Barbara Kay: Liberals left reeling by clear, rational criticisms of M-103

2017/10/05 Leave a comment

It would be far more interesting if Kay, rather than writing about the witnesses she agrees with (and which the National Post seems to be featuring more in its news coverage) would write about the one’s she disagrees with and why (similarly, those in favour of M-103 should write about the critics’ positions and the reasons for their disagreements).

Otherwise, these commentaries only reinforce the respective bubbles:

With Parliament’s passage in late March of Motion 103, which condemned “Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination,” the Canadian Heritage Committee was tasked with a study to determine “what Canadians have to say” on the motion. Now underway, formal hearings are revealing what polls have already made clear: many Canadians find M-103 disturbing.

They dislike it because it singles out one religion for special consideration and because they don’t believe Canada is a systemically hateful nation. But they particularly fear its implications, as the principals behind M-103 — proposer MP Iqra Khalid, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Heritage Minister Melanie Joly, and Muslim community spokespeople — keep balking when called on to define “Islamophobia.”

(Feeding that fear: until B’nai Brith expressed public concern Monday, the newly-released Toronto District School Board’s Islamic Heritage Month Guidebook — citing input from some of the same actors engaged in promoting M-103 — defined Islamophobia as “fear, prejudice, hatred or dislike directed against Islam or Muslims, or towards Islamic politics or culture.” “Islam”? “Islamic politics or culture”? According to a TDSB representative, this ghastly mile-wide definition was chosen “in error.” Please, TDSB, a little respect for Canadians’ intelligence.)

Hearings began in June. Anti-M-103 activists, noting that the Liberals were allowed to call 36 witnesses, the NDP 12 and the Conservative Party 24, wondered if the fix was in for M-103 opposers. 

They were not heartened by Heritage Committee chairperson Hedy Fry’s on-record comment: “There is no guarantee that radical voices won’t speak at M-103 hearings.” So far, pro-M-103 voices predictably toe the Liberal party line that racism and Islamophobia are serious problems in Canada. What Fry might call “radical voices” have raised sensible, compelling challenges to this assumption, and have expressed concerns this kind of motion could eventually lead to politicians creating laws that further limit free speech.

On Sept 20, Toronto Sun columnist Tarek Fatah (himself a victim of oppressive speech codes in his native Pakistan) testified that discouraging or limiting criticism of Islam would, in effect, most harm those secular or free-thinking Muslims who came to Canada precisely for the freedom to speak their mind to Islamic authority figures as they could not do in their countries of origin. In any case, “You cannot define (Islamophobia),” he charged, “because the word is a fraud.” According to Fatah, these bold challenges earned him such frosty treatment from “the phalanx of Liberal MPs” and “haranguing” from Fry that one MP contacted him later to apologize for the “intimidation and bullying” he had experienced.

On Sept. 27, all four individuals who testified opposed M-103.

Father Raymond J. de Souza (speaking for himself, not the Catholic Church) said it was unwise to single out any one religion, and that government should encourage theological exchange rather than impede it.

Peter Bhatti, Chair of International Christian Voice, noted that his brother was murdered in Pakistan for daring to protect Christian lives from that country’s suffocating blasphemy laws. Bhatti said anxiety over the vagueness of the term “Islamophobia” was creating distress amongst Canada’s Pakistani Christians, who see M-103 as being tantamount to a repressive blasphemy law.

Jay Cameron, a lawyer with the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, denounced M-103’s linkage of the word “quell” to “climate of hate and fear,” as “quell” is a word normally reserved for policing riots, not words (excellent point). “Racism is something you can’t legislate against, per se, because it begins in the mind,” he pointed out.

Raheel Raza, president of the reform-oriented Council for Muslims Facing Tomorrow, asked, “Why are only Muslims mentioned by name?” and, “It’s not the government’s responsibility to babysit just one community.” She suggested that instead of the government deflecting attention from retrograde Islamic behaviours like honour killings and polygamy, Canada should take a leadership role in encouraging a return to a “free thinking” model of Islam, once a widespread norm.

The Liberals were back-footed by these forcefully argued dissents. Various Liberal MPs tried to “explain” the motion, muddying the “Islamophobia” waters further and monopolizing so much time that Conservative MP David Anderson accused them of “filibustering their time.”

One witness who earned the right to testify was shunted to “standby” status as a replacement in the unlikely event of a dropout. Major (Ret’d) Russ Cooper is a highly decorated combat veteran of the first Gulf War, recognized by the Air Force for courage and leadership in his role. The M-103 pushback campaign was kicked off by Cooper’s national anti-M-103 petition drive, which garnered 27,000 signatures and was then leveraged by other outlets to gain 200,000 signatures. Cooper’s prepared testimony to the hearings, which may never be heard formally, is a model of reason, clarity and high intelligence. You can read it in an online Canadian Heritage Committee briefing note. And the pith of his argument can be viewed on this concise YouTube video.

Stay tuned. Far from the slam-dunk feel-goody gesture it was meant to be, M-103 is looking more and more like a pivotal political and cultural moment in Canadian history.

Source: Barbara Kay: Liberals left reeling by clear, rational criticisms of M-103 | National Post

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , ,

Malaysia’s Slide Toward More Conservative Islam | The Diplomat

2017/10/05 Leave a comment

Another example of the negative influence of Saudi Arabia on moderates within Muslim majority countries:

Saudi Arabia has long seen Malaysia, along with Indonesia, as regional bastions of Islam, and has consistently tied its investment in both countries to Wahhabism – the brand of conservative Islam initially embraced by Muhammad Ibn Saud in 1744 through a pact with Abd al-Wahhab to expand the former’s empire. The pact resulted in support for Wahhabism gaining legitimacy and followers representing themselves as defenders of the true teaching of Islam. This position today is prevalent in Malaysia and Indonesia as a majority of Muslims in both countries conflate conservative Arab culture and practices with Islam, although historically, Southeast Asia has always been more inclined towards a more moderate version of Islam. A “good” Muslim to many in Malaysia is a person who adheres to Arab culture, and practices the literal version of Islam exported by Saudi Arabia. While Islam has been written into the country’s constitution as the religion of the federation, the constitution’s drafters saw only a ceremonial role for the religion. Shortly after independence, Malaysia’s first prime minister, Rahman, informed parliament that Malaya “is not an Islamic state as it is generally understood.”

The United Malays National Organization (UMNO) has dominated politics in Malaysia since independence in 1957, but has found it increasingly difficult to maintain its stronghold on government during the past two election cycles. Although initially rolled out as a strategy to curb the opposition Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS)’s, influence on young middle class Malays, UMNO has come to rely more and more on political campaigning focused on Islam to attract and retain the Malay vote. Many urbanites today worry that this shift will lead Malaysia down the rabbit hole of a stricter, more literal version of Islam instead of the more moderate and tolerant version upon which the nation was founded. In June 2014 while celebrating the 20th anniversary of one of UMNO’s branches, Party President and Prime Minister Najib Razak called on members to emulate ISIS to ensure the survival of UMNO. Quoting an example where ISIS defeated the Iraqi army despite being outnumbered, the prime minister said, “when someone dares to fight to their death, they can even defeat a much bigger team.” The statement was at odds with his support, made clear at various international fora, of a moderate Islam.

Economic inequalities, the government’s pandering to Muslim hardliners, and its silence on racially divisive politics have created a perfect storm – youths unable to compete in an urban setting find purpose in fundamentalist teachings. In the mid-1980s, radical Indonesian preachers Abu Bakar Bashir and Hambali set up a regional network of extremists in Malaysia. Today, the government invites the likes of Zakir Naik, a hate preacher banned in India, and the UK for talks in Malaysia, while it arrests moderates such as Turkey’s Mustafa Akyol.

The ease with which youths have access to fundamentalist thought is cause for concern. According to the Associated Press in spring 2016, authorities in Malaysia have arrested more than 160 for suspected ties to ISIS over the previous two years. Malaysian intelligence reports that about 60 Malaysian youths have been entrenched in ISIS’ ranks in Syria although former Inspector General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar has stated that about 50 Malaysians are looking to return home. If and when they do return, they will find large swathes of rural Malaysia eager to listen to tales of their jihad. Malaysia will inevitably continue down a less tolerant, more conservative path, unfriendly to unbelievers and suspicious of everyone not conforming to a fundamentalist way of life.

The reliance of successive governments on race-based policies to address the long-standing socio-economic inequalities has resulted in more racial and religious tension, thus rendering conservative Islam an attractive vehicle for change. Many are eager to look to Saudi Arabia for paternalistic assistance without much thought for the strings attached to the assistance. The closer Malaysia inches to the Kingdom, the wider the door opens for conservative values which criticize a gold-medal winning gymnast’s attire, call for a ban on a beer festival, and deny social justice and women’s rights. To contextualize how acute the problem is for Malaysia, Pew Research Center’s Spring 2015 Global Attitudes Survey found that only 26 percent of Malaysians were very concerned about the rise of Islamic extremism in the country. The same question yielded 48 percent in Pakistan, 67 percent in Lebanon, and 20 percent in Indonesia.

Source: Malaysia’s Slide Toward More Conservative Islam | The Diplomat

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , ,

Massey College and insidious racism on Canadian campuses – Abdullah Shihipar

2017/10/05 Leave a comment

Some context for this article: visible minority students are more likely to have a university education compared to non-visible minorities.

While there are issues, it does not appear to be holding back visible minority educational achievements:

While U of T weathered the Massey controversy, student leaders are beginning their terms across campus. They’re now busy working with their teams to plan for the new year and navigating racial tensions is bound to be a topic of discussion. Dealing with these situations would be difficult enough for anybody, but people of colour face an additional burden when taking on leadership roles.  I can relate to the latter experience.

I am of Sri Lankan descent. From 2014 to 2016, I served as the President of the Arts and Science Students’ Union (ASSU) at the University of Toronto, one of the largest academic student unions in North America. As president, I led a team of seven executives to advocate to the faculty on behalf of students, as well as run campaigns, services and events. My time at ASSU proved invaluable in my personal development, shifting my politics and dramatically changing not just how I saw the world, but how I interacted with it too. As much as I loved being president, the experience exposed me to subtle ways that racism operates. Too often, we think of racism in terms of extreme—the slur said on the bus or the mosque that was torched. More often than not, it’s more insidious.

Racism manifested itself to me mainly as a set of double standards. Student leaders are minor public figures on a university campus, so some criticism is to be expected. But during my tenure, it quickly became obvious which representatives were under the most scrutiny. For example, while it was commonly accepted that  representatives could be compensated for their labour, there were those who sought to challenge a meager honorarium I received.  These conversations happened in meetings and in face-to-face conversations, where I was made to feel guilty about collecting something that others were taking without challenge. These challenges did not seem to happen when the representative in question was a white man.

Leadership often requires making tough decisions on behalf of the student body. When you are a person of colour, you constantly wonder how your calls will be construed. From what I have seen on campus, people of colour are more likely to be accused of corruption, of not being transparent and, crucially, not being representative of the student body. This frequently manifested itself when student representatives would use their role to advocate for marginalized people and their causes. Just this past summer at Ryerson, two executives—who happened to be Black and Indigenous—at the Students’ Union launched a Colonialism 150 campaign in response to Canada 150 festivities. Other members of the unions’ executive complained of being allegedly kept out of the process and not consulted, adding that they would have taken a different direction had they been involved.

When you are agreeable, your race is rarely an issue. It’s only when you offer pushback or articulate policies that are deemed “too radical,” that you face harassment. Caricatures are created and  quickly posted on online message boards like reddit. White men are praised for strong leadership. But people of colour, myself included, are described as “bullies,” “aggressive” and “angry.”  In my case, more than one anonymous commentator on reddit thought it appropriate to call me a “dictator” and “tyrant.” Society already views people of colour, specifically Black and Brown people, as more violent, so it should come as no surprise that we are being described this way when we disagree. This sends a chilling message to representatives of colour—agree or be subjected harassment.

While people of colour can face harassment, on other occasions they’re simply not taken seriously at all. Ondiek Oduor knows all about what that’s like. Oduor, served as President of ASSU from 2016-2017 and as Student Head of Non-Resident Affairs at U of T’s Trinity College in 2014.  That year, the Student Heads team, who ran Trinity’s student government, wanted to implement equity reforms.  When it came to selling these ideas to the student body and the administration, the team made a strategic choice about who would speak.  “We collectively made a choice for the Male Head of College, who happened to be a white man to speak on these issues,” he says. “We knew it would be taken more seriously coming from him, rather than from person of colour or a woman.”

Ondiek, who is Black, describes his involvement at Trinity as “frustrating” and says everyday interactions made him acutely aware of the fact that he was in white space.  Frequently, when attending parties as a student leader with alumni at Trinity, some of the older alumni would often ask him “where he was from” or explicitly reference how rare Black students are at Trinity, whereas white student leaders would be asked about their studies.

Chris Ramsaroop, an organizer for Justicia for Migrant Workers, echoes some of Ondiek’s concerns about representation. Serving as President of the Student Administrative Council at U of T (now known as the University of Toronto Students’ Union) in 1998,  Ramsaroop says whenever people of colour raised concerns to those in the administration or to their peers, they were met with token gestures that were meant to pacify dissent. After a scandal surrounding Professor Kin-Yip Chun allegedly being denied a tenure track job because he was Asian, the university committed to reviewing its practices, but the promises were forgotten when student leaders inevitably ended their terms and passed responsibility to their successors.

If the consequences of getting involved in student politics are high for people of colour, then they are disproportionately high for women of colour.  Najiba Ali Sardar, a first generation Bangladeshi-Canadian activist served as Vice President Equity for the University of Toronto Students’ Union from 2014 to 2015. She says she found being a woman of colour in a students’ union to be one “one of the most taxing experiences of her life.” During her time as a student leader, a campus society decided to throw an insensitive “Mexican-themed” party. As VP Equity she started a dialogue around the event to explain to individuals why it was offensive. Rather than listening to her, she was attacked and harassed for weeks. Later, when the society did make changes, she found that her contributions to the discussion were not acknowledged. “It’s a bit disheartening to put all of your time, labour, and energy towards issues you’re incredibly passionate about, just to have all of that be disregarded.”

Racism in student politics is rarely visible to the average student, but takes its toll on student representatives. Accused of playing the race card, representatives are more likely to recede and play less of a role in the future; almost everyone I interviewed referenced being burned out.  This discourages people of colour from pursuing leadership roles in the future. If student leaders, a privileged group of students, are undergoing this type of harassment, then chances are, members of the student body are too. The people who contribute to this climate may not be bad individuals or may not intend to be racist, but that is how systemic bias works, it operates under the radar. This is not about accusing people of wrongdoing but rather about actively confronting these biases.

Universities can start to take steps to tackle this problem. The collection of race-based data is a first step, which some universities, like U of T, have committed to implementing. It will allow for better, targeted policies. To mitigate the barriers that prevent marginalized groups from getting involved in student government, universities and student organizations must work together to introduce bursaries, awards and honorariums to people of colour, especially for those who demonstrate financial need.  Finally, once in their roles as leaders, people of colour need access to support systems and student organizations need to ensure they have robust harassment policies that work.

When we talk about representation, whether at the workplace or at our universities, we have to talk about what that actually looks like; there is no use in having a diverse board if you don’t value the contributions of the people on it. We have a choice, we can either choose to do the hard work of achieving meaningful diversity, or we can continue on this unproductive path of tokenism.

Source: Massey College and insidious racism on Canadian campuses – Macleans.ca

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Why I quit the Art Gallery of Ontario: former Canadian-art curator Andrew Hunter explains

2017/10/05 Leave a comment

Interesting commentary on the challenge of making collections reflect current as well as earlier society. The National Gallery in Ottawa mixes Indigenous art with non-Indigenous art in its Canadian galleries in a compelling narrative:

An image greets visitors as they enter Every. Now. Then: Reframing Nationhood, my final exhibition for the Art Gallery of Ontario.

It’s called The Edge of a Moment and the artist, Meryl McMaster, is seen pausing at the lip of Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, a sheer cliff face in Southern Alberta: Treaty 7 territory, her ancestors’ homeland. As she moves north, her face, masked with white paint, turns toward me, away from the cliff.

She’s not looking at me, of course, but the image makes me feel conspicuous and so very present: McMaster, a strong voice within an emerging generation of Indigenous artists, moves with a confidence tinged with anxiety and sadness as she calls her “ancestors to travel with her into the future” — a future weighed down by the presence of my ancestors and our colonial legacy.

I had the honour to co-curate Every. Now. Then. with Anique Jordan, an artist, activist and independent curator based in Toronto. It was our critical response to Canada 150, designed to be a catalyst for significant change within an institution that remains (like so many others in this country) burdened by, and seemingly committed to, a deeply problematic and divisive history defined by exclusion and erasure.

Carried by the confident voices of many artists, Every. Now. Then. embodies the momentum of transformation that so many of us felt was powerful and real. Its reception, both publicly and critically, has been remarkable and moving; it confirmed for me that this messy, problematic initiative is in sync with this moment.

So my decision to give up my senior position at the AGO during the run of this exhibition has come as a surprise to many. Why leave now?

My choice rests in a disappointment: not in what we achieved, but the fragility of its ability to persist. As I leave, I worry about an institution wavering in its commitment to make space for new voices — voices traditionally excluded from senior roles at public cultural institutions in Canada.

It rests in issues that have informed my work as a curator, artist, writer and educator for almost three decades: the elitist, colonial roots of public museums, what being a public institution truly means, and who controls and is allowed to speak in these nominally “public” realms.

I have always been concerned about the role art museums play in the wider world, about how truly engaged they are with the critical issues of our times. I’m fortunate to be able to teach regularly on museum and curatorial practice (currently in the graduate program at OCAD University). We often begin with the origins of the contemporary museum, which was born out of the private collections of wealthy Europeans who had built their fortunes on the extraction of resources, and people, from the most vulnerable nations in the world.

Out of this dubious practice evolved public educational institutions, or so they self-described. Really, they were outward displays of power that reinforced class division and validated the corporate and colonial systems that had made their founders rich. From wealth came power and then cultural dominance: museums set social rules, coercing the broader public toward shared values they deemed to be “acceptable.”

Despite everything, for most institutions, that’s the model that remains: “Value” is decided by the very few and then presented to the many. When I look at the AGO and so many of its peers, I see an institution guided not by public participation, but by the generic, elite consensus that rules the global art market, which sees product over public good.

I see institutions that look for leadership and to fill critical content roles outside of this community and country (a remarkable community, by the way, of cultural professionals with diverse and distinct voices that has been deeply invested here for decades). At the AGO, the curatorial department is becoming dominated (at various levels) by individuals from, or primarily trained in, the United States. It has become abundantly clear to me that it is highly unlikely that the currently vacant position of chief curator — a critical role, from which many content decisions flow — will be filled by a Canadian.

I see too many who lack true knowledge of this place. I see those same people committed to sustaining dated academic divisions that wrongly take priority over the kinds of interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, community-focused work that is desperately needed for our culture to adapt and evolve.

The current program of reinstalling the permanent collections of European and Modern art, called Look: Forward, lays bare this disconnect: it lacks any deep engagement with Canada, Canadian art or the diversity of this community.

I see overgrown institutions grounded in a corporate model that appears uncritically committed to expansion at a time when we should all be making it a priority to question its role in the public conversation here, and acting against the destructive impulse of such generic “world class” aspirations.

The star system of the contemporary “art world” and the hierarchical corporate model create divisive, competitive, unhealthy environments for work. For Indigenous peoples, people of colour and many youth, these institutions remain unwelcoming spaces of trauma — spaces where their marginalization remains at the core of the institutions’ mission.

At the AGO, there have been some major contemporary exhibitions by compelling international artists in recent years (Theaster Gates and Hurvin Anderson, for example). But as with the new permanent collection program, very little has been done to ground these projects and make meaningful connections to the local, or break out of the rigidly defended curatorial silos. In these two examples specifically, opportunities for local engagement abounded; instead, they remained closed off by the barriers imposed by the global art world model, inoculated from real engagement.

Worse, they consistently overshadow, in profile and financial commitment, the work of leading artists in this region, who have significant, and long established, national and international careers. There are exceptions — Song Dong’s Communal Courtyard, initiated by former AGO chief curator Stephanie Smith, had a rich program of local content developed collaboratively across the institution and with community partners — but they’re all too rare.

Engaging with diversity has to mean more than just expanding an audience for an established model, to be more than some insidious missionary program of converting more to have faith in these institutions, and drawing communities into a program of their own marginalization and erasure.

These debates were front and centre when I was a student in the 1980s. The key critical texts of that time continue to be primary references, three decades on, confirming that little has changed.

Reading again the words of James Baldwin, who offered searing criticisms of the deep, systemic racial barriers of his day, I find his words familiar and offering a kind of radical hope. At the close of No Name in the Street, from 1972, he writes of a crisis, of racism and colonialism, a “global, historical crisis” not about to resolve itself soon. “An old world is dying,” Baldwin declares, “and a new one, kicking in the belly of its mother, time, announces that it is ready to be born. This birth will not be easy, and many of us are doomed to discover that we are exceedingly clumsy midwives. No matter, so long as we accept that our responsibility is to the newborn: the acceptance of responsibility contains the key to the necessarily evolving skill.”

And so I return to The Edge of a Moment, to that image of Meryl McMaster moving across that sublime landscape. I imagine her turning away and continuing on as I struggle to keep up. She walks with her ancestors into the future while I plead with mine to stay behind, to give up and give back this space. Undepleted.

Source: Why I quit the Art Gallery of Ontario: former Canadian-art curator Andrew Hunter explains | Toronto Star

Filed under Aboriginal, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

The Studies Behind Canadian Health Care Seem To Have Forgotten Us

2017/10/04 Leave a comment

Valid points. Studies need to reflect the increased diversity of our population:

One of the most important campaigns in Canada has nothing to do with politics. Choosing Wisely Canada is an initiative that aims to curtail the unnecessary tests and treatments in our health-care system. Started in 2014 by a team from the University of Toronto, Canadian Medical Association and St. Michael’s Hospital, Choosing Wisely is part of a global movement that first began in the United States by the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation. It now spans 20 countries across five continents and includes the majority of medical societies and associations, including those in Canada​​​​​.

The evidence to support a reduction in wasteful diagnostic and therapeutic resources is clear and uncontroversial. The Canadian Institute for Health Information estimates that 30 per cent of health care, or nearly 1 million tests and treatments annually, is unnecessary. This is a staggering figure, and especially worrisome given Canada’s growing health-care expenditure, which totaled $228 billion dollars — or 11 per cent of its gross domestic product — in 2016. A national effort to curb unnecessary testing and treatment not only makes medical sense, but is also economically prudent in the context of ballooning health care utilization.

Choosing Wisely hopes to achieve its goals through grassroots advocacy by publishing a series of practice recommendations for physicians based on peer-reviewed research. These recommendations, organized by specific specialties, are often based on meta-analyses of research already conducted in different areas of clinical medicine. Interestingly, many of the studies used to ultimately guide these recommendations did not collect data or outcomes on minority populations. In studies that did, most of the patientsanalyzed were Caucasian. It begs the question, is Canadian health care choosing wisely or merely choosing whitely?

Inexplicably, research data on minority and female populations is not collected in Canada — seemingly a theme in this country.

This is why it matters. The medical community has long ignored minority, female and low socioeconomic communities in its research initiatives. In order to combat this trend, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) passed the Revitalization Act in 1993 that mandated the appropriate inclusion of women and minorities as subjects in clinical research. Inexplicably, research data on minority and female populations is not collected in Canada — seemingly a theme in this country. Despite the lofty goals of the NIH, however, the research community has fallen well short of its intended demographic targets.

Clinically, this has significant implications. Studies have shown that a patient’s race and gender play a large role in disease screening, diagnosis and management. For example, the Framingham Risk Score, which is considered the gold standard algorithm to predict a patient’s 10-year risk of having a cardiovascular event, was primarily validated in the Caucasian population. Unfortunately, clinicians still rely on this tool and often apply it to minority populations despite it not accurately estimating their risk.

Similarly, research has shown that African American women suffer higher mortality ratesfrom breast cancer relative to Caucasian American women. It has been hypothesized that they may be at higher risk from early onset disease, which may put them at a disadvantage when considering current screening guidelines. These illustrations demonstrate that our medical research infrastructure has focused on promoting the health of patients who are most often male, Caucasian and well-heeled.

These research biases are hard to shake because research is notoriously hard to conduct. It first involves identifying a clinical question, generating an hypothesis, developing an experimental protocol and securing funding. Subsequently, researchers need to navigate the important but Byzantine institutional review processes before addressing the challenges associated with subject recruitment, data collection and analysis. Ideal research patients are those who have the luxury of time and who are able to travel to downtown research hospitals for repeated evaluation. It is easy to see how this is unlikely to include a minority single mother working multiple jobs in Scarborough.

Our society will migrate away from a one-size-fits-all health-care paradigm.

Canada’s Minister of Science, Kirsty Duncan, has recently called science sexist, but sadly stopped short of also calling it racist. She, did however, recently introduce the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan in order to address the chronic under-representation of women, First Nations, visible minorities and persons with disabilities among Canada Research Chairs. This laudable effort should also dovetail with the minister’s insistence — along with support from the newly installed chief science advisor — that taxpayer-funded medical research focus on all communities represented in our country and not just select groups. She could make significant strides in this area by following the NIH’s lead with a Canadian version of the Revitalization Act.

In an era that will be increasingly dominated by big data genomics, artificial intelligenceand personalized medicine, our society will migrate away from a one-size-fits-all health-care paradigm. Choosing Wisely will continue being an essential and vital initiative in helping to reduce unnecessary tests and streamline medical care in this country. Future iterations of its recommendations, along with any practice guidelines created, should endeavour to more comprehensively apply to and represent the great diversity of Canada.

Source: The Studies Behind Canadian Health Care Seem To Have Forgotten Us

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

People of color — especially women — aren’t being promoted in tech as fast as they should be – Recode

2017/10/04 Leave a comment

The latest diversity study:

While women and people of color are employed at tech companies in larger numbers than they used to be, their upward mobility at those companies has stagnated.

A study by the Ascend Foundation, an organization for Asian professionals in North America, examined tech professionals over a period of eight years using government data, and found that white men were consistently promoted at a higher rate relative to their non-white, non-male peers.

From 2007 to 2015, white men consistently composed a higher share of executive roles than professional roles at tech companies, the study found. It’s the reverse for Asians, Hispanics and blacks, especially if they’re women.

The study looked at Equal Employment Opportunity Commission data from 2007-2015 for manufacturing and information companies with more than 100 employees based in San Francisco and San Jose areas. This is used as a proxy for major tech hardware and software companies, which tend to be based there.

More than 1,000 Bay Area tech companies were included in this review, providing a wider lens than the data released by individual tech companies.

Some key findings:

  • Though Asian men and women were more common in entry-level professional jobs, white men and women were twice as likely as Asians to become executives.
  • Asian women were the least likely among any cohort to become executives.
  • Black and Hispanic professionals are much less likely than their white peers to become executives.
  • The number of black executives had increased by 43 percent in the time period examined. At the same time, there has been a decline in the number of black managers and black female professionals (which could spell trouble for the future executive pipeline).
  • Hispanics remained only 3.5 percent of all executives but declined from 5.2 percent to 4.8 percent of all professionals (also not promising for future promotions).
  • White women are now more likely to be executives than professionals, but they are still underrepresented generally — an issue with recruiting rather than promotion.

Source: People of color — especially women — aren’t being promoted in tech as fast as they should be – Recode

Filed under gender, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Toronto District School Board revises Islamic guide

2017/10/04 Leave a comment

Appropriate correction:

The Toronto District School Board said it will change portions of a guidebook that uses a definition of Islamophobia that a Jewish community group has called “overly broad.”

The guidebook defines Islamophobia, in part, as “fear, prejudice, hatred or dislike directed against Islam or Muslims, or towards Islamic politics or culture.” B’nai Brith Canada had complained earlier Monday that the reference to “politics” could lead to students or staff being punished for expressing dislike for the Republic of Iran’s persecution of LGBTQ people or restrictions placed on women in Saudi Arabia.

Hours later, TDSB chairperson Robin Pilkey said in a letter to the group that the updated guide will reflect the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s definition of Islamophobia, which makes no reference to politics.

Pilkey said the guide was not enforceable as policy and denied it would have led to silencing of staff or students.

“The TDSB welcomes important input from the community and from organizations such as B’nai Brith, however we must say that some of the suggestions made in your letter and subsequent news release are outrageous,” she said in the letter. “To suggest that the TDSB is encouraging students to stay silent about what they experienced in their countries of birth or that the TDSB is somehow banning students and educators from criticizing executions and other human rights abuses around the world is categorically untrue.”

The Toronto District School Board created the guide to be used in public schools in October, which it declared Islamic Heritage Month. The Toronto District School Board also celebrates Sikh Heritage Month in April and Jewish Heritage Month in May annually.

B’nai Brith Canada CEO Michael Mostyn said a school board representative told the group the definition was included in the guidebook “in error.”

“We thank the TDSB for acting swiftly to correct this serious problem,” he said in a statement. “The definition of Islamophobia initially presented by the TDSB was clearly inappropriate, and we look forward to seeing a proper definition presented to Toronto students.”

Source: Toronto District School Board revises Islamic guide | Toronto Star

Anthony Furey’s commentary from the Sun:

The Toronto District School Board is temporarily pulling an Islamic Heritage Month guidebook following complaints from Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith Canada, the Toronto Sun has learned.

The book, as I described in a recent column, is a robust 170-page document that encourages a great deal of religious intrusion in a classroom setting that’s otherwise supposed to be a non-religious environment.

The recommendations include reciting and explaining the Muslim greeting “As-salamu alaykum” (peace be upon you) alongside the singing of O Canada and inviting children to visit a local mosque. It also includes templates of famous mosques around the world for children to construct during cut and paste exercises.

But it’s the guide’s alarming definition of Islamophobia that has caught the attention of the leading Jewish advocacy group. The school board’s guide defines the term as “fear, prejudice, hatred of dislike directed against Islam or Muslims, or towards Islamic politics or culture.”

“The TDSB definition, if enforced, could lead to punishment for students or teachers who display “dislike” towards the persecution of LGBTQ people in the Islamic Republic of Iran, harsh restrictions on women in Saudi Arabia, and Palestinian terrorism against Israelis, all of which are examples of “Islamic politics,” an earlier press release from B’nai Brith Canada says.

The organization contacted the TDSB Monday morning and by the afternoon the school board had committed to pulling the online guidebook until they revised the definition of Islamophobia, according to B’nai Brith Canada.

“A link to the resource guide was provided to school administrators across the system,” TDSB spokesperson Ryan Bird told the Sun. “A revised version with an edited definition of Islamophobia will be available online shortly.”

It’s unclear if they plan to revise or remove any of the other controversial aspects of the guide.

“There are many students in Toronto schools who have come to Canada fleeing persecution from countries like Iran, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia — and now the TDSB is telling them to stay silent about what they’ve suffered. It’s simply ludicrous,” B’nai Brith Canada CEO Michael Mostyn said in the earlier press release. They’ve since issued another release thanking the board for swift action on the issue.

Source: Toronto school board recalls, revises controversial Islamic guidebook

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , ,

Quantifying antisemitic attitudes in Britain: the ‘elastic’ view of antisemitism | British Politics and Policy at LSE

2017/10/03 Leave a comment

I have quoted the entirety of  Daniel Staetsky’s post on antisemitism, and the nuances and different degrees of intensity. While he applies this analysis to antisemitism, the same approach can, and should, I believe, be applied to other forms racism, bias and prejudice:

Surveys of attitudes towards Jews have repeatedly shown that antisemitism in the UK remains relatively low when compared to other European countries. The last decade alone has seen at least 15 such surveys, all of which tell us that antisemitic attitudes in the UK are rather low in prevalence (around 10% of adults can be characterised as antisemitic) and that the trend in attitudes is stable.

Yet we know from the previous surveys of Jewish population that nearly 50% of British Jews perceive antisemitism to be a problem in the UK. How does one explain this dissonance? To begin to answer this question we propose a novel concept of an ‘elastic’ view of antisemitism. We develop this concept on the back of a large survey of antisemitic attitudes in Britain, conducted in the late 2016 and early 2017 by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research.

In line with the previous surveys of attitudes towards religious groups, we found that an unfavourable opinion of Jews is, distinctly, a minority position in Britain. In response to the question ‘Please tell me if you have a very favourable, somewhat favourable, somewhat unfavourable or very unfavourable opinion of’ [ Jews , Muslims, Hindus, Christians], 2.4% said that they have very unfavourable opinion of Jews, 3% have somewhat unfavourable opinion, and together these groups comprise 5.4%.

Further, we found that an unfavourable opinion of any religious group is distinctly a minority position in Britain. The most favourably seen group is Christians, perhaps unsurprisingly so, given the Christian heritage on Britain. The least favourably-seen group is Muslims: about 15% declared that they have strongly unfavourable or somewhat unfavourable opinion of this group. Jews and Hindus feature in-between.

We experimented with different response possibilities to the favourability question in order to test the sensitivity of our findings to the way the question is asked. Typically, survey questions include some ‘opt-out’ possibilities which could be used by people without strong opinions, people who have difficulty responding, and people who are not eager to reveal their true feelings. This led us to the decision to split the sample into two sub-samples, with half of our respondents being asked exactly the same question as before but with fewer opt-out options. A certain degree of sensitivity was revealed. Still, we found that only 2.4% of the population hold very unfavourable opinions towards Jews and 10.2% – somewhat unfavourable, together comprising 12.6%, raising the probability of Jewish encounter with unfavourable opinions from 1 in 20 (as a 5.4% level of unfavourability would suggest) to about 1 in 8.

Figure 1 casts the findings obtained so far in a graphic form and introduces the concept of an ‘elastic’ view of antisemitism that will pave the way-eventually- to understanding Jewish anxieties. The circle represents the population of Great Britain.

The proportion holding a favourable or neutral opinion of Jews is very dominant numerically – about 87%. The proportions holding unfavourable opinion are in warm colours:

  • 1)  2.4%: hard core negativity towards Jews (in strong red), a level repeatedly seen irrespective of the type of response schedule used;
  • 2)  3.0%: softer negativity (dark pink), a level of ‘somewhat’ unfavourable opinion obtained when many opt-out options were available, and
  • 3)  additional 7.2%: best thought of as latent negativity (light pink)-expressed only under a less ‘generous’ response schedule, in terms of response options available.

At the core of an ‘elastic’ view is the notion that one cannot measure the prevalence of antisemitism using just one number. All three figures appearing in Figure 1 are meaningful in their own right. The power of these figures is their capacity to capture the different intensities of negativity towards Jews. From the Jewish point of view, Jews come in contact with the entire spectrum of negativity towards them, and more often than not, they will have an imperfect knowledge about which part of the spectrum any given antisemitic view arises. It can arise from the segment holding a very weak and hesitant form of negativity towards Jews. However, there is only so much that a given Jew can do in the course of regular social interaction to clarify this.

An ‘elastic’ can be developed further. Attitudes in general, and anti-Jewish attitudes in particular, are not limited to simple emotional characterisations. In practice, we also offered our respondents a selection of specific negative statements about Jews. All of the statements have been known to resonate with Jews as antisemitic from previous surveys. Ideas around excessive and sinister ‘Jewish power’, ‘Jewish exclusivity’, ‘Jewish wealth’ and ‘Jewish exploitation’ (of other people-for economic or political gain) are the most common antisemitic ideas, but they are not widely prevalent among the British. In their strong form they are held by about 2% of the population, in their weaker form-by additional 10% or so. The most offensive and extreme forms of Holocaust denial are especially rare.

At the next step we collated these results into a single index of antisemitism, where each respondent who agrees strongly or somewhat with any of the negative views receives a score of 1 in relation to that particular view. We then sum across the responses to different questions and obtain a total score for this individual. The maximal number of antisemitic attitudes that one can hold is eight, which would effectively mean that an individual holds both an unfavourable view of Jews and endorses all specific antisemitic statements (seven in number, in this context). The minimal is one – which signals endorsement of just one attitude.

The distribution of this new variable-which we call the Antisemitism Index is set in Figure 2.

Note that:

  • 70% of British population did not endorse a single antisemitic attitude.
  • Holding 6-8 antisemitic attitudes is very low in prevalence, affecting about 2% of the population. This figure is remarkably similar to the levels of hardcore antisemitism captured by the favourability question (2.4%).
  • About 15% of British adults hold two or more antisemitic attitudes to some degree at least. Beyond this boundary are a further 15% who either strongly agree with, or tend to agree with just one such attitude. Accounting for all groups endorsing at least one attitude brings the total prevalence of antisemitic attitudes, at different intensities, to 30%.

How is this 30% best understood? Categorically, 30% does not represent the proportion of antisemites in society. Only a small proportion of them can be called antisemitic in a political sense of this word. What it represents instead is the level of diffusion of antisemitic ideas and attitudes, and the extent to which these ideas permeate society. With this we make a shift from counting antisemites to quantifying antisemitism, which may appear subtle, but it is very important for a proper understanding of Jewish anxieties.

This analysis suggests that while strong antisemitism is a marginal position in British society, antisemitic ideas are not. These ideas can be held with and without open dislike of Jews, and they are present to some extent in one third of Britons. In day-to-day life, the frequency of Jewish people’s encounters with antisemitism is determined not necessarily by the small minority of hardcore antisemites, but rather by much more widely diffused elements of attitudes that Jews commonly consider to be antisemitic. Thinly scattered and weakly held antisemitic attitudes matter, because they are more prevalent than strong attitudes, so the probability of an encounter is higher.

To sum up the most important lesson from the elastic view – the hardcore prejudice towards Jews is rare, but encountering some degree of prejudice is much more common, and, as a result, that kind of prejudice is more visible and more impactful when Jewish lives are concerned. In many instances, those expressing such views may not even realise that a particular comment or remark might be experienced by Jews as offensive or upsetting, but they can impact significantly on the perceptions, sense of comfort and safety, and, ultimately, the quality of life for Jews in Great Britain.

_____

Note: you can read the full report on which the above draws here.

Source: Quantifying antisemitic attitudes in Britain: the ‘elastic’ view of antisemitism | British Politics and Policy at LSE

Filed under Antisemitism Tagged with ,

Massey College professor resigns over racially offensive remark, cites lack of ‘due process’ 

2017/10/03 Leave a comment

Opportunity for dialogue lost.

Who among us has never made any such missteps? Marrus’ comments below highlight his personal dignity in dealing with the complaint, as well as the serious process issues he raises.

There is something shameful here about the lack of willingness or openness for dialogue, and the lack of grace in acknowledging that someone can make an inappropriate comment without being automatically labelled as racist, irrespective of their personal and professional history:

Michael Marrus, the history professor whose racially offensive remarks have led to a public controversy at the University of Toronto’s Massey College, has submitted his resignation as a Senior Fellow from the college, but says he is “disheartened” by the lack of dialogue between him and those who asked for his resignation.

“Where was the due process, where was the effort to hear me out, where was the effort to relate to 30 years of scholarship that have a lot to do with human rights? There is something cruel and reckless about this campaign,” he said in an interview with The Globe and Mail.

He had been trying to apologize for the comment he made, e-mailing the person he hurt and offended and trying to talk to them, but his apology was not accepted, he said.

“I was so sorry for having wounded someone,” Dr. Marrus said. “But nothing availed,” he said.

The resignation comes after an incident during a lunch last week that gave rise to a petition that was signed by almost 200 students and faculty at U of T.

Dr. Marrus was seated with three Junior Fellows, graduate or professional students who live in residence at Massey. Hugh Segal, the head of the college, who has – until recently – carried the formal title “Master,” came to join them. As Mr. Segal sat down, Dr. Marrus said to a black student:

“You know this is your master, eh? Do you feel the lash?”

The students have filed a written complaint with the college. They have not spoken about the incident to The Globe and Mail. Mr. Segal could also not be reached.

The petition, which was made public on Thursday, demanded extensive changes and asked Massey to sever its ties with Dr. Marrus.

“In our eyes, the very legitimacy of Massey College hinges on the effectiveness of your response to this incident,” the petition stated. “We encourage you to approach this moment with the seriousness it demands, and with the courage and vision to make this an occasion for fulsome transformation.”

On Friday, Massey College agreed to almost all the demands made in the petition, temporarily suspending the title of “Master,” beginning anti-racism training and offering a “sincere and unreserved apology” for the incident.

On Sunday, Dr. Marrus sent a resignation letter to Mr. Segal, in which he conveyed his “deepest regrets to all whom I may have harmed.”

“I am so sorry for what I said, in a poor effort at jocular humour,” Dr. Marrus wrote in his letter. ” I want to assure those who heard me … that while I had no ill-intent whatsoever I can appreciate how those at the table and those who have learned about it could take offence at what I said,” he wrote, adding that he will leave his office of 20 years as soon as possible.

An emeritus professor and internationally respected Holocaust scholar, Dr. Marrus is retired from U of T. But he has maintained an office and senior fellowship at Massey College, an affiliated independent college at U of T which opened its doors in the late 1960s. The fellowship carries no financial stipend.

“The decision [to resign] is the best one for me, the best one for my family, the best one for Massey College, for which I have a lot of affection and respect, the best one for the students who are so angry,” he said. “If so many people have announced that they don’t want me at Massey College, why should I persist?”

People may not believe him, Dr. Marrus added, but he is on the same side as those who launched the complaint against him. “I understand the anti-racist commitment of the people who have mobilized,” he said.

In addition to his scholarship, he has fundraised for Massey College’s Scholar-at-Risk program, which offers a haven for refugee researchers and has worked and written on international humanitarian law, he said.

“I feel uncomfortable citing all the work that I’ve done, but I have, and no one seems interested in it or interested in me,” Dr. Marrus said. “To be treated as a non-person is so wounding and so cruel. If you want to know what racism is it’s to treat someone as a non-person.”

 Source: Massey College professor resigns over racially offensive remark, cites lack of ‘due process’ – The Globe and Mail
Today’s Globe editorial says it well:

A senior fellow at a University of Toronto college made a stupid and hurtful racial comment to a black student last week and has been drummed out of his position. There is much to discuss here.

First, the comment. There is little dispute about what happened: Michael Marrus was sitting at lunch with three junior fellows at Massey College when the Master of the college joined them. Dr. Marrus turned to one of the students, who is black, and said, “You know this is your master, eh? Do you feel the lash?”

It is easy to imagine how hurt the student was. To find oneself the target of a bad joke about plantation owners and their tortured slaves, delivered by someone you barely know, at one of Canada’s leading academic institutions, would have been a deeply painful shock – one that absolutely required redress.

Now, the redress. Dr. Marrus has been forced to resign after a petition signed by fewer than 200 U of T students and faculty called for his removal.

He has not been given an opportunity to defend himself, or to apologize directly to the student. Nor is anyone on campus willing to take into account his much-praised scholarship about the Holocaust and anti-Semitism. That has been conveniently erased.

“I understand the anti-racist commitment of the people who have mobilized,” he said – something he would do, of course, given that he is a Jewish scholar who has spent a lifetime studying one of the greatest acts of racism in history.

In short, Dr. Marrus has been treated unfairly, which is as unacceptable as the remark he made. He has not sought to exonerate himself, but he deserved the right to make amends, just as the petitioners deserved the right to complain.

Instead, the professor has been summarily exiled by a widespread on-campus climate of illiberality that can fairly be characterized by “its self-exoneration from any and all contradictions; and its contempt for precedent, conventions… and civility.”

Those are Dr. Marrus’s words, from a piece he wrote in The Globe and Mail last July. He was describing the subtler traits of totalitarianism.

As for Massey College, it has announced that its head will no longer be called “master,” pending a search for another title, because the word, intended in this context to denote expertise – as in a Master of Arts degree – is presumed racist, and must be expelled.

Oh the irony. As Massey College was purging itself of Dr. Marrus, the Invictus Games for wounded warriors were holding their closing ceremonies a few blocks away. The event is named after a 19th-century poem, whose final lines are, “I am the master of my fate/I am the captain of my soul.” That is also the Invictus Games’ motto.

The poem was Nelson Mandela’s favourite and an inspiration to him during his long imprisonment, before becoming South Africa’s first black president. In 2013, Barack Obama, America’s first black president, speaking at Mr. Mandela’s funeral, closed his eulogy by quoting its last stanza.

If only they’d been educated at Massey College.

Source: Editorial Globe editorial: Massey professor showed terrible judgment, but the response was worse

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Why Canada’s political pipeline leaves little room for anyone but white men

2017/10/02 Leave a comment

Good study by Erin Tolley (disclosure: know Erin from our time together at CIC/IRCC and we remain in contact):

For women, the toughest hurdle is at the nomination level, the first checkpoint into the political realm.

Racialized minorities come up against barriers further along, beginning at the candidate selection stage.

That’s according to Erin Tolley, who teaches political science at the University of Toronto.

Tolley is among the first to map the race and gender of more than 800 people vying for a political party’s nomination ahead of the 2015 vote in 136 of the country’s most diverse ridings, where racialized minorities make up at least 15 per cent of the population, half of which are in Ontario. (Her tally uses Statistics Canada’s definition of “visible minority” and therefore does not include Indigenous nomination contestants or candidates.)

Wannabe politicians must first successfully compete for their choice party’s nomination in order to become the candidate in an election.

Though Tolley’s project is still in the works, early findings suggest political parties aren’t doing enough to diversify the pool of candidates.

“The dynamics for women and racialized minorities are different,” she said. “That’s important for parties to know because they therefore need to have different strategies if they want to attract and want to run women or racialized minority candidates.”

Women make up 52 per cent of the population, but only accounted for 33 per cent of nomination contestants across those 136 ridings. The proportion of female election candidates ticked up slightly, to 36 per cent, and 31 per cent of elected MPs in those districts were women.

That suggests women are less likely to throw their hat in the ring, but once they do, they fare well.

“Maybe women don’t want to run, they don’t want to be called ‘Barbies,’ for example,” Tolley said, citing veteran MP Gerry Ritz’s now-deleted and apologized-for recent tweet that referred to Environment Minister Catherine McKenna as “climate Barbie.”

Tolley put the onus on political parties.

“Political parties don’t do sufficient work to identify women candidates and encourage them to run,” she said. “Frankly, not enough fingers are pointed at political parties. We don’t need to change the electoral system to get women into politics. All parties need to do is nominate more women. It’s actually pretty simple.”

Racialized minorities don’t experience the same obstacle.

According to the data, minorities declare their candidacy in proportions that match their presence in the population. However, by the time Canadians go to the polls the share of MPs of colour is far below that.

“They want to be nomination contestants, but then the party is less likely to select them, and voters are even less likely to select them,” Tolley said.

Across the 136 ridings, racialized minorities comprised 38 per cent of the population and 37 per cent of nomination contestants. That dwindled to 33 per cent of election candidates, and to 29 per cent of MPs — an eight-point gap between the number of hopeful nominees and those who won a seat on the Hill.

A contributing factor is one Tolley has previously explored — that minority candidates tend to compete against each other in battleground districts.

That’s because racialized minorities are more likely to run, and win, in more diverse ridings, Tolley said. For instance, three candidates of colour may vie for their party’s nomination in an ethnically-rich district, and split the ballot.

“So, you have this big pool of people who are interested, but they’re competing against each other, essentially cancelling each other out — and that’s happening at each level,” she explained.

As for white men, their political possibilities widen.

Thirty-nine per cent of nomination contestants in those diverse ridings were white men, and they comprised 40 per cent of candidates on the ticket. Nearly half, 48.5 per cent, of those who won a seat were white males.

Source: Why Canada’s political pipeline leaves little room for anyone but white men | Toronto Star

Filed under gender, Government, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →