Privy Council Office workers face culture of ‘racial stereotyping’: internal report

2024/07/31 Leave a comment

Took a look at the Public Service Employee Survey results for PCO. In most cases, broadly comparable to the public service as a whole, with some exceptions. But interestingly, some slippage between the 2020 and 2022 surveys results in harassment and discrimination, perhaps reflecting a mix of greater awareness following the Clerk’s Call to Action and the broader social context.

19.2 percent of PCO are visible minorities, 3.0 percent Indigenous peoples, broadly comparable to other departments. Unfortunately, don’t have desegregated data by visible minority and indigenous group.

As to the Zellars report, based on interviews, we see a similar pattern in that the surveys indicate that there are issues, a consultant with experience in diversity issues is engaged, has discussions with a number of employees, many who feel aggrieved by remarks and/or treatment. But the nature of such consultants, given their career, is to have an implicit bias of highlighting discrimination and prejudice rather than a more neutral approach. Doesn’t mean of course findings are not valid but need to be assessed accordingly.

And of course the usual groups of organizations and activists use the survey to further their political aims:

Black, Indigenous and racialized employees in the Privy Council Office are regularly subjected to a culture of “racial stereotyping, microagressions and verbal violence,” according to the findings of an internal report.

The damning report — obtained by the Coalition Against Workplace Discrimination through the Access to Information Act and released by the coalition Monday — said the office does not have a grasp on the scope or impact of the discrimination that those employees face.

There are also “significant material barriers to meaningful representation and inclusion” in the workplace, it says.

The Privy Council Office’s 1,200 employees make up the lead branch of the civil service, providing support for the prime minister and cabinet in executing policy directives across the federal government.

According to the report, Black employees reported managers using the N-word “comfortably in their presence” and later expressing surprise at “not knowing” it was a pejorative term for Black people.

Report on discrimination at Privy Council Office ‘shocking’

The report also says managers made Islamophobic remarks and “feigned innocence when white employees have unfairly advanced at their expense.”

The report’s author, associate professor and researcher at St. Mary’s University Rachel Zellars, said one of her key findings was a culture that “discourages reporting,” with employees widely noting that “accountability mechanisms are currently non-existent.”

Zellars compiled her report after speaking with 58 employees in the office from November 2021 to May 2022.

“When we received this report, it was shocking,” said Nicholas Marcus Thompson, president and CEO of the Black Class Action Secretariat, at a Monday news conference after the report was released.

“This is the head of the public service. This is the Privy Council Office that directed the entire federal public service to address racism,” he said. “While it is shocking, it is what we’ve seen across the public service, across all departments and agencies.”

In January 2021, Ian Shugart, the former clerk of the Privy Council, secretary to the cabinet and head of the federal public service, called on leaders across the public service to take actions to advance anti-racism initiatives and foster systemic change.

The office commissioned the work that resulted in the internal report as part of this 2021 call to action. Thompson said Monday that Shugart’s call has been ignored.

“Despite a call to action from the clerk himself for the public service to take specific and meaningful actions to address racism, equity and inclusion, the report identified the PCO’s own corporate services as a key barrier to that call to action,” he said.

The coalition is calling for the resignation of two members of the office’s leadership for failures to address issues outlined in the report, including the deputy clerk in charge of the discrimination file.

Additionally, the coalition is calling for the government to settle the Black employees’ class action lawsuit.

‘Double standards’

Black employees interviewed by Zellars reported “double standards” in the career advancement opportunities afforded to them — like access to French-language training, something that’s been identified as a key factor for moving up at the Privy Council Office.

They also shared stories of being “discouraged” from taking part in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) work. Black employees said the messaging they got was that it would be a conflict with their non-partisan commitment as civil servants and could “detract from their real 9-5” work.

Non-black racialized employees reported seeing instances where career advancement for Black employees was hindered by managers and other employees.

Indigenous employees called on the office to define what reconciliation means for the department and for management to identify tangible initiatives they can achieve.

“White employees and executives detailed personal experiences and career-advancing opportunities that were in stark variance from Black, Indigenous and racialized employees,” the report said.

4 pages of recommendations

The report includes four pages of recommendations for how the office’s leadership can address some of the concerns.

The recommendations include modifications to hiring and promotion practices, including “name-blind screening” where applicable.

The report also emphasizes the importance of building trust in employees when it comes to DEI work. It calls on leadership to implement programs aimed at building a better understanding of the historical context around the Black Canadian experience.

In a July 26 letter to Thompson and shared Monday by the coalition, deputy clerk Christine Fox said leaders are committed to bringing change across the civil service and within the office.

Those measures include sharing quarterly “employment equity dashboards” aimed at identifying representation gaps and setting goals on recruitment and promotions, appointing a chief diversity officer that reports to the clerk of the Privy Council, and establishing new tools people can use to report issues without fear of reprisal.

“I would like to reassure you that the clerk and I, and the entire management team at PCO, are committed to action and results that remove barriers and ensure that Indigenous employees, Black and racialized employees fully benefit from the opportunities and experiences PCO offers,” Fox wrote.

In a separate statement to CBC News on Monday, Privy Council Clerk John Hannaford reiterated much of what Fox wrote in her letter.

“The entire management team and I are committed to taking continuous action to identify and address any barriers that may exist in the federal public service,” Hannaford said in his statement. “We can best serve the government and Canadians when employees feel heard, valued, respected, and included.”

Despite the assurance, Thompson said he doesn’t have confidence in the Privy Council Office’s ability to implement change by itself.

“We are witnessing a scenario where those who have been perpetrators of harm are now tasked with carrying out the solutions. We have seen time and again that this simply does not work,” Thompson said.

“The public service has historically proven to be incapable of policing itself on systemic discrimination.”

Source: Privy Council Office workers face culture of ‘racial stereotyping’: internal report

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Abraham: J.D. Vance’s lessons on immigration for Canada

2024/07/31 Leave a comment

More immigration commentary, arguing for greater focus on economic immigrants with a more self-interested approach. Nails some of the current disfunctionalities, including the confusing plethora of pathways which, of course, large reflect responses to political pressures:

I’m not sure if many Canadians paid attention to U.S. Senator J. D. Vance’s speech to the Republican convention in Milwaukee recently. Even those who stayed up for the late-hour speech might dismiss it as another populist rant from a “hillbilly.” They’d be mistaken, because it carries big lessons for Canada.

I’m most interested in this section of his speech: “Now, it is part of that tradition, of course, that we welcome newcomers. But when we allow newcomers into our American family, we allow them on our terms. That’s the way we preserve the continuity of this project from 250 years past to hopefully 250 years in the future.”

In my 22 years of following the immigration debate in both Canada and the United States, I’ve not heard a clearer articulation of how immigration should work. It’s the exact opposite of what’s happening in Canada today: we have plunging support for immigration; a plethora of visa categories that would make even the immigration minister’s head spin; losing track of hundreds of thousands of temporary residents; and a record number of newcomers giving up on Canada, including moving to the U.S.

That is because we don’t know why we want to bring 500,000 or more immigrants into Canada every year. Every month brings a new number, as if we were talking about widgets in a giant wheel, rather than human beings whose lives depend on how we welcome them, how we treat them and how we make room for them. There is an almost limitless appetite for moving to Canada, and so, the question is: who do we take in … and why?

Instead, what we have is a mushy articulation of feel-good sentiments that mostly portray us as “better Americans.” We throw in words such as multiculturalism, welcoming, settlement, “all of us are immigrants,” etc., to establish our bona fides, but I’m not sure our national interest is served by sustaining very high levels of immigration — in fact, the highest per capita threshold in the world. All of us know at least one newcomer to Canada.

I recall moving to Ottawa in 2002 and disregarding doomsayers who told me that Toronto was the place to be. My kids were the first kids of colour in our local public school, but since then I have been delighted by the number of brown and Black folks moving into our neighbourhood. It was a simpler time and I knew the immigration department had three basic categories for newcomers: economic migrants like me who arrived based on a points system; a family class for close relatives; and humanitarian admissions for refugees and asylum seekers.

Today, I dare anybody to recite the various streams, sub-streams, super streams and slipstream visa categories that define Canadian immigration. No wonder immigration consultancy is a booming business.

Vance offered a more cogent — if narrow — policy prescription. He predicts that a Donald Trump administration will only admit those who serve the U.S.’s national interest, be it high tech, family unification, low-wage labour, entrepreneurs, international students, etc. Of course, his prescription is influenced by the immigration experience of his wife, Usha Vance. Her parents migrated from India, established successful careers in San Diego, and gave their daughter an Ivy League education. She may one day be the wife of a U.S. vice-president.

That is what immigration is supposed to do: grow citizens to become full participants in a nation’s life.

Instead, what we have here is falling rates of naturalization, diving political participation, and growing reverse migration, in addition to maladies such as foreign interference and communal tensions that are almost exclusively the fallout of immigration. Other than hearing or reading about Canada crossing the 40-million population mark — driven largely by immigration, not Canadian births — when is the last time you read something positive about the prowess of newcomers and the dynamism they bring?

I have three simple prescriptions to determine who gets in and how many. One, the quota of newcomers must be determined by economic conditions and must be re-calibrated the moment things begin to go south. Two, we must progressively increase the proportion of economic arrivals in line with labour market gaps. Lastly, we should recognize that there are 280 million people out there who want to move to a developed country because of the appalling conditions in their home nations. Our intake will always be less than a drop in the bucket.

At this moment of political inflection both in the U.S. and Canada, let’s have an honest conversation about immigration. At its root, our policy must be clear enough so a minister or any spokesperson for the government can clearly articulate the fundamentals of our policy. Let’s close back doors that dupe international students into believing their study visas will result in permanent residence.

In a nutshell, we should encourage those who come from other nations to become the next Usha Vance in Canada. That, to my mind, is an example worth emulating.

George Abraham is an Ottawa-based independent commentator on immigration.

Source: Abraham: J.D. Vance’s lessons on immigration for Canada

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Canada is immigrant friendly, but does it consider the national security angle?

2024/07/31 Leave a comment

My podcast with Phil Gurski discussing C-71 and its possible impact on citizenship policy, security and operations

Source: Canada is immigrant friendly, but does it consider the national security angle?

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Ibbitson: Pierre Poilievre makes his case for dismantling what the Trudeau government has built

2024/07/30 Leave a comment

Of note and very likely (employment equity excerpt):

…Mr. Poilievre said he wanted to live in a country where people pay lower taxes and are burdened by fewer rules, but also where they “have freedom of speech, where they’re judged on their merits, not their ethnicity, gender, sexuality, etc., where parents have ultimate authority over what their kids learn about sexuality and gender, where we go after criminals not after hunters and sport shooters, where we rebuild our military to have strong standing in the world.”

The Liberal agenda of promoting diversity within the public service – gone. Protections for gender-diverse youth – gone. Efforts to combat discrimination in the criminal justice system – gone.

Pretty much every major element of the Liberal environmental, social and justice agenda – gone….

But there is a reason the Conservatives are so far ahead in the polls. Things don’t feel right. Even the most fervent supporter of open immigration (and I am one) is alarmed by the out-of-control flood of people coming into the country. Inflation and high interest rates have lowered the standard of living for millions of people. The regulatory environment has become far too complex. And the Liberals have failed to persuade most of us that they get all this and are working to fix it….

Source: Pierre Poilievre makes his case for dismantling what the Trudeau government has built

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Given asylum in Canada but separated from their families for years: Is there a better way to grant permanent residence?

2024/07/30 Leave a comment

Hard to see the government agreeing pending approval as refugees for the primary applicant and the difficulties of removals of those refused:

For many refugee claimants, being granted protection in Canada can take 18 months. It can be much longer to reunite with the spouses and children they left behind.

And these family reunifications are bound to take even longer in the near future with the number of claimants — and accepted cases — surging, while an annual quota limits how many of the “protected persons” and their immediate family members abroad can transition to be permanent residents.

With the federal government freezing the permanent immigration levels this year through 2026, both the Canadian Bar Association and the Canadian Council for Refugees are demanding a public policy from Ottawa to let the overseas dependants of protected persons come on a temporary resident permit, to ease their prolonged separation.

“So at least you’re waiting in Canada for the finalization of your permanent residence,” said Gauri Sreenivasan, the refugee council’s co-executive director. 

“Canada has already said your family is eligible. We just have this really slow process to wait for the paper. So we’re saying, ‘Issue them a temporary resident permit so that they can wait in Canada, surrounded by their parents and the kids can go to school.’”

Asylum seekers on the rise 

The annual number of people seeking asylum in Canada has grown significantly since 2021 when international borders fully reopened after the pandemic, from 24,127 to 137,947 in 2023. In the first three months of this year, 46,693 claimants were reported.

With more cases being processed, the number of positive decisions has also grown, from 30,290 in 2021 to 37,222 in 2023. Between January and March this year, the refugee board already granted protection to 11,082 people. There are about 186,000 claims pending in the system.

Yet, the permanent residence quotas allotted each year for protected persons and families are not catching up. In 2021, there were 23,500 permanent resident spots assigned to them, but the number of people granted asylum surpassed that by 6,790. Last year, there were 25,000 spots resulting in a 12,222 shortfall. The queue just keeps growing. (Note: the number of people granted asylum includes the principal applicants and their family members in Canada only.)

According to the Immigration Department’s website, it currently takes 24 months for the principal applicant (the person granted protection status) and 50 months for their overseas dependants to obtain permanent residence in Canada. That’s on top of the average 18 months it takes the refugee board to adjudicate the applicants’ cases.

“You leave your family behind with the hope of being able to get protection and then bring them here,” said Gabriela Ramo, chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s immigration law section. “That’s not an uncommon experience.

“This is about the quota. There’s only so many spots and you’ve got a huge pool.”

The majority of people granted asylum, already vetted during that process, do ultimately become permanent residents, advocates say, and the delay in reuniting with their families creates further hardship and delays their settlement.

“You can’t fully integrate in Canada when you’re worried about your family on the other side of the world and you’re in a state of limbo,” said Ramo. “Everything in your life is suspended.”

‘I was missing them so much’

Former refugee Verene Mukabera knows that feeling well; it took her a total of four years before her husband and daughter joined her in Canada.

The Rwandan woman was seven months pregnant when she arrived alone in 2006. She had to care for her baby on her own for four years while working to support herself and her family abroad.

“I was crying all the time for no reasons. I got irritated and depressed easily,” recalled Mukabera, who needed mental health counselling. “I was missing them so much. Even after I got the protected person status, I couldn’t go see them. Money was an issue and I couldn’t go back.”

Her daughter joined her in Canada when she was nine, four years after Mukabera had left.

“I felt like a stranger to my daughter. That’s the hardest thing,” said the 50-year-old woman, who works as a personal support worker in Gatineau, Que.

Since Mukabera had already been here for several years, she was the breadwinner in the household, and the role change between her and her husband became a source of tension. “Our family relationship suffered. It took us a few years to start over as a family again.”

Pilot project launched

The Immigration Department said all permanent residence applicants must undergo medical and security clearances, and dependants are required to have their immigration history and status examined. Officials have launched a pilot to centralize and streamline the processing of dependants abroad within Canada rather than through visa posts in other countries. 

“Timely adjustment of immigration status and family reunification remains one of the objectives of Canada’s asylum system,” said the department, adding that temporary resident permits are already available on a case-by-case basis.

The refugee council’s Sreenivasan said many protected persons are compelled to go before the Federal Court for orders to push immigration officials to fast-track their permanent residence applications, which bring unnecessary legal costs.

Despite the recent public pushback against the surging temporary residents arriving to work and study in Canada, Sreenivasan cautioned that the circumstances of protected persons are totally different.

“They are not like temporary foreign workers or international students, who come and then can return home,” she said. “We should not think of refugees and their families as temporary residents. To me, the whole discussion of refugees is misplaced in that category.”

Source: Given asylum in Canada but separated from their families for years: Is there a better way to grant permanent residence?

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Ten years on, many Yazidis uprooted by Islamic State onslaught struggle to find stable homes

2024/07/30 Leave a comment

Good long read:

When Rihan Ismail returned to her family’s home in the heartland of her Yazidi community, she was sure she was coming back for good.

She had yearned for that moment throughout long years of captivity.

Islamic State militants had abducted then-adolescent Ismail as they rampaged through Iraq’s Sinjar district, killing and enslaving thousands from the Yazidi religious minority.

As they moved her from Iraq to Syria, she clung to what home meant to her: a childhood filled with laughter, a community so tight knit the neighbor’s house was like your own. After her captors took her to Turkey, she finally managed to get ahold of a phone, contact her family and plan a rescue.

“How could I leave again?” Ismail, 24, told The Associated Press last year, soon after returning to her village, Hardan.

Reality quickly set in.

The house where she lives with her brother, a police officer, and his wife and toddler, is one of the few still standing in the village. A school down the street houses displaced families who have nowhere else to go.

Her father and younger sister are still missing. In a cemetery on the village edge, three of her brothers are buried along with 13 other local men and boys killed by IS and discovered in a mass grave. 

Ismail passes it every time she has an errand to a neighboring town. 

“You feel like you’re dying 1,000 deaths between here and there,” she said.

Deep connections persist for a homeland changed by horrors

A decade after the IS assault, members of the Yazidi community have been trickling back to their homes in Sinjar. But despite their homeland’s deep emotional and religious significance, many see no future there.

There’s no money to rebuild destroyed homes. Infrastructure is still wrecked. Multiple armed groups carve up the area.

And the landscape is haunted by horrific memories. In August 2014, militants stormed through Sinjar, determined to erase the tiny, insular religious group they considered heretics. They killed men and boys, sold women into sex slavery or forced them to convert and marry militants. Those who could, fled. 

It has been seven years since IS was defeated in Iraq. But as of April 2024, only 43% of the more than 300,000 people displaced from Sinjar had returned, according to the International Migration Organization.

Some fear that if Yazidis don’t return, the community may lose its identity. 

“Sinjar is the Yazidi center of gravity,” said Hadi Babasheikh, the brother and office manager of the late Yazidi spiritual leader who held the position during IS’ atrocities. “Without Sinjar, Yazidism would be like a cancer patient who’s dying.”

This strategically located remote corner of northwest Iraq near the Syrian border has been the Yazidis’ home for centuries. Villages are scattered across a semi-arid plain dotted with sheep, a cement factory and the occasional liquor store. 

Rearing up from the flatland are the Sinjar Mountains, a long, narrow range considered sacred by the Yazidis. Legend says Noah’s ark settled on the mountain after the flood. Yazidis fled to the heights to escape IS, as they have done in past bouts of persecution. 

In Sinjar town, the district center, soldiers lounge in front of small shops on the main street. A livestock market brings buyers and sellers from neighboring villages and beyond. Here and there, reconstruction crews work among piles of cinder blocks. 

But in outlying areas, signs of the destruction — collapsed houses, abandoned fuel stations — remain everywhere. Water networks, health facilities and schools, and even religious shrines have not been rebuilt. Sinjar town’s main Sunni Muslim district remains a stretch of rubble; the occupants have not returned, facing hostility from their former Yazidi neighbors who view them as IS collaborators. 

The central government in Baghdad and authorities in the semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region have been wrestling over Sinjar, where each backed a rival local government for years.

That dispute is now playing out in a debate over the displacement camps in the Kurdish region housing many of those who fled Sinjar.

Camp closures loom, leaving Yazidis torn on whether to stay or go 

Earlier this year, Baghdad ordered the camps to be closed by July 30 and offered payments of 4 million dinars (about $3,000) to occupants who leave. 

Karim al-Nouri, deputy minister for the displaced, said this month that difficulties in returning to Sinjar “have been overcome” and that getting the displaced back is “an official, humanitarian and moral imperative.”

But Kurdish authorities say they won’t evict the camp residents. 

Sinjar “is not suitable for human habitation,” said Khairi Bozani, an advisor to the Kurdish regional president, Nechirvan Barzani.

“The government is supposed to move people from a bad place to a good place and not vice versa.”

Khudeida Murad Ismail refuses to leave the camp in Dohuk, where he runs a makeshift store selling eggs, instant noodles, pacifiers and hair henna. Leaving would mean losing his livelihood, and the payout wouldn’t cover rebuilding his house, he said.

If the camps shut down, he said he would remain in the area, rent a home and look for other work.

He acknowledged that if many Yazidis stay away from Sinjar, other groups will likely populate their areas. That saddens him, he said, “but there’s nothing I can do.”

But the camp closure order and relocation payments have prompted an increase in returns. 

On June 24, Barakat Khalil’s family of nine joined a convoy of trucks piled with mattresses, blankets and household goods, leaving the town in Dohuk that had been their home for nearly a decade.

They now live in a small, rented house in Sinjar town. They fixed its broken doors and windows and are gradually furnishing it, even planting geraniums. 

Their old home, in a nearby village, is destroyed. A humanitarian organization removed the rubble, leaving nothing but the foundation, but couldn’t help them rebuild. Khalil had spent seven years building the house, gradually saving money from his work in construction. 

“We stayed in it for two months and then they (IS militants) came and blew it up,” he said. 

Now, “it’s a totally new life — we don’t know anybody here,” said Khalil’s 25-year-old daughter, Haifa Barakat. She’s the only family member who is working, in the pharmacy of the local hospital.

Although life in Sinjar is tolerable for now, she worries about security.

Tensions among various militias in Sinjar raise safety concerns

Different parts of the territory are patrolled by the Iraqi army and Kurdish peshmerga forces, along with various militias that came to fight IS and never left.

Prominent among those is the Sinjar Resistance Units, or YBS, a Yazidi militia that is part of the primarily Shiite Popular Mobilization Forces.

Turkey regularly launches airstrikes against its members because it is aligned with the Kurdistan Workers Party’ or PKK, a Kurdish separatist group that has waged an insurgency in Turkey.

At the YBS headquarters near the Syrian border, the group’s then-acting commander, Khalid Rasho Qassim, also known as Abu Shadi, said in an interview last year that his group had fought IS when official forces fled.

“The young people are joining because they saw that we defended them,” he said.

Less than a week later, he was killed by a Turkish airstrike, the same fate his predecessor had met. 

The presence of armed groups has also sometimes complicated rebuilding. In 2022, a damaged school in Sinjar was rehabilitated by a Japanese NGO called IVY, hoping to relieve overcrowding in the area’s few functional schools. Instead, Japanese officials complained that a militia took over the renovated facility.

When AP reporters visited the school last September, no classes were in session, but a few young men and women were in the entry hall, where bookshelves were stocked with revolutionary texts. Staff said the school director was not available.

IVY later said it was told that the building had been vacated. But when an AP team returned this month, it found the same young men who had been there before. They asked the journalists to leave.

This month, the Nineveh provincial council finally voted to appoint a single mayor for Sinjar, but disputes have held up his confirmation.

The would-be mayor, school administrator and community activist Saido al-Ahmady, said he hopes to push for the restoration of services so more displaced will return. 

“Sinjar has always been the center of Yazidis and we will preserve it that way,” he said.

But many of those who have come back say they are thinking of leaving again. 

In the village of Dugure, on a recent evening, children rode bicycles and women in traditional robes chatted at sunset in front of their houses. 

“In the end we have to return” to Sinjar said Hadi Shammo, whose family left a camp last month. “This is part of our identity.” 

But when prodded, Shammo acknowledged, “If I’d had a chance I would have left Iraq a long time ago.” 

Rihan Ismail, who once spent her days dreaming of a return to Sinjar, now wants to get away.

“Even if you went somewhere else, you wouldn’t be able to forget. But at least every time you come or go you wouldn’t have to see your village destroyed like this,” she said. 

A photo of her missing father gazed down from the wall. In the corner was a small replica of Lalish, the most holy Yazidi temple, and a snake, a sacred symbol of protection.

“You can’t forget what happened, but you have to find a way to live.” 

She has now pinned her hopes on joining her mother and other relatives who have resettled in Canada.

Source: Ten years on, many Yazidis uprooted by Islamic State onslaught struggle to find stable homes

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McWhorter: We’re Asking the Wrong Question About Harris and Race

2024/07/30 Leave a comment

From mixed to biracial, as more and more people have blended or composite ethnic and racial origins:

In the wake of Joe Biden’s endorsement of Kamala Harris, a great deal of attention has focused on whether America is ready for a Black female president. Unmentioned is a question of equal complexity: Why is Harris Black? Hear me out.

As she has proudly recounted, the vice president is the product of an interracial, intercultural marriage between a mother who emigrated from India and a father who emigrated from Jamaica. So in terms of her ancestry, she is as much South Asian as she is Black. By widespread convention, however, people refer to her not primarily as a South Asian presidential candidate, nor even a mixed-race candidate, but rather a Black candidate.

It’s not just Harris. Barack Obama, with one Black and one white parent, is called Black. Imagine how strange it would be if someone called him white. Imagine how strange it would be if he called himself white. Harris often mentions the South Asian half of her heritage, but in traditional American discourse, it feels off to categorize her as simply South Asian — like Aziz Ansari or Mindy Kaling — and leave it there. Yet calling her just Black, as a kind of shorthand, feels right. Blackness is treated as blacking out, so to speak, whatever other race is involved. Most people default to this perspective — myself included.

This approach contradicts not just logic, but also itself. In contrast to the centuries-old “one-drop rule” that segregationists have invoked to describe the indelible ancestral stain of so-called Black blood, enlightened people are supposed to believe that race is purely a social construct, with no biological basis. If so, then why does having some Black forebears make you Black, regardless of the rest of the family tree?

People from other countries can find this perplexing. I’ve fielded questions from people from France to Japan about why Obama is considered Black, rather than both Black and white. The question always feels naïve to me at first, but if you imagine stepping outside our particular national framework, it’s the foreigner who is making sense and the American version that is weird.

A teacher from Russia I once had even genially but firmly insisted that I am not Black. Dark-skinned people she knew of, including a few rappers — they were really Black. Not me. My skin tone is brown but not chocolate.

My maternal grandfather was light enough that he could easily have passed for white. My mother was quite light-skinned, too. Yet I have never considered myself anything but Black, nor did my grandfather or my mother. To look at photos of the three of us and see three “Black” people makes perfect sense to me because I have never known anything else.

The conversation with my teacher took place in Russian, a language I spoke with the facility of a 2-year-old. Without access to the nuanced verbal machinery — the buzzwords and dutiful observations — we usually use, I had no way to explain the American way of seeing Blackness as the dominant heritage for any mixed-race people, because it makes no logical sense.

The novel and later musical “Show Boat” dramatized the tragic absurdity of the one-drop idea. The story begins in the Deep South in the 1800s, when laws banned miscegenation and classified people with one-eighth Black ancestry as “octoroons.” At one point a white man married to a woman of mixed race pricks her finger and drinks what comes out, announcing that the drop of Black blood he has inside of him legitimizes their marriage.

Today, those who express different ideas about racial identity often encounter serious resistance. When Tiger Woods, the child of two mixed-race people, announced himself to be “Cablinasian” — as a combination of Caucasian, Black, American Indian and Asian — he was mocked as not knowing who he is. The writer Thomas Chatterton Williams encountered skepticism when he said he couldn’t see his blond, blue-eyed child as Black.

One objection I hear is that resisting calling yourself Black, or feeling the need to modify your Blackness with some other racial attributes, can give the impression that you are ashamed of who you are.

I do think people make this assumption too quickly, but given how Black people have been denigrated throughout American history, the assumption hardly comes out of nowhere — and I have seen for myself, among people I know, that it is sadly sometimes correct.

Another objection I hear is that however dark-skinned people see themselves, the world will process them as Black. Their complex genealogy will not protect them from the effects of prejudice, discrimination and even possibly police violence. And if so, better that they learn to be realists about it — starting with the racial category they use to identify themselves.

I find this concern genuine but unconvincing. For one thing, should we let other people’s inability to see us plain be the basis of our identity? That would let them win. You can be quite aware of the risk of police violence and yet resist a belief system that says Black blood determines who you are.

And besides, as is so often the case, it’s a matter of degree. My children’s mother is white. One child is about my shade; the other is what used to be called high yellow. In their New York City lives, white kids are the minority. So many of the kids they know are, like them, shades of brown, hybrids of various kinds, that my children have a bit of trouble understanding why I sometimes ask “what” one of their friends “is.” Despite their differences, they all watch “Stranger Things”; the girls, whatever they look like, are all into Sabrina Carpenter.

I know that not all kids live in contexts in which racial distinctions can be so easily shrugged off. But all signs indicate that my children are growing up in a world that’s very different from the one I grew up in. I experienced plenty of passing instances of racism, even as a student at fancy private schools. But it’s been a half century now. Experiences of the kind Harris has recounted, of suburban white kids whose parents told them not to play with her because she was Black, have been alien to my girls so far.

If someday they decide not to define themselves as Black, it will not be because they are ashamed or in some kind of denial. It will be because the world has changed, and we should be thankful for that.

American discourse is, happily, becoming more amenable to the idea that a person who is half Black can be two things rather than just one. It’s been a while now since people started speaking of themselves as biracial, a term that is used with much more pride than its predecessor, “mixed,” used to be. But Kamala Harris will still be commonly described as Black. The talk will be of her having a chance of being the second Black president, when that first one was actually half Black like her.

What is most important is that Harris, Obama and other people of mixed racial heritage can now get as far as they have. As for our habit of processing Blackness as foundational — much as Strom Thurmond did — it will be ever more absurd as the races mix further over the coming generations. On this custom, history will look upon us in puzzlement.

Source: We’re Asking the Wrong Question About Harris and Race

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International review of the Canadian Human Rights Commission can provide limited gains for anti-racism advocacy

2024/07/30 Leave a comment

Realism. More for political profile than substantive:

The Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions(GANHRI) has decided to conduct a special review of the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC). A coalition of civil society organizations, including the Black Class Action Secretariat, Canadian Association of Public Employees, and others, requested the review.

As the international body that accredits national human rights institutions, GANHRI will evaluate the CHRC’s level of compliance with the United Nations’ Paris Principles that set minimum standards for national human rights institutions to uphold.

The review may draw attention to issues of racial discrimination at the CHRC and the coalition’s proposed reforms, but GANHRI’s record indicates that it will most likely decide that the CHRC is still complying with the Paris Principles at the highest level.A June 10 press conference by the coalition of organizations publicizing GANHRI’s decision to review the CHRC’s status.

Complaints of racism at the CHRC

Since 2020, the coalition has been raising concerns about racial discrimination in the CHRC’s workplace and how it fulfills its mandate of resolving complaints of discrimination against federally regulated entities. 

Initially, the coalition pursued domestic avenues for change. There were union-based grievance processes for several Black and racialized CHRC employees and a comprehensive Senate Committee on Human Rights study. In 2023, both the Treasury Board Secretariat and Senate Committee found racial discrimination was an issue within the CHRC. 

In response, the CHRC has been introducing a range of initiatives to address anti-Black racism, sexism and systemic discrimination. The coalition, however, wants the CHRC and Canadian government to pursue more sweeping reforms to the CHRC and its associated legislation. Key reforms would amend equity and non-discrimination legislation, and change the complaint procedure so individuals could directly access a tribunal, rather than go through the commission itself.

To generate international pressure for reforms, the coalition wants GANHRI to review the CHRC’s compliance with the Paris Principles, particularly the requirements for pluralism to reflect society and for promoting and protecting human rights without discrimination. It is hoping GANHRI will reassess the CHRC’s top-level accreditation status. 

How reviews of national human rights institutions work

Ironically, and seemingly reflecting its high status, the CHRC prepared GANHRI’s guide to how its accreditation committee works.

GANHRI’s committee gives national human rights institutions grades based on their compliance with the Paris Principles: A for full compliance, and B for partial compliance. The committee also may give them recommendations on how to better adhere to the Paris Principles.

Having A-status allows a national human rights institution to participate in the work of the UN Human Rights Council and other UN mechanisms. A downgrade to B-status indicates compliance issues and revokes those privileges. 

The committee normally reviews national human rights institutions every five years and just gave the CHRC A-status after its routine review in 2023.

Beyond this regular review cycle, civil society organizations can submit information to GANHRI if they feel an institution is not complying with the Paris Principles. GANHRI’s committee then decides whether to conduct a special review.

GANHRI’s committee decided to conduct the special review of the CHRC, planned for its next session in Fall 2024, after the coalition highlighted the Treasury Board Secretariat’s and Senate Committee’s recent findings of discrimination within the CHRC. 

The impact of reviewing the CHRC

To increase public pressure for action from the CHRC and Canadian government, the coalition has widely publicized its request for, and GANHRI’s decision to conduct, the special review.

In its press conference, the coalition’s spokesperson saidGANHRI’s “landmark” decision puts Canada “among the ranks of nations like Russia, Iraq and Venezuela, who have faced a special review.” The coalition focused on states with weak human rights records to shame the CHRC, but national human rights institutions in states with stronger human rights records, like the United Kingdom, have also undergone special reviews.

The coalition also strongly emphasized how GANHRI could downgrade the CHRC’s status from A to B and, by extension, revoke key privileges. However, those familiar with GANHRI’s past practice will expect that it will maintain the CHRC’s top-level status. 

The vast majority of GANHRI’s members (90 out of 118) have A-status. Also, with the example of the UK’s national human rights institution, two special reviews did not produce any downgrade in status.

The CHRC’s response to GANHRI’s committee could detail how it has undertaken various initiatives on the issues of concern. While those initiatives might be inadequate for the coalition, they will probably be adequate for the GANHRI committee to maintain the CHRC’s A-status. 

Therefore, the coalition’s threats of a downgrade in status for the CHRC are unlikely to materialize. Still, the committee’s review may produce recommendations for improvements, which could more subtly assist the coalition’s advocacy.

Overall, the coalition’s turn to the international level has served its domestic agenda by drawing attention to issues of racial discrimination within the CHRC and the coalition’s desired reforms. However, GANHRI’s review will generate minimal international pressure for reforms if it maintains the CHRC’s top-level status as a national human rights institution, so the coalition will need to once again alter its advocacy strategy.

Source: International review of the Canadian Human Rights Commission can provide limited gains for anti-racism advocacy

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Islamic paintings of the Prophet Muhammad are an important piece of history – here’s why art historians teach them

2024/07/29 Leave a comment

Follow-up to the earlier articles:

Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, recently reached a settlement in a religious discrimination case with former adjunct faculty member Erika López Prater. She was dismissed in 2022 for showing two historical Islamic paintings of the Prophet Muhammad in her global survey of art history class, which some students described as disrespectful and Islamophobic.

While many Muslims today believe it is inappropriate to depict Muhammad, it was not always so in the past. Moreover, debates about this subject within the Muslim community are ongoing. Within the academic world, this material is taught in a neutral and analytical way to help students – including those who embrace the Islamic faith – assess and understand historical evidence.

As an expert on Islamic representations of the Prophet Muhammad, I consider the recent labeling of such paintings as “hate speech” and “blasphemy” not only inaccurate but inflammatory. Such condemnations can pose a threat to individuals and works of art.

The Prophet Muhammad has been represented in Islamic paintings since the 13th century. Islamic art historians such as my colleagues and me, both Muslim and non-Muslim, study and teach these images regularly. They form part of the standard survey of Islamic art, which includes calligraphy, ornament and architecture.

Comparing prophetic images

The 14th- and 16th-century images López Prater selected depict Muhammad receiving the beginning of Quranic revelations from God through the angel Gabriel. In Islamic thought, it is at that moment that Muhammad became a divinely appointed prophet.

The 14th-century painting is part of a royal manuscript, the “Compendium of Chronicles,” written by Rashid al-Din. It is one of the earliest illustrated histories of the world. The manuscript includes numerous paintings, including a cycle of images depicting several key moments in the Prophet Muhammad’s life.

The one that was discussed in López Prater’s class appears in a section on the beginnings of Quranic revelation and Muhammad’s apostleship. The painting depicts the prophet with his facial features visible as the angel Gabriel approaches him to convey God’s divine word. The event is shown taking place outdoors in a rocky setting that matches the accompanying text’s description.

The second image, made in Ottoman lands in 1595-96, is part of a six-volume biography of the prophet. Over 800 paintings in this manuscript depict major moments in Muhammad’s life, from his birth to his death.

In that painting, Muhammad is seen raising his hands in prayer while standing on the Mountain of Light, known as Jabal al-Nur, near Mecca. His facial features are no longer visible; instead, they are hidden behind a facial veil.

The Ottoman artist chose to depict the prophet’s purity through the use of white fabrics, and his entire being as touched by the light of God via the large flaming nimbus that encircles his body. Jabal al-Nur is shown, as its name suggests, as a radiant elevation. Above it and beyond the clouds, rows of angels hover in praise.

Key study questions

These two paintings show that Islamic representations of Muhammad are neither static nor uniform. Rather, they evolved over the centuries. During the 14th century, artists depicted the prophet’s facial features, while later artists covered his face with a veil.

Islamic art historians ask their students to compare these two paintings while encouraging them to slow down, look carefully, train their eyes to detect pictorial elements, and infer meaning. They also ask students to consider the textual content and historical context accompanying the paintings.

The key question students are prompted to think about through the juxtaposition of these two Islamic paintings is this: Why did the facial veil and flaming nimbus develop as two key prophetic motifs in Islamic depictions of Muhammad between A.D. 1400 and 1600?

The images help a teacher guide a collective conversation that explores how the prophet was conceptualized in more metaphorical ways – as a veiled beauty and as radiant light – over the course of those two centuries in particular.

This prompts a larger exploration of the diversity of Islamic religious expressions, including those that are more Sufi, or spiritualized, in nature. These paintings therefore capture the richly textured mosaic of Muslim worlds over time.

This historically sensitive, pictorial side-by-side is known as a comparative analysis or “comparandum.” It is a key analytical method in art history, and it was used by López Prater in her classroom. Now more than ever, a rigorous study of such Islamic paintings proves necessary – and indeed vital – at a time of sharp debates over what is, or is not, Islamic.

Source: Islamic paintings of the Prophet Muhammad are an important piece of history – here’s why art historians teach them

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Vancouver’s Langara College among those bracing for drastic plunge in foreign students

2024/07/29 Leave a comment

The impacts of the international student cap being felt:

…At Langara College, president Burns said in her message to faculty that while foreign student applications are down 79 per cent for the January term, they are also down nine per cent for the fall term, which begins in just six weeks.

Burns attributed the declines to several factors.

They include Immigration Minister Marc Miller’s promise in January to decrease the number of study visas it hands out by 35 per cent this year compared to last.

The B.C. government has also been making reforms — including instituting a new requirement that no more than 30 per cent of students at public post-secondary schools can be foreign students. There are 217,000 foreign students in the province’s post-secondary institutions.

This year both the federal and B.C. governments are expressing the need to temper the record volume of foreign students because of the impact on runaway housing costs, particularly rents, as well as on infrastructure and social services, such as health care.

On a national level, there are mixed signals about the pace at which foreign students are entering Canada.

Last year the country had about 1.1 million foreign students, a jump of three times from when Justin Trudeau was elected in 2015.

Despite Miller pledging to cap study visa approvals at 360,000 for this year, immigration department data shows it issued more study visas in the first five months of this year than it did in the first five months of last year, which broke records.

According to numbers from the immigration department, Canada has handed out 217,000 international study permits in the first five months of 2024. In the same period in 2023, 200,000 were handed out.

In B.C., however, study visa numbers are slightly reduced. In the first five months of 2024 the immigration department has issued 40,000 visas to those who say they will study in B.C. That’s down from about 45,000 in the same period last year.

In response to Postmedia’s questions, the immigration department said via email: “It is premature to claim the cap isn’t working.”

The ministry noted the cap doesn’t apply to students who apply to extend their studies from within the country, nor to those attending kindergarten-to-Grade 12 programs. It also said it expected visa approvals will go down in the months of August and September.

Andrew Griffith, a former immigration department director who now writes independently about migration, says he believes overall foreign student numbers will begin broadly declining soon.

A crucial government data table, he says, reveals that the volume of people around the world inquiring on the immigration department’s website about getting a Canadian study visa is down 26 per cent this year compared to last.

For instance, there were far fewer inquiries about obtaining a Canadian study visa in June of this year: 68,000  compared to 110,000 in June of 2023….

Source: Vancouver’s Langara College among those bracing for drastic plunge in foreign students

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