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The Current Transcript for May 9, 2019

Host: Mat Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

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It is our duty to speak up about this bill and to bring forward the voices of people that maybe we don't hear so much and how it will be affecting our citizens.

MATT GALLOWAY: That is Valerie Plante's she's the mayor of Montreal and the bill that she's referring to is Quebec Bill 21 the so-called secularism legislation would make it taboo for certain government workers to wear religious symbols on the job. There is as you can imagine plenty being said inside Quebec about the bill and the idea behind it. Hearings yesterday heard that the bill could institutionalize discrimination. Other groups suggested it doesn't go far enough. We're starting today with some of those voices which as mayor Plante says, maybe we don't hear so much and then it's a big week for Uber. The ride hailing app that has disrupted the taxi industry around the world and now delivers your dinner and more is expecting an eye popping initial stock offering. Millionaires will become billionaires but not everyone is celebrating and not everyone is getting rich.

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I want better earnings. I want them to acknowledge that we have a big problem.

That's just one of the drivers around the world who put down their phones yesterday protesting wages and working conditions. In half an hour, we take stock of Uber ahead of its IPO and we'll hear from one former Uber user who says the company has become a moral stain on Silicon Valley. And then.

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[Game noise]

MG: From a team once dismissed as a joke in purple dinosaur pajamas to legitimate playoff heavyweights the Raptors have a courtside superfan and Drake and a star player that even on his off days seems unstoppable. The Sportswriter Cathal Kelly will be here in an hour to talk about the rise of the Raptors. Canada's team. Stay tuned. Let's go Raptors. I'm Matt Galloway sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and this is The Current.

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Why Bill 21 has some feeling freedom of expression is an 'illusion' in Quebec

Guest: Gregory Brodan, Diane Guilbault

SOUNDCLIP

I don't know what to do. And. It's really a soft position that my government is putting me but me into you know. Like it's not fun that my own government. I was born here. So to give me this choice like between my freedom of religion or my dreams.

MG: Nour Farhat is a lawyer in Quebec and it's been her dream to become a crown prosecutor. She says she now has to choose between that dream and her religion. Under Quebec's Bill 21 civil servants in positions of authority would be banned from wearing religious symbols to work and that includes teachers, police officers, judges and yes prosecutors. The province's Minister of Immigration diversity and inclusiveness Simon-Joliln Barrette opened legislative hearings on the bill this week. Here he is addressing Quebec's National Assembly.

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[Via translator] Quebec has reached a point where it needs to formally declare that the state and religion are separate.

MG: The hearings on Bill 21 will continue into next week and among those expected to testify is a grassroots group of Quebecers opposed to Bill 21. They're known as Coalition Inclusion Quebec. Gregory Bordan is a member he's an Orthodox Jewish lawyer based in Montreal and he is in our Montreal studio. Hello.

GREGORY BORDAN: Good morning.

MG: What goes through your mind when you hear Quebec's minister of immigration say that Quebec has reached that point where it needs to formally declare that the state and the religion are separate.

GREGORY BORDAN: Well in a sense we agree with that entirely that the state and the religion should be separate. We actually support a neutral state. The difference is that we believe that a neutral state is a state that does not discriminate. It's one that doesn't exclude people on the basis of religion but includes people.

MG: Do you believe - we heard this yesterday in the hearings - that a bill like this would institutionalize discrimination?

GREGORY BORDAN: It's profoundly discriminatory. It means that my colleague for example is free to choose whether to wear a hat or not to wear a hat. Whereas I'm not allowed to because it's considered a religious symbol. It makes it draws distinctions and excludes people on the basis of religious practice.

GREGORY BORDAN: Tell me more about how this would affect you. Your family's been in Connect for for 120 years?

GREGORY BORDAN: My great grandparents came to Canada to Quebec. Yes. And they lived through the periods where Quebec in fact was not a neutral state very much Catholic. Jews notably were excluded from French schools which were Catholic schools. We lived through the period of the Quiet Revolution where things really changed and Quebec opened up. That was a remarkable time. I was young but I still remember. And then in 1975 the national assembly unanimously adopted a charter of rights and that's the Quebec that we knew.

MG: So if this where to move forward, as an Orthodox Jewish lawyer, what would happen with you and your work?

GREGORY BORDAN: It means that I could not work in the public sector. Every lawyer or notary in the public sector is prohibited from wearing a religious sign. So as effectively I would not be allowed to it. It even affects lawyers in the private sector. What it does it says that any lawyer working on a government contract cannot be wearing a religious sign i the person has to interact in any way with someone else so effectively. Say even in the private sector it will affect lawyers and notaries.

MG: As somebody with a long history in this province - and again that doesn't exclude the stories of those who are new to Quebec but somebody who has deep roots there - How does that make you feel?

GREGORY BORDAN: Besides practical impacts it's almost an existential type of attack. It really makes you question whether or not what you're places is in Quebec had become an inclusive place where people were free to express themselves and to be part of the society and we're now being told that really that was perhaps an illusion, that where if you have a religious practice you cannot join a public service, you can't contribute through in the public sphere. That's very exclusionary statement.

MATT GALLOWAY: But you could. You could contribute. You just can't wear a visible symbol of that religious practice.

GREGORY BORDAN: What you're being told is you have to give up who you are, give up your identity. I don't consider that a free choice. So that's precisely what the freedom of religion means. It means that you do you're not forced to put aside your religion in order to participate in society.

MG: There are already questions about these hearings. 36 groups or individuals are taking part, only two are religious groups. What do you make of how the hearings have unfolded so farÉ

GREGORY BORDAN: The government has adopted a very expedited process. They've been very clear that they intend to have this passed by June 14th. The two groups that you're referring to were added at the last moment. That's a positive development but it's still a very narrow abbreviated process. And they're really not hearing the voices of the people who are going to be most affected by this.

GREGORY BORDAN: We asked to speak with the Minister of Immigration diversity and inclusiveness Julie Barrette about that. He wasn't available to talk with us but we did get a statement from his office that in part reads: The hearings will be balanced and will allow you to hear a variety of points of view. The group list was negotiated and heard between the four political parties in the National Assembly. What do you make of that?

GREGORY BORDAN: My understanding is that the opposition parties each proposed over 60 groups to be heard of. This is a very narrow group. There are I think the public would definitely benefit from hearing more of the voices of the people who will be directly affected by this.

MG: What would that do? We've heard those voices already in the media and beyond. What would that do to have that as part of the official record?

GREGORY BORDAN: You know my own experience with in Quebec is that at a individual human level Quebeckers really are open. They do not want to hurt people individually. It's much easier to adopt a law like this if those people that they're hurting remain abstractions. Think that to actually hear those individuals have the legislators look you know I in somebody wearing a hijab, wearing a kippah and told no you have to change your career or leave this province. I think that's a worthwhile exercise. And it's too bad it's been largely truncated.

MG: Gregory Borden I want to bring in another voice in this conversation. Diane Guilbault is the president of Pour les Droits des Femmes du Quebec for women's rights in Quebec. She spoke at the hearings on Tuesday in support of Bill 21 and she is in our Quebec city studio. Hello to you.

DIANE GUILBAULT: Hi.

MG: What do you make of what you've just heard from Gregory Bordan? A man who is an Orthodox Jewish lawyer in Quebec has a family history of more than 120 years there and feels that this bill will essentially make him feel like an outsider in his own province.

DIANE GUILBAULT: I think he is saying the bill in a way that is not the reality The Bill at the heart is to protect the freedom of conscience of the citizens. This is the heart of the matter. The state must guarantee the freedom of conscience of this citizen. And there are religious people in our groups and it's like he says that religious people are not heard. I was in fact testifying with a Muslim woman and on that on a Tuesday morning. So people from all faiths are testifying even if not the main point they put forward. So they have they are heard and what we ask is that every civil servant in authority, the teachers respect must respect to freedom of expression and if consensus of the students of the citizen. We have already limitations on our freedom of expression yourself Matt this morning cannot say what you can see in your living room. You can say the same things on the air because you are working. And when we are working we have a duty, a duty to respect certain obligation like the freedom of conscience of the students or the citizen and everywhere. People wouldn't except I think a teacher wearing a T-shirt with God doesn't exist or Armageddon is coming because it's offensive for some people for the people it's not.

MG: Help me understand this. How does it affect you if the person that you're interacting with wears a visible religious symbol whether they're wearing a kippah or a hijab? How does that affect you?

DIANE GUILBAULT: When I go to add a government service at public service I don't want to talk about a religion so I don't want to know what religion the person is. I don't want to know about our personal conviction political conviction. Already these political convictions are restricted for our civil servant. We ask the same thing because the interaction the state with the citizens are not based on the religion. It shouldn't be part of it. This is Laicite City which is not the same thing that secularism. Laicite City is a religion a political region that separates totally the state from the intrusion of the religion.

MG: But if the person is just wearing a sign of their faith. How is that seeking about their religion? I don't know what they're wearing.

DIANE GUILBAULT: She is displaying our favorite religion. She is displaying a discourse when you heard about the Supreme Court and the prayer and secondly what did the Supreme Court told the mayor. She should talk. They told the mayor that he can pray in his living room but when he is acting as a mayor he has a duty of reserve. He must not display is personal religious convictions. That's the point of the the judgment of the Supreme Court. So that's what we ask a citizen to be respected as citizen. Our freedom of conscience must not be that affected by the displaying of personal conviction of the person who is working for the public.

MG: Did the comments bite by Gregory Bordan give you any pause at all?

DIANE GUILBAULT: I think he's asking for keeping some privileged. Other people don't have. He wants to display his faith. I agree with that in the street. But when you're at the service of the public you don't have to do that because other people can do that. A Catholic cannot pray in in front of a citizen. It's the same thing. What did they say? They don't want to see is when they act as a civil servant or as a lawyer in the persecution. They are not the private citizen anymore. They have duties that the private citizen don't have. So it's like a question of equality between all people. Why should people because of their religious beliefs should have privileges that other people don't have. You know in the in the in the court nobody can wear her hat. But Mr. Gregory wants to keep his. So he wants a privilege that other people don't have.

MG: There is a lot of criticism as you know around this bill. I want you to have a listen to a woman named Sarah Abu Bakr. She is the correct community relations coordinator for the National Council of Canadian Muslims. Here is what she had to say about Bill 21.

SOUNDCLIP

This bill clearly tells people wearing religious symbols you have no future give back. We don't want you. You're not one of us. I mean as a Muslim who was born and raised in Quebec I mean my family has been here since the 1960s. It hurts us. Islamophobia is on the rise. And Bill just like Bill 21 is actually encouraging people who are a bit ignorant about what the hijab is or who Muslims are. They're encouraging them to keep that ignorance and to act upon it.

MG: You know there are two things there that I want to pick up on one is she says this bill emboldens Islamophobia. Does it?

GREGORY BORDAN: I don't think so. I think the opposite because I mean when people want to have a privilege based on their faith. This is not helping. They do this to social climate. Why should there be a privilege based on the religion of a person and the other thing I want to point because we she's talking about she was born here and everything. This is not a Christian about who is born he or not. The difference is not about people born here are is where because we have many people in our group in on the hearings we are heard people born in Algeria and Morocco and Tunisia and other countries. And they speak in favor of the bill. The difference is here it's a vision of a civil sort of civil servant of public service and the protection of the freedom of conscience of the citizens.

MG: We heard off the top Nour Farhat who is going to have to choose between her career she wants to be a crown prosecutor and her faith. What would you say to someone like her about that choice?

GREGORY BORDAN: If she wants to work as if she wants to work in the public sector and as a lawyer she will have restrictions already. Even not the religion when she will have to refrain from a freedom of expression and some people don't like that and they don't choose that profession. Now she knows that she should restrain during her time of work. She should not display our favorite religion. That's it. That's not she. If she says that she cannot live with that. I'm a little worried for her because I'm I'm wondering why is the profession and why the religion is so important, or not their religion, the displaying of our religion is so important.

MG: Gregory Bordan we'll ask you that you've been listening along to this. What do you want young people to understand about what this would mean for you?

GREGORY BORDAN: This actually demonstrates exactly what we were saying before. What it means is that the mere sight of a person who is wearing a religious symbol is wearing a kippah or hijab is offensive. It's a fundamental mistake to say that because I am wearing a keeper that that imposes something on anything anyone else. We're not talking about proselytizing. This is not a political statement in which we're trying to convince anybody of anything. I don't believe for one moment that Madame Guilbault is going to feel that she has to convert to Judaism because I'm wearing a kippah. That would be an deserves thought. And that's true for others too. What we're doing is in fact Quebec is saying that we can make a decision about what is important for a religion. It's a true infringement it's an imposition of an ideology by the state and that's very far from a neutral state.

MG: But what about her point that there are restrictions already on what you can and can't do in that public profession and that this is just a further restriction? That it's not an onerous restriction that there are certain things you can and can't wear you can't you can't do he can't and can't say as a lawyer that this is just one further?

GREGORY BORDAN: It's very interesting. It's important to know that the charter of rights allows every right to be restricted on a reasonable basis. The government should be prepared to say, okay, here's the reasons why it's appropriate to restrict this freedom of religion. Explain it. Explain why this is a proportional response to that but that would be fine. Instead of doing that they've used and notwithstanding clause which excludes a decision by the court that to invalidate the law. So they're trying to avoid having to come to court and actually bring evidence that there is any problem at all or that this is an appropriate response.

MG: Where's the evidence that there's any problem here?

DIANE GUILBAULT: The evidence is why did we restrain the political act displaying for that civil servant. It's because it doesn't respect the citizen. And this is the same thing. I'm not bother at all with a religious sign on the street or with my neighbors on anything. It's when we are in a relation with the state. It's not the same thing. It's in the state must be neutral. Displaying your preference is not neutral. It's the opposite of neutral.

MG: What's the evidence that there's some sort of problem here. That's leading to this? If it's not about discrimination, if it's not about Islamophobia.

DIANE GUILBAULT: It's imposing, to the students in the classroom. It's imposing a discourse. And we heard so many so many we have meaning what Muslim women in our group. And we heard so many women who came and when their children come home and they said 'how come, mama, you don't cover your hair?' Or 'mama, I should cover my hair. I am a girl'. They learn through the symbol that it is a discourse. And we say that a picture is a very very meaningful and a symbol is very very meaningful. So when you are interacting with the state you shouldn't have an interaction with. a really just discourse present in your and in front of you.

MG: Gregory Borden is that valid, that just having you know hijab on creates the discourse that's uncomfortable in Quebec?

GREGORY BORDAN: I have no doubt that people do not suddenly feel that they have to turn Muslim because they've seen somebody with a hijab. I've been dealing with large numbers of very independent hijabi wearing women who are have made their own choices in this and they've certainly not looking to impose it on anyone else. You know there's a very interesting contradiction in this. Quebec, a number of years ago introduced a course called ERC ethics religion and culture from the earliest grades up through high school that's intended to introduce Quebecers students to the world religion right in order to create tolerance and understanding. Under this bill it's going to be very clear that you're allowed perhaps to see a picture but actually seeing a live person in the classroom wearing a hijab or a kippah or a turban that is going to traumatize students. Well that is a statement of exclusion.

MG: All right. We'll have to leave it there. More on this certainly to come as the hearings proceed. Gregory and Diane thank you. Gregory Bordan is a lawyer and member of the coalition inclusion Quebec. He's in Montreal. Diane Guilbault Prisident president of Pour les Droits des Femmes du Quebec for women's rights in Quebec. She was in Quebec City. Well the news is next and then the big week for the ride hailing service Uber in more ways than one. We'll talk about the good and the bad that it has brought. And whether that change. Is for our good. I'm Matt Galloway here for Anna Maria Tremonti. You're listening to the current on Radio One.

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Uber IPO

Guests: Farhad Manjoo, Earla Phillips. Marshall Van Alsytne

MG: Hello I'm Matt Galloway sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti. You're listening to The Turrent.

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come, we the north, that is the rallying cry for fans of the Toronto Raptors and now that the team is making real headway in the NBA playoffs they seem closer than ever to truly being Canada's team. In half an hour, Globe and Mail sportswriter Cathal Kelly will be here to talk Raps. And then a conversation with the author of a provocative new book. It's called Dying of Whiteness. It's about the racial resentment he says is killing America's heartland. But first your Uber has arrived.

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That this strike has spread like wildfire across the globe within a short number of days, is something that would have been unimaginable for us but it really goes to show you the urgency of this fight. And the depth of driver unity and the visceral sence of rage that Uber and Lyft drivers are feeling across the globe.

MG: That's Bhairavi Desai deci executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. She's heralding the success of yesterday's temporary strike against the ride hailing companies Uber and Lyft. Drivers were protesting what they call unfair wages and working conditions by turning off their apps and refusing your rides. The action was timed to proceed UJber's much anticipated initial public offering which is expected on Friday. The company is hoping to raise over 10 billion U.S. dollars with its IPO and further entrench the tech giant that turned the personal transportation industry upside down and inside out. Those drivers are not alone in their concerns about the ethical and economic implications of Uber's dominance. Some communities including Vancouver have resisted the ride sharing service over concerns regarding safety and working conditions. In a moment we'll hear from a Canadian driver who took part in yesterday's work stoppage. But first I'm joined by Farhad Manjoo. He's a columnist with The New York Times. He specializes in issues around technology. He once embraced the Uber model, but in a recent column he calls Uber a moral stain on Silicon Valley. Farhad Manjoo is in Mountain View, California. Hello.

FARHAD MANJOO: Hi.

MG: It seems like Uber has been around forever it hasn't been that long. Take us back to when you first heard about this company. What did you make of the idea?

FARHAD MANJOO: I think it was 2010 when I got an email from an Uber employee who was telling me how great this new company was. And when I looked into it did seem great. It had this sort of magical promise that they associated with the best technologies in which kind of every party that uses it wins.

MG: So that was the promise. When did things go sideways for you in terms of your impressions of this company?

FARHAD MANJOO: I mean things started to go sideways almost immediately. The thing that happened to you was that they got caught up in what a lot of tech companies do which is this just incessant growth. This idea that in order to be at all successful it had to kind of take over the world. And they raised a lot of money billions and billions of dollars. And their plan was to you know go immediately into, not just every American city, but every city around the world. And in all of those places including in the U.S. and here in Canada also they raised fears of kind of everyone in the cities. They were invading the taxi cartels you know these groups that had long run cities and had kept supply of taxis low and that had led to the inconvenience that we were with fighting news. But it was also fighting you know lawmakers, authorities, people who were concerned with safety. This was a brand new thing and Uber didn't really have any patience to let people get adjusted to the new thing. It was going to through a lot of money and a lot of bad behavior and getting everyone using it immediately.

MG: You say in the piece that you are now sickened and saddened by your naiveté.

FARHAD MANJOO: Yes I mean so I don't use Uber anymore. I stopped using it a couple of years ago because I thought it was a morally bankrupt company. I still use Lyft occasionally which is its North American competitor and these guys sharing in other parts of the world. It's a service that I like and it's convenient but I'm deeply aware of all of these moral complications with it. And you know the biggest one is that this is the company and this is the kind of a sector now with all of its competitors that employs people for below the minimum wage for poverty wages all around the world. And we've created with Uber this kind of new template for labor which is hire people for their time make an ultra-competitive. Make it difficult to figure out what people are actually making. Have no labor protections and in return that'll be your work. It's going to be determined by these algorithms that you don't really have any control over and it's just a frightening picture of work and kind of the modern enabled economy. But also I don't think it should be a model for employment that the kind of most innovative part of the world Silicon Valley- I don't think it should be something that Silicon Valley celebrates.

MG: And yet much of what Silicon Valley does celebrate is that idea of creating something new and being a disruptor and moving quick and breaking things and being free of regulation. If that's the case, I mean if that's the culture that came out of how can Uber be a moral stain on Silicon Valley as you say?

FARHAD MANJOO: Yeah I mean a better way to put it is perhaps they're just kind of one of the first obvious moral stance. But I think that the Silicon Valley culture the idea that companies need to grow at all costs that there are few kind of legal or moral or ethical limits to their growth. You know Uber has this long and just kind of very detailed history of recklessness and lawlessness. And few in tech refused to give the company money because of it kept raising money ever. The worse it acted the more it got and the IPO will be the final reward for that. The people who you know the founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick was associated with a lot of bad behavior. He'll be richly rewarded in the IPO. He's already made a lot of money from the company. And you know the people who pushed it I get on to act the way it did all of the early investors will also have a huge payday.

MG: How much of the culture of the company has changed. You mentioned the founder and CEO and people pinned on him the kind of tech bro swagger that that seems to run through much of Silicon Valley. But for Uber in particular it had particularly corrosive effects not just on the people who use the service and some of the concerns that they had around personal safety and their data, but also just on how the company presented itself with its employees and the places that it landed in breaking the rules and waiting for the rules to be changed. How much has that changed within the company?

FARHAD MANJOO: I think it's changed some. I mean I've spoken to the new CEO and the many others at the company and I think that kind of in branding and messaging and in the way that branding and messaging extends into sort of their relations with law enforcement with Citi is with drivers. They are trying to be a kinder and gentler not as much of a tech bro swagger. I heard from people who work there that they are trying to address the culture of misogyny and just kind of overall recklessness within the company. There haven't been a lot of changes in how they you know pay drivers in that formal relationship and in the IPO they are giving something like 300 million dollars in cash or equity to the drivers which sounds like a lot but it is a tiny amount of their projected 100 billion dollar valuation or the 10 billion dollars they can raise in this round. So that suggests that they haven't changed that much in how they think of their duties to the world.

MG: And yet there are millions and millions of people who use the service every day here in Toronto where I am and around the world you aren't using it anymore. What do you say to the people who who use Uber who rely on the service or have found it to be you know more efficient easier to use then than other ways to get around in the city?

FARHAD MANJOO: I mean it's become one of those technologies and services we use in the modern world that we understand is morally compromised but that we use it anyway because we may not have a better thing to do. It`s a little bit like that would driving gasoline cars and using plastic. And it's that kind of thing that's the way I think about it then. And that way you use it and you feel bad. And in some ways it's already sort of stuck and embedded in the culture and embedded in infrastructure and you can't really do a lot. One thing that I try to do as I said I don't use Uber but I use Lyft and I feel the same or similar kind of moral compromise and one that try to do to kind of expiate some of the guilt about it is tip a lot. One of the changes they made in trying to be a better company was 'add tipping', and so now you can tip directly to the driver and the money that you put in the little tip box goes all of it goes directly into the drivers bank account without taking a little any part of it. So that's one way. But yeah it's a difficult thing because you know for a lot of people this is a service that they need and they've built their lives around.

MG: Farhad Manjoo It's great to talk to you about this. Thank you.

FARHAD MANJOO: All right thanks a lot Farhad Manjoo is a tech columnist with The New York Times we reached him in Mountain View California. As we mentioned many Uber and Lyft drivers around the world held a temporary work stoppage yesterday. One of those drivers was Earla Phillips. She's been driving for Uber in the Toronto area for almost four years. She's also a moderator for the Facebook group Uber and Lyft Toronto for drivers by drivers has about 3700 members. And we reached her in Toronto earlier. Hi.

EARLA PHILLIPS: Hi. Good morning Matt.

MG: Why did you take part in this work stoppage against Uber?

EARLA PHILLIPS: I wanted to support you know the American drivers. There was no organized protest here in Toronto. But there was at least 15-20 cities across the US, South America, I believe Montreal and you know some other places like the UK. And I just felt that it was important to you know stand in solidarity with them.

MG: What changes are you asking for from Uber?

EARLA PHILLIPS: I'm not onboard with some of the changes that the American drivers want. I don't want to be an employee. I don't want to be unionized but there are some things that are sort of consistent across the board with drivers all over the world. You know some of them things like transparency and consistency on fares. We can take the same writer at the same time repeatedly for the same distance and see fluctuating rates on those rides sometimes twice as much when it's not a search time. Stick to the percentages of you know Uber started charging 20 to 25 percent of the total fare. And there is no consistency anymore. Sometimes they take upwards of 60-70 percent of the fare.

MG: So I if I took an Uber and it cost me ten dollars Uber could take 60 or 70 percent of that ten dollars?

EARLA PHILLIPS: We've seen it happen. Yes.

MG: Can I ask you I mean this is a personal question. How much money do you make driving from driving an Uber?

EARLA PHILLIPS: Not enough not enough.

MG: Not enough to make ends meet.

EARLA PHILLIPS: And not enough to make ends meet. One of the things that's been happening is we have an excess amount of drivers in the GTA area. There are over 100,as000 drivers driving here that causes congestion problems that are in our cases, it causes an issue of nobody being able to make any money. We're all making less than minimum wage Uber.

MG: We asked for comment from Uber and it said the company in part - this is the statement: "Drivers are at the heart of our service. We can't succeed without them. The thousands of people who come into work at Uber every day are focused on how to make their experience better on and off the road whether it's more consistent earnings, stronger security measures, or better technology, we'll continue working to improve the experiences for and with drivers.

MG: Do you have the sense that that Uber is in your corner?

EARLA PHILLIPS: No not at all.

MG: Why would you why would you continue to drive for them then. I mean nobody is forcing you to to work for Uber. Why would you walk in with you?

EARLA PHILLIPS: And that is true you know but each and every driver has circumstances that may put them in a spot where they may not have a choice. In my case age discrimination has been extremely difficult to find full time work. So for me Uber has fluctuated in between part time and full, time part time, full time because I have no other way unless I want to be on 0W and rent some room for almost all of my money that I would receive from old W. But I would rather have some pride and be able to work and know that I could put a roof over my head but that is becoming increasingly difficult.

MG: What sort of response were you hoping to get from Uber after yesterday's protest? As you said it wasn't organized in Toronto where you're driving but elsewhere it was a bigger thing. What would you want Uber to do about how this is unfolding?

EARLA PHILLIPS: You know the ultimate goal is I imagine for most people is is to have a seat at the table where we can discuss this and find ways to actually put their money where their mouth is. Basically they're trying to make it safer and better for us to increase our earnings when they have done nothing really that that shows that they are doing that.

MG: Wouldn't that be easier if you mean you mentioned that you weren't in line with some of the other ideas from the United States. But wouldn't it be easier if you were considered to be an employee not a contractor with Uber, or if there was some sort of union or collective organization there to represent all of your interests.

EARLA PHILLIPS: You know I would love that. I don't think you have to be unionized and an employee to be able to collective bargain. We've had no choice, no say in the matter when it comes to you know rates and changes. It's just you know they decide to change what they're going to do and they throw out a new agreement and you either accept it or you don't. You have no choice. We don't have a seat at the table we would like to be able to have those discussions, open up that dialogue and you know if you're going to say that you're going to look at ways to increase our earnings, then let us sit down and talk with you about it and look at ways that you can stand behind that and actually do something about it.

MG: Just finally and briefly the belief is that Uber will have its IPO tomorrow. The estimates are that it could raise more than 9 billion dollars U.S. what goes through your mind when you hear about numbers like that?

EARLA PHILLIPS: Frankly sick to my stomach because you know as a lot of people have said I mean they're building this off on the backs of people who are not even making minimum wage. And there's you know it's just-- it's almost it's almost predatory. And it just makes me think that these people can make this kind of money but keep squeezing drivers for more.

MG: Earla Phillips we'll leave it there. Thank you.

EARLA PHILLIPS: All right thank you.

MG: Earla Phillips has been driving for Uber for almost four years. She's also a moderator for the Facebook group for Uber and Lyft drivers. We reached her in Toronto. There are plenty of concerns about what ridesharing means for the people who drive the cars but not everybody agrees that Uber is a moral stain on Silicon Valley as Farhad Manjoo was saying. Joining me now one of the leading researchers who studies the economics of companies like Uber. Marshall Van Alsytne is the question professor in management at Boston University also co-author of platform revolution: how network markets are transforming the economy. He is in Boston. Marshall Hello to you.

MARSHALL VAN ALSYTNE: Hello.

MG: Thanks for joining us. What do you make of what we just heard from Earla Phillips about what it's like to actually drive an Uber.

MARSHALL VAN ALSYTNE: Well actually I think a middle of the road approach this actually think that there are some real advantages to Uber but I'm extremely sympathetic to both the comments that Farhad made and too, Earla. One of the things I think that's happening is the Internet economy is giving rise to these giant firms that have giant monopolistic practices. The analogous what we saw almost a century ago in the rise of the industrial era, we got a large supply side it comes of scale and we're getting large demands [unintelligible] of scale. What this does is it gives the Central Powers lots of bargaining power. And as I think Farhad said you may not have a better option and I think Earla said she doesn't have better options. So they didn't have they didn't have good bargaining power. And we need to give collective bargaining rights to labor to actually help them out. I think if you visit the board of directors web page for Uber it's kind of interesting. The whole wonderful statement of all the different technology and the different people they've got. But the chief people officer out there says that they're looking to advance the careers and the options of the 22000 employees not to say you wonder if they also had the you know career interests of one 165000 thousand freelance drivers also at heart.

MG: How big of a distinction is that do you think. I mean the drivers aren't employees. We heard that from earlier that they're looked at as independent contractors. Why does that matter?

MARSHALL VAN ALSYTNE: So I think at some point you know, if you're starting to work 40, 50, 60 hours a week at some point perhaps you ought to earn your way into either retirement benefits or health care benefits or get the benefits of collective pooling that you would get as an employee that you don't necessarily have as a freelancer. And of course a lot of folks do this without you know without need to do full time employment they just do it part time with their managing kids are doing it as other career options. But if you're doing it and you're doing 50 hours a week at some point you probably should earn a greater share of the value created by the corporation.

MG: Do you think that it's a moral stain on Silicon Valley?

MARSHALL VAN ALSYTNE: I think moral stain is taking it a bit far. There's a wonderful study done by University of Chicago that suggested that in fact they've added something like 6 billion dollars annually to the U.S. economy. If you think in terms of the [unintelligible] availability of rides [unintelligible] himself so that is possible to actually get rides [cutting] options you get rides taking the parts of town. The prices have gone down. There's the University of Minnesota study that said when Uber entered a city the number of accidental homicides by alcohol just went down dramatically three to five percent. So you're saving hundreds of lives a year. And that certainly is not a moral stand. You know because now folks who go to bars late at night now easily get an Uber on the way home. They're not driving. And that actually is a huge benefit to society. So I think we need to we need to balance both sides of the equation.

MG: Tell me more about what you see as the benefits of Uber and the economic benefits and the social benefits because people use it now as a verb 'I will Uber my way here or there'. How has it changed cities for the good?

MARSHALL VAN ALSYTNE: So you actually are improving access to cheap door to door transportation. There's also evidence that the average cost of rides has gone down. True it's the surge pricing that may be high during peak hours, but during off peak hours it's actually easier to get a vehicle. Your wait times has gone down. Congestion has gone down. The pricing has gone down. You may find it easier to get a ride to a more difficult part of the city. If you go back in history. It's interesting during the Great Depression Medallions were issued because there are too many taxis on the street and they issued to reduce the congestion. The problem has been the number of medallions has been relatively constantly increasing at a small rate. We've had monopolistic practices in taxi pricing for some time and we're actually moving back toward more market based rates so that more people can actually get service. So a huge amount of value is being created and we're now back to the question of who should get that value, should it be concentrated at the center or just the people that founded Uber or perhaps should some of that be shared with the drivers and the people who are also helping create that value.

MG: Well that's I mean in the last minute and half or so that we have what does this say about the future of work? People talk about the gig economy and they'll point at Uber and say that this is this is the reason that that you know full time jobs might be eroding because you can just hire people piecemeal, not have to worry about calling them employees, not have to worry to your point about the benefits. Do you worry about that rise of the gig economy and the future of real work?

MARSHALL VAN ALSYTNE: Well this is true across the board. We're seeing lots more freelance jobs. We've seen more job rotation across the board. If you look at companies like Up Work for example it's is actually easier to go hire individual programmers or copywriter or legal advice for short term periods as opposed to having to contract with the firm to do it. And the folks at the top of that you know freelance value chain are actually doing quite well. With the other and it's also quite interesting you know driving Uber doesn't require even a college degree. And so in some ways it's currently providing access to labor markets for people that might not necessarily get hired. So you know we think that this is likely to be a trend that's going to continue. In terms of the freelance economy but I would be concerned that at the low end without specialty skills we're going to move in the direction of self-driving cars, we're going to be moving the direction of artificial intelligence replacing low level tasks.

MG: Those drivers themselves - Uber is involved in the self-driving car world - Those drivers themselves could be could be driven out of their jobs.

MARSHALL VAN ALSYTNE: That's absolutely correct. That's absolutely correct. So a lot of the tasks that can be automated probably will be automated. And so we should you know collectively be investing in education and other creative work to provide folks with opportunity. And at the moment I'm quite sympathetic to their desire to earn a better living wage.

MG: Marshall we'll leave it there. Good to speak with you about this. Thank you.

MARSHALL VAN ALSYTNE: It's a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

MG: Marshall Van Alsytne is a question professor and management at Boston University co-author of Platform revolution how network markets are transforming the economy. He is in Boston. Do you take Uber? Do you drive Uber? Would love to hear from you. You can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC or contact us through the website cbc.ca/thecurrent click on the Contact Us link. Coming up in the next half hour why do so many white Americans tend to vote against their self-interest. I'll speak with the author of a provocative and timely new book Dying of Whiteness and the sportswriter Cathal Kelly will join me to talk about the latest team to inspire fans across this country perhaps aspire to be the mantle of Canada's team. Go Raptors! I'm Matt Galloway sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

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Kawhi Leonard could be the 'truly great player' Raptors need, sports writer says

Guest: Cathal Kelly

MG: I'm Matt Galloway sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti. You're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

This is game five. The Toronto Raptors have home court. What will they do with it? Can they take game five here at Scotiabank Arena?

[Cheering and stomping].

MG: Some energy they're captured in the latest edition of Open gym it's a web series about basketball. The Toronto Raptors facing the Philadelphia seventy six years in the NBA Eastern Conference semifinals have their fans all fired up. Much of the city of Toronto is behind them. But are the Raptors on the cusp of becoming Canada's team? In addition to winning games and potentially a championship there's been all sorts of pressure on the Raptors to become just that especially since the Grizzlies left Vancouver nearly 20 years ago. According to my next guest the Raptors finally have a critical parts of the puzzle in place a superstar. His name is Kawhi Leonard. Cathal Kelly is a sports columnist with The Globe and Mail he is in Philadelphia. That's where the Raptors will face the 76 years tonight in Game six of the Eastern Conference semifinals. Cathal, hello.

CATHAL KELLY: Morning.

MG: What does this playoff run mean for the Toronto Raptors?

CATHAL KELLY: I mean this franchise has been defined by disappointment. You know through the quarter century of their existence they had become, not a running joke certainly at certain points in their history, but they had become one of the poor relations of the NBA. They were a team that could be okay but was never going to be great for a variety of factors. The main one of which was that they played in a foreign country and no one wanted to go play there. Well they've finally got In the NBA these days to win. You don't need some good players you need at least one truly great player and they finally have that player in Leonard as you said.

MG: Who is he?

CATHAL KELLY: Kawhi Leonard is an odd fellow who does one thing really really well which is play basketball, the most obscure athlete on earth. I find him enormously charming. He's never really given an interview. He's never really talked about how he feels about the game or other people he almost never reacts on the court. He's just a robot built to kill other basketball teams.

MG: Why is that charming to you? I mean we live in a society now where players are on social media. We know everything about them. They make a big deal of who they are off the court. This is a guy who is an enigma. Why is that appealing to you?

CATHAL KELLY: That's exactly it. That he is so different. There isn't really a star in any sport that is anything like him. He shows no interest in selling himself or branding himself. He still makes a lot of money selling sneakers. But he has the ability to just go out there and play the game and then shut out everything else. You know I've never spoken to him one on one because no one speaks to him one on one. But I have talked to people in the team and they said he really is just like that. He comes in. He does an incredible job. He is friendly with his teammates and then he goes home and no one has any idea what he does.

MG: How crucial is he when it comes to raising the profile of this team beyond the hard-core Raptors fan?

CATHAL KELLY: Absolutely crucial because the team can never be taken serious. If you look at the great teams in the NBA they are always defined by a single player. The Cleveland Cavaliers and LeBron James. The Golden State Warriors and Steph Curry. One player is the person who leads the global idea of what that team is. Toronto never really had that player. They had Vince Carter briefly but Vince never was able to break through. Kawhi is in the midst of it he's having a playoff run that statistically is one of the greatest in the history of the game and tonight we'll see if he can push them over the edge. I think winning this series was the minimum expectation going into this year. I'm not really sure what happens if they tip over into the next because I think that's when a lot of people who are sort of half interested get very interested.

MG: Is your sense that people outside of the city of Toronto are now all in behind the raptors that this team has become Canada's team?

CATHAL KELLY: I think that's certainly the Raptors hope you'll notice when they go out in public any executive from the Raptors constantly bangs on about being a team of a country rather than a city, and that of course has no market reasons. They'd rather be a team for 35 million people than five but one of the problems is if you don't have that connection through the city you don't really- what are you identifying with exactly, because the only thing you can really get behind is success. They've never really had it. Suddenly they might. You know we are all of us front. We love winners. This team if they can win and it's just charismatic enough. It hasn't caught - beyond Kawhi - Basketball teams seem to have this incredible ability to throw up characters in a way that's a hockey teams are unable to do each person on that team as an individual. And if you follow closely enough you identify with one or the other it's also like a TV show that you feel like I'm a past Kelsey item for whatever reason they're about to do that. They need the successes the prerequisite to that and I think they're about to bring a lot of people who weren't really interested in the game into it because they want to follow the drama rather than the result.

MG: One reason that people believe that that success could be on the doorstep is because LeBron James is no longer the obstacle in front of this team. Have a listen to LeBron James. Heaping praise on the Raptors fans after his former team the Cleveland Cavaliers did what they always do which is not the Raptors out of the playoffs.

SOUNDCLIP

LEBRON: First of all- Do you hear this?

DORIS BURKE: I know they're incredible.

LEBRON: Unbelievable respect and much respect to these fans, to this country. This is unbelievable. I never been a part of something like this in my 30 year career. This is special and I really appreciate what their team did.

MG: Is he being genuine in his praise?

CATHAL KELLY: I'm sure he is being genuine. He's also selling a lot of sneakers. You know there is something parochial in the past about the way people have Americans that would be an especially American broadcasters have treated the Raptors fans in the sense of art. Aren't they cute up there in Canada with all the cheering. You know and you would never say this of a team like the New York Knicks or the L.A. Lakers a team that has a deep history. It would be a given that the fans were behind them.

MG: But there is something interesting about the fans. I mean it's not just the broadcasters. This is from Patrick Patterson. He wrote in The Players Tribune in 2016 "when I walk into the tunnel at a Raptors game I see white people but they're right next to Asians and Africans and Pacific Islanders and many people from all around the world and all of them are wearing the same Jersey cheering for the same team. It's a beautiful thing to see man". Is that different than traditional sports fans and a collection of sports fans in this country.

CATHAL KELLY: Well that's absolutely true. I covered the Toronto Maple Leafs were in the playoffs for at the same time for a bit there. So I'd be going one night to a Leafs game and one night to a Raptors game in the same building at Scotiabank arena and the crowd is completely different, completely. It's jarring how different the crowd is. The Raptors crowd is younger more diverse more gender diverse whereas the Leafs crowd is kind of a more suburban crowd, older, whiter, richer it seems. Yes. I mean that's what the basketball is beginning to offer because it is a global sport. There's something about you know hockey is our traditional sport and basketball is our future perhaps.

MG: You have one word left Raptors win or lose tonight?

CATHAL KELLY: Let's put it this way. They must win tonight. I think it's incredibly dangerous to leave this up to a game seven. So I would imagine they are approaching this as if it were a Game 7 which is a cliche people say but I think they need to. They have to finish this team off now.

MG: It's more than one word but we'll give it to you. Cathal Kelly thank you.

CATHAL KELLY: Take care.

MG: Cathal Kelly sports columnist for The Globe and Mail. We reached him in Philadelphia. My name's Matt Galloway here for Anna Maria Tremonti and this is The Current on CBC Radio One.

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Many Americans 'shooting themselves in the foot' to maintain racial hierarchy: author

Guest: Jonathan Metzl

GM: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name is Matt Galloway and something completely different for you.

SOUNDCLIP

[Chanting] This land is our land.

GM: That's a group of white supremacist demonstrators chanting this land is our land in Washington D.C. late last month. They weren't protesting in front of the White House or the Supreme Court. They were at a bookstore where my next guest was trying to give a talk. Jonathan Metzl is the director of the Center for Medicine Health and Society at Vanderbilt University. His new book is hit a nerve clearly. It's called Dying of whiteness how politics of racial resentment is killing America's heartland. It's a provocative title. Jonathan Metzl joins me now. Hello.

JONATHAN METZL: Hi. Thanks so much for having me.

GM: What was that moment like when these protesters stormed into your book talk?

JONATHAN METZL: It was really a quite a surreal moment for a number of reasons. One of course is nobody really ever expects that to happen but it turns out ironically at the moment in the talk that I was at. I was actually talking about the greatness of the potential greatness of America. My father and my grandparents escaped the Holocaust from Austria. And they only made it into the United States because of the bravery and generosity of a number of people in the United States and one of those people was in the audience at The Talk, an 80 year old man. I was actually pointing to this man and saying here's an example of what happens when our country stands up for people in times of need. It's to the benefit of everyone it shows that America is its greatest when it's its most confident and its most open and its most welcoming. And of course at that moment from the back of the store and enters you know a very different narrative of America, one that's exactly the opposite of what I was talking about in the talk.

GM: You say it was surreal, was it also scary? Because this is this has gone beyond just that protest. I mean it's been on social media. What is that like? And you concerned about it?

JONATHAN METZL: I mean you know I would say that there are many people talking about these issues right now. At the same time that that this event was happening to me there was a real active of terrorism happening at at a synagogue in California. Whether or not I was in danger or the people were in danger it didn't really feel that way to be honest. I felt more like- initially there was a moment of unsettledness because nobody knew what their intentions were and what they were doing. But then it became pretty clear it was a publicity stunt.

GM: What do you think is going on in terms of why it would be that those messages whatever they truly mean would resonate with some people?

JONATHAN METZL: You know it's a complicated moment. And let me just be clear that this is not at all what I write about in my book, not my research whatsoever.

GM: But it's I [intelligible] in some ways that led to this happening.

JONATHAN METZL: It certainly came to me and so I would definitely say that you know part of the issue is that there's a lot of uncertainty right now and these messages of people feeling displaced or threatened or undermined or just seem to be resonating across the world and leading to some quite extreme discourses, not just in the United States but more broadly. And so certainly in that regard that this is a moment where these kind of extremist voices are gaining in popularity. And the other point in the United States of course is that in the history of our country there have always been voices like this. But usually then the government steps in and says you know this is not how we act as a civilized society or the Justice Department steps in. I think the other scary part in the United States right now is that people are being given the tacit or explicit at times by the failure of our government to condemn these kinds of ideologies.

GM: In the book when you write about whiteness what are you talking about? What do you mean by that?

JONATHAN METZL: I'm not talking about white extremism at all. My book is really about the rise of a particular kind of politics in Midwestern states in the United States. And I call this the politics of racial resentment. And really what they are the politics that are anti-government anti-immigrant pro-gun politics that came to power in a number of Midwestern and Southern states in the United States. Part of what I show is that there's a dichotomy between what those politics say they're going to do for white working class people and what they actually do.

GM: You write in the book that whiteness to use as a political and an economic system. What do you mean by that?

JONATHAN METZL: Well it's basically that there are systems that are bent on maintaining racial hierarchies and they do so not because of some deep ideology although that seems to be what it's about, but it's also about just you know who's getting tax breaks, who's getting benefits from the government. And so there's a lot of a lot of moves that are cloaked under this idea of it's about race and ideology but end up dividing people to maintain power structures really for wealthy people and corporations.

GM: There's a quotation that you cite in the book and we can get into some of the specifics in terms of the places you go. But this quotation in many ways captures what it is that you're trying to articulate and it's "why with so many problems in poor white communities was there such disdain for federal money that could alleviate those problems". What's going on there?

JONATHAN METZL: That was one of the main focuses of the book I went around different states and talked to people about policies that might benefit them that ended up being ones that they rejected. And the one that I lead the book with is the is health care reform, the Affordable Care Act in the United States. In my research I went and did focus groups with them, with men in the poorest parts of some southern states like Tennessee who would have stood to benefit from health care reform. I thought going in that and maybe these people were ones who - even if they were conservative or Republican - at the moment of their greatest need they might say, gosh, you know actually I would like some health care. But but it turned out not to be the case. In many cases I would ask people you know how do you feel about the Affordable Care Act and they would tell me 'well I certainly need medical attention but I'm not going to sign up for a program that's going to benefit immigrants and minorities'. And one of the lead quotes of the book was a man who told me 'I'm not going to have my tax dollars go to a program that - as he said - it benefits Mexicans and welfare queen".

GM: That's Trevor.

JONATHAN METZL: Trevor. Exactly.

GM: Tell us about Trevor and the situation that he finds himself in with with his health.

JONATHAN METZL: He was a very very medically ill man. He'd had a series of chronic medical conditions most notably lived liver failure. When I met him. He was living in a low income housing project outside of Nashville in Tennessee a southern state. And he really needed medical attention. He was trying to hold down a menial job. He couldn't. He was on the cusp of medical bankruptcy. So for me that became the jumping off point of the book where I just said how powerful must an ideology be that somebody on death's door step is willing to give up a chance for treatment in order to deny treatment for other people.

GM: What's going on there when there's that clash between individual responsibility if I can put it that way and that sense of anxiety about, whether it's people from Mexico or what he's calling welfare queens, I'm not entirely sure who he's referring to there but what is he worried about? Is he worried that that for him to get something other people would get something too?

JONATHAN METZL: Exactly it's the formulation of is called a zero sum formulation of race which you know psychologists write about the basically. The idea was there are winners and losers and here's somebody who's at the lower end of the economic spectrum and he had he had heard all these messages from television from Internet factors like that that basically said there are limited amounts of resources and minorities are coming up, or immigrants coming across the border and they're taking away resources that are that are meant for you. And I have to say you know I could see in talking to people like Trevor how powerful that message was because there was already a lot of anxiety about just surviving in their lives.

GM: You say that essentially people are putting their own bodies on the line for the things they believe in.

GM: Well and part of it is true. I mean so I mean there are two parts to this argument. I mean one is about the ways that histories of race and racial anxiety are used to manipulate people into making decisions that are at odds with their own mortality. That certainly is part of the story I tell. But the other part to be fair is that people like Trevor felt like they were part of a bigger ideal right. That they were laying their bodies down not just to thwart the Obama administration or its policies but because they felt like conservative ideologies getting people in power who represented them bigger issues about religion about outlawing abortion all these things. So people did feel - I mean it's not like people didn't know what the Affordable Care Act was. People were quite knowledgeable but they said I'm willing to make this trade-off in order for my team to win and I think that was a point that many liberal people like myself missed before the 2016 election.

GM: What is this doing, I mean just broadly we know Trevor's story but to the health of white Americans in those states?

JONATHAN METZL: Right. So I mean that was the big story. I mean in the book what I show is basically when politicians started blocking the Affordable Care Act the health of everybody in the state started to go down including people in the white working class. White lives went down by about three weeks of life expectancy just by the decision to block the Affordable Care Act. That's incredible. Now again the fantasy here was we can block a system that might be benefiting people who aren't like us immigrants or minorities but it turns out health care is a great example of the ways in which we're all connected and so in blocking other people who are doing so we're literally shooting themselves in the foot.

GM: Shooting themselves in the foot. Let's talk about gun control. You go to Missouri to talk about the effects of loosening gun laws. People might have read a story in The New York Times which followed the loosening of the gun laws there and referred to this as kind of a grand experiment about whether more guns would mean more safety. One of the groups that you talked to is a grief support group for people who had lost loved ones to suicide by gun. What did you learn in those conversations about the relationship between people in Missouri and their guns?

JONATHAN METZL: I spent about six months going down through parts of southern Missouri and going to different kinds of gun meetings and the most powerful one was the one you mentioned where I sat in on a support group for people who - on one hand - had suffered the most painful loss. They had lost loved ones to take on suicide. At the same time they were struggling with how did that change their feelings about guns and firearms. I mean I was so honored to be in the room and people were so generous to talk to me. And you know we would talk about different aspects but one thing I would always ask people was does this change your opinions about guns, and they would say it's never the guns fault, that it's the person's fault. And the person in many cases was their relative the sense of having a gun is an individual choice and what you do with it is an individual choice, which on one hand was something I tried to respect even though that's not my own personal view. But then I just look at a lot of data and research and show that actually policies really do matter. Policies really do affect rates of gun injury and death and so this individual story very often for me seemed to cover over the fact that there was lots of research that actually showed that having a gun in your house in a moment of despair, or keeping a gun not in as in a gun safe, factors like that really did linked to higher rates of shooting. And so trying to balance those two things but it was interesting because I did find a lot of mistrust of research which I think was part of this bigger story.

GM: You had to Kansas to talk about education. What is going on in Kansas that to use is an interesting example of how those politics of racial resentment are playing at?

JONATHAN METZL: Well when I grew up in Kansas City Kansas had among the most successful public school system in the country. It used to be sixth or seventh and in the entire United States in terms of reading and math proficiency, graduation rates all these important factors. And what happened starting really in the 2010, 2011, 2012 was the rise of a kind of movement that was basically based on cutting corporate and wealthy people's taxes and so the way they did that was cut away infrastructure for states and cut away funding for the school system. Part of why Kansas was interesting was that there was a pushing back from centrist Republicans who said when you start cutting schools that's more than we can take. But there were also these tensions of racial resentment that I found so I would ask people why are you supporting tax cuts for schools when your own kids go to the schools and people would similarly often tell me things that were basically I don't want my tax money going to minority districts and factors like that. So but ultimately the Kansas story that I tell is what really happens when we cut money for schools and I have a lot of data that really shows the devastating consequences for people across the board of school budget cuts.

GM: As you say the fire was set in the fields burned all the way up to the home.

JONATHAN METZL: Somebody told me that actually that was a quote. It was pretty remarkable that people- I mean that was kind of the summary of many things that happen in the book where people would say we thought we were doing these to harm other people in a way, but then it turned out to boomerang and hurt us. And again budget cuts to schools, I mean I just studied four years of data for budget cuts to schools and it turned out dropout rates soared, reading proficiency fell in fourth and eighth grade. It started costing people actual life expectancy. Ultimately what I found even in four years of research is that it costs over ten thousand life years for people who are dropping out of schools.

GM: Why don't people connect the dots on these stories? When they're unfolding right around them whether it's education whether it's gun control whether it's health care. Why do you think it is that people aren't connecting the dots?

JONATHAN METZL: Partially I think that you know there's a lot of research now that shows just how deep politics has become an ideology it's not just a rational policy decision about this policy or that policy. So part of the issue that I tell is a bigger story about how it is that our politics really become our identities even in times where you think people might be rational or not. And the other thing is that I feel like there's a lot of playing to people's fears right now and so when you keep telling people immigrants are streaming across the waters and they're rapists and they're going to take all your stuff and things like that or other people are gaming the system. I feel like even though people in their hearts would often want to do well. But when there's this constant drumbeat of playing to people's worst demons it really pushes them into making decisions that might not seem quite rational.

GM: Do you think the media has missed the nuance here, has missed why it is that those dots aren't being connected and why it is that those policies despite hurting the people who supported them are still being supported?

JONATHAN METZL: I feel like there's a waking up to paying attention to people in middle America right now which I think is an important thing. I think it caught a lot of people by surprise in 2016 the fact that people in what were maybe considered flyover states weren't exactly happy. And so part of what I think is happening now is much more media attention to stories of race of whiteness of racism or resentment but also of struggling and despair. And I think that's an important thing for the media to do because I do think that was what was missing before. But but I also think you know not everybody missed that. I mean Donald Trump's sure was paying attention to it. But I will say this attention to race and racism and resentment I think are important things because it's leading us to address deeper questions than we were doing before.

GM: Well what, to your point, what happens now? You have an election in a couple of year’s time. The polarization continues and that sense of the zero sum game playing out seems very strong as well. So so what happens now?

JONATHAN METZL: We have an election that's really about what kind of country do we want to be in a way. And I don't know. I go back and forth about this myself.

GM: Are you left optimistic or pessimistic by the research that you've done?

JONATHAN METZL: I found so many examples of strength and resilience and the research that I've done that I do feel like there are parts of people that we can be tapping into. But what I also found in my research was how beneficial keeping everybody polarized was for you know media outlets and the NRA and other factors like that. And so I do hope that we come back toward common sense in this country and maybe this election is a referendum on ways to do so I certainly hope that that's the case.

GM: It's a fascinating book and what's happening right now. I mean in terms of what you know what happened at the bookshop in some ways speaks to why a book like this is so relevant right now. It's a real pleasure to talk to you. Thank you.

JONATHAN METZL: Well thank you so much. It's really been my honor.

GM: Jonathan Metzl is the director of the Center for Medicine Health and Society at Vanderbilt University. His new book is called Dying of whiteness how the politics of racial resentment is killing America's heartland. That's our program for today. Coming up on Q, Linda Perry once of four non blondes she has written some of the biggest songs in recent memory and you'll hear her coming up this morning. We leave you with some music from perhaps the biggest Raptors fan in this country. You'll find him courtside. It's Drake. This is big rings. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current.

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[Song by Drake]

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