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The Current Transcript for September 16, 2020

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: You know, in this era of upheaval, we need new language in order to understand how we got to where we are and how we might be able to find a way to push past it, to transcend the boundaries that have been created for us long ago.

MATT GALLOWAY: For Pulitzer Prize winning author Isabel Wilkerson that language is about moving beyond talking about race and instead talking about caste. In a brilliant new book, she explores how a concept of hierarchy more associated with India actually shapes many facets of American society, from politics and policing to immigration, real estate and many things in between. Isabel Wilkerson is here in 30 minutes. Also this morning, life under hazy skies in smoky British Columbia. And later.

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VOICE: The Spanish parent company of the retailer Zara will close up to 1200 stores worldwide. The company has suffered a 44 percent sales slump between February and April.

MG: Working from home meant a boost in the sale of sweat pants and a steep drop in the sales of more formal clothing. In an hour, how some people in the fashion industry are hoping that this moment sparks a reset to more sustainable shopping. We start though at the back of a very long line waiting for a COVID test. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

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Misinformation campaigns about US west coast wildfires are spreading fast

Guests: Isaac Bogosh, Dick Menzies, Stephanie Johnson-Obaseki

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VOICE: Honestly, whenever I come up here, it's normally not this long, but I figure increase in cases, more people coming to get tested. This is the longest I've waited. Normally, I come up every week. I own a restaurant down in Queen West, so we come at the end of the work week and get tested.

MG: She's waiting her turn at a Toronto COVID assessment centre yesterday, along with many other people in line.

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VOICE 1: I got here about a quarter to twelve and it's now roughly three o'clock. It's been pretty long, but not that bad. I feel fine, but I have to get tested as a precaution.

VOICE 2: I'm willing to keep waiting. I just want to know for certain what's going on. I knew it was gonna be a long time. I took time off work.

VOICE 3: About two hours. Looking through the line, maybe it will take about the next two hours to see. So I'm just waiting. Purposely I'm travelling back home and the airline need test results and I'm travelling on Thursday. I'm hoping it come before I travel. Yeah. So I don't care if it takes forever today, I still have to wait.

MG: Demand for COVID-19 testing is up in many places across Canada. In cities like Toronto wait times can be as long as five hours. In Alberta turnaround time for results has jumped to seven to ten days. And with kids back in school and cold and flu season looming, some experts are worrying that Canada's capacity for testing for COVID-19 is falling short. Dr Isaac Bogosh is an infectious disease physician at Toronto General Hospital. Doctor, good morning.

ISAAC BOGOSH: Good morning.

MG: I've seen these long lines in my city. Why is the wait times so long to get a COVID test?

ISAAC BOGOSH: Well, I think there's lots of different factors as you alluded to earlier. One is that people are concerned and are obviously coming out to get a test. And I think the messaging has also been anyone can get a test at any time and no one's gonna be turned away from COVID-19 testing centres. So there's been a lot of interest. And, you know, lastly, there's, you know, the messaging that's been parlayed by public health officials as well. And many of us have said, you know what, if you're worried, go get a test. So then it turns out, of course, we have a limited number of test centres. There's a lot of them, but there's there's still a finite resource. And when you have a lot of people trying to use that finite resource we'll see some backlash.

MG: Is that messaging wrong? I mean, you talked to people in line and there are a number of people perhaps who don't have symptoms. Maybe they haven't been exposed, but they just want to know and maybe they want to go to a cottage, they want to go and be with friends. Is that messaging wrong?

ISAAC BOGOSH: Well, I think in a perfect world where we have unlimited resources and unlimited access, it would not be wrong. It would be fine and we would want to test, test, test, test, test. But of course, that's not the world we live in and there are finite resources. And I think with given the snapshot that we're in right now in Canada, with the resources that we have available, I think that testing really should focus on people who have potential exposures and or potential symptoms and or potential risk factors. But the utility of testing in people with no symptoms, no risk factors and no obvious exposures is very, very, very low.

MG: When you talk about that snapshot, part of that snapshot is the fact that kids are back in school. As I mentioned, cold and flu season is on our doorstep. How could this not have been anticipated by governments across the country that there would be an increased demand given those factors?

ISAAC BOGOSH: Well, it certainly was anticipated. And over the course of many months, the capacity has gone up dramatically. But maybe it hasn't gone up as much as we would like, but it certainly is vastly different now compared to what we were just compared to what we were having to deal with in March, April, even May of this year. So obviously not perfect, but significantly better. And, you know, clearly, if there's many ways to get a diagnostic test. So there's many ways to test you. Diagnostic testing, which is what we're talking about. We could talk about screening, we could talk about surveillance, but a lot of these chew up resources and these are finite resources. And maybe we didn't stretch the we didn't stretched the capacity that we should have for this time of year.

MG: Just briefly, we heard people there waiting in line for three, four or five hours. Not everybody can do that. People who can't take time off work, essential workers, people who are juggling family, lots of other things. What would that mean in terms of the spread of the virus if people can't wait in line?

ISAAC BOGOSH: Yes, certainly this could turn people away from over 90 testing centres that that shouldn't be turned away. And that's why I think we have to be realistic about that where we're at right now in Canada in terms of our capacity and adjust our policy to really align with that. And really now I think the testing should focus on those with symptoms, however mild or severe, but those with symptoms, those with risk factors and those with potential exposures. And if we just focus on those individuals, I think we'll be able to better utilize the capacity that we have now and hopefully we grow our capacity so that we don't have to do that.

MG: All right. Let's talk more about that. Stay on the line. I'm joined now by Dr. Dick Menzies, who is a senior scientist at the Research Institute at McGill University Health Centre, and the senior author on a recently published paper about systematic testing of groups who are at the highest risk of contracting COVID-19. Doctor, good morning to you.

DICK MENZIES: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Given what we heard from Isaac Bogosh, which groups do you believe should be given highest priority for testing?

DICK MENZIES: So right when we looked at this some months ago and as you say, just published this paper, so we've looked at contacts at the highest risk group, followed that, following that with health care workers and workers in long-term care facilities or nursing homes and then essential workers. These are the workers who are public facing or working in situations where they can't avoid close contact with others, for some manufacturing plants. And then finally, schoolchildren, although this last group, we're not too sure what the risk is, it's more a potential risk because obviously a classroom situation and difficulties of maintaining social distancing amongst kids and teenagers. And so I definitely agree with Dr. Bogosh that we need to set priorities, although I also think that, you know, in Canada, a massive testing is feasible, but governments need to set aside some resources. And compared to the massive costs of shutdown, we think that the costs of dramatically scaling up testing are really trivial, minor compared to the massive, massive economic and social costs of shutdown.

MG: How much would it cost to do that kind of testing?

DICK MENZIES: So we've projected the cost as much as a billion dollars over. If you test these groups, especially if you test them routinely. But compare that again to federal budget costs, projected expenditures for economic relief of 160 billion this year. Again, you know, one billion sounds like a lot, but suddenly seems like nothing compared to these other costs.

MG: How do you go about doing that if there already is, you know, there are these long lines for testing, how do you go about prioritizing those target groups?

DICK MENZIES: Of course. So, I mean, the first thing is, apart from close contacts or contacts in general, where they're obviously dispersed throughout the population, these other groups are congregated at their workplaces or at schools. So we've proposed and costed out a system of mobile testing where you go to test them at their work or school location. So then you have, frankly, a much more efficient way of testing people. They're all right there. And you avoid long line-ups. Obviously, you have to you have to do some careful planning and scheduling, but you can avoid these long line-ups and really encourage testing this way by going out and testing people right at their workplace or school.

MG: In Saskatchewan we're hearing about schools that have mobile testing centres and they're testing students kind of right at the school. Is that a good example of what you're talking about?

DICK MENZIES: Yes. Yes, exactly. Perfect. You just pile a couple of people into a van and drive over to the school. And, you know, obviously you have to be you have to schedule things carefully. We're also we also costed out using saliva testing instead of those nasal pharyngeal swabs. Again, I don't know how many people have had the slobs, but they're a bit unpleasant. They're they're more expensive sometimes. Even the slobs themselves are in short supply. They require a nurse to administer them or a trained health professional. They expose that health professional to to someone coughing and sneezing all over them. And all of this can be eliminated through use of saliva based sampling, which is turns out to be almost as good or as good as nasal pharyngeal swabs for for COVID testing.

MG: I'm going to talk more about that in just a moment. In the meantime, Dr. Menzies, thank you for your time this morning.

DICK MENZIES: Peasure.

MG: Dr. Dick Menzies is a senior scientist at the Research Institute of McGill University Health Centre. Dr. Isaac Bogosh has been listening in. Is that in some ways the answer, that you take the tests to the people? That if there are targeted groups that you need to test, that you bring the test to them?

ISAAC BOGOSH: Yeah. I mean, I honestly don't think that there's going to be one silver bullet solution, but that would certainly be a major component of a smart path forward. And, you know, really what we're talking about is when we're talking about high risk groups, it's really conducting some degree or some form of diagnostic surveillance or surveillance on those on those individuals. So periodic, you know, a test once is they're going to do anything. We're talking about periodic testing in high risk groups so that you can rapidly identify cases to prevent spread to others and to prevent change of transmission in the community. That's smart. And one of many ways is to bring testing trucks to those high risk groups. And I completely agree about the saliva. There's about a trillion good reasons why the saliva test would be would be extremely helpful that Dr. Menzies outlined. So, yeah, I'm certainly all for that.

MG: Well, let's talk more about that. Dr. Stephanie Johnson-Obaseki is a surgical oncologist and assistant professor at the University of Ottawa. She's been working on a saliva test for COVID-19, and has published a study about its effectiveness. Doctor, good morning to you.

STEPHANIE JOHNSON-OBASEKI: Good morning.

MG: How does your saliva test work?

STEPHANIE JOHNSON-OBASEKI: So for the setting of our study, we had people perform the test in a testing centre, but that was simply for convenience to compare the swab results to the saliva results. Our test could be used in someone's home or as Dr. Menzies pointed out, could be brought to groups of high risk people. So essentially, it's a small tube with a little funnel at the top that you provide a one millilitre sample of saliva into. And upon closing the container and it breaks a membrane that allows a fixative and a virus sidel or a substance that kills the active portion of the virus. First, safe shipping to the lab for formal testing.

MG: And the advantage of this is what?

STEPHANIE JOHNSON-OBASEKI: Well, I think of some of the things have already been highlighted. So a patient can do this or a person can do this on their own. It doesn't require a health care professional to help them do it. So it could be done in someone's home. It could be brought to people's workplaces. The idea in my mind that saliva brings to the table is to increase the number of people that are able to be tested by breaking down some of the barriers that we've talked about. So by allowing testing to come to the person rather than the person having to present to a testing centre, are they compatible in terms of the effectiveness of the saliva test versus the the swab tests that we're familiar with? So in our study, the swab samples missed a few positives that saliva picked up and vice versa. But the swab that picked are missed fewer than the saliva samples. So that swab still seems slightly superior in our study anyway.

MG: But it is that difference enough to delay the introduction of a test like this until you can kind of have almost an exact match, or are we in a situation now where, you know, close is good enough?

STEPHANIE JOHNSON-OBASEKI: So I agree with Dr. Bogosh. If we were living in a perfect world with infinite resources, of course, we would look for the perfect, most sensitive, most accurate test and maybe we would test people in multiple different ways at multiple different time points, but that's not where we are right now. I think we need to mobilize as much resources as possible to test as many people as possible, acknowledging that no test will be perfect.

MG: If I pardon my language, spit in the tube and then send it off in the mail. When do I get the results back? And part of this is about doing the tests, but also it's about getting results back in an efficient manner,.

STEPHANIE JOHNSON-OBASEKI: Of course. So, of course, it will depend on how those tubes arrive. Sorry. Are taken to the lab or shipped to the lab. But, you know, if it's all within the same the same city and assuming it's alive, samples could arrive to the lab within hours. It wouldn't be any different than the full swab samples, meaning that the results would be available within 24 to 48 hours.

MG: One of the things we've heard about and part of this is around vaccines is that people are looking at repurposing things, trying to figure out something that exists that might help us in the fight that we're in right now. And this is in some ways an example of that. Right? You you had developed this for HPV.

STEPHANIE JOHNSON-OBASEKI: Yes. So I worked with a company who developed the saliva samples, and I've used it in the past for HPV research. That's correct. And, you know, had the idea or thought that perhaps this would be useful in the setting of this pandemic.

MG: When do you think something like this might be available?

STEPHANIE JOHNSON-OBASEKI: So I think Health Canada was hesitant to approve saliva testing at the. Forgiving because there wasn't the data to support it, but I am hopeful that our study, you know, has helped to provide the data that will give them the confidence to move forward with approval.

MG: This is fascinating. Doctor, thank you.

STEPHANIE JOHNSON-OBASEKI: Thank you.

MG: Dr. Stephanie Johnson-Obaseki. Back to Dr. Isaac Bogosh. I spoke with the health minister, Patty Hajdu, last week, and we talked about different forms of testing and she said that the process exists for a reason in terms of approvals. That you can't approve things immediately. There has to be the steps taken to ensure that something like this actually works and is going to help. Do you think that Health Canada should be expediting these approvals so that we can have those at home saliva tests like Dr. Johnson-Obaseki is working on?

ISAAC BOGOSH: So, yes, I certainly think it should be expedited. But also I think Health Canada is appropriately cautious. Look what happened with the serology tests in the United States. They provided emergency authorisation just for every serology test known to mankind or humankind, pardon me, and it was a colossal disaster. They didn't know what to make of the test. Some worked, some didn't. So we're certainly more conservative than other regulatory bodies. And and that's a good thing. But, of course, in the same breath. Yeah. It's pretty clear that the saliva tests are going to be helpful. I don't think they're a game changer per se. I think they're a major step in the right direction. They still need the lab to process, which still takes time. But but it's certainly a huge step in the right direction by lowering barriers to providing a diagnostic tool, getting a diagnostic test performed. But but, yeah, I mean, I think we would be very helpful to have these in with Health Canada to to start approving these.

MG: I guess people just look south of the border and they see these rapid antigen tests which give results within what hours. They're not quite as accurate as a lab test. The United States has had these available for months and people wonder if they have them there, why don't we have them here?

ISAAC BOGOSH: I think I really think these home base rapid antigen test, the ones that might be analogous to a pregnancy test. If if those are reasonably accurate, which I'm not quite sure they are just yet in the United States, but when they get, when they are reasonably accurate, this this would be a game changer. It's a slightly different question. This answers the question, should I go to work today? Yes or no? Should I send my kids to school today? Yes or no? And, you know, you imagine you get an answer within a minute or two of putting a saliva sample on a test strip. That would be phenomenal. That would absolutely, really make life so much easier in Canada.

MG: Because of the scenes of long lines and the stories of people waiting for hours for a test and then days for the results, the province of Alberta is is looking at, you know, well it's already allowing pharmacies to administer COVID-19 tests, the province of Ontario expected to follow suit this week. Is that going to change things? Is that going to reduce the wait time?

ISAAC BOGOSH: It might do a couple of things. One is that I think it certainly lowers barriers to getting a test done, which is always a good thing. And it may open up testing to more impacted or marginalised communities, which is a obviously a good thing. But on the other hand, all these tests still need lab processing and there is limited or finite lab capacity. So while it's great to lower barriers for people to get a diagnostic test done, if it still takes three or four days to process that test and get a result back, we're not dealing with all the issues at hand. So, you know, on the one hand, it's great news. On the other hand, we still have to deal with the underlying capacity issues. And if there are capacity issues, perhaps I'm not. I want to use the word restrict, but perhaps reach a better messaging saying who should get a diagnostic test with the caveat that no one is going to be turned away from a diagnostic testing centre.

MG: Just finally, I mean, throughout this pandemic, we have heard that the way out of this in many ways is test, test, test. How optimistic are you that we will be able to meet the demand for tests across this country?

ISAAC BOGOSH: Well, I think in Canada right now, instead of test, test, test, I think we're at test, test. So probably two out of three.

MG: Are we gonna get to the third?

ISAAC BOGOSH: I don't know. I don't know. I really hope so, but I don't know.

MG: And if we don't?

ISAAC BOGOSH: Well, quite frankly, I think we're so much better off than what we were at, you know, March and April of last year. I mean, we are just light years ahead. Is it perfect? No. Is it pretty good? Yeah. Is it good enough? Well, we're about to find out.

MG: We will indeed. Doctor, it's great to speak with you. Thank you.

ISAAC BOGOSH: Have a good one.

MG: Dr. Isaac Bogosh is an infectious diseases physician at Toronto General Hospital. Have you tried to get a COVID-19 test? Have you been waiting in line? Maybe you are waiting in line now before the testing centre opens up. Let us know your experience of trying to get a COVID-19 test across this country. You can email us thecurrent@cbc.ca, tweet us @TheCurrentCBC or go to the website cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the contact link. Your stories about trying to get tested, please. Your CBC News is up next. And then.

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VOICE: Joe Biden and his bosses from the radical left want to significantly multiply what they're doing now and what will be the end result is you will totally destroy the beautiful suburbs.

MG: The safety of the suburbs has been front and centre in this U.S. election campaign. In a moment, Isabel Wilkerson will share why she sees this as America's caste system coming to the fore. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. We're back in six minutes. Stay with us.

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A Pulitzer Prize winning writer exposes the deadly cost of caste systems in America and beyond

Guests: Isabel Wilkerson

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

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MG: Still to come, rethinking fast fashion in an era of work from home PJs. But first, the American caste system.

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VOICE: They're not satisfied with spreading the chaos and violence into our communities. They want to abolish the suburbs altogether by ending single family home zoning. This forced rezoning would bring crime, lawlessness and low quality apartments and a now thriving suburban neighbourhoods. President Trump smartly ended this government overreach, but Joe Biden wants to bring it back. These are the policies that are coming to a neighbourhood near you. So make no mistake, no matter where you live, your family will not be safe in the radical Democrats' America.

MG: That was Patricia McCloskey's warning last month at the Republican National Convention. She and her husband, Mark McCloskey, gained international attention by waving guns at anti-racist marchers as they passed by their multi-million dollar mansion in St. Louis. Why the Republican Party thought that image would help its cause could say a lot about the caste system that has existed in the United States for hundreds of years says my next guest. Isabel Wilkerson is a Pulitzer Prize winning author. Her fantastic new book is called Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. Isabel Wilkerson, good morning.

ISABEL WILKERSON: Good morning. Thank you for having me.

MG: Thanks for joining us. Why do you think that image of this couple waving guns at demonstrators was something that the Republicans wanted to use in their presidential campaign?

ISABEL WILKERSON: Well, I think that it speaks to the longstanding divisions that crew that create were created by this bipolar caste system that was created at the founding of the country even before they were the United States. There was this caste system that was in place, the hierarchy in which the people who founded the country, the colonies, English colonies, created bipolar caste system of the colonies on top and the indigenous people driven from the land and the numbers decimated. And then bringing in what would be considered sort of the bottom caste of of enslaved Africans as they were creating a new country again before there was even a country. There was this bipolar caste system. And we are living with the after effects of that caste system to this day, the divisions that originated from the very beginning.

MG: And so when the president or when these two residents of St. Louis say that the Democrats are going to abolish the suburbs and no one living there will be safe, what is the narrative that that plays into?

ISABEL WILKERSON: The narrative that that plays into is that there's this this arbitrary, you know, graded ranking of human value in a society in which certain people are viewed as as the standard, as the default setting for humanity. Who are who care, standing and respect and benefit of doubt and and assumptions of competence and and intelligence and value. And then there are others at the bottom of that caste system who are viewed as subjugated or beneath all others and they're speaking to those who are viewed as worthy and those who are viewed as unworthy of being. Being as part of a mainstream. These are really old underlying assumptions and stereotypes about who belongs where and a society. In some ways, caste can be viewed as the rank, as the ranking and boundaries, the policing of boundaries as to who should be where in the infrastructure that that was created long ago. There are so many rules and restrictions on where African-Americans could be, you know, not not that long ago in the Jim Crow South, there were you know, it was it was against the law for black people and white people to merely play chevkers together in Birmingham and courtrooms throughout the south, there's actually a black Bible and an altogether separate white Bible to swear to tell the truth on in court. This is going back to the middle of the 20th century and to the 1970s, in fact, which would be in the lifespan of people lives today, the oldest amongst us. And so we are living we're in the shadow of those assumptions, the shadow of that of those stereotypes and the almost unspoken expectations of who should be where in a society.

MG: People talk a lot, obviously, right now, but this is a long conversation about race in America. And you say that caste in some ways is the bones and race is the skin. What do you mean by that?

ISABEL WILKERSON: Well, what I mean by that is that we often we cannot see often describes our house. Our country is like a house, an old house where, you know, you can't see the studs and the joys and the beams. You can only see, you know, the the wallpaper in the things that are visible to you. And so this is speaking to an underlying infrastructure that is the basis for the divisions that the country currently is experiencing. And so when you think about it, cast the infrastructure, the bones beneath that, that contain and provide the structure for human being and then the skin is what you can see. So that race becomes a tool. It becomes a signifier. It becomes a cue, a signal of one's place in the hierarchy. And in other words, historically, where one would be situated. And we're seeing this resurgence. We're seeing this this rise in the awareness of and the desire they sort of almost autonomic impulse to keep people in their place to maintain and uphold the the older hierarchy that the country was founded on.

MG: You talk in this book, there's so much to discuss in here, but you talk in this book about the arbitrariness of race. And you tell a story of what happened yesterday at a lecture in London. I think it was. And a woman came up to you and talked about what she said, this line saying that there are no black people in Africa.

ISABEL WILKERSON: Yeah.

MG: Tell me about that and what that in terms of what you're speaking with, how that illustrates the arbitrariness of race and how it fits into the larger issue of a class system in the United States.

ISABEL WILKERSON: Yeah, I was giving a lecture in London. And after the lecture, people came up to me and one of them was a playwright, a Nigerian playwright who said provocatively and I think it tended to be that there are no black people in Africa. She said, well, you know, that there are no black people in Africa. And in saying that, she said that that there they do not identify themselves by their skin colour. They see themselves as Uraba or as Phonte, whatever it may be that whatever ethnicity they may be, whatever country them they might come from, but they don't see themselves as black, that. That only when when only one human beings in the founding of the, you know, the new world where people from all over the world were coming together either by choice or by force, that is where the divisions that were that were identified, people or people were identified on the basis solely of what they look like, which was the creation of the idea of race. Race is not an ancient concept. It only goes back four or five hundred years. And so the idea of people being identified solely on the basis of what they look like, not by their their own identity as, for example, being Hungar of Hungarian defender of Irish descent or having been from Senegal, whatever it might have been. Those are the kinds of things that got collapsed in the creation of the new world. And identities that might have been there before were no longer in use, that people were in some ways assigned to categories, forced categories based upon what they look like. They had to shed their former identities of Irish or as poets or a Hungarian or as Uraba, and then take on a new identity, which was in itself extremely divisive because it then set people in poles apart from one another and created the idea of a sort of fixed division that we now take for granted because it's been in place for for so many generations.

MG: What's intriguing about this book is that it reveals the caste system in America that I think a lot of people perhaps would not say exists, that they would say, well, if you're talking about caste, you're looking at what happens. For example, in countries like India, you focus on three different caste systems, India, America and then Nazi Germany. What do the systems have in common?

ISABEL WILKERSON: The systems have in common, I actually have eight pillars of things that they have in common, eight pillars of caste. But one of the things that there are many note for, let me say that they are all completely different in terms of their histories, in terms of, you know, their culture, obviously over time. We're talking India. India's caste system has been in place for thousands of years and involves us four main Varnas and thousands of sub castes within them. So there are many, many differences, of course. But one of the things that they have in common amongst other major points of intersection, you might say, is this idea of purity and pollution. The idea that one group, the upper caste group, the dominant group, must maintain its purity at all costs. And this is what was consistent across these three hierarchies that I was looking at, the idea of going to such great lengths. And one of the things that each of them sought to do as an example was to maintain the purity of water. That water that was used by those viewed as dominant could not be used or touched by people who were viewed as subordinated. That that, for example, adults who were formerly known as untouchables could not, of course, drink from the same well as those who were dominant that they're in in Nazi Germany. Jewish people could not use the same pools that others that that the Germans that the Aryans were said to be able to use. And in the United States, there were many, many restrictions on what African-Americans could do in terms of being able to just swim in in in a beat, swim at a beach. That that the dominant caste, meaning white Americans were using. There's a really tragic case that occurred where a black boy was swimming in Lake Michigan, in Chicago, and he happened to wade into the water, cross into water that was viewed as the white water. And he was stoned to death for having done so. So that policing of boundaries and the keeping of the of the big cast apart with great effort, these strict lines of separation where were just one of the many, many ways that they had these points of intersection.

MG: I could imagine that there are a lot of Americans who would be offended by that comparison and said that there's nothing remotely similar between, you know, the systems that exist, for example, in the United States and what existed in Nazi Germany. What would you say to that?

ISABEL WILKERSON: Well, you know, one of the ways that I came to use the word caste, I didn't come to it overnight, it was a word that I came to use as a result of the first book that I wrote, The Warmth of the Sun. And that was about the migration of six million African-Americans fleeing the Jim Crow South. And in doing so, I realised that I wasn't that the word racism, the word that we are most most accustomed to using was not sufficient to capture what they were enduring and what they were fleeing, what they were seeking refuge from the idea. As I said, that, you know, even in courtrooms, the very word of God could not be touched by hands of different races and that any any breach of a caste system could literally mean your life. That and that's how I came to use the word caste, because anthropologists who study the Jim Crow South, while it was at the depths of its of its terror are actually on people's lives. They emerged from their research using the word caste. They looked at this and they recognised that this was an infrastructure that was created, that the that the boundaries were sharply policed, that there could be no movement between the two, that they were fixed rankings, and that this is the word that was most appropriate. One of the reasons why I think people have, you know, some initial it lands differently on the ear. It sounds like a foreign language. And in fact, it is. But one of the reasons that people might question it in some ways is because we don't know enough about our own history. After the war of the Sons came out, the thing that I heard time and time again from people was that regardless of their background was I had no idea. I had no idea. So we many, many people do not really get a chance to know the full history, particularly as it was lived by and experienced by those who managed to survive. What I'm calling a caste system during the Jim Crow era, when it was a formal legal system which ended, you know, legally in the 1960s, but which we still see, you know, playing out before our eyes. When you see what happened to George Floyd. We saw a man, you know, you know, die before our very eyes and so many, you know, metronome of videos that we have seen in the last few years of people of what who would have been born to the what's called this I would call the subordinated caste who are experiencing the the brutality that their ancestors had experienced in different ways during the time of enslavement and of Jim Crow. We are living under the shadow of the pre-existing hierarchy that we've inherited.

MG: Tell me more about the role that law enforcement plays in the enforcement of the caste system.

ISABEL WILKERSON: Well, an interesting thing about the enslavement, which was the originating mechanism of maintaining the hierarchy that we live with today during the time of enslavement. Any person in the dominant caste could have could be deputised to police the boundaries. They were the ones who went to to catch the enslaved people at any given moment. They could take on the job the role of their responsibility to to police the boundaries. And so one thing that we see is that we see in the videos ordinary citizens, ordinary people who I would describe as being in the dominant castes, going about it, intruding into the lives of of African-Americans as they're sitting at a Starbucks waiting for a friend. And they will call the police on them. They will they will see someone of the black family, for example, having a family reunion and barbecuing in a park in Oakland and call the police on them. There are times where people have been African-Americans trying to get into their condo building and someone will call the police on them as they are trying to get into their own building with their own. He, you know, dressed as business people, whatever they might have been, but just getting into their own building. So the idea of being able of of automatically either turning to the police. We saw also the case in in Manhattan where a woman called the police on a birdwatcher, a man who was bird watching this. The idea of being able to this the idea of autonomic Lee turning to the police to to maintain the boundaries and to and to restrict the movements of people who are even now recognised as being subordinated somehow. This autumn, autonomic recognition of that, that the police should be called on them. And then, of course, the the the tremendous force, the autonomic, you know, within seconds shooting Tamir Rice, for example, a 12 year boy who happened to have had in his hand, you know, a pellet gun. And upon arrival, the police just within seconds just shot him dead. The kinds of things that would not happen just simply would not happen to people who are in who have been born to with no action of heir own, but happened to be born to what I would call the dominant caste.

MG: And you see that about caste. You don't see that those stories through the lens of race?

ISABEL WILKERSON: Well, race is the signifier. It's the tool. It's the cue. It's the signal of who of what ranking the person has. It is the signal of what the ranking is. The thing is that, you know, in creating a hierarchy, you can use any number of metrics. You could they could you could use religion. You could use you could use ethnicity, youth or the country of origin, immigrant status. There are all kinds of things that could be used. You can even even make mention in the book. They could have used height, one type being very tall or very short, yet another, you know, human characteristic that is connected to genetics. It's something that you would inherit that makes you look different from someone else. Any number of metrics could have been used to create a hierarchy and of course, other hierarchies have used other metrics. In this case, the metric is what you look like, which is which is connected to how you're identified in terms of your race. And it's that signifier that cue that that tool of recognising instantly where you belong in the caste system. The thing about it is race. What you look like should be a neutral characteristic. It should have no meaning whatsoever. It should just be. It should be. It should have no more meaning than one's height. And yet it has been given meaning. It was given meaning back in 16, 19, and in the succeeding decades in which the the hierarchy was was refined and evolved and into what we now see. And we we have now accepted this as the you know, as the order of a natural order of things. But it did not have to be this way. And we have lived with it for so long that we don't recognise that what underlies what we can what we think we see is actually a hierarchy and artificial, arbitrary graded ranking of human value that has that affects the life chances and experiences of everyone who is in that caste system, wherever they might be situated.

MG: You say the greatest disruption in the American caste system in some ways was the election of Barack Obama as the president and Donald Trump has said that if it weren't for Obama, he wouldn't be president today. What do you make of that?

ISABEL WILKERSON: Well, that the idea of keeping people in their place in the place of of where you belong as the servant caste, as the subordinated caste, it means that that there's this expectation of the assumptions and stereotypes of where a person belongs. And so when someone when someone ascends tasks where they're expected to be, I describe it as, you know, transcending. Often people ask about what is class out of class that you're into, that it's a class of the clothes and the addiction and the access to the education that one can can can add to oneself to try to reposition oneself. But that underneath all of that is Carson, because if you think about it, if you can, the way that I describe it is if you can act your way out of it, then it's class. But if you cannot act your way out of it, it's caste. And so despite the tremendous, you know, educational achievements that Barack Obama had, clearly, as you know, a graduate of Harvard Law School and he was in charge of the Harvard Law Review, that in spite of all of that, he was still considered to be and took a tremendous amount of of criticism and I would say extra scrutiny as a result of having transcended or broken a boundary that would not be expected of someone who was from the group that he was representing.

MG: That he wasn't and a place that he was supposed to be in.

ISABEL WILKERSON: Exactly. He was not in the place that he was expected to be. Historically, people like him would not have been in that place. So it was a tremendous, you know, change in the in what people would have expected. And there there is a there's a natural human reaction to changes that are not expected that break boundaries. He's clearly was someone who broke boundaries that would never have been imagined even decades before. And there is a natural human human reaction to that of repositioning often to describe ourselves or many metaphors in this book. And I describe it as if we are all on a stage and when everyone knows their place on the stage, if you're at another use of the word caste, you know, cast in a play. And so there's stage left, a stage right. The people in the foreground, the people in the background. And everyone knows their place. Everyone knows their lines. And they may, even if they're deeply invested in it, know the entire script. And then when there's a change, when there's someone who had been in the background, who's been put in the foreground, there's a natural human reaction to say, what is it that's just happened? What does this mean for the rest of the script? What does this mean for us? What does this mean to the the positioning and what. We are supposed to do when we are accustomed to things being the way that they've been for centuries. And it's a natural human response, but it also has an impact on how the on how the entire country moves forward or it does not on the basis of one's assumptions, fears, fears and insecurities on the basis of what people now see as a change that they had not expected. And so this has been we see we see the response. We see the pushback. We see the backlash. We see the resistance. We these are natural human reactions. What this is what I'm asking of people is to understand and look beneath it so we can understand the true phenomenon. This is not the classical open racism of our forefathers. This is a different framework for understanding the divisions and how we got to where we are.

MG: Just in the last 90 seconds or so that we have, you say that the caste system exists because we allow it to in big and small ways. How do you break this? Or can you break it?

ISABEL WILKERSON: Well, first you have to see it for what it is. I mean, I described this as an X-ray of our country. You can't fix what you can't see. And for so long, we haven't been able to see the true mechanism underlying these divisions. Why are the divisions lasted for as long as they have? They've lasted for as long as they have in one way because we haven't been able to see them once we are able to see them. Then it falls upon everyone to be able to find a way to push past these arbitrary boundaries that have been created long ago that we've inherited so that we can see that we all have so much more in common than we've been led to believe, and that we can find a way finally to push through these artificial barriers and to find a way to heal.

MG: Are you optimistic that that architecture can be changed?

ISABEL WILKERSON: If it was created by humans, then it could be dismantled by humans. And first you have to know that it's there before you can dismantle it.

MG: This is a really powerful book, in part because it reveals things, as you say, the people you compare it to The Matrix, like the film The Matrix, in some ways. That it exists in the background and people aren't aware of it. Just, you know.

ISABEL WILKERSON: Which pill will you take?

MG: And is your sense that the people are willing to do that x-ray?

ISABEL WILKERSON: I think that the current era of upheaval has forced people to look more deeply than they ever have before. You know, we saw in all 50 states people rising up after the death of George Floyd. We saw people rising up around the world, in fact. And so I think once people are aware, in fact, when the epigraphs are the words of of of Einstein, who said that if that if the majority could just see what is going on, then he believes that that would be the first road to a cure.

MG: It's a real pleasure to talk to you. Isabel Wilkerson, thank you.

ISABEL WILKERSON: Thank you.

MG: Isabel Wilkerson's new book is called Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. I could've talked to her for a couple of hours. There's a lot in there. Worth reading, certainly. Coming up after your regional update, fast fashion has taken a real hit train is pandemic. I don't mean quickly throwing on a clean shirt for your 9:00 a.m. Zoom call. We will talk about this moment being a reset when it comes to perhaps a more sustainable fashion industry. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current. We're back in 90 seconds. Stay with us.

[Music]

The pandemic has made it clear just how broken the fashion industry is, says expert

Guests: Molly Spittal, Imran Ahmed

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. Do you still like getting all dressed up even when there is no place to go? Or have you resorted to the dress shirt up top, sweat pants down below uniformm 2020 Zoom calls? Fashion and shopping, like just about everything else, needed to adapt during the pandemic. For a multi trillion dollar industry built on in with the new and out with the old, sustainability hasn't always been top of mind for fashion. Now some people believe that COVID-19 could push the fashion industry in a needed direction, perhaps a needed direction for people making clothes, but also people who are buying clothes. Designer Molly Spittal wants you to think about the true cost of clothing. And so she is offering up what she calls responsible purchasing consultations. We've reached her in Vancouver. Molly, hello.

MOLLY SPITTAL: Hello.

MG: How would you define what a responsible purchase is?

MOLLY SPITTAL: A responsible purchase by my definition is article of clothing needs where everybody is paid a living wage. There's a lot of confusion about what responsibly made garment should cost. And that is a confusion created by fast fashion, where clothing is made very, very quickly by the hands of a labour force that is not paid a living wage.

MG: And so you offered on Instagram to to be somebodies responsible purchasing consultants. What are you offering people?

MOLLY SPITTAL: I've mentioned here in their two friends that I would be happy to, you know, accept a photo. If you're feeling like you do need a quick fix. And I can suggest an alternative made ethically, often I can actually track back to where the bigger companies have, like the exact brands that the bigger companies have actually ripped off. So I feel like that's a really interesting tool that not a lot of people took me up on until I made that Instagram post and it went, yeah, it was pretty successful.

MG: Was there something in particular that made you realise that now is the time to try to change the way that people shop?

MOLLY SPITTAL: Yes, certainly. I mean, I'm fully immersed in a world of independent fashion from shop owners to designers. And the last few months have been a little bit traumatising for everybody in these in this industry. I mean, amongst those, of course. But, you know, personal friends are closing their shops because there's just not enough support. And, you know, a lot of my friends who have poured their entire lives into brands like like I have building a brand that is making responsible clothing, takes a lot of work and a ton of blood, sweat and tears and watching the industry crumble, not really from the top down, but like the small independent designers and shops are really suffering right now, really hurt me.

MG: One of the reasons why people go to those stores is, is because of cost and you talked about, you know, people who have a choice to be able to do this. Do you understand why people perhaps stray to the less expensive clothing, especially now at a time when people are really financially strapped, when people don't have money? Maybe it's not just the people who are in that industry, but people are losing jobs left, right and centre.

MOLLY SPITTAL: Absolutely. So I do want to fully acknowledge that there is a very real barrier to entry to the price point for a lot, but a huge demographic of individuals. I make ethically made denim in Portugal and designed here in Vancouver and my jeans retailer for two hundred and forty three dollars, Canadian and Lane makes jeans. I mean they tout the same message. It's not the same product at all, but it really makes jeans and they retail for 68 USD. So there is a huge difference there. And I understand the appeal for the lower price point item. What I want to touch on is that my jeans are an investment. A lot of independent brands making ethical Lee made clothing are doing is making investment pieces. So I'd like everybody to sort of disengage with this feeling that you need to reinvent your wardrobe four times a year and really think about how far your money is going when you're buying a product that is not disposable and is repairable and is recyclable. It's just a completely different purchasing system.

MG: The other question, I guess, that's important is in the midst of a global pandemic, when everything has changed and people are trying to figure out what the future is for so many different parts of our life, why does fashion matter now?

MOLLY SPITTAL: I think more than fashion mattering, I think that your spending power has a bigger impact than you think. Everybody needs clothing. But you can make a decision to have real impact. Your money is so, so powerful. And if you choose to not purchase clothing made using slave and child labour, they will stop making it like it. That's a really long journey. But it it is what will happen in the long run. Clothing also makes people feel good putting on an outfit that makes you feel good after wearing sweat pants and leggings and an oversized t shirt for two weeks at a time. We've all had that experience lately. Really lifts the spirits. I would like to encourage everybody to find a piece that makes them truly happy and invest in that piece.

MG: You're fighting against enormous companies. Are you optimistic that you can come out of this victorious on the other side?

MOLLY SPITTAL: I'm cautiously optimistic. It's a uphill battle for us. The support has been outstanding the last few months. Yeah, honestly, Matt, I'm not really sure how to answer that.

MG: You're cautiously optimistic?

MOLLY SPITTAL: Yeah, I'm cautiously optimistic.

MG: I wish you the best of luck. Molly, it's great to talk to you.

MOLLY SPITTAL: Well, thank you so much.

MG: Molly Spittal is a designer and co-founder of Decade Studio in Vancouver. It's not just small independent designers who see a new future for the fashion industry. Even the likes of Vogue editor Anna Wintour say that it's time for a change. Imran Ahmed is the founder and editor in chief of the Business of Fashion. He's also the co-author of the annual State of Fashion report from the global management firm McKinsey & Company. And he's bringing together industry leaders to talk about changing the way we buy clothes with this project called Rewiring Fashion. Imran, good morning to you.

IMRAN AHMED: Good morning.

MG: Molly talked about sustainability. How broken was that industry before this pandemic turned everything upside down?

IMRAN AHMED: You know, I think, you know, there's been talk about the so-called fashion system in our industry for quite some time now. We dedicated an entire print issue to the topic five years ago. You're just thinking about the fashion system, the amount of clothes that are produced. The amount of waste that there is, both in terms of companies overproducing and not being able to sell everything. And then also consumers only wearing clothes for short periods of time and then discarding of them. I read a staggering statistic early this year when one of our our reporters was working on a story about the issue of overproduction in the fashion industry. Last year, the fashion industry produced one hundred and fourteen billion items of clothing, which when you kind of break it down on a kind of person per person by person basis, or if you looked at, say, in the American market where, you know, American customers consume more than 20 billion garments per year, that's like 64 items of clothing per person every single year with that level of consumption. I think it's pretty clear that there's something wrong with the industry and there's something broken. And I think that's been evident for some time. But, you know, as with so many things, that coronavirus pandemic has really just broken that open. It's kind of made it visible to everybody. The time to reflect on it has kind of given people more time to take stock of what exactly what that means. It is quite broken. It remains quite broken and on multiple levels that, you know, the industry is now starting to think about in a more considered way.

MG: The headline in that report that you put together with McKinsey is that now is the time to rewire fashion. That's the name of your initiative as well. How do you go about rewiring fashion?

IMRAN AHMED: So the Rewiring Fashion Initiative was actually born from a series of quite spontaneous, organic, impromptu conversations with people around the world who started approaching me and other editors at PLF to talk about what was happening. And you know, what this meant for the future of the industry. And, you know, there's so many different levels that that conversation explored. It explored the fashion calendar, which is completely out of sync with today's market. You know, the timing of when fashion shows happen, who they're targeted at. You know, many people don't realise that, you know, the fashion shows that happen, you know, or have happened, you know, in February and September every year are actually the clothes that only arrived six months later. So then customers are and consumers are looking at those shows as they happen online. But the clothes aren't available until six months later, so all of the desire that's created from these shows, which traditionally were targeted at industry people but now are reaching customers, is kind of wasted. Like you can't imagine a movie premiere happening six months before the movie released. Or Apple doing one of its big showcases of all of its new products, like six months before those products were available. So, you know, the calendar is broken. And then also just the idea of, you know, at this point of overproduction. But I was talking about, you know, with so much being produced every year and so much going to waste, which is why there's this like rampant discounting in the fashion industry right now, because brands and retailers look for a way of liquidating their stock. You know, the fact that so much liquidation has to happen is just the result of like companies not being able to accurately predict consumer demand because, you know, it's there are processes for developing and producing. Those collections are so disconnected from what customers actually want. In an era when technology and other tools can be used to, you know, really more accurately forecast what's actually going to sell so that there's not so much waste at the end. There's so many different levels at which this is a concern and that industry needs to be rewired.

MG: One of the things that happens is a part of this is around the discounting is that there are these specific days where people, if they can get involved in these shopping frenzies, things like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, what's wrong with those days?

IMRAN AHMED: Well, I think, you know, it's not just Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It's also Singles Day in China. And like all sorts of these events that are just, you know, designed to get people to consume over and beyond perhaps what they need, which I guess that's a problem in and of itself. I guess the bigger problem is that it's just the constant discounting that we see has, in a way, conditioned consumers to just wait for discounts. And this, like rampant discounting, has had an impact on eroding profit margins in the industry. So like when when customers are trained to expect discounts and brands have fallen into this pattern of like focussing on discounts as the main selling proposition as opposed to other core elements of what they're selling to be like the main focus, it becomes a very slippery slope because the thing that you're competing on is price. It's less about the quality or the design or the craftsmanship that goes into the product than, you know, in the Internet age, where customers have visibility of pricing across not just their own region or country, but around the world. There's this, like, arbitrage that can happen now where customers can find things and cheap at cheaper prices all around the world. And so, you know, this discounting has has has been really damaging for the industry because it's eroding profits and margins, but also just focussing on the wrong things, because what's what's amazing in this industry and I've you know, I've been fortunate enough to to visit some of the factories in different parts of the world from luxury factories in in France to kind of fast fashion factories in Morocco and other places. It's it's so amazing to see that so much of the clothes that we wear are still made by hand. You know, they're crafted by people and that's somehow lost. And so when when there's so much pressure on price and margin, you know, eventually what starts happening is those people early on in the supply chain, they end up bearing the brunt. And so when people start expecting to go into a fast fashion store and pay, you know, three dollars for a T-shirt, you know, which is less than a cost of a sandwich, you know, someone's paying the price for that. And the people who tend to pay for the price for these, like very, very cheap prices are the people early on in the supply chain who are making the clothes. And, you know, one of the most damaging and kind of illuminating moments for me during the pandemic is when push came to shove. A lot of these big international fashion brands that manufacture in low cost destinations like Bangladesh and Vietnam and elsewhere, they started cancelling orders, new orders that they had already started being processed. You know, where the fabrics had been ordered or even some of the manufacturing had begun or even some of the stuff that was sitting in ports waiting to be shipped to their ultimate destinations before everything got locked down. And the people who end up bearing the brunt of this are the people who make our clothes. So there is this cascading effect of damage that comes from this like rampant focus on discounting. And I think that's something that industry is really starting to kind of come to terms with now.

MG: You talk about rewiring fashion, can you rewire shoppers? I mean, people are now conditioned to it, to your point, wait for those discounts. Will people be willing to pay more for something that isn't going to disintegrate after you wash it five times? That's going to last a little bit longer. That's going to have a bit more quality.

IMRAN AHMED: I think it depends on who you ask. If you look at the data, if you look at surveys, particularly of millennial and Gen Z customers, they say that they shop the brands that kind of align with their values. You know, they say that they care about sustainability and ethics. And, you know, the rights of workers. But then, you know, I work in an office where there's a lot of young people who are really switched on to some of these, you know, values, you know. But there's a lot of, like, fast fashion stuff that, you know, before our office clothes that would be appearing regularly in our reception as these deliveries were made. So, yeah, I think there's the intention amongst customers to shop with their wallets. Sorry could turn a vote with their wallets, rather. But that's not often the case when push comes to shove. And then we must also take into account that not everybody can afford to pay for clothes that cost. You know, as Molly said in her interview, you know, over two hundred dollars for a pair of jeans. There's a like and there's a socio economic factors at play here as well. And so it's the same thing with food. Like not everyone can buy organic food just because it's more expensive. And this gets to a much bigger issue in society around inequality. You know, there is an economic reality here at play as well. And some people, you know, that's that's what they can afford. Now, I think there's a role that our industry can do in kind of reconditioning the way all of these kinds of customers think about their purchases. So if you can spend more money on a winter coat that you can wear for multiple winters and that coat costs, you know, $250 as opposed to $50, and you'll get many, many more wares out of that jacket because it's of a higher quality. And maybe its design is more timeless design that doesn't date stylistically or from a trend basis then that actually you can make the economics of those kinds of purchases work as long as you have the upfront cash to make that investment, which is of course not true for everyone. But I do think there's a lot of work our industry needs to do. Even the word consumer is a word that, you know, I've been trying not to use myself. I think the word customer is better. You know, that whole idea of like targeting our industry towards consumption for the sake of consumption is all about the kind of language of selling fashion as well. And so I do think there's work that we can do to kind of change the relationship between customers and clothes.

MG: Molly said she was cautiously optimistic that in her work she would be able to start to, you know, change the direction of the cruise ship, the massive industry that she's involved in. Do you share that cautious optimism?

IMRAN AHMED: I'm optimistic by nature. Especially in a in a moment like the one we're living through here. Now, if you're not optimistic, you can just go into a downward spiral of the world, ending an Armageddon and apocalyptic visions of what the where the world is going. And, you know, there's certainly a lot to be concerned about in the world right now. Beyond that pandemic, you know, the climate crisis is real and fashion as an industry has its part to play in addressing some of the issues that have really come to light over the past couple of years as kind of awareness of the climate emergency has grown. But I'm also realistic in so far as that the changes that are needed will not happen overnight. This is like many other things that the world is thinking about right now. These are systemic issues. These are deeply held values and beliefs amongst both the companies that dominate this industry and the consumers that keep it going. You know what we've been talking a lot about at BOF is this idea of stakeholder capitalism, the idea that companies are no longer focussed or should no longer be focussed only on delivering profits for shareholders. We also, as an industry, need to be thinking more about other stakeholders, including, you know, the employees, whether they're direct employees or, you know, indirect employees further up the supply chain, whether that's the planet and whether that's the employees and people that work for us in terms of diversity and inclusion in this kind of wider racial reckoning. That's also been part of the conversation in our industry over the past few months. And, you know, the one thing that does get me optimistic is the kinds of conversations that our industry is having right now on these topics are more substantive, are more honest, are more raw than anything that I've seen since my time working in this industry. So that gives me some optimism, but I'm not unrealistic in so far as believing all the change is going to happen overnight. I think this is like a decade long shift.

MG: It's a real pleasure to talk to you about this, partially you know talking about the scale of this industry and kind of correcting some of the misconceptions that people might have about it, but also seeing where it might go and a better path for it in future. Imran, thank you.

IMRAN AHMED: Thank you so much for having me.

MG: Imran Ahmed is the founder and editor in chief of The Business of Fashion. We reached him in London.

Photographer snapped pictures of his hometown of Vancouver shrouded in smoke

Guests: Josh Berson

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name's Matt Galloway. We have been watching the historic wildfires that are still burning across the western United States. That smoke has crept up the coast, is blanketing much of southern British Columbia, even parts of Alberta. There are milkie sort of hazy skies in Ontario and Quebec as well. And for the past week, Vancouver has been hovering at the top of the international list of cities with the worst air quality. Josh Berson is a photographer in Vancouver. Josh, good morning.

JOSH BERSON: Good morning, Matt.

MG: We've seen these images of Vancouver and the smoke that's been hanging around there for the last couple of days. You've been out taking photos of life in the city in that smoke. What's that been like for you?

JOSH BERSON: Well, I mean, it's critical to document this process. I mean, it's climate change is as arriving on our doorstep in a in a pretty substantial way. It's been tough taking pictures, that's for sure. It's physically it's quite uncomfortable. That's, you know, eyes are burning, throats or you can hear it in my throat right now. And it's just an uncomfortable taste in the mouth. But even more so, it's difficult watching the city be engulfed in this. It really sort of brings close to home that, you know, climate change really has. Like knows no borders, that it's not of our making here. But it's certainly, you know, this is what climate change is like that that, you know, it's kind of a global issue. It's not a localized issue.

MG: You wrote that being out there is a bit like how you'd feel or how you assume you'd feel if you smoked a pack of Camels.

JOSH BERSON: Yeah, I'm not a smoker, but it had that raw feeling in the back of the throat. And all of us are feeling it in our lungs and it's pretty uncomfortable.

MG: Are people heeding the warnings to, you know, delay physical activity? As I mentioned, Vancouver has some of the worst air quality in the entire world right now.

JOSH BERSON: You know, it's hard to get Vancouver not to exercise. We're pretty addicted to it here. But for sure, yesterday there was considerably less people out than the day before and the day before that. You know, I think it took a while for people to register that this is kind of here and that it's landed on our shores. And so, yeah, initially I was quite shocked to see people out running, but it seems to slowed down a bit.

MG: I mean, the other part of it is that people have been stuck inside for months in the midst of this pandemic and now suddenly it's unhealthy to go outside. That's difficult to cope with.

JOSH BERSON: Yeah, that's for sure. And it's sort of reminding me of the very first days of the pandemic. You know, I've been doing a lot of documentary photography for other publications and the initial part of the pandemic for sure. There's nobody on the streets and that sort of reminded me of that again when I was out the other morning, there was like nobody on the streets.

MG: So we'll share some of your photos up on Twitter. But tell me about some of the favourite images that you've taken in the past couple of days.

JOSH BERSON: Well, what's interesting is, you know, some of our, like, iconic landmarks, you know, shrouded in fog like that. One of the pictures of Vancouver City Hall taking off from very far away from the Camera Street bridge, maybe a kilometre away, and you can barely make out city hall. I mean, it's kind of ironic that the flag is at half mast because I believe it's for international firefighters Memorial Day. So you can see barely see the flag at half mast. You know, things like False Creek, which are like. I are coming back to life because of, you know, some really good government policies around and around preserving our economy. But Wall Street, just like this kind of blanket of brown fog and what's usually a very lively, blue, green, healthy looking situation.

MG: Like an iconic part of the city where where there's always a lot of life around.

JOSH BERSON: Yeah. Yeah. And other, you know, like landmarks like Science World where you got Science World just totally enshroud and kind of brown dull fog. So it's interesting because, you know, it reminds me, I've done a lot of work in the global south. So it reminds me of, like, you know, Beirut or Kathmandu recently, Bangkok. You know, that's how those cities would get, like, totally socked in with pollution. And it's not something we generally have here in Vancouver. I mean, we've been fortunate in Vancouver like some of the, you know, the worst ravages of climate change, you know, that have been visit upon other places in the world, we've not had here in Vancouver. But it's a great reminder that this is real. And like we've been told that this is coming for a long time and now it's right here with us.

MG: What have people said to you? Have you been out, you know, taking photos and people come up to you as you're there, what are people asking you?

JOSH BERSON: Yeah, people are asking me, like, is this the new reality? Is this gonna be a regular thing? Not that I have any authority as a photographer, but, yeah, it's much like the beginning of COVID, people were like astounded by this and looking for answers and looking for, you know, what what is going on. So, yeah, people have been approached me about that, as I've been wondering around taking pictures.

MG: Given that and the toll that it's taken on you in terms of how you feel and we can hear it in your voice, as you said, why is it important that you're out there doing that? To document this moment?

JOSH BERSON: Oh, I think we have a moral imperative to document this, much like the COVID crisis. I mean, that this is something that we have short memories often as people. And so I'm quite worried that, you know, two months from now, people will go ah, the smoke wasn't so bad. So I really feel it's it's important to document this and so people can see and are reminded of what this looks like. And I just think this is some of the seminal moments in our lives that this is you know the city that I've grown up and lived and worked in, and that when it's this unusual point in time in our history, I feel it's really important to document that.

MG: It's a beautiful city. And I mean, some of these photos look like to your point, parts of other parts of the world. I mean you see the image of the Cambie Street Bridge and it looks like perhaps an image out of the news in Beijing when the pollution is really, really heavy. It's hard to square that with life in Vancouver in 2020. Josh, thank you.

JOSH BERSON: My pleasure, Matt. Thank you very much.

MG: Take care yourself. Josh Berson is a photographer in Vancouver. We'll post up some of the pictures that he's been taking of the smoke in his city on our Twitter feed. You'll find that @TheCurrentCBC. That's it for The Current for today. Coming up next on your CBC Radio One, it's Q. Tom Power speaking with Cynthia Nixon. You know her as Miranda from Sex and the City. She ran to be the governor of New York State, has a new TV show that she's in. It's on Netflix. And you'll hear all about it coming up on CBC Radio One. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. Take care. We'll talk to you more.

[Music: theme]

Sept. 16, 2020 episode transcript

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