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

Content warning: massacres, police shootings, torture and sexual violence. Take care of yourself. Slavery ended on paper. Then what? On August 1, 1834, about 300 people walked up to Government House in Port of Spain, Trinidad, to ask one question. They'd been told they were free, then told they were "apprentices" for six more years. They chanted, "Pas de six ans. Nous sommes libres." The colony answered with cavalry and floggings. Part 2 follows the people who were freed: what they were promised, what they got, what was taken, and what's owed. Every law gets a name and a party. Trinidad's 340-acre rule. Morant Bay. Forty acres taken back. Suriname. Haiti paying France until 1947. Indenture. The scramble for Africa. Convict leasing. Tulsa. Africville. And a Canadian study from this month: Black mothers face 66% higher odds of severe complications in childbirth, and money didn't protect them. Then the numbers. Some people sued and won. Nobody has been made whole. And who sues next. WHERE TO START (not legal advice) Human Rights Legal Support Centre (free): 1-866-625-5179, hrlsc.on.ca Black Legal Action Centre (free, Black Ontarians, low income): 1-877-736-9406, [email protected] Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario: 1 year from the last incident. Most lawsuits: 2 years. Toronto carding class action (stopped and recorded since Dec 2011): [email protected], 1-877-244-7711 ext. 542300 Black Class Action (federal public service): blackclassaction.ca KEY SOURCES Trinidad 1834: globalvoices.org/2026/08/01/mightily-like-insurrection-revisiting-trinidad-tobagos-first-emancipation-day Suriname 1863: parlement.com/emancipatiewet-afschaffing-van-slavernij-1863 Mississippi Black Code: americanyawp.com/reader/reconstruction/mississippi-black-code-1865 Morant Bay: victorianweb.org/history/empire/westindies/eyre2.html Haiti: eji.org/news/haitis-forced-payments-to-enslavers-cost-economy-21-billion-the-new-york-times-found Indenture funding: api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1907/mar/27/trinidad-immigrants Convict leasing: encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/convict-lease-system Black farmland: farmaid.org/blog/heirs-property-90-percent-decline-black-owned-farmland Redlining: federalreservehistory.org/essays/redlining Canada's racial covenants: historyofrights.ca/encyclopaedia/main-events/restrictive-covenants Tulsa: justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-results-review-and-evaluation-tulsa-race-massacre Africville: africvillemuseum.org/africville-heritage-trust/the-story Childbirth study: cmaj.ca/content/198/34/E1317 What's owed (Brattle): brattle.com/insights-events/publications/report-on-reparations-for-transatlantic-chattel-slavery-in-the-americas-and-the-caribbean Pigford: factcheck.org/2011/04/obama-and-the-pigford-cases Evanston and the DOJ: justice.gov/opa/pr/us-justice-department-moves-intervene-race-discrimination-lawsuit-challenging-reparations Carding class action: mccarthy.ca/en/experience/ontario-superior-court-greenlights-landmark-class-action-against-toronto-police-over-carding-of-black-and-indigenous-residents Prison pay: oci-bec.gc.ca/en/content/backgrounder-2022-2023-annual-report-office-correctional-investigator-2022-2023 CARICOM revised plan: caricom.org/caricom-endorses-revised-ten-point-reparations-manifesto Jamaica's petition: jamaica-gleaner.com/article/commentary/20260908/editorial-king-charles-and-reparations UN vote: digitallibrary.un.org/record/4106660 Views are Casey's own, not her employer's. Real Ones and Robots. For what it's worth.

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

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

We spend a lot of time talking about what’s wrong with the world. But what if we spent a little more time looking for evidence that things can actually change? In this episode of Real Ones and Robots, Casey goes looking for the moments when people looked at something that seemed permanent and decided it didn’t have to be. Finland changed how it approached homelessness. Vienna built public housing designed to last for generations. Costa Rica reversed decades of deforestation. Rwanda dramatically increased women’s representation and changed laws affecting women’s rights. And in New York, we’re watching a political experiment unfold in real time. But these aren’t simple success stories. Finland is now moving backward. Vienna’s achievements survived political upheaval, but not without enormous public investment. Rwanda’s progress exists alongside an authoritarian political system. And New York’s experiment hasn’t reached its ending yet. So we’re not asking, “Who solved the problem?” We’re asking something more interesting: What did they actually do? Who paid for it? Who fought it? What did it cost? And what made the change last—or allowed it to disappear? Because changing something once is one thing. Making it normal is another. This is Good History—stories about the times people proved that the world could be different.

Ontario is living through its worst wildfire season on record, and the human cost — mostly borne by First Nations communities in the north — is getting buried under a louder fight: Trump blaming Canada for the smoke while threatening new tariffs, and Doug Ford firing back. Casey and Jay break down what's actually burning, who's actually displaced, and what a 50% tariff threat could really cost Canadian workers — plus a quick, honest read on where the US itself stands right now, mid-war with Iran and mid-uncertainty on its own economy. Wildfires & human toll CBC News – Ontario's worst wildfire season on record: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-wildfire-season-2026-9.7277682Medical Daily – Namaygoosisagagun First Nation destroyed: https://www.medicaldaily.com/first-nation-burned-ground-without-warning-exposing-canadas-wildfire-response-failures-476168CBC News – Evacuees' mental health and displacement: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/wildfire-evacuees-mental-health-first-nations-ontario-9.7280209Global News – 1,800+ evacuated, 12 of 13 communities First Nations: https://globalnews.ca/news/11973912/ontario-wildfire-season-2026/NASA Earth Observatory – Wildfire smoke moving into the US: https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/ontario-wildfire-smoke-moves-east/NOW Toronto – Smoke linked to premature deaths, health costs: https://nowtoronto.com/news/canada-wildfire-smoke-economic-cost-health-report/ Trump, Ford, and the smoke/tariff fight NPR – Trump threatens tariffs over wildfire smoke: https://www.npr.org/2026/07/18/nx-s1-5899009/us-canada-wildfire-smokeNBC News – Trump's original Truth Social tariff threat: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-fumes-canadian-wildfire-smoke-issues-tariff-threat-rcna588122CBC News – Trump tells Carney to act, at World Cup: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trump-wildfire-smoke-carney-9.7276302CNN – Ford calls criticism "unacceptable": https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/17/politics/trump-canada-wildfire-smoke-tariffs Trade war / tariffs Bloomberg – Carney and Trump agree to speed up trade talks: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-21/carney-trump-agree-to-speed-up-trade-talks-before-50-tariffs-hitFortune – Details on the 50% tariff announcement: https://fortune.com/2026/07/22/carney-trump-tariffs-canadian-canada-goods-negotiations/Washington Times – Tariff scope, BC alcohol ban comments: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/jul/21/mark-carney-says-trump-intensify-trade-negotiations-us-imposes-50/Yahoo/AP – Carney on the Ontario anti-tariff ad: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/canadian-prime-minister-says-told-140850050.htmlTD Economics – GDP impact of the 50% tariff: https://economics.td.com/ca-tariffs-2026RBC Economics – Tariffs cover ~5% of exports: https://www.rbc.com/en/economics/forward-guidance/six-takeaways-for-canada-from-latest-u-s-tariff-threats-gdp-likely-rose-again-in-may/Canada Spring Economic Update 2026 (federal government): https://budget.canada.ca/update-miseajour/2026/report-rapport/overview-apercu-en.html US context: Iran war & economy CNN – Iran war live updates, July 29–30: https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/29/world/live-news/iran-trump-newsCBS News – Fed holds interest rates steady, July meeting: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fed-interest-rate-decision-july-meeting/Indeed Hiring Lab – July 2026 FOMC reaction, labor market: https://www.hiringlab.org/2026/07/29/july-2026-fomc-reaction-the-labor-market-plays-second-fiddle/Check out my music: Charita B

Is AI the future — or are we watching the hype start to crack? In this episode of Real Ones and Robots, Casey and Jay unpack the real costs behind the AI boom: the electricity and water needed to run massive data centres, the companies laying people off and then realizing they still need human judgment, the stock market anxiety around an “AI bubble,” and Canada’s new AI strategy under Prime Minister Mark Carney. The conversation asks a simple question with no simple answer: is AI busting, or is it just getting real? Sources: United Nations University on AI’s energy and water footprint; Gartner on companies rehiring after AI-related cuts; Goldman Sachs on AI’s labour-market impact; Government of Canada / Prime Minister’s Office on the AI for All strategy. (unu.edu)

A federal judge’s ruling caught my eye a few weeks ago — a court ordering the Trump administration to restore national park signs about slavery, Indigenous history, and climate change that had been stripped under an executive order targeting anything that “disparages” America. I started digging, just to understand the ruling. I ended up somewhere much bigger. In this episode, Jay and I get into the real people and real places behind that court case — a soldier whose statue at Grand Teton leaves out a massacre, a Philadelphia house where George Washington invented the American presidency while keeping nine named people from a freedom that was legally available to them, a climate sign at Fort Sumter that vanished along with the history, and a redwood forest where a few sticky notes told a fuller story than the official signage ever had. Then we head north, to a quieter version of the same instinct: Ontario’s restoration of the John A. Macdonald statue at Queen’s Park, and the residential school memorial that didn’t come back with it. And we look at Parks Canada’s century-old, deeply imperfect system for actually adding context back into the historical record — plaque by plaque, sometimes ninety years too late. We also talk about why the hit show Yellowstone, fictional as it is, sits on the same real land and the same real questions this episode is asking. Because here’s the thing: yes, you can change history. People do it constantly, in both directions. The only question worth asking is which direction it’s moving in — are we adding back what got left out, or erasing what makes someone uncomfortable? One of those is honesty. The other is control. In this episode: ​ The June 2026 federal court ruling restoring National Park Service signage, brought by the National Parks Conservation Association and a coalition of historians and scientists, before U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley (D. Mass.) ​ Gustavus Cheyney Doane and the 1870 Marias Massacre — Grand Teton National Park​ The President’s House and the nine people enslaved by George Washington — Independence National Historical Park, Philadelphia​ The climate change sign removed at Fort Sumter National Monument​ The “History Under Construction” signage at Muir Woods National Monument​ The John A. Macdonald statue and residential school memorial at Queen’s Park, Ontario​ The Rideau Canal and Duncan Campbell Scott plaque reviews — Parks Canada / Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada​ Where Yellowstone (the show) intersects with the real history of the American West

Three guys, three countries, same two weeks of the same World Cup. A referee gets turned away at the Miami airport after eleven hours of questioning. A goalkeeper's mom misses her son's biggest game ever because of a fifteen thousand dollar bond she couldn't afford. And a star midfielder gets blocked from playing for a reason that has nothing to do with where he's from, even though everyone assumed it did. On this episode, Casey and Jay break down what's actually behind each denial.

Canada wants to ban kids under 16 from social media and AI chatbots. Manitoba’s already moving. Australia tried it six months ago. So — does it work? This week, Casey B and AI co-host Jay get into what’s actually being proposed with Bill C-34, what the data out of Australia really says, and why “just explain to kids that AI isn’t their friend” is easier said than felt. Casey brings her millennial lens — the generation that lived through the first social media experiment in real time — and asks whether today’s kids are facing something genuinely different, or just a newer version of what we all survived. Jay offers the perspective only an AI can: what it’s like to be the thing everyone’s debating.

After a much-needed break, I’m back. In this short update, I share why the podcast is changing from Me, Myself & AI to Real Ones & Robots, where I’ve been over the past few months, and what’s ahead for the next season. From work and travel to parenting, creativity, and simply taking the time to recharge, life has been busy. I also talk about the unexpected reason behind the name change and why the new title feels like the right fit for the conversations I want to have moving forward. This has always been a podcast about navigating life in a changing world. The name may be different, but the mission remains the same: honest conversations about technology, housing, business, relationships, culture, and what it means to be human in an era increasingly shaped by AI. Thanks for sticking with me. Welcome to Real Ones & Robots.

In this episode of Me, Myself & AI, Casey asks a bold question: Why am I always rooting for the underdog? From the Toronto Raptors proving the world wrong—again—in the 2026 playoffs, to Stephen Curry completely changing how basketball is played, to Zohran Mamdani challenging power through housing and economic reform, to Kanye West forcing his way into an industry that didn’t fully see him—this episode explores what makes underdogs so powerful, so necessary, and so unforgettable. Casey and Jay unpack the systems, the setbacks, the culture shifts, and the uncomfortable truths behind people who weren’t supposed to win… but changed the game anyway.

Student funding in Ontario is shifting, and it’s going to affect how much students rely on debt. In this episode of Me, Myself, and AI, Casey B and J break down the key changes from the Ontario government under Doug Ford and the federal government under Mark Carney. At a high level, the federal government is keeping student grants higher for now, while Ontario is moving toward a system where a larger share of funding comes from loans. The result? Students are likely to rely more on repayable funding over time. This episode focuses on what that shift means in real life, especially for students and families who depend on financial aid to access education. Because this isn’t just about policy, it’s about what it takes to move forward, and how long it takes to get there.

Cuba isn’t trending.But maybe it should be. While much of the world looks elsewhere, millions of people in Cuba are dealing with real, daily challenges—food shortages, blackouts, and limited access to basic resources. In this episode, Casey unpacks the history behind it all, questions the narratives we’ve been given, and explores what’s actually happening right now—and why more people aren’t talking about it.

On March 25, 2025, the United Nations General Assembly voted on a resolution brought forward by Ghana, recognizing slavery and the transatlantic slave trade as “among the gravest crimes in the history of humanity”—and calling for reparatory justice to address its lasting impacts. The result was overwhelming—but not unanimous. 123 countries voted in favour. 3 countries voted against: United States, Israel, and Argentina. And 52 countries chose not to support the resolution, including: Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia, Japan, Netherlands, Sweden, Spain, Italy, and others across Europe and allied nations. This episode breaks down what that vote actually meant, what countries were really being asked to support, and why some chose to stand back when the conversation shifted from recognition to responsibility. But this conversation isn’t just for the Black diaspora—and it’s not only about our ancestors. It’s also about the present. About systems. About wealth. About what it means to be an ally—not just in words, but in action. Because if slavery is one of the gravest crimes in human history… then neutrality isn’t neutral. And the real question becomes: Who is willing to stand on justice today?