‘A sense of betrayal’: liberal dismay as Muslim-led US city bans Pride flags

2023/06/19 Leave a comment

Of note:

In 2015, many liberal residents in Hamtramck, Michigan, celebrated as their city attracted international attention for becoming the first in the United States to elect a Muslim-majority city council.

They viewed the power shift and diversity as a symbolic but meaningful rebuke of the Islamophobic rhetoric that was a central theme of then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign.

‘It’s brought us together’: at Ramadan, American Muslims on life in the age of Trump

This week many of those same residents watched in dismay as a now fully Muslim and socially conservative city council passed legislation banning Pride flags from being flown on city property that had – like many others being flown around the country – been intended to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.

Muslim residents packing city hall erupted in cheers after the council’s unanimous vote, and on Hamtramck’s social media pages, the taunting has been relentless: “Fagless City”, read one post, emphasized with emojis of a bicep flexing.

In a tense monologue before the vote, Councilmember Mohammed Hassan shouted his justification at LGBTQ+ supporters: “I’m working for the people, what the majority of the people like.”

While Hamtramck is still viewed as a bastion of multiculturalism, the difficulties of local governance and living among neighbors with different cultural values quickly set in following the 2015 election. Some leaders and residents are now bitter political enemies engaged in a series of often vicious battles over the city’s direction, and the Pride flag controversy represents a crescendo in tension.

“There’s a sense of betrayal,” said the former Hamtramck mayor Karen Majewski, who is Polish American. “We supported you when you were threatened, and now our rights are threatened, and you’re the one doing the threatening.”

For about a century, Polish and Ukrainian Catholics dominated politics in Hamtramck, a city of 28,000 surrounded by Detroit. By 2013, largely Muslim Bangladeshi and Yemeni immigrants supplanted the white eastern Europeans, though the city remains home to significant populations of those groups, as well as African Americans, whites and Bosnian and Albanian Americans. According to the 2020 census some 30% to 38% of Hamtramck’s residents are of Yemeni descent, and 24% are of Asian descent, largely Bangladeshi.

After several years of diversity on the council, some see irony in an all-male, Muslim elected government that does not reflect the city’s makeup.

The resolution, which also prohibits the display of flags with ethnic, racist and political views, comes at a time when LGBTQ+ rights are under assault worldwide, and other US cities have passed similar bans, with the vast majority driven by often white politically conservative Americans.

While the situation in Hamtramck largely evolved on its own local dynamics, some outside rightwing agitators connected to national Republican groups have been pushing for the ban on Hamtramck’s social media pages and voiced support for it at Tuesday’s meeting. They are from nearby Dearborn where they were part of an effort last year to ban books with LGBTQ+ themes.

Their talking points mirror those made elsewhere: some Hamtramck Muslims say they simply want to protect children, and gay people should “keep it in their home”.

But that sentiment is “an erasure of the queer community and an attempt to shove queer people back in the closet”, said Gracie Cadieux, a queer Hamtramck resident who is part of the Anti-Transphobic Action group.

Mayor Amer Ghalib, 43, who was elected in 2021 with 67% of the vote to become the nation’s first Yemeni American mayor, told the Guardian on Thursday he tries to govern fairly for everyone, but said LGBTQ+ supporters had stoked tension by “forcing their agendas on others”.

“There is an overreaction to the situation, and some people are not willing to accept the fact that they lost,” he said, referring to Majewski and recent elections that resulted in full control of the council by Muslim politicians.

Though the city’s Muslims are not a monolith and some privately told the Guardian they were “frustrated” with council, the only leader to publicly question it was the former city council member Amanda Jaczkowski, a Polish American who converted to Islam.

In a statement, she raised concerns about the move’s legality: “There are far too many questions to pass this today with any semblance of responsibility.”

On one level, the discord that has flared between Muslim and non-Muslim populations in recent years has its root in a culture clash that is unique to a partly liberal small US city now under conservative Muslim leadership, residents say. Last year, the council approved an ordinance allowing backyard animal sacrifices, shocking some non-Muslim residents even though animal sacrifice is protected under the first amendment in the US as a form of religious expression.

When Michigan legalized marijuana, it gave municipalities a late 2020 deadline to enact a prohibition of dispensaries. Hamtramck council missed the deadline and a dispensary opened, drawing outrage from conservative Muslims who demanded city leadership shut it down. That ignited counterprotests from many liberal residents, and the council only relented when it became clear it had no legal recourse.

At other times, the issues are not unique to Hamtramck. In the realm of local politics, personal fights among neighbors, warring factions and dirty politics are a common part of the democratic process across the US.

“I don’t know that we’re really all that different from other cities in most ways,” Majewski said.

However, race and religion add more fraught layers to Hamtramck’s issues. Islamophobia exists here, and some Muslims say they saw bigotry in local voter fraud investigations, and in LGBTQ+ supporters not respecting their religion.

But Majewski said the majority is now disrespecting the minority. She noted that a white, Christian-majority city council in 2005 created an ordinance to allow the Muslim call to prayer to be broadcast from the city’s mosques five times daily. It did so over objections of white city residents, and Majewski said she didn’t see the same reciprocity with roles reversed.

Ghalib disagreed, and labeled the prayer broadcast a “first amendment issue” while noting no one was asking for city hall to broadcast the calls.

Moreover, the white majority council was not always hospitable to Muslim residents who have previously faced overt racism. And with a majority-Muslim council in place, more Muslims had been appointed to boards and commissions, and hired in city hall. So had some LGBTQ+ residents, Ghalib added.

Despite the political clashes, he thinks there is hope for Hamtramck to live up to its multicultural ideals.

“We can get along and people are not violent here,” he said.

Cadieux agreed peaceful coexistence was possible.

“We aren’t in the business of excluding people from our society and I’m not going to exclude socially conservative Muslims – they have a place at the table just like everyone else,” she said. “However, they cannot, and will not, shove another community out of the way.”

Source: ‘A sense of betrayal’: liberal dismay as Muslim-led US city bans Pride flags

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Australia: What is the government’s multicultural policies review seeking to …

2023/06/17 Leave a comment

Of interest:

Fifty years after the Whitlam government released its landmark report on multiculturalism in Australia, the Albanese government has launched a major review of its policies to ensure they are serving multicultural communities in the best ways.

But will this review provide a multicultural policy “for all Australians”? Or is it just seeking to ensure, as the government put it, that “no one is left behind, and everyone feels that they truly belong”?

Multicultural policies in Australia initially aimed to benefit all Australians, not just multicultural communities. They were meant to express the broader principles of liberal democracy, such as equality, freedom and economic opportunity.

However, the past decade has been marked by “fear-mongering and division”, as Immigration Minister Andrew Giles recently reminded us.

Perhaps this is why the Albanese government review, promised during the 2022 federal election, has set a modest goal on multicultural policies. It may ultimately fall short of the broader goal of engaging with wider society.

So, what will the review actually be looking at? And what is it seeking to achieve?

How Australia has changed

The review’s terms of reference say the aim is quite simple: ensuring we have a government that works for a multicultural Australia.

It identifies discrimination, systemic barriers to services and social mobility as focal points for action.

Australia has changed significantly over the past decade. More than 50% of the population today was born overseas or has at least one parent overseas born. And nearly 30% identify with a non-Anglo culture.

Over the past decade, perhaps the biggest issue in relation to the social integration of immigrants has been the huge increase in temporary migration to Australia.

Public policy has equated “temporary” with “not requiring support”. That means these migrants have not received adequate services in housing, transport, education, employment protection and health.

They were the ones most abandoned during the pandemic, when they were told simply to “go home” or survive on the streets.

What the review will look at

There are three intertwining policy spheres that require a major rethink in the multicultural review:

  • multicultural policy (including language policy, recognition of people’s identities and support for their sense of belonging to Australian society, and employment protection policy)
  • settlement policy (focused on new arrivals of both migrants and refugees, including trauma recovery), and
  • community relations (covering discrimination, relations between different cultural groups, anti-racism efforts, social integration and the all-important relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians).

These policies were left to decay over the last generation, throughout both Labor and Coalition governments.

Another focus of the review will be on the power hierarchy in Australia and how open it is to non-European Australians.

This remains a major challenge for the country. There are few people of multicultural backgrounds in positions of power, such as

Importantly, the review will also consider the role of the government as an employer itself. Recent studies have pointed to the under-representation of culturally and linguistically diverse groups in the public sector at both the Commonwealth and state levels – especially at senior levels.

The review will consider how the Commonwealth government has been addressing all of these issues. It will make recommendations on legislation, policy settings, community relations and government services at the federal, state and local levels.

Where the review may fall short

Unfortunately, the review was not asked to examine the poor state of Australian government data collection on diversity and its appalling consequences.

We recently saw this most starkly in the lack of statistics on mortality from COVID, which hit older, multicultural Australians particularly hard.

Neither is it being asked to consider how to rebuild the depleted state of Australian research on diversity and multicultural issues. This was a central recommendation of the last Labor-led parliamentary committee review of multicultural policies in 2013.

The chair of the current panel is Dr Bulent Hass Dellal, executive director of the Australian Multicultural Foundation. He has considerable experience as a government advisor in the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments. He also has the confidence of the new government.

However, there are no First Nations people on the panel, though they will be invited to contribute. The government has also not appointed any academic researchers to either the panel or reference group.

From the perspective of experts with an interest in cultural and linguistic diversity, this is disappointing.

Lastly, the review is being conducted within the Department of Home Affairs rather than the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Multicultural policy was once thought important enough to have the support and imprimatur of the prime minister and be monitored by his staff – be it Malcolm Fraser or Bob Hawke. This is seemingly no longer the case.

Andrew Jakubowicz, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Technology Sydney

Source: What is the government’s multicultural policies review seeking to …

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Black Canadians gave views on racism in the justice system and experiences with police. Results were ‘stunning’

2023/06/17 Leave a comment

Of note:

The rift between Black Canadians and the country’s criminal justice system runs particularly deep and wide, according to the results of Canada’s first Black Canadian National Survey.

A report released this week by York University’s Institute for Social Researchreveals that 90 per cent of Black Canadians believe that racism in the criminal justice system is a serious problem. They are closely followed in that belief by the country’s Indigenous people, at 82 per cent.

The survey also outlines the extent of Black Canadians’ deep mistrust of the nation’s police services as well.

In the 12 months prior to the survey, more than one in five Black Canadians (22 per cent) reported being unfairly stopped by police — an experience less than half as common in any other racial or ethnic group. Only five per cent of white Canadians, for example, reported unfair stops.

The survey numbers suggested this seems to happen more in the country’s coastal provinces than anywhere else. In Atlantic Canada, 40 per cent of Black males reported being stopped unfairly by police in the previous 12 months. In B.C. that figure was 41 per cent. By comparison, the rates in Ontario and Quebec were 30 and 31 per cent respectively.

Lorne Foster, York University’s Research Chair in Black Canadian Studies and Human Rights and one of the co-authors of the survey report, calls those numbers “stunning.”

“It kind of makes me gasp, in a sense, to think that 22 per cent of randomly collected Black respondents across the country suggest that they’ve had unfair encounters with police,” he says.

He says although many people think of the racial profiling and racial discrimination of Blacks by police as a big-city problem, that the data from the Atlantic Provinces and B.C. — where the percentage of Blacks reporting unfair stops by police was almost 20 points higher than the national average — calls that idea into question.

“There is, in policing, the usual theory that all our police services are good. (And) if there’s something wrong, it’s only a few bad apples and there’s a few bad apples in every good barrel,” he says. “That argument has existed for a long time — that the police services are basically and fundamentally fair and unbiased.

“This data sort of belies that.”

The RCMP did not respond to requests for comment on the results of the survey.

Under former commissioner Brenda Lucki, the Mounties eventually acknowledged ongoing problems with systemic racism and discrimination. Lucki’s Vision 150 program was designed, over the course of five to seven years, to transform the RCMP, in part by addressing those discrimination problems — problems that have, since 2018 lead to the national police force paying out or potentially facing some $2.4 billion worth of damages in multiple class action lawsuits.

Part of that program was a three-hour, online course, United Against Racism launched in November 2021. It was stipulated by the RCMP as mandatory for all employees to complete by September 2022.

As of Jan. 1, 2023, only 51.6 per cent had completed the course. When that data is filtered to include only RCMP members — regular officers and special constables — the figure drops sightly to 51 per cent.

The data is the result of a hybrid survey (using three different ways of collecting responses) of almost 7,000 Canadians, the majority — 5,697 — chosen randomly from across the country.

Foster is quick to point out, though, that the data this survey does not actually allow researchers to make determinations of racial profiling.

“But it does suggest, because the numbers are so disparate for Black communities, that there could be issues there. And they should be looked into.”

He likens it to a patient getting an X-ray and doctors seeing a shadow in the lungs. There’s definitely something abnormal there, but it will take more tests to find out what exactly it is.

The survey results also reveal that Black Canadians see their workplaces as an epicentre of racial discrimination, says Foster.

Seventy-five per cent of Black Canadians said they have experienced workplace racism and think it’s a problem. Another 47 per cent believe they have been treated unfairly by an employer regarding hiring, pay or promotion in the 12 months prior to the survey.

Seventy per cent of other non-whites also see workplace racism as a serious problem. By contrast, 56 per cent of white Canadians don’t see racism in the workplace as a problem or believe it to be a minor issue.

The survey results — which also include Black Canadians’ opinions on racism in health care, child care and social services — go a long way to establishing the importance of collecting specific race-based data.

“Race data has not been collected in this country in any kind of consistent and proper way. Not by Stats Canada, not by anybody,” says Foster.

That’s just beginning to change, though, beginning with Ontario, with Nova Scotia closely following suit. Foster has been involved with both provincial governments in helping them learn to collect that data.

In Ontario, he says, all police services are required to collect race data on use of force incidents and some police departments — Toronto among them — are collecting race data on strip searches as well. In Nova Scotia both the Health and Justice ministries have committed to collecting race-based data.

Beyond the startling numbers in the survey, says Foster, it’s a model for the rest of the country’s police services and public sector services to examine and improve their operations through the lens of collected race-based data.

“The point of this kind of research is that it really maps out these kinds of structural vulnerabilities in these public sector institutions, and it kind of points to the quality of life gaps,” he says.

“We’re a mixed race society that’s never been studied along racial lines. And this is the first salvo into that. And I’d hope that it would be followed up with many, many more.”

Source: Black Canadians gave views on racism in the justice system and experiences with police. Results were ‘stunning’

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Hamstrung by ‘golden handcuffs’: Diversity roles disappear 3 years after George Floyd’s murder inspired them

2023/06/12 Leave a comment

Of note:

Diversity, equity and inclusion leaders, who were hired in waves to help companies achieve an ethnically balanced workforce after George Floyd’s murder in 2020, are being phased out, surveys indicate, leaving experts in the field concerned that corporations’ talk of affecting change was just empty words.

DEI roles increased by 55% following demands for broader racial equity and justice after Floyd’s murder, the Society for Human Resource Management reported in 2020. But instead of creating fair opportunities and a comfortable work culture for Black employees, a pair of recent reports indicate, DEI professionals are losing their jobs, as layoffs across the economy have gained momentum.

The attrition rate for DEI roles was 33% at the end of 2022, compared to 21% for non-DEI roles. Amazon, Applebees and Twitter lead the waywith DEI layoffs since July 2022, according to , a New York-based company that uses data to analyze workforce dynamics and trends.

Another survey showed that Black employees represent only 3.8% of chief diversity officers overall, with white people making up 76.1% of the roles. Those of Hispanic or Latino ethnicity make up 7.8% and those of Asian ethnicity make up 7.7%

Reyhan Ayas, a senior economist at Revelio Labs, which surveyed DEI layoffs, said the data shows the pledge to impact change was not followed by genuine effort. 

“I always say that it is so easy to make public statements and commitments because no one will eventually check if you’re committed to the things that you committed to,” she said. “I can say: ‘I will be fully vegan by 2025’ because no one will ever call me in 2025 and ask me if I’m actually fully vegan. And that’s really what is going on here. In 2020, a lot of companies made big commitments, big statements around the DEI roles and goals. And as we are observing a turning of that tide, I think it’s very timely that we actually look into companies to see if they have kept up with those big statements they made.” 

DEI professional Nika White, author of the book, “Inclusion Uncomplicated,” said the studies also reveal “the harsh reality” of many companies’ commitments to diversity.  “This is very disheartening, especially after so many of us were hopeful after George Floyd’s murder that organization leaders would be sensitized and committed to equity and inclusion.

But the opposite has happened. Revelio Labs’ 2023 report on the state of DEI and the impact of last year’s layoffs, found that DEI-focused roles “experienced a nearly 40% churn rate at companies engaged in layoffs, as compared to about 24% for non-DEI roles.” 

The stunning absence of Black people in chief diversity officer roles in companies makes DEI professionals cringe.

“This is a role that is essential to advocating and advancing the progress for underrepresented talent at these organizations,” said Wade Hinton, founder of Hinton and Co., a DEI firm in Chattanooga, Tennessee. “And so, you want to make sure that it reflects the diversity of our communities and this country, and it’s clear that we’ve got work to do on this.” 

Together, the studies mean something more to Chris Metzler, senior vice president, corporate DEI and environmental, social and governance strategies at the National Urban League. The influx of DEI officer hires in 2020, he said, was disingenuous and the positions have largely been weakened to the point of being toothless.

“Most of your diversity professionals at these companies report to human resources, which are headed by white women and in some cases, white men,” he said. “So, it doesn’t surprise me that Black diversity officers . . . are being moved out. It’s increasingly becoming a dead-end job. Corporations are saying one thing and demonstrating something else. It’s going back to checking the box versus hiring and keeping qualified workers who can impact change in the company.” 

Tai Robinson, a human resources professional in Houston, said the value of Black DEI officers can be significant, if given in-house support because they are specifically trained for the role. “When a white human resources person listens to African Americans voice their concerns,” she said, “they can end up sounding like complaints, although they are just concerns. And that’s a problem.”

Some in the field say two other concerns helped make DEI positions expendable: a lack of support from higher-ups and the hiring of workers who have little or no experience in executing this specialized job.

“So many of these individuals were receiving these great salaries,” Robinson said. “But in reality, they were wearing golden handcuffs, unable to do but so much because the organization leaders didn’t want much done.”

Metzler agreed, adding that without support, the DEI officers are set up to fail.

“They have the title; they don’t have the authority. In some cases, they don’t have the budgets, so it’s difficult to navigate that terrain,” he said.

“There is a value proposition to this work. It’s an important job that requires trained professionals,” Metzler added. “It is time for organizations to retool the description and to hire the right people for these positions and not just fill a position with someone who has no idea where to even begin.”

Metzler insists the focus should shift from DEI to environmental, social and governance strategy, which has three pillars: how a company’s practices impact the environment; the social consequences of a company’s performance; and governance over an organization’s decisions and ramifications of those decisions. 

“ESG is the way forward,” he said. “We’re still in that old, affirmative action, equal employment opportunity definition of diversity, which is part of the reason why we’re not moving in any significant way.”

Still, while bothered by the drop-off of DEI officers, Hinton said he remains encouraged that the trend can be reversed.

“I’m optimistic because I consult with clients every day,” he said. “I know first-hand that there are organizations that truly want to see progress made. But collectively we’ve got to make sure that we’re encouraging those organizations to encourage their peers to work with them  to advance this work.”

But the opposite has happened. Revelio Labs’ 2023 report on the state of DEI and the impact of last year’s layoffs, found that DEI-focused roles “experienced a nearly 40% churn rate at companies engaged in layoffs, as compared to about 24% for non-DEI roles.” The stunning absence of Black people in chief diversity officer roles in companies makes DEI professionals cringe.

Source: Hamstrung by ‘golden handcuffs’: Diversity roles disappear 3 years after George Floyd’s murder inspired them

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CRTC erred in its decision on Radio-Canada N-word broadcast, court finds

2023/06/12 Leave a comment

Of note. Needed sending back of original decision:

A federal court has ruled that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) erred in its decision penalizing Société Radio-Canada (SRC) for broadcasting the N-word.

In a unanimous decision released Thursday, the Federal Court of Appeal said that the broadcast regulator made several mistakes when it ruled against SRC in response to a complaint.

In particular, the court ruled, the CRTC cited sections of the Broadcasting Act which do not give it the authority to regulate speech on the airwaves. The court sent the decision back to the CRTC for reconsideration.

Source: CRTC erred in its decision on Radio-Canada N-word broadcast, court finds

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Canadian Muslim charity wins ‘milestone’ settlement after being falsely accused of funding terrorism

2023/06/12 Leave a comment

Of note and welcome accountability:

One of Canada’s largest faith-based charities has won a settlement over a set of publications that falsely claimed it was a “front” to fund terror groups abroad.

Islamic Relief Canada reached the out-of-court settlement earlier this month in a lawsuit against Thomas Quiggin — a former military officer turned self-described researcher who last year emerged as one of the more recognizable names in the truck convoy protests — and six others who it argued made “false, malicious and defamatory” statements aimed at harming the charity.

Along with Quiggin, the $2.5-million lawsuit from December 2018 took aim at Benjamin Dichter, who later emerged as a convoy spokesperson; writer Tahir Aslam Gora and an online television channel of which Gora is CEO; writer Raheel Raza and her husband Syed Sohail Raza; as well as a Yarmouth-based man named Joseph Hazelton who interviewed Quiggin about the charity in a YouTube video that garnered over 10,000 views.

Source: Canadian Muslim charity wins ‘milestone’ settlement after being falsely accused of funding terrorism

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Diaspora groups join calls for public inquiry on foreign interference

2023/06/08 Leave a comment

We continue to fail diaspora groups (interesting that it was the Bloc that organized the meeting):

A day after embattled special rapporteur David Johnston defended his approach to investigating foreign interference before a parliamentary committee, multiple Chinese-Canadian diaspora groups say he should have consulted them and are calling for a public inquiry.

“Mr. Johnston’s report is a huge disappointment,” said Gloria Fung, president of the Canada-Hong Kong Link, during a joint news conference with other diaspora groups organized by the Bloc Québécois.

Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet said Johnston has failed to reach out to the diaspora organizations.

Johnston’s committee testimony on Tuesday dominated question period Wednesday afternoon. Opposition MPs have voted three times for a public inquiry already and have asked the special rapporteur to resign his position.

“While the prime minister is protecting the secrets of the Liberal Party, he’s not protecting people oppressed by the China who still family that have stayed under the thumb of the Chinese regime and deserve to be safe in Canada and Quebec,” Blanchet told the Commons. “Will the prime minister act like a leader and launch a public inquiry?”

In response, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said protecting diaspora communities is a priority for his government.

“We know the first targets of  Chinese interference are diaspora communities,” he said. “That’s why we’re so firm in protecting them and are getting them involved in the decisions we’re taking.”

Trudeau reminded Parliament that Johnston plans to start touring the country in the summer to speak to diaspora communities and issue recommendations to government “on the best way to protect them.”

The special rapporteur’s office did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

During his testimony before the procedure and House affairs committee Tuesday, Johnston discussed his plans to speak with diaspora communities, government representatives, experts and intelligence officials in July.

“For this work, I will be supported by three special advisers with expertise in national security intelligence, law and diaspora community matters,” he said.

He said those advisers have not yet been chosen.

Speaking to CBC’s Power and Politics Wednesday evening, Therchin said at first he would participate in the public hearings if asked, but then said he would want to think about it more.

“If boycotting the engagement with David Johnston sends a stronger message, then that’s something that I should discuss with my community,” he said.

“Canada is a free democratic country. Why the hesitation to have a public inquiry?”

Source: Diaspora groups join calls for public inquiry on foreign interference

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Lynn McDonald: A new museum to reclaim our history from those who want to topple it

2023/06/08 Leave a comment

The appropriate counter reaction?

Winnipeg is justly proud of its Canadian Museum for Human Rights, which opened in 2014, but we need a new museum in Canada to flag current concerns: a Canadian Museum of Misinformation, or possibly the Canadian Propaganda Museum. Whatever the title, Toronto deserves to have it.

The statue of Sir John A. Macdonald in front of the provincial legislature, Queen’s Park, is currently boarded up. Of the nine other Macdonald statues in the country, only the one on Parliament Hill is still in view. The others were put into storage, often after being defaced or, as with statue in Montreal, beheaded.

Toronto can also boast about beheading the statue of Egerton Ryerson, who brought us free public  schools and free public libraries. The misinformation on him amounts to reversing his pro-Indigenous work — he was named a “brother” by an Ojibway chief and given an Ojibway name for his support. Yet at what was then known as Ryerson University, he was condemned as being responsible for the Indian residential school system.

Toronto’s other great trump card in the misinformation game is Dundas Street, which was named after Henry Dundas, whose work as a lawyer led to the abolition of slavery in Scotland in 1778. Yet his Toronto detractors — thousands signed a petition against him — make him responsible for delaying the abolition of the slave trade in 1792.

His supposed offence was to get an amendment adopted in the British House of Commons to make abolition gradual. A motion tabled in the previous year, 1791, for immediate abolition failed miserably, 163-88. And, as a statement of opinion, rather than a law, it would have had no effect.

Detractors, however, like to have a culprit to blame, as opposed to the many economic and political circumstances at play, in this case the French Revolutionary Wars, which meant that the Royal Navy had to be on guard against invasion from two pro-slavery countries — France and Spain.

Dundas understood, as other well-meaning advocates for abolition did not, that the slave trade could not be ended by passing a law in one country. Slave owners in the West Indies could simply buy new enslaved people from ships carrying false papers and a false flag — Spain, Portugal and France all continued their slave-trading businesses.

Yet in 2021, Toronto city council adopted a motion to rename Dundas Street, without even holding the public inquiry promised by both council and the mayor.

What to put in the museum? A statue of Sir John A. Macdonald is a must, and the one taken down in Victoria would be ideal. The mayor of Victoria at the time had it removed to prevent it from being vandalized.

A particularly fine statue, it was commissioned by the Sir John A. Macdonald Historical Society and given to the city. The society is now looking for a home for it in Glasgow, Scotland, where Macdonald was born. Toronto should speak up before it’s too late.

The new museum should also display the Ryerson statue, either in its parts (oh the shame) or put together again. For educational purposes, the plaque placed next to it at the university should be displayed at the museum.

It makes the accusation that Ryerson was “instrumental in the design and implementation of the residential school system,” when he had nothing to do with either — rather, he supported the voluntary, bilingual day schools that Indigenous parents and leaders wanted.

The task force that recommended dropping the Ryerson name from the university and permanently removing his statue did so on the basis that he was “associated” with the residential schools. It provided no evidence for such a charge, nor is any available. His lack of responsibility for residential schools was confirmed at a meeting of the university’s senate on Oct. 5, 2021, after the board of governors announced the name change.

It would be important for the museum to set out the sequence of accusations, who made them and any evidence for or against them. It would be highly desirable, as well, for the museum to reveal the university’s concerted efforts to prevent any information getting out about what communications it received for and against the name change.

Otherwise, we have to take it on faith, just as on Chinese interference in Canadian elections, and without even a former governor general to assure us that we can believe what we are told

Lynn McDonald is a former member of Parliament and a fellow with the Royal Historical Society.

Source: Lynn McDonald: A new museum to reclaim our history from those who want to topple it

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Rahim Mohamed: Unhinged teacher tells Muslim to support Pride or ‘you can’t be Canadian’

2023/06/08 Leave a comment

Of note. Teacher went to far with her “you don’t belong (in Canada)!” but most other points were valid. And it is equally valid to point out the lack of consistency in reasonable accommodation arguments:

Administrators were thrust into full damage control mode on Tuesday when an audio recording of an in-class scolding of a Muslim pupil, attributed to a teacher at North Edmonton’s Londonderry Junior High, was leaked to social media.

In the recording, shared on Twitter by the London (U.K.)-based 5Pillars news, the teacher could be heard berating a student, identified as “Mansour”, for allegedly skipping class to avoid ‘Pride Month’ activities:

“You are out to lunch if you think it’s acceptable to not show up because (of) Pride activities going on at school,” the speaker admonished. “But meanwhile, (your LGBT+ classmates), they’re here when we did Ramadan… and they’re showing respect for in the class for your religion…”

“It goes two ways! If you want to be respected for you are… then you better give it back to people who are different from you.”

The speaker then references new anti-gay legislation in Uganda, a country where over eight-in-10 citizens identify as Christian: “In Uganda, literally, if they think you’re gay, they will execute you.” (Uganda’s just-passed Anti-Homosexuality Bill imposes the death penalty for so-called “aggravated” homosexual acts, such as gay sex with an underage partner or infecting a partner with HIV).

“If you believe that kind of thing, then you don’t belong (in Canada)!”

She went on to suggest that those who don’t agree with certain laws in Canada don’t belong in this country.

“We believe that people can marry whomever they want. That is in law. And if you don’t think that should be the law, you can’t be Canadian. You don’t belong here.”

(As of Wednesday morning, the recording had garnered over 100,000 views on Twitter).

5Pillars also shared a letter, dated (Saturday,) June 3, 2023, purportedly written by the school’s principal Ed Charpentier: “Many of you may have heard an audio recording of a teacher at Londonderry School circulating on social media channels,” reads the letter. “I want to emphasize that the views expressed by the teacher do not reflect the values of acceptance, inclusion and belonging that are so strong at Londonderry School.” (a phone number given at the bottom of the letter leads to the school’s central directory). The letter’s date suggests that the incident took place sometime last week.

Edmonton Public Schools added the following on Tuesday in an email to members of the media: “(We are) aware of the audio recording of a teacher at Londonderry School circulating on social media channels. The school and Division are taking steps to address the situation. Due to the Division’s legislated privacy obligations, we are not able to provide any further information.”

While the teacher was clearly out of line, the recording nevertheless reflects a religious tension that’s playing out across Canada over increasingly elaborate in-school Pride celebrations. Evidence is starting to mount that Muslim students are “opting-out” en masse from Pride-related activities — going so far as to skip school on designated Pride days.

London, Ont. (a city where nearly 10 per cent of residents identify as Muslim) has been hit by a wave of absences on school days dedicated to LGBT visibility. Just last month, nearly one-third of students enrolled at London’s largest elementary school stayed home as the district commemorated the International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia. (As the National Post’s Tristin Hopper reported, a majority of students absent that day appeared to be from Muslim families). At least six other schools in the London-area reported higher than usual absences that day. A similar mass absence broke out three months earlier, when the elementary school marked “Rainbow Day”.

A subsequent public statement from the London Council of Imams (LCI) read, “When it comes to activities related to ‘Pride Month’… parents play an integral role in the education of their children and are critical to empowering them to remain steadfast on their faith and beliefs. For this reason, the LCI is not in the position to direct parents on whether to choose to have your child(ren) to attend or be absent from school.” The statement advised parents to “use their discretion” to determine whether to send their children to school on days that included Pride-related activities and programming.

While Pride-related absenteeism among Muslim students has been documented most extensively in London-area schools, the leaked recording from Edmonton indicates that this issue is beginning to crop up in other Canadian cities with large Muslim populations (Edmonton is home to nearly 100,000 Muslims).

Interestingly, the brewing tensions over Muslim students declining to partake in in-class Pride activities recall the “reasonable accommodation” debates of yesteryear — only with the ideological roles reversed. The same progressives who once breathlessly defended the right of Muslim women to don Niqabs in voting booths (and, famously, at citizenship ceremonies) are now claiming that celebrating Pride Month is a sine qua non of being Canadian: “If you don’t believe that, then you don’t belong here!”

Even as they publicly condemned the teacher’s words, it would be unsurprising if many leaders in Edmonton’s ultra-progressive public school system were quietly nodding their heads in agreement with this statement.

Once again, Canada’s Muslim community finds itself at the centre of an ideologically charged debate over Canadian values. This time around, the absolutists are wearing rainbow-coloured clothing.

Source: Rahim Mohamed: Unhinged teacher tells Muslim to support Pride or ‘you can’t be Canadian’

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , , ,

Jacoby: Nuance is crucial in fighting hate. That’s why I helped write an alternative definition of antisemitism.

2023/06/07 Leave a comment

Worth reading on the background to the Nexus definition and the distinctions with the IHRA definition:

My 95-year-old mother knows a thing or two about trauma. Not only because she is a survivor of Auschwitz but also because she is a psychologist.

“What worries me,” my mother says, “is that we Jews will succumb to our past trauma rather than rise above it.”

I share my mother’s concern.

Jewish Americans face the threats of escalating antisemitism and growing white nationalism at the same time that the Israeli government’s anti-democratic policies are eliciting increasingly harsh condemnation worldwide.

There is no inherent relationship between antisemitism and the outcry over Israeli policies. But when they occur together, they can trigger traumatic memories and confuse our thinking. This confusion can lead to a dangerous conflation of issues at the intersection of Israel and antisemitism.

Prime Minister Netanyahu exploits this confusion to deflect condemnation of his policies. He constructs a misleading equation, portraying severe criticism of Israel as not only a threat to the Jewish state but also to the Jewish people.

To demonize his political opponents, Netanyahu invokes the ultimate act of antisemitism, the Holocaust. He did so when he blasted those negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran and when he reprimanded The New York Times over its criticism of the agreements he reached with far-right political parties. His strategy is to downplay antisemitism on the right and emphatically equate left-wing with right-wing antisemitism to obscure their distinctions.

Some Jewish organizations, perceiving strong criticism of Israel as threatening Jewish unity and the Jewish state, reflexively reinforce that equation. A case in point is Anti-Defamation League chief Jonathan Greenblatt’s approach to anti-Zionism.

Greenblatt used his keynote address at ADL’s annual leadership summit in May to hammer home his assertion that “Anti-Zionism is antisemitism. Full stop.” Over the past two weeks, he has played a leading role in the campaign to endorse the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance non legally binding working definition of antisemitism (IHRA) as the sole such definition in the Biden administration’s U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism. In a tweet urging its adoption, Greenblatt proclaimed: “Anything else permits antisemitism under the guise of anti-Zionism.”

Greenblatt was worried about reports that the White House would include other definitions in the strategy, such as the Nexus Document, which addresses “the complexities at the intersection of Israel and antisemitism.” Greenblatt has repeatedly denigrated Nexus by calling it a “pasted-up process organized by activists” and circulating inaccuracies like: “The Nexus definition assumes that unless there is outright violence involved, anti-Zionism is generally not antisemitism.”

In fact, the Nexus Document includes seven examples of anti-Zionist or anti-Israel behavior that should be considered antisemitic and four that might not be. As Dov Waxman, a member of the Nexus Task Force and chair of Israel Studies at UCLA, tweeted: “Nexus clearly identifies when criticism of Israel or opposition to it crosses the line into antisemitism. But because it is clearer than IHRA in this respect, it is less susceptible to being misused and weaponized against Palestinians and their supporters.”

It’s not that Greenblatt doesn’t understand the complexity of these issues. He has taken nuanced and moderate positions on anti-Zionism in the past. But complex formulas impede the use of simplistic equations. If Greenblatt wants to show that anti-Zionism is always an existential threat to both the Jewish state and the Jewish people, he can leave no room for nuance.

Ultimately, the White House acknowledged the significance of utilizing a varied set of resources to combat antisemitism, stating, “There are several definitions of antisemitism, which serve as valuable tools to raise awareness and increase understanding of antisemitism.” The strategy acknowledged that the United States had already “embraced” the IHRA version, describing it as the “most prominent,” and went on to say that it “welcomes and appreciates the Nexus Document” and other efforts.

That formula has angered some supporters of the IHRA definition, including World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder, who said: “The inclusion of a secondary definition in addition to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism is an unnecessary distraction from the real work that needs to be done.”

Like Greenblatt, Lauder wants to build a consensus around a simple explanation for a complex situation. But their approach actually diminishes our ability to carry out “the real work that needs to be done” because it weakens our ability to confront the dominant force fueling increased antisemitism in America: white supremacy

According to the ADL, white supremacy is the greatest danger facing Jewish Americans. As President Biden said in his opening remarks when the National Strategy was unveiled: “Our intelligence agencies have determined that domestic terrorism rooted in white supremacy — including antisemitism — is the greatest terrorist threat to our Homeland today.”

“We can’t take on white supremacy, xenophobia, anti-LGBTQ hate, or any form of hate without taking on the antisemitism that helps animate it,” says Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and former head of Integrity First for America, which successfully sued the neo-Nazis who organized the deadly 2017 Charlottesville march. “And likewise, we can’t take on antisemitism without taking on white supremacy or these other forms of hate … All our fates are intertwined.”

But Israel’s policies create a dilemma. When many of our potential allies see Israel, they see a country that calls itself a democracy but enacts laws enshrining Jewish dominance over Palestinian citizens of Israel. And they see a country that has denied fundamental human rights to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza for 56 years. So, not surprisingly, they are moved to speak out about these realities.

Criticism of Israel will inevitably heighten in response to the policies and actions of this Israeli government. Some of Israel’s critics may indeed cross a line by using antisemitic tropes or stereotypes or denying Jews the same rights afforded to others, including Palestinians. When they do, they should not get a free pass. Full stop.

But we must resist the temptation to reflexively respond with accusations of Jew-hatred, even when the criticism of Israel is off-base or unjustified. We cannot afford to oversimplify complex issues by conflating political disagreements about Israel with antisemitism. If we do, we risk distracting from addressing the most dangerous instances of antisemitism and bigotry.

Times like these call on us to shed the weight of our past and approach these issues with clear minds and thoughtful consideration. “Sometimes we split the world into good and bad to guard ourselves against difficult realities,” my mother said. “If we can rid ourselves of the bad and make it so the other side is always guilty, then we feel safe. But by doing so, we lose the ability to find a solution.”

Source: Nuance is crucial in fighting hate. That’s why I helped write an alternative definition of antisemitism. – JTA News

Filed under Antisemitism Tagged with , ,

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