#COVID-19: Comparing provinces with other countries 23 September Update
2020/09/24 Leave a comment
Highlights:
Deaths per million: Philippines ahead of British Columbia
Infections per million: India ahead of Canada, Prairies ahead of Pakistan
Twitter apologizes after users notice image-cropping algorithm favours white faces over Black
2020/09/23 Leave a comment
Big oops:
Twitter has apologized after users called its ‘image-cropping’ algorithm racist for automatically focusing on white faces over Black ones.
Users noticed that when two separate photos, one of a white face and the other of a Black face, were displayed in the post, the algorithm would crop the latter out and only show the former on its mobile version.
PhD student Colin Madland was among the first to point out the issue on Sept. 18, after a Black colleague asked him to help stop Zoom from removing his head while using a virtual background. Madland attempted to post a two-up display of him and his colleague with the head erased and noticed that Twitter automatically cropped his colleague out and focused solely on his face.
“Geez .. any guesses why @Twitter defaulted to show only the right side of the picture on mobile?” he tweeted along with a screenshot.
Entrepreneur Tony Arcieri experimented with the algorithm using a two-up image of Barack Obama and U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell. He discovered that the algorithm would consistently crop out Obama and instead show two images of McConnell.
Several other Twitter users also tested the feature out and noticed that the same thing happened with stock models, different characters from The Simpsons, and golden and black retrievers.
Dantley Davis, Twitter’s chief design officer, replied to Madland’s tweet and suggested his facial hair could be affecting the model “because of the contrast with his skin.”
Davis, who said he experimented with the algorithm after seeing Madland’s tweet, added that once he removed Madland’s facial hair from the photo, the Black colleague’s image showed in the preview.
“Our team did test for racial bias before shipping this model,” he said, but noted that the issue is “100% (Twitter’s) fault.” “Now the next step is fixing it,” he wrote in another tweet.
In a statement, a Twitter spokesperson conceded the company had some further testing to do. “Our team did test for bias before shipping the model and did not find evidence of racial or gender bias in our testing. But it’s clear from these examples that we’ve got more analysis to do. We’ll continue to share what we learn, what actions we take, and will open source our analysis so others can review and replicate,” they said, as quoted by the Guardian.
Source: Twitter apologizes after users notice image-cropping algorithm favours white faces over Black
Ethnie-fiction et indépendance
2020/09/23 Leave a comment
Reminder how some Quebec intellectuals remain mired in Québecois de souche as the benchmark rather than language, in this critique by Charles Castonguay:
Dans sa chronique intitulée « Blues souverainistes » du 8 août dernier, Louis Cornellier souligne que « le poids des Québécois d’ascendance canadienne-française diminue sans cesse. Le chercheur Charles Gaudreault a montré qu’il était passé de 79 %, en 1971, à 64,5 %, en 2014 ». Selon Cornellier, il conviendrait « de constater une réalité qui rend l’indépendance de plus en plus improbable ».
Dans la revue L’Inconvénient (no 81, été 2020), Ugo Gilbert Tremblay enfonce le clou. « Or qu’en est-il exactement ? Quelle est la réalité sur laquelle plusieurs parmi les souverainistes préfèrent fermer les yeux ? [Le] chercheur Charles Gaudreault a voulu jeter un regard froidement objectif sur la question. La conclusion de son étude est que, de 1971 à 2014, [le poids] des Canadiens français est passé de 79 % à 64,5 % […] En projetant sur les prochaines décennies un flux migratoire comparable à celui des années précédentes, Gaudreault prédit que les Canadiens français deviendront minoritaires en sol québécois dès 2042 et que leur poids ne sera plus que de 45 % en 2050 […] Il me semble qu’un souverainiste mature devrait être capable de réfléchir — sans hargne ni rancune — aux implications de ces changements démographiques. »
Tout cela repose, cependant, sur de l’ethnie-fiction. Les projections en question ne tiennent pas la route.
Par exemple, Gaudreault définit le « groupe ethnique canadien-français » comme étant formé des descendants des colons français arrivés entre 1608 et 1760. Pour estimer son effectif en 1971, il utilise toutefois la population qui, au recensement, s’est déclarée d’origine française. Or, cette population découle aussi de deux bons siècles d’assimilation par voie de métissage ou d’adoption de personnes d’origine allemande, amérindienne, irlandaise, etc. ainsi que d’un siècle de nouvelle immigration française depuis 1870.
Gaudreault soutient également qu’en 1971, les répondants au recensement ne pouvaient indiquer qu’une seule origine. C’est faux. Ils pouvaient parfaitement en déclarer deux, trois ou plus. Statistique Canada a tout simplement éliminé les déclarations multiples avant la publication des données, en assignant à chaque répondant en cause une seule de ses origines déclarées.
Gaudreault affirme en outre que les données de 1971 sont les dernières observations fiables sur l’origine ethnique depuis 50 ans du fait qu’elles se fondent sur des « choix fermes », alors que tous les recensements suivants ont procédé par autoénumération. Faux encore. L’autorecensement a débuté en 1971 même, et Statistique Canada a recueilli des données fiables sur l’origine française jusqu’en 1991 inclusivement.
Les projections de Gaudreault excluent ensuite tout nouvel apport — même celui de nouveaux immigrants français — à sa population de départ, soit la population d’origine française énumérée en 1971. Pas surprenant, alors, qu’à force de faire mourir une population fermée et foncièrement sous-féconde, Gaudreault aboutisse, sous l’hypothèse d’une immigration non française abondante et soutenue, à un moignon de « Canadiens français ». Semblable appareil de projection réduirait en peu de temps n’importe quelle majorité à un statut minoritaire.
Dérapage
Notons qu’après une répartition égale des déclarations d’origines multiples entre les origines déclarées, le poids de la population d’origine française recensée en 1991 s’élevait à 77,5 %, en baisse de seulement 1,5 point de pourcentage depuis 1971. Par comparaison, les « descendants de Canadiens français » de Gaudreault en perdent 5, plongeant en 1991 à 74 %. Les projections de Gaudreault dérapent sérieusement, donc, dès 1991, soit 20 ans seulement après leur point de départ.
L’étude de Gaudreault a été mise en ligne en 2019 par la revue Nations and Nationalism. L’Action nationale en a repris l’essentiel en mars dernier, bonifié de quelques pages additionnelles dans lesquelles Gaudreault accuse Statistique Canada de ne pas avoir recueilli de données valables sur la langue depuis 1971. Faux toujours. Il y gratifie même Navdeep Bains, ministre responsable de Statistique Canada, et Anil Arora, son statisticien en chef, tous deux d’ascendance indienne, de remarques gentiment racistes.
Bel exemple de « regard froidement objectif ».
C’est d’ailleurs en fonction de la langue, et non de l’origine ethnique, qu’on juge du caractère français du Québec ou de l’appui éventuel à l’indépendance. Le poids de la population québécoise parlant le français comme langue principale à la maison est d’abord passé de 80,8 % en 1971 à près de 83 % en 1991, puis est revenu à 80,6 % en 2016. Dans cette optique, tout ne serait pas encore perdu.
Source: Ethnie-fiction et indépendance
Conservatives should show leadership on Bill 21 and defend religious freedom
2020/09/22 Leave a comment
Of note. Perhaps not surprising, after laying out the options, Kinsinger essentially adopts the Liberal government’s position of reserving the right to intervene in an exiting legal process:
Among the more discouraging aspects of the 2019 federal election was the failure of all major parties to take any meaningful stand against Quebec’s Bill 21. The legislation, which was passed by the National Assembly of Quebec last year, prohibits many public servants from wearing religious attire while they’re on duty. According to the Quebec government, one of the key purposes of the law is to promote the religious neutrality of the state. Civil libertarians and religious equality advocates, however, have widely denounced Bill 21 as an unjustified state intrusion into matters that fall outside of the its proper constitutional role.
To date, four separate legal challenges have been brought against Bill 21. The Quebec Superior Court will hear these cases together in the near future. In anticipation of this litigation, the Quebec government invoked section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, often referred to as the notwithstanding clause. This provision constitutionally insulates laws that would otherwise violate certain rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Charter, subject to a renewal by the enacting legislature every five years.
Even with the invocation of the notwithstanding clause, Bill 21 flies directly in the face of constitutional protections that limit the state’s ability to dictate matters of conscience or religious belief. All political parties ought to be opposed to this legislation and should develop policies based on the very real grounds they would have to challenge Bill 21 if they form government. However, it is especially disappointing that Erin O’Toole, the recently elected leader of the Conservative Party, has not taken advantage of this opportunity to differentiate himself from other federal party leaders by openly opposing Bill 21.
The Tories have numerous reasons to be particularly offended by Bill 21: conservatives have long affirmed the positive and important role that religion plays in the lives of individuals and in the public square, and they often bill themselves as the strongest defenders of religious freedom, even when it seemingly clashes with other shared values.
In this sense, it is unsurprising that O’Toole has vowed to protect the rights of religious minorities both in Canada and abroad if he becomes prime minister. Yet following a meeting with Quebec Premier François Legault on Sept. 14, O’Toole told reporters he backed provincial autonomy and would not interfere on the issue of Bill 21. While O’Toole has sought to frame this as an issue of national unity, he no doubt also fears alienating Bill 21’s numerous supporters in Quebec, a province in which, many observers insist, the Conservatives must make significant inroads if they hope to regain power. Indeed, O’Toole’s decisive leadership victory over frontrunner Peter MacKay is being attributed in large part to the high support he received from Conservative members in La Belle Province.
It would nonetheless be a mistake for O’Toole to assume that the endorsement he received from Quebec Tories will translate into support from Quebec voters more generally. If past electoral performance is any indicator, the Conservatives will still face an uphill battle in Quebec when the next election is called. On this point, O’Toole would do well to remember that the road to Conservative success also goes through racially and religiously diverse ridings, especially those found in the Greater Toronto Area: it is here that a conservative defence of religious freedom can make a strong appeal to both religious and immigrant voters.
Consider the 2019 election, in which former Conservative leader Andrew Scheer’s personal religious views became a hotly debated election issue. Scheer never found a satisfying answer to an endless barrage of questions about whether he supported same-sex marriage. Had he defended himself on the grounds of religious freedom and conscience rights, and then made clear he wanted to protect these rights for all religious minorities, he might have been able to find a powerful message that resonated with voters in the ridings the Conservatives needed — and ultimately failed — to pick up.
To be sure, the Conservatives should denounce Bill 21 first and foremost as a matter of principle. But this doesn’t mean that O’Toole needs to ignore the compelling political reasons that favour taking a stand against this odious law. By promoting the rights of religious minorities, the Tories can show that religious freedom is truly about protecting the practices of all believers, and not just coded language used by social conservatives and Christians to defend their own beliefs. To this end, Garnett Genuis, a rising voice in the Conservative caucus and an early supporter of O’Toole’s leadership bid, has already shown how opposition to Bill 21 can be expanded into a broader platform for combating systemic discrimination in all its forms.
There are a range of policies that the federal government could adopt toward Bill 21, regardless of who occupies the Prime Minister’s Office. Admittedly, some of these are more advisable than others. The most radical would be to invoke the rarely used disallowance power, under which the federal government is permitted to constitutionally invalidate provincial legislation. Of all the available options, this is by far the least desirable. Although it was once employed regularly, the federal power to disallow provincial legislation has not been invoked for the better part of a century, and its use now would likely ignite a constitutional crisis concerning its legitimacy.
The next option would be for the federal cabinet to refer Bill 21 directly to the Supreme Court of Canada for an opinion on its constitutionality. The current challenges that have been brought against Bill 21 could take years to make their way through the normal appeals process. By referring the matter directly to the court of final appeal, the federal government could save these parties the considerable time and cost of litigating the constitutionality of Bill 21. Although advisory opinions don’t constitute precedents as weighty as do rulings on cases that were contested by litigants, in practice they’re usually treated as binding.
One of the key questions that will likely be addressed in the Bill 21 litigation concerns the Quebec government’s invocation of the section 33 override, even though the courts may ultimately decide to strike down the legislation on other grounds. Although invoking the notwithstanding clause was once considered taboo, provincial governments have increasingly relied on it in recent years to safeguard controversial legislation against unwanted Charter challenges. While a reference to the Supreme Court on Bill 21 would likely provide much-needed clarity on the constitutional limits of section 33, it could also result in undesirable tension with the Quebec government.
Thankfully, a less contentious alternative remains open to the federal government: the attorney general of Canada may, as of right, intervene as an added party in any litigation involving a constitutional question. Of the various responses to Bill 21 potentially available to O’Toole if he becomes prime minister, this would be the most prudent. Unlike a direct constitutional reference, an intervention by the attorney general would not force the Quebec government’s hand by initiating fresh litigation. Such an intervention could be further tailored to demonstrate the significant ways in which this law misapplies important constitutional principles, but without adopting a hard position on section 33 that risks open confrontation with the provinces.
The insistence that there are no politically viable options available to O’Toole and the Conservatives on Bill 21 rings hollow. To the contrary, Bill 21 has presented the Tories with a rare opportunity to offer leadership on a defining civil liberties issue while making the case to religious minorities that they have a home and champion in the party. The only question is whether Erin O’Toole is prepared to truly lead.
Source: Conservatives should show leadership on Bill 21 and defend religious freedom
Job or hijab? Singapore debates ban on Islamic veil at work
2020/09/22 Leave a comment
Contrast between Sikh wearing turbans (male) and prohibiting Muslims wearing hijabs (women) striking:
Every day before she starts her shift at a government hospital in Singapore, Farah removes her hijab – the Islamic veil she has worn since a teenager.
Although minority Muslim women can freely wear the hijab in most settings in Singapore, some professions bar the headscarf and a recent case has triggered fresh debate on diversity and discrimination in the workplace.
Now Farah has joined a growing number of Muslims who account for about 15 per cent of Singapore’s 4 million resident population calling for the ban to end, with an online petition gathering more than 50,000 signatures.
“They told me I can’t work here if I wear the tudung,” said Farah, using the local Malay term for hijab, as she recounts her job interview two years ago for a physiotherapist position.
“I felt a sense of helplessness, it’s unfair. Why has the tudung become a barrier for us to look for jobs?” asked the 27-year-old, who used a pseudonym for fear of reprisals at work.
She accepted the job eventually but has to remove her headscarf whenever she is at work.
Farah’s case is not an oddity.
There was outcry last month when a woman was asked to remove her hijab to work as a promoter at a local department store.
Halimah Yacob, the country’s first female president who herself wears the hijab, said there is “no place” for discrimination when asked her view of the case.
The store reversed its policy, but many took to social media pointing out restrictions remain on wearing the hijab for some civil servants, including policewomen and nurses.
Livelihood
The debate surrounding the hijab is not new in Singapore, a modern city-state which takes pride in its multicultural and multiracial background. The country is predominantly ethnic Chinese, many of whom follow Buddhism or Christianity.
In 2013, then Muslim affairs minister Yaacob Ibrahim said wearing a hijab at the workplace would be “very problematic” for some professions that require a uniform.
The following year, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the hijab issue was about “what sort of society do we want to build in Singapore”, according to local media reports.
Singapore’s police force and the health ministry did not respond to repeated requests seeking comment.
Referring to the department store case, Singapore’s president said discrimination in the workplace was “disturbing” as it deprives a person from earning a living.
“People should be assessed solely on their merits and their ability to do a job and nothing else,” Halimah wrote on her Facebook, which attracted more than 500 comments.
“During this Covid-19 period when concerns over jobs and livelihoods are greater, incidents of discrimination exacerbate anxieties and people feel threatened,” she added.
Divided
The hijab has been a divisive issue for Muslims worldwide.
Many Muslim women cover their heads in public as a sign of modesty, although others see it as a sign of female oppression and in West Asian women face jail for eschewing it.
In Indonesia’s conservative Aceh province, women without a headscarf have been censured. In Malaysia, Islamic authorities have probed a book about Muslim women who refuse to wear the hijab.
But women’s rights campaigners in Singapore say they want Muslim women to have freedom of choice.
Such restrictions have hindered women’s job prospects, especially when the coronavirus pandemic has pushed Singapore into recession and companies are laying off, they say.
“Women should be able to practise their religion freely without having to choose between having a job or to practise their religion,” said Filzah Sumartono, a writer who helps run Beyond the Hijab, a website focused on Singapore Muslim women.
“This issue in Singapore is only being faced by Muslim women, it’s a strong discriminatory policy against Muslim women,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Identity
Others urge consistency, noting that the turban – headgear worn by Sikh men – is allowed at work in Singapore.
“Why the double standard,” asked Nur, a Muslim law student who signed the petition posted online in June. She requested not to use her full name to protect her privacy.
The 22-year-old said her mother and sister, who work as a nurse and in a private security company respectively, are both banned from wearing a headscarf at work.
She called on officials to explain the restrictions, saying countries such as Britain or Australia have changed tack, with disposable hijabs for nurses to address any hygiene concerns.
“I accept that racial harmony is very fragile, but it’s not just acknowledging these differences exist and live with them. It’s much more than that,” said Nur, a co-founder of Lepak Conversations, an online group.
“It’s about knowing these differences exist, accepting them and embracing these differences.” Filzah of the Beyond the Hijab group said the restrictions can make it more difficult for women to enter the workforce.
“Some women don’t feel comfortable removing a part of their identity just to be able to earn money,” she said.
Source: Job or hijab? Singapore debates ban on Islamic veil at work
ICYMI: Where Did BIPOC Come From? The acronym, which stands for black, Indigenous and people of color, is suddenly everywhere. Is it doing its job?
2020/09/21 Leave a comment
Good explainer on the origins of BIPOC. Personally, I find debates over the various terms – radicalized minorities, persons of colour, visible minorities, BIPOC – less interesting than more detailed examination of what socioeconomic and other data says regarding comparative outcomes between different groups.
But separating out Indigenous from visible minorities (I stick with the official government term), of course, makes sense given the very different histories and experiences, notwithstanding the common thread of racism:
Black Americans have been called by many names in the United States. African-American, Negro, colored and the unutterable slur that rhymes with bigger. In recent weeks, as protests against police brutality and racism have flooded the streets and social media, another more inclusive term has been ascribed to the population: BIPOC.
The acronym stands for “black, Indigenous and people of color.” Though it is now ubiquitous in some corners of Twitter and Instagram, the earliest reference The New York Times could find on social media was a 2013 tweet.
As a phrase, “people of color” dates back centuries — it was first cited in The Oxford English Dictionary, with the British spelling “colour,” in 1796 — and is often abbreviated as POC. The other two letters, for black and Indigenous, were included in the acronym to account for the erasure of black people with darker skin and Native American people, according to Cynthia Frisby, a professor of strategic communication at the Missouri School of Journalism.
“The black and Indigenous was added to kind of make sure that it was inclusive,” Ms. Frisby said. “I think the major purpose of that was for including voices that hadn’t originally been heard that they wanted to include in the narrative, darker skin, blacks and Indigenous groups, so that they could make sure that all the skin shades are being represented.”
Charmaine Nelson, an art history professor at McGill University, said that the history of black and Indigenous people in Canada calls for the distinction between them and other people of color. In some parts of Canada, mainly east of Ontario, Indigenous people were colonized but not enslaved, she said, unlike Africans who were subjected to chattel slavery everywhere.
“We understand that under colonialism African and Indigenous people had very different experiences,” Dr. Nelson said. “To conflate everything in one is to erase, which is the very nature of genocidal practice.”
If the intention was to help spell it out, some aren’t getting the message. On social media, many assumed the term stood for “bisexual people of color.” Others read it as “biopic,” the shorthand for a biographical movie. The term has caused confusion, and there isn’t universal agreement about what it means or whom it actually includes, but to most, the people of color includes Latinos and Asians.
To attempt to represent so many different identities in a single term is a product of colonialism, according to Chelsey Luger, a wellness trainer at the Native Wellness Institute, and an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, a tribal nation in North Dakota.
“It is a redundant term if anything else,” Ms. Luger said. “All people of color are Indigenous. A lot of people of color are not acknowledged as and don’t have a connection to that idea because their Indigenous identity has been erased through assimilative techniques or just the connection to our stories and our history has been violently taken from us.”
The Indigenous community critiques the designations of Native American and First Nations, as the Indigenous are called in Canada, because their diversity is not recognized in those terms, according to Ms. Luger.
“The fact that people think that we’re one homogeneous group and they don’t acknowledge our diversity contributes to our dehumanization,” Ms. Luger said. “It is common knowledge that European and white Americans come from multinational complex backgrounds with very diverse histories. It is dangerous when you perpetuate the notion that black and Indigenous people of color are homogeneous.”
Some are comfortable saying BIPOC.
“It was, ‘Should I call them black or African-Americans,’ but BIPOC came out recently,” said Gabby Beckford, a travel content creator. In a video posted to her YouTube channel, she explained the differences between the terms.
“I don’t think it’s supposed to be dividing,” Ms. Beckford said in an interview. “If you’re talking about black people, don’t say BIPOC. If you’re talking about overpolicing in the United States, you can say black people. It can seem lazy, but if you’re talking to people of color in general, compared to the white experience, I think you should say BIPOC.”
Others simply want to be included in the process of coming up with terms that are meant to stand for them.
“This is like when we asked that they arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor and they’re like, ‘How about we pass a law?’” Ms. Obell said. “We are asking for a lot of things, and being called BIPOC is not one of them.”
“Stop making decisions for us without us.”
EU unveils plan to combat racism, increase diversity
2020/09/21 Leave a comment
Better late than never (collecting basic data):
The European Commission presented a series of measures Friday aimed at tackling structural racism and discrimination, acknowledging a blatant lack of diversity among the European Union’s institutions.
The bloc’s executive arm set out its action plan for the next five years, which includes strengthening the current legal framework, recruiting an anti-racism and increasing the diversity of EU staff.
The European Commission’s for values and transparency, Vera Jourová, said that recent anti-racism protests in the U.S. and Europe highlighted the need for action.
“We have reached a moment of reckoning. The protests sent a clear message, change must happen now,” Jourová said. “It won’t be easy, but it must be done.
“We won’t shy away from strengthening the legislation, if needed,” she said. “The commission itself will adapt its recruiting policy to better reflect European society.”
The current College of Commissioners, which oversees EU policies, is made up of 27 members, one from each EU country. All the members of the team set up last year by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are white.
Under the plan, data on the diversity of commission staff will for the first time be collected on the basis of a voluntary survey that will help define new recruitment policies.
Meanwhile, the new for anti-racism will be in charge of collecting the grievances and feelings of minorities to make sure they are reflected in EU policies.
The EU said that more than half of Europeans believe that discrimination is widespread in their country. According to surveys carried out by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, or FRA, 45% of people of North African descent, 41% of Roma and 39% of people of sub-Saharan African descent have faced such discrimination.
The EU’s racial equality directive will also be assessed, with possible new legislation introduced in 2022. In the wake of the Black Live Matters protests triggered by George Floyd’s death in the U.S., the European Commission said it would look carefully into discrimination by law enforcement authorities such as unlawful racial profiling. Meanwhile, the EU agency for fundamental rights will continue to collect data on police attitudes towards minorities.
The European Commission also wants to combat stereotypes and disinformation by setting up a series of seminars and promoting commemorative days linked to the issue of racism. It also encouraged member states to address stereotypes via cultural and education programs, or the media. A summit against racism is planned next year.
“Nobody is born racist. It is not a characteristic which we are born with,” said Helena Dalli, the EU commissioner for equality. “It’s a question of nurture, and not nature. We have to unlearn what we have learned.”
Earlier this year, the European Parliament approved a resolution condemning the Floyd’s death and asking the EU to take a strong stance against racism.
Source: EU unveils plan to combat racism, increase diversity
OECD Report: All Hands In? Making Diversity Work for All
2020/09/21 Leave a comment
This report has some very useful comparative charts that I will draw from in the future. This takeaway is a useful reminder of the differences between and among groups:
Existing frameworks must better differentiate the needs of diverse groups
Despite the variety of instruments in place, whether diversity policies actually work in practice and why is still under-researched. This is partly due to few countries evaluating or monitoring the impact of existing policies. Yet, understanding “what works” for which groups and why is crucial. Evidence suggests that existing diversity measures often disregard the considerable heterogeneity both between and within groups and consequently have unequal effects on diverse populations. For example, evidence shows that affirmative action programmes in the United States have benefitted white women more than ethnic minorities. Quota regulations, which have proven effective in getting more women in corporate boards, can be counterproductive when applied to other groups, such as people with disabilities. Such findings demonstrate that there are group-specific barriers, which cannot be addressed through “one-size-fits-all” diversity policies.
Crucially, most existing diversity policies tend to neglect socio-economic disadvantage. Studies on access to higher education suggest that diversity policies primarily benefit the most privileged within an ethnic minority group, e.g. those from families with relatively high incomes or high levels of education. While the principle of equal opportunities should apply to people of any socio-economic background and status, policies fail to help the most disadvantaged within minority groups will not end injustice. Finally, policy makers have to face the danger that disadvantaged individuals who do not happen to fall into the category of any particular “diverse group” may feel left out and discriminated against. Diversity policies, therefore, can only be one part of a broader package of policies to promote equal opportunities among all members of society.
Note: The chart compares differences in employment rates of men and women; native-born and foreign-born; and prime-age (25-54) and older workers (55-64). Disability status is defined as self-perceived, long-standing activity limitations. Employment gaps and perceived attitudes are shown as colour-coded percentiles. Evolution over 10 years (2008 and 2018 for attitudes; 2006/07 and 2016/17 for labour market gaps): “red”: more than a 2 percentage points change to the favour of diverse groups, “yellow” between a +2 percentage points change and a -2 percentage points change, “red“: more than a 2 percentage points change to the detriment of diverse groups (regardless of statistical significance). The evolution refers to differences vis-à-vis the respective comparison group and not absolute values. “Grey”: data are not available.
Source: OECD Gender Portal; OECD/EU Settling In: Indicators of Immigrant Integration 2018; OECD Employment Outlook 2018; OECD Connecting People with Jobs 2014; World Gallup Poll.
Douglas Todd: More rigorous study needed on ‘systemic racism’ in Canada’s justice system
2020/09/21 Leave a comment
Looking forward to the more detailed report correlating crime rates by ethnic status is scheduled to be released on Sept. 30 by StatsCan that will help avoid some of the broad generalizations in the article:
Federal Justice Minister David Lametti has been emphasizing to journalists that it’s time to weed out “systemic racism” in the Canadian police and court system.
“It’s part of a larger foundation of colonialism that sadly has played an important part in our history,” Lametti told Postmedia News in the midst of sweeping anger and debate about police violence against Blacks in the United States.
The report found over a 10-year period that Canadian whites accounted for 61 per cent of the serious crimes that warranted federal custody and a mandatory minimum penalty, even as whites in 2011 made up 76 per cent of the population.The study revealed that Indigenous offenders were incarcerated for 23 per cent of the serious crimes, despite accounting for only 4.3 per cent of the population. Blacks were jailed for nine per cent of the serious offences, despite comprising 2.9 per cent of the population.
In contrast, other visible minorities were responsible for just nine per cent of the offences involving firearms, sex with minors and drug trafficking, even though they make up 16 per cent of all Canadian residents.
The 2017 StatsCan report on mandatory minimum penalties provided no analysis or commentary related to whether the incarceration imbalances based on Indigenous or ethnic status had anything to do with racism.
Justice Department media officials, in addition to highlighting the single report on mandatory sentencing, also suggested asking Statistics Canada about relevant data that would back up Lametti’s claims about “shocking” systemic racism.
Statistics Canada media officials, in response, provided links to data on homicide rates, which showed the overall murder rate was going down but in 2018 Indigenous people were disproportionately its victims — in 21 per cent of all 651 homicide cases.
While the homicide data compiled by Statistics Canada shows that nen are the most common victims of murder, it didn’t track homicide rates based on whether someone is white or a visible minority (also referred to as a person of colour.) However, the Statistics Canada media official highlighted how, for the first time in Canadian history, that data correlating crime rates by ethnic status is scheduled to be released on Sept. 30.
That should be an important improvement, because Canada is far behind Britain, Australia and the United States in providing comprehensive analysis of how crime data relate to ethnicity.
Associate Prof. Rick Parent, who has taught criminology at SFU, The University of the Fraser Valley and elsewhere, says the big problem in Canada is that there is no central entity probing the “deeper meaning” of crime data.
“Statistics Canada just sort of throws things on the wall,” he said. It normally publishes police and crime-related data without putting it in broader, relevant perspective.
“The situation does a disservice to marginalized groups,” Parent said, pointing to how Britain, the U.S. and Australia have research teams devoted to understanding how ethnicity relates to arrest rates and other aspects of the justice system.
The problem in Canada, Parent said, is that elected officials and others tend to fling out their positions on crime rates mainly in response to “the loudest voices” on social media and elsewhere.
The justice minister, for instance, used charged concepts, including “colonization” and “racialized,” when he maintained discrimination based on ethnicity is rampant in Canada’s legal system. (“Racialized” is a new term in sociology that refers to ascribing ethnic or racial identities to a group that did not identify itself as such.)
The term “systemic racism” is also disputed. For many it means that racism is a fixed, often subconscious practice within an organization. As some say, a system can be racist even when the individuals in it are not. The term has become so hotly contested that The Oxford Dictionary this summer acknowledged it’s working on clarifying what exactly it means.
For his part, Parent, a former Delta police veteran, says: “Nobody can really say” what contributes to higher incarceration rates for Canada’s Indigenous and Black people.
“Wealth distribution” and lack of adequate housing, he said, may have a more significant correlation to high crime statistics than membership in an ethnic group.
Studies by researchers such as UBC’s Haimin Zhang have consistently shown, for instance, that most immigrants to Canada, three out of four of whom are people of colour, have low arrest rates, Parent said.
“There are lots of well-off and extremely well-off immigrants in North Vancouver and West Vancouver and they’re not committing many crimes. Broad generalities about race and the justice system just don’t fly,” Parent said, adding people of different economic classes tend to engage in different times of crimes.
Parent also doesn’t believe choices made by specific police officers, prosecutors and judges can explain the disparities in Canada’s incarceration rates. “It’s naive to say individuals have that much power in the justice system.”
Rather than blaming systemic racism, Parent said Canada should follow the lead of other countries that have developed more rigorous ways to examine why Indigenous, Black people or others are more likely to be jailed.
“We have to be more proactive and figure out why these things are happening.”
Source: Douglas Todd: More rigorous study needed on ‘systemic racism’ in Canada’s justice system
How The Pandemic Is Widening The Racial Wealth Gap
2020/09/19 Leave a comment
Good data-based analysis:
Joeller Stanton used to be an assistant teacher at a private school in Baltimore and made about $30,000 a year. In mid-March, when the pandemic was just starting, her school closed for what was supposed to be two weeks. “Up to that point, we were under the impression that it wasn’t that serious, that everything was going to be OK,” Stanton recalls.
But as schools in Maryland switched to virtual learning indefinitely, Stanton was let go from her job. She received her last paycheck in March. “I had about $300 savings that was basically gone by the end of March,” she says.
She says she applied for unemployment but was denied initially. And by April, she had no money to pay for rent and utilities, and was struggling to put food on the table for her two children.
Stanton, who is Black, is caught up in a huge wave of economic stress hitting Americans, especially people of color.
Sixty percent of Black households are facing serious financial problems since the pandemic began, according to a national poll released this week by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. That includes 41% who say they’ve used up most or all their savings, while an additional 10% had no savings before the outbreak.
Latinos and Native Americans are also disproportionately affected by the pandemic’s economic impact. Seventy-two percent of Latino and 55% of Native American respondents say their households are facing serious financial problems, compared with 36% of whites.
“The thing that immediately struck me was how large the gap was by race for the people who said they were facing serious problems,” says Valerie Wilson, director of the Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy at the Economic Policy Institute.
The pandemic’s disproportionate financial impact on communities of color reflects — and is worsening — existing racial disparities in wealth, she adds.
Struggles with income, housing, food
“The three groups that are being just ravaged by this epidemic are reporting unbelievable problems of just trying to cope with their day-to-day lives,” says Robert Blendon, professor emeritus of health policy and political analysis at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who oversaw the poll.
Thirty-two percent of Latino and 28% of Black respondents say they’re having problems paying rent or mortgages. About a third of respondents in both groups were struggling to pay credit cards or other loans. And 26% of Latino and Native American respondents say they struggle to afford food, while 22% of Black respondents do.
Among households that reported they lost income, survival is even more of a challenge. For Black respondents, 40% say they’re struggling to pay rent or mortgage, and 43% say they’re having trouble paying utilities. For Latino households that lost income, 46% say they’re struggling to pay mortgage or rent. About a third of both Black and Latino respondents who lost household income said they’re struggling to pay for food.
The fact that many minority groups are also experiencing higher rates of coronavirus infections makes it even harder for them to cope financially, Blendon adds.
“You have people who don’t have savings, they can’t pay bills,” he says. “And then you’re going to tell them, ‘Well, somebody in the household tested positive, nobody can go work.’ How are they going to keep their lives going?”
Stanton’s sister, who works for the city government, got COVID-19 earlier this year and had to isolate in her basement. “She had a cough, and she couldn’t eat because her taste buds were completely gone,” Stanton says. “I would cook meals, and I would take it to the basement, put it down on the floor for her.”
Luckily, she says, no one else in the family — including her 82-year-old mother and her 7-year-old son, who has asthma — got infected.
But Stanton says she has lost a sister-in-law to the disease and had a friend in coma for six weeks on a ventilator. She knows of many others in her community who have died.
And most of her co-workers and friends are out of work.
Worsening existing disparities
Even during the economic recovery of recent years, minority groups were lagging behind, says Wilson of the Economic Policy Institute. “There were significant racial disparities in wages, significant racial disparities in unemployment, significant racial disparities in the kinds of jobs people held.”
Black, Latino and Native American workers were more likely to have jobs that were lost during the pandemic, Wilson says. A Harvard University analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Pulse Survey, released in July, found that 58% of Latino and 53% of Black households experienced loss in earnings early in the pandemic. Wilson’s own research has shown that Latino workers have been particularly affected by job losses during the pandemic.
Wilson adds that people in these groups are also more likely to have jobs that didn’t allow them to work from the safety of their homes, therefore putting them more at risk of getting infected. And they’re also less likely to have substantial savings. As a result, it makes it harder for them to weather times of economic downturn, she says.
Wilson says she worries that the pandemic is worsening racial disparities.
“We’re going to see coming out of this pandemic an expansion of the racial wealth gap,” she says. “We saw the same kind of thing in the Great Recession in 2007-2008 — in particular then with the extensive foreclosures in communities of color and the loss of housing wealth.”
“You just pray”
The pandemic forced Stanton to give up her rental home back in April. But she says she was fortunate not to end up homeless, thanks to her sister.
“My sister helped me get a storage unit,” Stanton says. “I moved my furniture into a storage unit. And I moved in with my sister, me and my two kids — my 11-year-old daughter and my 7-year-old son.”
She is grateful to have a roof over her head, but money, she says, is still tight.
She now gets $280 a week from the state of Maryland as unemployment, but it doesn’t go far.
“The first thing I buy is any personal hygiene items me or my kids need,” she says. She buys food, above what food stamps get her; she pays her phone bill and covers her sister’s utility bills. “That’s my only way of telling her, ‘Thank you,’ to show her that I appreciate what she’s doing.”
What little she has left, she buys a treat or two for her children, who have mostly been stuck indoors since the pandemic began: “Just trying to keep them happy,” she says.
But she’s far from happy herself. She hasn’t been able to find a new job because of the nature of remote learning. “They don’t need an assistant right now because the kids are not physically in the building,” she says.
And even if she did find a job, she worries she’d have to use pay to cover child care. Her kids are now also learning virtually from home and need constant supervision.
Stanton says the only way she copes with her daily struggles is through faith. “A lot of prayer and a lot of patience,” she says. “I try not to let things bother me because I don’t want to become depressed. So, you know, you just pray. I hope this is all over soon.”
Multiculturalism in Canada: Evidence and Anecdote
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Multicultural Meanderings 