Preference for boys persists among 2nd generation South Asian parents, study finds

2018/06/23 Leave a comment

Alarming that preference carries through to the second generation:

Where are all the girls?

A new Ontario study has found the preference for boys among South Asian parents persists among second-generation families born and raised in Canada, pushing the male-to-female ratio to 280 boys born for every 100 girls.

Previous research showed that women born in India, who already had two daughters, gave birth in Ontario to 196 boys for every 100 girls — compared to just 104 boys per 100 girls among non-South Asians — but the new finding surprised even the researchers.

While immigrants tend to assimilate over time, “from the evidence we see, this suggests it is different when it comes to the preference for sons,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Susitha Wanigaratne, a social epidemiologist and post-doctoral fellow at the Centre for Urban Health Solutions at St. Michael’s Hospital and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences.

The study, published Thursday in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, examined live births to first- and second-generation mothers of South Asian ethnicity between 1993 and 2014, based on data from the institute, the immigration department and the Canadian Institute for Health Information’s Discharge Abstract.

Almost 10,300 live births to second-generation South Asian mothers and 36,687 live births to their first-generation counterparts in Ontario were identified.

Among the second-generation South Asian mothers with two previous daughters and at least one prior abortion, 280 boys were born for every 100 girls, which was greater than the male-to-female ratio among their first-generation peers. The report suggests both groups of mothers are likely taking part in sex-selective abortion in Ontario.

The researchers looked at many different combinations of order, number and gender of births, but found third births among mothers with two previous daughters revealed a significant increase in the male-to-female ratios.

Born and raised in Brampton, Manvir Bhangu, founder of a non-profit group that promotes gender equity among South Asians in Greater Toronto, said she was both shocked and saddened by the findings.

“Even though you were born and grew up in Canada and are highly educated, you still can’t get away from the culture. You are surrounded by it. South Asian women carry the honour of the family on their shoulders for their parents and in-laws,” said Bhangu, 26, of Laadliyan Celebrating Daughters. (Laadliyan, in Punjabi and Hindi, means beloved daughters.)

“It comes down to having a place at home and in the community. It makes a big difference in your presence in the family whether you give birth to three boys or three girls. It’s easier to be loved and wanted by the people around you with three boys. People do make nasty comments if you have three girls,” added Bhangu, a co-author of the study. “The bottom line is keeping the family name alive.”

The report said it appears South Asian immigrant parents emphasize educating their second-generation daughters out of the need to uphold the image of a “model minority,” as hardworking, disciplined and successful, as well as the desire to restrict the girls’ social engagements outside of the home in order to limit western influence and improve marriageability.

“Studies in India have shown that higher maternal education is either not associated with son-biased sex ratios or that it is associated with greater knowledge of and access to sex-selective technology,” the report said.

“This situation among second-generation mothers certainly exemplifies a ‘double burden’ whereby women are educated and work outside the home but are also expected to maintain their traditional roles within the family.”

Both Wanigaratne and Bhangu hope the study can get the community to start a dialogue about gender equity and culture.

Source: Preference for boys persists among 2nd generation South Asian parents, study finds

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Ottawa appointing more female judges, but bench still short of gender parity – The Globe and Mail

2018/06/22 Leave a comment

Good overview with the latest numbers. My tracking of women, visible minorities and Indigenous judicial appointments since 2016 is above:

The federal Liberal government has been naming women to the bench at an unprecedented rate this year, with nearly three women chosen for each man, government figures show. Of 37 judges named to federally appointed courts in 2018, 27 are women.

The boost in the appointment rate of women has been helped along by historic levels of female applicants, who make up 45 per cent of the 1,169 applicants since the Liberals established a new appointment process in October, 2016, according to the Office of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs, which collects data on the process. That’s up from 30 per cent during the 10 years the Conservatives were in power. (Federally appointed courts include the superior courts of provinces, the Federal Court, Tax Court and the Supreme Court of Canada.)

The rapid rate of female appointments still leaves the bench well short of gender parity. The 866 full-time positions are now 39.6 per cent women, up from 36.6 per cent when the Liberals took office in November, 2015, according to figures supplied at the request of The Globe and Mail.

The government has put into effect its stated policy of having a 50-50 gender split in Cabinet. But it has never publicly stated a target for the appointment of women to the judiciary.

If it has set numerical targets for achieving a 50-50 split, it is not saying.

“All judicial appointments are made on the basis of merit, taking into account the needs of the court,” Dave Taylor, a spokesman for Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, said in an e-mail. “As we move forward, we are confident that our Government’s goal of a balanced, meritorious and diverse bench will be realized.”

Members of the legal community interviewed for this story said they believe the Liberals are stepping up efforts to bring about gender parity on the bench. Several lawyers said they welcome that effort. “As a middle-aged white guy, I’m not concerned about what might be interpreted as a disproportionate number of women who are appointed to the bench,” Halifax privacy lawyer David Fraser said in an interview. “If it takes a little bit of corrective action to get us close to a properly representative judiciary, I think it’s fine.”

During the Conservatives’ period in office, from 2006 to 2015, women made up 30 per cent of judicial appointments. The Liberals made several changes to the appointment process in 2016, including asking applicants to fill out questionnaires describing what equity and diversity mean to them. And for the first time, they asked applicants their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and disability status, promising to make the data public. (The judicial affairs office says it will make these more detailed figures for the second year of Liberal appointments under this process public in October. Several of the 2018 appointees are members of racial minority groups.)

The appointment process has two main stages. Applicants are screened by one of 17 judicial advisory committees made up of federal and other representatives. Then the government chooses from the list of candidates recommended or highly recommended by the committees.

Some lawyers stressed the importance of merit in judicial appointments. “I certainly support gender equity but the overriding factor has to be choosing the best candidates, as far as I’m concerned,” Andrew Rouse, a litigator in Fredericton, said in an interview.

Heather Treacy, a lawyer in Calgary, said she applauds the trend “provided it is balanced with ensuring top-quality candidates are appointed. This is less of a current concern given the increased numbers of very able females engaged in the legal profession.”

Others offered unqualified praise. “I think it’s terrific movement in the right direction,” said Brian Facey, who practices competition law in Toronto.

Rosemary Cairns Way, who teaches law at the University of Ottawa and monitors diversity in judicial appointments, said the jump in the overall proportion of women on the bench is noteworthy. It “demonstrates that achieving gender parity requires action (as opposed to faith in a ‘trickle-up’ process),” she said in an e-mail.

As for the greater proportion of women applying for the federal bench, she said, “I suspect it is because potential women applicants are more confident that the skills, experience, and expertise they present are more likely to be valued.”

via Ottawa appointing more female judges, but bench still short of gender parity – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Aboriginal, gender, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Egypt fights Islamic extremism by allowing women leaders at mosques

2018/06/22 Leave a comment

Interesting approach but in a context of no separation between faith and state and an authoritarian government (in contrast to the similarly authoritarian Muslim Brotherhood):

Four years ago, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi called on state-supported Muslim clerics “to improve the image of Islam in front of the world.”

In response, Islamic religious authorities are allowing Muslim women to be heard. Over the past three months, the clerics have announced that women can now serve as preachers in mosques and schools, serve on governing boards and sing in choirs dedicated to liturgical music.

“These measures show that Islam can grow in an open encounter with other faiths,” said Wafaa Abdelsalam, a 38-year-old female physician appointed by the government’s Ministry of Religious Endowments to give two sermons a week at a pair of influential mosques in the Cairo suburbs. “The audience for my Ramadan talks has been mostly upper-middle-class women who until recently have felt they have had nobody to talk to about how Islam fits into their lives.”

About 70 percent of mosques in Egypt have separate prayer areas for women, according to the Endowments Ministry. But the move to introduce women preachers – wa’ezzat in Arabic – marks the first time females have formally addressed worshippers in these spaces as officially sanctioned clergy.

“Religious education here is a chance for women to ask me questions about personal matters, including marriage problems, and to debate the merits and drawbacks of the choice to wear or not wear the (hijab) headscarf,” said Abdelsalam.

The wa’ezzat are following sermon guidelines set by the Endowments Ministry, she added.

The push to promote women in Egypt’s religious sphere is backed by scholars at Al-Azhar University, the traditional seminary of mainline Sunni theology, and arises from Egypt’s fight against extremism: El-Sissi has challenged Islamic theologians to examine texts that have been used to justify terrorism.

The Endowments Ministry, which gives out religious financial grants and appoints clergy in more than 110,000 mosques in this country of 90 million Muslims, is at the forefront of the crackdown on extremism. Last month, it moved to ban unlicensed male preachers from delivering homilies in more than 20,000 storefront mosques known locally as zawyas.

Zawya preachers have been suspected of propagating fundamentalist views among women as well as men to advance extremist beliefs.

“We can’t leave the field of Islamic women’s education to nonspecialists,” said Youmna Nasser, a female preacher newly appointed by the government.

The Endowments Ministry has trained about 300 female preachers in public speaking as well as in interpreting the Quran and other Muslim texts. It also plans to name two women to the governing boards of each mosque next month, with the aim of boosting attention to issues related to women, children and the family.

“The steps we are taking now to affirm women’s rights are based on principles recognized by Islam in the past but were neglected over time,” said Abdul Ghani Hindi, a member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs. Officials are in the process of training 2,000 more female preachers, Hindi said.

“True Islam strengthens women’s status, which is why we started training courses for female preachers and are trying to find out more about women’s views about how mosques are run,” said Hindi.

Another important shift toward expanding women’s voices is happening at Al-Azhar University, which has grown beyond its original role as an Islamic seminary to provide general education in fields including medicine and engineering to more than 45,000 students in Cairo and at seven satellite campuses.

Bucking conservative fatwas that prohibit men from even listening to the sound of women singing, Al-Azhar leaders have formed a coeducational choir that performs Muslim hymns on and off campus.

“My dad was afraid that people’s views of me as religiously observant would change, and that neighbors would see me as deviating from the traditions of Islam,” said Umniah Kamal, a 21-year-old business major and choir member at Al-Azhar. “But my mom encouraged me to join the chorale and even suggested some of the religious songs we are performing.”

University officials insist that including young women in the choir will make Islam more relevant to a new generation.

“Those who say the chorale reduces Al-Azhar’s image of piety are wrong,” said Ibtisam Zaidan, the university’s artistic director. “We are using the performing arts to bolster Al-Azhar as a beacon of Islamic life and learning.”

“There is no text in the Quran that prohibits singing these songs. The young ladies dress conservatively, wear headscarves and stand separately from the young men during the performances.”

While Al-Azhar’s choir captured second place in an April competition hosted by Egypt’s Youth and Sports Ministry, the mixed-gender performances and government appointments of women to leadership roles in mosques have stirred up opposition among traditionalists.

“Drafting women as public representatives on mosque directors boards, encouraging them to issue fatwas and the outrageous formation of that mixed-gender musical team at Al-Azhar are all ideas imported from the West,” said Sameh Abdul Hamid, a Cairo preacher from the Salafi movement, a strictly traditionalist branch within Sunni Islam.

“It’s all part of an effort by Arab governments to erase our Islamic identity and is disrespectful of our belief that the way to strengthen the status of women is to safeguard their position in their homes,” said Hamid.

Government officials insist enhanced visibility and targeted programs for women in Egypt’s mosques are not about gender equality but rather education and outreach to reinforce tradition.

“Women on boards will act as a link between the female faithful and the mosque administration and greater attention will be given to family issues that were not strongly represented before,” said Shaikh Jaber Taya, the Endowments Ministry spokesman.

Source: Egypt fights Islamic extremism by allowing women leaders at mosques

Filed under Multiculturalism

Contrasting opinions on whether Trudeau should condemn Trump separation of children policy (in end, he did)

2018/06/21 Leave a comment

David Moscrop arguing he should:

…In his 1961 inaugural address, John F. Kennedy warned, in a different context, that “those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger, ended up inside.” More than 50 years later, here is Canada—beacon of hope, moral exemplar to the world, shiny liberal Valhalla—mounted squarely on the raging cat, trying to manage a relationship with an addled and unpredictable authoritarian south of the border while human rights abuses occur right in front of our faces.

There are countless grim moments throughout human history that we subject our after-the-fact moral certainty and judgment upon today, adding for good measure that “We would never have let that happen.” We’re better than our barbarous forebears, naturally. We’ve learned our lessons. We’re cosmopolitan. Forward-thinking. Smarter. Kinder. Better.

And yet today, we are silently staring down a morally outrageous and unacceptable policy, hedging toward protecting our “interests” on the backs of helpless children and their terrified families while the American president echoes poet W.H. Auden’s Epitaph on a Tyrant: “When he laughed, respected senators burst with laughter/And when he cried the little children died in the streets.”

Like it or not, we’re living history right now. We’re in the midst of a moment that future generations will look back and judge us on, scrutinizing what we did or didn’t do at the pivotal moment when our moral mettle was put to the test. If we fail to do the right thing—to call out abuses, to demand better, to require decency as a basic term of doing business—then we will rightly be condemned just as we condemn our own antecedents for their failures.

There’s still time for Canada to do the right thing. There’s still time for us to criticize human rights abuses abroad and then to turn our gaze back on ourselves and our shortcomings at home. Today, standing up for human rights is not only the right thing to do, but the necessary thing to do if we wish for a future in which a stable, just, and inclusive democracy is possible.

Source: Trudeau won’t condemn Trump’s migrant policy. That’s duplicitous and irresponsible.

L. Ian MacDonald argues the reverse (more persuasive in my view):

…From a Canadian perspective, the U.S. illegal migrant crisis offers an opportunity to assess where we have come since Trudeau posted his famous #“WelcomeToCanada” tweet in January 2017, on the heels of Trump’s order banning travel from seven majority-Islamic countries, including Syria, from which Canada had recently welcomed 25,000 refugees.

It can take over a year for asylum claims to be ruled upon by Ottawa. And admission is by no means a given. Of the 20,000 people who entered Canada illegally last year, 8,200 has since been deported, more than half of them involuntarily, with the government footing the bill for their flights home.

Another 30,000 asylum claimants crossed the border at regular points of entry, though under the Safe Third Country Agreement with the U.S., most of them were apparently sent back.

The question some are asking is whether the U.S., under Trump, is still a safe third country. But don’t expect Trudeau to make such a case. He’s got quite enough to do with the NAFTA renegotiation, without trying to score political points on the U.S. border migrant crisis.

Source: Trudeau wisely chooses high road in Trump’s immigration debacle

 

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , , ,

Canada tracking Trump’s border crackdown to see if U.S. remains safe for asylum seekers

2018/06/20 Leave a comment

As I would expect. Not an easy policy and political discussion given the implications:

Canada is monitoring the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “zero-tolerance” migrant policy — which has led to the forcible detention of thousands of children — to determine if the U.S. remains a safe country for asylum seekers.

Global outrage is growing over Trump’s hardline approach to people crossing illegally into the U.S. from Mexico — a policy that puts adults through the criminal justice system while sending their children to detention camps. The Trump administration also has eliminated the option of citing a risk of domestic or gang violence as grounds to seek protection.

Critics are calling on Canada to urgently respond by suspending the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) with the United States, but Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said the government will analyze the situation to determine the impact of the Trump administration’s policy on due process, appeals rights and migrants’ ability to make asylum claims.

“We have to see the impact of these changes on the domestic asylum system in the U.S. to see whether the U.S. continues to meet its obligations, not just to the international community, but also to the Safe Third Country Agreement,” he said.

Hussen said that ongoing analysis is being carried out by both countries, as well as the UN’s refugee agency. He said he could not provide any time frame for the review.

In past, the minister has said the 14-year-old agreement — which requires that migrants crossing the Canada/U.S. border make their refugee claims in the first “safe” country they come to, whether it’s Canada or the U.S. — is working in Canada’s interests but should be modernized.

According to data provided to CBC News by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, 1,949 asylum seekers were turned back at official border points in 2017 — refused entry to Canada under the STCA.

That’s up dramatically from previous years. In 2016, 731 were refused; in 2015, 418 were turned away and in 2014 just 456 were denied entry.

Fearful fleeing Trump

“The jump in numbers means that individuals are genuinely, legitimately and justifiably afraid about how they will be treated and about whether they will be given due process under the Trump administration’s regime,” said Aris Daghighian, a refugee lawyer and executive member of the Canadian Refugee Lawyers Association.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed on the weekend that nearly 2,000 migrant children were separated from their families between April 19 and May 31, when the Trump administration was cracking down on illegal immigration along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The UN has said separating families amounts to an “arbitrary and unlawful” interference in family life and calls it a “serious violation” of the rights of children.

Despite international outrage and condemnation, Trump defended the practice today.

‘The United States will not be a migrant camp,’ says U.S. president 1:27

“The United States will not be a migrant camp and it will not be a refugee-holding facility,” he said.

Daghighian said it’s clear the U.S. is not meeting its international obligations on refugees, human rights and rights of the child, and that Canada should not be its immigration partner under the STCA.

“The problem here now is that both the conditions of detention — subjecting individuals to cruel and unusual separation from their children — but also the grounds for which the U.S. is willing to offer protection are being severely limited,” he said. “So in that way, Canada can’t be confident that the U.S. will abide by its international obligations that it will provide protection to these individuals under a fair process.”

Failing to denounce the U.S. and shred the agreement would amount to a departure from Canada’s record of leading on humanitarian issues and would send the wrong message to the world, Daghighian said.

Moral, legal obligations

“It would say that, for political reasons, or for reasons to do with the current trade negotiations, we’re willing to give up some of our most fundamental values, our moral obligations and our legal obligations.”

While Canada deals in much smaller numbers, this country does hold children in immigration detention centres. Statistics from the Canada Border Services Agency show that 150 minors (aged under 18) were detained with a parent or guardian over a nine-month period that ended Dec. 31, 2017, and another five were held unaccompanied.

In November 2017, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale issued a directive on the treatment of minors in Canada’s immigration detention system. It said that, “as much as humanly possible,” children must be kept out of detention and with their families.

Citing the best interests of the child as its primary consideration, the directive said alternatives to detention must be considered, such as cash or performance bonds and community supervision.

NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan said the developments south of the border underscore the fact that the U.S. is no longer a ‘safe third country’.

She called it “astounding” that the Liberal government would consider keeping Canada in an agreement with a country that is flagrantly flouting international law on the rights of refugees and children.

“If we continue on with the status quo in the face of this inhumane development, then Canada is complicit to the situation,” she said.

Asked today if Canada can still consider the U.S. a safe country in light of the crackdown, Transport Minister Marc Garneau, chair of the cabinet committee on U.S. relations,  said: “Of course we can.”

Source: Canada tracking Trump’s border crackdown to see if U.S. remains safe for asylum seekers

Filed under Multiculturalism

Child poverty linked to discrimination and systemic inequality, study suggests

2018/06/19 Leave a comment

Good use of Census data:

Federal ridings with the most child and family poverty in Canada are also home to the highest proportions of Indigenous, visible minority, immigrant and single-parent families, according to a new study.

These ridings are also more likely to have high unemployment, low rates of labour force participation, more renters and people paying more than 30 per cent of their income on housing, says the report released Monday by Campaign 2000, a national coalition of more than 120 organizations dedicated to ending child poverty.

The findings, based on the latest 2016 census and 2015 income tax data, suggest poverty is linked to persistent discrimination and systemic inequality, rather than luck, or poor individual choice, adds the report.

Area single mother Jane Syvret, 27, who is of Indigenous and Black heritage, says her family is the face of the Campaign 2000 report. She and her three young children live in Regent Park, part of Toronto Centre, the riding with the fourth highest child poverty rate in the country.

The analysis comes in advance of Ottawa’s long-awaited national poverty-reduction strategy, expected later this month, and urges the federal government to act decisively.

“After decades of waiting for federal action, the first poverty-reduction strategy must ensure Canada stops only tallying the number of children in poverty and starts to number poverty’s days instead,” said Anita Khanna, Campaign 2000’s national co-ordinator.

“Given Canada’s wealth, no child should go to bed hungry. No parent should be forced to choose between paying rent and buying medication or miss out on work or training for lack of quality affordable childcare,” she added.

The coalition, which has been documenting “the failure of good intentions” to end child poverty in Canada for almost 30 years, wants Ottawa to set aggressive poverty-busting goals and timelines and is calling for federal anti-poverty legislation before the 2019 election to hold future governments to account.

Twenty-six ridings with the highest child poverty rates are in Ontario and half are in the city of Toronto, according to the report.

Syvret’s riding of Toronto Centre includes a large social housing community as well as pricey Bay St. condos, is home to many visible minorities and recent immigrants. A troubling 40 per cent of children in the riding are growing up poor.

Although she grew up in poverty as one of nine siblings in a family with working parents, Syvret says she never “felt poor.”

“We were a big loving family and we never wanted for anything at home,” she said in an interview. “There were always programs available to local kids, with mentors and people who cared about us.”

But as the area redeveloped, community programs closed in favour of new facilities that draw kids from across the city, leaving many local families shut out, said Syvret, who pays market rent and is struggling to survive on welfare with a newborn and two other daughters ages 2 and 9.

Although she has worked since she was 15 in recreation and food preparation, she knows minimum-wage jobs won’t pull her young family out of poverty. But adult education and skills upgrading programs are difficult to access, she said.

“Why is everything always full?” she said. “These are supports that are put in place to help. But if they are always full, that means there is not a lot of help.”

As Campaign 2000 noted in its annual report card last fall, more than 1.2 million children — 17.4 per cent — were living in poverty in 2015, including a staggering 38 per cent of Indigenous children.

Children are considered to be poor if their families are living below the Low Income Measure, after taxes, or 50 per cent of the median Canadian income. In 2015, that was about $24,500 for a single parent with one child and about $36,400 for a couple with two kids.

The coalition’s latest analysis shows 162 of Canada’s 338 federal ridings have child poverty rates at or above the national average and include both rural and urban communities represented by MPs from all political parties.

In the 66 ridings with the highest rates of child poverty, an average of 30 per cent of children — or more than 400,000 — are growing up poor.

Ridings with the least child poverty are still home to more than 90,000 low-income families and nearly 150,000 low-income children, the report notes.

Churchill—Keewatinook Aski in northern Manitoba has the highest rate of child poverty at more than 64 per cent, while the Quebec ridings of Montarville, in the southwest end of the province and Levis-Lotbinière, near Quebec City, have the lowest, at just 4 per cent.

In ridings with the most child poverty, an average of 16 per cent of residents are recent immigrants and about 37 per cent are visible minorities. An average of 45 per cent are renters.

In ridings with the least child poverty, an average of 6 per cent are recent immigrants, 14 per cent are visible minorities and just 21 per cent are renters.

Khanna says fighting child poverty requires a combination of financial and social supports to help families like Syvret’s.

“Universal child care, drug and dental coverage, affordable housing, improved employment insurance and support for workers are all needed,” Khanna said. “With every riding affected by poverty, every riding will benefit from a strong federal strategy.”

Source: Child poverty linked to discrimination and systemic inequality, study suggests

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Conservatives prefer an authoritarian God, liberals like younger, more feminine face, study says

2018/06/18 Leave a comment

Interesting and not surprising how preferences reflect values and ideologies:

Gone are the days when God was an old man up in the clouds, peering down with stern, aged eyes.

According to a new study, modern American Christians now picture God as a younger, cuter and more approachable guy who could just as easily be drinking a beer at the bar.

However, the tendency to group the apparent divine makeover with celebrities such Elon Musk and Ryan Gosling has left researcher Joshua Jackson shaking his head. Jackson stressed that the goal of the study was not to compile an absolute result but rather compare individual features that 511 American Christian participants chose out of more than 300 face samples, all constructed off an demographic average of the American face.

“The strength of the study is that the features people constantly collected aligned with their view of God and those are the features that you should compare,” he said.

On comparing the faces chosen by study participants, Jackson and his colleagues at University of North Carolina, were surprised to see a face ‘much more kinder and loving’ than the authoritarian old man painted on the Sistine Chapel, giving life to Adam.

Michaelangelo’s iconic painting of God giving life to Adam, on the 16th century Sistine Chapel.

Furthermore, comparing the study results with earlier studies that compared verbal descriptions of God, has Jackson and his colleagues revisiting the stereotypical notion of the old, bearded man altogether. “People were generating these benevolent, warm adjectives much earlier than the kind of authoritarian figure we see,” he said.

That’s not to say that the authoritarian description was thrown out of the mix altogether. Conservative participants still visualize a face that was relatively ‘masculine, older, more powerful and wealthier’, reflecting what the study called, their ‘motivation for a God who enforces order.’

Liberals, on the other hand, sought a God is socially tolerant and were therefore more lenient in their choices, picking faces that were younger, more feminine and more African-American than that of their political counterparts.

It all comes down to individual motivation, according to Jackson. “Some theory in research has argued that people’s views of the divine figures are related to their motivations,” he said. “And so people are more inclined to conceptualize a God that’s more suited to their needs.”

So, African-Americans chose someone who was marginally more black while Caucasians chose someone who was more white. People who perceived themselves as more attractive chose a better-looking God, fitting in with the researcher’s hypothesis that people would choose faces that matched their own.

Gender did not play a significant role in the choice of the divine. “It could be that people don’t naturally use their gender a reference point when they think of divine figures, compared to other physical features,” said Jackson.

Jackson said researchers were ‘surprised’ to not see a face that was more authoritarian.

“It could suggest, but not prove, that our view of God has been changing throughout history as this is naturally something people have definitely chosen,” he added.

Would researchers be able to expect similar results on surveying American Muslims, or a Chinese community? It’s hard to say. While it is possible to predict a face based on overall cultural motivations, Jackson does note that there will be ‘cultural differences that they won’t be able to account for, which can amplify across a geographical region’ and impact the results of their study.

Using the study composite comes with its own set of constraints as Jackson acknowledges that there are some features that have not been included in the base face. “We were never going to faces (in the study result) with a dramatic change, like the face of a brunette, or someone who has a beard.”

It is the first time that a study of this kind has used this method of ‘reverse correlation’, i.e., asking participants to choose randomly generated facial samples with subtle changes. While the method has been used for other purposes, i.e., to determine how participants visualize trustworthiness, previous studies on visualizing the divine have relied on using verbal adjectives.

Source: Conservatives prefer an authoritarian God, liberals like younger, more feminine face, study says

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Le Danemark déclare la guerre aux ghettos ethniques

2018/06/18 Leave a comment

Interesting reporting:

En ce matin de printemps, tout semble paisible à Mjolnerparken. Des pères accompagnent leur enfant à la garderie, des vieux discutent sur un banc et les coquelicots décorent l’ancienne voie ferrée devenue depuis longtemps un parc linéaire où s’ébrouent les enfants.

Comment imaginer qu’il y a un an, jour pour jour, un jeune homme de 22 ans a été abattu ici en pleine rue ?

« L’été dernier, pendant six mois, les fusillades se sont succédé. Les tireurs arrivaient en vespa et tiraient sur tout ce qui bougeait », dit Soren Wiborg, de la société Bo-Vita, qui loue ces appartements à loyer modique dans le quartier de Norrebro, à Copenhague.

Soren connaissait bien le jeune musulman tombé sous les balles des tueurs. « Il sortait de prison et essayait de s’en sortir. Il voulait se faire une nouvelle vie. Je l’aidais à chercher du travail, mais la guerre des gangs aura eu sa peau », dit cet ancien policier.

En six mois, la guerre entre les LTF venus des quartiers alentour et les Brothas de Mjolnerparken a fait trois morts et une vingtaine de blessés. Une trentaine de jeunes de cet ensemble qui compte 2000 habitants sont aujourd’hui en prison.

Dans son petit bureau, qui jouxte le Café Nora qui tente d’aider les femmes somaliennes à sortir de chez elles, Soren Wiborg a pour rôle d’aider les 300 chômeurs de ce groupe d’habitations à se trouver du travail.

« Et quand des parents me disent que leur jeune ne veut pas aller à l’école, je vais lui donner un petit coup de pied dans le derrière. Ça peut faire du bien parfois », dit-il en éclatant de rire.

C’est aussi Soren qui supervise les 15 jeunes du quartier engagés quatre heures par semaine pour nettoyer les parties communes. « Au Danemark, on n’a rien pour rien, dit-il. On a des services exceptionnels, mais il faut travailler pour ! »

La guerre aux ghettos

Avec sa population à 92 % étrangère (surtout somalienne, pakistanaise et arabe), Mjolnerparken est ce qui ressemble le plus à ce que le gouvernement a officiellement désigné comme des « ghettos ». En mars dernier, sans prévenir, huit ministres, dont le premier ministre libéral Lars Lokke Rasmussen, ont débarqué avec force police et mesures de sécurité dans la petite salle commune du quartier. Ils avaient choisi Mjolnerparken pour annoncer un vaste programme destiné à démanteler les 16 zones urbaines du Danemark que le gouvernement considère comme des « ghettos ».

« On doit pouvoir reconnaître notre pays. Il y a des endroits au Danemark où je ne reconnais pas ce que je vois », a déclaré le premier ministre. Au menu de ce vaste projet encore discuté au Parlement : la garderie obligatoire pour les enfants à partir d’un an, des cours obligatoires sur la culture et les valeurs danoises, un grand programme de rénovation urbaine, des aides majorées pour la recherche d’emploi et pour les étudiants étrangers ainsi qu’une peine qui pourrait aller jusqu’à quatre ans de prison pour les parents d’origine étrangère qui forceraient leur enfant à rentrer au pays, pour se marier par exemple.

Les demandeurs d’asile savent que le Danemark compte parmi les pays les plus généreux sur le plan social. Mais nous avons nous aussi des problèmes d’intégration. Il y a au Danemark des Somaliens qui vivent chez nous depuis 19 ans et qui ne parlent pas danois.

— Marcus Knuth

Intitulé Un Danemark sans sociétés parallèles, ce programme veut en finir avec les ghettos ethniques d’ici 2030. Afin de faciliter l’intégration, il veut notamment limiter à 30 % la proportion d’enfants étrangers dans les écoles. Parmi les mesures plus contestées, la ministre de l’Intégration, Inger Stojbert, surnommée « la Dame de fer danoise », a aussi proposé de pénaliser les bénéficiaires d’allocations sociales qui s’installent dans ces logements ainsi que des peines majorées pour les crimes commis dans ces zones sensibles. Il faut dire que la ministre n’en est pas à ses premiers coups d’éclat médiatiques. En 2016, c’est elle qui avait proposé de confisquer les biens des demandeurs d’asile qui dépassaient 2000 $ (excluant évidemment les bijoux et objets personnels). Plus récemment, à l’occasion du ramadan, elle s’est inquiétée de la sécurité dans les transports publics où certains employés pouvaient passer 16 heures sans boire ni manger.

« Tough love » à la danoise

Le porte-parole du gouvernement en matière d’immigration, Marcus Knuth, le reconnaît, la politique du Danemark en matière d’immigration ressemble un peu à ce que les psychologues des années 1980 appelaient « tough love ». L’amour vache, diraient les Français. Il faut dire qu’au Parlement de Christianborg, les libéraux gouvernent avec le soutien implicite du Parti du peuple danois, dont la plateforme est férocement opposée à l’immigration.

« Les demandeurs d’asile savent que le Danemark compte parmi les pays les plus généreux sur le plan social, dit Marcus Knuth. Mais nous avons nous aussi des problèmes d’intégration. Il y a au Danemark des Somaliens qui vivent chez nous depuis 19 ans et qui ne parlent pas danois. Nombre de problèmes de criminalité, dans les écoles et au travail sont liés à l’immigration. Nous ne voulons pas des immenses ghettos que l’on voit aujourd’hui en Suède. » Les 70 mesures votées par le Parlement depuis trois ans semblent porter leurs fruits. En deux ans, le nombre de demandeurs d’asile a chuté de 21 000 à 3500.

« Le gouvernement confond égalité et identité », estime Mohamed Aslam, qui habite Mjolnerparken depuis 1987 même s’il possède aujourd’hui une compagnie de taxis et emploie six chauffeurs. « J’aime vivre ici. Je ne partirais pour rien au monde », dit cet homme qui semble surgir d’une rue d’Islamabad. Arrivé du Pakistan avec ses parents, Aslam préside aujourd’hui l’association des locataires. Selon lui, il n’y a pas plus de criminalité à Mjolnerparken qu’ailleurs. « Il n’y a pas de ghettos au Danemark. Tout ça, ce sont des inventions pour stigmatiser les étrangers. Des mesures électoralistes », dit-il.

Un programme généreux

Il règne pourtant au Danemark un surprenant consensus sur l’immigration. Malgré des débats en Chambre, le programme est soutenu pour l’essentiel par les trois principaux partis de la Chambre : libéraux, sociaux-démocrates et le Parti du peuple. Selon Marcus Knuth, il est peut-être difficile d’immigrer au Danemark, mais le pays compte parmi les plus généreux lorsque vient le moment de faciliter l’intégration.

« Être réfugié au Danemark, c’est un emploi à temps plein », confirme Karen-Lise Karman, responsable des services municipaux d’intégration de Copenhague. Une fois admis, chaque réfugié reçoit une allocation de plus de 1000 $ par mois, la même que reçoivent les étudiants. Le nouvel arrivant s’engage ainsi à suivre des cours de danois obligatoires et à participer à une série de stages en entreprise de 12 semaines, chacun interrompu par six semaines de cours. Ce processus peut durer cinq ans, jusqu’à ce que le candidat trouve un emploi.

« Certes, il y a de la démagogie et de la stigmatisation dans les politiques de ce gouvernement, admet le politologue Jorgen Goul Andersen. Mais aussi beaucoup de générosité. » Selon lui, le Danemark annonce souvent ce qui s’en vient en Europe. « Nous avons été les premiers, par exemple, à créer un ministère de l’Intégration. Il y a 30 ans, lorsqu’on disait qu’il y avait des problèmes d’intégration, on nous traitait de racistes. Nos élites ont trop longtemps fermé les yeux. Le reconnaître ne nous a pas empêchés de demeurer une société très tolérante. » À ceux qui traitent le Danemark de raciste, le politologue rappelle que, pendant la dernière guerre, le pays a été un des seuls occupés par l’Allemagne à protéger sa population juive des déportations. Le Danemark demeure aussi un des cinq pays du monde à consacrer plus que 0,7 % de son PNB à l’aide internationale, alors que le Canada est en dessous de 0,3 %.

À Mjolnerparken, les changements sont déjà en cours. Une tour de 29 étages est sur le point d’être terminée. On y logera bientôt des étudiants et des familles de la classe moyenne. Dans deux ans, on ne reconnaîtra plus ce quartier, dit Hajji, un Ougandais de 53 ans. « C’est une bonne chose, dit-il. Ici, il y a trop de criminalité. Il faut plus de mixité. » Même s’il a quatre enfants au Danemark, il dit ne pas se sentir danois. « Le Danemark, c’est surtout pour les papiers, dit-il. Moi, je viens de l’Ouganda. D’ailleurs, j’y retournerai un jour… »

Source: Le Danemark déclare la guerre aux ghettos ethniques

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Harvard Accused Of ‘Racial Balancing’: Lawsuit Says Asian- Americans Treated Unfairly

2018/06/18 Leave a comment

Ongoing issue and debate in the US, which provokes the usual spill over in Canada:

In an intense legal battle over the role of race in Harvard University’s admissions policies, a group that is suing the school says Harvard lowers the rankings of Asian-American applicants in a way that is unconstitutional.

Harvard says that its admissions process is legal — and it notes that the plaintiff group, the Students for Fair Admissions, is backed by the same activist who previously challenged the University of Texas’ affirmative action policy.

The SFFA says Harvard uses “racial balancing” as part of its formula for admitting students and that the practice is illegal. In response, Harvard says the group is misinterpreting data that the highly competitive school shared about how it chooses students.

Citing a 2013 analysis by Harvard’s Office of Institutional Research, the SFFA said in a federal court filing on Friday that if academics were the only criterion, Asian-American students would have made up more than 43 percent of students who were admitted, rather than the actual 18.7 percent.

Even if other criteria — such as legacy students, athletic recruiting and extracurricular and personal attributes — are included, the plaintiffs say, the number of Asian-Americans at Harvard would still have risen to more than 26 percent.

Saying that the admission rate for whites outpaced that of Asian-Americans over a 10-year period — despite outperforming them in only the “personal” ratings — the plaintiffs allege that “being Asian American actually decreases the chances of admissions.”

In a statement, Harvard said on Friday that a full analysis of the data shows the school “does not discriminate against applicants from any group, including Asian-Americans, whose rate of admission has grown 29 percent over the last decade.”

Harvard says the OIR analysis was preliminary and that it will defend its approach to achieving a diverse school body and campus community.

Harvard told the court in Boston that the plaintiffs’ analysis paints “a dangerously inaccurate picture of Harvard College’s whole-person admissions process by omitting critical data and information factors, such as personal essays and teacher recommendations.”

The competing accusations are the latest salvos in more than 400 legal filings over the case, which pits Harvard against plaintiffs backed by Edward Blum, a former investment broker who has for decades challenged how institutions and governments incorporate race into their decision-making processes.

“We allege that Harvard has a hard, fast quota limiting the number of Asians it will admit,” Blum told NPR in 2014, when he first sued the school. “In addition to that, Harvard has a racial balancing policy that balances the percentages of African-Americans, Hispanics, whites and Asians.”

On Friday, the two sides put out a flurry of motions, memoranda and declarations, seeking summary judgments and showing how they intend to argue the case — which goes to trial in mid-October.

Citing “the undisputed evidence,” the SFFA said that Harvard intentionally discriminates against Asian-Americans and “engages in racial balancing.”

It also said, “Harvard neither gave serious, good faith consideration to nor took advantage of workable race-neutral alternatives.”

The university’s filings stated, “Harvard’s admissions process reviews each applicant as a whole person, using race flexibly and as only one factor among many.”

The school also said Blum’s group lacks the standing to pursue its case, saying, “SFFA is not a true membership organization that can sue on behalf of its members; it is a litigation vehicle designed to further the ideological objectives” of its founder.

To find plaintiffs for his case against Harvard (and a separate suit against the University of North Carolina), Blum’s organization put up the HarvardNotFair website, which asked, “Were You Denied Admission to Harvard? It may be because you’re the wrong race.”

Spurred by the SFFA case, Harvard has also drawn the scrutiny of the U.S. Justice Department, which opened a probe into the role of race in its admissions policies last November. The federal agency said it wanted to ensure the school was complying with the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In doing so, the Trump administration showed it was willing to explore a potential case over a complaint that the Obama administration had dismissed.

At least two of Blum’s earlier suits have reached the Supreme Court, including the Texas admissions case (which was referred back to lower courts) and a challenge to part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (which successfully argued that the law’s coverage formula was outdated).

Source: Harvard Accused Of ‘Racial Balancing’: Lawsuit Says Asian- Americans Treated Unfairly

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Douglas Todd: Why the Greens don’t attract ‘ethnic’ voters

2018/06/16 Leave a comment

Interesting. There may be differences between first and subsequent generations:

Why do Green party candidates only win seats in ridings where the vast majority of voters are white?

Federal and B.C. Green candidates have won election in only one concentrated region of Canada, on Vancouver Island and the adjacent Southern Gulf Islands, in ridings that have scant visible minorities compared to most of the country’s cities.

In the Southern Gulf Islands — the heart of the region that has handed victories to the lone federal Green MP, leader Elizabeth May, and to B.C. MLA Adam Olsen — only two per cent of residents belong to a minority ethnic group. That compares to 51 per cent of people in Metro Vancouver, where the Greens struggle.

Political observers believe the Greens’ poor showing among immigrants, ethnic Chinese and South Asian voters, and others, is the result of a common perception the party puts environmental protection before economic prosperity. The Greens have also had fewer resources to woo ethnic voters.

“The first generation of immigrants often leave their homelands for economic reasons,” says Shinder Purewal, a Kwantlen Polytechnic University political scientist. “They’re willing to work in any sector that provides jobs. Early Sikh immigrants, for instance, worked in the lumber industry. Environmentalists calling for preservation of trees were often seen as a threat to their livelihood.”

Purewal routinely hears Indo-Canadians remark on how “the Greens would destroy the economy. Not only do they think this would mean lower living standards, it would lead to the state not being able to provide social programs. … Immigrants, who come from countries with almost no social programs, appreciate Canada’s health care and public education, along with workers’ compensation, employment insurance and old age pensions.”

Regardless of which factors are strongest, it’s clear that visible minorities in Canada, many of whom are immigrants, are far less inclined to vote Green than are whites. Along with Green candidates drastically under-performing in ridings in which ethnic groups predominate, polls have revealed the party’s demographic affliction.

A Mainstreet Research poll conducted last year found 21 per cent of Caucasian British Columbians were ready to vote for the Greens. But support for the Greens dropped to eight per cent among ethnic Chinese in B.C., seven per cent among South Asians, 10 per cent among Filipinos and five per cent among Koreans.

The so-called ethnic vote is a major factor in B.C. elections, since at least one in five provincial ridings contains fewer white people than the combined totals of ethnic Chinese, South Asians, Koreans, Filipinos, Koreans, Persians and Pakistanis.

Most people of Chinese origin in B.C. “are still under the impression that economic development and environmental protection are incompatible, or even mutually exclusive,” says Fenella Sung, former radio host of a Chinese-language current affairs program in B.C.

The more than 470,000 ethnic Chinese people in Metro Vancouver, who predominate in ridings in Richmond where the Greens performed badly in last year’s B.C. election, tend to believe, rightly or wrongly, that the Greens are a single-issue party, Sung said.

“Since prosperity is their main priority, they think the environment can take a back seat,” Sung said. Chinese-Canadians generally believe protecting nature is something to be addressed only “after economic growth is sustained and job creation is guaranteed.”

Sonia Furstenau, the B.C. Greens’ deputy leader, said, “We’re really committed to improving the diversity of our candidates. It’s a real priority.”

The party is stepping up its message to ethnic minorities and others that protecting the environment does not threaten personal livelihoods, but will help create “more stable, long-term jobs than we have now,” said Furstenau, MLA for Cowichan Valley, where nine of 10 report English as their mother tongue, the fourth highest proportion of B.C.’s 87 ridings. The Greens, she said, also want to strengthen public education and the high-tech sector.

Stefan Jonnson, communications director for the three-seat B.C. Greens, which is supporting the NDP government, said up until recently most candidates in the small party have lacked finances to publish Chinese- or Punjabi-language campaign material or to appear at ethnic events. But that, he said, has been rapidly changing.

Hamish Telford, a political scientist at the University of the Fraser Valley, said the Greens “have to become a multicultural party if they’re going to break out of Vancouver Island. It’s not a party that speaks to immigrants.”

The tip of Vancouver Island and the Southern Gulf Islands are Green strongholds in part, Telford said, because they’re home to many Caucasians who have moved there from others parts of the province and country “to retire and enjoy the beauty of the place, the peace and outdoors.”

After travelling to the Punjab in India, the homeland of hundreds of thousands of B.C. residents, Telford was strengthened in his perception that “Punjabis are a very political people.” While Sikh and Hindu nationalist parties are notable in the Punjab, he said, there are few signs of an environmental movement.

Since roughly a quarter of the students in Telford’s classrooms on the Abbotsford campus are South Asian, he has learned many are keen about economics, immigration, racism and social programs.

But hope for the Greens may lie in such students, he said. “The ones born and raised here tend to skew to the left and to have the same concerns as other young Canadians. Some are interested in the Greens. That’s not so much the case for the older generations.”

Source: Douglas Todd: Why the Greens don’t attract ‘ethnic’ voters

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