‘Racial Inequality May Be As Deadly As COVID-19,’ Analysis Finds

2020/08/29 Leave a comment

Yet another study, highlighting racial disparities in health:

Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, mortality rates and life expectancy are far better for white Americans than they are for Black people during normal, non-pandemic years, according to an analysis published this weekin the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The analysis, which looked at U.S. mortality statistics back to 1900, finds an additional 1 million white Americans would have to die this year in order for their life expectancy to fall to the best-ever levels recorded for Black Americans — back in 2014. That year, the average life expectancy for African Americans was 75.3 years — similar to the average life expectancy for white Americans back in 1989, says study author Elizabeth Wrigley-Field.

“It’s as though Blacks have just missed out on the last three decades of [life expectancy] progress,” says Wrigley-Field, a demographer and infectious disease historian at the Minnesota Population Center at the University of Minnesota.

The findings underscore the pandemic scale of the racial inequalities in mortality in the U.S., she says.

“We don’t know what the ultimate scale of COVID-19 deaths is going to be,” Wrigley-Field says. “But what we can say is that white deaths to COVID would have to increase from what they are right now by a factor of [more than] five to make white death rates this year look like the best that Black death rates have ever been.”

She notes that 2014 was also the year when Black Americans had their lowest age-adjusted death rates on record — 1,061 deaths per 100,000. By comparison, for whites, the age-adjusted mortality rate was 899 per 100,000 in 2017 (the last year with available data). To match the lowestmortality rates on record for Black Americans, more than an additional 400,000 white Americans would have to die this year, her analysis found.

Thus far, COVID-19 has taken a disproportionate toll on Black people and other communities of color. Black Americans have experienced the highest death rates from the pandemic — about 88.4 deaths per 100,000, compared to 40.4 per 100,000 for white Americans, according to data compiled by the APM Research Lab.

What Do Coronavirus Racial Disparities Look Like State By State? As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted in a report last week, there are multiple factors behind these pandemic disparities, including the facts that Black Americans and other people of color are disproportionately represented among essential workers who cannot perform their jobs while sheltering at home, and they’re more likely to live in multigenerational households and crowded housing conditions that can increase the risk of exposure to the coronavirus.

But there are also longstanding systemic reasons behind these racial health disparities, notes Dr. Utibe Essien, a health equity researcher with the University of Pittsburgh — factors that include Black Americans’ well-documented disparities in access to quality health care.

African Americans have higher rates of underlying medical conditions, including diabetes, heart disease and lung disease, that are linked to more severe cases of COVID-19. Black people in the U.S. also bear the burden of historic discrimination policies, Essien says, such as redlining policies in housing that limited African Americans’ ability to accumulate wealth through property ownership. And wealth is a significant driver of health, Essien notes.

“I think it’s important to … appreciate that the pandemic didn’t start something new, but that these disparities really, unfortunately, have been seen for decades, if not centuries,” he says.

Indeed, Wrigley-Field says she was inspired to carry out the current analysis after conducting an earlier study on regional mortality rates from infectious disease during the early 20th century. “The thing that we found that stunned us was that white deaths in 1918 during the flu pandemic” — which killed more than a half-million Americans — “were less than what Black deaths had been in every prior year.” A century later, she writes in her paper, “the basic fact endures that Black disadvantage is on the scale of the worst pandemics in modern U.S. history.”

Wrigley-Field says she hopes her analysis will help reframe the discussion in the U.S. about the kinds of policy changes that society can realistically embrace to address health disparities stemming from systemic racism.

“To me, this really changes the question about how we think about, ‘What are we willing to do to stop these deaths?’ ” she says. “Because we know what we’re willing to do to stop deaths from COVID. We’re basically willing to change every aspect of how we live, how we work, how we do our family lives, whether we travel, whether schools are in session. Absolutely everything is on the table. And all of that is controversial, but it’s actually all pretty popular, too. ”

“Meanwhile,” she says, “we have this similar or probably larger scale of deaths happening every year, just to Blacks. But proposals that would try to address that in some way are often very controversial. Most people do not support, for example, reparations. Most people do not support defunding the police, although the opinions about that are changing pretty quickly. … To me, these results, more than anything, just kind of reframe that question about what’s realistic.

“So what are the things that we think are unimaginable that would address racism that we have to similarly say, we have no choice but to do this because the scale of death that’s resulting is unacceptable?”

Source: ‘Racial Inequality May Be As Deadly As COVID-19,’ Analysis Finds

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Feds creating ‘inventory’ of racial minorities to fill senior public service posts

2020/08/29 Leave a comment

Reasonable approach. I recall when I worked for Global Affairs in the 90s, that a similar practice existed, run by HR, to identify promising women foreign service officers for development assignments and advancement. Some 20-30 years later, most of the names became senior officials:

The Liberal government wants to create an “inventory” of Black, Indigenous and other racialized people who could play high-ranking roles in the federal public service.

It is looking for an executive search firm to create and maintain the list of candidates from minority groups, as well as people with disabilities, who could be considered for deputy minister and assistant deputy minister positions.

Details of the planned database are contained in a request for proposals posted on the federal government’s procurement and public tenders website.

They were first reported by the True North Centre for Public Policy on its news site.

The call for the staffing consultant to do this work was put out by the Privy Council Office, a bureaucratic operation that supports the prime minister and cabinet.

The request for proposals does not disclose how much the contract will cost.

“The federal public service is stronger and most effective when it reflects the diversity of the Canadians it serves,” says the request for proposals.

“While progress has been made in recent years to achieve gender parity in the senior leadership community, there is more progress to be made in increasing representation of Black people and other racialized groups, Indigenous people, as well as persons with disabilities.”

Ordinarily, public servants rise through the ranks before attaining the most senior executive posts of deputy minister and assistant deputy minister.

However, the Employment Equity Act, which applies to federally regulated industries, Crown corporations and some portions of the federal public service, designates women, Indigenous Peoples, other visible minorities and people with disabilities as groups requiring special measures to overcome barriers to employment.

According to an analysis by Andrew Griffith, a former director general at the Immigration Department, in the October 2017 issue of Policy Options, less than four per cent of executive positions in the federal public service were Indigenous and less than 10 per cent were other visible minorities.

Caroline Xavier is the only Black assistant deputy minister, appointed in February at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

“We are in 2020. How come it took so long? It shouldn’t have,” she told the CBC in June.

The winning bidder will be required to update the list every two months.

Source: Feds creating ‘inventory’ of racial minorities to fill senior public service posts

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Police service boards grapple with diversity, inclusion amid calls for change

2020/08/29 Leave a comment

Necessary, but not easy (see Dick Fadden’s earlier Be prepared: The road to any change in policing will be long and arduous):

Daljit Nirman’s message was clear: Before the Ottawa police could better meet a diverse community’s needs, they must take meaningful steps to ensure their own ranks are free of bias and discrimination.

The June motion from Nirman, a member of the Ottawa Police Services Board, came just weeks after demonstrators filled downtown streets demanding action on police violence against Black and Indigenous people.

Among other things, the motion called for a redesign of the long-standing structures and systems within the police service to ensure they are more equitable and inclusive.

The wording announces to the city that the police service is not perfect, but is striving to become a better organization, Nirman told a board meeting.

“We now need to work on building and strengthening our trust among the membership and communities we are serving,” Nirman, a lawyer who joined the board in February of last year, said at the meeting.

“There is so much pain and distress to overcome.”

The motion passed easily and received firm support from Peter Sloly, Ottawa’s first Black police chief, who also attended.

“You have my full commitment, not just to the letter, but more importantly to the spirit of what you’ve put before us,” Sloly said to Nirman.

The police chief and the board that helps guide his force were on the same page.

It was a timely example of the role police services boards, or commissions as they are sometimes known, can play in making law enforcement more responsive to the needs of racialized members of their communities.

The boards exist in most provinces and some First Nations communities. They are generally composed of members of municipal council and local citizens appointed by either the province, the municipality or a combination of the two.

Duties vary somewhat depending on the province, but most boards are responsible for determining the police service budget and personnel levels, hiring and evaluating the chief, reviewing service performance, labour relations and policy development.

Those who have spent decades working with police boards believe in the bodies but say they often fall short of fulfilling their potential. The reasons are many: lack of a clear mission, inadequate funding, poor or non-existent training, not enough diversity and a sometimes too cosy relationship with the police chief.

But they also see signs that many police boards are modernizing their practices to play a more dynamic role in making forces more attuned to their communities.

“Boards are a good thing. The construct’s a great idea,” said Fred Kaustinen, a governance and risk consultant who is chief administrative officer of Ontario’s Halton Police Board.

“Can they be improved? Absolutely.”

A glaring breakdown took place in Thunder Bay, Ont., where the police board was singled out for not recognizing a clear pattern of violence and systemic racism against Indigenous people.

“Moreover, the board’s failure to act on these issues in the face of overwhelming documentary and media exposure is indicative of wilful blindness,” said a 2018 investigation report by Sen. Murray Sinclair.

Many boards are either severely hampered by a lack of resources and political backing, or they simply accept the status quo and play what Andrew Graham calls the chummy “golf club game” of going along with what the police chief wants.

There are notable exceptions across the country, said Graham, an adjunct professor in the School of Policy Studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont.

But boards and commissions are composed of part-time members who usually have other responsibilities, leaving them little time to deal with the complex problems of modern policing.

“Then they take a look at how big these issues are, and they just shake their head and say, ‘What can we do?’ because they don’t have the resources,” said Graham, who helped Sinclair with the Thunder Bay report.

“Most municipalities, I think, if they had their way would say, get rid of the boards. They’re just driving up the budget, they’re in the way, we should be running the police board directly.”

The mayor and a number of councillors often sit on boards, which can be constructive but runs the risk of politicians overshadowing board efforts.

A police board cannot tell a force to do anything on a specific investigation, but it is well within its right to provide general direction to the chief, Graham said.

“Their job is to ensure that the community gets the police service it should be getting.”

Still, some chiefs don’t accept the notion of governance or their accountability to the board and try to thwart direction by immediately going to the defence of, “That’s operational. You can’t interfere in operations,” he said.

“The boards need to separate themselves more clearly from the police service.”

That might mean simple things like a board having a digital home apart from the police website, holding meetings somewhere other than the police station and issuing its own news releases.

At the same time, a board must have a good rapport with the police chief to be effective, said Micki Ruth, chair of the Edmonton Police Commission.

“And that does not mean that they agree all the time — absolutely not. But it does mean that it is a respectful relationship and they can have a discussion,” said Ruth, a former police constable with a degree in criminology.

“If they’ve got a police chief that is resistant, then they should be demanding change.”

Ruth began serving on the Halifax Regional Municipality’s Board of Police Commissioners in 2011 and recalls that she, along with a couple of others, became frustrated at not being heard.

She and her colleagues made one thing plain: “We are not here for the sandwiches.”

Kaustinen says a board generally needs four things to be successful:

— A clear mandate or role that’s meaningful to the community and understood by all players, including city council and the police chief;

— Substantive training on how to govern police, given that most members lack a public safety background, and on how to work as a team;

— Access to information and independent, insightful advice;

— A way to measure the performance of the board and its members.

In Edmonton, Ruth considers her commission fortunate to have full-time staff.

“Most places don’t — they don’t have anybody,” said Ruth, who is also president of the Canadian Association of Police Governance.

“In Halifax, for instance, we got to borrow one person for one meeting a month to take the minutes — that was it. And so if wanted to do something separate, which we did, we had to take that on, totally unpaid, totally on our own.

“So that can be asking an awful lot of people, and it is very, very time consuming.”

The association of police governance works to educate board members but it does not receive government funding, relying on dues from boards and commissions, she said. But some boards do not join because of the cost involved, meaning they do not have access to these association resources.

When Kaustinen began working to transform Durham Region’s police board many years ago, it was relying on the police chief’s secretary to help out.

He put a stop to the practice of the board buying gold Rolex watches for retiring officers and used the money to hire a governance expert.

Kaustinen is now doing the same thing at the Halton board, taking the equivalent of one full-time salary to hire several part-time experts to work on a diversity-and-inclusion survey, bylaws and public relations.

“You don’t need full-time people doing nothing, getting bored,” he said. “You need access to this independent expertise and advice, and it doesn’t have to cost a lot.”

The composition of police boards is also evolving.

Graham was pleased to see that one in the Toronto region he viewed as an “old white-guy, golfer board” a couple of decades ago had recently become more reflective of the community.

“The boards are changing dramatically in terms of their representation,” he said.

“I think there’s a genuine effort to reflect better the societies. I go to the national meetings and I’m seeing an array of faces I wouldn’t have seen 20 years ago.”

Source: Police service boards grapple with diversity, inclusion amid calls for change

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The Happiest and the Most Racist: Institutional Racism in Nordic Countries

2020/08/28 Leave a comment

Of note:

The Nordic countries are well known for topping charts globally in education, equality, and happiness levels. Nordic welfare systems provide citizens with myriad state benefits and free healthcare and education from pre-school to university. However, in The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights’ “Being Black in the EU” study, Finland has also topped the charts for something far more insidious as well: racism.

Based on the study made in 2018, 63 percent of people of African descent in Finland have experienced racially motivated harassment, compared to a group average of 30 percent in the 12 European Union states surveyed. In both Denmark and Sweden, the number was 41 percent.

Besides the EU survey, another study showed that the coronavirus death rate in Sweden was 220 percent higher among people born outside the country. In an interview with the HPR, Vesa Puuronen, a researcher on racism and sociology professor at the University of Oulu, commented that “it can be partially blamed on the lack of instructions in minority languages. [Without access to adequate information] those individuals could not act in the appropriate way to be spared from the virus.”

A study shows that in Finland views on immigration have become less tolerant in the past five years. In 2015, 65 percent of the Finnish population strongly disagreed with the statement that the “white European race must be prevented from mixing into darker races because otherwise, the European autochthonous population will go extinct”, but in 2020 the number had decreased to 56.

Segregation problems can be found all across Nordic territories. Iceland recently introduced a custom-designed car to carry out border surveillance, which has been used to disproportionately target Albanians and Romanians; such practices have been criticized as racial profiling. In Denmark, the government has compiled a “ghetto list” of neighborhoods for a decade; new proposals of dealing with the neighborhoods have been identified  by United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights as “hugely troubling and risks heightening racial discrimination against people of migrant origin – further ‘ghettoising’ them.”

In Sweden, segregated neighborhoods have long been considered a major problem, which has also become a tool for the right-wing to oppose immigration. Nationalist parties overall have been on the rise in Europe, and the Nordic countries are at a breaking point. If Nordic nations want to keep taking pride in their progressiveness and egalitarianism, definitive steps against racism must be taken now.

Systemic Racism in Academic and Professional Settings 

Nordic countries have free and well-working education, but there is inequality embedded in the same system that has been admired worldwide. The 2020 OECD report about Finland criticizes that their education is unevenly distributed. In an interview with the HPR, Michaela Moua, a senior officer at the Office of the Non-Discrimination Ombudsman in Finland, recognizes racially motivated guidance in schools, especially in the Finnish as Second Language studies: “Black and Brown students are often advised to take these classes even if Finnish is their first language.”

She adds that “this shows how it is still widely thought that one cannot be a person of color and Finnish at the same time.” Even though the original goal of Finnish as Second Language studies was to support equal language learning, downward-guidance deteriorates the development of academic language, which will affect those students’ later studies. Often, these same students are also advised downwards in student counseling. Women, in particular, are guided towards care working, even if they are planning on going to university. This kind of downward guidance could affect those individuals’ income levels in the future.

In the Nordic countries, university admissions work solely on grades, which leaves no room to account for different student contexts. This creates inequality, as it incorrectly assumes everyone to have the same background and opportunities to receive excellent grades. In the interview, Vesa Puuronen agrees that “the Nordic university admissions system does not include any attempts to level inequalities”.

Going from school to the labor market, language skills is one particularly troubling factor. In an interview with the HPR, Fatim Diarra, Vice-Chair of the Finnish Greens Party, noted that the Finnish labor market is not prepared enough to accept people without perfect language skills to “access working life and become beneficial for society”, especially considering that Finnish, for instance, is considered one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn.

In the interview, Michaela Moua also mentions a research study by Akhlaq Ahmad from the University of Helsinki. Five thousand fake resumes were sent out from five different ethnic groups: Finnish, English, Russian, Iraqi, and Somali with the same qualifications and language proficiency. The research shows that a foreign-sounding name is a significant factor in job applications; local sounding names received callbacks multiple times more likely than foreign-sounding names.

Moua recognizes that there are two levels of discrimination in the Finnish labor market: Horizontal and vertical discrimination. In horizontal discrimination, a specific group gets stuck in a low paying field even when they often have much higher qualifications than the job actually requires.

In vertical discrimination, a person that is discriminated against might be hired for a job, but career progress is unfairly challenging because of racially-motivated factors. The job benefits, like salary and access to training by the employer, are lower, but despite that, the person that is discriminated against is reluctant to report their unfair treatment even if they experience clear racist harassment. “It is so difficult to get the job in the first place so those people do not want to ruffle the waves, so to say, even when their peers left and right are going higher up the ladder”, says Moua.

Hiding Racism Won’t Make It Disappear

Shouldn’t the Nordic states that take such pride in their supposed progressive values be above such behavior? Yet, there is still widespread reluctance to accept racism as an actual problem, which is reflected in the current history curriculum.

It is typically thought that one major reason for racial discrimination is that Nordic societies have long been homogenous, blonde-haired, blue-eyed people who have only gone through rapid demographic changes due to increased immigration since the 1990s. However, the idea of homogenous Nordic societies can be contested. Michaela Moua told the HPR that Finland’s racist history towards Roma and Sami surprises most people because it has not been written about in the school books and it is not part of common knowledge to know about the extreme measures taken to assimilate those minority groups. The Finnish nation is largely considered homogenous, even though there have been people like Tatars, Sami, and Roma for hundreds of years. “Global nationalistic phenomena have affected how our narrative was switched into a strong belief of homogeneity”, comments Moua, but “studying these historical events gives a lot of answers to why things are here how they are now”.

Moua adds that based on the reports sent to the Finnish Ombudsman office, Romas are a group that suffers widespread discrimination in Finland: for instance, restaurants and other services refuse to let them in or they are demanded to pay beforehand. Romas often end up changing their name to get a job or an apartment more easily, even though they have been living in the region for hundreds of years and do not typically consider themselves outsiders. According to Moua, “this is a strong example of ethnic profiling happening here.”

Diarra said in the interview that “it is dangerous to squeeze the situation in the US straight into our context, and this challenges the activists in the Nordic countries to understand how hundreds of years of oppression elsewhere affect our culture.” There are basically no slave owner statues to loot in Helsinki or Oslo, but the thought is prevalent in the region that immigrants come to the Nordic countries just to idle with the state benefits supported by the welfare system.

According to Diarra, studies show that the system currently blocks certain people from truly accessing the supporting net, which entraps people of color in cycles of unemployment and poverty. It must be more widely pondered how the system favors the people born inside the country and fails to give adequate support to minorities who are not able to access the network on their own. Neighborhood segregation has long been a problem in Sweden in particular, but segregation is a threat to the whole region. If that isn’t addressed, the supposed multiculturalism of the region will only be lip service as people become estranged from people from different ethnic backgrounds.

A major problem in the Nordic countries is that racism is not properly recognized. Puuronen noted that “the term [racism] is loosely used and there are people who express racist opinions but get away with them by saying ‘I am not a racist, but…’” In his opinion, an ordinary citizen’s perception and understanding of racism are highly incomplete. According to Diarra, political discussions about racism are outdated and engage in discourse that  “had been done in other countries 50 years ago”. Moua notes that “in Finland racism is understood only as a conscious and deliberate act, but simply not shouting racist slurs on the streets does not make you an anti-racist.” The discourse must be switched from whether there is racism to how to abolish it.

Looking Forward

Recent happenings in the US have brought the issue of racism into wide discourse worldwide, including the Nordic countries. Even though the survey discussed at the beginning of this article shows that trust in police was highest in Finland and happiness appears to be high among immigrants, Black Lives Matter protests in the region demonstrate that things may be more turbulent than the data initially suggests. Policy initiatives to improve workplace equitability have also been spearheaded recently, acknowledging a deep-seated institutional problem. For instance, Helsinki city has introduced an anonymous recruiting policy, meaning that job applications for the city are sent without name, ethnicity, age or gender.

“Globally, we are on the top, but it doesn’t mean we don’t have things to do”, says Michaela Moua. According to her, it is crucial for the Nordic governments to be committed to the human rights programs they are currently pursuing and promote decisions that will affect people’s everyday life in a positive way. Vesa Puuronen adds that more well-conducted and comprehensive research should be made in order to understand the current issues deeper. Those who do not have to experience racism themselves must try to consider how others experience it, and the illusion of Nordic exceptionalism must be broken.

The Nordic countries are in a situation where they still can choose their direction, but action must be taken now and it won’t necessarily be easy. “Our welfare state system truly can ensure opportunities for everyone, but it should be updated and developed further. We are proud of our society and when someone points out flaws, it challenges us to think critically of ourselves, which is extremely difficult”, says Diarra, but “the era of self-reflection has now begun.”

Source: The Happiest and the Most Racist: Institutional Racism in Nordic Countries

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University of Toronto research to explore racism in health care during pandemic

2020/08/28 Leave a comment

Should be an interesting study which hopefully will identify some pragmatic approaches:

A new research project will look at the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on racialized communities as well as existing biases in the health-care system.

The national project was launched by Roberta Timothy, an assistant professor with the University of Toronto’s Institute for Pandemics.

Timothy says many members of the Black and Indigenous communities already avoid interacting with the health-care system mostly due to experiences with racism and biases.

During a global pandemic, Timothy says that can have grave consequences for the well-being of those communities.

“People will seek help when it’s an emergency and by then it’s too late,” she says. “Because of the bias, because of anti-Black racism, because of violence they experience, their health becomes more at risk.”

Timothy says there’s a need for more data to effectively understand the impact of COVID-19 on racialized communities.

The Ontario government refused to collect race-based data earlier in the pandemic, but it was forced to change course in June. Now it mandates the collection of data around race, income, household size and language when following up with people who’ve been infected with COVID-19.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Health said the government is engaging with people from racialized communities and other health equity experts regarding the data collection.

“We plan to share findings of this data collection, informed by this engagement,” David Jensen said in an email.

Jensen said the ministry is concerned about the spread of the virus in “certain groups of people and in certain neighbourhoods,” and would welcome additional insights and information about how COVID-19 is affecting racialized communities.

Early data compiled by Toronto Public Health showed that 83 per cent of COVID-19 cases occurred in racialized people. Black people represented 21 per cent of cases in Toronto, but only nine per cent of the city’s population.

“There is growing evidence in North America and beyond that racialized people and people living in lower-income households are more likely to be affected by COVID-19,” said Dr. Christine Navarro,  associate medical officer of health for Toronto.

“While the exact reasons for this have yet to be fully understood, we believe it is related to both poverty and racism.”

Timothy’s project will collect more data about how Black people interact with the health-care system, but also about economic impacts, evictions, support networks and essential work being done by marginalized communities.

“An underlying part of the project is not only to bring better data, but to support the community in strategizing and finding interventions to find how we get through this,” said Timothy.

Rudayna Bahubeshi, a Toronto resident and post-graduate student in public policy, says she has first-hand experience with racism in the health-care system. During a stint in a mood disorder ward when she was 18, Bahubeshi said a nurse mistook her for a 30-year-old patient — the only other Black person in the ward at the time — and tried to make her take the other person’s medication.

Bahubeshi says she argued but was ignored, and believes her race was a factor in the way she was treated by staff. She says the nurse only realized the mistake when the other patient happened to walk by.

In another hospital visit during the pandemic, Bahubeshi says she was taken to a “COVID ward” because she had fever. She says staff would not answer simple questions about whether there were risks involved with using a shared washroom, or about the fact that some staff weren’t wearing PPE.

“The way she (the nurse) was engaging with me was very much that I was the problem,” says Bahubeshi. “When I talked to a doctor afterwards they told me I was fully in the right and that was unacceptable.”

Bahubeshi says experiences like those erode her trust in the public health system and its ability to provide quality care for her. She says more data about the experience of Black people in health care will be a first step in the right direction.

“The fact that we don’t have race-based data is a way we’ve decided that Black communities are not a priority,” said Bahubeshi.

Timothy’s national project is set to begin in a few months, and will involve surveys and focus groups among Black Canadians.

Source: University of Toronto research to explore racism in health care during pandemic

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#COVID-19: Comparing provinces with other countries 26 August Update and Globe editorial on Quebec’s handling of the pandemic

2020/08/27 Leave a comment

Changes of interest include Alberta now has a higher number of infections per million than Ontario, with India and the Philippines having higher infection rates than Canada less Quebec.
India’s death rate per million now exceeds Canada less Quebec.

Lastly, a good Globe and Mail editorial on the failures of the Quebec government in managing the pandemic (Quebec’s COVID-19 death toll is Canada’s highest, and one of the worst in the world. No, that’s not fake news):

There is no province in Canada that has done a perfect job of limiting the spread of the COVID-19 virus. But there is one province that stands out as having done the least perfect job of all, and that is Quebec.

As of Tuesday, Quebec had recorded 724 confirmed cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 people. The national average is 332 per 100,000. The province with the next highest rate, Alberta, stood at 295 on Tuesday.

The same gaps exist in the number of deaths per capita. Quebec has had 67 deaths per 100,000 people – one of the highest death rates in the world, and well above Italy, Spain or the United States. The next highest province, Ontario, is at 19 deaths per 100,000.

It may not be entirely fair to compare across jurisdictions, but Quebec Premier François Legault has invited such scrutiny by resorting to divisive tactics to distract from the painful reality of the crisis in his province.

Last week, he once again accused the veteran health reporter at The Gazette, Montreal’s English-language daily newspaper, of being biased. It was the third time he has claimed that Aaron Derfel is trying to undermine his government with false reporting.

The Premier also said that, if anglophones in Quebec are more worried about catching COVID-19 than francophones, as at least one poll suggests, it must be because they are spending their time reading Mr. Derfel’s tweets and watching CNN and other American news channels.

Attacking journalists and taking cheap shots at a minority group is no way to address a crisis that has claimed the lives of more than 5,700 Quebeckers. Columnists in the province’s French-language newspapers have rightfully pilloried Mr. Legault for trying to shoot the messenger.

Mr. Legault’s tactic has backfired in another way, too, by shining a spotlight on his government’s handling of the crisis. It’s fair to say the Premier has not had a good pandemic.

Not that it’s entirely his government’s fault. Quebec had the misfortune of scheduling its annual school spring break in late February, a week ahead of the rest of the country. Many Quebeckers holidayed in the United States and Europe just as the pandemic was picking up steam. Some experts believe Quebec’s early spike in cases was mostly bad luck.

But the curve of new cases continued to climb after lockdown was imposed in March. And Quebec’s outbreaks in long-term care homes were bigger, longer and deadlier than anywhere else in Canada.

The government’s most glaring misstep occurred on June 24, a provincial holiday, when Quebec’s public-health agency announced it would no longer release data about new cases and deaths on a daily basis – a practice common around the world – and would instead only make them public once a week.

The surprise decision came after Horacio Arruda, Quebec’s chief public-health officer, attended a provincial cabinet meeting at which the issue was discussed, raising concerns that Dr. Arruda had yielded to demands from the Legault government.

Dr. Arruda denied there was any political interference. But three days later, after much criticism from epidemiologists and francophone commentators, the decision was reversed.

In the midst of all that, Mr. Legault demoted his health minister, Danielle McCann, and replaced her with Treasury Board president Christian Dubé.

Firing your lead minister in the middle of a major crisis is never a good look, but Mr. Legault was reportedly fed up with the endless bad news battering his government.

The government has also come under fire for reopening bars in late June, causing a fresh spike in cases, and for raising the maximum number of people at an indoor public gathering to 250 from 50 as of Aug. 3, a move that has backfired in European countries and many American states.

This week it’s the government’s back-to-school plan that is drawing fire. Unlike most other provinces, Quebec students will not have to wear masks or physically distance in classrooms. And parents will not have the option of keeping their children at home to learn remotely, unless they provide a “valid medical note.”

Mr. Legault is not the only premier facing tough questions about their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. But he’s the only one trying to make a farce of this tragedy, by blaming a reporter for reporting the news.

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-quebecs-covid-19-death-toll-is-canadas-highest-and-one-of-the-worst/

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Ontario students say business schools foster hostile environment

2020/08/26 Leave a comment

While more anecdotal that evidence-based, still of note given that visible minorities are more prevalent than not visible minorities in business and administration studies as shown above:

Business school students in Ontario are sounding the alarm about what they call outright racism from fellow students and a lack of equity and diversity training among faculty.

A number of social media accounts have popped up in recent months, anonymously recounting stories of racism happening in universities across the province.

Schools such as Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., and York University in Toronto are among those that have come under fire.

Kelly Weiling Zou, a 20-year-old Singaporean-Chinese student studying commerce at the Smith School of Business at Queen’s, said the racism she witnessed pushed her to create a platform for students to vent about their experiences.

Zou created the Instagram account, stolenbysmith, which has amassed more than 12,000 followers and shared more than 300 stories, ranging from tales about barriers to career opportunities, social ostracism based on students’ backgrounds and encounters with discrimination from faculty.

“The Smith administration has historically failed to respond to students’ call to action in addressing issues of discrimination within the school,” Zou said in an interview. “We can’t change systemic barriers. Only they can as they have the power.”

Meena Waseem, a second-year business student at Queen’s, said her first brush with racism at the school came on her second day of orientation week last fall.

The 19-year-old said one student leader, also in the business program, used the “N-word” in a song to a room full of students.

“Witnessing this was disappointing, and it made me feel unsafe,” Waseem said. “This was the first of many experiences, which made it clear that racism is normalized here.

“For me personally, being a visibly Muslim brown woman at this school is exhausting. Being a lower-income student doubles that exhaustion. I have to consistently advocate for my needs.”

Incidents described as ‘unacceptable and deeply troubling’

Brenda Brouwer, interim dean at the Smith School of Business, said the university is working on addressing concerns raised by its students. She called the incident detailed by Waseem “completely unacceptable and deeply troubling” and said it would be a clear violation of the school’s code of conduct.

“Improving diversity and increasing inclusion is an urgent priority,” Brouwer said. “While progress has been made, we know there is more work to be done, and we will continue to actively foster a culture of inclusion, dignity and respect.”

Aba Mortley, co-chair of the council of anti-racism and equity at Queen’s, said she works as a bridge between faculty and students in order to bring about discussions on campus and in the wider Kingston community.

“There is no denying that these issues regarding Black and Indigenous people are clear and present,” Mortley said.

“No one can say that racism isn’t happening when it is out in the open.”

She said the school is in a better position to work on these discussions now, thanks to the recent momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement.”With all these stories coming out, it is forcing the school to take action,” Mortley said.

Students say schools foster a ‘hostile environment’

Sara Reza, a student at York University’s Schulich School of Business, said discrimination and racism are also present on her campus.

Reza is the founder of a social media account called SilencedatSchulich, which, like Zou’s account, highlights the stories of Black, Indigenous and students of colour at York’s business school.

“Business programs rarely integrate diversity and inclusion, which fails to address the persistent inequality that exists in our communities and worldwide,” she said.

Reza said business university programs foster a “hostile environment” in which topics of privilege, inequality and race are rarely brought up in the classroom.

Humera Dasu, a third-year York student, said she was left feeling uneasy when a white professor and group of students allegedly made inappropriate comments when discussing Islam.”The professor implied to a class of 50 students that she thinks the religion is oppressive to women,” said Dasu, 20.

“I was deeply offended and hurt.… Islamophobia has been normalized to the point that such a comment can be made in a classroom environment.”

‘More needs to be done,’ says interim dean

Detlev Zwick, interim dean at Schulich School of Business, said the school is aware of concerns brought forward recently by students and graduates.

“The Schulich School of Business does not tolerate or excuse discrimination and racism of any kind. As one of the most diverse business schools in North America, Schulich has a long tradition of actively encouraging and supporting inclusivity and diversity,” he said.

“Obviously, more needs to be done, and we have already begun taking action in various ways to ensure greater awareness surrounding issues of racism, especially anti-Black racism, as well as sexism and discrimination.”

Zwick said the school is also currently in talks with other leading business schools in Ontario regarding several joint initiatives to tackle barriers for Black and Indigenous students, particularly from high schools in economically disadvantaged communities.

Source: Ontario students say business schools foster hostile environment

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with

Bangladeshi blogger faces death threats for criticizing Islamic fundamentalism

2020/08/26 Leave a comment

Sigh:

Asad Noor, an outspoken Bangladeshi blogger, has been facing threats and intimidation from both state and non-state actors for supporting minorities and criticizing Islamic fundamentalism.

The atheist blogger crossed the Bangladesh-India border illegally on February 14, 2019, with the help of an agent after intelligence officers confiscated his passport. He has been living in India ever since.

“In my YouTube and Facebook videos, I have been criticizing Islam and Prophet Mohammad, referencing the Quran and the Hadith. At the same time, I am critical about political Islam. That’s why Islamists are angry with me,” Noor told DW.

“Local police frequently search our house (in Bangladesh) to try and arrest me … my family has been paying the price for my activism,” he added.

Alleged attack on monastery

In July, Noor published several video blogs protesting the persecution of Bangladesh’s minority Buddhist community in Rangunia, a town in the southeastern part of the country.

A local leader of the country’s ruling party Awami League (AL) sued the blogger in July 2020 under the Digital Security Act, accusing him of “hurting religious sentiments” and “running propaganda against the spirit of the liberation war.”

One of Noor’s video blogs featured the apparent vandalism of a Buddhist statue under construction in a Buddhist monastery in Rangunia. Noor claimed that the attackers were supported by forest officials and the local MP of the AL party because they wanted to evict the monks from the area.

After Noor published his videos, local Islamist groups protested against the blogger and accused him of damaging religious harmony between Muslims and Buddhists.

Police raided Noor’s family house in Rangunia and allegedly harassed his family members while he was in India. “On the early morning of July 18, police forcefully picked up my parents as well as four other family members, and kept them in illegal detention for nearly 48 hours,” Noor said.

‘Nothing to do with religion’

Both the Buddhist monastery and an AL leader claim ownership over the disputed land in Rangunia.

Abu Jafar, a former official in the disputed area, told DW that the land belongs to the government and “has nothing to do with religion.”

“The Buddhist monastery was built two years ago without any permission from the government. Some local political leaders also use some parts of the area without any permission,” he said.

Noor said he wanted to support the area’s minority Buddhist community and “save Rangunia from another Ramu incident.” He referred to the September 2012 attack on a Buddhist community in the southeastern town of Ramu. A mob of Islamist fundamentalists vandalized at least four temples and set fire to dozens of homes after a photo they considered defamatory to Islam was circulated online.

Life on the run

Noor’s stance against Bangladesh’s religious fundamentalists has triggered numerous protests in the past.

Hefazat-e-Islam, a radical Islamist group in the country, has called for the blogger’s arrest and the death penalty for blasphemy.

Noor was first detained in December 2017 while he was trying to travel abroad after an Islamic religious clergy sued him for creating and spreading content on social media that “hurt religious sentiments.” He was then released on bail in August 2018, only to be detained again one month later by the military intelligence agency.

The blogger was eventually released mid-January 2019 and decided to leave Bangladesh and continue his online activism. Now in India, Noor still receives frequent death threats from fundamentalists.

He said some bloggers critical of religious fundamentalism in the past had been hacked to death by religious fanatics.

“Although serial killings of bloggers have stopped, it doesn’t mean that Bangladesh has become a safe haven for bloggers. No one can guarantee that it will not start again,” Noor said.

Bangladeshi bloggers critical of religious fundamentalism have often faced attacks

Recaptured in India

After living in India for over 3 months, Noor was arrested on May 19 and detained in prison for six months. He awaits bail and hopes his court appearance will be rescheduled “when the pandemic crisis ends.”

“My fate might be decided then,” he said.

Paris-based rights organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has urged Bangladeshi authorities to immediately withdraw all charges against Noor and return his passport. The organization ranked Bangladesh 150th out of 180 countries in its 2020 World Press Freedom Index.

Human rights NGO Amnesty International released a statement on July 21 urging Bangladeshi authorities to “stop the harassment and intimidation of the parents of Asad Noor, who have been targeted because of their son’s human rights activism.”

It added, “human rights defenders must be able to carry out their important work freely and without fear.”

Source: Bangladeshi blogger faces death threats for criticizing Islamic fundamentalism

Filed under Religion Tagged with , , ,

Bouchard: La souveraineté du Québec, plus nécessaire que jamais

2020/08/24 Leave a comment

Ironic to cite COVID-19 as a justification for Quebec independence while ignoring that Quebec has the highest number of infections and deaths per million of all Canadian provinces and on par with the most affected European countries.

And of course, both multiculturalism and interculturalism are similar models of civic integration, with more semantic rather than substantive differences:

Du point de vue de notre avenir politique, deux leçons peuvent être tirées de l’actuelle pandémie. Nous avons pu constater que, presque partout, les populations plongées dans l’insécurité se sont tournées vers leur nation pour se protéger. Les instances supranationales, à commencer par l’Union européenne, se sont montrées étonnamment impuissantes à mettre en œuvre des initiatives efficaces pour contrer la pandémie.

Chacun a pu ainsi prendre conscience du recours indispensable que l’État-nation continue de représenter comme rempart dans un contexte de crise. Cette enceinte a montré une grande capacité à susciter une solidarité, montrant ainsi qu’elle est loin d’avoir perdu sa pertinence. Il y a intérêt à la soutenir et à la perpétuer. C’est la première leçon.

La pandémie a aussi révélé la fragilité des réseaux supranationaux. La mondialisation ne s’en trouve pas pour autant condamnée, loin de là, mais elle a accusé d’inquiétantes carences. Il sera prudent de mieux définir nos engagements et nos articulations avec cette sphère qui demeure largement chaotique et imprévisible. On voit l’importance de pouvoir se reposer sur un État doté de tous les pouvoirs essentiels. C’est la deuxième leçon.

Les raisons profondes qui ont toujours motivé le mouvement souverainiste restent d’actualité : le combat pour le français, l’émancipation économique, sociale et culturelle de notre société, le renforcement d’une francophonie nord-américaine et, plus généralement, une plus grande liberté collective pour traiter à notre façon, suivant nos traditions et nos choix, les grands problèmes de l’heure. Ces raisons sont clairement rappelées et mises à jour dans le dernier numéro de la revue Action nationale. La pandémie en fait voir d’autres : renforcer la nation-refuge et procurer à l’État une marge de manœuvre accrue qui lui permet de mieux naviguer à travers les écueils de la sphère planétaire.

Sur l’enjeu identitaire

Tout cela survient au moment où le Parti québécois, occupé à se redéfinir, se donnera bientôt un nouveau chef. J’aimerais, dans ce contexte, soumettre trois réflexions. La première concerne la thématique identitaire, toujours bien vivante au sein de ce parti. Écartons d’abord un malentendu. Il est incontestable qu’une nation a besoin d’une identité comme expression d’une appartenance et source de solidarité. On imagine mal comment, privée de ces ressorts, elle pourrait mobiliser ses citoyens et ses citoyennes autour d’idéaux et de projets communs.

Le danger, c’est lorsque la quête d’une identité glisse vers une auscultation de soi qui l’appauvrit et rétrécit le « nous » de la nation. Un déplacement de ce genre est néfaste pour une société diversifiée. Il tend aussi à diminuer la place d’une dimension essentielle, celle de l’action collective, des grands projets que nous pourrions réaliser tous ensemble comme Québécois. Or, la mémoire de ces réalisations contribue justement à fortifier l’identité.

La population québécoise est de plus en plus diversifiée et le vieux noyau francophone jadis largement majoritaire se contracte progressivement (de 79 % en 1971, sa proportion serait passée à 64 % en 2014). Il est donc nécessaire d’ajuster la définition de la nation et de l’identité à la nouvelle réalité.

Est-ce là succomber au multiculturalisme ? On en est loin. Premièrement, il s’agit simplement de reconnaître les droits de tous les citoyens du Québec, en particulier là où ils sont compromis. Cette règle n’est pas copiée du multiculturalisme, elle fait partie de l’héritage général de toutes les horreurs commises durant la première moitié du XXe siècle en Occident. L’éthique qu’elles ont engendrée invite à respecter la diversité plutôt que de la broyer. Le multiculturalisme canadien en est lui-même une expression parmi bien d’autres, tout comme l’interculturalisme québécois.

Deuxièmement, le modèle canadien en matière de relations interculturelles est très différent de l’approche québécoise. Dans le premier cas, les groupes ethnoculturels se voient accorder une latitude exceptionnelle, si bien que le souci de cimenter ces minorités devient quasiment secondaire.

Au Québec, au contraire, c’est une priorité. Nous sommes une petite nation constamment soucieuse d’intégration, de solidarité, de concertation, de rassemblement — et de survie. Troisièmement, le multiculturalisme canadien reconnaît l’existence de minorités mais nie celle d’une majorité. Comment ce modèle pourrait-il s’appliquer ici ?

Le prochain chef du PQ

Je reviens au Parti québécois. La recherche d’une identité forte, au sens défini plus haut, et la promotion d’une conception vraiment inclusive de la nation ne sont nullement incompatibles. Il suffit de revenir à la tradition instaurée par le parti à ses années glorieuses. La loi 101 en est une parfaite illustration. D’un côté, elle servait les intérêts de la majorité en renforçant le français. De l’autre, elle servait les intérêts des minorités en leur procurant le moyen de mieux s’intégrer à la société et d’y faire leur chemin.

Dans l’intérêt du parti et de celui du Québec, il est éminemment souhaitable qu’il renoue avec cette philosophie qui lui a valu une grande partie de ses succès. Cette tradition est toujours porteuse d’avenir parce qu’elle est étroitement alignée sur le Québec en devenir que les fondateurs avaient remarquablement anticipé.

Concernant la course à la chefferie, ces réflexions invitent à favoriser le candidat qui incarne le mieux à la fois la grande tradition et l’avenir du parti suivant les voies esquissées ici. Parmi les candidatures en lice, celle de Sylvain Gaudreault me semble la plus proche de ce profil.

Source: La souveraineté du Québec, plus nécessaire que jamais

Filed under Interculturalisme, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Royson James: Be careful who gets the honour of a memorial

2020/08/24 Leave a comment

Good reflections by Royson James on the need for reflection before erecting or removing monuments:

Be slow to tear down; slower to erect.

Heroes and villains are too often aligned — in the same body. So beware the memorials and monuments we construct.

That should be a direct lesson from the mound of past sins now being excavated and tossed on the sculpted images of our once shining heroes.

Once a hero, always a hero — in somebody’s mind. But the conquering coloniser is a miserable picture of pain and suffering to the victims of imperial conquests.

So, rip ‘em down. Tear down that statue. Remove the monument. Behead that statue that causes us so much pain. But be willing to square off against a phalanx of counter-protesters brandishing “Hands off our heritage” placards. America is Exhibit A — raw, extreme, seemingly irreconcilable, attempting to confront the past and a study in how not to get there in the first place.

It doesn’t have to be so, of course. Reasonable human beings can study the lives and contributions of the people our forebears honoured with monuments and memorials and reconsider their place of honour in light of modern norms and practices.

We learn. We grow. We listen to our neighbour. We may have to change our minds.

A tear-down doesn’t have to be a whitewash or a blackout. It can be an opportunity to present an era or person or people in wider context. Still, in real life, on the street, it doesn’t play out that neatly.

Toronto is not a city of statues and monuments. There are a few at Queen’s Park and along University Avenue and on university campuses, but nothing like the affinity found in Europe or the American south.

Maybe it’s because we are so young, compared to ancient cities. Maybe the paucity of public statues serve as a natural inhibitor to erecting new ones. After all, who are you to tower over us when so many before you have not been awarded that honour? Why this hero when we can name another 10 or 20 worthy competitors?

Count me among those who have advocated for more piazzas, grand boulevards, fountains and statues. Maybe we are fortunate not to have a proliferation because it is so difficult to install perfect human beings. Prime Ministers and presidents owned slaves. The British monarchy sponsored slave-ship expeditions. The Anglican Church owned slaves and branded them on the Codrington estate in Barbados.

In the midst of this tangled time stamp, affirming the victims, confronting the ugly truths and moving towards reconciliation and reparations is no easy feat. Denial is the worst option. So is a blanket erasure of evidence of the past.

We could be Richmond, Virginia, where the mother of all statues — the 21-foot high horse and rider General Robert E. Lee, head of the pro-slavery Southern Confederate states in the U.S. civil war — is coming down after years of protest that it is a symbol of white supremacy and racism. Opponents see it as symbol of southern heritage. The work, completed in Paris in 1890 is considered an artistic “masterpiece.” It took 10,000 people to transport the pieces from port to platform. Dismantling it and its granite base that’s almost twice as high as the stature itself, is a feat.

Here, we worry about spray paint on the King Edward VII statue at Queen’s Park.

Here, the city of Vaughan is embarrassed when a citizen pointed out that by changing the name of its August civic holiday in 2013 to Benjamin Vaughan Day, the city was celebrating a man of who not only owned hundreds of slaves in Jamaica but fought against the abolition of slavery. (Educated, Vaughan city council dropped the holiday name this year, returning to Simcoe Day.) There’s no word on the fate of the city’s name itself, cut from the same cloth.

Clearly, we pay scant attention to the names we give our streets. So many streets to name in so many subdivisions. Developers name your street address after their girlfriends. Architects throw in ninny names to satisfy whatever fantasy overcame them. Who’s to know?

Maybe Toronto city planners were a bit more fastidious when they laid out the old city by name. You can’t go wrong with Front or Lakeshore, er Lake Shore, or King, Queen, Princess, John and Jane. Who would suspect Mr. Bathurst or Mrs. Dufferin of having damaging secrets that might render them unfit to adorn our boulevards? Dundas? Harmless.

Oops. Apparently, only as harmless as Ryerson and Macdonald — names and esteemed people now under scrutiny for questionable racial history.

Toronto’s city manager has issued a brief committing to “broadly understand and respond to how systematic racism and discrimination are embedded in city assets, commemorative programs and naming policies.”

Chris Murray says “this might ultimately touch all named city streets, parks and facilities, public monuments, and civic awards and honours, potentially leading to a variety of actions (e.g., renaming streets, removing monuments, revoking awards or reinterpreting any of these).

“Addressing the historical legacy of Dundas Street is one of these steps” necessary in challenging systemic institutionalized racism and build a more inclusive Toronto,” Murray writes.

If these are more than just words — and if city council next month adopts the philosophy and true intent — we are in for a turbulent period that will test our maturity as a city. If the effort doesn’t get messy, it’s a sure sign it isn’t real.

We honour people who touch us and move us to dream and aspire to greatness. When the very visage of our “heroes” evoke the image of “villains” in our neighbour, this clash of vision can only crash at our feet — assuming we are equally invested and rooted and valued.

How we clean up the mess will define our future. It will also remind us: Be slow to tear down; slower to erect.

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

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