Real Ones and Robots

I was too nervous to watch the U.S. midterms. When I finally checked the results, I got emotional. Georgia elected the first Black woman governor in U.S. history. New Mexico elected the first Native American woman governor. Minnesota sent the first Native woman to the Senate, and Michigan sent the first Muslim senator.It looks like a win. But is it?Jay and I dig into what actually happened, and who went backward in a “wave” year. We go back to Selma, California’s Prop 187, Anita Hill and the Year of the Woman, and Reconstruction, to ask whether pushing people down always brings change. We look at what Trump has said since election night. And as Canadians, we ask the personal question: is the U.S. back on the travel list?Real Ones and Robots looks at social justice issues through the lens of a thirty-something woman and an AI. The views on this show are my own, not my employer’s.SOURCESThe resultsNBC News, Senate results: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-elections/senate-resultsFrance 24, historic firsts: https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20261104-us-midterms-bring-surge-of-historic-firsts-women-members-minority-groupsForbes, The hidden winner was diversity: https://www.forbes.com/sites/shaheenajanjuhajivrajeurope/2026/11/05/the-2026-midterms-hidden-winner-was-diversity/Mississippi Free Press, Hyde-Smith and Colom: https://www.mississippifreepress.org/cindy-hyde-smith-blocked-scott-coloms-judicial-nomination-now-hes-running-against-her-for-us-senate/Who went backwardJoint Center, Black representation: https://jointcenter.org/black-representation-in-the-2026-midterm-elections/CAWP, women in Congress: https://cawp.rutgers.edu/news-media/press-releases/new-records-women-us-congress-and-us-houseHistorySPLC, Jimmie Lee Jackson: https://www.splcenter.org/jimmie-lee-jacksonEncyclopedia of Alabama, Bloody Sunday: https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/bloody-sunday/LAist, Prop 187: https://laist.com/news/proposition-187-what-you-need-to-knowU.S. Senate, Year of the Woman: https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/year_of_the_woman.htmTrump’s responseAxios: https://www.axios.com/2026/11/04/trump-republicans-midterms-2026-landslide-blue-waveNewsweek: https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-midterm-election-results-truth-social-12681983TravelCTV, detentions of Canadians: https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/article/canada-records-60-per-cent-spike-in-arrests-detentions-of-canadians-in-united-states/Government of Canada, U.S. travel advice: https://travel.gc.ca/destinations/united-states

In 1959, Montgomery, Alabama was ordered to open its public parks to Black residents. Instead, the city closed them all and filled its swimming pools with dirt. Nobody got to swim. Losing everything felt better than sharing.That’s zero-sum thinking: if you win, I lose. In this episode, Casey and Jay take on the question friends keep asking: why keep talking about race? Isn’t it better to just treat everybody the same?We look at what “equal treatment” did when it was first tested in Griggs v. Duke Power. We dig into who thinks in zero-sum terms and why. We follow it into hiring: who gets referred, who gets the call, and why identical résumés with different names still get different results.And we land somewhere hopeful. Zero-sum thinking is learned, and it can be unlearned. Equity is the remedy for the harm, once we’re willing to name the harm.A note: in the study where white Americans read that the US is becoming majority-minority, the “other group” we mention is a third group in the same experiment. They read the same news, plus a line saying white Americans would keep higher incomes and wealth. Their politics didn’t shift.Real Ones and Robots looks at social justice issues through the eyes of a thirty-something woman and an AI.SOURCESGriggs v. Duke Power (1971): https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/401/424.htmlNorton & Sommers (2011): https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1378181772022 follow-up: https://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/perspectives/17456916221082111/Chinoy et al. (2026): https://econpapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:116:y:2026:i:3:p:1052-96Craig & Richeson (2014): https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/thinking-about-a-majority-minority-shift-leads-to-more-conservative-views.htmlMontgomery pools: https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/gilmore-v-city-of-montgomery/Heather McGhee: https://www.apha.org/publications/public-health-newswire/articles/2021/10/24/apha-2021-opening-sessionRoyster: https://wagner.nyu.edu/impact/research/publications/race-and-invisible-hand-how-white-networks-exclude-black-men-blueDiTomaso: https://www.publicradioeast.org/us/2013-05-06/op-ed-how-favoritism-is-driving-minority-unemploymentQuillian et al. (2017): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5642692/Oreopoulos (2011): https://www.povertyactionlab.org/print/pdf/node/1917Black doctors, Oakland: https://swlb1.aeaweb.org/research/african-american-doctors-trust-oaklandSame-race teachers: https://www.nber.org/papers/w25254Peterborough PiT count 2024: https://www.uwpeterborough.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024-Point-In-Time-Report-United-Way-Peterborough.pdfToronto SNA: https://www.toronto.ca/homelesscountUChicago, zero-sum and age: https://news.uchicago.edu/story/listen-grandma-lifes-not-zero-sum-gameOverestimating zero-sum beliefs: https://pure.ecnu.edu.cn/en/publications/second-order-zero-sum-misbeliefs-people-overestimate-others-zero-/StatCan 2021 Census: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230123/dq230123b-eng.htmUS homeownership gap: https://www.npr.org/2018/08/07/632497683/in-baltimore-the-gap-between-white-and-black-homeownership-persistsUN resolution (2026): https://asil.org/ilib/un-general-assembly-adopts-resolution-on-the-transatlantic-slave-trade/

Content warning: massacres, police shootings, torture and sexual violence. Take care of yourself.Slavery ended on paper. Then what? On August 1, 1834, about 300 people walked up to Government House in Port of Spain, Trinidad, to ask one question. They'd been told they were free, then told they were "apprentices" for six more years. They chanted, "Pas de six ans. Nous sommes libres." The colony answered with cavalry and floggings.Part 2 follows the people who were freed: what they were promised, what they got, what was taken, and what's owed. Every law gets a name and a party. Trinidad's 340-acre rule. Morant Bay. Forty acres taken back. Suriname. Haiti paying France until 1947. Indenture. The scramble for Africa. Convict leasing. Tulsa. Africville. And a Canadian study from this month: Black mothers face 66% higher odds of severe complications in childbirth, and money didn't protect them.Then the numbers. Some people sued and won. Nobody has been made whole. And who sues next.WHERE TO START (not legal advice)Human Rights Legal Support Centre (free): 1-866-625-5179, hrlsc.on.caBlack Legal Action Centre (free, Black Ontarians, low income): 1-877-736-9406, [email protected] Rights Tribunal of Ontario: 1 year from the last incident. Most lawsuits: 2 years.Toronto carding class action (stopped and recorded since Dec 2011): [email protected], 1-877-244-7711 ext. 542300Black Class Action (federal public service): blackclassaction.caKEY SOURCESTrinidad 1834: globalvoices.org/2026/08/01/mightily-like-insurrection-revisiting-trinidad-tobagos-first-emancipation-daySuriname 1863: parlement.com/emancipatiewet-afschaffing-van-slavernij-1863Mississippi Black Code: americanyawp.com/reader/reconstruction/mississippi-black-code-1865Morant Bay: victorianweb.org/history/empire/westindies/eyre2.htmlHaiti: eji.org/news/haitis-forced-payments-to-enslavers-cost-economy-21-billion-the-new-york-times-foundIndenture funding: api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1907/mar/27/trinidad-immigrantsConvict leasing: encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/convict-lease-systemBlack farmland: farmaid.org/blog/heirs-property-90-percent-decline-black-owned-farmlandRedlining: federalreservehistory.org/essays/redliningCanada's racial covenants: historyofrights.ca/encyclopaedia/main-events/restrictive-covenantsTulsa: justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-results-review-and-evaluation-tulsa-race-massacreAfricville: africvillemuseum.org/africville-heritage-trust/the-storyChildbirth study: cmaj.ca/content/198/34/E1317What's owed (Brattle): brattle.com/insights-events/publications/report-on-reparations-for-transatlantic-chattel-slavery-in-the-americas-and-the-caribbeanPigford: factcheck.org/2011/04/obama-and-the-pigford-casesEvanston and the DOJ: justice.gov/opa/pr/us-justice-department-moves-intervene-race-discrimination-lawsuit-challenging-reparationsCarding class action: mccarthy.ca/en/experience/ontario-superior-court-greenlights-landmark-class-action-against-toronto-police-over-carding-of-black-and-indigenous-residentsPrison pay: oci-bec.gc.ca/en/content/backgrounder-2022-2023-annual-report-office-correctional-investigator-2022-2023CARICOM revised plan: caricom.org/caricom-endorses-revised-ten-point-reparations-manifestoJamaica's petition: jamaica-gleaner.com/article/commentary/20260908/editorial-king-charles-and-reparationsUN vote: digitallibrary.un.org/record/4106660Views are Casey's own, not her employer's. Real Ones and Robots. For what it's worth.

In 1834, Britain abolished slavery across most of its empire and paid out £20 million in compensation. Not to the people who had been enslaved. To the people who claimed to own them.That bill is being argued over right now. On 25 March 2026, the UN General Assembly declared the trafficking and racialized chattel enslavement of Africans the gravest crime against humanity and called for dialogue on reparatory justice: 123 countries voted yes, 3 voted no, and the UK, Canada and all 27 EU states abstained. In August, the UN's anti-racism treaty body adopted General Recommendation 40. On 7 September, Jamaica petitioned King Charles to refer three questions to the Privy Council: was enslavement in Jamaica ever lawful, did it breach international law, and does Britain owe a remedy? CARICOM relaunched its revised reparations plan in Barbados this month, and Commonwealth leaders meet in Antigua and Barbuda in November.So this isn't history. It's a receipt somebody is still trying to collect.Casey and Jay go through the paperwork. The appraisers who sorted human beings into classes and attached a price to each. The MP whose Jamaican estate held 572 people. The Liverpool merchant who received the largest payment in the entire scheme, and the 1823 uprising on his plantation where Britain sent in troops.Then the arguments. Was it legal at the time, and does that settle anything? What did the United States pay, and to whom? What is Canada's part in a story? And what do the competing models actually measure, from the Brattle Group's $100–131 trillion to California's per-harm calculations?The episode starts before the ships, with Mali, Timbuktu, Benin, and the king of Kongo who wrote to Portugal in 1526 asking it to stop. It ends with a ship, a courtroom, an insurance claim, and 132 people treated as cargo.Casey and Jay don't agree.Part 2, After Emancipation, asks what that receipt bought: land, credit, housing, inheritance, and 160 years of wealth data.SOURCESUN A/RES/80/250 (25 Mar 2026) and explanations of vote; CERD General Recommendation 40 (Aug 2026); UN Basic Principles on the Right to a Remedy, A/RES/60/147 (2005); ICERD.Slavery Abolition Act 1833; UCL Legacies of British Slavery database (Spring Garden and John Gladstone awards); The National Archives (UK); HM Treasury FOI 2018-00186 on the compensation loan and the 2015 bond redemption.SlaveVoyages and the US National Park Service on embarkations, deaths in the Middle Passage, and arrivals in the Caribbean; Michael Tadman and B. W. Higman on Caribbean demography.The Antelope (1825); United States v. La Jeune Eugénie (1822); Gregson v. Gilbert (1783); Korematsu (1944), Civil Liberties Act 1988 and Trump v. Hawaii (2018); Canada's 1988 Japanese Canadian Redress Agreement; Jarvis v. United States (2021); Judicial Committee Act 1833, s.4.DC Compensated Emancipation Act 1862; 14th Amendment, s.4; 1860 census slave schedules.Parks Canada on slavery in the colonies that became Canada; the Chloe Cooley case and the Act Against Slavery 1793; Statistics Canada on Caribbean-born Black immigrants, the 2021 Census, and poverty across generations.Brattle Group report (2023) with Judge Patrick Robinson and the University of the West Indies; Thomas Craemer (2015); Darity and Mullen, From Here to Equality; California Task Force (AB 3121); Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances 2022.Abuja Proclamation 1993; Accra Proclamation 2023; African Union 2025 reparations theme; Howard-Hassmann (2004) on the Group of Eminent Persons; IMF and French Treasury documentation of CFA franc arrangements.CARICOM Ten Point Plan, revised 2026.

Trump renamed Lake Ontario "Lake America" while U.S.-Canada tariffs hit their highest level in decades and Canada's economy slid into a technical recession. Along the way — Google Maps splitting the name by country, Ontario Premier Doug Ford's billboard response, Wendat Grand Chief Pierre Picard on what gets erased when a name changes, and the much darker precedent buried in Canadian history: the 1916 renaming of Berlin, Ontario to Kitchener, after a British commander whose own record includes the concentration camps of the Boer War.SOURCESThe PhraseWikipedia — Lipstick on a pighttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipstick_on_a_pigThe Trade WarWikipedia — 2025–2026 United States trade war with Canadahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%932026_United_States_trade_war_with_CanadaCanada Dept. of Finance — Countermeasures announcement (Aug. 25, 2026)https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2026/08/canada-announces-targeted-countermeasures-and-substantive-support-for-workers-and-businesses-in-response-to-us-tariffs.htmlThe EconomyVanguard Canada — Canada 2026 Q3 Outlookhttps://www.vanguard.ca/en/insights/canada-outlookThe Hub — Canada could lose 90,000 jobs to Trump's tariffshttps://thehub.ca/2026/08/20/whats-at-stake-in-the-canada-u-s-trade-deal-how-looming-tariffs-could-cost-canada-90000-jobs/Lake Ontario → "Lake America"CBS News — Trump signs executive order to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America"https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-executive-order-lake-ontario-lake-america/The Canadian ResponseNPR — Canada claps back at Trump's efforts to rename Lake Ontariohttps://www.npr.org/2026/08/30/nx-s1-5949254/lake-ontario-america-doug-ford-trump-sign-googleABC News (wire) — Ontario premier answers Trump with giant lake sign (Grand Chief Pierre Picard statement)https://abcnews.com/International/wireStory/ontario-premier-answers-trumps-lake-america-giant-lake-136060710Berlin, Ontario → KitchenerWikipedia — Berlin-to-Kitchener name changehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin-to-Kitchener_name_changeWikipedia — Berliner Journalhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berliner_JournalResearchGate — "There is no room in our city for hate" (scholarly source on the 1916 vote and 2020 controversy)https://www.researchgate.net/publication/364423051_'There_is_no_room_in_our_city_for_hate'_The_re-emerged_debates_over_the_current_and_former_place_name_of_a_Canadian_cityKitchener / Boer WarWikipedia — Second Boer War concentration campshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War_concentration_campsDenali / Mount McKinley / Gulf of AmericaThe White House — Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness (Executive Order, Jan. 20, 2025)https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/restoring-names-that-honor-american-greatness/Postcast by: Casey BradfieldIG: @letcaseybe