Okay, so you want to get this out of the way? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I'm going to go back to the office today. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thank you all so much for joining us tonight, I'm Heidi Taylor, I'm the Artistic and Evacuative Director of Playwrights Center and we're very honored to be hosting the book launch for From the Heart of the City, here at the Heart of the City Festival. I'd like to say hello and a warm welcome to our friends out in the digital sphere. We're live streaming tonight's talk on HowlRoundTV, so thanks again to HowlRound for supporting us getting the word out about all the great work we're doing here on the downtown inside. So as we do for all of our events, sorry Kathleen, you can shout it out. I just think John needs to move forward. You're in the dark. There we go. Thank you a little better. Okay, thank you Kathleen. We're very casual here at PCC on HowlRoundTV. So to begin, I would like to do as we do at all of our PCC events, introduce Stephen Litton to do our territorial acknowledgement. Stephen? You can actually step back a little bit. You actually want me to use my longhouse voice?  I want to thank each and every one of you for coming to the Heart of the City Festival, the book launch of the Heart of the City. Without further ado, I would like to say that my name is Stephen Litton. I'm originally from Litton, P.C., part of the Interior Sailors Thompson First Nations. Out of respect for the lands of which we participate in and work, eat and play, I would like to acknowledge that we are on Squamish, Muslim and broad First Nations territories. And I would also like to thank them continuously from the bottom of our hearts that they've always been accommodating to our festival, for our festival and any other initiatives. We have people from First Nations and people throughout the world that come and participate here. So I would like to acknowledge them and thank the territories for allowing us to continuously allow us to do what we do. And that's to share the very beauty of who we are as people and sharing community. And that is the true heart and that is the very reason we're here. It's about the arts, but it's also about coming together, joining, weaving together our stories. Out of the ashes of the Phoenix, we've come here today to do that. But I would also like to thank all the women for being here as well and acknowledge their work, their commitment to community for you are the heart of our nation. Without you, nothing else matters. Thank you. Enjoy the festival. Thank you so much, Stephen. And as the heart of the city and Vancouver Moving Theatre have really had a tradition of incorporating music, dance and theater, so we're here to invite you and I more. So together, it's a different song. I'm not that short. My name is Gurdus. Just so we don't overpower the microphone. There we go. This is the Gathering Song. It's an Ishmael Bay song from Ontario. That was given to me by dear friend Cheryl and Sherry. And the Gathering Song, when this song was sung, it was sung for people to come together to gather berries and to gather food when they were on the land. So since we're here at the opening of this book launch, I'm glad that you can hear the little berries in your mouth. To sing this song. To have our third annual collaboration with the Heart of the City Festival and our friends, Terry Hunter and Savannah Walling, to launch a tremendous book. The Heart of the City gives a social and cultural history of some of the tremendous artistic movements that have been happening in the downtown Eastside. And we are very honored to have four panelists to give their personal window into that movement and their relationships to it. So the theme of this year's festival is nourished by community. Certainly, since PTC has landed on the downtown Eastside in the last three years, we've been incredibly nourished by the rich cultural community that lives and works here. And we're very curious, why? How does this wonderful artistic community arrive in this neighborhood? What from the neighborhood feeds the art? What from the art feeds the neighborhood? And so we're going to speak with these wonderful artists who I agree to join. I'll just give you a very brief intro to each of them. And then I'll launch you in this discussion. So of course, we just heard from Nora, who is a very talented, interdisciplinary artist. She works in music, film and digital theater. She's a singer and a musician, a writer, a director, an actress and a producer. And she's been a big part of the heart of this festival. Next to her, we have James Vagan Tate, an award-winning director and a writer who's worked with most of the theaters in Vancouver and finds the feasts coming back to the downtown Eastside. Evelyn Wickey, who's the director of the Carnegie Community Center, she's celebrating her 10th year at the Carnegie this year. So congratulations, Ethel, and is also an artist in her own right. John Endo Greenway, beside me, is the managing editor of the Bulletin. He's a founding member of the Atari Tyco and the designer for the Heart of the City Festival and for the wonderful book that we can all grab a copy of in the lobby after the panel. So I'd like to ask a question. How has your personal practice, the way that you make your art, been impacted by your work with the community to make the community engage theater? So a theater where we don't necessarily make a show and take it out to people, but where we go out to people and make something with them before we share it again with the wider community. Do you think you can start us off? Well, I just want to say it's such an honor and a privilege to be a part of this event tonight and to be a part of all the events with Terry and Savannah in the downtown east side and with all the makers. And I'm especially, I have to acknowledge the amount of goodwill inside all of the events that I've been lucky enough to participate. The goodwill from the community is the driving force and the real behind doing art in the communities and community-engaged art, however they call it now, there's so many ways. And in terms of the question, how does it impact, is the question, how does it impact on... On your work, on your practice particularly, I think you've got to put a little bit in the book. It's so brilliant. For those of us who haven't had a chance to read it, I think you can dive in there. Well, so I'm a director in the theater community and I have a background in being educated in a theater school, a traditional theater schools and a music school and as an actor and a director and the outcome of which was that I spent half of my life acting in half directing. And I think the thing about the community plays, which in the format that I've done them here in the downtown east side and with Abby Stubbington and Andrew B, we've used the model by Angelico. And Angelico was an English playwright who decided that she was fed up with doing a professional theater in London. But I moved out to the Colway Trust in the outside of London and started working directly with community using her skills. And so the one thing that you have to acknowledge when you come to the community, you're being hired to do this as a professional theater artist and you have to make an exchange with them. You have to bring the community your greatest expertise. The best thing that you do, you have to bring to them in exchange for the goodwill. That's what the deal is, the bargain. And that's what I've always remembered is that you have to strive for the excellence that you know in your craft.  From the beautiful people who have so much to offer and who come with a goodwill and that's what you're faced with which is very different than a professional theater. In a professional theater, you can frequently encounter people that have done it all their lives and their goodwill has just run out. Impossible. They're a little bit tired. It's fair enough. But in the downtown Eastside it was so delightful to come into an environment with so much dynamic and interest and thirst to channel everything that they wanted. The people wanted to say, all of you here, or many of you here, wanted to say, wanted to express through theater, through music, through dance. And I think the thing I found out in an interview where I did one of my first ones and here is that you have to become incredibly efficient in what you do. You cannot waste time as a director. You have to be whimsical, you cannot just let a rehearsal go into whimsy. You really have to be responsible for a large number of people's time and creativity and how to channel it well. So I found that the predominant thing for me was learning very efficiently or found out what my efficiency was inside directing theater and how to best frame things if I had a group of, and the shows involve 150 people generally. And so if you have 40 children in the room teaching them something and you have four days, you have four rehearsals over a period of three months to teach them, you don't teach them something and then change it all the next time and then change it all. You have to know exactly how you're going to open the play before you get the first day of rehearsal. And then you lay it out. You can change things along the way a little bit, but you don't want to be re-blocking young people four times and have them so confused and turning in circles for opening night. You want to give them a real clarity. And so the community plays have always honed all of my practices into efficiency and clarity and also into a kind of economy, a language that's going to arrive at what I need, to what the play needs, and what the actors need in that moment without too much talk, without too much discussion. I also found that, like I said in many places, after I had done the community play here in an interview, that it was like doing a masters when I went to do it because I had to use everything at my fingertips that I knew in the theater and to use it. I never knew when in the room I would have to be called on to give that piece of information that might inspire that person from that experience back there. So it was one of those galvanizing experiences for me always, where everything that I knew, the stakes were very high for what I knew in order to maximize everybody's experience. Because this is about the community. It's not about me trying to get a particular, I don't know, it's not about my career, it's about making a community feel happy doing theater and introducing them to something that I have loved since I made plays in my backyard. I've been doing community plays since I was six or seven in my backyard, with all the people that I am. I wonder how many people start though that I am, some animals were there. Thank you so much. I think that looking at how we learn in our community part, this is a big part of the work and in the work that I've done in the community as well, it's made me a better professional artist. And so I wonder if we could turn it over to you and your experiences in the community or because you're coming to a different position working as a Carnegie and looking at the work in the commission from a different position, but how has it impacted you or is it your self or your practice as a professional artist? Well, I think rather than talking about myself as a professional artist I think I might talk about how it's impacted in my work. I'm not sure. I was not coming from such an organized context in terms of thinking about community theater, community-age theater as numerous because that's not what I do. I arrived at the Carnegie Center when, you know, I love the down-county side had always moved down. Terri Savannah had always started the hardest-hit festival. There was already groundswell there when I looked around the center what I could see were all these people engaged in singing lots of choirs and had regular writing group so singers, writers and actors, they were all there and there had already been some interest in opera what we did at that time was community opera and there was already an interest in opera in the community and it made perfect sense to me because the issues in the community are really larger than life and life so you know, brought together a small group of writers to write together unbeknownst to me in some ways but that was the thing that I had to ask my patient and I showed her I am a writer it turned out amazingly and it was a lot of work for the writers and one of the things that I was so amazed the product itself which really was a product of those writers and singers and musicians yes we had professionals especially in the music section but otherwise it was very much a community project and the quality of what came out of that was remarkable and the acting or singing against our expectations about what people brought to it I think that just really my understanding of that community what is possible there what continues to be possible there who people are it was a really wonderful way for me to begin working in that way and I really came to understand that my job is really to support those gifts that everyone is bringing in any way I can and so do you feel like you still bring a bit of that I didn't know what I was asking into projects after having done them for ten years did that still come up? well well first of all we have tried very hard to create another opera for ten years and have been able to put it together about the writing done but have been able to pull it off in terms of financial so it's not as if we turned around in every year did another one that would have been a whole other learning occur but in terms of do I still do I still do I still feel like I ask more than people can or that's fair to ask no because what I learned was in the end people did put that off and it's not too much to ask and instead have learned that there are ways to support their work about us asking to do it in any particular way there is one of the things we do now is small arts programs so people actually get individual programs but we're not defining that we're in any way very fine in making work so it seems like there's been a bit of a transference of agency over time thank you so John you've been a part of the heart of the city your imagery is everywhere in it and on the book how has working in community with Teran and Savannah impacted your practice which of course extends in a different realm you're working in graphic design as an editor, as a writer, as a musician how has been what was being in the heart of the city impacted you as an artist that's a good question I don't know if it's impacted me as an artist if it's impacted me as a human being for sure it's kind of funny my mother was Japanese-speaking my father was an English-Irish descent from Manitoba they ended up marrying against both their parents which is living in Europe they were living in a leading lifestyle decided to go back to Canada moved to Montreal and Toronto they were living quite happily and then my father got a phone call from Roy Keogh who was one of his close friends he said it was opening up in Vancouver so we piled everything up in it you hauled ourselves across the country and when I was 10 ended up in Vancouver and shortly after that my parents were involved in the creation of Vancouver so I think he was the first or second housing co-op so I'm not sure if it was the first or second I think it was the first and it was there my mother reconnected with her Japanese-Canadian roots which she basically left by the wayside when she married my father and it was here on the main street but I discovered that I was in that Japanese-Canadian myself I mean I sort of knew it abstract my mother was different but I started meeting other Japanese-Canadians I was in I used to play guitar in my room and I know you're not sure but I thought she lived in our complex and her new name said well you should play at this coffee house at Dira on Coriola Street and I did and like that I think it's unusual that you can identify and learn if that changed your life maybe but that might change my life and I met after the show all these people said well we have a band and these local corbeaus and it's an Asian-Canadian band we should join our band and we should write songs and that sort of from there it sort of changed my entire life trajectory and you know it's gone you know I live now in harmony with my family but to be connected with this community through my work with Thurian Savannah and the type of groups and my work in the Japanese-Canadian community is pretty profound and it all you know how it was planned it was all just sort of half-assured and you know well Terri and I had different versions of how we met each other well we were practicing at the community center for some reason but it was practiced there three times a week you know when we were practicing nothing else could happen in the center you know the drums were just mind-boggling loud and this fellow poked his head in the door Terri and was quite inquisitive and he couldn't go away does that sound familiar? and that was the start of a beautiful relationship and a few years later when I formed what became Zubintycle which was then called Hum Drums Terri Yashi Pirates for our first our first gig on just a few walks in here and then years later we were looking for a graphic designer I guess you'd see my work and I was just starting on myself and that formed the basis of a beautiful relationship so in a way you've grown up with the festival as a graphic designer and you have obviously a much larger practice but I think we see a real signature look to the program so you can identify this as part of the city and every year I'm always looking forward to who's going to be on the cover what's going to be that image that brings us to the unique feed for that year can you talk a little bit about how you find that image that brings us into the arts well one thing about the festival I think in terms of that you put a high priority on creating a powerful visual image and to the point that every year they look at what David Cooper did on some day long shoots and bring in things like hundreds for a day of shooting and often we have a big idea of what we're looking for but often we have a different image than what we started so David shoots Terry Durrack sometimes plays as an input and at the end with all pictures Terry basically goes through and says well that work, that work, that work I do a couple of mock-ups and generally it gets pretty obvious I think the image that really got reflected this year was Stanley Paul which when I first saw it I thought that's not the image but as we started working with it I'm a lot of finding it it's actually one of my favorite posters covers it's really a great quality which I think speaks to the heart of how all of the work at the festival comes to life so it's very consistent in terms of the ethos of art it's imposed it feels like it comes very naturally out of the community and out of the places and the energy to control those quotitions I think that's the strength of it Renee you've been a part of some tremendous projects at part of the city festival and I've been moving here so I'm wondering can you speak a little bit about how that's affected you as an artist because your practice is of course very wide and you have a lot of other work that you do how is working with the community here on the downtown side impacted your practice? I think it's the better person in terms of what do we mean when we're talking about community engaged art practices and I think that as I kind of go through the different processes in art and creating art has always been about listening when you were talking about being a director it's almost like there's times when we're doing this work and I think with Savannah's help with the story meeting it was almost like there was being a director and also being a facilitator there was something about engaging in the dialogue that needed to be said in terms of how this person or this particular scene and how those groups of people or that individual needed to find it within themselves what I was requesting what I was wanting to what I received and so the idea of deep listening and making those actions and those choices as a director based on those things in terms more of the facilitating ownership of what it is that we're creating and I think that yeah, it made me a better listener I just completed doing and I've been doing this for the last four years work in different First Nations communities on reconciliation and so I just finished two days of intensive listening to the quantum of the First Nation and what they experienced in terms of residential school and I don't think that if I didn't have the experience with story leaving of the deep listening and being able to give back what I'm hearing that the work that I'm doing today would be as deep as it is with this work with the facilitation of the surface Well I think that you did it just a beautiful segue there because I think my next question for all four of you and we can start from the same place but if you want to believe in, feel free is how you feel the work of the Heart of the City Festival has in turn impacted the community because I think we've heard some really profound impacts that being an artist in that context but I'm wondering from your experience seeing the audience at the Heart of the City Festival encountering the artists who have been making this work with you between festival times how has this work changed the neighborhood work and not changed it in some way I don't know it's like a chemical catalyst or something in the neighborhood Jimmy, do you want to start? I think and of course I've only been a part of maybe five or six projects but it feels to me that each project just creates a need for more you know, it creates a desire to people start practicing the art in different ways and they want to keep practicing and so it fosters a desire to do more and as soon as that happens the artists in the community become alive and so and then Terri and Savannah and other groups start providing opportunities where more can happen and then Terri and Savannah also galvanize the people who are doing different things across the country and bring them into the community to also share practices from other places and the community then becomes quite alive in its art practice so that's one way that I think I mean I saw it happen from the play in the heart of the city to the next year in the festival and I'm sure I thought you saw it with I love the downtown east side it just kept fostering new interest and a greater desire and it was almost like the community was leading it and not the facilitators who were brought in to be a part of it but I saw the difference between in the heart of the city the play and then in the heart of the city of the festival within a year like how it was legions of interest not just the people who were on stage the first year but people who wanted to be a part who had seen and then became interested and then there were more projects and then those projects would just attract more people who wanted to be a part of a community event that was art which is here today and gone tomorrow just to be around each other making something imaginary together so I wonder maybe we can bring it to Ethel do you think part of that has to do with people in the community to see themselves or what went on stage is that part of what drives people once they've seen a show to go that's what I want to do is that what's your experience well there's probably some of that but I think it's also about possibility and opportunity you know people have talent and skill and you know just sometimes don't have any place to put that and just flower and it was interesting last night actually at the event last night later I was it occurred to me that the festival particularly had kind of created a company you know and it's it doesn't call it something a company but that there's a large there is this group of people who comes back and interacts in different ways and takes different roles and everything you sat back and looked at has been created you know there's been times when I felt frustrated that there wasn't more resources and funding to do more you know that those people would then get a chance to do more and that was not last night I thought maybe that was probably the other way so organic I mean there has been you know the festival has brought lots of resources for everyone but if for instance we've been able to do more maybe it wouldn't have been as organic or as community driven in so many ways it has been so is there anything that you and I didn't find this shifted at the crime of being over 10 years at the festival that's changed in the world as well there's a lot of conflict with people then you know I'm not sure what people are good about it you know what they have to offer but it's as much so John you're part of a lot of intersecting communities and of course with the history of Japanese Canadian conversion into this community your own home being on the street your island on the street too so what have you seen change in the audiences in the neighborhood since the festival was born I'm hard to ask about because I do live in the suburbs sure and it gives me a different perspective I think I don't I don't even work here though I come down every year and even at the festival itself most of my work is sitting kind of at the 27 inch line at the images in fact I'm actually more involved in the festival doing a show at the thank you school and I also have a book called so this year I'm actually down here down here every other day I carry out an 8am radio interview tomorrow morning no rest it's a much shorter interview sorry what's impressed me about the festival approach is that you know they go big I think they think big and I think that's as they've said as well I think it's really fostered a sense in the community of pride and yes we can do this we can do it properly we can do it with our heart and passion and I think that's so if I see that from the outside it's really impressed me that this approach that they've taken I interviewed Terry over the years and he's always said that he wants to show the other side of the community because most of the time you know safe injection sites and gentrification of the issues and that's positive reality down here I think they really try to show a different side of the community to the outside world and you know when we advertise on a black coast outside of the front we publish ads in the Georgia street and we go big and actually you get a look over the years it's slowly picked up on but it's really happening to us it's obviously a little funky thing yeah absolutely I think as a newcomer to the neighborhood I've lived in Stratford for about six years and on this site for about three years um it is really one of the most dynamic neighborhoods I've lived in and also one of the types of neighborhoods that I've lived in I love Prandtl Island and we had a great time when we were there but I know ten times more people in the neighborhood who aren't theater makers you know a lot of theater makers too but you know we know people who are downstairs on the corner there's all kinds of new businesses in the neighborhood and there's lots of interesting questions about what that means for the character of the neighborhood but people are interested in each other they're interested in what's happening in making the stories of this place together so it is a pretty exciting place to live and one that I hope other people in Vancouver will come to visit for the work that's being made at the heart of the city festival because as both Jimmy and Edward indicated it's of an incredible standard and it's just a really exciting offering to the rest of the city to come down here and see the amazing artists and the amazing neighborhood that we have what have you seen in your wider work in the community how has the existence of this festival the kind of work that you're making here impacted the wider community whether artists or artists I think the I have to quote Rosalind Williams when we were up in entering Terri and Savannah were going on the train with and part of that journey we stopped at one of the comments that Rosalind Williams made actually it was at the in May about the conference tracks, thank you sounds like she said that art is way ahead of our apology and when you're looking at from an Indigenous from an Aboriginal standpoint and utilizing theater and dance and music that's something that I think very unique in cultural practices because that's always been our storytelling our songs and dances and just to share a story there's Lorelai Williams who was the niece of one of the murderers missing Aboriginal women in the downtown Eastside and she kept trying getting out of the victim trials and stuff and she finally went I need more people to hear what's happening I need people in this community to understand and hear what we're doing I need to do something artistic what am I going to do so what she did four years ago three and a half years ago is she started a dance troupe and they stopped traffic and and Georgia and they did a dance and what's so beautiful about what Lorelai's doing is that she's from this community she understands sort of the dynamics of what it is for the families of the disappeared and she recognized the importance of dance as a mechanism to bring people into a conversation that talking about missing and murdered Aboriginal women I don't know if I want to talk to the families that's over there but the fact that she created this dance it's called Butterflies in Spirit they have a Facebook page and so what's really beautiful but when they did the dance on Georgia in April of this year it was native and non-native people about the dancing and it was something that naturally this issue is not just an Aboriginal issue it's something within our Canadian fabric you know bearing the sins of Canada is one thing to say but it's also it's also the fact that in our practices we are able to glean a sense of healing and a sense of voice in what we're doing with what we're doing and have you seen that a real shift then over the life of the festival in terms of the voice for Indigenous artists? Oh of course, I think part of what I think that Vancouver would be fear and it is about is being able to to listen in and hone in on what is this being and in any in any human development our own human condition of dealing with social educational, political, whatever that is we have to develop that and there's also stories about that whether that's in the history of it or what's happening today and Vancouver movie theater Terri and Savannah have been able to articulate that visually, musically with movement and in the theater of the theater I wonder I'd just like to open up to our panel if you have any questions for each other for the audience any last thoughts to offer about your experiences with the Harvard City One of the things that I didn't mention before is that the way it impacted on my own process is that leaving the downtown east side and then going back into the professional world and doing a show it was very dry the palette was very colorless and it was a series of professional people who had been trained in the theater so one fact was a wonderful thing but it was then that it occurred to me that I couldn't work in a narrow structure anymore and I personally with other people started the practice of integrating professional students and community artists like Stephen and Kwame and Helen and people from the community into professional, Helen's a professional of course but how to integrate people all together so that the culture of the place was no longer the culture of what was called the trained professional actor but was the culture of community and to watch how young people how community artists how professional would all work together in contexts like crime, punishment or the idiot we did in the cooperation with Thank You for Moving Theater and those practices started changing my ideas about around all sorts of things including diversity in the theater being a really important mandate of things needed to occur everywhere at Barton Beach when I directed I was able to start demanding certain communities of people existing in the people that I directed at Barton Beach and so that kind of thing it keeps on impacting throughout and then Stephen starts working with Patty Allen and starts changing the way she acts or Patty Allen who's a great actor and professional professional community looks at Kueming Ling and phones me up and says what's she doing in rehearsal and I said she's doing her thing and she said yeah but what is it articulated so I can do it just now watching Kueming and Kueming came up to Patty the next day and said oh Patty you're so amazing you just put layer upon layer upon layer so what do you do I don't do anything I got it so I'm hearing there's this circulation of ideas of experiences that are coming back and forth between the professional theater community the huge artists community hearing that coming inside and that that porousness really just brings a richness to both kinds of experiences and possibilities as Apple was saying the thing about possibilities that was just one model but you can figure a million ways to come at it once you enter into a zone that has so much goodwill and energy and cultural history then you start flying as an artist yourself I think there's an openness to basically anything to ideas to train I think that's one strength of the festival it's not it's a mandate a mandate but to me the mandate is to be open and to celebrate I think a few models for a lot of other things and I think that certainly was a big part of the track symposium and the training thought project that for those of you in the HowlRound Lab aren't familiar with them please do check out Vancouver Women's Theater's website there's some tremendous research and gathering of information around how community work is made across the country and it's a tremendous project you should check out any other last thoughts we do have a couple of other things on our docket before we retire to the common area we are HowlRound fans to their own devices I'd like to do a little bit of pre-arranging I'll ask them to say a thank you to Jimmy and Ethel and John I'm going to get you to stay here we're going to get Terry and Savannah to come up and join us for the actual official launching of the book and then after we do that tonight is going to see us out of the room we're going to have questions in the common area afterwards so Savannah can I ask you to come out of the room here and Jimmy can we can trade you your tickets here I didn't organize an accident so so I'd just like to introduce the creators the tremendous book that's being launched tonight from the heart of the city Terry Hunter, Savannah Walling and we've had a few moments already with John and Ethel and I think they'd like to say a few words before we go up into the common area and celebrate the book go ahead well thank you everyone for coming here tonight for this really wonderful occasion it's been a real pleasure for me to be able to sit for the last 45 minutes really listening and I was very moved and very touched and pleased by what I was hearing and the impact that we're doing and others are doing in the community here in the downtown Eastside the book itself has been a creation that's risen out of this community it's built upon the work that we ourselves as a whole community have done together there's been hundreds and hundreds of people both professional and as many people who have been involved in creating these incredible productions that have been created here in the downtown Eastside in the last 12 years and this book is really a testament to the work that the community has done and the artists and the organizations and the community have created and the book is also being created through this amazing web of relationships that we've had with our community and they've had with us and we've had with each other and the work has been created through those relationships and the book itself has been created through those relationships and there's over 31 writers in the book the companies that produce the place thank the community theater profile the number of them within our work has been profiled in there but also the Carnegie Center Theater and the Valle the Lanagil Bowen Productions and Savage God are five of the companies that are featured in the book I think it's 12 different productions and so we really wanted the book to really speak and reflect to an honor and pay tribute to the work that's come out of this community and I hope that people really look at it from that perspective Savannah and John and I have the pleasure and the honor to be able to facilitate that process to bring the book into reality but it really is has been made possible because of the people in this community that have made these productions and helped us with this work I really want to acknowledge some people in particular Barbara Pooley came to us probably a couple of years ago we had produced an original a preview copy of the book and we shared it with our community and we started getting feedback on it and we really saw that there was a whole other way that we needed to move forward on the book and working with Barbara who's here in the house with us who's a professional editor and she she gave us tremendous insight and support into how we could how we could reframe the book so it had a better structure redo the design so that it was better understood from a reader's point of view of where you are in the book and and really helped us to find the shape of the book and what would be a better way for the book to live so thank you Barbara for that tremendous work and that support it was really vital for us in helping us move to the next stage of the book and we really appreciate the help that you gave which was completely a volunteer and my saves I also really want to thank Richard Barcus who became an editor within the book too in the sense of reading every line within the book and finding hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and thousands and thousands typos and ways that dashes should be used that we had no idea that dashes had such a I think John was to decide himself by the number of words or phrases that required dashes and and really really helped us to move the book to another level in terms of its reading ability and so we're really grateful for the work that Rick did and the hours and hours and hours and and Rick unfortunately can't be with us in the night some other really key people or organizations I really want to thank by such a thanks Simon Fraser University in a very roundabout way when Simon Fraser University moved into Vancouver we were invited into the downtown in Southern Savannah to a big event and there was hundreds of people there and the president came up and he stood on the stage and said what's with the passage it was better than this one somebody in very high places in the organization and he stood on the stage and said and I quote we are going to bring culture to the downtown and Savannah and I looked at each other and said we have to do something I love this and that's when the book idea the book was born at that moment because we realized that there's such an ignorance and lack of understanding about what's going on here in this community that we really need to create something that would have to be used to educate people and to celebrate what it is for the people that participate in the books to the community about the incredible culture and the work that's going on there in the downtown and so further to that the Vancouver Foundation came on board and one of the program officers there, Kevin Burrell last name was Mariko she personally made sure that we got funding for this project and the BC Arts Council came on board supporting the project and the City of Vancouver also put up money towards the project too so I want to acknowledge and thank our funding partners for making this happen but to pull it back and gain it's really being a very community initiative and we've all done this together and my deep appreciation goes out to all the writers and all the contributors from all the projects that have made this book possible and it's been an honor to be able to work with them to make this happen and also with Savannah and John to pull off the book as John has mentioned earlier it's been a very collaborative process and I personally really really enjoy working with John he does approach his work as from a artistic perspective and accepts and listens to all my I should say accepts listens to all my crazy ideas listens to all my crazy ideas we have over the poster images but we always come to something I'll shut up now I just want to say that this the really important part of this book has been the contributions that have come to it from the part and what we have learned from the partners we've worked with the artistic collaborators we've worked with people from many different areas of the community that we've worked with and we structured the book in such a way that we wanted to be able to honor that so that we had voices from different aspects of the creative process speaking about the work and that it's been a great learning journey for us and also in response to that very interesting conversation at Simon Fraser and I will say that Simon Fraser's citizen has been making a real effort to reach out to educate themselves in different ways they're making steps but I'm 69 we ended in 60 years but a lot of what we've been thinking about is how can we share from the wisdom of this community and what we've learned over the years how can we share this work with people working in different parts of the country with new generations coming what are the ways that other ways to leave ripples for the future and I want to also add just on a personal note that for myself it has been a really artistically rich environment to work in over the years because of the extraordinary cultural communities that are here the different social groups the kind of diversity and I think that it's part of that has been making it possible artistically to begin to evolve and develop theater forms that are and theatrical and other performative type forms that are very unique to this land itself this part of the world and that are emerging from some of the more content concerns and values of this land of Turtle Island and also inform my people that have been coming here from the Fort Horners and so that it's made it in addition to being a rich experience in engaging with community and learning from community but of evolving really artistically rich and deciding work and feeling that we are part of a generation that is evolving and being fed with these forms that are emerging from this time, from this place with very ancient roots but new contemporary original forms so that is quite exciting and before I pass it on to John, I just want to remind that Ruth Howard from Toronto who is one of the contributing writers of the book is the artistic director of John Bruce Theater that is doing tremendously exciting work in Ontario and in collaborations with people across the country. Anyway Anna is one of the writers of the book but she has also created a silk screen fabric map that's inspired by the design of the book and I encourage you after we leave this room to go and to share any of the words that come to you from the book or any kinds of reflections that you may have had as a big part of the productions about productions witnessing them and wishing you'd seen them but anything that you might like to share from them but yeah basically come and write something to leave for Carri and Savannah because we're trying to make a beautiful thing to leave with them and the more people that do it it's really simple the more beautiful piece we're going to have to leave and I need people to do it in order to complete that little art piece there so come and join us with the table and then in in Delvis, thank you and it's fun. Oh and I'm sorry just before I pass on to John it has been a huge good honour and a pleasure to collaborate with them over these years and with the kind of artistry efficiency, generosity that you bring to the collaborative process and your capacity to listen and to really grasp and understanding of the festival or the production or whatever it is that we're working with and to really look into the heart of it and to bring that forward from visual point. Thank you. Well you know I generally feel that most heavy lifting is done by other people and I'm basically putting a beautiful video over top of it. It has really been an honour to probably gather from our side earlier with these people over the years and to bring it all together because many of those productions can be worked on together not a whole but the majority of them can be worked on together into a compact book like this. It's pretty amazing. You know often as a designer you are basically manifesting other people's patients and I was really moved and honoured when the short before the book was published that Terri DeVanage by taking writing credits from the book. I'm also grateful that he got the book out before he began the production. That should be stopped. We've been working on this book for a couple of years now. And as Terri said we did a prototype book that was what it meant. Which I thought was great. Then they started showing it to other people and feedback came in and we reworked the book based on Barbara mostly on Barbara's feedback and I think all over a lot of work restructuring the book really helped strengthen it and I will say if the train of thought hadn't happened we might not ever have finished it. Knowing that people were coming from all the way across Canada to see what was happening we thought we might do it. Well I wonder if I could ask everyone to just join me in congratulating John Savanna in Terri on this tremendous achievement and writing to the book could you put up your hand for me? Is there a hi, hi, hi? Do I need just up? Yeah, there's some words from Stephen and a introduction to some way to put up your hand. Right, so there's just been this whole tapestry that has been taking place and Roseanne and Stephen have been part of them as well. Well I wonder if I can ask you to sing us out and really wrap up the evening and then of course everybody let's go into the common area and contribute a lead to Reed's project for his wonderful work. Okay, so let's do so.


Ya, miya don't sit on it. Very well cushioned. Even you, you don't have to. You look absolutely stunning. Thank you, so do you. First and foremost, how do you even afford to look like that when you have a baby like me? Mi every time the kwaivi, I'm always sweating. I'm always just, you look so fresh darling. You look too fresh. No, you don't know me, my baby. She's a big baby. Ya. I don't know, I have a 10-year-old girl. Okay, did you mean your age or your baby's age? My baby's age.  Ya, absolutely. Why do I think she's asian as my baby? Ya, no, no. Ya, ya, she's 10. First you don't look anything. Now we talk stories and now we negotiate. She tells me, I tell her, I've picked out clothes for you, she says no, no. I'm not going to wear those clothes. I know what I want to wear. Ya, she wears, but I like the fact that she's found her voice at a very early age. I think generationally things keep getting better. Ya. The girls nowadays because I also have my friends who have the same age. At that age you do a lot of sleepovers, let me start prepping you. Kusunajua friendships are so important for a 10-year-old. So when we do those things, we're always talking about any of these girls know what they want.  They're not timid. When I think about how I was when I was 10. Right. Nambatu permission, please check and go to the toilets. I know. I remember that very well guys. I'm hosting Vivian. I'm such a huge fan. Sana, I remember the show. But we did anything that time you were expecting your baby. I remember that show. In December. Come on, we had a morning sickness and you were very cool. I didn't have an option. He entertained me to pay pressure. Sana. Even when I was 7-8 months, actually my last gig was 9 months. Imagine and I still played.  But you have the strength and the resilience to do it. As women, right? We even need to introduce a man. You killed us when you did Accelerator, man. I'm telling you. The one you taught me how to dance, Chingichanga. That name in Nalichanga.  Since when you started with us. My first song was the one I did with Jagwa. Yes. But then the one that got a lot of airplay was Woman in Love. A woman in love. A woman in love. So that song is the one that... You know those songs where Bipolar say it's a nice jam. Who sang this song? So that's how now I started getting called out for a few shows here and there. I mean the journey has been tough. But let me tell you Piera, one thing that I love about you, even when you called me I said it's a nice interview. Because you are so versatile. Wait, guys didn't... Give me your mic and say it properly. Guys, ladies and gentlemen, I'd like you to respect me. You heard it and my boss is up there. I would like you to respect me and add my salary. She said it. She said it. Thank you. Go ahead as you are. Yeah, so I said I love how versatile you are. Like we've seen you in the times when people don't talk about it. Na joa iji, na kwangatu iya kuflos. Siji, ma pose nini. But if you are actually having real conversations. I think you've done so well in regards to your acting career, your DJ. And I am certain you fought your battles. Proper ones. Proper ones. Kwanzaa the ones you fight and then you say this one will finish me. You have no idea. You remember very well the time when I gave birth and I gained weight and everybody was just like why are you looking like an elephant? Why are you calling me names? Oh, she's finished in the industry. Oh, she can't DJ anymore. And I was like, guys, relax. Yeah.  That's what I tell people. Someone asked me, so Vivian, are you planning to retire? I'm like, I'll retire the day my voice disappears. The day I don't have a voice. God, I say, my voice, Vivian says and God doesn't take our gifts. He doesn't. He gives you. Even when you're using your gift kusanyawase na kumyongahatu, he will not take it from you. That's the thing. I mean, I just think we just need to be more real about some of these things. How tough has it been for you in the industry? Even before we talk about how you're one of those women who encourage other women a lot. Like you're pro women. You talk about people working hard. People coming from the bottom and you know you're here. You're a very strong person and you have a very strong character even for the young people. It's easy for you in this industry. But how can it be easy? In fact, people should stop. Me, I think I'm like, can we all just stop waiting for anything to be easy? It's not meant to be easy. Are we together? The same life that comes with the joy it comes with the pain at the same time. So we are supposed to feel both emotions but we've been programmed to think I have to take it to a spot and what I woke up like this fresh. Weh, there are days on your knees in the bathroom. You know what I mean? So let's be real about it. Even the girls that are coming up feel like there's nothing abnormal with what is happening. In fact, when I have... I used to really kubembeleza. I almost talked kikuyu. It's alright. I'll translate. Mother tongue interference. I'm African anyway. Translation. So these are time I used to really kubembeleza to girls. But nowadays I'm like pull yourself together find a proper support system find people who care about you who love you even if there are two even if there are three then know what you want and then work towards it. And then find friends also who will tell you whether you want to go out. Outright.   There's so much interference in people's relationship you know. Why do you want to know about all these things when you're married and you have this career does it get any easier? Because I mean I know you guys are my family like you're my family does it get any easier? But I know West is quite supportive of the music but does it get any easier even with the fans out there and other two married people? Vivian is gone. I have a huge crush on Vivian, she's gone you know. Did you lose? For me I think that even the biggest challenge for any woman is losing who she is and of course the challenge that I have had to go through and someone like Wahoo we are really good friends because we have real conversations and I'm like this story for married see what I do there are those times and I think the thing is as a woman you have to be very deliberate about keeping your identity and it sounds very cliche but in a day you have ten hours to be productive or nine so within those nine hours you have to spend time with your child you have to take care of your family you have to think about yourself to think about the extended family so you have to choose your battles and your friends but on some days imagine it's never that serious like see what was the sort okay kata kata basi muni pike that is so funny but I've seen you I mean at those times you want imagine I need to take a break I saw when Vanessa she took a break imagine I need to stop the music just a minute I need to relax and think about myself and you don't even have to be sorry about it it's your life do you know what will happen the day God forbid it's your life imagine imagine there you had it I heard it so loudly guys will forget about you you will never forget it's your life they won't remember they won't remember and people will move on so you had better be true to yourself that's how I see it when we come back as the DJ plays we will find out what she said to her husband's name on her body is that a trick question but you look like you're in love what who is it again just because I took a catch up for a while well see you ask guys you're glowing you're smiling from tunonamola now I'm laughing I'm smiling like it's real because I'm still single I'm as single as you can get if you want to hug me, just give me up give me up to what you see us as anyway anyway so would you put wastes to twin your body I mean you guys are in love you and I love you guys as a couple no my second name is one boy you know there are communities there are communities that you come from there are things you just don't to be very honest I don't even have a tattoo on my body I'm not saying I'm planning to but even if I was to strip naked here people don't say those things guys are just like prove it prove it I don't have no you don't like tattoos I just never did it it's not your thing I'm very the thing is away from the cameras I'm a very simple laid back kind of guy I like simple things say I have bogas in my garden I go, I tuna, I go I eat brown gali because it's not like it's bothering people it's bothering people what do you mean? in fact what I'm wondering first your body is very precious what do you mean bothering? it's an issue it's a discussion and it's mine sasana shindoa so what do they want with your stomach like they want it to look like theirs or what? I also don't know maybe I don't know I know I always tell people it's not a business and I don't know who said it's the version of how everybody should look like having a flat tummy or having hips behind or whatever that is how a perfect person should be I don't know there is no one size fits all and everyone of us has something about us that is beautiful so we need to focus on those things this is very precious let's all try and make money mania ita kuzauki anza ku discuss how people look at the restaurant simple things simple life simple boy simple boy how was that? you guys are supposed to do something what's your relationship apart from the song we are friends of course what's the relationship when you guys got to work together to get into it interestingly enough as individuals we just clicked because he's a simple guy literally and I like that simplicity I always feel like we've really complicated life look at how children live like kids live for now when they're hungry they eat they don't get stuck in things so I like the simpler things that's why it was easy but let me ask apart from simple boy when you were working with council was it as easy? actually it was I actually have some new projects that I want to release next week with council hopefully I don't know if I should say it here but yes we know but yeah those guys it was easy how hectic was it shooting that it was hectic for me as the main chick in the video because it was in the river road maze pierakuta futamari and you look at what I was wearing but you know I had like nili kwa naswe maivi ni kwa na security security security security because I was in a bodysuit river road because that's the location that had that whatever you were looking for yaya ikona iyo filia mta you know how river road looks ikona ma old old buildings that's the kind of set did you guys shoot during the day during the day it was hectic it was crazy but it was fun I'm just trying to when we tell people who we are bringing we do sometimes send questions to we want to know how the event is doing we want to know when somebody was like ebu let me then tell us about this story for aziad I was like okay I'll ask because I think guys want to know what was the story people have and you know people who don't know you as a fashion person what's the story what was the story I don't even think there is a story as such I think at that time in particular because this was a while ago must be like a month ago now the whole point is I feel like a lot of the challenges that we're having in the music industry because we've tried to work with some of the new artists and we've done new projects like steve is a new artist and I was able to do a project with you but there's too much focus on the money more than the relationships it's like if you call me for something if you started charging me Piera and I started charging you we will not get anything done you know there's one thing and I think we practice this a lot of times we support each other and that is one of the things that lack here so sometimes I can come and like oh there's this new project I'm doing come support that's how friendship is built and that's how careers also are built I believe in networking it's everything if you think about maybe the first year of your career I mean it was really mostly about building relationships for me I say when I think the first two years atu ki anda mali una pewa gigu kiske una pewa 10k maze una furai you're so grateful then you meet people you introduce yourself but I mean if it was all based on money money is just money we give it too much power but relationships are everything I give an example if you have an event I send you money while you show up which one hits home you show up even if you show up for 15 minutes and say I don't have time but I just wanted to come and wish you all the best it plants something inside you so it was really about pushing an agenda for creating relationships and the reason why I decided to approach it in that way is because I feel like right now there are a lot of young females that are coming up and I love it I think it's brilliant all over the scene however the way they are relating with each other is terrible it is horrible and it will cost all their careers zote now for me to pay me to come for it pay me to come if I have to come no you don't do that I just felt like I needed to say it I mean people can decide whatever they feel works for them because there are some points you don't have anything that you want to gain from me so if you're telling me you're telling me actually because it's something I don't know if it's because of you but to each their own I always say that and you know what at the end of the day one time in life you always need somebody absolutely so it's always good to consider and to also feel where someone is at that moment if somebody comes and asks for something from you always think of yourself at the same place and then think what if the table is turned imagine alafu the table stands quickly so you want to do it in entertainment are you telling me zote by the time you see POT things have turned so if you had chomad all your relationships the industry here too it's all networked it's the way you've networked now I know you're very and I said it earlier that you're very passionate about women and young girls and you know people hustling and fetching for themselves and all that I think from some time I read somewhere that you know there's a term in kuna you work a vendor like you hustled like you've done it all what is that one advice that you can give to that person who's watching you back at home that fan who encourages me very much and I look forward to being like her what is it that you can tell the guys at home who are your fans I think for me what I always love to say is that everyone is valid and in the eyes of God none of us is more superior than the other so leonezakwani me kaapa I wanted to ask her when I was releasing my first song where was she that's another discussion you should ask her she's very shy you were in high school but I have no hold over whatever her life will be right she's the gate pass to whatever I need at that particular moment you get that's what I like telling people if you are a Chinese and you are a Chinese if you have a job if you have a job your conscience is clear if you have a job you just keep putting in the work you just keep putting in the work you just keep putting in the work and even that's something I have done with my social media recently because I've really been working with a lot of SMEs because I had that meeting with my team and I was like I met a lot of people who have seen me coming up in my career who really supported me who have come to my shows now some of them want a lot of help I composed it and we find days where we do that we partner with small businesses we agree what they can afford because because we need to be together we need to be together so as we conclude which is your favourite that you've done oh my goodness well I'm a simple boy you are a simple boy woman in love woman in love but I've already played that what else to play the one with simple boy if you have a due but thank you so much for coming to the studio yande ikuna coronavirus I am happy to be here thank you you're such a star please when you get your project out next week you're very much welcome here back again muna kia rotation kia kwa hi ad producer director what you do I'm a SM immediately immediately after this thank you so much people would want to listen to your music how do they do that probably you can give them your handles so my youtube page is vivian kenyo official Meksi ume subscribe good piera wewa ume subscribe ad girl nene na kukusu kwa subscribe I like that put your money where your mouth is I'm all about the money so guys to subscribe on my youtube channel vivian kenyo official instagram vivian underscore ke intaku post look at this ulimiangu ka ribu iseme as you are facebook twitter vivian kenyo tik tok I have a tik tok account tik tok jesus it's verified just look for vivian but we need to do something for tik tok we should right after this you know vivian thank you very much kisses to your baby and to your hubby thank you so much for allowing you to come here we appreciate mom and please once your new stuff is out but we are not permission borrowers that's another discussion for another next when you come that's what we are about to do


and medicine within our program in medicine and religion. He's an assistant professor of medicine in the section of emergency medicine and a faculty member of the McLean Center. He holds an MD from Cornell, completed his residency in emergency medicine at Rochester, and received a master's in healthcare research during his RWJ fellowship at the University of Michigan. He studies how religion-related factors affect health behaviors and medical practices of American Muslim patients and physicians. He also explores how scientific data can work in concert with Islamic moral reasoning and theology in the development of a comprehensive, theologically rooted Islamic bioethics. He's received a University of Chicago Templeton Foundation Faculty Scholars Award in religion and medicine and currently holds an ACS five-year career development award. Please join me in welcoming him to speak to us today on religion and workplace discrimination findings from a national survey of Muslim physicians. Awesome. Yeah, thanks. I also want to acknowledge, as Dan did here, that the work that I'm presenting was funded by the John Templeton Foundation. That's part of the Faculty Scholars Program within the program in medicine and religion and also the human capital behind this work. I see Ma here, I think, far left, but my co-authors have helped me put on this survey. So let's begin. I want to talk a little bit about the prevalence and predictive data on discrimination in the health care workplace. I want to talk a little bit about the social political climate affecting Muslims in the United States, describe our study, and then I'd like to open up some conversation around the ethical implications of the findings that I'll present. So you all know this, but the workforce diversity inclusion has been the mainstay for the last couple of decades and there are many different ethical underpinnings. One of them is about social justice, which is very prominent. The idea that there's historical marginalization of certain communities in the United States we like to provide them with equal opportunity for social advancement and this is one of the underpinnings of this movement. There's also a human rights sort of underpinning as well. There are also practical motivations around workforce diversity inclusion. From the patient perspective, you know, there's a lot of data on concordant relationships, right, similar to race, gender, ethnicity, and that those relationships between a doctor and a patient leads to increased satisfaction with care, more productive therapeutic alliances and due to these barriers to enter the health care system. It actually improves health care seeking behaviors. We also know that from the health care side, right, that it produces diversity and inclusion, produces a more welcoming environment for minorities. That increases productivity and satisfaction, decreased recidivism as well as job turnover. So there are both practical benefits from the patient perspective and the health care environment, not that we do this for those benefits, but there are some. So what do we know about discrimination in the health care workplace, particularly directed at physicians? The slide here has MDs listed, but some of the surveys have DOs as well. I don't discriminate, but my writing did here. But in any case, what do we know from Massachusetts? Well, there were 445 physicians surveyed in a representative sample of physicians in Massachusetts. We found that 63% of them report discrimination at their current workplace, and those reported significant discrimination were these groups, 60% of former medical graduates, 48% of racial minorities, and 43% of women. Moving from Massachusetts to a national sample, this is 529 physician sample through the AMA master file, with some oversampling through the national medical, NMS, the National Medical Society. And they found these findings here. Over one's career, 71% of African Americans reported discrimination, 45% of Asians, and about a quarter, a little more than a quarter for Hispanic Latinos, compared to 7% of whites. If you think about discrimination currently at their current workplace, again here you see high numbers, 59% of African Americans, 39% of Asians, 24% of Hispanics Latinos. Moving from that national sample of physicians to now a more select sample at academic medical centers. So you see here at US Medical School's 1833 faculty were surveyed, and you see here that 46% of the underrepresented minorities, being African American Latino, they were reported discrimination over their career, and about a quarter of the non, a non underrepresented minorities, particularly Asians. So that's what we know, that this is a phenomenon that exists. These surveys here, some are from the late, from the early 2000s, so they're a bit dated, but it's still apropos. So what are the known, knowns, and what's the unknown? Well we know that a significant number of minority physicians, be they from racial ethnic minorities, be they're women, or international medical graduates, they face discrimination currently or over their career. We know that discrimination leads to, out of the workplace, leads to increased job turnover, and decreased satisfaction and productivity. But do you know about any other characteristics of these physicians, aside from race and ethnicity or gender in this case? So I was interested with the aspect of religion, and the population I work on here, are American Muslim physicians. So what do we know about them? Well you know they comprise about 5% of the healthcare workforce, of the clinical workforce in the United States, and we know that most of the majority of nations are a key source of foreign medical graduates. So you see here Pakistan's number four, you know, Egypt's number eight. Number one is India, but know that 20% of the population in India, almost 20% is Muslim. So there's a percentage of those that are Muslim as well. They're a key source of clinical work in the United States. We know that from the Muslim community perspective that they're very active in the community. So Muslim doctors are the ones who fund a lot of the communal organizations in the Muslim community. They're highly religious, and we know that socially and culturally it's a very desired profession for Muslims, and when I was growing up and you hear these stories, you have two processions to choose from. You can be a doctor, you can be a lawyer. So that's how it works. Both deal with ethics, so it's good, so I'm here. But in any case, there's no national study of workplace experiences of this group, nor is there any sort of understanding of whether or not they're exposed to workplace discrimination. So why would that be the case? Well we know this, and I'm just gonna point some data here I think is important about the social climate that Muslims face in general. So this is from last year, 45% of respondents in a survey by Zogby held unfavorable views of Muslims. And Pew reported that Muslims are the most negatively-rated Muslim religious group in the United States. The FBI reports even after 9-11, there's an 800-fold increase in anti-Muslim crimes in the United States. So this is everywhere. My own mosque was shot at two years ago. So this is not some place in Oklahoma. This is even Chicago. Anyway, I didn't mean to get so, pardon me. And think about this, our presidential candidate, this was, you know, Herman McCain a few years ago. This is what he said about his doctor. I saw he had chemotherapy, had a surgeon. So I discovered that one of my surgeons' names was Dr. Dilla. I said to his assistant, that sounds foreign. He said, he's from Lebanon. Oh, Lebanon, my mind immediately started thinking, wait a minute, maybe this was just persuasion, it's different than mine. He said, don't worry, Mr. McCain, he's a Christian from Lebanon. Hallelujah, thank God. Right, so he was worried about a Muslim physician and a foreign medical graduate. This here was a very bad day when I saw this in JAMA, but this is a book that was profiled as an invited review, book review, in JAMA in 2008, Jihad in American Medicine, and talks about American healthcare facilities being the next ground zero. I saw the review and also the book talk about this, being suspicious. They talk about Middle Eastern physicians clapping when 9-11 happened, and that's the book, and that's in JAMA, that we were getting this invited review. Didn't point out that fact. Then you see in the BMJ here, radical Muslim doctors and what they mean for the NHS. So even within our premier journals, this idea of Muslims and Muslim clinicians being linked to terrorism is present. So our study here, main research questions, what is the prevalence of religious identity directed workplace discrimination amongst Muslim clinicians? And are there associations between physician characteristics, social demographic characteristics, but mainly resaucity is what I was interested in, and perceived discrimination? And so we can't get out of a national Muslim sample from the AMA master file because they don't record religious affiliation. So instead we use the Islamic Medical Association of North America, a partner on this study, and we sample from that group. Here are briefly the outcome measures. The main ones around perceived religious discrimination were adapted from racial discrimination measures that are out there and validated. We created some on religious accommodation at the workplace ourselves. These are the two questions. My workplace accommodates my religious identity, and I struggled to find time to pray at work. Then we had predictors that had to do with a wide range of religiosity measures, some leading to just this idea of importance. My religion is important to me, how important? Some about practicing prayer, fasting, food habits, and then some about appearance. Hey, Jabba, wearing a beard. So this was the group that responded. We had a 42% response rate. Mostly we found that they were middle-aged. They were men, mostly, 70% were men. The dominant ethnicity in this group was South Asian, 70% South Asian, 22% Arab. In terms of immigration status, this is interesting for all of us. Yes, two thirds were immigrated as adults, but you have some sense that they're also people born in the United States, as well as people who immigrated as children, 30%, 42% completed medical school here, and a third of them practice at teaching hospitals. So that's the sample. They're important to point out their religiosity. So when you ask the question about importance, this is what they describe. Is Islam the most important part of your life? 54% said yes, most important, some said, 30% said very, 10% said fairly. In terms of their practice, attending commercial worship, you see there's some variants here. Most of them strictly adhere to Ramadan fasting. In terms of reading Quran, again, there's some variants amongst that. About a half wore the hijab and a half wore beards. The interesting note here is that this is just slightly, just slightly, and I mean that, underscore that, more religious than the American Muslim population in general. That's opposite to what we find about physicians in the United States with other religious groups. So here are the outcomes. This is what I want to talk with you about. So the variable here is frequency of religious discrimination of a career, a quarter of them said sometimes and more frequently. When we tried to find a predictor from legiosity or social demographic components, we didn't have one in our data set. Thinking about religious discrimination currently at the workplace, 14% noted this. And the only predictor in our data set was people who responded this way. That religion is the most important part of my life. The odds ratio there is 4.1. When you think about the idea of common workplace relations and greater scrutiny at work due to religious identity, nearly half agreed with that statement. Again, the only predictor from our data set was those who believe that religion is the most important part of their life. When you think about religious identity influencing workplace relations with colleagues, this is a question, positive relationships, more than two thirds agreed with that statement that my religious identity positively influences relationships with colleagues. Those, amongst that was a predictor those who practiced had more practice space for jealousy. Reading more Quran or praying more frequently. So now about accommodation in general, these two questions that we came up with ourselves. 73% believed that their religious identity was a common at the workplace. And again here, the only predictor from our data set was individuals who felt that religion was the most important or very important part of their life. About prayer and struggling to pray at work, half of the respondents noted that. And again here, the negative predictor here, right? So those who believed religion is the most important part of their life had a lower odds of finding struggling. They were struggling to find time for prayer. But you also notice that people who worked at non-teaching hospitals or in a solo office, they had a lower odds of struggling to find time for prayer. So in summary, what's the good? The good is that 66% felt that their religious identity was a common at work and that it was a positive influence with colleagues. The problematic notion is that a quarter, one in four, encountered religious discrimination sometimes are more frequently in their career and 14% presently do so or at least report doing so. And half of the participant pool noted that they have challenges in trying to pray at work.  So you noted from the data set that individuals who feel religion is the most important part of their life when compared to those who feel it's fairly important had a higher odds of perceived religious discrimination at work as well as feeling that their religion was accommodated and a lower odds of having struggling to pray at work, right? How do you make sense of this? So here are some speculations. So first and foremost, if religious identity is at the forefront of one's sort of identity, so any negative experience might be interpreted as directed at that part of your identity, right? So if I am Muslim first, I am African American second, that when I have a net experience, I think about it as a Muslim first, right? Not necessarily, but maybe that's the reason. So I might have to do with the psychology of a response to bad experiences. On the other hand, you think about, well, physicians who feel Islam is the most important part of their life, they might be more attuned to conflicts between their faith and medical practice, right? Then when they try to talk about that, they might expose themselves to discrimination because they're drawing attention to this conflict. But at the same time, they might be more active in seeking out accommodations. I don't want to or I can't practice some sort of procedure. Well, how do we negotiate that? And I want to seek out accommodations because this is important to me. Now thinking about putting this all together, right? Since working in non-academic environments, solo practice in this case is also associated with less struggle to pray, perhaps most of the physicians who believe religion is the most important aspect of their life choose to leave or crowded out of certain types of workplaces, particularly the academic centers, right? So that's how you potentially can make sense of all of this. So my, the implications here, and this is a provocative implication I'm leaving at the end here. If groups of physicians, be they minorities racially or religiously, right, or both, face disincentives with respect to working in academic hospitals and discrimination, then both high quality patient care suffers as well as the mandate for social equity and social justice, right? And social advancement from marginalized groups. And diversity inclusion agenda, which religion rose out of a sense of racial and ethnic discrimination, then sexual orientation. We need to consider whether they should think of our religious diversity and sensitivity training in addition to just this racial, ethnic, sexual orientation that we have grown out of in the early 1990s and early 2000s. That's it. So let's talk. Thank you, Awesome, for a provocative paper. Any questions or comments? Looks like Mark is moving to the mic. Awesome, thank you very much. It's a wonderful survey. I couldn't help be struck by the lower level of discrimination against Muslim physicians that then against those three earlier surveys you showed in your presentation against other minority groups, racial or cultural minorities. That's one question. But the second question, Awesome, is whether anybody has done a comparable study, let's say on international medical graduates, I like the idea of Christians from Lebanon and Muslims from Lebanon, or Indian physicians, some Muslim, some non-Muslim Indian physicians, if that's been looked at, and whether the discrimination is against the religion that is Muslim religion, or just against foreign graduates. Very good, very good. So we, as I mentioned in developing these measures, we wanted to have people talk about religion. The survey talked about religious discrimination. You feel you treat differently because of your religious identity, not about racial, right? So if you think about the fact that we had four mega graduates in the sample, we also had minority South Asians. We wanted them to separate from, right? So when we did the pilot testing, and we did cognitive testing, people then would put religion up front. So when we had the survey, it talks about Islamic medical association, I'm trying to understand how Muslims are treated. So we tried to play that up because we wanted to talk about just religious identity, not the other aspects. And I think there is some intersectionality, right? So if you have a Muslim who's South Asian and a foreign medical graduate, there might be a multiplicative effect, but we wanted to separate that. So that's your right. So it's lower, but it's a different dimension, right? So we didn't ask them, are you also feel that because you speak differently or you're from a foreign country that you're treated differently, different job mask, we didn't ask that. So that's one thing. The second thing, I haven't seen a study like that, which you're suggesting, right? So to compare within the social groups, we tried to, in one area, there was Marcel Nunez Smith, who was one of my mentors, had done a survey and she found, the survey I mentioned here about racial discrimination, she found four of 16 Muslims reported religious discrimination, something like that. So if there was a very small sample, you can't make any distinction or many comparison. So. Mm-hmm, yeah. We're just gonna add to that discussion and say that in some ways it may be the case that race and one's language are readily apparent to people and then a signal for discrimination in ways that religion may have to have some other kind of signal for people to know what someone's religion is before they can discriminate and that may be another explanation for why the people who are prey more often actually feel more discrimination because they are actually signaling something that they have a different religion, yes. But I have no doubt that the response to the question might have considered, since the focus was on religion, that the discrimination they felt was religious discrimination. I'm only suggesting that there might have been a lot of other... That's correct, that's correct. That's the whole idea of discrimination research, right? When we think about this, how do you isolate a one aspect of one's identity if people's identities negotiate different things? But the fact that it exists and so the perception of that, they perceive this means that there should be some thought about a response, right? Whether or not it actually occurs, we don't know. Whether or not something's happening but either we can say it's their psychology and like I said, right, potentially or there's something about the system and the way they're interacting or others are interacting with them that draws out this sort of problematic notion. Okay. Well, please join me in thanking us. Thank you.


The relations between India and Afghanistan are steeped in myth and mystique of shared heritage, shared ideals, and shared dreams of history and prehistory. In ancient times, Afghanistan was known to the world as Bactria, or Ariana, India as Aravrata. It was a world without borders, and there was free flow of caravans to and fro, mixing history and folklore. Afghanistan and India for at least 2,000 years, or longer than that, have had very close ties in different fields, art, culture, and religion, and so going back to 2,000 years ago, and then in the modern time, these two countries have been very friendly and close to each other, and so all those cultural relationships, particularly within the last 1,000 years, have brought these countries very close to each other. Think of those far off times, and there is an echo of Vedic hymns and spiritual songs. The great epic Mahabharat conjures exotic images of godly figures of those days, and Gandhari evokes memories of ancient Gandhar. Zorasta, known as Zarathustra, the prophet of Parsi religion of Persia, was born in Bactria around 600 BC. The great Sanskrit scholar and grammarian, Panini, was a use of saipatan, who settled in India, predating Gautam Buddha. He wrote both in Sanskrit and Pashto languages. Buddhism flourished in Afghanistan, blossoming into a popular creed. Of much far-reaching import was the consolidation of Buddhism in the 1st and 2nd centuries BC. Buddhism did not establish itself as a religious cult, and indeed it ushered in revolution of ideas based on 8-fold moral code of conduct for humankind. Buddhist monasteries and stupas stand witness to this day as harbinger of a great civilisation phenomenon in India as in Afghanistan. The significance of this cultural and social intermingling did not lie in making imperial conquests or invasions, but in evolution of a cultural value system through peaceful means and people-to-people interaction. These socio-cultural values helped Afghanistan evolve as a multicultural, multiracial, liberal society for which India too is known as a cradle of civilisation. Islam made its advent both in India and Afghanistan in the 7th century AD. The event was remarkable in its peaceful overtones. In Afghanistan, Islam became a dominant creed with its universal appeal of human equality, justice and peace. The first Pathan dynasty to rule over the Delhi throne began with the Khiljis followed by the Lothi dynasty. There were no strangers to India since Peshawar in those days was part of Afghanistan. India's own rulers as well as the people found much in common. The Mughal King Baba established his own dynasty after defeating Ibrahim Lothi in the Battle of Panipat in 1526. He did not live long and died in 1530 in India. Baba's son Himayu was a tolerant king but his greatest handicap was the repeated revolt by his own brothers against him. It was then that the great Pathan warrior Sher Shah Suri overthrew Himayu, forcing him to flee to Persia. Sher Shah Suri was a great builder. He built a great road linking Peshawar with Calcutta and even beyond. Today, in free India, it is known as Sher Shah Suri Mark, running from Amritsar to Calcutta. Akbar ruled for almost five decades. He expanded his empire far and wide and his policy of religious tolerance won him wide acceptance. Akbar was a great reformer and connoisseur of arts, culture and literature. The ethos of languages, culture and social fusion outlasted the impact of imperial and colonial maneuvers.


News Network. Update. Welcome to another news update at 2 p.m. with me, David White. What do we have going on today? Well, certainly a market that was down and out at the open only to come back. I would look at this in the Wyckoff method of needing a close above 3636. We're up 2.4% on the day after being down 2% right after the open. That was on some fairly hot numbers on inflation. I think we've had a few things going on today that we can't confirm. Probably the Treasury doing a lot in the dollar. I have that up right now. But certainly not too far after that. There was a lot of action and there's a couple of ways you can explain it. But at the moment my belief is that finally we had some people stepping in. It probably wasn't the FOMC but Treasury, any of these other agencies can go in. Market looked like it was going to blow itself apart and of course it came back. We've been talking on the show about how it certainly looked like a lot of people were betting on the Fed blanking. I see no evidence of that at the moment. One of the other things that make us think that the market turned around this morning was a fairly big pop-down by Taiwan Semi-conductor. It was down like 5 or 6%. It's up about 5% now on the day. Probably the best earnings I've ever seen out of Taiwan Semi. And we've got some other earnings we're going to talk about in the hour that follows. But earnings actually fairly good. We'll be back in a minute.


There are four ways to become meditative. So you can use the body to reach your ultimate nature, this is called karma yoga. If you use your intelligence to reach your ultimate nature, we call this gnan yoga. If you use your emotion to reach your ultimate nature, we call this bhakti yoga, yoga of emotion or devotion. If you use or transform your inner energies to reach your ultimate nature, we call this kriya yoga. On a certain day, these four yogis, all of them are taking a walk together. Usually they can never be together because they can never get along because people who follow the path of intelligence or intellect, they have great disdain for others, they think everybody else is a nutcase. Devotional people, they have pity for all the other people. They're missing everything. Karma yogis, these are people of action. They think everybody is weaving all kinds of philosophies to hide their laziness. Kriya yogis have absolute disdain for everybody because after all the whole existence is energy. If you do not transform your energies, what? So these four people cannot get along, but today all of them taking a walk together. Suddenly a thunderstorm broke loose. Big rain and wind, they started running looking for shelter. The man of devotion said, in this direction there's an ancient temple, let's go there. He knows the geography of temples, so they all ran there. Then they saw a temple where the walls had collapsed long ago, four columns and a roof. Underneath that in the center, there was a deity, an image of God. They all ran there to the temple. Then the storm became more and more severe, it started lashing from every direction. To avoid this, they hugged the deity, all four of them hugged the deity, not because they have fallen in love with God, just to escape the rain. And suddenly God appeared. In all their four minds, the same question, oh why now? We did so much yoga, so much devotion, so much worship, you didn't come. Now we're just escaping the rain, why have you come?  So these four have to get together, then you become meditative. Right now your mind is going in one direction, your body is going in another direction, your emotions are going somewhere else, your energies are a different matter altogether. If we can somehow align them for one moment, we will see there will be a different dimension happening within you.


Two humanitarian rescue ships pulled 394 migrants from a dangerously overcrowded wooden boat in the Mediterranean overnight on Sunday. A night winner says the operation which involved German and French enduro ships lasted about six hours. An overcrowded wooden boat carrying hundreds of migrants was spotted in the Mediterranean overnight on Sunday. At least 394 migrants were rescued by German and French enduro ships SeaWatch 3 and Ocean Viking in an operation that lasted six hours, according to a Reuters witness. Many on board were seen jumping off the boat and trying to swim, as humanitarian workers scrambled to hand out life jackets. It was not clear if there were any deaths or injuries among the migrants who were mainly men from Morocco, Bangladesh, Egypt and Syria. They were eventually rescued in Tunisian waters 42 miles from the North African coast. The witness said their engine had stopped working and their boat started taking in water. Migrant boat departures from Libya and Tunisia to Italy and other parts of Europe have increased in recent months as weather conditions have improved. The International Organization for Migration says more than 1,100 people have died this year in the Mediterranean fleeing conflict and poverty in Africa and the Middle East. Well political analyst Achike Choudi is joining us now on the news. Hello Mr Choudi. Yes, good evening. How are you? Good, good. We're joining you. Yes, glad to have you. It's been a long time. It has been. It has been. All right. So why do you think young Africans continue to make this dangerous croissants? Dangerous and unfortunate. Yes. Because the continent continues to lose a lot of human resources that are the best of times would have helped in building the continent. And you know at the very first time we had this kind of serious immigration. That was forced at the period of slavery that lasted for about 450 years. And then you know some people have posited that this time around Africans are willingly going into slavery. Perhaps not slavery exactly but the end result is the same thing that would deprive the continent of the best hands to help build the nation and then they do that on behalf of other nations. But obviously economic, a lot of the people that are living in the continent are living for economic reasons. There are those that are living because of the, because they are internally displaced because of the violence and the wars that are going on in parts of the continent. But either way the vast majority of them are looking for a better life and they believe that they cannot find it in the continent of Africa. So they are willing to risk their lives. This is such for a better life. Yes, but is it good enough for all the risks involved? We've seen many dead in the course of those journeys. Well for those who have taken the risk and succeeded and gotten over there and somehow have been able to make it and send in all kinds of stories about their successes in Europe to those at home. They are by foiling the desire by others to also embark on such dangerous journeys. But I do not think that it is worth it. They kind of danger as a simple, I mean go through. It's a horrific, terrible experience. And it's not just what happens in the oceans, but what happens between one country to the other country until they get to maybe Libya from where they want to, they hope to move to Spain. It's a horrible experience. For those people who have tried it, gone through West Africa to Central Africa, they took a rune and I mean the experiences have been horrific. For those who were able to come back, they tell terrible tales of being imprisoned in other countries in Africa and being tortured before they eventually release. And of course you're not talking about those that are killed by bandits and all kinds of very dangerous people.  So it's a horrific, terrible experience. And I do not think if you ask me, I do not think that it is worth the risk. European leaders have done many things to put a stop to this including giving money to the Libyan government. It seems their strategies are obviously not working. How best can we check irregular migration? I think the European leaders have also realized that it is not enough to just encourage other countries not to allow immigration to come to their territories. Of course we know that there are serious domestic issues associated with that. Some of the far-right movements are growing in some of these countries, putting pressure on the political lives of their country. And of course you know that for those countries that encourage immigration or do not do much about immigration, when it comes to election time, the people are going to put them out because they want them to do something about the immigrants that are coming in droves into their country. So yes, they have spent money not just in Libya. They have spent money in parts of West Africa to try to get them to stop people from moving to Europe because of the problems it causes. But it must go beyond that. I think there is now a realization that if nothing is done to pull Africa out of a very severe economic situation she finds herself in, then you are going to continue to see this immigration to Europe. But the onus is really, the onus is not on the European Union to pull Africa out of her mess. But that's a story for another day. But how can the African Union, what can they do to stop African use from risking their lives trying to cross the Mediterranean? Well, I am glad you actually said that the onus is not for Europeans to help bail Africa out of her problems. Over the years there has been a recurrent, I mean there has been this talk by a lot of people, not just Europeans, but Africans themselves that unless Africa is able to bail herself out of the economic quagmire and political quagmire she finds herself in, no other outsider, no other person, no other country is going to do it on behalf of Africa. Africa must be surveyed by Africa. So I agree with you really. Now what can the African Union do? I think look, what is the root cause of the migration that we are seeing across the African continent? It's the deep poverty that is blighting a lot of the countries in Africa. It is the crisis of violence and wars and conflicts that we see in many parts of Africa. These are the things that are falling in tunnel immigration, tunnel migration as well as external migration. So if we can tackle this issue, we must really need to sit down and engage themselves in proper governance of the continent. That is the only way they can reduce the influx of, I mean those people who are seeking, are taking this terrible risk of going to Europe and other parts of the world. Outside of that there is nothing that can be done. So apart from short term measures, apart from making sure that organizations, like in Nigeria, that is responsible for stopping the trafficking in women and children and people, like Natip. We would also expect long term alternatives and that is the act of to embark upon the building of African economies to make sure that they can get, so that they build up economies bringing factories and then ensure that the vast majority of our youth population who are in the majority in the continent can be able to get job and do something meaningful with their lives. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Ati Ketchou, the time would not allow us to continue with this interview. But thank you so much for your time and insight. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.