellite TV program. Seymour is imprisoned just for criticizing the government. Seymour got five years imprisonment for hooliganism. Basically, they framed his case. And I think it's very important that people like Seymour Hazy in freedom. But there is also another section of the political prisoners list that we call hostages. These people have not been involved in any political or civic activity that would bring them to risk, but they were arrested to put pressure on their siblings or relatives who are outside.

AMT: And in the midst of all this, you continue to face court charges, do you not?

KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA: Yes, I do. I do have two charges still remaining. They are illegal entrepreneurship and tax evasion charges. What I picked up from the paperwork they’ve done is that they claim that I should have registered in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a foreign journalist because I worked for foreign radio. And since I didn’t do that, everything I've earned is illegal entrepreneurship. It has nothing to do with the law. It has nothing to do with logic. It's just what they say.

AMT: So, Khadija, you outline how the government uses its courts and its secret service to try to intimidate and silence. Why is it so important for you to continue this kind of work given the climate in which you work?

KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA: I don't know. It's normal. I mean, if I wouldn't do it, it would mean that they scared me and I stepped back. I don't want to live with that feeling.

AMT: So, when you wake up in the morning you think about going and getting that story?

KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA: Well, I’ve always said that-- I mean, I don't look for corruption of these people or that. I'm not digging into people. I’m digging into the stories. When I see the stories—Like, when I see the problem in the country, I look for the reason and then I find out that there is a corruption case. And when I look, dig into, their names pop up. So, I'm not looking specifically for the president's family in every business. It’s just that they pop up, pop out from every investigation I am doing, because they own almost everything in the country.

AMT: So, it's like you said in that clip at the beginning of our conversation, that if you don't want to see yourself reported on, stop doing the stuff I'm reporting on.

KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I'm a journalist. It's my job. It’s the best I can do. And I think it’s useful and people have a right to know.

AMT: Well, the best you can do is very good indeed, Khadija. And thank you for your work and your courage in doing that work. Thank you.

KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA: Thank you for your kind words.

AMT: Khadija Ismayilova is an investigative reporter in Azerbaijan. She joined us from Baku. We contacted the Azerbaijan Embassy in Ottawa to request an interview. The embassy is considering the request. That is today's edition of The Current. Coming up here on The Current in the coming days, hear my conversation with Roy Henry Vickers, one of Canada's most celebrated artists. His paintings are in galleries around the world. His work has been presented to Queen Elizabeth, former Soviet leader Boris Yeltsin. Not bad for a colour blind kid growing up in small town BC. Now he’s 70 and I'll speak to Roy Henry Vickers about his art, his addictions, and his Indigenous heritage. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thank you for listening to The Current.

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June 8, 2016 full episode transcript

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