The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - What We Should Know About Black History Month

Episode Date: February 6, 2023

It's Black History Month in Canada but what do we really know about black history in our country?  And more importantly, what should we know? This is an important and fascinating conversation with McGill University professor Debra Thompson, recognized around North America as an expert analyst on race politics.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. What do you know about black history in Canada? What should you know about black history in Canada? We'll ask those questions in just a moment. And good morning, welcome, good afternoon, welcome, depending on where you are in the country. I know there are different time zones, and as a result, we listen at different times, especially if you're listening to the podcast version. Anyway, hope you're having a great start to yet another week. We've got a really important discussion to have this morning. And it's a fascinating and interesting discussion. And we're going to get to it in just a couple of moments. But first of all,

how could we ignore one of the big topics on the weekend? And, you know, I don't know how much you've thought about this whole balloon thing. But I guess it comes down to, did the Americans over if President Biden had ordered the shoot down of the balloon last week to take place last week, then he probably would have been criticized for shooting it down and putting the lives of people on the ground in danger. And God forbid if he had shot it down and it had crashed into something that was supposedly the size of three buses, it could have caused some real damage. But anyway, he decided to hold off until it had passed through the United States over the Atlantic Ocean, just over the Atlantic Ocean, and shot it down then. Now he's being criticized for, why didn't you shoot it down earlier?

So, listen, we understand politics. We understand these debates and decisions and the consequences of them. But here's my question. The maps that I saw earlier today that traced where the balloon's path had been after it left China, swung out over the Pacific Ocean, kind of headed north, then started down along, basically along a line over the Aleutian Islands off Alaska, and then down the west coast of North America

till it reached sort of Washington, Montana. Then it swung east, straight across the U.S. and out over the Atlantic where it was shot down. But there's a really interesting part when you look at those maps, and I don't know how accurate those maps are, but those are the ones that are out there. When you look at those maps, there was a good chunk of time that it was over Canada, the whole west coast of Yukon and British Columbia.

So, hello, why didn't we shoot it down? I'm assuming those questions are going to come now because often the conservatives are arm in arm with some of the criticisms that the Republicans use in the U.S. So are they going to say, like, why didn't Canada shoot it down? The system's broken. It's all Trudeau's fault. You should have shot it down over the Rockies.

Well, I don't know. Maybe you should have shot it down. But I haven't heard that question asked yet. What is clear is that when anything interferes in North American airspace, it's a NORAD issue, right? U.S. and Canada together track this stuff and make decisions together on what to do about it, whether there's Russian bombers infringing on, you know, northern airspace,

or one assumes balloons, weather balloons, strategic balloons, spy balloons, whatever they are. But that question hasn't been asked yet. Why didn't Canada use its force to shoot it down? I don't think too many people would have been in danger over the Rockies, but you never know. Might have been a lone skier out there somewhere. But we'll see, won't we?

Anyway, it sure given people something else to talk about. And realizing that, you know, balloons are out there. There are weather balloons. There are weather balloons. There are spy balloons. Different countries have them. Apparently there were three of them during the Trump presidency. He didn't do anything about any of them. Nobody said anything.

I don't know. I think it's an interesting topic. It's an interesting discussion. It's an interesting discussion. It gave us all something different to talk about. But that's not what we're going to talk about today. At least we're not going to talk any longer about it today. What we are going to talk about is this issue about black history. It is Black History Month in Canada.

That is the reason I'm having this discussion today. But the more I looked at it, the more interested I became in trying to find out what it actually means and what it should mean to all of us as Canadians, no matter what our background is. So then it became a question, well, who are we going to talk to? Well, I've talked to you before. I've mentioned before this film that my son, Will,

was involved in his company, Uninterrupted Canada. That's a company that's, well, its principal, its principals are Drake and LeBron James. And in Canada, my old friend Scott Moore and Vinay Vermani. Those are the principals of the company. Will was a junior producer working on this film. He's more of a kind of, he dropped the junior part of the title.

Now he's just a producer and working on some great work for Uninterrupted. Anyway, he was involved in this film called Black Ice. And I've mentioned it before because I think it's really important. It won a major award at TIFF last year, the Toronto International Film Festival. It was described at TIFF last year, the Toronto International Film Festival. It was described by TIFF as an incisive, urgent documentary examining the role of black players in Canadian hockey

from pre-NHL contributions to the game, to the struggles against racism that continue to this day. Important film. And one of the links in this film is a professor who I have to admit I'd never heard of before, but I've certainly heard of her now. Her name is Deborah Thompson. She's a professor, doctor, Deborah Thompson, at McGill University. She's a Canadian. She's taught in a number of different universities in the United States,

including Harvard. She got her degree at U of T. She teaches now at McGill. McGill calls her a leading scholar of the comparative politics of race. Her teaching and research interests focus on the relationships among race, the state, and equality in democratic societies. She was, I thought, fabulous in Black Ice. They used her to talk about black history

and the importance of different stages of black history in Canada. So I reached out to her over the weekend and she was great. She said, absolutely. And we had a, well, you can judge it. Our discussion was recorded yesterday for airing today.

So let's get right to it. It's Professor Deborah Thompson from McGill University. Here we go. So, Professor, let's start, I guess, with the basics. You know, what should Black History Month mean to us as Canadians, whether we're Black Canadians or non-Black Canadians? What should it mean to us? I mean, that's a great question. And it's a hard one to answer, to be honest, because on the one hand, Black History Month is about writing Black Canadians into a history that has largely been devoid of any mention of black Canadians contributions to this country.

Our history has largely been erased. We are assumed to be newcomers to what has always been a predominantly white society. many Canadians or even Canadians of all, you know, colors, creeds, races, religions, everything, um, don't know about the, the black history of this country. You know, like we, um, we date back to pre-confederation by over a hundred years. There was of course, slavery in this country. Um, there have at times been significant activism around anti-Black racism in this country, not just now, but historically. Marcus Garvey had chapters in Montreal. There have always been Black activists in Toronto. And so on the one hand, Black History month is about reconsidering all of canadian history and having black people be an integral part of that history not incidental integral right there there really is no vision of canada um that doesn't include black people truly you know our everything we think about ourselves

like means that we have to think carefully about how blackness and black people, truly, you know, everything we think about ourselves, like means that we have to think carefully about how blackness and black people configure into the broader Canadian history. And on the other hand, you know, I have a really complicated relationship with Black History Month in part because we are living in a moment that is largely characterized by an incredible backlash against racial progress. And that backlash manifests in a lot of ways. One is certainly the attack on critical race theory that we see not only in the United States, but in mainstream Canadian discourse, the use of woke as a slur, which has happened not just in Montreal, where I am, but everywhere across the country.

The woke, you know, the woke says being something that one should be ashamed of being the continued police murders of black people, including Nikos Spring, who was, you know, killed in a Montreal jail just before Christmas. The fact that after the largest mass uprisings we've ever seen in this country and on this continent in the summer of 2020, every police department in this country has simply increased its budgets and the public seems absolutely fine with that, right? So like we can talk about Black history on the one hand as being like quite celebratory and necessary, and on the other hand, there are very real critiques to be made about the existence,

the maintenance and the reification of anti-black racism in this country in the here and now. Wow. You've opened a lot of doors there. So let me try and peek behind some of them in no particular order, really. But when you, when as a Canadian, we talk about our sort of, our history with race in this country, we tend to think, and I guess I'm thinking mainly of non-black Canadians when I say this, but we tend to think,

man, we're so much better than, you know, our Southern neighbors when we look at our history but in fact that's not the case is it no not at all and in fact the kind of moral superiority that we have as canadians over americans is itself a specifically canadian kind of racism i would argue like by any means like look like I work a lot in thinking about like what racism is, what systemic racism is, and really trying to tease apart these concepts

and making them more understandable to, to a broader public. And I lived in the United States for a decade and was really interested when I first moved there in kind of like putting my money where my mouth was, you know, like, would I feel as a black Canadian that I was more ostracized in the United States, that the racism there was somehow different. And like, I went to the U.S. and I found incredible racism there for sure. And there, you know, it wasn't actually all that different from the type of racism that exists in Canada, except that in the U.S., everybody kind of acknowledges that racism exists. You know, even the racists acknowledge that racism exists in the U.S. And in Canada, I think that

there are broad swaths of mainstream society. There are huge parts of this population that simply does not believe racism has any role to play in determining socioeconomic outcomes of the population. That is just not the case. That's not borne out in any data that we have. Give me the history lesson on this because it it doesn't date back that far when you look at our immigration policy in terms of who who was basically allowed in and who wasn't yeah i mean so our immigration policy um has been defined by racial exclusion since 1888 since the Chinese head tax and was kind of reified in the

1920s when our immigration act essentially worked to exclude any non-white immigration to this country and this was only shifted only shifted in 1967 when Canada put a race neutral point system into place you know but you know i always like tell my students to be quite cautious about that um if you look at the the actual demographic data of the country canada doesn't become racially diverse like really racially diverse until like the the 1990s right and like in the 1981 census canada's still 97% white, 96% white. Like it's still a predominantly white country. Even today, it's a predominantly white country.

We are quite proud to say that 23% of the population is a quote unquote visible minority. Nobody likes that term. StatScan is shifting, you know, its language now. But we're quite proud to say that, you know, 23% of the population are non-white Canadians. You know, let's, let's just check ourselves because one of the things that means is that 77% of the population is, you know, white Canadian, you know, with, with some caveats. So that is, that's not a diverse country. That's a predominantly white country. And then many parts of this country if we black people are frequently the only ones in the room surrounded by a lot of people who, who don't look like us. And that can be like quite,

not only like harmful, but, but violent. There's this story that, that you tell that your father used to tell. I don't know whether, I mean, it makes the point. I'm not sure how accurate he was really being, but he was making a point. And that's the story about in the 60s in Toronto, you know, if you're black and you met another black person, the odds were that other person was related to you. Yeah. Yeah. You know, my dad, my dad, he spent his childhood in Shrewsbury, Ontario, which is a tiny town east of Detroit, kind of near Chatham. And it was among the last stops on the underground railroad and so my dad is kind of directly descended from

american refugees from slavery who fled to canada following the north star um and found freedom here and then chose to stay um and that you know it's quite a rich history and he you know and his siblings moved to toronto in like the 1950s. I feel like it was the late 1950s. And it was not a diverse place. Toronto was not diverse in the way that we talk about racial diversity now. It might have been ethnically diverse. There might have been lots of different kinds of white ethnicities. And I believe there were.

But in terms of the black population of Canada, the non-white population of Toronto, these were tiny, tiny, tiny numbers. Even, you know, my parents moved to Oshawa, where I was born and where I grew up. And I looked at the census data and like in the 1986 census, there was something like 826 black people in Oshawa in 1986, right? That's not, that's not a diverse place. You know, it was, my siblings and I were frequently the only black people in any space. And that did not make us feel special like that because the, the white people who were occupied those spaces with us were frequently terrible to us, like just, just to be clear. And so like the idea of being the only one in those days was, was part of the black experience. It wasn't, you know, in some pockets of Canada, there certainly were black communities and thinking about like Halifax,

you know, as has a historic black community and incredible, like rich history Toronto now, you know, where people, black people who live in toronto hail from you know all over the place like africa the caribbean like south america tons of different places incredibly rich rich black cultures uh there but in the 1980s it really was not diverse and how have we how have we changed i mean have we changed or we changed rapidly have we changed for the better how would you characterize it it depends on on what you think the power of representation is right like there are more black people in canada now nationally we sit around three

and a half percent of the national population, but the population size is significant in places like Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, Ottawa. So there are more Black people in the country. There are, I would argue, not more Black people in boardrooms. There are not more Black faculty at universities. You know, there are not, you know, more black teachers or certainly like representative numbers of black teachers, black CEOs, you know, black entrepreneurs, right? There are still systemic barriers in this country that prohibit black people from achieving our full potential. Well, when you see a figure like,

and I think the figure I saw, the last one I saw this weekend was three and a half percent of Canadians are black. Well, if that's the accurate figure, what should the representation in boardrooms, in the variety of different things you've mentioned, what should it be? Should it be a percentage or how should that be

how should that be based yeah the politics of representation are really really complicated um and you know it's it's interesting because this is where uh when we're evaluating for example the success of a policy like employment equity, it's not just that baseline, like three and a half percent of the population is black. So three and a half percent of the workforce, you know, in various streams and levels of the workforce should be black people. Like that's not exactly how it works. The labor force and employment equity acts takes labor force data and looks at like education and availability and unemployment and kind of like has quite a complicated formula of looking at, OK, you know, given people's qualifications, education levels, level of experience, like what, you know, that's the available labor pool. And the interesting thing is that by any measure, the available labor pool is still much greater than,

than it translates into black people being employed in boardrooms, going to law school, right. Being even in the upper echelons of the civil service. Right. And so it's not about just about like that straight like three and a half percent of the population is black so three and a half percent of ceos should be black like that doesn't quite get at the nuances um particularly because in thinking just about like that straight that that straight calculation of representation we miss again like these systemic barriers you know that are preventing black people from accessing uh the various like mechanisms of power that might actually get us into those spaces so there's like

really quick example law school right like we know that there there are black lawyers there are a lot of amazing black lawyers my brother brother is one, for example. And there are formidable obstacles to getting into law school. Right. You have to take the LSAT. The LSAT costs money. If you want to do well on the LSAT, you're going to pay for an LSAT prep course. Right. We know that doing well on the LSAT is not about your intelligence. It's actually about what courses you're able to pay for to prepare you right you need to get letters of reference which means you need to go to a school where you meet a professor and actually have some kind of relationship with a professor who can write you a decent letter of reference you need to have good grades which means you need to like be at a

university with like where getting good grades is in fact attainable right so like there's all kinds of like these systemic and systemic barriers to even accessing law school. Nevermind, I haven't even talked about the cost, right? Nevermind who's given loans easily, who qualifies for loans easily, whether a parent can give you money, right? To pay for like your room and board while you're attending law school, right? Nevermind people who succeed in law school because they don't have to work jobs to pay back those, like those loans or to pay for room and board while you're going to law school. And so this is what I mean by like

these systemic barriers and just thinking about the other end of representation or thinking about the other end of like, well, you know, we don't, we don't have that big of a pool to choose from. Misses so much of the way that our society structures life chances and the way in which that is codified by race. You know, one of the things that I've always been criticized for in my career is, is the Toronto centric bias. Even though I spent the first 10 years of my career is the Toronto-centric bias. Sure. Even though I spent the first 10 years of my career in Western Canada and is still very much associated with the West and the Arctic,

if I do any kind of a Toronto story or if I ask a Toronto-based question, there's that Toronto-centric guy again. You've got to watch him. Well, here's my Toronto-centric guy again. You got to watch him. Well, here's my Toronto-centric question. Sure. Toronto likes to pride itself in being described as, you know, one of the most diverse cities in the world, certainly in North America. Is it true?

And what does it say if it is true? I mean, I don't, I don't know. I think that's a really good question. And I hear that a lot. Like one of the things I hear a lot, one of the criticisms I hear, like when I do presentations is like, but Canada is so diverse, Toronto is so diverse. And my response is always like, I lived in Chicago, Chicago is really diverse and it has a lot of problems. There are a lot of problems that prevent black populations in Chicago from doing well, from living in a safe, secure environment, from going to the grocery store and not fearing for their lives because Chicago police

like absolutely kill black people. I'm not just saying that facetiously. If you look at the Department of Justice's report on the Chicago Police Department, it is shocking. And so like diversity alone does nothing because diversity alone doesn't get at the issue and the issue is power and who has it and who doesn't and how those who have it frequently use that power to prevent people who do not have it from accessing it that's um that's pretty depressing i don't know but i mean the way no but i mean it's pretty depressing to look at that statement and draw that from it. Right. Yeah. I mean, it is, it's funny. Like I talked to my students and by the end of my classes there, on the one hand, they were like, wow, you know, after your classes, I have to go, you know, watch comedies on TV for a little while because it, you know, it is, it's, it's depressing to read about racial violence. It's depressing to learn about like systemic

racism and all the ways that the cards are simply stacked against non-white people in this country and others. And on the other hand, like the, the epigraph of my book is Dionne Brand, who says, like, we don't write about racism, we write about life. And my life is full of joy, you know, and peace and kindness and serendipity and like, anxiety and depression and coincidence and luck and like, all like the full spectrum of the human experience right and so when we talk about black people and especially when we talk about black history i think the tendency is to try to frame it in this way that emphasizes black resilience and like yes black people have been resilient in the face of disastrous ruin ruinous, violent, like white supremacy. Absolutely.

And we're allowed to be mediocre, right? We're allowed to have anxiety. Like we're allowed to have like messy kitchens and like to experience like all the full contradictoriness of of human life and if i were to like try to make a claim about like what like what would an anti-racist world look like like what would a just world look like that's it you know like what i want is for black people to be able to be people right to not have to work twice as hard to get half as much to be able to like walk down the street and put your hands in your pocket and pull out a cell phone and have cops like see that as a cell phone and not a gun you know like i want black people to be able to live in the messiness that is that is human existence like that that's what an anti-racist world looks like and that is literally

all it's not i don't think it's too much to ask let me go back to your very first answer because there was a phrase you used in there that um i'd like to explore for a second use the the newcomer phrase now you're what third generation fourth generation Canadian, something like that? Fifth. Fifth generation Canadian. So how often do you get asked, where'd you come from? Constantly. Constantly.

Constantly. I mean, it was more when I was younger, to be honest. I think it's partially because I moved to Montreal during COVID, so I wasn't seeing people on the street anymore. But I constantly was asked, like, it's not just like, where are you from? The question is always, where are you from? And then you say Canada. And then the questioner says, no, where are you really from? And I love

writing about this in my work because it's that, you know, it's like the negation, right? The response is like, no, where are you really from? Because you can't possibly be from here. And when I was younger, I read about this in my book, like when I was younger, I used to get so insulted at that question because I'm fifth generation Canadian and now I get less not quite as insulted by it I'm not quite as angry about it in part because I see the question I see not just a question I see like my knee-jerk response which was to claim belonging through longevity right to claim like i belong because i've been here for a long time now i see how problematic a response that was because what it inherently does is say like i've

been here for a long time and therefore i am owed something right i am owed a kind of sense of belonging in the nation that newcomers should not have access to and now i see that logic as being so so problematic because i really do i believe in in democracy i believe that what we have is no i believe liberal democracy is highly flawed, frankly. But I believe in the equal moral worth of every human being. And that means I believe in the equal moral worth of every human being, irrespective of when they came to this country. I think they should still have access to rights, period. You know, I was born in England.

I was raised in Southeast Asia, came to Canada in mid 50s. But no one's ever asked me where I came from. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that's that's really that's really common. And when I you know, when I critique that in my work, people get super offended. People are really offended. White people are really offended because I think that many white people or people of color ask that question out of curiosity. Right. And like, I get it. I get it. Right. It's a way of trying to find common ground, start a conversation. That's cool. And yet I feel very strongly, and I think the evidence bears this out, that that question is posed most frequently to people of color mention is, like, I used to get stopped on the street and people would say, like, where are you from? And, like, look, like, I am a small, like, light-skinned Black woman who sometimes walks alone at night.

And, like, people are going to stop me on the street and ask where I'm from in part in part because like their curiosity is more important than my comfort or my safety. Like that again, like that, that has and be polite and give that person the respect that they feel that they are owed. Like there are power dynamics through and through. Okay. This has been a fascinating conversation and it's gone longer than I promised you it would. But let me just try one last one. Here's where I'll be the student in your classroom. Peter, you're welcome in my classroom anytime.

Okay. But let me ask you, tell me something positive about Black History Month and the way it fits into this conversation that we've been having. Man, I think this whole conversation has been positive. To be honest, positive from the sense that we're airing stuff out that, that a lot of people don't think about on a daily basis. A lot of Canadians don't think about they're learning things about

themselves. Not like, I think this conversation has been positive because like what we, what we seek is, is the freedom and liberation of all people. Like what we seek is to create a more racially just world for everyone. And that benefits everyone. This is what people don't understand about white supremacy.

It's that white supremacy hurts white people, right? Just like patriarchy hurts men. Why does patriarchy hurt men? Because there are a lot of messed up norms of toxic masculinity, which are ruining men's lives. Right. At the same time, there are a lot of norms, behaviors, expectations of white supremacy that are not benefiting the vast majority of white people, right? And in fact, race as a construct was created to prevent a kind of class-based solidarity between enslaved Africans, free Blacks, and working class and poor white people who at times had been agitating

to overthrow the colonial elite. Like that's the origins of race as a concept. And so like the hopeful thing is in solidarity. It's in mass mobilization. It's in seeing that the interests of most people are in fact much more aligned than we think it is. And when we create a more racially just world for everyone, that doesn't just benefit black people that benefits the whole of society like who doesn't want to live in a just world we ever going to see that just world i mean i you can't be a parent without having a little bit of hope for the world that that we leave behind that is that is

honestly my my belief is that like we do not bring children into a world that is hopeless like we we wouldn't choose to bring children into a world that is hopeless. Like we, we wouldn't choose to bring children into a world that is hopeless. And I am a parent. And so I like have to, I have to have hope. Um, it's, it's the only thing that kind of like that I'm, I'm willing to, to fight for. And I'll leave it at that. And, uh, I check in with you another day to see how we're doing. But this has been great. I really, really appreciate it. Thanks so much.

Oh, my gosh. My pleasure. It was great speaking with you. Well, wasn't that something? Like, I thought that was really something. You know, I've done a lot of interviews in my life. More than I'd, some of them, some of them I'd like to forget. Most of them I'm, you know, I just, I'm grateful for having had the opportunity, probably more than 20,000. And that's right up

there. You know, that's in the top 10, top five. That's quite something. And now, if you missed the top, her name is Deborah Thompson. She's a professor. Earned her doctorate at U of T. She teaches at McGill. She's taught in different parts of the country. And she's taught in different parts of the U.S. She's pretty special on this subject, right? Basically on race politics.

We wanted to talk to her specifically about Black History Month, which we are in at the moment, if you didn't know. And if you didn't know or if you did know, there's probably a lot of things for you to think about based on that conversation. You might not agree with some of it, but it'll make you think. And that's what we try to do on the bridge, especially on Mondays.

Well, we try to make you think every day. But Mondays, you know, certainly this year, we've tried to focus like a big interview of some kind. And we've been lucky with the people we've talked to and the discussions that we've had. But Professor Deborah Thompson, an absolute treat to talk with her. We're not quite out of time. I want to really kind of change the topic, change the theme, have a little bit on the, I guess,

in some ways on the lighter side. But before we do that, let's take this quick break. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge on Sirius XM, Channel 167. Canada Talks are on your favorite podcast platform. It's the Monday episode. Wednesdays and Fridays, Smoke Mirrors and the Truth and Good Talk on Friday.

We're also on our YouTube channel, so you can actually watch the program as well as listen to it. Okay, a couple of things before we go. I don't know about you, but one of the real challenges I've had through this whole last last three years, approaching four years, I guess, is the, and as a result of the pandemic, is weight, weight gain, the pandemic pot, call it whatever you want. I put on weight, and I'm having a hell of a time

trying to get rid of it. I don't know about you, but I, you know, I've tried diet. I've tried exercise. I've tried. Well, obviously I haven't tried enough of anything because I'm still sitting there overweight. And that's not a good place to be, especially at my age. Because you run the risk of never, ever losing it. What I'm getting to here, I said we're going to talk about something lighter.

Well, here's the angle on this one. When you go into a gym or any kind of workout room, whether it's at a workout place or whether it's in your own home, whether you've set up a little area to do workouts, the odds are you probably have a mirror there, right? And sort of look at yourself when you're doing all this stuff and make sure you're doing it right. And also to keep a peek on your body size,

I find it really depressing to look at those mirrors, especially these days. I can remember a time way back in the distant past where I used to look at the mirror and go, hey, that's looking pretty good. Not these days. Anyway, saw this piece in Slate a couple of days ago. At Form Fitness in Brooklyn, you'll find an assortment of squat racks, dumbbells, and pull-up bars, which is to say it's a typical gym.

But there's one thing missing, mirrors. For some fitness fanatics, this may sound more than a little odd. No floor-to-ceiling reflective surfaces to check your form and check yourself out. Blasphemy. The owner of gym, of this gym, Moritz Summers, decided to all but ditch mirrors in her space. She still has a couple of small ones in the corner, mostly for mirror selfies, but they're just little tiny ones. When she founded Form Fitness, Summers knew she wanted to create a safe, unintimidating space for everyone to work out in, regardless of body type or ability. For her,

Jim, that meant keeping massive fitness mirrors out. So I'll just read a little more from this slate piece. You've heard about the variety of positive effects physical exercise can have on mental well-being, from easing anxiety to reducing feelings of depression. Yet mirrors in fitness settings could threaten these psychological gains, according to experts in fitness and psychology. Fitness does have that very narcissistic side to it, said Summers. Narcissists, you may recall, died from becoming obsessed with his own reflection. Working out while looking at yourself won't be fatal, but it could be distracting and may feel downright bad. Instead of enhancing your form, mirrors can even impair your ability to correct it. Aha, so that's the problem.

I got to get rid of the mirrors. I'll get on that right away. Okay, last thing. You know I, a dog lover, lost our dog in the summer. Six, seven months, we still feel Bella, Nova Scotia duck tolling retriever, we still feel her around. And, you know, every day Cynthia makes her coffee in the morning, she always used to go to her favorite chair,

and Bella would follow her right there, sit at her feet. So now, even today, when she has her coffee, the last thing she says is, Bella and I are going to go sit down now. And I guess Bella's there in spirit. Anyway, here's your dog story for today. The headline, it's on CNN, on their wire service, and it just came out on the weekend, Saturday.

There's a new world's oldest living dog, and he's the oldest ever recorded. Okay, so get your pens out. What's your guess? Make a guess. So the CNN story reads, it was only two weeks ago that Spike, 23 year old chihuahua mixed from ohio was named the oldest living dog now he has been utterly destroyed boby at the age of 30 years

and 268 days has been crowned the world's oldest living dog and the oldest dog to ever live by the Guinness World Records. The Portuguese purebred, Rafaero do Alantejo, a breed of livestock guardian dog, has lived for double his life expectancy of 12 to 14 years, according to a statement from the Guinness World Records. In doing so, the pooch who has spent his whole life with the Costa family in the village of Conqueros in Leira, western Portugal, I probably butchered those names, has broken an almost century-old record held by Australian cattle dog, Bluey, who lived for 29

years and five months between 1910 and 1939. A 30-year-old dog. So what's that in dog, in human years? Like, what's the math? You sort of multiply by seven or something? So it's a 210-year-old dog. Hey, makes sense to me. All right.

Something else for you to think about on this opening day of the week. Glad you were with us. Tomorrow, Brian Stewart will be by. His regular weekly look at the Ukraine story. And believe it or not, there are some really important things to discuss again on Ukraine this week. Wednesday, Smoke Mirrors and the the truth Bruce will be by Thursday your turn you have thoughts you have thoughts on Black History Month write them down now while they're fresh in your mind send them in the Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com theelle Hebert, Bruce Anderson. That's it for this day.

I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you again in 24 hours. Thank you.