Buckingham Palace feared increasing ‘non-British’ immigrants would doom the monarchy in Australia

2020/07/16 Leave a comment

Wonder whether they had similar fears for Canada (but Canada never had referendums on the monarchy):

Buckingham Palace feared the monarchy would collapse in Australia because of an influx of postwar ‘non-British’ immigrants, newly released correspondence reveals.

Letters exchanged between Governor-General Sir John Kerr and the Queen’s private secretary Sir Martin Charteris were finally released today after four decades.

Along with providing bombshell revelations on Sir John’s decision to dismiss Gough Whitlam’s government in 1975, they reveal how the Palace saw Australia.

Sir Martin believed that without more frequent visits from The Queen and other royals, a more multicultural country would ditch the monarchy.

A year after the dismissal, Sir John wrote to Sir Martin – by then his frequent pen pal – to voice his concerns about the monarchy’s future in Australia.

‘I have been musing about the monarchy as an institution in our part of the world’, he wrote on December 19, 1976.

‘In 1947, 98 per cent [of Australians] were of British stock. By the 1971 census only 88 per cent were so derived.’

Sir John noted that most of these non-British immigrants were Italians, Greeks, Yugoslavs and Germans – but there were many other nationalities.

‘Our immigrants come from over one hundred countries including, for example, Egypt and Turkey, Lebanon and other Arab countries.

‘Increasingly, but not yet significantly, we have Asians. Most of these, and most who have come from Europe are from republics and are not directly acquainted with monarchy.’

A year after the dismissal, Sir John wrote to Sir Martin - by now his frequent penpal - with concerns about the monarchy's future in Australia

A year after the dismissal, Sir John wrote to Sir Martin – by now his frequent penpal – with concerns about the monarchy’s future in Australia

Sir Martin replied that the 'increasing non-British element in Australia’s ethnic make up' had 'significant ramifications for the monarchy

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Sir Martin replied that the ‘increasing non-British element in Australia’s ethnic make up’ had ‘significant ramifications for the monarchy

Sir Martin replied that the ‘increasing non-British element in Australia’s ethnic make up’ had ‘significant’ ramifications for the monarchy.

‘It is one of the reasons why the monarchy in Australia could not, I believe, long remain a reality without more frequent visits by the Sovereign than was customary in the first half of this century,’ he wrote.

‘The days when The Sovereign of Australia could remain in London, and still remain acceptable are, I think, long past; new immigrants, changing values… would all make this impossible, as well, of course as being wholly undesirable.’

In other letters, the pair discussed movements campaigning for an Australian republic but believed they were formed by a small number of ‘left-wing’ rabble rousers.

Australia held a referendum in November 1999 on whether the country should become a republic, but it was comfortably defeated.

The 211 letters, thousands of pages in all, contain many revelations about the lead-up to and aftermath of the dismissal as Sir John wrestled with what to do.

Also revealed is Mr Whitlam’s ‘rage’ at being ousted and the extent of the backlash against Sir John.

The letters finally showed that the Queen did not order Sir John to dismiss Mr Whitlam.

It has long been speculated that Her Majesty may have undermined Australia’s independence by trying to influence Sir John’s decision.

The letters appear to indicate that the Queen and Sir John did not communicate, at least not directly, and Kerr’s correspondence was only with Sir Martin.

Palace allies battled for decades to keep the documents – which also include correspondence from Her Majesty’s then-private secretary, Martin Charteris – secret, with the National Archives of Australia refusing to release them to the public.

The letters had been deemed personal communication by both the National Archives of Australia and the Federal Court, which meant the earliest they could be released was 2027, and only then with the Queen’s permission.

But the High Court bench earlier this year ruled the letters were property of the Commonwealth and part of the public record, and so must be released.

Source: Buckingham Palace feared increasing ‘non-British’ immigrants would doom the monarchy in Australia

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#COVID-19: Comparing provinces with other countries 15 July Update

2020/07/16 Leave a comment

The latest weekly stats showing no major changes from last week in terms of relative ranking, although the USA can be expected to surpass the harder hit European countries in deaths per million over the next few weeks given current trends:

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Coren: The Hagia Sophia is now a mosque – and a victim of Turkey’s profane politics

2020/07/15 Leave a comment

Good column by Coren:

In 537 AD – as the story goes – Byzantine Roman Emperor Justinian first laid eyes on Hagia Sophia, The Church of the Holy Wisdom and the largest building in the world at the time, and declared edificial triumph over a biblical king: “Solomon, I have surpassed thee.” It was fair comment: The fourth church to be built on the spot in this city that was once called Byzantium and then Constantinople, the building he saw then was magnificent. Using stone from as far away as Egypt, more than 10,000 craftsmen spent six years constructing it.

We’re not entirely sure what Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is saying right now, but it’s likely he doesn’t particularly care what Justinian, King Solomon or anybody else might think. In a decision that has attracted international disapproval, the hardline nationalist announced last week that Istanbul’s 1,500-year-old Hagia Sophia, which has since become a museum, would become a mosque.

History is central to understanding the conflict. As the cathedral of the Patriarch of Constantinople before and after the Great Schism that divided Western and Eastern Christianity into Catholic and Orthodox, the Hagia Sophia became one of the most important Christian sites in the world. But in 1453, the Ottoman Turks took the city, and Sultan Mehmet II announced that the church would be known as the Great Mosque of Aya Sofya. The mihrab, indicating the direction of Mecca, replaced the altar; Mehmet’s successors made further alterations. Still, the Hagia Sophia remained sacred for Orthodox Christians the world over.

The Ottoman Empire declined in prestige over the centuries, and when the “sick man of Europe” finally passed on, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk – the founder of modern Turkey – initiated a relentless campaign of modernization and secularization. Part of his battle with the country’s conservative faithful was resolved in 1934, when the mosque became a museum; the Hagia Sophia has since become Turkey’s most popular tourist destination, with almost four million visitors a year. It seemed a glorious compromise.

On Friday, however, Turkey’s top administrative court annulled the Hagia Sophia’s museum status. Within hours, the Islamic call to prayer was recited, and the museum’s social-media pages were shuttered. Lina Mendoni, Greece’s culture minister and a world-renowned archeologist, responded to the announcement angrily: “The nationalism displayed by President Erdogan takes his country back six centuries,” she said, adding that the ruling “absolutely confirms that there is no independent justice” in Turkey.

The Russian Orthodox Church claims that its concerns were never given proper hearing when the transition was being considered, while other Eastern Orthodox leaders have condemned the decision. UNESCO, under which the building was protected as a World Heritage Site, urged Turkey to delay any change until further discussion had taken place.

None of that seems to concern Mr. Erdogan, since the Islamic traditionalists who have long called for this will guarantee him power in once-secular Turkey. That tension – between the temporal and the spiritual – is at the heart of this provocative and potentially dangerous move.

Turkey is home to a modern, non-religious, educated class that looks to Europe and liberal democracies. But for those outside that class – and they are now perhaps the majority – Mr. Erdogan and his systematic and sometimes brutal policy of Islamization represents the fulfillment of a long-awaited ambition. The President sees himself as leading the Muslim world, just as did the Sultans before him – even if it sows profound division – and this irresponsible if unsurprising action is central to that.

Turkey also does not have an impressive record of tolerance for Christians. Only about 300,000 now live there, comprising a meagre 0.3 per cent of the population. The Armenian Genocide between 1914 and 1923 in Turkey saw the murder and expulsion of 1.5 million ethnic Armenians, almost all of them Christian; despite the overwhelming evidence, the Turkish government refuses to acknowledge or take responsibility for that mass atrocity.

As a museum, the Hagia Sophia did not satisfy everybody, and there were Christians as well as Muslims who imagined a once and future religiosity. But for most, it had become a vibrant symbol of moderation and understanding, and a meeting place for all people from all faiths and backgrounds. That vision has evaporated.

It remains to be seen if this will further isolate Turkey, and exactly how Vladimir Putin – the leader of Eastern Orthodoxy’s super power – will choose to react. What we do know is that the world is a slightly darker and less gentle place than it was a week ago – one in which there is less of the spirit of Solomon’s famed sagacity, and more regression because of craven political nationalism.

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-hagia-sophia-is-now-a-mosque-and-a-victim-of-turkeys-profane/

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Canadian business leaders launch national initiative to fight anti-Black systemic racism

2020/07/15 Leave a comment

Worthy initiative.

For the banks and financial sector, as larger federally regulated organizations subject to the Employment Equity Act, we have at least data for the four groups along with hiring and salary data.  Close to one-third are visible minorities, with reasonable representation at more senior levels on a labour market availability basis (2017), but not desegregated by individual group:

A coalition of Canadian business leaders has announced a strategic partnership for a program to support Black professionals in Toronto’s financial district, Bay Street and elsewhere.

The Canadian Council of Business Leaders Against Anti-Black Systemic Racism and the Canadian Association of Urban Financial Professionals announced the plan, dubbed the BlackNorth Initiative, on Monday.

The plan advocates for companies to work with the coalition to hire more Black students for their internship/co-op programs and to ensure business succession planning strategies include a Black talent strategy to help build a pipeline of employees for future leadership positions.

It is also asking that businesses disaggregate their employee race data and publish it annually, including data on executive representation and/or employee mobility statistics for each Black, Indigenous and person of colour group.

The push to deal with systemic racism has gained strength in recent months in the wake of demonstrations held across Canada and the United States.

A summit is planned for July 20 where business leaders will be asked to sign a CEO pledge and say what they are doing to fight anti-Black systemic racism.

The Canadian Association of Urban Financial Professionals has more than 600 Black professionals as members who work across Bay Street.

“The BlackNorth Initiative and CAUFP are fully aligned regarding the critical need to begin dismantling systemic racism in corporate Canada,” said Wes Hall, founder and chairman of the Canadian Council of Business Leaders Against Anti-Black Systemic Racism.

“Corporations must do more to create and nurture Black talent pipelines to ensure proper representation at the highest levels. This is a natural partnership in a shared mission that will lead to measurable results.”

Source: Canadian business leaders launch national initiative to fight anti-Black systemic racism

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Prevent doesn’t stop students being radicalised. It just reinforces Islamophobia

2020/07/15 Leave a comment

Interesting survey. Whether the issues are with Prevent itself or more generalized attitudes towards Muslims and media coverage is unclear:

The UK government has long maintained that radicalisation is a problem in universities and that Prevent, the national counter-terror programme, is an essential means of tackling it. Yet recently the Office for Students reported very little such activity: in 2017-18, only 15 referrals were made by universities to Channel in England (the Prevent rehabilitation programme), and it is unlikely that all 15 were found to be terrorism-related.

Despite a clear lack of evidence of radicalisation in universities, Prevent training continues for staff. Indeed, a major new report of a three-year study of Islam on campus shows that almost 10% of all students believe there may be some risk on their campus. Our research reveals that Prevent reinforces negative stereotypes of Islam and Muslims: 20% of students believe that Islam is not compatible with British values; among those supportive of Prevent, the figure rises to 35%.

This project, led at Soas University of London by myself and Dr Aisha Phoenix, with Professor Mathew Guest (Durham), Dr Shuruq Naguib (Lancaster) and Assistant Professor Dr. Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor (Coventry), is the largest data set yet collected about Islam on campus. In total, 2,022 students attending 132 universities answered a detailed online survey. We also collected and analysed 140 hours of interviews from six campuses.

Our research finds that Prevent discourages discussion about culture, identity and religion – especially, but not exclusively, about Islam. Students and staff are discouraged from raising concerns about Prevent. They self-censor their discussions in order to avoid becoming the object of suspicion and are sometimes discouraged from exploring, researching or teaching about Islam. They see this as a counterproductive policy in the light of the perceived need for securitisation to fight terrorism, which trumps all other human rights.

On the other hand, 59% of students said they’d never heard of Prevent, yet many of those then expressed opinions about it, from an apparently non-existent knowledge base. When students are kept ignorant, this creates a democratic deficit: the student population should be fully informed about Prevent, about perceived and actual risk, about the facts and figures, and encouraged to debate these issues. Honesty and clarity are urgently required.

There’s so much more that the campus offers. The university population is religiously and culturally diverse, and despite the secular tone of the modern campus, most of our student sample believe that religion is an important source of moral values. Almost 70% of Muslim students and 56% of Christian students believe that university provides a valuable opportunity to develop their faith in new ways. And 79% of Muslim students believe that the university experience should encourage critical thinking about matters of faith.

Source: Prevent doesn’t stop students being radicalised. It just reinforces Islamophobia

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Too soon to say if StatsCan will bring in more racialized researchers, says official; ‘we’re just building those relationships’

2020/07/14 Leave a comment

To watch and see whether the model used for Indigenous peoples is needed or applicable to some or all visible minority groups:

Canada’s statistics agency is working with an expert advisory committee to better collect race-based data, but it is too early to say whether it will hire more racialized on-the-ground statisticians and researchers to help, says one official.

Marc Lachance, acting director of health, justice, diversity, and populations with Statistics Canada, acknowledged in an interview last week that while the country has made some strides in collecting Indigenous data, figures for some ethno-cultural groups are lagging.

“We have put in place a committee of experts that could specifically provide us guidance on—you know, we never really did a lot of work on the Black populations before, how do we do this?” said Mr. Lachance in a phone interview July 9.

In July 2019, the agency established the Centre for Indigenous Statistics and Partnerships, which consolidated “long-standing working relationships” with communities and organizations across the country into one centre. All research at the agency involving Indigenous people is “channeled through” this centre, which helps “provide relevant expertise and co-ordinate outreach to partners,” a July 6 statement from the agency read.

Included in the centre are 11 Indigenous liaison advisors, some of whom, according to Mr. Lachance, might work on reserves, and most of whom identify as Indigenous. The agency did not provide an exact breakdown, nor a dollar figure of cost, for these positions. The program began in the 1980s and positions are currently funded through the centre, said StatsCan spokesperson Peter Frayne in a July 10 email. The officers’ salaries and non-salary needs like travel are covered. “Funding  may vary from year to year based on the level of activities and engagement, but typically peaks during the conduct of the census,” Mr. Frayne added.

They are stationed across the country and look after a particular region, said Mr. Lachance. A StatsCan webpage lists advisors as covering Atlantic provinces, Manitoba, Inuit Nunangat, and others. “That program is probably one of our most established programs to engage communities such as the Indigenous [one] on Indigenous data,” he said.

“Their role is very key, specifically in ensuring there is trust with the data and a good rapport and relationship with StatsCan.” When the agency starts work for its census, for example, these officers act as ambassadors who promote it and in some cases seek permission to be able to go into communities, or at least notify Indigenous leadership about the agency’s intentions.

Mr. Lachance said it is too soon to say whether the agency will bring in Black community researchers to help it gather better race-based data.

“We’re working with experts right now. The plan is in the fall, we do more consultations with racialized communities, specifically to get their input on new approaches on how we can disseminate information” to those communities, he said.

Statistics Canada received $4.2-million over three years through the government’s anti-racism strategy last year. A portion of that funding was to allow the agency to set up an advisory committee on ethno-cultural and immigration statistics. That advisory committee will guide the body in setting up a “conceptual framework on ethnocultural diversity and inclusion as well as families of indicators to be able to track relevant ‘inclusion’ indicators over time,” according to a July 6 statement from the agency, which also said the committee had been formed and already met once, with another meeting slated for last week.

Mr. Lachance said it’s possible that the agency will create other “ambassador”-like roles for other racial groups, but he said “we haven’t made that decision yet, we’re just building those relationships.”

His comments come in the wake of an influx of public calls for better race-based data collection. The COVID-19 pandemic has harmed Black people in the United States at a greater rate than it has white people. Canada has not tracked pandemic outcomes by race or ethnic background.

To better understand the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on some communities, the agency has already made a push to collect more disaggregated data. It has been releasing a series of voluntary questionnaires, which change about every two weeks, and tap into a range of topics like parenting during the pandemic and the impact faced by those living with disabilities.

“How we continue this relationship depends on what the community needs and how we want to work closer with them,” said Mr. Lachance.

“We are accountable to Canadians about the data. The data is about what individuals are telling us about themselves, and they’re taking the time to answer the questionnaire and surveys.”

Some experts who spoke to The Hill Times this month noted that authorities and government institutions might face an uphill battle as they go about collecting race-based data, thanks in part to “longstanding disparities” in areas like housing, healthcare, and food insecurity in these communities.

Anna Banerji, a director of global and Indigenous health at the University of Toronto’s faculty of medicine, noted in an earlier interview that “there’s a lot of information that’s out there that’s partially used or distorted in the usage, and there’s no underlying [questioning of] what are the contributors to this.” She noted that in some cases, data has been used to justify racism and discrimination, a fact that Public Safety Minister Bill Blair (Scarborough Southwest, Ont.) also acknowledged this month.

Mr. Lachance said Statistics Canada’s researchers are well aware of this history.

“When we come to the analysis [stage], we need to ensure that the analysis that we do and analytical products [we put out] are sensitive to the perspectives of the communities,” he said, adding StatsCan consults national Indigenous organizations in creating or testing the Aboriginal Peoples Survey, which gathers figures to track the “social and economic conditions” of those living off reserve. Groups consulted include the Assembly of First Nations, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, and the Metis National Council, he said.

The agency said that in 2017, Indigenous people were hired as interviewers and guides during the collection period, and organizations promoted and reviewed the analytical findings of the Aboriginal Peoples Survey.

“This ensures that findings are presented in an appropriate manner and ultimately results in stories that are balanced and include essential contextual information,” said a statement from the agency, which also noted that those interviewers and guides help to improve the reliance and quality of the analysis.

A lack of consultation has created barriers for Indigenous communities in the past, according to a January 2019 report prepared for Indigenous Services Canada and the AFN. In 2006, for example, the AFN withdrew its support for the Aboriginal Peoples Survey over concerns that it infringed on their right to control and govern that information.

In 2019, Statistics Canada shared data on suicide among Indigenous populations, a sensitive topic, as part of an effort to engage communities about the data it is collecting, said Mr. Lachance.

“Usually, we can go ahead and just print the suicide rates, but without the proper context and proper process…that report can also have some unintended consequences, because it does provide sometimes a negative picture,” he said.

That report, shared in June 2019, comes with an introduction that references intergenerational trauma and the effects of colonization and ongoing marginalization, specifically “the loss of land, traditional subsistence activities and control over living conditions” and a “suppression of belief systems.”

“We always feel that we’re accountable to our respondents, so the trust comes in different levels,” said Mr. Lachance. “It comes from the fact that the data that people provide us is confidential … and [in the assurance] of the quality and statistical rigour that we are bringing to the data,” he said.

Jeff Latimer, director general and strategic adviser for health data with Statistics Canada, told  the House Health Committee last week that a lack of standards between provinces and territories, for instance, makes it difficult to get other data like figures around deaths in the country. Part of that is because some jurisdictions still rely on paper-based processes for death registrations, making it difficult for the agency to paint a complete national picture, as it relies on these authorities to filter up data to the federal government through the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Source: Too soon to say if StatsCan will bring in more racialized researchers, says official; ‘we’re just building those relationships’

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Thomas Chatterton Williams On Debate, Criticism And The Letter In ‘Harper’s Magazine’

2020/07/13 Leave a comment

A few articles over the Harper’s letter, starting with the Harper’s editor who organized it:

Thomas Chatterton Williams, along with more than 150 prominent journalists, authors and writers, published a letter decrying what it called the “intolerant climate that has set in on all sides” of debate in Harper’s Magazine on Tuesday, fueling a heated controversy over free speech, privilege and the role of social media in public discourse.

“The free exchange of information and ideas,the lifeblood of a liberal society is daily becoming more constricted,” the letter states. “While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty.”

The letter cites various harms it says have been caused by this state of affairs and concludes that “the restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation. The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away.”

Williams, an author and columnist for Harper’s Magazine and a contributor to The New York Times Magazine, told NPR the letter was meant to defend everyone’s “right to argue back and to take ideas, if they’re faulty, expose them to the light of day and counter them effectively.”

The letter immediately faced backlash. At least two signers distanced themselves from it. Some critics argued that including signatures from certain writers, including J.K. Rowling — who has made comments seen as transphobic on Twitter — took away from the sentiment of the letter altogether. A group of more than 160 writers, journalists, academics and others responded with a letter of their own in The Objective, which argued that the very problems the Harper’s Magazine letter lays out are not trends at all.

“In reality, their argument alludes to but does not clearly lay out specific examples, and undermines the very cause they have appointed themselves to uphold,” the counter-letter read. “In truth, Black, brown, and LGBTQ+ people — particularly Black and trans people — can now critique elites publicly and hold them accountable socially; this seems to be the letter’s greatest concern. What’s perhaps even more grating to many of the signatories is that a critique of their long held views is persuasive.”

Some people signed the counter-letter anonymously but included professional affiliations. (At least four people purportedly associated with NPR signed the counter-letter; no current NPR News employees signed the Harper’s letter.)

Williams talked with NPR’s Michel Martin on All Things Considered about why he helped spearhead the crafting of the letter, what it was meant to accomplish and how it was received by the public.

Interview Highlights

On what motivated him to write the letter

It was not one event in particular, it was a kind of mood or a climate that myself and several of the other drafters have been discussing for some time now and it was in late May, early June that we began thinking that maybe we would get together and write something and see if anybody would sign it.

On the criticism that some of the signers have been accused of transphobia and that their presence on the letter is seen as excusing their bigotry

These are principles that anyone could sign and that everybody should actually be able to uphold. And I think that part of what the letter is trying to do is trying to argue against the idea that you have to look around and Google every statement that anybody on the list has ever said to know if you feel comfortable signing it. The point is that that’s irrelevant.

On if he accomplished what he hoped to

What I think we did is we moved the needle a little bit in some of these spaces. Someone has to look around and say, “Well actually, a lot of these people on the list I do still want to work with. I do still want to make Netflix adaptations of some of their work. I do still want them to make podcasts or report at The New York Times or The New Yorker.” And so I have to take into consideration their point of view too, not just these kind of whipped up mobs online that are faceless and that kind of I’ll never interact with but somehow are now penetrating the inner sanctums of the HR department.

I think we’ve moved the needle a little bit in making people understand that there’s not actually nearly as much consensus on some of these impulses as it may sometimes seem if you spend too much time on Twitter.

Source: Thomas Chatterton Williams On Debate, Criticism And The Letter In ‘Harper’s Magazine’

And on the counter letter:

Three days after an open letter signed by more than 150 cultural luminaires darkly warning of a growing “intolerant climate” stirred intense response on the internet, another group issued a counterblast on Friday accusing them of elitism, hypocrisy and complicity in the bullying they decry.

The first letter, titled “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate,” was posted online on Tuesday by Harper’s Magazine. Signed by prominent figures in the arts, media and academia, including Margaret Atwood, Wynton Marsalis and J.K. Rowling, it warned of a growing tide of illiberalism and a weakening of “our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity.”

The response letter, titled “A More Specific Letter on Justice and Open Debate,” chided the Harper’s statement for what it characterized as lofty generalities, as well as ignoring the realities of who actually gets to be heard. If its more than 150 signers were far less well-known, that was perhaps part of the point.

The Harper’s letter “does not deal with the problem of power: who has it and who does not,” according to the response, published at The Objective, a news and commentary site that explores “how journalism has interacted with historically ignored communities.”

“Harper’s has decided to bestow its platform not to marginalized people,” it said, “but to people who already have large followings and plenty of opportunities to make their views heard.”

It continued: “The letter reads as a caustic reaction to a diversifying industry — one that’s starting to challenge diversifying norms that have protected bigotry. The writers of the letter use seductive but nebulous concepts and coded language to obscure the actual meaning behind their words.”

Almost as soon as it appeared on Tuesday, “That Letter,” as Twitter quickly began calling the Harper’s statement, set off rounds of debate about free speech, privilege and the existence or nonexistence of so-called cancel culture.

Akela Lacy, a politics reporter at The Intercept who signed and helped edit the counter-letter, said it grew organically out of a conversation in a Slack channel called Journalists of Color. Initially, there was some wariness of feeding what she and others on Twitter wryly referred to as “letter discourse.”

“There are so many more important things going on in media right now,” Ms. Lacy said, citing in particular threats and harassment experienced by journalists from marginalized groups.

“But the fact is there are a lot of people, particularly Black and trans, expressing very valid concerns about the climate right now,” she said. “Letting this very lofty position go unanswered didn’t feel like it was benefiting anyone.”

The prominence of the Harper’s signers has been a flash point in the conversation, with some deriding that letter as the whining of “assorted rich fools,” as a writer for The Daily Beast put it. The response letter characterized it as a defense of “the intellectual freedom of cis white intellectuals,” which “has never been under threat en masse.”

On Friday, after the response letter was posted, the writer Thomas Chatterton Williams, who spearheaded the Harper’s letter, highlighted the more than two dozen Black and other nonwhite intellectuals who signed his letter.

“You know, just a bunch of privileged solipsistic elites worrying about problems that don’t exist,” Mr. Williams, who is Black, tweeted. “So far, haven’t seen any of the formerly imprisoned signatories or the ones who have experienced fatwas cave to the social media backlash, though,” he added.

His dig was a reference to the fact that criticism of the Harper’s letter centered as much on who signed it as its content. And within hours of its publication, some who had signed distanced themselves from it, saying they would not have joined if they had been aware of some of the other signers. The inclusion of J.K. Rowling, who has drawn condemnation for a series of recent comments widely seen as anti-transgender, drew particular ire.

The new letter included one person, the historian Kerri Greenidge, who had signed the Harper’s letter, according to emails reviewed by The New York Times, but then asked that her name be removed, saying on Twitter, “I do not endorse this @Harpers letter.”

It also included a number of people signing anonymously, including three listed as journalists at The New York Times. (The Harper’s letter was signed by four Opinion columnists at The Times, who used their names.)

Ms. Lacy said she was aware of the “irony” of an open letter that included redacted signatures, but said that some people who criticized the Harper’s letter had gotten threats or feared workplace retaliation.

“There’s a difference between being canceled in the way Harper’s letter is talking about and actually getting threats of violence,” she said.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/10/arts/open-letter-debate.html?ref=oembed

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How a Canadian woman pushed a popular South Asian matchmaking site to drop its skin-tone filter

2020/07/13 Leave a comment

Impressive successful advocacy:

When Meghan Nagpal decided to take her chances at finding love by signing up for a popular matchmaking website, she never expected to be asked to describe her skin tone — let alone the skin tone she would find desirable in a partner.

About a year ago, Nagpal joined Shaadi.com, a website that asks users to choose potential matches based on family background, status and body type. She said there was also a filter asking users for their preference of skin colour.

“I felt really uncomfortable,” said the University of Toronto graduate student, who is originally from Vancouver.

Nagpal soon deleted her account, but returned to the site last month after feeling some pressure from her mother to get married. She was again confronted with the skin-tone filter, which allowed users to select from “fair,” “wheatish” or “dark.”

This time, after all the worldwide anti-racism protests inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, her discomfort turned to outrage.

The skin-tone filter, she said, sparked her realization that something needed to be done about what she called the South Asian community’s bias against skin colour.

“There’s a preference for fair skin in the culture when it comes to marriage and finding a life partner,” she said.

Discrimination within communities of colour

To Nagpal, the need to do something felt urgent because even though many prominent people in the South Asian community have come out in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, there are still some, including Bollywood actors, who continue to promote creams that promise to lighten skin tone.

She received a one-sentence response saying the filter was a popular feature with parents looking to arrange marriages for their children.

“Most parents do require this as an option so it is visible on the site,” read the response sent on June 10.

Nagpal then posted the response to a Facebook group with more than 2,000 South Asian women in North America.

They argued that it perpetuates a form of racial discrimination known as shadeism or colourism that’s prevalent in the South Asian community — with light skin being historically viewed as more desirable than dark.

Skin-tone filters removed

Overnight, the petition had amassed more than 1,400 signatures and Nagpal said the skin-tone filter was no longer on the site.

In an email, a spokesperson for Shaadi.com told CBC Toronto that they were not aware of the skin-tone filter and claimed it was a “non-functional aspect” of the site.

“There is no skin colour filter on Shaadi.com, on any of its platforms,” the spokesperson said.

A petition for shaadi.com to remove its skin-tone filter amassed more than 1,400 signatures overnight. Soon after, Nagpal said the skin-tone filter was no longer on the site. (Shaadi.com)

“[It] is a several year old product debris left-over in one of our advanced search pages on the website, which is non-functional and barely used and hence it did not come to our attention,” the email reads.

“We do not discriminate based on skin colour and our member base is as diverse and pluralistic as the world today is.”

Two other prominent South Asian matrimonial sites — Bharat Matrimony and Jeevansathi.com — were also pressured to remove skin-tone filters.

CBC News contacted both websites for comment on this story, but received no response.

‘Colourism is very easy to fester in communities’

Thurka Gunaratnam, a filmmaker and educator based in Toronto who has focused on shadeism in her work, says the filter did not come as a shock to her.

“When a group has been historically oppressed and they have not been given the freedom to understand what their own identity is, something like colourism is very easy to fester in communities,” said Gunaratnam.

Toronto-based writer and filmmaker Mirusha Yogarajah participated in a 2016 social media campaign called #unfairandlovely.

The campaign targeted the South Asian population in particular and was meant to tackle the issue of shadeism and the popularity of skin lightening creams — including one called “Fair and Lovely.”

“It’s so embedded in us from such a young age, it just makes me really sad,” Yogarajah told CBC News.

Prejudice should not be confused with preference, Gunaratnam said.

“In the wake of talking about colorism and racism, one thing that will help with unlearning is to really ask ourselves: Is it a preference or is it prejudice?

“And if it’s a preference, why is it that?”

Source: How a Canadian woman pushed a popular South Asian matchmaking site to drop its skin-tone filter

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Dark skinned patients left out of COVID-19 studies, as minorities some of the hardest bit by the virus

2020/07/13 Leave a comment

Of note, another example of systemic bias and discrimination:

Clinical images of patients with hives, swollen lips, chickenpox-like rashes, and red or purple lesions on the feet known as “covid toes,” have been published in medical studies since the start of the pandemic, demonstrating how the virus can affect the skin.

These images can help doctors diagnose patients who are otherwise asymptomatic – if they have light skin.

But images of darker-skinned patients have largely not been included in medical studies showing how COVID-19 can present on the skin, even as the disease has disproportionately affected people of colour in Canada and the United States. Symptoms can appear very differently on dark skin tones, underscoring the need for inclusion in clinical studies.

“Black folks in Canada, specifically Toronto, are overrepresented in terms of the burden of COVID-19,” said Bolu Ogunyemi, a dermatologist and clinical assistant professor of medicine at Memorial University in Newfoundland.

“So it’s unfortunate that we’re actually underrepresented in records of the manifestation from skin for this disease.”

The COVID-19 studies reflect a pattern in which darker skinned patients are largely missing from medical literature, part of an issue of racism within the medical system.

A literature review in The British Journal of Dermatology found that out of 36 studies showing images of COVID-19 presentations on skin published between December, 2019, to May, 2020, there were zero images of dark skin tones.

Researchers evaluated each clinical image using the six-point Fitzpatrick scale, which categorizes skin tones from lightest to darkest, and found that 92 per cent of the 130 images were of skin in the first three categories, which range from the lightest coloured skin to a medium tone. There were zero images of skin in the two darkest Fitzpatrick categories.

While it is not yet clear how significant these skin lesions can be in diagnosing COVID-19, understanding what they look like could lead to earlier testing. Some provinces, such as Nova Scotia, have added symptoms of red or purple fingers or toes to a list of symptoms that indicate a person should get tested.

“We’re still trying to figure out what these manifestations actually mean,” said the main author of the study, Jenna Lester, who is an assistant professor of dermatology at the University of California, San Francisco.

“But if there is a rash that patients can identify themselves when they were perhaps asymptomatic and can use it as a way to know they need to get tested but we’re not showing it in dark skin – it is a huge disservice to patients.”

Including examples of what diseases can look like on dark skin is important because indicators such as redness may be difficult to spot on dark skin, said Lynn McKinley-Grant, associate professor of Dermatology at Howard University College of Medicine and president of the U.S.-based Skin of Color Society.

Redness on light skin can appear as a different shade on darker skin, she said, or not appear at all. Doctors may have to employ different diagnostic methods to determine the issue, such as using touch to see whether the skin is warm. Sometimes, darker skin can also react very differently.

“In the textbooks it’ll describe a rash as flat and not itchy, but in darker skin types, it’ll be raised and itchy, but still be in the same pattern,” Dr. McKinley-Grant said.

The Skin of Color Society has shared images on social media of darker skin showing symptoms that are similar in appearance to COVID-19 symptoms.

While most health care units in Canada do not yet collect race-based data on COVID-19 patients, statistics show that the most diverse geographic areas also have some of the highest rates COVID-19. In early June, after health care professionals across the country raised concerns about the lack of data on how COVID-19 has affected racialized populations, Ontario had granted some health units permission to begin collecting race-based data.

In the U.S., where race-based data are available, studies show that African-Americans are almost three times as likely to test positive for the virus than white people.

Some doctors in Canada have linked the lack of representation in COVID-19 studies to larger issues of representation in medical studies and textbooks, across all disciplines.

Edgar Akuffo-Addo, a first-year medical student at the University of Toronto, says he has experienced this first hand.

In a first-aid training course he recently completed, Mr. Akuffo-Addo said participants were instructed to check for signs of shock by pressing down on a patient’s fingernails and waiting to see how long it took to turn red again.

“I tried to do the test on myself, and I couldn’t see it on my own skin,” he said. In addition, he said all the patients featured in the video training materials were white.

Mr. Akuffo-Addo describes the lack of representation as “troubling and worrying” and has embarked on his own review of clinical images of skin conditions related to COVID-19, and has so far examined 1,000 images in studies from Spain, France, Italy, the U.S. and Canada. Mr. Akuffo-Addo said that he confirmed with the authors of those studies that all patients were white.

Dr. Ogunyemi said the study of dermatology has been historically white.

When the field was first developing in Britain, the U.S. and Canada, he said, there was a smaller proportion of people of colour, so the criteria for the diagnosis of skin issues was centred around people with lighter skin. But these criteria have not changed significantly since that time.

“The problem is our population in these countries is changing – but the definition of skin disease is not keeping up with the pace.”

Studies also show that a mistrust of the medical system is a major reason why people of colour may choose not to participate in medical studies, stemming from a history of mistreatment as well as discrimination within the medical system.

Dr. Ogunyemi said that because the information on treating dark skin may not be readily available, Canadian doctors may have to take additional steps to ensure they are comfortable and able to treat people with dark skin.

“I think like a lot of things, you have to take a conscious effort, you have to go out of your way.”

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Black Lives Matter Gets Indians Talking About Skin Lightening And Colorism

2020/07/11 Leave a comment

Prompting a needed discussion:

Chandana Hiran loves reading, arts and crafts, and recycling. At 22, she’s enrolled in college, studying to be an accountant. She considers herself a feminist.

But something else is a big part of her identity too.

“I’m slightly dark,” Hiran tells NPR in a phone interview from her family’s Mumbai home, her bold voice suddenly going soft. “I’d be called one of the dark-skinned people in our country.”

In India, colorism is rampant. Darker-skinned Indians, especially women, face discrimination at work, at school — even in love. Some arranged marriage websites let families filter out prospective brides by skin tone.

So it may be no wonder that about half of all skin care products in India, according to the World Health Organization, are lighteners designed to “brighten” or “lift” — essentially to whiten — a user’s skin color. WHO estimates that such products amount to about a $500 million industry in India alone. Until recently, some of them even came with shade cards — like paint swatches — so that users could track the lightening of their skin.

Some products claim to “lighten” the skin using multivitamins such as vitamin B3, and many users have said they’re happy with the results. Other products may contain mercury or bleach, which WHO cautions can damage skin cells. Other skin-lightening treatments, including intravenous and pill formulas, have been linked to liver and kidney damage.

The most popular brand of skin lightener is Fair & Lovely, made by the consumer goods giant Unilever. Generations of Indians have grown up with grocery store shelves lined with Fair & Lovely creams and face washes. They’ve been sold in India since 1975 with a marketing campaign of TV commercials and billboards that equate pale, fair skin with beauty and success.

Those are stereotypes that many find deeply unfair. And as the Black Lives Matter movement spreads across the world, it has prompted a reckoning about skin color in India and a brazen revolt against one of its most popular cosmetics.

Feeling insecure

Being slightly browner than the average Indian, by her own assessment, has left Hiran feeling insecure all her life.

“Even the smallest of things, like not wanting to wear brighter colors or just random people coming to you and saying, ‘Oh, maybe you should apply something on your face,’ ” Hiran recalls. “There is not a single Bollywood actress who could represent my skin tone.”

Instead, Bollywood actresses star in TV commercials for skin-lightening creams.

The Indian beauty queen-turned-actress Priyanka Chopra — who starred in the U.S. TV hit Quantico — is one of the most famous. In 2008, she appeared in a series of promotional videos for a product called White Beauty. She played a forlorn-looking single woman who, in the first episode, watched a slightly lighter-skinned woman strut past with a handsome man on her arm. In later episodes, after she used the skin-lightening cream, the man fell in love with her instead.

Another ad for Fair & Lovely suggests using it before going to a job interview.

Praise for white skin is a theme in popular music too. In a 2015 hit song called “Chittiyaan Kalaiyaan” — which means “pale wrists” in the Hindi language — the male singer croons about how a woman’s pale skin makes him swoon.

“Oh my darling, angel baby, white kalaiyaan drives me crazy!” the refrain goes.

When Hiran was a teenager, listening to such songs, she started using Fair & Lovely. She didn’t even have to buy it; her mother always had some in the family medicine cabinet.

The impact of Black Lives Matter

So that was the backdrop in India this spring, when George Floyd was killed in the U.S. and calls for racial justice echoed around the world.

“Can Indians support Black Lives Matter when we ourselves have so many prejudices?” asks activist Kavitha Emmanuel, founder of a women’s charity in southern India called Women of Worth.

In 2009, Emmanuel started a campaign called Dark Is Beautiful to combat colorism in India. Over the years, while counseling girls, she says she realized how deeply hurt Indian women have been by media messages about skin color.

“In our counseling sessions, this would keep surfacing. [They would keep] saying, ‘I am dark,’ ” she told NPR by phone from her home in Chennai. “It is not just about self-esteem in terms of their looks, but it also affects their overall performance in life.”

A study confirms that the scenes in TV commercials for skin-lightening creams may sadly be accurate. A 2015 report by professors at Southern Illinois University and the Rochester Institute of Technology found that in India:

“A woman’s dark skin can preclude her from entering positions such as news anchor, sales associate, flight attendant and even receptionist because these jobs require exposure to and interaction with the public, who will judge her as unattractive, unworthy and incompetent. Fair-skinned women, conversely, are seen in most of these roles; their skin tone grants them unearned privilege and power within organizations as a result.”

Emmanuel says many Indians now expressing support for Black Lives Matter in the U.S. are blind to such discrimination against racial and religious minorities at home. Many of the same celebrities tweeting about racial justice in the U.S. have actually starred in ads for skin-lightening creams.

Bollywood backlash

Among the first Indian celebrities to express public sympathy after Floyd’s killing in the U.S. was the film star Chopra, who posted a lengthy message on Instagram in May with some of Floyd’s last words: “please, i can’t breathe.”

“There is so much work to be done and it needs to starts at an individual level on a global scale,” she wrote. “We all have a responsibility to educate ourselves and end this hate.”

Her comments drew a backlash online. When Chopra’s husband, American singer/songwriter Nick Jonas, tweeted that he and his wife “Pri” have “heavy hearts” over “systemic racism, bigotry and exclusion,” one user replied: “Was pri’s ‘heart heavy’ before or after she promoted skin lightening creams?”

Chopra has not replied to the tweets. But in a 2017 interview with Vogue India, she said she regretted appearing in ads for skin-lightening products. “I used it [when I was very young]. Then when I was an actor, around my early twenties, I did a commercial for a skin-lightening cream. I was playing that girl with insecurities. And when I saw it, I was like, ‘Oh s**t. What did I do?’ ” Chopra was quoted as saying.

She told Vogue that she now sympathizes with girls who feel insecure about their skin tone and has turned down offers to star in any more such ads.

Human rights activists in India have also accused Chopra and other Indian celebrities of hypocrisy for expressing sympathy for Floyd and outrage over his killing but not condemning similar violence against minorities, particularly Muslims, in India. In recent years, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, attacks on India’s minority Muslims have skyrocketed. Dozens have been lynched in the streets with little public outcry.

Colonialism and caste

Emmanuel and others trace India’s color discrimination back to the colonial period when mostly white Britons ruled over darker-skinned Indians. But its roots may go back even further than that — to Hinduism’s ancient caste system, roughly based on a hierarchy of professions people are born into.

Historians of ancient India say discrimination based explicitly on skin color has never been part of the Hindu caste system. But it may have evolved over time. For centuries, members of the less privileged, lower castes traditionally did manual labor outdoors under the sun.

“The British colonizers were able to build on India’s existing caste system. So the upper-caste people who were powerful had fairer skin. And the lower-caste people, when they would work outside, those castes started having darker skin [from prolonged sun exposure],” explains Neha Dixit, an Indian journalist who has studied the history of colorism and written about her own experience as a slightly darker-skinned woman. (The euphemism her relatives used for her skin color is “wheatish” — the color of wheat.)

“We have actually internalized all those prejudices,” she says. “So anybody with fairer skin is supposed to be better off than a dark-skinned person.”

Those stereotypes have been reinforced in India for millennia. But modern ideas of racial equality — and the Black Lives Matter movement — are slowly making a dent. A landmark case against caste discrimination is currently under litigation in California, where Indian American tech workers are accused of discriminating against a colleague because he’s a member of a lower caste.

New name, same cream

A few years ago, when she was in her late teens, Hiran, the accounting student, stopped using Fair & Lovely cream. Unilever says its products do not contain potentially harmful bleach or mercury. But Hiran’s decision had more to do with a maturing sense of self rather than any health concerns, she says.

“I started to realize, OK, maybe the problem is not with me. Maybe I’m not supposed to look any other way,” she says. “And I’m not supposed to feel insecure about my own skin.”

This year, Hiran started an online petition to get the name of the product changed. It’s one of several such petitions that have flooded the Internet in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement.

A Texas woman of South Asian descent, Hetal Lakhani, also started an online petition against Shaadi.com, one of the most popular matrimonial websites, demanding that it remove a function that allows users to search for potential partners on the basis of their skin color. Last month, the website obliged, issuing a statement saying that it “does not discriminate” and that the skin color filter was a “product debris left-over in one of our advanced search pages.”

Then, in late June, Fair & Lovely’s manufacturer, Unilever, made an announcement: It’s removing any references to “fair/fairness,” “white/whitening” and “light/lightening” from all of its packaging.

“We are fully committed to having a global portfolio of skin care brands that is inclusive and cares for all skin tones, celebrating greater diversity of beauty,” Sunny Jain, president of the company’s beauty and personal care division, was quoted as saying. “We recognize that the use of the words ‘fair,’ ‘white’ and ‘light’ suggest a singular ideal of beauty that we don’t think is right.”

But even though the packaging now says only that the product moisturizes and gives a pink glow, these terms are understood to be euphemisms for lightening your skin.

This month, Unilever’s Indian branch announced a new name: Glow & Lovely. Its men’s product line will also be rebranded, as Glow & Handsome. The company says the name changes will happen in the coming months.

The cosmetics brand L’Oréal says it’s making a similar change.

But some activists say that’s not enough — that it’s not the names that needed to be scrapped but the products themselves. Another big company, Johnson & Johnson, says it’s discontinuing two of its skin-lightening products altogether.

Souvenir tube

Hiran calls the Fair & Lovely name change “a step in the right direction.”

“It’s not a small thing that Fair & Lovely has done. Because this brand has thrived all these years on the insecurities of women. This is really changing the narrative,” she says. “But it’s only the first step toward being more inclusive and diverse. No matter what you call it, it’s still going to be offensive.”

Even though she hadn’t used the product in years, Hiran says she recently found an old tube of Fair & Lovely in her medicine cabinet. She says she’ll probably hold on to it.

“Now it’s going to become a souvenir,” she laughs.

So the Fair & Lovely label will soon be history. But the question remains as to how long these skin-lightening products — whatever they’re called — will remain in India, along with the attitudes behind them.

Source: Black Lives Matter Gets Indians Talking About Skin Lightening And Colorism

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