German experience in Australia during WW1 damaged road to multiculturalism

2015/04/23 Leave a comment

Australia’s wartime internment and related measures in relation to the German Australian community.

In comparison, Canada had just over 8,500 internees, 5,000 of which were Ukrainian origin, 2,000 German origin. But Canada did not expel them after the war unlike Australia (or unlike many Japanese Canadians ‘encouraged’ to return to Japan following their internment during WW II):

In total, 6890 persons were interned in Australia during the war, including 67 women and 84 children. Despite the official designation “prisoners of war” given to them by the Commonwealth authorities, the internees were mostly civilian Australian residents. They included approximately 700 “naturalised British subjects” and some 70 “native-born British subjects” who were Australian by birth, sometimes second- or even third-generation Australians of German ancestry.

At the end of the war, a total of 6150 persons were “repatriated” – that is, summarily shipped to Germany: a mass deportation unparalleled in Australian history. Of these, 5414 had been interned, the others were family members or non-interned “ex-enemy aliens” who either accepted the government’s offer to be repatriated or were ordered to leave the country.

Six hundred and ninety-nine people were compulsorily deported. The internees who had been brought to Australia from British dominions overseas were not allowed to return to their previous places of residence. They were all summarily deported.

Most of the internees consented to leave Australia voluntarily. They were convinced that there was no future for them in a country that had robbed them of their rights and freedom. A few protested and appealed to stay, only to be rejected by the Aliens Tribunal that had been set up by the Department of Defence.

The tribunal, consisting of a single magistrate, rubber-stamped the applications according to the guidelines issued by the government. As a rule, businessmen and importers were to be deported, while farmers – who were said to “have shown themselves of less potential danger than the German businessman” – were allowed to stay, unless there were unspecified “special reasons”.

Workingmen were to be deported “if there seems to be any doubt of their obtaining regular employment” after the war. Here, as elsewhere, the official language with its curious linguistic construction – that is, some individuals had shown themselves to be less potentially dangerous – reveals the real political motivation hiding behind the bureaucratic rhetoric.

German experience in Australia during WW1 damaged road to multiculturalism.

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George Takei And Company To Hollywood Gatekeepers: Fix Your Diversity Problem

2015/04/22 Leave a comment

More on the lack of diversity in Hollywood:

Remember that Deadline article from a few weeks back? In which the writer pointed out that Hollywood is diversifying — and claimed that’s a bad thing?

At least one good thing may come of it:

A media coalition of multi-ethnic Hollywood watchdogs — including the American Indians in Film and Television, Asian Pacific American Media Coalition, NAACP Hollywood Bureau and National Hispanic Media Coalition — is calling on the industry’s talent agencies to meet with the coalition and talk about how to inject more color into their lineups, not less.

“Although the major talent agencies are located in Los Angeles, the most diverse city in the world, they seem largely unaware of the amazing talent that exists in communities right under their noses,” actor and activist George Takei said in the group’s press release. “They should partner with these coalitions for their mutual benefit: more representation and jobs for Asian American and other actors of color, and more dollars for the agencies.”

A recent report from the University of California, Los Angeles, found that the majority-white lineup of Hollywood’s most elite talent agencies is where the industry’s lack of diversity comes from.

“Despite modest gains in a few areas, minority talent remained underrepresented on every front at the dominant agencies,” the researchers wrote. In 2013, for instance, ethnic minorities made up about 40 percent of the U.S. population, but accounted for only 17 percent of film roles.

These agencies control the playing field, reports Dennis Romero for the LA Weekly. “They send out agency-approved lists of directors and talent. They ‘package’ deals with studios that bring pre-selected producers, directors and leading actors to the table. And they foster rising stars. From what we’ve been told, none of those pursuits includes many people of color.”

The conversation rages on, but it’s worth noting that we’ve been here before. Earlier this month, Code Switch’s Gene Demby wrote that “this isn’t the first time prime-time TV has gone through a wave of brownification; in fact, network TV was way, way browner 20 years ago than it is today.”

George Takei And Company To Hollywood Gatekeepers: Fix Your Diversity Problem : Code Switch : NPR.

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The CIA’s Latest Mission: Improving Diversity

2015/04/22 Leave a comment

Not surprising that the CIA understands the need for greater diversity of perspectives:

Like workplaces across the country, the CIA is striving to improve the diversity of its staff. And just like other companies, the agency nicknamed The Company has found that progress comes in fits and starts.

In interviews with more than a dozen black officers, TIME found that while the CIA has made diversity a top priority, it still struggles to recruit African-Americans and promote them to higher positions.

Diversity is not just important for its own sake. As an intelligence agency, the CIA lives and dies on its ability to interpret complex data about foreign countries. Black agents noted multiple times when their unique perspective as a minority within the United States led them to a breakthrough in understanding a foreign conflict.

The agency’s top leaders agree.

“Diversity is critical to the success of CIA’s mission. We need a workforce as diverse as the world we cover,” CIA Director John Brennan said in a statement to TIME. “CIA has come a long way in broadening the demographic of its senior ranks, but we still have significant work to do.”

To that end, Brennan launched the Diversity in Leadership Study to examine the current demographics of the agency’s senior ranks. A similar study on women, who make up 46% of the CIA workforce, was released in 2013.

A key part of the study, which is being directed by famed lawyer and civil rights activist Vernon Jordan, will be recommendations on how to better foster an environment where people from all backgrounds can rise to the top.

The CIA’s Latest Mission: Improving Diversity | TIME.

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The Facts on Women in Science Show Why We Don’t Need the Diversity Bureaucracy

2015/04/22 Leave a comment

While the study results are convincing, the policy conclusions less so. Other studies have shown gender and racial bias (Sex differences in academia: University challenge | The Economist) in academia:

The result of this study, authored by Cornell psychologists Wendy Williams and Stephen Ceci, and published April 13 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is hardly surprising. Since the 1980s, females have been interviewed and hired at a higher rate than their representation in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) applicant pool would predict, as documented by the National Research Council and other investigators. Pressure from campus administrators to hire a female candidate over a more qualified male peer is relentless and overwhelming. If a STEM faculty resists that pressure and hires the most qualified candidate regardless of his gender, the administrators may force the obstreperous department to hire an additional woman anyway.

Yet the myth of a sexist science hiring process has persisted, even though it is contradicted every day by the observable characteristics of faculty searches. And that myth has given rise to a stupendously expensive campus bureaucracy tasked with increasing diversity and combating alleged faculty bias. Last month, the University of California at Los Angeles hired its first vice chancellor for equity, diversity, and inclusion at the jaw-dropping salary of $354,900 — enough to cover the tuition of nearly 30 underprivileged students a year. That vice chancellor will be expected to ride herd on the faculty and make sure that it hires according to gender (and race). The Berkeley, San Francisco, and San Diego campuses of the University of California have long had their own vice chancellors for equity, diversity, and inclusion at salaries ranging from a “mere” quarter million to nearly three hundred thousand dollars a year. Each such vice chancellor presides over a princely realm of bureaucrats, all sucking up vast amounts of taxpayer and student tuition dollars.

Private universities are just as committed to the myth of faculty bias. Harvard created the position of senior vice provost for diversity and faculty development in 2005. That senior vice provost reviews faculty appointments to ensure that they contribute to “diversity in faculty ranks across the University” — in other words, that new hires be selected on the basis of gender and race, not their academic accomplishments.

The university should be the one place where reason and evidence rule. For years it has been apparent that hiring bias runs in favor of women, not against them. It’s time to shut down the costly diversity bureaucracy and allow faculty to hire on merit alone.

The Facts on Women in Science Show Why We Don’t Need the Diversity Bureaucracy | TIME.

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Spymaster warns foreign fighter phenomenon getting worse

2015/04/22 Leave a comment

Despite the political level over-hyping and using extremism as a wedge issue, the risks remain:

Authorities have multiple concerns about the “foreign-fighter” phenomenon. One is that young Canadian Muslims and new converts travelling to combat zones in Iraq and Syria are engaging in terrorism by supporting the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Those who survive and return to Canada as trained terrorist fighters present a greater danger. Authorities especially fear the longer-term cumulative effect the foreign-fighter phenomenon could have on domestic safety and security.

As well, individuals police and other authorities prevented from leaving the country for the purpose of terrorism, which is now illegal in Canada, might react violently on Canadian soil.

That was the case Oct. 20, when Martin Couture-Rouleau struck and killed Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent with a car in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que. Couture-Rouleau was one of the 90 people on the RCMP’s watchlist of radicalized, high-risk individuals. Police tried and failed to restrict his movements by seeking a court-ordered peace bond. But a Quebec prosecutor believed there was insufficient evidence to take the case before a judge.

Meanwhile, Coulombe singled out to the committee what he said are two common misconceptions about CSIS and its proposed powers under C-51:

First, giving CSIS disruption power will not take away any authority from the RCMP to launch criminal investigations and prosecutions, he said. “The bill will not make CSIS a secret police force. CSIS is not a law enforcement agency, and this bill will not change that, nor confer any law enforcement powers to the service.”

Second, the bill will not increase CSIS’s ability – or desire – to target environmentalists or other activist groups, he suggested. Under the 31-year-old CSIS Act, which remains unchanged under C-51, the definition of threats to the security of Canada excludes lawful advocacy, protest and dissent, he stressed.

However, with respect to C-51, it may be time for a Reagan (recycled Russian) quote “trust but verify” rather than reassurances from the bureaucratic level (or the political level).

To be reframed: “trust with oversight.”

 Spymaster warns foreign fighter phenomenon getting worse | Ottawa Citizen.

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Inside Indonesia’s Islamic Boarding School for Transgender People

2015/04/22 Leave a comment

Reminder of the diversity among Islamic countries:

When Shinta Ratri visits her family in Yogyakarta, the Indonesian city where she still lives, she sits outside her family’s home and waits. She hasn’t been allowed inside since she was 16, when as a young boy she told her family she identified as a girl.

Today, Shinta, 53, is one of the leading transgender activists in the country. She runs Pondok Pesantren Waria, an Islamic boarding school for Indonesia’s so-called waria, a portmanteau of the Indonesian words for woman (wanita) and man (pria). The school, in Shinta’s own home in Yogyakarta on the island of Java, provides a tight-knit community for transgender women from across the country who may face discrimination at home.

“They come to Yogyakarta just because they know about this school,” says Fulvio Bugani, an Italian photographer who spent nearly three weeks living with the waria community at the school. “They know that there they can pray and live like a woman in a good atmosphere.”

Bugani’s powerful images depict the daily lives of the school’s diverse waria community, and one of his shots was awarded third prize in the World Press Photo’s Contemporary Issues category this year.

About 10 women live at the school, according to Bugani, though the numbers fluctuate. Many of them make a living as sex workers or street performers, unable to find work in other areas, but the school offers a comfortable environment where, Bugani says, they can be themselves.

It also provides a unique place for the waria to pray. In Indonesia, the country with the world’s largest Muslim population, mosques are typically segregated by gender and the transgender women are reluctant to join or barred from participating in either group. But Shinta has ensured that the women can pray together at the school.

“She is very proud to be a woman and also to be a Muslim,” Bugani says. “She wants to help the other waria to become like her.”

Inside Indonesia’s Islamic Boarding School for Transgender People | TIME.

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See Priya Cook: Gender Bias Pervades Textbooks Worldwide : Goats and Soda : NPR

2015/04/21 Leave a comment

Not terribly surprising that textbooks in many countries reflect cultures and biases:

“If aliens beamed onto Earth and read our school textbooks, they wouldn’t have a clue about what women contribute to our society,” says Rae Blumberg, a sociologist at the University of Virginia.

Blumberg has spent years looking at textbooks from all over the world. In almost every country she has studied, women are either completely written out of texts — or they’re portrayed in stereotypical, often subservient roles.

Take for instance, a history and geography book for third graders used in West Bengal, India. The book doesn’t show or mention any career women. It only depicts women cooking for men, serving men or caring for children.

An English language textbook used throughout Kenya looks similar. Children read about women and girls in the domestic realm: “My mother’s cooking pot has a lid,” and “Jane should plait the doll’s hair herself.” But children read about how men and boys take action: “Mr. Momanyi drives the bus,” and “His idea is an interesting one.”

“What we see is that the boys are being described as daring and brave and kind and intelligent,” Blumberg says. “And they’re doing things. They’re taking action. The girls are essentially nonentities.”

…”It seems like a small thing,” she says. “But a bunch of studies show that when girls don’t see themselves in textbooks, they’re less likely to envision themselves doing great things.”

In an Israeli study, for instance, first graders who used readers that portray men and women as equals tended to think that most careers and activities were appropriate for both girls and boys. In contrast, students who used textbooks that portray gender stereotypes tended to believe and accept the stereotypes.

…Some countries have made efforts to fix gender biases in school books, she says. “In Sweden these days, if you see a children’s book with a picture of someone cooking or cleaning, it’s more likely to be a boy,” Blumberg says.

When in high school some 30 years ago, a bunch of us wrote a study on how girls and women were portrayed in high school texts along with other examples of sexism (Is Anybody Out There Listening? a Study of Sexism in a Sceondary School, published in 1976 by the Ontario Status of Women Council).

If memory serves me correctly, the science textbooks were particularly egregious, as was the fact that the girls’ gym was far smaller than the boys’ gym.

See Priya Cook: Gender Bias Pervades Textbooks Worldwide : Goats and Soda : NPR.

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Toronto: The Downton Abbey of Canada?

2015/04/21 2 Comments

More on the working poor in Toronto (great media line):

“Canada’s two richest cities are becoming giant modern-day Downton Abbeys where a well-to-do knowledge class relies on a large cadre of working poor who pour their coffee, serve their food, clean their offices, and relay their messages from one office to another,” it says, referring to the popular British TV drama about an aristocratic family and their servants.

Knowledge workers include senior managers and professionals in business, finance, government, law, education, health care, media, arts, sports and entertainment.

The report is an update of Stapleton’s landmark 2012 research, which showed Toronto’s working poor grew by a staggering 42 per cent in the first five years of the millennium. (Although this earlier work was based on the long-form census, which no longer exists, Stapleton has used Statistics Canada tax filer data to replicate his 2012 findings and inform his latest report.)

He defines the working poor as non-students between the ages of 18 and 65, living independently, earning more than $3,000 but less than the low income measure (LIM), defined as 50 per cent of the median income.

By that measure, a single person in 2011 with annual earnings of less than $19,930, after taxes and government transfers, was considered working poor. In today’s dollars, it would be about $20,800. For a family of four, it would be just over $41,600.

The “good news,” Stapleton says, is that the rate of increase in working poverty in Toronto has slowed from a decade ago.

But despite an improving economy, increases to the minimum wage and new income supports such as the federal Working Income Tax Benefit, Universal Child Care Benefit and Ontario Child Benefit, working poverty in the city continues to climb.

In the city of Toronto, where almost 11 per cent, or 142,000 adults, are living in working poor households, working poverty is concentrated in the inner suburbs of North York (13 per cent) Scarborough (12 per cent) and York (10 per cent).

It has also begun to spill into York and Peel regions where the cities of Markham and Brampton lead with working poverty rates of 10.2 per cent and 9.6 per cent respectively, according to the report.

“For the first time, working poverty is growing faster in the outer suburbs like Markham, Brampton and Richmond Hill compared to south of Steeles Ave.,” Stapleton says. It grew in Markham by 26 per cent, in Brampton by 22 per cent and in Richmond Hill by 21 per cent, he notes.

Although more research is needed to fully explain this phenomenon, Stapleton suspects it is largely because housing in the city of Toronto is becoming too expensive for low-wage workers.

Needless to say, given Toronto’s diversity, this correlates with visible minorities (median incomes of first generation and many second generation immigrants are lower than non-visible minorities).

Toronto: The Downton Abbey of Canada? | Toronto Star.

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Silence of the charities – Renzetti

2015/04/21 Leave a comment

Elizabeth Renzetti on what appears to be selective criteria in CRA charity audits:

If you look at the 52 groups that have been targeted for audits since the Harper government’s 2012 crackdown on political activity by charities, it’s not hard to see what joins them: advocacy of causes that the Conservative government thinks are, by its own admission, “radical.” I don’t actually know the full list, because it’s not been revealed, but last year the CBC revealed the names of seven environmental charities, including the David Suzuki Foundation and Tides Canada. The free-speech group PEN Canada and human-rights advocates Amnesty International were also targeted. Some 400 academics signed a letter denouncing the audit into the political activities of the progressive think tank Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

The CRA swears up and down that there is no political motivation to the audits, but how is the public to know? The agency doesn’t reveal who is the target of its audits, nor how they’re prepared. Charities live in fear of catching the eye of Sauron.

“Among environmental groups right now there’s a broad reluctance to speak out,” says Calvin Sandborn, director of the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre. “It’s kind of like in Nixon’s America where you didn’t want to be the enemy that he’d sic the IRS on.”

The law students working with Prof. Sandborn recently released a report on the troubling legal underpinnings of the current audit system, and its need for reform. (Mr. Harper’s government may not have been the first to target charities, but it was certainly one of the more vehement, setting aside $13.4-million for audits shortly after adding “environmentalists” to the roster of threats Canada faces.)

Canada’s charities are hobbled in a bunch of ways, the report found. The CRA’s rules around what constitutes “political activity” are murky and confusing; there is little transparency about how those rules are applied; charities subject to audit often have to spend precious resources putting together documents for auditors and providing legal training for staff; and most important, many charities are self-censoring for fear of breaching the 10 per cent rule and facing shutdown by the CRA.

Although the report does not come to any conclusions about whether the current spate of audits are politically motivated, it does find the threat alone has a sinister chilling effect: “The important thing is that the audits themselves – and the mere perception that they may be targeted – are clearly silencing charities that have much to offer society.”

Other countries around the world don’t hobble the political advocacy of their charities the way Canada does. In some countries, like the Netherlands, lobbying by charities is encouraged. In others, like England, the body that oversees charities is an independent entity at arm’s length from government (in Canada, the CRA falls under the remit of the Minister of Revenue.) In the U.S., charities that spend too much on political activities (already set at a far more generous level than here) are taxed rather than shut down.

Silence of the charities – The Globe and Mail.

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Stephen Maher: Can you remind us how you care about your opponents’ rights too, Mr. Harper?

2015/04/21 Leave a comment

Seems like an audit of the Church’s charitable status seems in order 🙂

It seems likely the P.E.I. church is secretly doing its last-minute cancellations of Liberal events to get revenge on the party for Trudeau’s abortion policy.

I hope that’s what they’re up to, because the alternative — that they are telling the truth — is chilling.

Grecco said the church is afraid that if it allows Liberals to hold events in its halls, the church could have to face auditors. [the Church seems not to fear repercussions from holding Conservative events]

“That would jeopardize our standing as a charitable status with the (Canada Revenue Agency),” Grecco said.

That seems like a weak excuse from an organization trying to avoid the truth, but who knows?

In 2012, the CRA threatened to take away the tax-free status of a magazine published by the Mennonites because they published some editorials that were critical of Harper’s wise environmental stewardship.

The CRA’s political auditors have also taken a hard line with the Kairos church charity, various anti-pipeline groups and, of course, the David Suzuki Foundation.

They even targeted Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont., bird watchers who were unwise enough to criticize the environmental policy of Conservatives in their bird-watching circulars.

Is it possible that some of the prime minister’s auditors in the CRA have been excessively zealous in carrying out the leader’s wishes, to the point they are frightening churches into cancelling events from opposition parties?

The idea is ridiculous.

We can be sure Harper wants church halls to open their doors to events for all parties, because he supports the fundamental democratic rights of all Canadians.

It’s absurd to think, as the Harper haters would have you believe, that he doesn’t care about the rights of those who disagree with him.

Still, maybe he should say so from time to time, just to make it crystal clear.

Stephen Maher: Can you remind us how you care about your opponents’ rights too, Mr. Harper? | National Post.

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