If Corporations Really Want to Address Racial Inequality, Here Are 9 Things That Actually Make a Difference

2020/08/06 Leave a comment

A few articles of interest regarding racial inequality and options to address it. While largely focussed on Black inequalities and disparities, broadly applicable to most minority groups.

Starting with the most concrete by Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation. While some of the recommendations pertain to the private sector, some are more broadly applicable:

Since protests over the killing of George Floyd erupted across the country, I’ve received numerous calls from corporate CEOs who want to know what they should do, and where can they quickly donate $10 million dollars to advance the cause of racial justice?

The first thing I do is remind them of Martin Luther King Jr.’s caution that philanthropy must not be used to obscure the economic injustices that make it necessary. The frustration and rage we’re seeing across the country aren’t just about a racist system of policing.

It’s also about original sins–a genocide of Native Americans and enslavement of Black Africans whose stolen land and labor built this country’s wealth, enriching countless white people and their descendants in the process. It’s about the predations of modern-day capitalism that have allowed a privileged few to hoard the lion’s share of the nation’s wealth, effectively consigning Black folks to the bottom rung of the economic ladder.

This time the usual corporate playbook–issue a statement, gather a group of Black leaders for a conference call, give a hefty grant to the Urban League, resume business as usual–isn’t going to work. Here are 9 things every corporate leader can do to improve Black lives.

1. Remake your C suite

Change starts at the top. Do you have African-American board members? Black executives in your leadership team? If you do, are they token appointments, or do they have real power to recommend changes that would make your company more racially equitable?

2. Hire and advance more Black people

As leaders of large corporations, you have the power to transform Black lives immediately, simply by hiring and promoting more of us. Blind tests show that when identical resumes are submitted for the same job – one with a white-sounding name, the other with a Black-sounding one – the white applicant receives a callback 50% more often. Taking racial inclusion seriously means telling your managers that they cannot go forward with a hire or a promotion, at any level, unless the candidate pool is racially diverse.

3. Get involved in the Fair Chance Hiring Initiative

One legacy of the “tough on crime” era is that about one-third of American adults now have a criminal record, mostly for minor crimes that nonetheless hamper their ability to get a job. Black people are hugely overrepresented in that group, in significant part because of the kind of over-policing that sparked today’s protests.

That’s why the Society of Human Resource Management has urged employers to take the Getting Talent Back to Work Pledge as part of the Fair Chance Hiring Initiative by employing qualified job applicants with criminal backgrounds. Five years ago, the Ford Foundation committed to hire 10 formerly incarcerated business associates every year, and they are among our most dedicated employees.

4. Pay your employees a living wage

The federal minimum wage–$2.13 per hour for tipped workers and $7.25 per hour for others–is not a living wage. In 2016, nearly half of government public assistance went to people who worked full-time but still fell below the federal poverty line.

Black workers make up about 11% percent of the workforce, but 38% of Black workers who now work for the minimum wage would get a raise. Raising the pay of the workers at the bottom of your scale would disproportionately help people of color.

Commit to paying your workers a living wage of at least $15 per hour, and more in higher-cost parts of the country.

5. Provide a safe and healthy workplace

Valuing Black lives in a pandemic also means doing everything possible to create a safe workplace. Lack of adequate health insurance coverage are big reasons Black, Latinx and Native American people have contracted the coronavirus at a disproportionally higher rate than white Americans, with Black people dying of COVID-19 at a rate of almost 2.5 times the rate of white people. Does your company manipulate the schedules of your workers to fall just below the threshold for health coverage? Does it label people independent contractors even if they spend the bulk of their days working for you? If so, this is what advocates mean when they talk about structural racism.

6. Provide paid sick and family leave

Black workers often cannot afford to take time off to care for a newborn or sick family member. The lack of paid sick leave is another reason so many people of color have suffered higher rates of illness and death from COVID-19. If there were ever a question about whether paid leave is a moral issue, the pandemic should have laid it to rest.

7. Reconsider executive compensation

You might be asking, “but where am I going to find the resources to give my workers more?” Here, CEOs would do well to look in the mirror. According to the Economic Policy Institute, CEO compensation has grown 940% since 1978, while the salary of the average worker has increased only 12%. The economy would suffer zero harm if CEOs were paid less.

We know this, because many of those same executives are steering their excess wealth into philanthropic foundations, which have proliferated in the past two decades as their compensation has skyrocketed. While that charitable instinct benefits some of my foundation’s favorite causes, it would be better for the economy and for racial equity if more of that largesse were directed toward workers.

8. Advocate for a more progressive tax code

Standing up for Black lives means investing in the essential building blocks of social equality, from adequately funded schools to universal health care and affordable housing. These things require government action at scale.

Moving money from police budgets should be just the start. What we really need is a progressive tax code that will reduce income inequality, shore up our crumbling infrastructure, create a proper public health system and provide the social safety net that people need in a crisis. Five months into a pandemic that has shuttered the economy, Canada is subsidizing wages at 75% of full salary, while Americans are left to queue at food banks, wondering whether the next unemployment check will be their last.

Instead of deploying your lobbyists only on issues of narrow self-interest, detail them to advocate for tax reform and the expansion of social programs for poor people.

9. Advocate for shareholder reforms

But I hear you saying, “I have public shareholders to whom I’m accountable. Supporting tax policies that work against my company’s bottom line will only drive down our share price.” Yes, and this is why the current model of shareholder-driven capitalism that puts quarterly profits over people is bad for the long-term social and economic health of the country.

The Business Roundtable acknowledged as much last year, when 181 CEOs signed a statement revising the purpose of a corporation as one that benefits customers, employees, supplies and communities – not just shareholders. This was an important first step. Now, companies must turn that resolution into action, by committing to the kinds of tangible changes in practice and policy that will reduce inequality.

The uncomfortable truth is that if what you’re changing in your corporate practices doesn’t affect your bottom line, you’re not doing enough.

So to my friends in the Fortune 500: while the millions in onetime donations are appreciated, a permanent commitment to reducing racial inequality through changes in your own practices would be more meaningful. Outsourcing the work of racial justice isn’t sufficient when a broken system of capitalism has produced indefensible levels of wealth for owners and daily insecurity for workers. The corporate sector has the responsibility–and the ability–to act now.

Source: If Corporations Really Want to Address Racial Inequality, Here Are 9 Things That Actually Make a Difference

On the more abstract and process side, two examples starting with the call by Mireille Apollon, Sébastien Goupil and David Schimpky of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO:

Earlier this year, the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, put out a call for feedback on efforts underway to achieve the objectives of the International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024).

Given the dramatic events and protests that have marked the year so far, one could say that little has been done to advance the spirit of this important Decade. Unfortunately, it remains too-little known among nation states and institutions.

United Nations international years and decades are not celebratory; they are calls to concerted action on issues that need attention over a long period. The International Decade for People of African Descent expresses an urgent need for states to eradicate systemic racism and ensure recognition, justice, and development for Black people and communities.

For some time now, the UN has done its part to sound the alarm and remind us that our world faces a crisis of racism and racial injustice. In 2001, it convened the Durban Conference, which was intended to unite the world around fighting racism, but was overshadowed by strife among the participants and the 9/11 attacks. The conference nonetheless ended with the adoption of a vigorous program of action to be implemented by member states to fight racism and discrimination.

This conference was also the origin of flagship initiatives, such as the creation by UNESCO of the International Coalition of Sustainable and Inclusive Cities, which are across the world. This network includes our own Coalition of Inclusive Municipalities, whose principal objective is expressly to fight racism and discrimination.

The conference also led to the creation of a Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, which looked at the situation in Canada in 2016. Their well-researched and thoughtful report should be mandatory reading for every Canadian. It concludes:

“Despite the reputation for promoting multiculturalism and diversity and the positive measures taken by the national and provincial governments …, the Working Group is deeply concerned by the structural racism that lies at the core of many Canadian institutions and the systemic anti-Black racism that continues to have a negative impact on the human rights situation of African Canadians.”

An important step was taken in 2018, when Canada recognized the International Decade for People of African Descent, and announced significant funding programs and the creation of an Anti-Racism Secretariat. But let’s return again to the question from the high commissioner: how much progress have we seen over the past five years?

The Decade has been embraced by many Black organizations and activists, and there have been remarkable strides in Nova Scotia, which last year launched a historic action plan related to the International Decade. The Michaëlle Jean Foundation and the Federation of Black Canadians convened historic summits to mobilize Black communities and propose concrete actions.

Our Commission has undertaken new partnerships, including working with the Canadian Institute for Identities and Migrations on two special editions of Canadian Diversity dedicated to the voices of African descent leaders, thinkers, and activists. In addition, we are working with the UNESCO Chair on the Prevention of Radicalization leading to Violence and Project SOMEONE on a recently launched toolkit to tackle racial and social profiling.

That said, the International Decade remains largely overlooked. The past few weeks have demonstrated that anti-Black racism is alive and well, and not just south of the border. Black Canadians are right to demand real action, and governments and intuitions everywhere need to respond. We need to implement policies and significant measures that promote diversity and inclusion, and address racism and discrimination in all their forms.

Let’s have the courage in 2020 to go beyond grand words and promises. This is the time for action. The way forward is clear, we just need to take it.

Source: A roadmap already exists to advance the rights of Black communities

Lastly, similarly efforts by DND and the CAF to address anti-Black racism are heavy on process:

Addressing anti-Black racism in the ranks of the Canadian military is a matter of national security, with recent bad press likely to dampen recruitment, says the head of the Federal Black Employee Caucus.

“For a long time this work has been piecemeal and people kind of do it at the corner of their desk, but now there is such a higher level of importance that [is] being put on it and getting it right,” said Richard Sharpe, founder of the Federal Black Employee Caucus (FBEC).

The Department of National Defence convened a meeting on July 27 to have its management “listen and learn directly from visible minority defence team members about the lived experience and systematic barriers that they and other colleagues face on a daily basis,” according to a July 28 statementfrom outgoing chief of the defence staff Jonathan Vance and national defence deputy minister Jody Thomas.

The meeting came after a June 19 letter that Gen. Vance and Ms. Thomas sent to DND members apologizing for the delay in addressing the outpouring of response to the police killing of George Floyd and reports of systematic racism within DND and the Canadian Armed Forces.

Those members of DND who presented gave three recommendations for the Canadian military to implement: establish a secretariat for members of DND to report on racial discrimination, make clear who is responsible for implementing policies and processes to tackle racism, and align DND with the rest of the public service to collect disaggregated data and renew the Employment Equity Act.

“I don’t want to fawn all over them, but I think they’ve been doing a very good job of addressing some of these issues—at least at the senior levels of the organization—head on,” said Mr. Sharpe, who took part in the July 27 meeting. “I appreciate the fact that we had a very frank and open discussion about race and anti-Black racism.”

He said changes to the Employment Equity Act are “long overdue.” The act, which was passed in the 1980s, outlines four classes of people that receive special protections: persons with disabilities, women, Indigenous people, and visible minorities.

“It refers to Black and racialized people as visible minorities and our experiences are masked within that visible minority term,” Mr. Sharpe said.

During the meeting, Gen. Vance and Ms. Thomas wrote, the leadership of the Canadian military heard about the need to “re-imagine and re-design,” so the new policies work for those without power within the structure of DND.

“The experiences they shared exposed persistent and deeply painful occurrences of aggressively racist behaviours, micro-aggressions, and failures of leadership to address both,” Gen. Vance and Ms. Thomas’ statement read.

The statement also referred to the creation of a DND Black Employee Network, something Mr. Sharpe called “really important.”

He noted that FBEC has been pushing for the establishment of Black employee networks—which create a safe place to gather to establish recommendations and have their own voice within institutions to push for change as a distinct group—across the public service.

“So with DND committing to do this, I think it gives great space for this to happen and a focus that we’ve never had. There’s never been a focus on Black employees in the public service,” Mr. Sharpe said.

The DND Black Employee Network is made up of both military and civilian members, who can “come together to share their experiences and discuss ways to respond to anti-Black racism within the Defence Team,” according to a DND spokesperson, who added that the group’s mandate is provide space for Black members of DND and the Canadian Forces to “explore, discuss, and create ways to tackle anti-Black racism.”

It will be made up of departmental volunteers who will act as a consultative body for senior DND and military leaders.

“It really does continue to feel like historic times here, with all that’s been happening, and there’s been movement on this work [that the FBEC] has been pushing for two years,” said Mr. Sharpe.

Given the new territory of DND’s initiative, Mr. Sharpe said it’s difficult to establish concrete timelines, but added he’s heard from DND leadership that they want to enact changes “very quickly.”

“This is a national security threat for DND. …The bad press, the reputational damage impacts on the ability on the organization to recruit people,” he said. “So I think they’re trying to get this stuff in place as soon as possible, addressing any kind of reputational damage that they may be experiencing due to the ongoing incidents of racism within the ranks and intolerance in the various defence [branches].”

Canadian Forces College professor Alan Okros, an expert on diversity in the military, said the networks provide a way for individuals to have a voice and have their concerns illuminated.

“In the current context, there is more of an interest at the senior leadership level in listening to [advisory groups] and hearing what’s going on,” he said.

Gen. Vance and Ms. Thomas said in their statement that National Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan (Vancouver South, B.C.) is “fully seized with addressing racial discrimination” within DND, adding that he “expects bold, decisive action” from both DND and the Canadian Armed Forces.

Mr. Sajjan told CTV last month that during his early days in the Armed Forces he realized “how intense racism can be.”

“I remember one person … saying to me, ‘I let you join my military.’ Just that position of power and privilege that he was throwing in my face, it just upset me so much,” he said.

Prof. Okros said the Black Lives Matter protests in the United States and Canada have given an increased impetus to diversity and inclusion work that started with Marie Deschamps’ 2015 report on sexual assault in the Canadian military, which led the Canadian government to launch Operation Honour to tackle sexual assault and misconduct.

“It’s moved it up a notch in terms of the level of attention and focus on it,” he said, adding that Gen. Vance and Ms. Thomas have made it clear this is how they want to lead.

Prof. Okros said now that the senior leaders have held a meeting to listen, the big question is: what have they heard and what is going to be done?

A DND spokesperson said implementation timelines and funding have not yet been determined.

“As we work towards establishing the appropriate framework and resources for this critical initiative, we are continuing to be open and transparent with the entire Defence Team,” the spokesperson said.

The recommendations being put forward are “good first steps,” Prof. Okros said, adding that there will be individuals who will be expecting more to be done to fully achieve what’s required.

“I think they’re definitely going to be interested in moving as quickly as they can,” he said. “It likely is going to result in some staged or staggered implementation, recognizing that in some of these cases there are legal issues involved and it takes time, and there’s a requirement to be prudent if you are going to make changes that have legal consequences.”

“Creating the secretariat, clarifying roles and responsibilities are things that can be moved forward fairly quickly,” said Prof. Okros. “I think part of what the next steps are is going to depend on having some legal review and some policy review to make sure they get it right.”

Gen. Vance and Ms. Thomas called the July 27 meeting “just a start.”

“We will be meeting with the other defence advisory groups to hear their stories on discrimination and systematic barriers. We know there is so much more to do, and that we will be judged based on our actions and results, not our sentiments and promises.”

Source: ‘It’s a national security threat’: DND launches anti-Black racism initiative

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#COVID-19: Comparing provinces with other countries 5 August Update

2020/08/06 Leave a comment

Latest update, along with chart for infections. Recent uptick in infections can be expected to lead to an uptick in deaths. No major change in ranking.

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ICYMI: Toronto’s marginalized communities disproportionately affected by coronavirus, data suggest

2020/08/05 Leave a comment

Better data on what we have seen worldwide:

COVID-19 has infected racialized and low-income people in Toronto at far higher rates than the general population outside of long-term care homes, data released by the city suggest.

Doctors, community organizations and public-health workers have long suspected that racialized people – especially those who are Black – have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19. The findings released Thursday by Toronto Public Health showed that despite making up 52 per cent of the population, racialized people accounted for 83 per cent of COVID-19 cases between mid-May and mid-July.

The data reveal health inequities that existed long before the pandemic and will continue to if governments don’t look to address the upstream causes, experts say.

“Racism essentially sets up whether you’re able to have a life in which you can protect yourself from risk for any disease, including COVID, or whether you are forced into exposing yourself to risk,” said Arjumand Siddiqi, the Canada Research Chair in population health equity.

According to the data, Black people had the highest share of COVID-19 cases (21 per cent), followed by South Asian or Indo-Caribbean (20 per cent), Southeast Asian (17 per cent), white (17 per cent), Arab, Middle Eastern or West Asian (11 per cent), Latin American (10 per cent) and East Asian (4 per cent). All groups except white and East Asian were overrepresented based on the size of their overall population. Black people had six times the rate of COVID-19 cases compared with white people, while Latin American as well as Arab, Middle Eastern or West Asian populations had nine times the rate.

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The data from Toronto Public Health do not include long-term care and retirement home residents, as these people are not asked about their race or their income. The data also did not include Indigenous identities. The data were collected by public-health officials between May 20 and July 16 and provided voluntarily.

Eileen de Villa, Toronto’s medical officer of health, said targeted testing, improved communication and access to social supports – such as voluntary isolation sites for those infected with or exposed to COVID-19 – could address these stark inequities in the short term. But she emphasized the city must work to address the root causes.

“We need to focus on the social determinants of health, like affordable housing opportunities, access to employment and income supports and educational opportunities. And yes, we need to address systemic racism,” Dr. de Villa said.

Mayor John Tory said community organizations will be a key partner in identifying solutions.

“This includes engaging with local community groups to better understand risks and the concerns that residents in these areas have, so that we can work together with them to address those concerns,” Mr. Tory said.

Floydeen Charles-Fridal, the executive director of Caribbean African Canadian Social Services, said her organization, based in the northwest part of the city that’s home to one of its largest Black populations, does the sort of front-line work that has been chronically underfunded for years.

CAFCAN usually spends about $10,000 to $15,000 annually on food-related programming but instead spent nearly $40,000 in the first month of the pandemic on hot meals, food hampers and staff to prepare and deliver them. Food insecurity was already an issue in the neighbourhood but grew worse after lockdown-related job losses, Ms. Charles-Fridal said. A University of Toronto study published last fall found Black Canadians experience food insecurity at nearly twice the rate of white Canadians, even after adjusting for factors such as education, income and home ownership.

“It took COVID-19 and the murder of Black folks here and across the border for people to really understand how anti-Black racism is working,” Ms. Charles-Fridal said.

Studies have repeatedly shown that South Asians and Black people have much higher rates of diabetes and high blood pressure than the general population. For people with one of these underlying conditions who become infected with COVID-19, there is an elevated risk for more severe outcomes, including death.

Michelle Westin, a senior analyst at Black Creek Community Health Centre, which serves neighbourhoods with some of the highest rates of poverty, said she was not at all surprised by the data.

“We know that we have community members that are living in crowded apartment buildings, people who are working in the service and factory industries, people who are underemployed so they don’t have paid sick days,” Ms. Westin said. “So they’re working in positions that are putting them at greater risk for catching COVID.”

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In a report published after the Black Experiences in Healthcare Symposium held earlier this year in Toronto, organizers noted there were “disparities and inequities in health care access and delivery for racialized Canadians.”

Tracey Thompson, 52, experienced this first-hand. Ms. Thompson, who is Black, contracted COVID-19 in mid-March and still lives with serious long-term effects from the virus. She said she was turned away from the emergency room twice, and has not been able to see a doctor to get medication to relieve her symptoms, which are still present.

“I just haven’t been able to access health care in a reasonable fashion,” Ms. Thompson said. “I think that being Black and being a woman didn’t do me any favours in that.”

Toronto Public Health also reported Thursday that having a low income and living in crowded spaces were major risk factors for COVID-19: 27 per cent of cases were among those living in households of five or more, and 51 per cent of cases were among those living in low-income households.

The two are closely connected, Ms. Charles-Fridal said. “When people have low income what that also suggests is they may very well be in [public] housing and living in places where they cannot practice physical distancing.”

Earlier this month, a group of homeless people and activist organizations filed an application with the Superior Court calling a bylaw that bans tents and camping in city parks unconstitutional. Evicting people from parks, they said, would then push them into crowded communal spaces where they faced an elevated risk of contracting COVID-19.

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Former BMO CEO Tony Comper revamps charity focused on anti-Semitism

2020/08/05 Leave a comment

Of note:

An educational organization launched by former Bank of Montreal chief executive officer Tony Comper and his late wife, Elizabeth, to combat anti-Semitism in Canada is bringing in new leadership as incidents of discrimination and hate in the community continue to rise.

Fighting Antisemitism Together or FAST launched in 2005 with backing from a coalition of more than 30 influential corporate leaders that included then-CEOs Ed Clark of Toronto-Dominion Bank, Dominic D’Allessandro of Manulife Financial Corp. and Michael Sabia of BCE Inc. Since then, the charitable initiative has built free education programs geared to middle schools and high schools, and has reached 4.4 million students at more than 22,000 schools.

FAST was conceived to push back against a rash of anti-Semitic incidents in 2004. But the number of such incidents has risen sharply since then, and a global movement protesting against systemic racism over the past several months has offered a “stark reminder” of the prejudices that still persist, Mr. Comper said.

Now FAST is joining with the Canadian Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, a scholarly organization that publishes the academic journal Antisemitism Studies. CISA founding director Catherine Chatterley, who teaches at the University of Manitoba, is taking over as FAST’s chair and president.

In 2004, B’nai Brith Canada’s League for Human Rights catalogued 857 incidents of harassment, violence and vandalism targeting Jewish people in Canada – the largest number in more than half a century. By 2019, the same audit tallied 2,207 incidents, an 8-per-cent increase from 2018 and the fourth consecutive year of record numbers. Some of that increase has been driven by increasing online harassment, which was up 11 per cent, according to B’nai Brith Canada.

“The obvious question is, if you’re doing such a wonderful job, why isn’t it having an impact on anti-Semitism?” Mr. Comper said. “The increase in the incidences justifies exactly why we’re doing what we’re doing and the need for it.”

FAST was Ms. Comper’s idea. The former elementary-school teacher was shaken by the rash of anti-Semitic incidents making headlines in 2004: “Kicking over tombstones, swastikas on garage doors, the burning of the [United] Talmud Torah school in Montreal,” Mr. Comper said.

Ms. Comper cornered her husband in the bathroom while he shaved and insisted they do something about it. Neither was Jewish, nor were the key backers Mr. Comper enlisted, who put up $10,000 each and added their names to the initiative. But non-Jewish leaders speaking out in support of Jewish communities became one of FAST’s distinctive features.

The Compers became convinced the best way to root out anti-Semitism was through the school system. They built educational materials, first on DVD and later online, and provided them to teachers free, tailoring the content to meet standards across different boards of education, in English and French.

“To fundamentally change, you need to focus on education of young people and equip them with an alternative narrative to what they’re hearing either at home, or in the street or in the school yard,” Mr. Comper said.

At its outset, Mr. Comper didn’t envisage FAST as a long-term project. “I thought, frankly, that it would burn out after maybe 18 months or two years,” he said. But its educational resources have been continually revamped and expanded as anti-Semitic incidents continue to rise.

The organization has been spearheaded by Ms. Comper, who died in 2014, Mr. Comper, who was BMO’s CEO from 1999 to 2007, and FAST’s executive director, Nicole Miller. Yet at the age of 75, Mr. Comper has been looking for a partner to whom he could pass the torch.

He has promised to fund FAST for the next two years, and plans to stay on as an adviser working with Dr. Chatterley to build a new, more sustainable structure for fundraising and administration. “We’re hopeful,” he said. “It’s early days.”

Source: Former BMO CEO Tony Comper revamps charity focused on anti-Semitism

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Confessions of a ‘model minority’: How I’m learning to confront my own biases

2020/08/05 Leave a comment

Seeing more articles like this one by Joanna Chiu on the prejudices and racism of minorities for other minorities, a useful reminder that white/visible minority dichotomies are overly simplistic and do not capture the challenges in reducing racism, discrimination and bias:

Childhood for me was … busy.

My parents, who immigrated to Canada from Hong Kong, rarely took time off work and spent their weekends chauffeuring my brother and me to our lessons.

It was all they knew. In Asia’s cutthroat cities, many parents feel they have no choice but to spend a huge amount of their salaries to help their offspring stand out from the studious masses. We never went camping, or fishing, or whatever other Canadian families did for leisure.

Our Saturday mornings consisted of three hours of Cantonese school. If one of us got a perfect score on our vocabulary test, we would get McDonald’s for lunch as a treat.

After that, we’d head straight to two hours of piano lessons in a neighbouring Vancouver suburb. On Sunday mornings, we attended art class followed by tutoring in music theory, composition or music history. All those lessons were supposed to stimulate our growing brains.

I always felt connected to Hong Kong as my birthplace and embraced its stereotypical work ethic. I cried when my brother brought home a report card that contained mostly B’s and a C.

I didn’t see anything wrong with being a so-called model minority.

Sometimes strangers would say rude or mocking things to us, but racism was something to make peace with. Life would inevitably get better, after all, if we just kept working hard and didn’t complain.

Besides, I volunteered every week and started clubs at my school devoted to equality and human rights issues. That was part of the whole package of becoming an exemplary world citizen, I thought. It wouldn’t be long before there was an ethnic minority prime minister, if we all just kept working hard!

I was taught to brush off racism as a kind of flattery — that it stemmed from people being “jealous” of Asians’ high rate of university admission and higher-than-average salary level in North America.

Last year, I was working downtown and people would give me dirty looks or yell slurs at me on the street. Online, I was regularly getting a litany of abuse. My dad tried to comfort me by saying it was because I looked like “an executive” with my new job. It was a sign of success.

This wishful thinking made sense to me, but now I see why it’s illogical in the face of hate crimes happening around the world against people of Asian appearance.

In Vancouver, a man pushed a 92-year-old man with dementia to the ground outside a convenience store while yelling racist insults about COVID-19. In another incident, someone punched a woman of Asian descent near a bus stop downtown and walked away. Dakota Holmes, an Indigenous woman, was punched in the face and told to “go back to Asia” while she was walking her dog.

A recent Angus Reid Institute poll found that almost 30 per cent of Chinese Canadians surveyed said they had been physically attacked since the COVID-19 crisis began, while 43 per cent said they’ve been threatened or intimidated.

It’s a shock to the system for some of us — a reminder that racism can’t be outworked, outhustled, or out-run.

Rightly so, many people are speaking up to say that Asian communities shouldn’t stop at finally acknowledging that racism against Asians is a serious problem.

Around the world, people are also organizing under the “Asians for Black Lives” banner.

When police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd, three other officers were present, including Tou Thao.

Thao’s participation in Floyd’s death has rightfully sparked calls for Asian communities to better address the ways in which anti-Blackness is embedded into many Asian cultures and societies.

Oftentimes, this doesn’t come in the form of overt acts of hate, but in our resounding silence on systemic issues affecting other minorities that cannot be solved by trying to play within the rules of white supremacy.

Steven Zhou argued in an op-ed piece in the Star last week that a sense of superiority based on work ethic is prevalent among Chinese Canadians, and can lead to prejudice.

In recent public discussions in Canada, we’ve mostly heard from Asian millennials referring to racism among our elders, and pledging to speak with our elders about their derision of people with darker skin.

Although our “aunties and uncles” are more likely to say racist things out loud, younger people surely have biases, too.

What can an Asian Canadian who has internalized the model minority myth do?

Personally, I feel like I’ve dug myself into a hole of work and volunteer commitments. My instinct is to sign up for more work on anti-Blackness and anti-Indigenous topics. As co-chair of a group that promotes the contributions of women and people of colour on China studies, I put together a resources list for China expert communities to fight anti-Black racism, and have been going through all the readings.

Perhaps, part of the solution is to stop the endless activity. I’m lucky to have multiple sources of income during the pandemic, but exhaustion skews judgement. Instead of writing this essay in a few hours, as I normally would, I asked my editor for more time to reflect on my complicity in social injustices.

It’s been long overdue.

My biases are rooted in not only racism, but also classism and able-ism, where despite having a disability myself (ADHD), I’ve assumed that most people in Canada have similar access to education and can overcome their challenges to pursue conventional success.

When we speak of racism, it’s easy to think it’s a problem that other people have. The uncomfortable truth is that we all have unconscious biases that can grow into hate if we don’t confront them within ourselves.

Source: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/08/03/confessions-of-a-model-minority-how-im-learning-to-confront-my-own-biases.html

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George Floyd’s Death And Years Of Dialogue Are Helping The Dutch Disown Black Pete

2020/08/04 Leave a comment

Of note. Signs of change:

The Dutch Sinterklaas differs from Santa Claus in a few key respects. His physique is slimmer (less paunch under the white beard), he resides not in the North Pole but in Madrid — and instead of driving a reindeer-powered sled, he travels by boat to Dutch shores to deliver presents.

And instead of relying on helper elves, Sinterklaas is assisted by a character known as Zwarte Piet or Black Pete — traditionally depicted by white people wearing blackface, Afro wigs and red lipstick.

After long defending the character and even admitting to painting his own face black in the past, Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced in June that his views on Black Pete had changed. Though he stopped short of calling for a ban, he said that societal pressure would soon force the character to retire. He also admitted that there are “systemic problems” with racism in the Netherlands.

Rutte’s announcement came in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by Minnesota police, as large crowds of protesters took to the streets of Amsterdam and other Dutch cities to demonstrate against racial injustice.

For Jerry Afriyie, who leads an Amsterdam-based advocacy organization called Kick Out Zwarte Piet, Rutte’s words were long overdue. Getting others to understand Black Pete as racist has been his mission for a decade.

Over the years, for his stance against Black Pete, Afriyie has been pelted with beer cans and bananas and targeted with death threats. Last November in The Hague, a group of masked men armed with baseball bats and fireworks tried to break up a peaceful meeting between Afriyie and fellow activists.

Still, Afriyie (whose middle names are Luther and King) is committed to dialogue. Every Sinterklaas season, he leaves his home in Amsterdam and travels to Dutch cities and towns where Black Pete is still publicly celebrated to try to build consensus on admitting that Black Pete is racist.

“You talk and talk and talk and talk until you reach consensus”

Last year, committees in several Dutch cities agreed that Black Pete should not appear in their city’s Sinterklaas parades, but more than a dozen smaller towns affirmed the opposite: Black Pete would be welcome in their parades and school plays.

Many of Afriyie’s fellow activists have told him that achieving consensus on the issue of Black Pete is impossible; the country is too divided. But building consensus has a unique place in Dutch politics and society.

Some scholars say the Dutch value placed on collective action is engineered into the landscape. Much of the Netherlands would be underwater if not for a system of dikes that protects the country from flooding. The Dutch “polder model” of consensus-building takes its name from the Dutch word for land below sea level that used to be seafloor.

Former Prime Minister Wim Kok used his polder consensus-building skills to legalize same-sex marriage in 2001, making the Netherlands the first country in the world to do so.

Amma Asante, a former member of Parliament and the only woman of color to serve during her term, says the polder model means “you talk and talk and talk and talk until you reach consensus,” and it “works the best when we are able to lay aside our strongest convictions of how things should be done or how the world should look like.”

From Black Pete to Chimney Pete?

Black Pete attained prominence in the 1850s, around the time when minstrel shows became popular in the United States. The Netherlands banned slavery in its colonies in 1863, but prior to that, some wealthy families brought enslaved people from those colonies to work in their Amsterdam homes. The original costume of Black Pete, with colorful, satiny sleeves, mimicked the way the families would dress enslaved Black children.

And yet, defenders of the tradition often claim that Black Pete is simply “dirty” from coming down the chimney — he isn’t even Black.

Afriyie always saw the chimney explanation as a way to silence Black perspectives. He, Asante and many other Black Dutch citizens have been called “Black Pete” as an insult.

“What the country tells you is ‘Try to unsee it,’ ” Afriyie says. “Like what you are seeing is not true.”

But he came to wonder if this denial of the problem might in fact offer a solution. He started to suggest replacing Black Pete with a new character called Chimney Pete, with just a smudge of soot on his face — someone like Bert the chimney sweep in Mary Poppins.

Defenders of Black Pete hated this idea. Blackface was the tradition, they argued. But many Afro-Dutch thinkers objected as well. Gloria Wekker, author of White Innocence: Paradoxes of Colonialism and Race, says Chimney Pete was “a surface solution.” Soot or blackface, the tradition itself was tainted.

But Chimney Pete has caught on. In cities where Black Pete has been banned from Sinterklaas parades, Chimney Pete has taken his place. This November, the boat carrying Sinterklaas will once again arrive at Dutch shores, accompanied by an entourage of Chimney Petes.

Asante admits she was doubtful that consensus-building could work when it came to racism, and she was surprised when she saw large crowds gather in the Netherlands this spring in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. If not for all those years of “poldering” and engaging in dialogue about Black Pete, she wondered if the killing of George Floyd would have started a conversation about racism in the Netherlands.

“There’s quite a risk that we could have said, ‘Oh, that’s in the United States. That’s not us,’ ” she says. “And now there’s no denial anymore.”

Source: George Floyd’s Death And Years Of Dialogue Are Helping The Dutch Disown Black Pete

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How to find the right words for your next chat about diversity

2020/08/04 Leave a comment

Some useful insights that all can benefit from, including the point regarding grace and forgiveness (to which I would add humility):

In these polarized times, we need conversations that span differences within our organizations, building trust and uncovering solutions. But fear and grievances from past injustices get in the way.

In her work as a diversity and inclusion consultant, Mary-Frances Winters sees people struggling to find the right words for such chats. “It’s not that most people do not want to engage in inclusive conversations; they do not know how. They do not know what to say so as not to offend or be accused of insensitivity or worse,” she writes in her just-published book, Inclusive Conversations.

She divides those in an office into two sets: Those who have historically found themselves in dominant power (even if they never saw it that way) and those who have traditionally been subordinated and marginalized because of their identity – race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation or some other dimension of difference. We don’t normally view the organization in those terms; we’re all supposed to be on the same team. But it’s a vital description to keep in mind if you want to bridge differences.

Many people who have long been part of the dominant group fear that a slip of the tongue – one wrong word – might lead to a verbal attack or worse by colleagues and superiors. And while those in power have for a long time promised an equitable and inclusive working environment, many in the same workplace still feel excluded.

It therefore takes more than good intentions and a desire for equity to bridge those divisions. Indeed, Winters lists eight conditions necessary to allow inclusive conversations to occur: Commitment; cultural competence; brave and psychologically safe spaces; an understanding of equity and power; the ability to address fear and fragility; grace and forgiveness; trust and empathy; and belonging and inclusion.

Don’t slide by commitment too quickly. Many leaders would argue they have always had a commitment to equity, but in her 35 years as a consultant, Winters doesn’t feel we have fundamentally changed the structures and systems that either maintain or worsen the conditions for historically subordinated groups. Think through how dedicated you truly are to changing things and where that desire stems from. As well, think of how you can improve your own knowledge and understanding of the differences in culture within your workplace, so that you can be competent enough to help make change.

It’s routine to talk about the need for psychologically safe spaces for touchy conversations, but the consultant says we need to move beyond that to create brave zones, where deep truths can be expressed without fear of retribution. She argues that for dominant groups discussing race, “safety” means, “You will not make me feel uncomfortable.” But for those who have historically been marginalized, “safety” often means, “I can make you feel uncomfortable (even if that is not my intention) and you will listen without defensiveness, dismissiveness, and ‘whitesplaining,’” which Winters defines as a situation in which a white person explains to a Black person the true nature of racism. So expect in these brave spaces that there may be discomfort and discord, but everyone will feel safe enough to be brave.

Winters asks you to distinguish between equity and equality. Equality means treating everyone the same way. Equity is treating people according to what they need and deserve. That assumes some groups have historically been denied what they need due to entrenched inequitable systems. How do you achieve equity given that situation? She warns that attaining equity will involve conversations about power – not a normal or easy topic in the office.

You will also need to face up to the fear and fragility that exists these days. “Many people are afraid of talking about diversity and inclusion topics for fear they might get it wrong and not be forgiven. Acknowledging these fears is an all-important step in engaging in inclusive conversations,” the consultant says.

She urges you to literally talk to yourselves about these issues – in quiet contemplation but also out loud – as part of the self-understanding needed to then talk with others. The idea is for you in your reflection to bring unconscious thoughts into the foreground, where they can be challenged. Where are you clinging to behaviours that are inequitable?

Winters also warns that race is a dynamic in all cross-race conversations. If you are white, you need to realize the Black person you speak to is aware of that dynamic, even if they might not admit it. So if you are white, reflect: What role does my whiteness play in the conversation? How might someone with a different identity might feel?

Inclusive conversations are a beguiling concept, but they are highly challenging for managers. They require moving beyond traditional power dynamics in the office that many managers have taken for granted and benefited from. But if you aim for inclusion, such conversations are now something more you need to learn. And as with all learning, that will involve periods of incompetence before it becomes more natural. You’ll only learn by trying.

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/careers/management/article-how-to-find-the-right-words-for-your-next-chat-about-diversity/

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PM’s ‘Tiger Team’ meant to address diversity, inclusion in Canada’s national intelligence and security community hasn’t met since 2018

2020/08/04 Leave a comment

Of note. Yet another initiative without apparent follow-up.

Although somewhat dated, this overall picture is unlikely to have changed significantly (in process of requesting updated reports for the CF (non-civilian), RCMP (non-civilian), CSIS and CSE as not covered in the TBS report):


The federal government still has “much work to be done” on addressing diversity and inclusion issues within its intelligence and security apparatus, according to a recent parliamentary committee report, with one leading intelligence expert suggesting more senior leadership within the Privy Council Office with “power and clout” is needed to oversee the problem—and questioning why Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s launch of the “Tiger Team” in 2017 meant to address diversity and inclusion issues hasn’t met since July 2018.

In their lengthy 2019 annual report, which was tabled in Parliament only a few days before the nation-wide COVID-19 lockdown began in March, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, composed of 11 MPs and Senators and chaired by Liberal MP David McGuinty (Ottawa South, Ont.), focused considerable attention on the issue of diversity and inclusion in the security and intelligence community.

The review was conducted for several reasons, according to the report, most importantly because “challenges to increasing diversity and inclusion persist in the security and intelligence community even after decades of legislation, multiple reports and repeated calls for change.”

“These issues are particularly important for organizations responsible for protecting the national security of Canada and the rights and freedoms of Canadians.”

The report also notes that the “Tiger Team” established in 2017, created “with the stated aim of ‘exploring, advancing and implementing joint efforts to learn from one another and share best practices to enhance diversity and inclusion within and across [their] organizations through a variety of activities and initiatives,’” has not met since July 2018.

In January 2017, The leaders of the Canadian Armed Forces, the Canadian Coast Guard, Canadian Border Services Agency, CSIS, Canadian Security Establishment, Department of National Defense and the RCMP established the Tiger Team.

National security expert Wesley Wark, a professor at the University of Ottawa, told The Hill Times that the initiative to create a Tiger Team was a product of a push by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Que.) in late 2016, and ultimately resulted from a meeting Mr. Trudeau requested with the heads of agencies in the security and intelligence community as well as with the Privy Council Office.

“Sadly, the tigers seem ultimately to have gone to sleep,” according to Prof. Wark’s April 2020 working paper addressing the NSICOP’s findings. “It is time, perhaps, for the prime minister to crack the whip again.”

“This kind of Tiger Team concept moved into the lane of deliverology, in the sense that it was overseen by the deputy secretary to the cabinet, but I’m not sure that was the original idea—that’s just where it ended up in terms of maintaining some momentum and producing reports for a period of time,” according to Prof. Wark.

When it comes to the specifics of diversity and inclusion in the security and intelligence community, it was “probably a mistake to move it into that lane or allow it to be moved into that lane,” said Prof. Wark.

“If an initiative of this kind was going to be sustained and picked up by all the different elements of the security and intelligence community, it needed to be overseen by senior leadership in the PCO [outside] of the deliverology mechanism,” said Prof. Wark. “In other words, it should have been taken up as a priority by the national and security and intelligence advisor, and it’s that senior officer in PCO who would have the power and clout to really make sure that something significant happened in this way.”

“I don’t understand why the national security and intelligence adviser himself did not take this up, and the committee of parliamentarians notes that although it doesn’t attach any explicit criticism to this, the whole Tiger Team effort obviously just faded away all together after a period of time,” said Prof. Wark.

The deputy secretary to the cabinet resides within the PCO, underneath the Clerk, and the national security and intelligence advisor is a very senior deputy minister position that ranks almost as an equivalent position to the clerk of the Privy Council, according to Prof. Wark.

According to PCO spokesperson Pierre-Alain Bujold, the work of the Tiger Team is ongoing, and currently chaired by the Department of National Defense (DND).

“The Government of Canada appreciates the work undertaken by [NSICOP],” according to Mr. Bujold, [and] sees diversity and inclusion as an important means to making its national security and intelligence community even more effective in protecting Canadians,” according to Mr. Bujold in an emailed statement to The Hill Times.

“We have been working for a number of years to improve diversity and inclusion in the security and intelligence community. This is critical, not just in terms of better representing Canadian communities, but in making security and intelligence agencies more effective at doing their job.”

‘Diversity is particularly important inside security and intelligence organizations’

Mr. McGuinty, the committee’s chair, was not available for an interview, but in an emailed statement to The Hill Times, the executive director of the committee, Rennie Marcoux, wrote that although the report did not make any findings or recommendations as to the national security and intelligence adviser’s role within the Tiger Team, the committee recognizes the merit of the community approach to address diversity and inclusion issues—and that its recommendations reinforce the value of the coordinated effort.

“The security and intelligence community is best placed to determine which individual or office is best suited to lead or direct this work,” according to Ms. Marcoux.

In its conclusions, the report notes that “building diverse and inclusive workforces is essential to the effectiveness of the security and intelligence community.”

When asked to expand, Ms. Marcoux noted that in addition to the “well-documented” benefits of a diverse workplace and inclusive workforce across a large body of research, as well as the committee’s belief that Canada’s public service should reflect the population it serves, “a more diverse workforce ensures that organizations are benefitting from the broad range of perspectives and talent that Canada has to offer.”

“Finally, the committee notes that diversity is particularly important inside security and intelligence organizations because it allows them to leverage language skills, community contacts and cultural competencies, and protects against groupthink mindsets that permeate more homogeneous organizations,” according to Ms. Marcoux.

Tim McSorley, national coordinator with the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, told The Hill Times that “there needs to be a level of accountability and transparency in terms of what the words on paper mean.”

“I think a big question is that we see, year-after-year, whether it’s three-year plans or five-year plans or in line with Treasury Board recommendations, it seems like there’s a plan and then the next plan seems to repeat very similar issues around the importance of lowering barriers [around] increasing diversity and inclusion within these organizations,” said Mr. McSorley. “While it does seem that the numbers have gotten slightly better over the last 10 or 11 years, it doesn’t seem like anything new is coming out, it seems that it remains the same question each time a new plan is put together.”

“So what are they doing on the ground to actually change and to increase diversity and inclusion in the security and intelligence community,” said Mr. McSorley. “Who is accountable if they don’t meet those goals, and what kind of consequences are there?”

When asked about the Tiger Team, Mr. McSorley said that looking at some of the critiques within the report, the fact that it was concentrated solely of members from HR departments was part of the problem.

According to the report, the committee noted several shortcomings with this initiative, including the lack of specific objectives for diversity and inclusion as well as the development of a performance measurement framework to assess the success of its initiatives.

“The representatives from each organization were all from human resources departments and organizations did not seek out members of employment equity groups for membership or participation on the Tiger Team,” according to the report. “[Throughout] its discussions, the Tiger Team focused on short-term initiatives without considering systemic challenges raised in various organization-specific studies or class-action lawsuits (the CAF and the RCMP), such as workplace culture and discrimination.”

‘Things won’t change on their own’

The Abella Commission, which led to the creation of the Employment Equity Act, unfolded in 1984, said Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, director of the equality program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

“The first Employment Equity Act was in 1986. The current [act] is 25 years old, and that act calls for serious accountability measures, serious long-term and short-term goal setting, serious monitoring and reviews for organization accountability,” said Ms. Aviv.

“So we always need to be optimistic and hopeful and try to move things forward, but we’ve also been working on these issues for a very long time,” said Ms. Aviv. “There are clear obligations there, obligations that, according to this report, have simply not been met.”

Ms. Aviv said she believes that there is a notion that things are getting better, they get better on their own, and that patience is required to change organizational culture.

“But if you actually look at the trajectory and the amount of time that’s passed, and the amount of harm that’s been done to people in these organizations, and the ill-effect it’s having on the effectiveness of the organizations themselves, then you understand that things won’t change on their own,” said Ms. Aviv.

According to RCMP spokesperson Catherine Fortin, the RCMP has implemented a number of initiatives to increase the ratio of women, visible minorities, and Indigenous people within their ranks, with objectives to include 30 per cent women, 20 per cent of people from visible minority groups, and 10 per cent Indigenous people.

“We intend to reach these goals through a targeted approach to recruiting, using advertising and marketing to position the RCMP as the employer of choice to people who may not have considered a career in policing,” according to Ms. Fortin. “The RCMP is committed to inclusiveness and diversity of all types within the organization. We believe that the more diverse we are when it comes to gender, ethnic background, religion or sexual orientation, the better we are able to serve all Canadians.”

According to DND spokesperson Major T.A. Smyth, “DND and the CAF place unprecedented emphasis on ensuring diversity and gender equality in military human resource management as part of efforts to strengthen the operational force and to position DND and the CAF as inclusive organizations. Diversity is viewed as a source of strength and flexibility to build the capacity of the CAF and the civilian workforce.”

“DND and the CAF are working with other government departments as a community and considering the findings and recommendations of this report to inform future decision making,” according to Mr. Smyth. “Various experiences, knowledge, and skillsets contribute to our operational effectiveness. By increasing the representativeness of our Forces and our civilian personnel to reflect Canadian society, diversity enables DND and CAF to be forward-looking, resilient, and relevant.”

—-

The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians made the following recommendations in it’s 2019 Annual Report, released in March 2020:

1. The committee conduct a retrospective review in three to five years to assess the security and intelligence community’s progress in achieving and implementing its diversity goals and inclusion initiatives.

2. The security and intelligence community adopt a consistent and transparent approach to planning and monitoring of employment equity and diversity goals, and conduct regular reviews of their employment policies and practices.

3. The security and intelligence community improve the robustness of its data collection and analysis, including GBA+ assessments of internal staffing and promotion policies and clustering analyses of the workforce.

4. The security and intelligence community develop a common performance measurement framework, and strengthen accountability for diversity and inclusion through meaningful and measurable performance indicators for executives and managers across all organizations.

Source: PM’s ‘Tiger Team’ meant to address diversity, inclusion in Canada’s national intelligence and security community hasn’t met since 2018

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Andrew Stark: Legitimate boycott or cancel culture? It’s all a matter of timing

2020/08/03 Leave a comment

Some good reflexions on the nuances of boycotts and cancel culture, all too often absent in practice:

A top editor resigns after publishing the headline “Buildings Matter, Too,” which seems to downplay the killing of Black people. A football player undermines his chances of employment because he takes a knee during the national anthem in an act of protest. An editor and writer resigns from a newspaper, claiming it fosters an “illiberal environment.” A writer resigns from a magazine, claiming it suppresses Black female staff. Major companies threaten to boycott Facebook unless it implements effective prohibitions against hate speech, while right-wing organizations threaten to abscond for upstart rival Parler if it does.

All around us, consumers, employers and employees are using whatever clout they have in the marketplace – boycotts, firings, resignations – to express themselves politically. When they serve views we share, it’s natural to cheer; when they promote ideas we oppose, it’s only human to chafe. But is there any way we can emerge from our own corners and endorse some common rules of the road? Rules that distinguish legitimate from illegitimate politically directed boycotts, firings and resignations, regardless of the power of the individuals concerned, the positions they are advancing, or the poison with which they express themselves? We now have enough recent cases, amassed together in a short time, that an answer has begun to emerge. And it has to do with timing.

We can divide recent cases into two categories, consumer boycotts and employee firings or resignations. Think first of two recent boycott cases: Facebook and Goya Foods. Since Facebook has haltingly begun reforming its hate speech policies, many advertisers have either held off implementing a boycott threat or said that they would resume their relationship with the social-media behemoth after a “pause.” Since Goya chief executive Bob Unanue has defiantly refused to retract the praise of U.S. President Donald Trump that sparked it, the boycott continues at full steam. You might agree or disagree, but it’s well within a consumer’s rights to use their dollars in these ways.

Now think of two other cases: FedEx’s recent threat to boycott the Washington football team unless it changed its racially demeaning name, and the fans who have boycotted Sarah Silverman because she once did a comedy sketch in blackface. Fred Smith, the founder, chairman and CEO of FedEx, who is also a co-owner of the Washington football team, apparently tried for years to persuade the team’s controlling owner, Dan Snyder, to find a new name, and yet the company continued sending him millions of advertising dollars long after it became clear he would not.

Finally, just last month, FedEx sent a private letter to Mr. Snyder indicating that it would sever their business relationship, and he capitulated. According to an insider, who paraphrased it for the The Washington Post, the letter stated that FedEx, having been “founded on a ‘people-first philosophy’” that “embrace[s] … diversity and inclusion,” is “obligated to its stockholders, team members and customers to ensure that its corporate values [are] shared by its business partners.”

Fine. But if such a philosophy goes back to the founding of FedEx, and if it has always been obligated to ensure that its corporate values are shared by its business partners, why did it take so much time to act? Sure, better late than never. But FedEx is now punishing the team for behaviour in which it, at this late stage, has for too long been complicit as well. And so a tincture of hypocrisy stains its boycott threat, when an expression of humility or shared responsibility would have been more appropriate.

Meanwhile, unlike FedEx, which failed to boycott the team for years after it was clear its owner would not be moved, Ms. Silverman’s fans continued their boycott for years after she apologized and declared her remorse. “I don’t stand by the blackface sketch,” the comedian has said. “I’m horrified by it, and I can’t erase it. I can only be changed by it and move on.” Of those who persist in boycotting her, Ms. Silverman plaintively observes: “Everyone is, like, throwing the first stone … It’s really, ‘Look how righteous I am, and now I’m going to press refresh all day long to see how many likes I get in my righteousness.’”

Ms. Silverman has a point. We are all flawed human beings. Punishing the repentant Ms. Silverman for the kind of insensitive mistake that many of us, in one way or another, have committed over the course of our lives comes with a whiff of hypocrisy. Humility, and an awareness of our widely shared responsibility for the current racial climate, would be more appropriate. As Ms. Silverman ruefully notes.

All of these boycott cases involve progressive causes: against hate speech, Trumpism, the demeaning of Native Americans, the disrespecting of Black Americans. Yet despite their political similarity, some seem morally more acceptable than others. The reason is timing. A boycott threat should recede soon after the desired political change has occurred, not long afterward. And a boycott should be implemented soon after the desired political change clearly won’t occur, not long afterward. Otherwise, any moral taint begins to spread from the boycotted to the boycotters.

Timing is also morally key when employees are fired for political reasons, but in a different way. An employer has some leeway to discourage employees from political behaviour it deems incompatible with their jobs, including a parting of the ways if that behaviour becomes unacceptable. But if an employer wields its economic muscle to stifle their political expression after they have left, it overreaches. An employer should not, for example, make it difficult for former employees to find a new employer; think of a football league blocking a politically controversial player from landing a job, or endorsement contracts, once his team lets him go.

Or think of a magazine that requires employees departing a racially toxic work environment to sign non-disclosure agreements if they want any severance. Such a practice effectively bars “Black people,” as the writer Nicole Taylor puts it, from “sharing their stories of feeling sidelined, ignored, and racially discriminated against.” Once an employer has terminated the employee, their relationship should well and truly be severed – hence “severance.” Using its economic behaviour to manipulate her political conduct afterward through “retribution and blacklisting,” in Ms. Taylor’s words, becomes a form of overreaching, of hubris.

Now think of employees who internally criticize their organization’s political conduct, as Facebook employees recently have, threatening to resign – and even carrying out that threat – if it doesn’t change. That can be an honourable thing to do. But employees speaking out is one thing; using their economic behaviour as employees to manipulate their organization’s politically related conduct is another.

For example, employees should not, for political reasons, make it difficult for the employer to retain other employees. Refusing to continue working with a colleague who did something politically objectionable – especially if he or she has sincerely apologized for it – is not always easy to justify. Neither is publicly leaking internal criticism to embarrass other employees into stifling their political expression. Such tactics, too, involve a form of overreaching, of hubris.

In the current maelstrom, it’s hard to locate common moral ground. But perhaps we can agree that, when it comes to using our economic behaviour to advance our political views, we should be wary about hypocrisy and hubris. Individuals call their own conduct into question if they continue a boycott long after the target has redressed its objectionable political behaviour. So do those who abide a long period of objectionable political behaviour before launching a boycott.

Likewise, an employer crosses a line when, for political purposes, it uses its capacity to harm employees’ economic welfare after they leave. So too do employees who, for political purposes, use their capacity to harm their employer’s economic welfare before they leave. When it comes to advancing one’s political views through one’s market clout – whether as consumer, employer or employee – timing is everything. At least, in the present moment, it might be one moral criterion on which we can find consensus.

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-legitimate-boycott-or-cancel-culture-its-all-a-matter-of-timing/

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‘Herstory’ is out as California revamps K-12 ethnic studies course guide

2020/08/03 Leave a comment

Hard to update curricula for ethnic studies and develop consensus and balance (as in the case of citizenship guides):

State officials unveiled their latest try at an ethnic studies curriculum for K-12 students Friday, and it’s clear their hope is that this time fewer people will be offended.

To appease critics of academic jargon, the new draft ditches terms such as “herstory” for the more traditional “history.” To better honor diversity, teachers are encouraged to let the ethnic composition of the class influence study topics.

Still, the new version retains a focus on the four groups long associated with ethnic studies: African Americans, Asian Americans, Chicanos/Latinos and Native American and Indigenous peoples. That aspect could reassure leaders in the field of ethnic studies, who shaped the first version but had less influence over the revision.

All told, the latest draft represents an attempt at compromise among strong, difficult-to-resolve passions. Ethnic studies is innately and even intentionally political in challenging established norms. All the same, it embodies widely supported goals that include empowering students of color, nurturing empathy among white students and developing critical thinking and historical perspective among all.

The push for ethnic studies in California has recently gained momentum, buoyed by Black Lives Matter protests that followed the May killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody. Ethnic studies, supporters say, has the potential to dismantle systemic and unconscious racism through the education of the citizens of tomorrow.

“Our schools have not always been a place where students can gain a full understanding of the contributions of people of color and the many ways throughout history — and present day — that our country has exploited, marginalized, and oppressed them,” state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said in a statement Friday. “At a time when people across the nation are calling for a fairer, more just society, we must empower and equip students and educators to have these courageous conversations in the classroom.”

Expect the reviews — positive and negative — to trickle in for weeks.

The debate is not merely for academics. This model curriculum is expected to guide teaching in K-12 public schools across California. The state Board of Education is scheduled to approve a final version by the end of March. And pending legislation would make ethnic studies a high school graduation requirement.

The latest version attempts to tone down references that some regarded as overly political or ideologically one-sided. There had been particular criticism of elements seen as anti-Semitic or anti-Israel, although there were Jews on both sides of the debate.

Among those with reservations about the original curriculum were members of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, which had contended that the guide intentionally excluded Jews. The lawmakers faulted the first version for failing to explain anti-Semitism while providing an overly positive representation of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.

“There were 14 forms of bigotry and racism in the glossary,” said Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino), who called the exclusion of anti-Semitism glaring, obvious and offensive.

Anti-Semitism is now noted more clearly in the curriculum as a form of bigotry.

Critics are not entirely satisfied.

The draft has improved, but not enough, said Sarah Levin, executive director of Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa.

“These supplemental materials ignore the stories of all our coalition members — who together represent an estimated 60% of Californians who hail from the Middle East and North Africa — while portraying the Arab American experience as a monolith to represent the region,” she said.

Another critic, Williamson Evers, also felt the improvement was inadequate.

“The proposed model curriculum is still full of left-wing ideological propaganda and indoctrination,” said Evers, a senior fellow at the Independent Institute, an Oakland think tank. “It still force feeds our children the socialist dogma that capitalism is oppression. It’s almost all Berkeley and little Bakersfield.”

The new draft arrived nearly a year after the California Department of Education shelved the original.

Officials arrived at the latest iteration after reviewing thousands of public comments, convening experts and conducting teacher focus groups.

At its core, supporters say, ethnic studies teaches students how to think critically about the world around them, “tell their own stories,” develop “a deep appreciation for cultural diversity and inclusion” and engage “socially and politically” to eradicate bigotry, hate and racism, according to the earlier draft of the model curriculum.

The model curriculum is meant to serve as a guideline rather than a mandate for schools that choose to offer ethnic studies classes. In California, as nationwide, these courses are increasing in number, with grade-school enrollment nearly doubling from 8,678 in 2013-14 to 17,354 in 2016-17, according to the state Department of Education.

There appears to be broad legislative support for making ethnic studies a high school graduation requirement. Some school systems already have taken that step.

Supporters of the original curriculum include 25,000 people who have signed a “Defend Ethnic Studies” petition, ethnic studies faculty from the California State University and University of California, and many Jewish groups.

R. Tolteka Cuauhtin, a Los Angeles teacher and co-chair of the advisory committee that created the original draft curriculum, said ethnic studies courses can be responsive to all students in a class and integrate other ethnic groups “without de-centering communities of color.”

Cuauhtin said ethnic studies terminology should remain in the curriculum. “Students of color need to also be respected as young intellectuals and given access to academic concepts and disciplinary language,” he said. “Every academic field has its own language, and yes, so does ethnic studies — let’s uplift that and ensure it’s accessible, not erase it.”

“Herstory,” for example, is a term used to describe history written from a feminist or women’s perspective. The term is also deployed when referring to counter-narratives within history.

Assemblyman Jose Medina, the author of the bill that would mandate ethnic studies, is optimistic about how the final product will turn out.

“The model curriculum is still a draft and in the early stages of the input process,” said Medina (D-Riverside). “I trust this process and believe we will end up with a strong ethnic studies framework that will provide a solid structure for educators to build off as they bring ethnic studies to life in their classrooms.”

In a related development, last month the Cal State Board of Trustees revised its general education curriculum for the first time in 40 years to create an ethnic studies and social justice requirement of all undergraduate students.

Ethnic studies faculty and some trustees criticized the requirement as being too broad and diluting the mission of ethnic studies, advocating instead for a narrower requirement proposed in a bill that is currently making its way to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.

Source: ‘Herstory’ is out as California revamps K-12 ethnic studies course guide

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