Sick of the System: Critical Reflections Amidst Covid

Michael Ma has been a member of the Criminology Department since 2010 and enjoys teaching courses on human rights and anti-racism. His research focuses on social justice and community advocacy. In the last few years, he has been examining illicit drug use and the issues that it raises. A member of the editorial board for Between the Lines Press, Mike was involved in the book publication Sick of the System: Why the Covid-19 Recovery Must Be Revolutionary, which was published in early May 2020, making it one of the first scholarly book publications to address the societal impacts of the pandemic. In a review of the book for Quill & Quire, Matthew Behrens describes the essays as “open[ing] a timely door to fruitful and reflective discussion about the uncertainty and instability of what may well be a prolonged period of crisis.”

You serve on the editorial committee for Between the Lines Press (BTL), which publishes “non-fiction books that expose and challenge oppression in our society.”  How did you first become involved with BTL and what do you enjoy most about editorial projects?

I was involved with lots of community organizing and community activism when I was living in Toronto many years ago. The BTL editorial board was looking for community members like myself who had an interest in helping out with editorial decisions. That is how I got involved. And now, many years later, I’m still at it! Who would have thought?

The thing I like the most about being on the editorial committee is reading the book proposals and manuscripts, and then discussing these with everyone else on the committee. I love getting a chance to see all the different works-in-progress that are thrown our way, and then helping to vet the best manuscripts. It is really great when you see the books published a few years later. I usually forget about a manuscript because it takes about two years for something to come out after we make a decision. So sometimes it is a bit of a surprise when you see the book. Sometimes, it has a new title (a better one than the working title), and a cool cover. And then you hold it in your hand and say: “Oh, yeah, I remember this… This looks amazing!” That is the thing I like the most.

However much we think capital is sedimented and congealed in the unequal and unfair social relations that dominate the current age, all is not completely settled or closed off. The virus has definitely shaken things up.

Michael Ma, Criminology Department

This spring, BTL published the edited collection Sick of System: Why the Covid-19 Recovery Must Be Revolutionary, an  essay anthology that “delivers a stinging rebuke of the pre-pandemic status quo and a stark exposé of the buried weaknesses in our social and political systems.”  When you reflect on the book, what do you see as major and/or unexpected drivers of social change in a post-pandemic world as explored by the book’s contributors? 

Hmmm… that is a hard question. I’m not sure because each chapter is pretty unique in the way the authors address how the virus is affecting different segments or aspects of society. I’m a little allergic to the question because it suggests the book reveals some hidden truth about the pandemic. But I think if there is one unexpected driver – that might be found in the thrust of the collection – then I’d have to say it is this: however much we think capital is sedimented and congealed in the unequal and unfair social relations that dominate the current age, all is not completely settled or closed off. The virus has definitely shaken things up. That is, on the one hand, I think the collection wants to suggest that there is the possibility of resistance to the everyday violence of capital and the different harmful social practices that go with it, but on the other hand, I think the collection also shows us that it is hard to organize during a pandemic. It is hard to resist the state because we crave the state to step in to save us, but we also want to resist it – as Alberto Toscano argues in the last chapter.

And in terms of my own reflection and feeble attempts at activism during Covid, I feel that it is almost impossible to organize resistance through Zoom meetings and attending virtual meetings. It sometimes feels like spinning wheels. The contradictions of capital (e.g. poverty) are more clearly revealed, but exposure – it seems – does little to change any of those relations.

Sick of the System was published early on during the Covid outbreak in North America.  How did BTL manage to publish the book so quickly, and what challenges and opportunities did Covid pose for this book project?

BTL was able to get the first collection out before any other publishers because we are amazing! Just kidding. I do think we were able to get it out because at BTL we have no owners and no bosses. We are collectively run by employees and volunteers like me. The editorial committee all pitched in to edit a chapter or two, and we just did it. Our managing editor, Amanda Crocker, was amazing at organizing us (like herding cats), and we all stuck to these crazy-firm deadlines. Some of us undertook the outreach and emailed people we wanted to contribute to the collection. Amanda did much of this heavy lifting. I distinctly remember authors had one or two weeks to write, and then we had a week to edit, and then we were going to publish! It was nuts. No one in publishing does this!!! In hindsight, it should not have worked. But somehow with the early onset of the pandemic, I think many of us (authors, staff, editorial board) were stuck at home, and we still had energy – unlike now when we are all pretty much worn down. That is how the book was completed so quickly: we exploited the energy of the early lockdown. And of course, I think we knew something unique was happening, and we wanted to have smart people share their thoughts regarding this global pandemic that we were all experiencing.  The contributors offered their insight and critique. It was also like creating a time-capsule of the early pandemic and the way people were envisioning, resisting, and experiencing the change.

Since the book was published, you have been conducting video interviews with the contributors and posting these on YouTube.  What was the impetus behind these interviews, and what have you learned as an editor-reader by engaging in these conversations?  Has anything surprised you, or made you look at the collection in new ways?

I just love talking to people and getting their voices, their thoughts, their inflections out there through recorded interviews. When people speak their thoughts it has this other embodied effect. And that is powerful and interesting for viewers. For many years with just my phone, I have been doing short video interviews with authors, activists, public speakers, etc., and so it was a natural pivot to do these over the internet on Zoom instead of face to face. I already had some experience getting people to tell their stories, so it was not hard. In terms of what I’ve learned, I think I have learned that when you ask people, “What is the main takeaway?”, it puts them on the spot and when they have to explain it and verbally articulate something they wrote down it makes them clarify their thoughts. And that is something I really like. I love to clarify thinking, and in this sense I really see the conversations as adding real value to the collection.

Are you using Sick of System and the YouTube interviews in your Criminology courses, and if so, what has the response been from KPU students? 

Yes! As I was trying to figure out how I was going to teach in September 2020, I instantly knew I wanted to adopt and adapt the collection for teaching. That propelled me to do the interview/conversations because I knew it would really benefit students to see and hear the authors they are reading. I think the response has really been great. I had optional video conferences – via Big Blue Button – each week, and students really liked being able to see and hear the authors in these interviews. Like all video, it brings the person and their ideas to life; it makes the author into a real flesh and blood person. It is kind of like having the author become the guest speaker for each week. And given the limitations of online teaching, I do believe having an asynchronous guest speaker each week via recorded video is ideal for the students within this stressful and uncertain online learning environment. 

Is Sick of the System being taught at any other universities?

Yes, the interviews will be used by one of the authors, Anita Girvan, for her own teaching in Spring 2021 at Athabasca University. But I’m not sure the whole collection has been adopted by others. Since the book can be readily downloaded for free, any of the chapters can easily be used for teaching. Another innovation of the collection is that the book is sold as “pay what you can.” As far as I know, no Canadian publisher has ever used this pay method for distributing their books! We may be the first. We also donate all the profits from the book to a migrant workers’ organization. It was not a fundraiser per say, but we also didn’t want to “profit” from the pandemic.

Do you have plans to pursue additional research and publications related to Covid?

Yes, kind of. I helped design a survey of student substance use before the pandemic happened, and now I’ll be able to conduct it online instead of in person during Covid. In the survey, I have included the simple question: “Has your use of substances increased, decreased, or remained the same during Covid?” So, the results should be interesting. I have also been very interested in the question of how to reallocate police resources to other community and/or social services to better serve the needs of the public. It is a question that has been popularized by Black Lives Matter and anti-racist activism. So, yes, my research is kind of, but in a very minor way, linked to Covid. But like most KPU instructors, I’m just trying to survive and figure out how to invent better “instructor-centered teaching” and not “student-centered learning” because I think I over-compensated this semester and I’m drowning in grading and assessments! We over-compensated for the loss of face-to-face teaching, and I think my real research plans are to figure out how to not – as they say – work harder, but to “work smarter.”