How Angus Reid, CBC got it wrong about multiculturalism: Jedwab

2016/10/14 3 Comments

While I don’t have polling expertise, Jack makes valid points regarding the survey and the presenting of false dichotomies:

According to respected pollster Angus Reid, Canadians aren’t as accepting of cultural difference as they think. That’s probably right.

Unfortunately, the observation is based on a misleading question from a survey that the Angus Reid Institute did in partnership with the CBC. Released during the first week of October, the Angus Reid-CBC survey revealed that “by a factor of almost two-to-one, Canadians say they would prefer that minorities do more to fit in with mainstream Canada, rather than encourage cultural diversity in which groups keep their own customs and language.”

Reid construes this finding as a barometer of support for multiculturalism, which he states was stronger when he asked a similar question some 25 years ago.

Reid’s formulation implies that by maintaining one’s customs and language, newcomers and their children won’t fit in to the undefined mainstream to which the survey question alludes. The survey creates additional confusion by referring to minorities in one proposed response and immigrants in the other.

Canadian multiculturalism doesn’t force newcomers to make the stark choice served up to respondents in the Reid survey. Indeed, the manner in which the policy and practice of multiculturalism is conveyed by the government of Canada suggests there is no contradiction between preserving one’s language and customs and fitting into society.

According to the government of Canada “multiculturalism ensures that all citizens can keep their identities, can take pride in their ancestry and have a sense of belonging … through multiculturalism, Canada recognizes the potential of all Canadians, encouraging them to integrate into their society and take an active part in its social, cultural, economic and political affairs. Multiculturalism has led to higher rates of naturalization than ever before. With no pressure to assimilate and give up their culture, immigrants freely choose their new citizenship because they want to be Canadians.”

In other words, someone can preserve their Jewish heritage or celebrate Chinese New Year or speak Arabic with friends at work and still be a full participant in the so-called Canadian mainstream. Certainly our mainstream(s) is diverse and the term is left open to quite broad interpretation. The survey creates far more confusion about newcomer adjustment to Canada that it offers meaningful insights about Canadian views on the process.

The survey results that purport to be about multiculturalism are used by Reid to construct what is referred to as an index of Canadian values. One might deduce from the results that multiculturalism is not a value to which the majority of Canadians adhere. But that conclusion simply cannot be drawn on the basis of the question.

A 2013 Statistics Canada survey of 27,000 Canadians found to a great and moderate extent, 88 per cent of respondents felt ethnic and cultural diversity was a shared Canadian value.

Other questions in the Angus Reid-CBC survey that seek to gauge Canadian values are also awkwardly formulated and thereby lead to yet other unwarranted conclusions.

When it comes to secularism, the Angus Reid-CBC survey asks Canadians whether they prefer “Keeping God and religion completely out of public life” or “publicly celebrating the role of faith in our collective lives.”

Faced with another stark choice, unsurprisingly, most respondents opt for keeping religion out of public life. There is, however, a large grey area between the two visions that Canadians are not permitted to choose.

Wearing a hijab, turban or keepa at work should not be construed as a “public celebration of faith.” By providing no concrete example of what is meant by a “public celebration of faith” Reid leaves the impression most Canadians believe there should be no room whatsoever for religion in the public space. That is certainly not the view of most Canadians.

Multiculturalism and the place of religion in society remain the object of important public debate and it is vital that underlying issues be clearly explained to the population to enable them to make informed decisions. Regrettably, the survey results provided by the Angus Reid Institute and CBC do not move us closer to this objective.

Source: How Angus Reid, CBC got it wrong about multiculturalism | Toronto Star

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USA: Why did DHS mistakenly grant 858 immigrants citizenship? – Lawstreet

2016/10/14 Leave a comment

Analysis of DHS’ mistaken granting of citizenship, identifying the main failure as lack of coordinated, consistent and digitized fingerprinting for identification purposes:

Immigration is consistently ranked as one of the top concerns for American voters every election year. After the failed Gang of Eight immigration reform bill, the attempt at reaching consensus on immigration has fizzled. Both sides of the debate have become more partisan in nature, making it very difficult to strike a deal and get a bill passed through Congress. Donald Trump started off his presidential race with a pitch accusing Mexican immigrants of bringing drugs into the country, whereas Democrats are pointing out that illegal immigration amounts to millions of individuals just overstaying their visas.

No matter the root cause of a broken immigration system, one thing that can always streamline the process of admitting new immigrants is by having a uniform background check system that is archived online for easy access. Currently, ICE checks fingerprints through two systems: the FBI’s Integrated Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) and the DHS Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT). Although an agency may have different reasons for checking a fingerprint file, the archive has to be universal so as to make a search as efficient as possible.

Immigrants make up 13 percent of the total U.S. population as of 2014, according to the Migration Policy Institute, and that percentage only continues to grow. Critics point out that if the issue with immigration is that there are too many people who are here illegally, and that is due to overstayed visas, it may be an administrative issue on the federal government’s end that needs to be resolved. One example is a gap in digitized information that the government needs to archive so that it is easier to catch immigrants that may be of higher concern for the country.

Additionally, calls for border security may be issued in spite of not knowing that our federal government has an administrative issue to resolve. For example, one common misconception is the idea that Mexican immigrants are overflowing our southern border. The Pew Research Center found that since 2014, Mexican immigrants are returning back to Mexico more than actually immigrating to the U.S.

Proponents of immigration point out that immigrants are a huge economic boon for the U. S. as well, and fixing our information gap can be a good way to streamline capturing immigrants with criminal records as opposed to rounding up hard-working families looking to achieve their American Dream. Of the more than 11 million unauthorized immigrants currently in the U.S., ICE has deported almost 178,000. ICE has also issued one million ‘detainer requests’ that ask local officials to detain and then transfer suspects to DHS custody. It is evident that our immigration officials are hard at work identifying individuals who are unauthorized to be in the U.S. and that our border is not as porous as some might believe.

CONCLUSION

The DHS was audited by its Inspector General, a routine check and balance on a federal agency tasked with enforcing the laws passed by Congress. John Roth, the Inspector General, has done a very good job identifying where DHS is lacking in terms of its ability to enforce our country’s immigration laws. If our executive agencies finish archiving fingerprint and other identification files, and streamline ways to access this information, we might have a shot at fixing our immigration system.

Source: Why did DHS mistakenly grant 858 immigrants citizenship?

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Born In The U.S., Raised In China: ‘Satellite Babies’ Have A Hard Time Coming Home : NPR

2016/10/14 Leave a comment

Another take on “anchor babies” from the perspective of the children and their families:

“Anytime you eat at a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, it’s likely that somebody in that restaurant has a child who is in China at the moment,” says Cindy Liu, a psychologist at Harvard University. She points out that no one knows exactly how many Chinese immigrant families send their babies to be raised by family in China.

That’s partly why she helped start a research project focusing on Chinese immigrants in the Boston area who are raising what some psychologists call “satellite babies.” Like satellites in space, these children leave from and return to the same spot.

You can find similar arrangements among immigrant communities from South Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, researchers say. The satellite babies of Chinese immigrants usually come back to the U.S. in time for school.

When Satellite Babies Go To School

For their study, Liu and her colleagues interviewed adults who were once satellite babies to try to track the long-term impacts of the experience. Researchers say there are benefits from spending your early years in another country, away from your birth parents. Many satellite babies are exposed to their immigrant parents’ mother tongues and often develop strong ties with their grandparents and other extended relatives.

While Liu says that separation between satellite babies and their biological parents does not necessarily harm their relationship, some teachers and principals in New York City, where researchers also see this phenomenon, say these children can sometimes show subtle signs of trauma.

“They’re always looking around to see who’s there with them,” says Principal Elizabeth Culkin of P.S. 176 in Brooklyn. “And they always need that sense of knowing where they are and who’s there to protect them.”

Five-year-old Vivien Huang reads a book in her kindergarten classroom. After being raised in China, her teacher says she’s eagerly learning English from picture books.

Jennifer Hsu/WNYC

Members of Culkin’s staff say sometimes these children may act out by pushing or shoving other students to get attention. There are, of course, language difficulties, and some children show signs of attachment disorders.

Source: Born In The U.S., Raised In China: ‘Satellite Babies’ Have A Hard Time Coming Home : NPR Ed : NPR

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Chris Alexander announces Tory leadership bid, wants Canada to boost immigration to 400,000 a year

2016/10/14 Leave a comment

Field is getting crowded and not sure the base will welcome such a large increase in immigration – or whether, given his record as former Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, he will have much credibility beyond:

Former immigration minister Chris Alexander has confirmed he plans to run for the Conservative leadership and that a key plank of his campaign will be a proposal to sharply increase the intake of immigrants to 400,000 every year, including 40,000 refugees, because “this is a core value for me and for Canada.”

Although not yet officially a candidate, the McGill and Oxford graduate said the paperwork would be completed within the next week or two. After that he intends to undertake a cross-country journey by car to the West Coast, “stopping in every place we can where we have an invitation, to speak with groups, large and small, of Conservatives and potential Conservatives.”

Alexander expressed concern about leadership hopeful Kelly Leitch’s controversial proposal to vet prospective immigrants and reject them if they did not share “Canadian values.”

“My question is,” Alexander said, “how does she propose to screen immigrants for Canadian values before they get here in a way that, A, we are not already doing, B, that is cost-effective and C, does not lead to more fraud and abuse? I don’t think any of those questions have been answered.”

The best way to safeguard the integrity of the system — which is expected to process about 300,000 immigrants this year — is to maintain the reforms undertaken by the Harper government, he said. They produced what he called “the best in class immigration system in the world. We are getting the most educated, the most proficient in English and French, and in terms of skills, the best immigrants we have ever gotten because we select on the basis of merit.”

Alexander and Leitch were both criticized during the 2015 election campaign for their part in announcing the creation of a barbaric practices tipline, widely denounced as an indication of intolerance in the Conservative party.

Alexander has since called the announcement “the wrong one for that time.” But he rejects the idea that the party is anti-immigrant.

“I think we are still a very pro-immigration party.” He reasoned that Canada needs more immigrants to replace retiring baby boomers and because immigrants are essential if the economy is to grow.

The Tories need to recapture “the middle ground” from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to regain power, Alexander said during an interview from his home in Ajax, Ont.

Source: Chris Alexander announces Tory leadership bid, wants Canada to boost immigration to 400,000 a year

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Citizenship applications plummet as fees soar

2016/10/13 Leave a comment

 citizenship-data-slides-2015-009My article in IRPP on the drop in citizenship applications following the steep increase of adult citizenship processing fees to $530 and the related Toronto Star article:

The impact of citizenship fees on naturalization 

Citizenship applications plummet as fees soar: The number of immigrants applying for citizenship has dropped significantly for the second year in a row after fees went up from $100 to $530.

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How to do an on-screen accent—and why it can be okay

2016/10/13 Leave a comment

Good interview with the lead actor of Kim’s Convenience, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee (we have seen the play but not yet the TV series):

As TV shows and films begin to reflect a wider, more diverse audience, it’s also opened the door for a tricky topic: an actor’s use of an accent. It can be off-putting to audiences unfamiliar with the accent—and it can be downright racist-feeling to the communities themselves, especially when the creator doesn’t have roots in the community, and the accent feels like a comical costume. (In the Chuck Lorre show Two Broke Girls, for example, the joke around restaurant owner Han Lee tends to be laughing at, not with, the thickly accented character.)

For Asians, the accent is a particularly prickly subject. For people of colour who want to assimilate, it can be inherently embarrassing to hear something they’re trying to escape; for people of colour fiercely proud and protective of their culture, an inauthentic accent can enrage, as it did for some viewers of Fresh Off the Boat; for actors of colour, it can be limiting, as explored on Aziz Ansari’s Netflix show Master of None, and it can be difficult to be caught in between the first two groups. In general, it can leave people on tenterhooks that any accented Asian character could be another Long Duk Dong from Sixteen Candles, whose stilted tongue and social buffoonery represented an incredible setback for Asian representation.

Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, 44, plays the storeowner family patriarch Appa in the pioneering new CBC sitcom Kim’s Convenience, and he’s been personally grappling with the politics and the practicalities of doing an accent his entire career. Here, Lee explains why Appa leans into his accent, where it comes from—and why, done right, it’s okay.

“It’s who Appa is—not the accent, but that’s his makeup. He’s an immigrant, English is his second language, and he had to learn English at a very late stage of his life, so he’s going to have vestiges of his original voice, his mother tongue. That also informs who he is. His frustration is not being able to articulate how he feels, or any points he tries to make in an argument. It’s a singularly frustrating thing.

“I remember in Winnipeg, someone very helpfully in a talkback said, ‘You know, if you just spoke more slowly and clearly, everybody could understand you. Because I missed every third word that came out of your mouth.’ A lot of people in the audience rolled their eyes and went, ‘Oh my God,’ but I responded. I said: I’m sorry you felt that way, but can you imagine what it’s like for this man, a trained teacher in his home country, a very well-respected position—he’s an intelligent man, he doesn’t sound intelligent maybe to you because English is his second language, but his brain is still there. Can you imagine his struggles, day in, day out, that people aren’t able to understand him? As frustrated as you were because you couldn’t understand him, he’s even more frustrated because you can’t understand him.

“For me, I can get touchy about the accent. For the longest time, I couldn’t do a Korean accent. It was just the way I was raised—I didn’t want to be Korean. I wanted to be Canadian. I didn’t want kimbap at school, all I wanted was sandwiches, or soups, but none of this Korean stuff. When you’re a kid and you’re really trying to fit in, you push away everything that reminds you of your family because your family is different. That kind of extended itself as I got older; then, as an Asian actor, I was asked to utilize these accents. That’s fine: I can do Cantonese, and Mandarin, I can do passable Japanese, I can do some Filipino, Vietnamese—but not Korean. Korean for me was a roadblock. I remember I was doing this one episode of Mayday, and I was playing the role of Captain Park, the Korean Airlines pilot who crashes his plane into the side of this mountain. When I auditioned for the role, no accent was required. So I can do all the pilot lingo, I love it—I book the role. Then, on set, the director says, ‘We want the Korean accent, to give it some flavour.’ I said, ‘I don’t know if I can do it.’ ‘But you’re Korean.’ So I tried it and I was so bad that they ended up giving all my lines to the copilot. That was embarrassing—so embarrassing. It was terrible.

“When I read for Kim’s Convenience for the first time ever the words struck me so much and the writing was so incredibly articulate. And he has the rhythms. As soon as I started reading it—and I’ve told this story a million times, everyone’s sick of it—it was like a key being turned in my head, a door being opened, and my dad’s voice just started coming out. So I use my dad’s accent—that’s my dad’s voice that I use on stage. But a lot of the time it’s a modified accent, because if I went full Korean accent people wouldn’t be able to understand a lot of what I’m saying. So there are times where I’ll cheat, I’ll pull back, and it’s not 100 per cent consistent, and I realize that. That’s one of these horrible decisions you have to make as an actor. Is it really going to affect who this character is if you’re not letter-perfect on the accent, or is it more important to get the story points across? Over the years it’s morphed into this whole Appa speak I have. But sometimes the accent isn’t 100 per cent there.

“I get feedback, and I’m sensitive to it—I hear people go, ‘That doesn’t sound Korean, who is this guy! He’s not Korean, he should be ashamed, he sounds terrible, how come they can’t get accents right?’ That bothers me. I care about the character so much. I am Korean. And you know what, and pardon my French, but f–k you, that’s my dad’s voice. So if you don’t like it, go f–k yourself, because that’s how my dad sounds. But on the other side, I hear a lot of people saying that it sounds like their dad. I’ve had Korean families whose fathers have passed away, they’re in tears, and they say, ‘You sound just like our Appa did.’ They hadn’t heard his voice in years. And it’s incredibly moving.

“The accent—the accent isn’t the joke. It’s part of who he is, but it isn’t the joke. Yes, we’re in the entertainment field, and we will mine some of that because it is situational humour. You will get a point where we’ll say, ‘Here’s where some fun can be made, playing with the accent, and his inability and people mishearing what he says.’ But at the same time, that’s not all it is. So for people to summarily dismiss it as, ‘Well, it’s just a voice, he should be ashamed,’ well, they’re not really looking. They’re taking so many things out of context, and it’s a lazy way of criticizing somebody because it’s the most obvious and easiest thing to pick on. That’s why when you’re looking for directors and people to work on Kim’s Convenience, we wanted to make sure they knew where the source of the true humour was. Appa is not just a voice. He’s not a stereotype. A stereotype is the end of a character. Appa is an archetype—they take his mould, they use that as a basis, and they build that up into a three-dimensional character. You have his hopes, his fears, his foibles and his strengths, and that’s what I love about him. He’s a character.

“But it’s funny, though—the majority of people who are screaming racism about the accent online are white. And it’s like: what’s racist about it? They won’t say—but is it because you’re seeing Asians on the screen? Oh, no? Well, then it must be because he sounds different. Well, guess what: Asian people have accents. The accent isn’t about a joke, it’s part of who that character is, but it doesn’t make it intrinsically racist. If you’re uncomfortable with that baggage, then you need to examine it yourself and see where it comes from.”

Source: How to do an on-screen accent—and why it can be okay – Macleans.ca

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For the Wealthy, Citizenship at a Premium | Boston Review

2016/10/13 Leave a comment

Good in-depth article on investment citizenship:

In Southern Europe, citizenship-by-investment programs are intrinsically tied to property markets that were badly hurt by the 2008 crisis. The bursting of Spain’s real estate bubble left millions of empty homes, plummeting values, and entire ghost cities of half-finished villas. After such bad press, Mediterranean countries have struggled to lure back second homeowners who were essential to the economy (almost 20 percent of the housing stock in Mediterranean Europe is second homes, compared to just 3 percent in Northern Europe). In all of these markets, property developers have been frightened by the growing polarization between Northern and Southern Europe and have urged national governments to respond by courting global elites in place of traditional buyers from Germany, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia. The Brexit vote has only exacerbated this trend by taking UK buyers off the market and complicating the residency status of current British homeowners. Despite the challenges, some in the real estate industry are excited by citizenship-by-investment. Before 2008, they felt that EU-based property markets limited their business to merely well-off European clients; the innovation of citizenship-by-investment allows them to go after the truly global elites.

Those with a crisp new Maltese passport will probably not be getting to know the island very well. Initial residency is easy to fudge. After the wait period is over, newly Maltese citizens can work in Stockholm, enroll their children in heavily subsidized Dutch universities, or use Germany’s universal healthcare system. The selling of citizenship appears to many as a Southern European scheme to profit from the employment opportunities and stability of their Northern neighbors by selling access to stronger job markets and welfare states through their own immigration ministries. Michael Briguglio, a professor at the University of Malta and a former Green Party local councilor, called the country a “hub,” adding that the IIP is meant to attract “certain business people from China, Russia, and certain Arab countries to give them an open door to Europe. It’s a global form of patronage.” This issue is particularly sensitive in Malta, which is intensely Catholic; divorce was legalized only in 2011, and natives have a long history of viewing their island as a Christian entrepôt amidst Muslim trade routes. While the IIP vets criminal records and financial holdings, there seems to be little fear that citizenship-buyers will pose a safety threat. The pressing European worry of radicalization thus seems to apply only to poor migrants, ignoring a long history of economically comfortable and cosmopolitan participants in terrorist organizations.

For small countries, using passports as an asset to be exchanged for cash seems reasonable given a dearth of economic options.

As Southern Europe continues to have tense relations with wealthier EU nations over austerity, many politicians have been forced to cast a wider net to find allies and investors. Cyprus has drawn a large Russian population. China has invested in infrastructure and real estate in Greece and Spain. Portugal even saw the acquisition of a large national bank by its former colony, Angola. Compared to privatizing national industries or providing staging grounds for non-EU companies, selling passports is easy because it is geared toward mobility. It also reinforces the logic that small countries must constantly innovate in order to stay relevant to business opportunities and protect themselves from economic hardship. As Lino Bianco, a Maltese professor and the ambassador to Bulgaria, put it: “Maltese are survivors by circumstances. They turn failures into successes.” Using passports as an asset to be exchanged for cash seems reasonable given a dearth of economic options and a long history of trading, migration, and outside rule by regional powers. Unlike in larger countries, Maltese citizenship has always been negotiable and responsive to wider power struggles on the European continent. The most important thing for the Maltese was to get the best deal possible.

What differentiates citizenship-investors from those who go through a naturalization process is sweat equity. Citizenship-for-sale programs cynically reject the notion of national community, even at a time of rising xenophobia in Europe. Investors can experience citizenship—and all its attendant bonds, prejudices, and heart-stirring emotions—through a bank transfer and a paper booklet while the vast majority of those struggling to migrate must cross deserts, pack into dinghies, live in the shadows, struggle to maintain hope in detention centers, face deportation, study languages and history, and maybe, just maybe—only after many years—stand proudly among their friends and families with their hand on their heart.

Source: For the Wealthy, Citizenship at a Premium | Boston Review

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New passport processing system exposed to security gaps, audit finds

2016/10/13 Leave a comment

Another example, on a smaller scale than Shared Services Canada and the Phoenix pay system problems, of just how difficult it is for government to execute successfully IT projects:

The audit, which was completed in February 2016 and quietly posted to the departmental website a few months later, said IRCC leveraged expertise from industry and other federal departments and established several oversight mechanisms to track key project areas. But identified risks were not consistently monitored and addressed, the report said.

It also found there was no evidence that the information technology security plan was being followed, and that key security measures were missing, including a preliminary threat- and risk-assessment.

One year ago, the department suspended its use of a new system to process passport applications after CBC News reported on widespread glitches with the program.

The department said it was “pausing” the processing of passports through the GCMS in order to incorporate “lessons learned” during the testing phase.

No passports are currently being issued through the GCMS, but the department confirmed that refugee travel documents have been processed through the system since fall 2015.

At least 1,500 Canadian passports had been produced under a flawed new system that opened the door to fraud and tampering, according to documents obtained by CBC/Radio-Canada.

Internal records revealed the processing program was rushed into operation on May 9, despite warnings from senior officials that it was not ready and could present new security risks.

The department insisted that no passports have been issued with security gaps and that at no point had the integrity or security of the passport issuance been compromised.

Since the launch of the new system, officials had been scrambling to fix hundreds of glitches and to seal security gaps. Weeks after the new process was brought on line, there were calls to stop production.

Recommendations ignored

Those recommendations were ignored, and the passports continued to be issued in the first phase of production under the new system, designed to enhance security and integrate with other global programs.

Numerous reports obtained by CBC/Radio Canada showed that during a period of several weeks, it was possible for employees to alter the photo on a passport after it had been approved. There were also numerous reports of discrepancies between information contained in the database and what actually appeared on a passport.

In some cases, information disappeared from the system, making it difficult to verify if the applicant had used questionable guarantors or had made repeated claims of lost or stolen passports in the past.

That information acts as a safeguard to flag potential problems with applications.

Management accepted all six recommendations stemming from the audit, which ranged from medium to high risk. One plank of the “action plan” was to secure spending authorities to advance the project to the next phase.

Source: New passport processing system exposed to security gaps, audit finds – Politics – CBC News

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Whiteness is a racial construct. It’s time to take it apart: Denise Balkissoon

2016/10/12 Leave a comment

Interesting commentary on “whiteness:”

Being white in Canada means a lower chance of developing cancer, hypertension and asthma. It also means being less likely to live in poverty. That doesn’t mean that every white person is healthy, wealthy or the prime minister (though every PM we have had has been white).

It does mean that as cards are dealt in the hand of life, white is a good one to get. But unearned benefits based on an unchosen identity are uncomfortable to grapple with – and that’s why people prefer not to say “white.”

“As a social concept, ‘white’ is profound in its meaning,” Robin DiAngelo, an educator and consultant in California, told me. “It means people who either come from or appear to come from Europe, but it’s necessarily a construct of oppression.”

Dr. DiAngelo, who is white, has dedicated her professional life to examining what it means to be white, what she calls “the missing piece” of studies of race and racism. She spent years as a professor and now leads workshops and seminars about racism for mainly all-white audiences, which include sharing language that helps to deconstruct whiteness.

Because, as with every other race, white is a construct. Racialization, or using ethnicity as an excuse to disenfranchise individuals and groups, can happen to people with light skin, too. In 2016, Ukrainians and Italians in Canada are pretty much white, but both were interned as enemy aliens in the past.

Italian-Canadians are an interesting case: Greeted with prejudice when they first arrived, they’ve since persuaded us to adopt their patio culture (after receiving tickets for eating outdoors in mid-20th century Toronto) and have been elected to every level of government. They now enjoy the benefits of whiteness, but many say that they’ll never be mangia-cakes.Yes, race is complicated.

Dr. DiAngelo tries to teach people not to be afraid of terms such as “white privilege” – daily, unspoken advantages due to skin colour – or “white supremacy,” the entrenchment of whiteness as the sun around which other, inferior cultures revolve.

That fear is a problem. Toronto Mayor John Tory, at an election campaign event two years ago, demurred on whether white privilege existed, while Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson recently called those who accused him of white supremacy as being “vulgar and rude.” What’s actually vulgar is that being white increases access to power and privilege, and that by not engaging with that truth, politicians can help to maintain that inequality.

Dr. DiAngelo has a term for that avoidance, too. “White fragility,” she says, is the inability to cope with conversations about race that don’t protect individual white people’s sense of innocence. Western society maintains that racism is an act that individuals do, not a system that all of us exist in.

Thus, she says, it teaches us that “being a good person and being complicit with racism are mutually exclusive.” To hear an accusation of racism is to believe one’s basic morality is in question, which stirs up guilt and defensiveness, leading to anger and avoidance.

White people experience obvious physical relief, Dr. DiAngelo says, when she tells them it isn’t a personal failing to ascribe to white supremacy. It’s what we’ve all been taught from birth. The conversations don’t necessarily get easier from there, she says, but her audiences’ ability to listen, and to cope with unpleasantness, gradually improves.

The solution to white fragility, she says, is to build up stamina; just as with exercise, that involves doing the painful task over and over again until you get better. So try it. Say “white.” Say it to white people.

Source: Whiteness is a racial construct. It’s time to take it apart – The Globe and Mail

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Angus Reid’s survey actually shows high level of support for our diverse society: Cardozo

2016/10/12 1 Comment

Good analysis by Andrew Cardozo:

Much is being made of a new Angus Reid poll on the attitudes of Canadians towards minorities, coming out as it does on the heels of Kellie Leitch’s plan to test immigrants on “anti-Canadian” values. Polling people’s attitudes on diversity is always a good thing as the mood does change from time to time, depending on the issues that face us.

While Angus Reid is a hugely credible polling organization, this poll is somewhere between incomplete and not very informative.

There were two sets of questions on diversity in the poll. Interestingly, the first did not receive coverage—not even in Reid’s own article on the CBC News website—while the second, the more sensational one, garnered all the coverage. Surprising!

Respondents were asked to first comment on: “How well immigrants are integrating into society.” A full 67 per cent said they were satisfied and 33 per cent said they were dissatisfied. (The report does not reveal how many had no opinion, which seems odd. Not even one per cent? But I digress.)

This is a good news story, no? Two to one, Canadians believe immigrants are integrating well. Not many government policies or societal trends get that kind of support.

Sadly, the questions that received all the coverage, perhaps because they align more with Leitch’s narrative in some way, are actually simplistic in the extreme. And further, while the questions did not use the word “multiculturalism,” Reid’s reporting did.

Here are the statements that respondents were asked to comment on: should minorities do more to fit in with mainstream society; and should we do more to encourage cultural diversity with different groups keeping their own customs and languages.

Trouble is, that is not the conundrum that defines multiculturalism. It is perhaps the conundrum that defines segregation. Should minorities fit in or live segregated lives? One or the other. Binary. No combination, no nuance.

Multiculturalism, from its very inception as a government policy in 1971 by one Pierre Trudeau, has been about both integration and cultural retention. Check the Hansard on that. Canadian individuals, immigrants and Canadian born, can generally walk and chew gum at the same time, and they do it all the time.

Interestingly, the poll came out on October 3, during Rosh Hashanah. And you have to think of all the Canadian Jews who were marking the high holiday. Most are able to get time off work and were celebrating the new year with family and friends. Jews are among the most integrated of minority groups in Canada and they contribute in significant ways in virtually every facet of Canadian society, and yet Rosh Hashanah, is widely celebrated.

So which of Angus Reid’s two statements do they fall under: fitting in or keeping their own customs? Or did they walk and chew gum?

One is tempted, on this basis, to dismiss the poll as incomplete or sloppy. But let’s look at a few other examples and try to guess what it is pointing to.

As Reid points out, attitudes change. In the 1990s, wearing a turban in the Armed Forces was a hugely controversial issue, which the Mulroney government settled at great political cost. It is part of what gave rise to the Reform Party. And, of course, today the Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan wears a turban, and, given his mastery of his role in the Canadian Forces, his competence shone through.

Several Jewish MPs celebrated last week.

Several Muslim MPs, like Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef, celebrated Eid last month while being a federal minister as did several MPs, including Conservative Ziad Aboultaif and Liberal Ahmed Hussen. Walk and chew gum.

As the world watches the horrors of Hurricane Matthew bearing down on Haiti, former Michaëlle Jean, Canada’s former governor general and now head of La Francophonie, was helping to find aid for the victims of yet another catastrophe to hit her country of origin.

To turn back to Leitch’s issue of anti-Canadian values, one is tempted to ask, are these the anti-Canadian values we should be concerned about?

If there is a conundrum with multiculturalism, it is about the limits of cultural retention and how far we go in reasonable accommodation—a debate that rages on in Quebec. It’s a good discussion to have, but in a free and democratic society, there will rarely be unanimity about where that line exists. It’s about how we make walking and chewing gum at the same time possible. Multiculturalism works when we do both things.

When a practice restricts people’s integration that is a point of discussion like wearing a niqab. But is the solution to legislate what a woman should wear, or is it to find ways in which she will feel comfortable removing it? Or may be the rest of us just get over it?

Leitch gets some support because there is a view that immigrants bring over anti-Canadian values. Whether it was the Irish Fenian who assassinated Thomas D’Arcy McGee in 1868, or the people responsible for the Air India bombing in 1985 or the shooter who killed Corporal Nathan Cirillo in 2014, (Cirillo’s assassin was Canadian born) these people had values that were not in keeping with Canadian values of equality and justice.

It would be helpful if Leitch could be more specific. Yes, we want to root out undesirable elements and want to be clear about basic Canadian values such as gender equality and respect for diversity. At the same time we need to do all we can so we don’t import terrorism or violence.

Likewise, Angus Reid might be more specific with his questions rather than erect headline-catching false conundrum.

Perhaps the newsworthy story is that Canadians believe immigrants should integrate, that’s two to one, and that they generally like the way they are integrating, that’s two to one.

Source: Angus Reid’s survey actually shows high level of support for our diverse society – The Hill Times – The Hill Times

A less nuanced analysis is Margaret Wente’s:

Yet in liberal discourse, any resistance to immigration on any grounds makes you a racist, and any questions about immigration policy are perceived as illegitimate. People get frustrated by that. They’re also frustrated by a narrative that, in their view, only goes one way. They feel they’re constantly being harangued by their betters that it is they who must accommodate the newcomers. No one ever talks about what the newcomers should do to accommodate them.

And so they’re not thrilled when Kathleen Wynne, Ontario’s Premier, dons a head scarf to meet with the woman who insisted on her right to wear the niqab during the citizenship ceremony – and then tweets that it’s “an honour.” They are not thrilled when their Prime Minister promotes inclusivity by visiting a mosque where the women have to sit upstairs. They don’t like it when a Muslim boys’ soccer team refuses to play against girls.

Kellie Leitch taps into that sentiment. I don’t doubt for a moment that Canada has its share of racists – but if the Liberals ignore the genuine concerns of people who think accommodation should go both ways, they’re asking for a backlash.

Many progressives (including, I suspect, Mr. Trudeau) hold a romantic view of immigration as a sort of global social-justice project, which obliges us to share our good fortune with as much of the rest of the world as possible, while declaring that every other culture is just as good as ours is.

Thankfully, most Canadians don’t share this woozy notion. They pride themselves on their tolerance. But they’re also hard-headed pragmatists. They think immigration policy should serve our national interests, and that our leaders should not forget it.

 How much diversity do Canadians want? 

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