 Hello and welcome. My name is Chantal Bilodeau. I am the co-curator for the Green Rooms and I'm very happy to have you attend this event both on the live stream and people who are in the rooms with us, in the room with us. Today is the second day of the Green Rooms and we are now on our third session today. And I really need to mention that the Green Rooms is produced by English Theatre at the Nationals Arts Centre and presented by Foda in collaboration with the Canada Council for the Arts, the City of Kingston, the National Theatre School and HowlRound Theatre Commons. And I am very happy to... Oh, actually, before we start I would like to acknowledge that Mission Control for this event is located in Kingston, Ontario, which is the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe and the Haudenosaunee and the Huron Wendat. Kingston is covered by Treaty 57 and the territory was acquired in 1783 in Crawford's Purchase. And now I would like to introduce you to Sarah Garten Stanley, who is actually my co-curator for this event and she's a director. And she's going to be in conversation with Ravi Jain, who is a stage director known for making politically bold and accessible theatrical experiences in both small indie productions and large stages. Sarah and Ravi are going to talk about leadership and structures for change and please feel free to use the chat to comment along the way. Now to you. Thanks, Chantel. Ravi, I can't quite hear you. I'm on mute again. I did the Zoom classic. Classic Zoom entrance. Hi, Sarah. How are you? I'm okay. I'm okay. It's nice to see you. Nice to see you. I didn't get to actually say hi behind the television studio of this moment. Very nice to see you. Thank you, Chantel. So I just would love to start by saying, you know, this whole conversation has been reframed thanks to Sarah and the team. You know, I'm also going to say I'm really nervous right now. It's been hard to have these conversations and to be in this virtual space and not have eye contact with folks is very strange in this moment. But I will say, so the original topic had three panel four panelists, two colleagues from Canada and one from the U.K., and we were talking about structural change in regards to the climate. And given all that's happening in particular right now with the Black Lives Matter movement and all the conversations around white supremacy in the arts, I was really struggling with how to have this conversation in an authentic way. And how do we do this right now? How do we talk and how do we listen? And at a certain point, my colleague Waynee was unable to attend. And then all of a sudden here I was on a panel with a bunch of white folks and not feeling very comfortable about that. And graciously Sarah engaged with the problem. And we had a number of hopeless back and forth emails. And then it turned into us saying, let's just have a conversation. Sarah and I are good friends. We've talked a lot about these conversations around white supremacy and making change from the inside and from the outside of institutions and the challenges of that. And so I'm just really grateful for the team to have pivoted like that. And Sarah for you to engage in this conversation. I'm really grateful for it. And to the audience of unknown folks out there, you know, I feel like I proposed the loose structure to Sarah that we'll just have a conversation and we'll cover racism, we'll cover climate and we'll cover leadership, which essentially was the proposal in the first place. And Sarah, I just love for us to talk like I haven't seen you and spoken to you and are so many, as we said, so many of our conversations have been about exactly this and the pain of it and the difficulties of how to move things forward. Honestly, in this moment, that is filled right now with so much pain and so much truth. And I'll lead by saying my my biggest fear right now is nothing's going to happen. And I've been so hopeless in the last couple of days. And it's been really it's challenging to face. So I feel like I'm excited for this conversation because it will just allow a moment of listening and real listening, not this bullshit listening that I feel is happening, which we'll talk about. So thank you again, I guess, I don't know, kick off. You know, I propose that I wanted to describe you actually I wanted to do your bio. But I guess we can move on from that. I mean, we met how we met. I was going to mention Banff. I don't know. This conversation happened also because you and I met at Banff. You brought me to Banff. You invited me to Banff with your third cycle, the NAC cycles that you ferociously spearheaded. For those who don't know, the first was indigeneity, which out of that conversation came the NAC's indigenous, what do you call it, wing theater, theater department, department, then accessibility, and then climate. And in the climate conversation, too, we have conversations about race. And and the difficulty of that. So I don't know. Do you want to say anything? Sure. I mean, you know, I've thought a lot about, first of all, Rabbi and I have known each other for much longer than than that than last year in April when we gathered with a number of scientists and artists, thinkers, fantastic leaders, just to talk about to learn about some of the real specifics around this question. And it was an enlivening and terrifying and very rich and rewarding, I think, intersection for a lot of people. But I've thought a lot about my opening remarks and how I spoke about how this final cycle was something that pretends to everybody. The lived experience of climate is something that no one is free from. And I really feel that that, in one way, actually is true. But in another way, it's a position that I that I understand continues to speak to a kind of an inherent problem, which is to say, like, when COVID started, it was like the great equalizer. And it's like very soon after it's like, no, it's not actually equal. It's very, very different. And the same is is absolutely true when it comes to climate, which Jennifer pointed out previously, which the speakers who just came before us have spoken about, which many of the speakers last night have been highlighting is that it's not it's not an equal problem. It's a it is an issue for everybody. And yet there are certain people who benefit, as Noam Chomsky would say, there's certain people benefiting from the problems of some of these situations, as opposed to being interested in the solutions. So you know, to have this conversation with you, Ravi is, is, yeah, I'm nervous too. And I think why is it that we are so uncertain around one another? What are the conditions? And I and I think it would be great for maybe both of us to speak to those. Yeah, I mean, I feel like right now, for me, it's that trust is is is broken. And it speaks to the comment you made around people profiting and benefiting from this moment of crisis. And, you know, I've been thinking a lot about the white arts, let's focus in on the arts, like the white colleagues response to this moment is is quite challenging to trust. And the thing I've been saying to folks, I was speaking to a black female playwright who said she illuminated it illuminated it so clearly for me, she said, you know, the thing about what happened to George Floyd was not yet the murder obviously is atrocious. But what's crazy about it is that for almost nine minutes, he had his knee, the officer had his knee on on George Floyd's neck, and all around him were people of color saying take your knee off his neck. Please, you're going to kill him take your knee off his neck. And he didn't have to listen. He had his hands in his pocket. He had a stance in his body. And he had supremacy in his eye. And the moment I feel that white people are missing is white people are angry for the murder because they know they would not commit murder. They know that that's an atrocity that should be vilified. It's it's horrible. It's against the law. But what they don't see is that officer's arrogance. It's what's in his eye. That's what supremacy is the feeling that you don't have to listen. And with all that's coming out right now in the arts, all of this info in the dressing room, all these things about structural racism in our community, it's not new. It's just that people didn't listen. White people didn't have to listen. And they have that arrogance. They have their hands in their pockets. And so the challenge I'm having is if we're truly in solidarity, and you want to stand next to me or a black person or an indigenous person, then you have to see yourself as the enemy. And that's the piece that that is missing in the conversation to see yourself in the police officer and not the protester. And that for me, then we can start getting into truths, then we can start getting into, well, then now who leads this conversation and who who's prepared for this conversation? Because I would say black people, indigenous people, racialized people have had to face this their whole lives. My parents dealt with that arrogance in this country. I grew up every day with it. And then, you know, from a structural point, if we're looking at leadership, that plays out in so many ways. If you look at that Stratford in the dressing room, you'll see how it plays out in the acting community. But from a structural place, you know, it's the same as governments. We have funders that's government policies that are created to keep black people, indigenous people and people of color small. You can't grow an institution. Why do we have so few leaders of color and institutions of color? Because there's been no money. There's been no infrastructure support. So that's a kind of way that we purposefully keep the community small and we keep leadership out. And it all comes from this not listening, this continual pattern of not listening. And right now, everyone's saying they're listening. And I don't trust it. And I don't trust how you're listening or what you're listening to. And I'm concerned that the listening is opportunistic and a kind of rebrand that allows you to stay comfortable and reaffirm the power and privilege that you have. So I'm not a good person to disagree with you. Because I think it's in our nature as humans to want to survive and thrive and some of us to grow. And I think that survival ends up doing some not necessarily positive things when it comes to real conversation. In other words, you and I spoke the other night about like, well, what happens if all of the white leaders were to suddenly stop running theater companies, for example? Or we could go into other, those stay in the theater, were they to stop doing that? Where, how come there is not like a long line of people ready to step in? What is in the system that is making it still necessary or so we think? This is part of it like or so we think for that not to be possible. Like what are the structural issues that are keeping listening within a tight framework that may actually be making change not truthful? Like when you say you don't trust it, like when it's actually maybe not making it truthful, it's more finding new language with which to speak about it. And I think I'm just struck because Ken in the previous panel talked about how you know, we think we have to do it within the structures, but we don't necessarily have to do it within the structures. And that becomes a really big question because I think fear tells us we have to do it within the structures. Fear tells us that we have to find ways to do it the way we've been doing it, but to do it with different people. So we're doing it with different people, then why are we doing it? We're not doing it the way we were doing it. So things have to change. My wish is and this is where it's is it an abandonment of my own privilege. And so my wish is that there was there wasn't I could hear like let's do this. Let's work in this way. And I feel like Anthony just said and I'm sorry for taking from other people, but Anthony just said flux like we're in this like do we like how do we how do we shift it so that we're actually moving forward or is right now just about saying no, we're not moving forward. We're just in it and we're in despair and we're feeling messed up. And so let's be in that. Well, so I think my response to that it just tied into what you were saying about if all the white leaders were to step down who would who would be the play people take their place. I think there's a twofold challenging answer in that that I've really pushed myself forward in which is one, yes, the communities have not have the support and opportunities to really build a deep bench on one level. But on the other level, we're assuming that there are people who aren't ready. And there are people who've been doing this work the specific work and I mean, I know, I know, I know you're not necessarily flying up. But for me, I had to challenge myself that, you know, this moment, particularly, I would say two women of color, black women and indigenous women and women of color have been dismissed time and time again when they speak up and when they speak out. And, you know, what would a world look like if they were more opportunity was given in in the in those scenarios. And, and I would say in terms of leadership right now, something I heard on theater communications group from the States, it was a young black male artistic director was saying, you know, what this moment is showing us is how unqualified leadership is for this moment. And how actually, for years, we've been told we're not qualified for these jobs, even though we definitely are. But for this moment, we are like the majority of white artistic leadership is unqualified, they don't have the language, they don't have the experience and worse, as we're seeing come out from all of the in the dressing rooms, they caused harm. They continually cause harm because they don't understand the dynamics of race or care or racism and supremacy. And so one way I think in terms of how to answer the question, how can we be different? Well, can we deep? Can we not center this around a white experience? Can we not foresee a future that still has white people at the center of the fixing? Because, because the other thing is for me, white artists are the worst. White artists don't have never affected any kind of change. So I was talking to a white artistic director the other day. And he said to me, you know, don't you think, don't you see change? Like, don't you think that change has happened? And I said, what do you mean? He was like, well, like I see a lot more people of color and stuff on stage like hasn't changed happened. And I said, no, actually, no, hold on a second, let's get the story straight. First of all, you can change the people, but you don't change the systems. So how does how does an artistic director get support and artistic director of color get the support they need to change the system, the system of white supremacy within an organization? But let's set that aside. 2016, Canada Council changed everything for why not in particular, we actually were able to become a company, a significant institution, because we, they prioritized innovation, inclusion and international and nonvenues, and money came into communities to address historical inequities. And people were mad. White people, a lot of institutions were mad about that. I had to speak at a committee parliament for heritage to justify why that was important because a lot of institutions were upset. So yeah, a change was made, but there were still people who didn't want that. There were still white artists who were in the way of that. And then my kind of Trump point is if you would look specifically at Toronto, we have a three female artistic leaders of color. Nina Leakino became the artistic director of factory, and she only got the job because Ken Gas got fired, not because people wanted that change. And when she took the job, people hated her for it. They didn't want her to have it. People critics, everyone still attacked her. Nobody wanted her to have that change, but she did it anyways. And she got that job. Waynee is the artistic director of Soulpepper after Albert was taken out by a group of women in a coordinated effort to call him out for his sexual assault allegations. And even still, people did not want that to happen. People were against that happening. The list goes on and on. I think that what we see again in this moment is black people right now are marching in the streets, putting their lives on the line for a huge change. And I don't think I see enough white allies really getting behind this change. In fact, I see contraction. I see fear. I see people avoiding this conversation right now because they want to be seen as the good ones. And that to me is really scary. It's really scary because it only centralizes themselves in this conversation again, and it allows them to be the power to fix it. When they've never fixed it, I don't have a moment in history where that's happened. So a couple of things. I can totally feel myself wanting to be one of the good ones, always. Like, oh, I want to be one of the good ones. But I do feel like the enemy. I do actually. And it's because I come from privilege. And it's because I'm aware of my privilege. And I'm, you know, I feel privileged. And so to feel that means I have to personally, I feel that I have to work to acknowledge that and to do what I can to do good. Or I like to say to try to do more good than harm. But I have to acknowledge that in the landscape and particularly in this moment, I see my friends of color when they come on to a call or whatever, the count, right? And it's like, how many? And it's like, too many, you know? And I don't know what the answer is when suddenly, is there a moment where suddenly that's not the case? I don't know. But I know that right now it is the case. I know that it is about like, where is my representation? Why is it happening in this way? What does change look like? Like, I'm so, I'm so aware of that. I also think that I'm a, I'm fierce and I'm a wimp. I prefer not to be the head of a company, you know? Because I can, I feel like I can do things that I wouldn't be able to do. I feel like I can have freer conversations. And that's wimpy. That's maybe not stepping up. I don't know, you know? But I don't know. I mean, I think, you know, you're again, like the cycles I think are really fascinating example of what someone can do on the inside. You know, when I went on the inside of the institution, it wasn't as good. So I feel like how great that you're able to do that. And in that act, not not everyone can get inside and be as effective as you've been. It makes me think about Clayton Thomas Mueller, who we met in Banff. So he was an, he's an activist with an organization called 360 degrees, right? 350.org. 350.org. An amazing human. And the my, my, the real impression he left on me was that if we want to talk about climate, it's an indigenous issue. It is an indigenous center issue. And that you can't move forward in anything really, if you don't have us at the center. And that was really striking to me when I think about things like extinction rebellion, when I think about movements for climate justice that are missing that voice that and on one hand, it's good, like they're, they're, they're mobilizing a cause and they're activating a cause. And it's an important one that affects all of us. But as you said at the beginning, it affects everyone differently. And how do we, how do we look to the leadership that is already there, that is in the community, that is has a different relationship to these systems and situations. And I, for me, I think that's at least some start in addressing the system of supremacy now and acknowledging that also I, but what is like, what is the start? What is the action in there when you I, I think working to decentralize, I mean, taking out the white power to start. So acknowledging a different perspective in leadership. So actually providing the resource and privileges that come with a like a major institution, like so, for example, give a native earth Canadian stages budget. What would, how would that change everything that would take the power away from an institution and give it to another that has a direct, a direct and different experience to challenge that when you say give that those funds, who's giving those funds. So in an ideal world, it would be the white institution that would look deeply and listen deeply about their power and privilege historically. Maybe I look, I don't know, I mean, I'm interested in thinking about it in that way, as opposed to it being like a Canada Council decision or a heritage decision that that, you know, because then it's still held in the same few people who are doing like what, doing good, like doing like I, it's, it's, it's more interesting to me to think about a conversation amongst theater companies where there's a real soul filled exchange, conversation of exchange about that. I mean, I think, I mean, that would be amazing. I think that that would be, I think, I think we're far away from that step because I still think we're not on the same page in our assessment and understanding of what white supremacy is and how that plays out in daily lives. But if we got there, you know, sign me up, I think that would be really interesting because then it would actually be acknowledging all the harm that caused and the, the, the lack of water given to communities to actually grow. Lack of support. You know, another thing I'll tell you this, I've been thinking about. So we can right now, there's a call to defund the police and, and provide police or provide that funds directly to the community. So one could say, let's defund the institution. Let's get the opera and the ballet to give their funds to native birth and obsidian and, you know, actually put it into the communities where, where, you know, where so many, so much work is done also. Like we have to look at these culturally focused companies because they're working because the institution excluded them and they don't have the resources. What often happens is they'll develop artists, but those artists will go to Stratford. They'll go to Shaw because that's where the money is. That's where they can get jobs. That's where projects can happen because the community can't keep them. And then we see the cycle where they get harmed and there's constant harm and, and the cycle kind of continues. I lost my train of thought there. Sorry, with defund the institution or secondly, let's look at something like this. What would happen if we look at the movements that are happening right now about eliminating racist statues? So they're tearing down statues of slave owners and throwing them in the river. What if we dissolve organizations? What if we address the historical legacy of some organizations and the future legacy of those organizations and we rebuild? What would that look like? What would that world be? I haven't thought that through yet, but like I look to what's happening outside and I say, well, those are things we haven't tried because we've been here before and we've tried things before. Please, please, please. Well, I mean, it's tied, I think, in a lot of ways to money and, you know, supremacy of money that sort of keeps this structure intact and resources and the extraction of resources, be they from the earth, be they women's bodies, be they any number of different elements that exist on this planet. But I think last year, when we met in BAMP, every person to a speaker who knows what is going on with regards to different elements around climate change spoke to the system of capitalism and neoliberalism and how it is absolutely tied to this ongoing kind of demise of the planet, of sustainability, of the air that we breathe, the water that's accessible, all of it's tied to the monetary system that we are all in some ways implicated in, whether or not we choose to be or not, right now we're caught in the clutches of that. And so what's been so mind-blowing about at least the first three weeks of COVID was that suddenly, you know, all the jokes and op-eds were like, hey, everyone's a socialist all of a sudden, like, wow, it's possible to feel like, you know, and of course that passed very quickly. But there was this, you know, this brief window where these massive, massive governmental shifts that everyone said could never happen and made me personally think, well, then how are we going to do anything showed me that in fact they can. Those massive things can happen. And I guess part of my curiosity ongoing is how do we make the massive things happen? I know the small things have to, I know it's like defunding, you know, this idea to defund certain cultural institutions. Great. In the cosmology of all the institutions, does then theater, do then arts, you know, do they get relegated to a lack of imports? Does the ground, does the water, do the rivers, do they get lowered in impact or import because the very wealthy can live above, you know, those pure resources? I have some real questions about the interrelationship between really all things in this question between equitable treatment of all human beings. And maybe that means what is perceived to be less equal treatment of certain people who've had a lot more good stuff for many, you know, hundreds of years, but still something of a power shift that is not just relegated to the theater, but has to do with the way in which we live on this planet and the way in which we center ourselves as humans within the story of the planet, which is not the story of this planet, you know, there's, so I don't want to spin off because I know that a really important part for you is that we stick within this question of how to have a conversation about the climate at this point in time in North America when people are dying and black bodies in particular and indigenous bodies in particular are being completely devalued and so on. And then to tie to the arts that we're talking about the devaluing and the dehumanizing of black indigenous and racialized people in our community and with our friends. Like that's the the hiccup of all this is these are my friends and when we talk about big sweeping change I agree with you like we can imagine wow how surprising and how quickly the government responded to COVID and it's possible big things are possible the challenge I have in this moment is we don't agree on the small things we don't agree on how upsetting it is to be told you must wear this wig color because your skin looks a certain way we don't think that's a real thing we don't we don't agree that that we don't all agree that that's a real psychological impact that has ramifications we don't we don't agree on when you tell me oh that's a bad idea like you're constantly rejecting my idea but liking your white friend's idea like we don't agree on those systems of dehumanization we don't agree on the things that I see every day and that my colleagues and I cry about behind closed doors we don't agree about that power structure you know so it's hard to talk and sweeping change when we can't race is the one that's the fucking shitty one because because me too we all agree I mean there are those who don't but we we can all get behind that because we there are things about that that are undeniable there's still things about race where we still need to force ourselves to say I believe you we don't but we dismiss and don't believe the realities of the impact of of how people are treated and and our friends you know I I didn't tell you the story on a fucking zoom call my friend my white male artistic director friends we're getting together on a zoom call and we're trying to do good and they treat me a certain way and I tell them that they're racist and I don't want to be part of these systems and then I have to take care of them for three hours to help them understand why they I'm calling them racist we don't agree they refuse to see this moment so it's hard I mean the climate we all agree with but we but we we're not experiencing it the same way maybe we don't all agree I don't know what the fuck all I can say is I don't know if we have a shared analysis of the situation and I I see a lot of refusal to accept complicit and that speaks to myself too I have I've admitted complicity to white supremacist values that I've done because I can do that in that I'm a brown person I can still be part of a system because that's what I was taught yeah that system is that system is pervasive and I hear you because you know it's easy for me to go to the system because it's also how my my brain works and I think about structures and how they impact so many things and policy and how it implicates you know so many decisions without people and even knowing that they were actually taking you know they thought they were taking their own decisions like no actually there's certain ways that were made to think but I also feel and I and I hear you when you say we don't agree and so I know that I want to I know that I personally I know that I'm a person who wants to that I'm a person that is interested in that and that is also a privilege because I can be I can say oh well I want to it's like yeah but what if you don't have any choice Sarah which you know so many of my friends don't feel that they have the choice so I also understand that and I think it comes back to this positioning of the enemy and the enemy and the friend and and why ally is such a hard word right now because it's it's I think we all want to be the good ones but what does it mean to admit that we're not what does it mean to admit that whether we grew up in a system where we couldn't recognize that we're not where you know I mean for me the profound changes that I feel that I've I've had the again the the privilege of coming to in my later years because of the people who have allowed me to meet them do I fear that had I not met them that I may not have changed and therefore not even have ever noticed that there was something that I needed to change that's a really tricky one I don't know I feel I feel fortunate in that regard but are there still so many places where I think I could show up to something and feel like I'm showing up in the right way yeah well how do we do it how do we how do we how do we is this conversation is this conversation meaningful is it performative is it meaningful is it rigorous do conversations have to be rigorous I think they have to be rigorous yeah and I think they have to be of a certain level I mean I think I feel I feel we've managed to take the performance out of this by not making it a panel but who knows we know we're being watched yeah I don't know I know that you were you know one of my we're good friends and we've had a lot of really fun times and we've talked about work and you know over that but I know the sound of your voice the stricture the the hurt and the rage was so total when we first started talking around this issue because as you said like you know at that point you said they're all my friends like they're all my friends meaning my friends not your friends my friends and that your fear or your feeling and maybe both was that we couldn't be we couldn't feel what you were feeling and I think in a lot of ways that's why this conversation came about because you said you couldn't trust and yeah and that yeah and I'm appreciative for that and and I would say the process of this actually has made me feel a bit a bit more trusting um of certain individuals but I I think in terms of demanding rigor of the conversation this is why you're unique and I said this to you on the phone like in 2016 where you had this gathering of artistic directors of color from around the world that Sarah was part of and um at the time you were talking about the difficulty you were having with language and how language was changing on you and you were failing at every step because language was changing and I didn't actually understand what you meant until like this moment when I realized oh all this language that I'd learned over the years about microaggressions systemic racism all the stuff that most of our colleagues are under qualified for at this moment um you know engaging in the level of that and doing the reading and the and the thinking is is so important for trust in this conversation so that we can be on a level and have some understanding of of how how messy this all is like it's it's so messy I said to someone the other day I wish we could go back to lying because I was so good at it I was so good at it I didn't I didn't need any of you all to know how much I was affected by this I had tons of friends who've come to me and said you know are you okay are you okay I didn't know you were so sad before it's like we all are I mean I mean and I have a different experience than black people do than indigenous people do I have I have privilege of so many degrees because people listen to me because I'm not threatening and you know my regret my regret when I think deeply about supremacy my regret is that I've upheld white supremacy by valuing the comfort of white people over black and indigenous and racialized folks it's so many times I've spoken truth to power don't get me wrong my whole time with albert was truth to power and getting silence but for the most part that I've upheld that comfort and that's the thing I'm asking folks to challenge myself to challenge is that comfort that that ease with this conversation the ease of saying I'm listening is so false you gotta listen it's gotta hurt if it doesn't hurt then you're not listening and you're not looking at the right thing and I think it's the same that's true I think with climate like we have to face ourselves that was the other thing about bam we're working with David Suzuki you know that's this is a moral issue we have to all do face ourselves and our choices and live with that and and the challenge with this moment is the lies are being exposed we can't lie in the same way I don't have the heart for it and now it's all out you know I don't know what to do yeah some years ago I was at a talking stick in Vancouver and an artistic associate associate artistic director like me from he was from the Guthrie and he was the as he sort of identified himself the associate artistic director of color at the Guthrie and he was really critical of the of the structure and how things work there and he was really really clear and somebody asked him about that and he said oh listen I like everybody there it's not personal it feels personal but my job is to be critical like that's the that's my job and I I took a lot from that because he he wasn't saying I don't want this position I like he said I like that position I really do I'm really happy to have this position but I think the way in which I got it the way in which I'm expected to behave as a result of having it you know all those things I'm going to be in conversation with now that I'm there doing it and I was really struck I was struck by that but of course you know lately I think these in certainly this last like couple of months what's been really clear is that's an additional job that he's doing that's not actually the job that you know that he would be doing it that time at that theater if you were just just hired to be like a director right he's there to have to do the fight to do the struggle to do the whatever and I what I hear is people saying what I hear is people saying we've been struggling it's your turn to struggle like that's what I hear and I think that's true but I feel that to be true I feel that I'm able to because of how it's brought up because of where I grew up that I'm able that I can walk away or I could walk away and I can't walk away from my moral connection to this question about the climate I can't walk away from my friends many of whom are not like me I can't walk away because I'm a woman and because I'm queer I can't walk away because I don't want to walk away but the reason not to trust I think is that those are words unless I keep doing unless I keep doing what I'm saying that was something uh so David Suzuki has a very good friend named Miles Richardson he's an indigenous activist water protector land protector and uh I met him when we did our workshop in Vancouver and he said to me was you know when I met David first I thought he was an asshole he just showed up at these protests saying that he was supporting indigenous people and uh fighting for the land and I thought he was an asshole then I saw him again then I saw him again and then he just kept coming I still think he's a bit of an asshole but he's a good guy it's true it's the commitment right it's the commitment and and because this is going to be I talk to the wonderful amazing Karen Robinson and I was like help me lady you gotta help me we've been here I'm I am so sad I know you know this time she was like this is a moment of moments in moments you know this revolutions are long and they're messy and it was helpful to hear because it was like um this is going to be a long haul and I just want to be sure we do it right and we do it together um so let's keep showing up you know like I mean that's all we can really do right now I don't know I I feel at a loss because I don't feel we have a structure for this conversation I feel as a community in Toronto as a country community in the arts I don't feel that we have a structure for this and that's why that's that's one of my concerns you know with with climate at least there's a there's an understanding of what the conversation is there's organization there's movements there's people who are organizing this one uh while while you know the in the green room is happening I feel like the I don't see the I see I see black people organizing I see indigenous people organizing I see racialized people organizing we're having conversations every fucking day every day I'm on a call with a group and we're not talking about programming we're not talking about the work we're going to do we're not talking about the shows what artists we can hire we're talking about caring for each other and what are we going to do and I don't see that I don't see that coordinated effort I because I've been to the meetings of white artistic directors I the only thing I could say when I left was to say I'm appalled at the level of discourse you're having this isn't good enough so Ravi yeah we're at a time appalled at the level of discourse we don't have structures for this conversation and we need structures for this conversation and we're in a period of huge change and um it's been good talking to you it's been great talking to you I really again I appreciate it um making the space and the time for this um if anybody didn't get anything out of it at least I did thank you thanks everyone for listening thank you thanks I think we're gonna leave this conversation and we're gonna be back in a little bit to talk about how to change the economy so maybe there'll be some insights do we just stay there I guess so until this is that part of the show when the credits roll yeah yeah well