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From Here Forward shares stories and ideas about amazing things UBC and its alumni are doing around the world. It covers people and places, truths, science, art, and accomplishments with the view that sharing better inspires better. Join hosts Carol Eugene Park and Jeevan Sangha, both UBC grads, in exploring solutions for the negative stuff out there — focussing on the good for a change, from here forward.
[00:00:00] Rumneek: Hi, welcome to From Here Forward. A UBC Podcast Network podcast. I'm Rumneek. And she's Carol.
[00:00:13] Carol: Hello, fellow alumni.
[00:00:16] Rumneek: Today's episode is an important one. We chatted with Daniella Barreto. A UBC alumna who works as a digital activism coordinator at Amnesty. Daniella is also the host and producer of Amnesty International Canada's podcast called "Rights Back at You".
[00:00:32] Carol: What a great title. And like the name suggests, it's all about human rights, but specifically about anti-blackness, surveillance and policing. And I cannot lie, I had no part in this conversation because of all of the technical difficulties that I was experiencing. So it was all Rumneek with all of the questions, but more on that later, Rumneek as a sole interviewer, what did you make of that chat with Daniella?
[00:00:53] Rumneek: I thought that the conversation was really interesting. I definitely missed your presence as well. But I hope it [00:01:00] causes people to reflect on some of the reasons behind why Daniella wanted to spark conversations like this in the first place. Topics like anti-blackness, surveillance and policing are relevant no matter where you are in this country.
And I definitely think we are not having these conversations enough nationally. So let's jump into it.
Can you tell us a little bit about how your science education, or if your science education influenced your activism and storytelling at all?
[00:01:29] Daniella: I was a master student at UBC studying population and public health. While it is a science degree, population and public health is so much about human rights. My master's research was around women living with HIV and sex workers, and essentially how experiences of violence lead to bad health outcomes.
And that makes logical sense, but that's the things behind that was what sort of built that thesis up. So there's so much about [00:02:00] human rights in there and there's a lot that connects the work that I do now, which is around obviously podcasting, but the subject matter of anti-black racism and policing is also a public health issue.
[00:02:12] Rumneek: Yeah, absolutely. And so when it comes to this podcast with Amnesty International, first of all, very impressive, very exciting. Congratulations. Rights Back at You is an amazing, catchy title. I'm Loving It. What was the reasoning and inspiration behind that title and the topics chosen to be covered in the podcast?
[00:02:32] Daniella: I did a lot of thinking actually about the title. I thought that all of the puns around human. Had been used up already and I was looking through like things I wanna see it done in the past. Those weren't really resonating around what we wanted to call it. I don't know. Rights Back At You just came to me as a title that maybe hadn't been used for anything yet and it hadn't.
So we were all very excited about. Using that as a title, but the the subject matter for this season at least, is anti-black racism, policing [00:03:00] and surveillance.
[00:03:01] Rumneek: Why did you choose to focus on these topics for the first season, specifically given that it is a podcast for Amnesty International?
[00:03:09] Daniella: So we say this in the podcast, and Amnesty's been quite public about this. I'm not saying anything new. That Amnesty hasn't done much work on anti-black racism before. During the sort of 2020 protests around when George Floyd was murdered, the ideas coming up in different institutions, different nonprofits were actually, yeah, we haven't spent a lot of time talking about this and Amnesty Canada hadn't talked about.
Anti-black racism in Canada much at all. So I pitched this project idea as a way to engage a lot more people on this subject, people who are amnesty supporters and people who aren't. And Amnesty was like, okay let's try it. Personally, I came from an organizing background. I did a lot of work with Black Lives Matter [00:04:00] Vancouver, around 2016/2017. So that was the background I was coming in with to propose this project in the first place.
[00:04:08] Rumneek: That's incredible. I think that's amazing that you pushed for this when you saw a clear gap and these are conversations that I feel like even we're seeing, concerns about surveillance, about anti-black racism, which again are not new, but has have really come to the forefront.
And policing really the scope of policing, expanding in different areas across the country. And there are a lot of challenges. But you're also situated in Vancouver and you went to UBC and a comment we hear about Vancouver is, There are no black people in BC. There is no community for black people, and that's perhaps not true.
Can you speak to that and how these perceptions can be either countered or responded to using a medium such as this podcast?
[00:04:51] Daniella: Absolutely. That's a great question. So that's. Not true in one sense, and it is true in another sense. There are black people [00:05:00] here, there's actually quite a lot of black people in Vancouver and in bc.
But as a proportion of the population, I'm quite small. And so there is a lot of work I think that black people have to do in building community in Vancouver specifically. But yeah, at ubc I did feel quite isolated and I think there are there. Yeah, there're not a lot of black people at UBC.
So especially in the science stream and classes that I was in, I was often the only black person and was often hearing strange things from classmates or professors that I think contribute to black people feeling, " oh, these spaces aren't for me". Or feeling discouraged from pursuing science. Honestly, the reason that I went through two science degrees and felt like I had a space there, felt like I could make room for myself was because my mom is a scientist, she's an immunologist. She's a trained doctor. She teaches biology. And so having [00:06:00] someone so close to me who was in these spaces showing me that, yeah, I can do that too, was really what drove me to finish those degrees in science. But it was quite a lonely experience.
And so the way that we, in the podcast a address these issues. I think particularly in episode two, which is about the war on drugs and how street surveillance specifically affects black people in that context. And I talked to someone named Hugh Lampkin, who's been doing harm reduction work for ages in this city.
And he's a long time activist drug user and has been involved with VANDU, the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users. And we talk about that a little bit too, how it is this. Idea that there aren't black people here, so why talk about these issues? But the other side of that is, well actually there are, and because we aren't talking about how black people are affected by surveillance or policing as much in Vancouver, that when we are impacted by that, there's very little [00:07:00] support.
There's little attention paid to it compared to other places where there are many more black people. So yeah, I think there are many ways that black people experience being excluded from both conversations and also, I guess helpful interventions if we're talking about harm reduction and programs designed specifically for us.
[00:07:19] Rumneek: Yeah, thank you for that. I think that's really powerful as like a way of kind of responding to that.
This is a question from Carol who is experiencing technical difficulties, but Carol, shout out to you wherever you are in the Technosphere. She wanted to know why you chose to use audio storytelling to highlight these experiences, and particularly if it relates to questions on anti-black racism or these other topics, you know, how does this medium kind of help empower people to tell these stories?
[00:07:46] Daniella: Yeah, I mean, I love podcasting. I love podcasts. I think they are, and this is something that's repeated and sort of audio spaces a lot is like, it's such a visual medium, even though that sounds counterintuitive. And the thing about podcasting is [00:08:00] you have so much mostly undivided attention with a listener and people did a lot of listening and learning in 2020.
You know, the idea that, oh, yes, we're gonna put up our black scores on Instagram and understand the systemic racism issue. But three years later, I'm not sure much has really changed. I think we're having conversations about increasing police budgets. We're having conversations about increasing surveillance.
Ken Sim ran on the big flashy promise to like put a hundred more cops in the streets, and it's like, did we, did we really learn much? And so podcasting, it is, I think, probably the most engaging medium where people basically have a voice going right into their ears talking about these things, and it can be really emotional and you can kind of, I think, engage with people's stories in a much more intimate way than you can in like seeing a bus ad about racism or something [00:09:00] at a bus stop or even watching things, I think.
[00:09:02] Rumneek: And so the trailer to the podcast also mentions re-imagining what the future looks like. So how important do you think it is to weave hope into these difficult conversations regarding things such as anti-black racism, policing, and surveillance? And how are you hoping to achieve that using the podcast?
[00:09:21] Daniella: It's essential to have hope in these conversations. What I struggled with in the beginning of even just conceptualizing this podcast, How do you get people to listen to something that can be so depressing and can be so hard for people to engage with? Easy to scroll by, hard to click play on, and I think hope and hearing other people's visions for a future that includes everyone and is more exciting and more accessible to everyone is how I kind of got around that.
Where we are talking to people who. Visions for the future that are better than what we have now and [00:10:00] are interested in trying new things to address systemic problems instead of kind of going back to a lot of the old ways that we try to address social and systemic issues of growing more police at a problem, which we've tried for a long time, and it doesn't seem to be having the change that we want.
So talking to people who have different ideas about doing things, is key to this podcast and getting those ideas in front of people who may not have encountered them before.
[00:10:28] Rumneek: So you spoke about how you spoke to lots of interesting people and heard a lot of interesting stories. Can you tell us maybe something that stood out to you from the conversations that you had in the first season?
[00:10:39] Daniella: Yeah, the story, I think I've mentioned it a little bit already, but that's because it's the answer to your question. It's the one that stands out the most, is with Hugh Lampkin, who is a longtime harm reduction activist in Vancouver. And part of that is that I don't often get to talk to older black people.
I think for, the reason that I mentioned [00:11:00] earlier is that there aren't a lot of black people in Vancouver relative to other places. So it was really wonderful to be able to sit down with someone who has so much experience and a lot of the things that were connected to the work that I did in my masters, the story that he told me about back when Naloxone, so the drug that reverses opioid overdoses back when you could only really get that with a prescription.
From some doctors who would give it out. It wasn't readily available. So there were people who were dying from overdoses and there wasn't really much people could do in the community to help each other. And he told me about going to a conference once with a few other people and being able to essentially smuggle out some Naloxone from the conference, and be able to like, get it to where it needed to be to the people in the streets.
And that wasn't even that long ago. Maybe about 10 years ago. Where now Vancouver's sort of known as this harm [00:12:00] reduction capital in the world. But it wasn't so long ago that people like he were trying really hard to get things to stop the drug poisoning crisis because it wasn't easy to, it wasn't easy to access.
I guess another element to that, How it seems like black people are off written out of Vancouver's history. And I think a story like that just shows how crucial black people have been to some of the things that Vancouver is known for. There are so many black people doing a lot of really important work in the downtown east side, but just kind of looking at what you see in the papers and stuff, you wouldn't necessarily know that.
[00:12:38] Carol: I wish I'd been part of that conversation cuz it's so true. There's a lot of black people doing incredible work in the downtown east side with harm reduction and activism. I do hate to stray away from this bit of the convo, but it's around here where I tried the, like hundredth time to log onto our recording software and never really succeeded. Honestly. It was basically like a live audience for Rumneek and [00:13:00] Daniella. Podcasting would be fun, they said. It's so easy, they said.
[00:13:03] Rumneek: You can, or it's, I can hear you. Yeah, but were you able to hear any of the last answer?
[00:13:09] Carol: I heard it, but it was like...
[00:13:13] Rumneek: Okay, do you want me to so ask, or do you wanna try?
[00:13:16] Carol: Yeah, and you can ask. I'll just be here listening.
[00:13:19] Rumneek: You just vibe. Okay, cool. We can include this in the podcast. This is the reality of life that Carol is trying to join, but is on the outside of the glass looking in or Carol, you can hate from outside of the club, but you literally can't get in.
Actually, that's the anecdote you just shared is really interesting to me because I think that, like you said, that does tie into. Your education at UBC as well, and I think your masters and your education at ubc, you said that's part of the reason that some of this, especially your specifically conversations about harm reduction and what we do know is that.
There's social determinants of health that determine, you know, people's access to care, quality [00:14:00] of life, all of these things. And race is a factor. And so when we think about racism, anti-black racism, that maybe isn't the first thing that comes to mind. But like you said, that kind of influenced you wanting to have these conversations.
Did that play a role in you at Amnesty International specifically to you kind of starting this podcast as well and positioning it to them with your education as well? Was that, did that play a role at all?
[00:14:26] Daniella: Yes. The race as a social determinant of health is something that was talked about in my education quite a lot.
My undergrad was in public health and health science. So I've kind of been around these conversations with the social determinants of health for a long time. But I think, and this is a bigger conversation in epidemiology, is that because race is not a real thing, like it's not real . There are no different races of people, but we've come to make meaning of.
The way that different people [00:15:00] look. And so there is like an impact of racism on people's health and wellbeing. And so conversations around how do you talk about race without making the person who is black, for example, the problem where the problem really is the systemic experiences of racism that cause people to have negative health outcomes, for example. And so those are questions I think that I was trying to ask in my master's research.
And that definitely play a role in the conversations that I've tried to bring together in this podcast of the problem is the system and the problem is the way that certain people are systemically disempowered by this system and that system is white supremacy. And so it's definitely been a key element to designing this podcast. Even how we tried to literally pass the mic to people to tell their own stories, tell their own experiences without [00:16:00] sort of having this typical top-down non-profit approach that sometimes can miss that idea.
[00:16:06] Rumneek: And so the trailer to the podcast also mentions re-imagining what the future looks. So how important do you think it is to weave hope into these difficult conversations regarding things such as anti-black racism, policing, and surveillance? And how are you hoping to achieve that using the podcast?
[00:16:25] Daniella: In a few ways. I think what we often hear is, oh, well it's not the United States, so it's not the same here, and what are you complaining about? That kind of idea. And then I think within Canada, especially in places like Vancouver, it's, oh, well, it's not Toronto. It's not the same. It doesn't work the same here. There aren't that many black people here, so what are you complaining about?
It's kind of the idea that we're trying to push back against that. Actually, yes, anti-black racism is systemic. It shows up similarly in different places, but just because. It may not look [00:17:00] exactly the same as the United States, or it may not look exactly the same as Toronto. Doesn't mean that it's not worth talking about it and doesn't mean that it doesn't have real impacts on the people who experience it.
And so what I've tried to do in this podcast is highlight stories that are outside the typical places that we hear about them. So yeah, to focus on. Some people's experiences in Vancouver or to focus on some people's experiences in Halifax, for example, places that don't necessarily get the same airtime.
But the first episode, now that I've said, that is definitely about one person's very dramatic experience in New York City, but we use that to sort of relate back to how surveillance shows up for activists in Canada.
[00:17:44] Rumneek: Awesome. Thank you. Carol, are you here?
[00:17:47] Carol: Yes. Can you hear.
[00:17:48] Rumneek: Yes.
[00:17:49] Daniella: Yes.
[00:17:49] Carol: Hi. Oh my God, I hate technology. This is so terrible. Anyway I guess my question to you is just again, of each interview we do ask for advice that you may have within your [00:18:00] level of expertise in your position to current UBC students or recent grads that might be interested in the kind of work that you do. What would you advise them?
[00:18:08] Daniella: I guess I do a few things. Maybe I will answer a few ways. I think first is to do weird things. I think my path definitely until now has not been linear, what I do right now in podcasting, while it's related to what I did my masters in, I mean, it's not a typical thing people end up doing. So when I was finishing my masters at UBC, I went to do this program in Montreal that basically brought 12 people from all around the world to live together in a mansion in Montreal.
And this is how I got into podcasting was we had to do a project on two different teams and someone on our team was really pushing that We'd try to make a podcast. And initially I wasn't really that interested in it. I was like, okay, I guess if everybody else wants to do this. And [00:19:00] I hadn't really listened to podcasts before and I didn't quite understand the appeal.
But then I started listening to podcasts and we started making one, and it became like the most interesting, exciting thing that. Ever done. We even got new dog on a bit for that first podcast that we worked on together. We were talking about Canada's legalization in Canada, and so it was just an accumulation of doing new different things that maybe don't seem related, but I think I've managed to tie together as I've moved along in my career path, and I'm not that far yet, who knows what I'll do next, but I think just trying different things.
Kind of not being afraid to branch off because it just allows for you to experience different things that you can then find a way to tie back to whatever you were studying, if that's what you want, or even not, if that's not what you want.
[00:19:56] Rumneek: You've lived in Vancouver for a little while. Did this podcast give [00:20:00] you any new insights into the people you were speaking to or about vancouver?
[00:20:05] Daniella: Yes, I've lived in Vancouver for about 20 years. My family moved here from Zimbabwe. Yeah, I spent some time in Montreal and a little bit of time in Toronto, but came back here. I think in doing this podcast, I'm not sure I've gained any new insights about Vancouver specifically, but what has been really interesting is.
The way that it's underscored, the similarities of being black and living in North America and experiencing, even though it looks different in different places, experiencing the same kinds of monitoring, surveillance, and interactions with police.
I think it's maybe affirmed to me the ways that different organizers are sort of pushing for different things and different changes to be made and how there is such a universal voice across Canada and across North America that things do need to [00:21:00] change. Something needs to change. And it's been quite powerful to put it all together in one place for me and just see the magnitude of the issue that we're trying to address and the hope that people have that we can change it and we can't imagine a different world and we can make a different world.
[00:21:16] Carol: I guess just to kinda go off of what you just said and get more specific, are there any. Landmark examples of anti-black racism in Canada. Canada, oh my god, my English that are similar to the things that exist in in America.
[00:21:31] Daniella: So the first episode of the podcast, we talked to someone named Eric Ingram, who I was doing a lot of organizing and protesting in New York City around 2020 when there were a lot of Black Lives Matter protests happening again and.
Basically posted an image of himself at one of these protests on the internet and woke up to the New York Police Department surrounding his apartment. And that episode sort of [00:22:00] goes into how that's like this very big dramatic case that was live on CNN when it was happening. And what sort of happened, what happened to him in the aftermath around now being the sort of face of what happens with surveillance online.
But connecting that back to things that do happen to particularly black and indigenous protestors and activists in Canada where people are under surveillance. I mean, when I was organizing with Black Lives Matter Vancouver, we found out a year later that the RCMP had been monitoring the group, and that was like a scary realization to come to that.
While it wasn't surprising, black organizers are often targeted for surveillance by the police and indigenous organizers, activists, and land defenders definitely are. That does happen, and it wasn't really talked about much in Canada when it kind of came out and it had happened to the [00:23:00] Black Lives Matter group in Toronto as well.
That sort of impact on human rights and the ability for people to participate in democracy for people. Have their freedom of expression, freedom of association. There's a chilling effect that comes with that. And we talk about that in the podcast and that's why I'm not doing that kind of activism anymore is because it does really creep you out essentially.
And like it can get quite dangerous. And definitely for us, it wasn't at the level of what happened to Derek, but it still makes you pause and think about the risks to yourself, the people around. And how you want to engage in these conversations and whether being public is public about this is safe.
And I think for a lot of people that ices them out from wanting to participate and wanting to have their voice heard. For some people it makes them bolder, but for others it makes them question, especially depending on who they are and the intersections of whether you are [00:24:00] a permanent resident here or whether you are queer or trans, whether you. Other things that make you vulnerable to being targeted.
[00:24:07] Carol: Well, I guess it's a great segue to ask you a more lighthearted question, since everything seems to be falling apart. What is a book that you have been reading lately that you loved and you would love to recommend to people?
[00:24:19] Daniella: Well, I have just cracked open again, a book called Race After Technology by someone named Ruha Benjamin.
And it's a very readable and digestible book around the ways. Surveillance isn't new. It's something that's been around for a long time through from enslavement to now, and the way that technology kind of, I guess, facilitates further surveillance of people who are often deemed a threat to the status quo and it very readable, very understandable.
I guess to people who may be new to this subject area, I would recommend that one.
[00:24:54] Carol: Great. I guess we'll add another one since I really missed out on asking all the questions. How do you like to take your [00:25:00] coffee on most days?
[00:25:02] Daniella: I have recently been drinking lattes. I enjoy good latte with, oh milk or regular milk with regular milk
[00:25:11] Carol: Well, you're built different.
So overall that was a great conversation besides the fact that technology was being an absolute pain to deal with. I'm telling you, Rumneek, the older we get, the more my resentment towards technology grows. She is out the roof, out the roof, off the rocket. I don't know. I hate technology.
[00:25:36] Rumneek: That was a struggle, but I stand firm on the sentiment that Mercury was in Gatorade or something because there is absolutely no way that all three of us were having technical difficulty. Alas, it made for an entertaining conversation and definitely didn't manage to take away from all of the incredible and important conversations that Daniella is sparking with this podcast.
[00:25:55] Carol: And I do say this every episode, but we absolutely do get to talk to some really [00:26:00] cool people.
[00:26:01] Rumneek: That we. I mean, to push Amnesty International Canada into addressing their blind spot and creating content for and about black audiences is no small feat.
[00:26:11] Carol: And I still can't get over the chaotic energy. That was that recording session. I mean, it's not like we're inexperienced audio people. The universe really said not two day girlies.
[00:26:21] Rumneek: Well, that's a wrap from us. Let's hope we can get the tech sorted by next time. Thank you everyone for listening. Make sure you catch our next episode by subscribing or following our show on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.
And if you're feeling your feels, please drop us a review. You can also find me on Twitter @Rumneek with three E's
[00:26:41] Carol: And yours truly, @caroleugenepark.
[00:26:44] Rumneek: Today's episode was recorded at CiTR Radio and engineered by Hina Imam. From Here Forward is an alumni UBC podcast, produced by Podium Podcast Company.