Aussies Say Yes to Multiculturalism, Marriage Equality But No To Politics | PBA

2016/11/23 Leave a comment

The key findings of the annual Scanlon Foundation report:

The Mapping Social Cohesion report is the annual study tracking Australian attitudes on issues including immigration, multiculturalism, discrimination and political trust and is described as the largest study of its kind with a collective sample of more than 35,000 people since 2007.

Report author Professor Andrew Markus said while Australia was overall a stable and cohesive society, some indicators showed a negative trend.

“There was an expectation that following the victory of the Coalition government in 2013, there would be a significant increase in trust. However, in 2016 only 29 per cent of respondents have a high level of trust in the government, which is 19 per cent lower than in 2009,” Markus said.

The report shows one-third of Australians were politically disengaged with this year’s federal election. Some 34 per cent of survey respondents indicated that they had little or no interest in the election. Among young men aged 18 to 24 years, 23 per cent indicated that they had no interest at all in the election.

Results showed there was also a significant increase in support for change to the system of government – 31 per cent of respondents believed major change was needed, an increase of 8 per cent since 2013.

“One factor influencing disengagement and a lack of trust in the system may be a disconnect between politicians and the public on key topical issues,” Markus said.

Of those surveyed, 83 per cent of respondents supported medical use of marijuana, 80 per cent supported medically approved euthanasia, and 67 per cent supported marriage equality. Reduced reliance on coal for electricity generation was supported by 70 per cent.

The report said the findings also challenged the view that negative attitudes toward Muslim Australians, immigration and multiculturalism were increasing.

“Over the course of the last six surveys, there has been no significant shift in negative opinion towards Muslims, which remains in the range of 22 to 25 per cent,” it said.

Support for multiculturalism has also remained high. The 2016 report found 83 per cent agreed that multiculturalism had been good for Australia.

“There is a positive view of multiculturalism. Most people see multiculturalism as a two-way process of change, involving adaptation from Australian-born and migrants,” Markus said.

Scanlon Foundation CEO Anthea Hancocks said the report provided valuable insight for government, business and the community and those working towards building welcoming, inclusive communities.

The 2016 survey was conducted in July and August, in the weeks immediately after the federal election, and employed a national representative sample of 1,500 respondents.

Hancocks said the findings build on the data collected in eight earlier national surveys, produced in partnership with Monash University and the Australian Multicultural Foundation.

Summary of findings by demographics:

  • Almost a quarter of young males had no interest at all in the federal election, compared to 7 per cent of young women.
  • The biggest predictor of acceptance of immigration and cultural diversity is age, followed by the level of completed education and financial status. Strong rejection of immigration and cultural diversity was around 7 per cent among those aged 18 to 44 years and 4 per cent among those with a bachelor or higher level qualification, compared to 22 per cent of those over 65 years of age and 22 per cent of those whose highest level of education was year 11.
  • A minority of respondents, 26 per cent, opposed marriage equality. Further insight into attitudes to marriage equality by age group shows that of those over 75 years of age, 47 per cent were opposed, 34 per cent aged 65 to 74, and a much lower 17 per cent aged 18 to 24.
  • Support for multiculturalism remains high at 83 per cent, and the strongest positive association of multiculturalism is with its contribution to economic development.
  • Sense of belonging in Australia remains high at 91 per cent, but is lower than the 94 per cent to 96 per cent reported between 2007 and 2012.
  • Just 34 per cent considered that the immigration intake was “too high”, the lowest recorded in the Scanlon Foundation surveys.

Source: Aussies Say Yes to Multiculturalism, Marriage Equality But No To Politics | PBA

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Is the Mainstream Media Normalizing Neo-Nazis? – The Daily Beast

2016/11/23 1 Comment

Valid criticism:
The Los Angeles Times stands criticized for normalizing the white supremacist National Policy Institute, after a tweet that read, ‘Meet the new think tank in town: The ‘alt-right’ comes to Washington.’

When the Los Angeles Times’s social media team tweeted a link to a story about last Saturday’s celebratory post-election gathering in Washington of racists, anti-Semites, and white nationalists, the reaction—at least by some—was collective outrage.

“Worthless @latimes covers resurgent neo-Nazi movement as if it was a new boy band,” one of dozens of aggrieved readers tweeted after the paper touted the story on the benignly yet deceptively named National Policy Institute with the cheeky tweet, “Meet the new think tank in town: The ‘alt-right’ comes to Washington.”

“This tweet by the @latimes is beyond offensive,” liberal radio host Roland Martin posted on Twitter. “Calling these white nationalists a ‘think tank’ is atrocious.”

Another critic, actor Adam Shapiro, who was in the cast of Aaron Sorkin’s Steve Jobsbiopic, objected to the respectful attention the Times’s coverage of the conference accorded National Policy Institute president Richard Spencer, who is credited with coining the term “alt-right” for his fellow twenty- and thirty-something clean-cut millennials who would rather not be tagged as xenophobic thugs.

“WTF?! Why are you glamorizing this guy, @latimes? This is not a think tank. It’s a hate group,” Shapiro tweeted in response not only to Lisa Mascaro’s story—which quoted Spencer as hailing “the alt-right as an intellectual vanguard”—but also to an accompanying video in which the telegenic and articulate white nationalist was given four unchallenged minutes to reasonably explain his dream “to influence politics and influence culture” to restore white people of European descent to unquestioned power and social dominance, adding, “I think we have an amazing opportunity to do that with Donald Trump.”

Another tweeter, technology reporter Jack Smith IV, posted: “What ‘normalization’ ACTUALLY looks like: the @latimes running straight uploads of Richard Spencer sermons without qualification.”

In fairness, Mascaro’s story—which eventually carried an altered headline, dropping the “think tank” idea in favor of “White nationalists dress up and come to Washington in hopes of influencing Trump”—did point out that “the formally dressed men more resembled Washington lobbyists than the robed Ku Klux Klansmen or skinhead toughs that often represent white supremacists, though they share many familiar views.”

But unlike more unsympathetic accounts of the gathering in The New York Times and The Daily Beast, it made no mention of partygoers, including former MTV host Tila Tequila, jubilantly giving the Nazi salute and engaging in other less than democracy-friendly behavior.

Still, the LA Times story also quoted Heidi Beirich, of the anti-hate group nonprofit, the Southern Poverty Law Center, as warning against the “mainstreaming” of pernicious ideologies that the National Policy Institute represents.

“I don’t want anything to normalize the National Policy Institute,” she told The Daily Beast. “I think there has been a tendency in the press to not understand what the alt-right is—which is white supremacy. And I think we’re letting haters basically rebrand themselves to sounds less threatening—and that is very disappointing. I worry about that.”
Source: Is the Mainstream Media Normalizing Neo-Nazis? – The Daily Beast

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Apple’s executive ranks are still overwhelmingly white and male – Recode

2016/11/23 Leave a comment

The latest diversity reports from Apple and Microsoft:

Even tech companies with a commitment to boosting the diversity of their workforce are finding gains hard to come by.

A case in point is Apple.

The iPhone maker released new data Monday night showing that the company’s highest ranks remain even more white and male than the company as a whole.

Just 20 of Apple’s top 107 executives are women, according to a government filing, while only five are from underrepresented minority groups (defined as black, Hispanic/Latino, Native American or Hawaiian/Pacific Islander). Another 14 executives are Asian, while the remaining 88 are white.

Those numbers are roughly unchanged from a year ago.

In the next layer of management, women made up 27 percent of the workforce. More than 65 percent of those managers and mid-level executives are white, 23 percent are Asian, with just 11 percent from underrepresented minority groups and 1 percent who define themselves as multiracial. As with the executive ranks, those numbers are little different than they were in 2015.

The data is included in a form known as the EEO-1, which companies must file with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Even while publicly sharing the data, Apple has said that the EEOC data doesn’t reflect how the company itself breaks down its workforce, and is not the way it measures its diversity progress.

In August, Apple released its last public numbers, noting that 32 percent of its workforce was female and 22 percent of employees were from underrepresented minorities. The numbers, which represented slight increases from 2015, reflect global hiring for women, and only the U.S. with regard to underrepresented minorities.
Apple HR executive Denise Young Smith, speaking with Recode's Ina FriedApple

In terms of new hires, Apple’s figures were higher than its workforce as a whole, with 37 percent being women and 27 percent being from underrepresented minorities. (The data used for both the EEOC and Apple’s companywide diversity report covers the same time period.)

But if Apple’s gains are small, at least it’s moving in the right direction.

Microsoft, by contrast, released figures last week showing that the overall number of women at the company dropped in 2016 for the second year in a row. Microsoft blamed layoffs in its phone unit for the decline. The total number of black and Latino employees at Microsoft did go up compared to last year, but just barely.

And at least Microsoft and Apple continue to share their data. While many tech companies started sharing diversity reports several years ago, many have yet to offer updates this year, and fewer still have shared this year’s EEO-1 filing.

The EEOC, meanwhile, has used aggregate data to highlight that whites, men and Asians are overrepresented in high-tech jobs, while women, blacks and Latinos are less present in the high-tech industry than in the workforce as a whole.

While Apple is ahead of many peers in its percentage of women, and a leader in terms of employing underrepresented minorities, it has not been immune to criticism. Earlier this year, reports from Mic and Gizmodo raised allegations that some corners of Apple were home to a significantly sexist culture.

In an exclusive interview with Recode, Apple HR chief Denise Young Smith said the incidents described in the articles didn’t reflect the Apple she knows, but that the company did investigate, adding that “commensurate actions have been taken.” Such actions can range from an informal conversation to dismissal, and Apple didn’t disclose what actions it took.

Source: Apple’s executive ranks are still overwhelmingly white and male – Recode

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Val-d’Or is forcing Quebec to think about big problems

2016/11/23 2 Comments

More on Val-d’Or and its relations with its Indigenous communities:

Like many mining towns across northern Canada, Val-d’Or, pop. 31,862, is close geographically to a number of First Nations communities.

And people here say the allegations have strained relations between the town and the local Algonquin and Cree populations. Some Indigenous people are even calling for a boycott of the municipality for events and meetings.

If you say it three times, does it suddenly appear?

But the provincial legislature seems reluctant to discuss racism.

Parliamentary reporters in Quebec City noticed last week that both Public Security Minister Martin Coiteux and Native Affairs Minister Geoffrey Kelley refused to endorse the concept of “systemic racism” when asked about Lafontaine’s findings.

They preferred instead to speak of “social issues” or a “larger perspective” that needed to be considered.

That reticence was shared by members of the opposition. François Legault, leader of the Coalition Avenir Quebec, said he didn’t “like the word ‘systemic.'”

As for the Parti Québécois, Indigenous affairs critic Alexandre Cloutier would only say that the events in Val-d’Or raised the question of whether systemic racism was an issue among Quebec police. He left reporters guessing about the answer.

Ghislain Picard, chief of the Assembly of the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador, attributes this reluctance to talk about systemic racism to the government’s opposition to an independent inquiry into the relations between indigenous Quebecers and police.

‘A government in complete denial’

To date, the Liberals have been steadfast in their refusal to hold such an inquiry. They maintain it would simply rehash the work of the federal inquiry into murdered and missing Indigenous women, which has promised to look into the Val-d’Or allegations.

“They have refused from the beginning to acknowledge that there is systemic racism,” Picard said of the Quebec Liberals. “This is a government in complete denial.”

Indigenous leaders, though, have not been the only members of civil society pushing the government to take a sustained look at systemic racism.

A group called Québec Inclusif, based in Montreal, has also called for a public commission on institutional discrimination. They have the backing of the small progressive party Québec Solidaire and several prominent intellectuals.

While the government has indicated it is receptive to the group’s concerns — which include discriminatory hiring practices — it has yet to respond to their specific demand.

Is there, perhaps, a reason other than political stubbornness for ducking the question of systemic racism?

Our system of laws is designed to hold individuals -— people or corporate entities — responsible. The problem with systemic racism is that there is no Oz behind the curtain, pulling the strings.

The arc of the moral universe

Responsibility for such types of injustice don’t lie with one person, advocates suggest.

Structural injustice, the American philosopher Iris Marion Young once wrote, “is an unintended but unjust consequence of the actions of millions of differently positioned individuals … all usually acting on normal and accepted rules.”

Their argument is that confronting systemic racism may entail accepting that some of our most trenchant social problems are not anyone’s fault, but everyone’s faults— some more than others, to be sure, but each of us, if only a little.

The Indigenous leaders of Val-d’Or, and their advocates, have proposed a smaller step, one they nevertheless believe will help bend the arc of the moral universe back towards justice.

“We issue a message to the Quebec population to believe these women,” Michel said, after her meeting with the Crown prosecutors in Val-d’Or.

“Show these women, these victims, that there is someone, somewhere, who believes them.”

Source: Val-d’Or is forcing Quebec to think about big problems – Montreal – CBC News

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House more diverse, but still has a long way to go – The Hill Times Editorial

2016/11/22 Leave a comment

While hard to disagree with the overall tenor of this editorial, the more interesting aspects of Kai Chan’s in-depth work is less with traditional diversity – women, visible minorities, foreign-born, Indigenous peoples – is with respect to the lack of occupational, age, education etc where some of the differences between parties are striking.

Election 2015 - VisMin and Foreign-Born MPs.002

Note: Baseline for visible minorities is 15 percent, those who are Canadian citizens

The Hill Times conclusion only focuses on the former and is silent on the latter:

As The Hill Times reports in this week’s issue, this is one of the most diverse House of Commons in Canadian history, but it still has a long way to go to reflect Canada’s diverse population. More work must be done to elect more women, more indigenous peoples, more visible minorities, and more people with diverse educational and professional backgrounds. The House is still too white, too male, and too English.

According to research by Canadian expatriate economist Kai Chan, who has a PhD in economics from New Jersey’s Princeton University and is a self-described “data-junkie,”of 338 MPs elected in the last general election, the average group in the House is 50-59; the most common professional background is law; and the most studied subject is politics. Some 104 MPs, or 30 per cent of MPs, are bilingual; 47 MPs, or 13 per cent, were born outside Canada; and there are 88 female MPs, or 26 per cent of the House. Of the 47, or 14 per cent of MPs who were born outside Canada, 11 were born in India, six in the U.K., and four in Lebanon. Out of the 291 MPs, or 86 per cent of the House, born in Canada, 28 MPs were born in Montreal, 25 in Toronto, and 12 in Winnipeg.

According to the 2011 National Household Survey, of Canada’s 32.8 million total population, 6.2 million, or 19 per cent, are visible minority Canadians, including 1.5 million South Asians, 1.3 million Chinese Canadians and about 945,665 black Canadians. The Filipino population numbers 619,310, Latin American 381,280, Arab 380,620, Southeast Asian 312,080 and West Asian 206,840. And the total aboriginal population is 1.4-million.

“Canada is such a diverse country, it’s good to get all different voices,” Mr. Chan told The Hill Times. “It’s especially good because we live in a globalized world, and for Canada to really capitalize on its demographic dividend, we really should have all those people at the table.”

Canadians elected 60 lawyers, 47 consultants, 43 professors, 42 business people, and 41 executives. Some 63 MPs studied politics, 60 studied law, 27 studied business and 27 studied economics. Some 199 prefer English and 35 prefer French only.

In the education category, a total 136, or 40 per cent of MPs, have bachelor’s degrees; 75 MPs, or 22 per cent, have master’s degrees; and 30 MPs, or eight per cent, have PhDs. And 81 MPs have secondary or lower levels of education. The Liberals lead the pack with 22 MPs who have doctorates, followed by the Conservatives with five MPs who have doctorates, the NDP two and Bloc one MP. Of the MPs who have secondary or lower education, the Conservatives have the highest with 42 MPs, followed by the Liberals with 27, the NDP eight and the Bloc four MPs. The Liberals are far ahead of other parties when it comes to MPs who have master’s or bachelor’s degrees with 47 and 82, respectively. In the Conservative caucus, 14 MPs hold their master’s and 31 their bachelor’s. On the NDP side, 12 MPs have their master’s and 19 MPs have their bachelor’s degrees. Some 32 MPs attended the University of Toronto, 22 McGill University in Montreal, and 16 went to Queen’s University in Kingston.

Hopefully, all political parties will make a much stronger effort to recruit more candidates who are underrepresented in the House right now, including more visible minorities, more women, more indigenous peoples to run in the next election. Canada is a diverse country. It’s time that diversity was better reflected in the House.

Source: House more diverse, but still has a long way to go – The Hill Times – The Hill Times

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Douglas Todd: Are schools pushing aboriginal, ‘Buddhist’ spirituality? | Vancouver Sun

2016/11/22 Leave a comment

Good analysis, commentary and recommendation, slightly different take to the  column posted earlier (Ashley Csanady: Indigenous prayers in the classroom and all-Muslim suburbs are equally dangerous attacks on our secular society).

That being said, I am a great fan of mindfulness, as have found that useful in both my professional life (being more aware of my internal biases) and during my cancer treatments:

The aboriginal blessings and mindfulness exercises, while fine in themselves, inject a confusing shot of religion into academia, given many scholars would revolt if a university event began with prayer rooted in Christianity, Judaism or Islam.

What’s a way forward?

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Mackenzie ruled in 1999 that public education should be “strictly secular,” which he interpreted to mean it should not show favoritism to one religion over another. Beyond that, he said, schools should be ”pluralist,” or ”inclusive in the widest sense.”

Canadian religion professor John Stackhouse believes the B.C. parents objecting to having aboriginal spirituality and mindfulness imposed on their children have a case — and that the public-school system has “crossed a line.”

Just as there is no place for the Christian practice of baptism in public schools, Stackhouse says there is no room for aboriginal smudging or Buddhist-based mindfulness. And rather than creating the awkwardness of students opting in or out, he believes educators should just not invite participation in such practices.

There is a third approach.

Like many, including myself and the B.C. Humanist Association, Stackhouse believes schools should teach far more world-religion courses, so students can learn, in age-appropriate ways, about a variety of spiritual observances and worldviews, from Catholicism to Confucianism.

That should also fit with the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which recommended doing more to educate students about aboriginal traditions.

The actual practice of such rituals, however, is probably best reserved to individuals, families and spiritual communities.

Source: Douglas Todd: Are schools pushing aboriginal, ‘Buddhist’ spirituality? | Vancouver Sun

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When Hamilton actor appealed to Mike Pence, theatre showed its strength

2016/11/21 Leave a comment

Good commentary by Kelly Nestruck on the message the cast of Hamilton gave to VP-designate Pence, although he exaggerates the extent that theatre brings people together – there is a selection bias in terms of those who go to see the play, both from an ideology/values perspective as well as economic (check the price of those tickets!):

Theatre is a live art form – and, as such, it’s subject to alteration and improvisation and intervention at any given moment. Actors don’t have to stick to the script – and neither do audiences. This is something that has scared certain people, particularly those in power, over the centuries.

Add Donald Trump to the millennium-long list of puritans and politicians afraid of the democratic nature of the free speech zone that is theatre.

Last night, American vice-president-elect Mike Pence got an earful as he attended Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit musical Hamilton on Broadway.

First, the audience had its turn. According to reports, there were boos directed at Pence as he took his seat – and the cheers were exceptionally loud when the musical’s signature line arrived: “Immigrants, we get the job done.” George Washington’s line “Winning is easy, young man, governing’s harder” was greeted by more applause than usual by the audience, re-authoring a lyric Miranda penned written years ago into a dig at those about to move into the White House.

Actor Brandon Victor Dixon, currently playing Aaron Burr in the musical about the American revolution and its aftermath, then spoke to Pence directly during the curtain call. “We, sir, we are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights,” he said. “We truly hope this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and work on behalf of all of us. All of us.”

We haven’t heard from Pence about how he received this epilogue yet – according to AP, he politely listened to it in full from the hallway outside the auditorium.

The President-elect, Donald Trump, however, took to Twitter to condemn the Hamilton cast for having “harassed” Pence. On Saturday morning, Trump tweeted: “The theatre must always be a safe and special place. The cast of Hamilton was very rude last night to a very good man, Mike Pence. Apologize!”

What happened at Hamilton is a sign not of rudeness, however, but of the theatre in rude health. Anyone who’s a student of classical plays will know that prologues or epilogues directed at the “court” are a long theatrical tradition – and a little audience booing is pretty tame behaviour compared to the riots that have erupted at performances through the ages from Byzantium to New York in the 19th Century.

Trump is half-right about theatre, however: It is a special place, but not a safe one.

There is nothing “safe” about gathering citizens together in the same physical space and having them listen to characters in conflict, that is, with different points of views. It’s only seemed like it in the West for the past century or so as we’ve lived in societies that have embraced free, respectful speech and democratic debate in common areas like the mainstream media, now derided and dying.

Now, however, just how “special” theatre is has started to become clear again.

The Internet promised us a place where we would interact with people unlike us – but it’s actually delivered the opposite. Facebook algorithms shove us into silos of like-mindedness, delivering us news articles and opinion pieces that match our worldview and turn us against our neighbours. Twitter’s an echo chamber – and, on those rare occasions when those who disagree do come together on it, it’s usually to hurl insults at one another rather than to try to understand one another.

Theatre is one of the few remaining places where citizens come face-to-face, sit side-by-side to hear ideas for an extended period of time. This is, of course, what made theatre revolutionary when it was born as an art form in Ancient Greece alongside democracy. The great innovation of theatre was to bring the concept of dialogue to storytelling – and the classics scholar Peter Burian has argued audiences learning to listen to characters present different points of view in the theatre paved the way to them listening to each other in democratic discourse.

We need that civics lesson again now. Hamilton’s a great example of theatre’s power to create empathy for those unlike us, or those we might disagree with. On one level, it is certainly a product of the Obama years in the United States – through its diverse casting and hip-hop score, comparing the young Americans of colour and immigrants of today to the Founding Fathers.

But Hamilton also asks black actors and other actors of colour to play historical figures, none of them simple heroes, like the slave-owner George Washington. This is radically out of step with the political left’s current call-out culture – asking us to step into another’s shoes rather than judge them.

That is indeed unsafe to Trump and those like him who profit off the politics of division.

Source: When Hamilton actor appealed to Mike Pence, theatre showed its strength – The Globe and Mail

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A ‘Commission on Radical Islam’ Could Lead to a New McCarthy Era – NYTimes.com

2016/11/21 Leave a comment

Valid concern and parallel by Faiza Patel:

Presidents Obama and George W. Bush were careful to avoid tarring all Muslims with the terrorism brush. Six days after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Bushvisited a mosque to warn against the harassment of American Muslims and underline the need to respect Islam. Mr. Obama has sent the same message, refusing to even use the term “radical Islam.” This does not mean that the United States government has simply ignored the belief systems of terrorists. To the contrary, there are reams of research and several congressional reports on the topic. It seems unlikely that a Commission on Radical Islam would add anything.

Mr. Trump’s commission would be charged with identifying “warning signs of radicalization,” allowing it to veer easily into examining political and religious views. Both the New York Police Department and the F.B.I. have said that indicators of terrorism included political activism and signs of Muslim religiosity, such as growing a beard, wearing a head scarf or giving up smoking and drinking. Although these ideas have been thoroughly debunked by research, they continue to be influential and could serve as a basis for categorizing tens of thousands of American Muslims as potential terrorists requiring monitoring by law enforcement (or worse).

Research has also found little evidence of support for terrorism among American Muslims. James Comey, the director of the F.B.I., said, “The threat here focuses primarily on troubled souls in America who are being inspired or enabled online to do something violent.” This makes the proposed commission’s mandate of ferreting out networks that support radicalization sound like a witch hunt that could ensnare politically active American Muslims and the civil society groups that work to protect the community’s rights.

That seems to be what Newt Gingrich, one of the president-elect’s top advisers, has in mind. Earlier this year, Mr. Gingrich called for a new House Un-American Activities Committee to deal with “Islamic supremacists.” That notorious committee’s hearings and the investigations by Senator Joseph McCarthy into suspected Communists represented some of the most severe political repression in American history and destroyed lives. Today, as falsehoods are spread quickly on the internet and accepted as true, this risk may be even more acute.

These fears are not theoretical. Conspiracy theorists and pseudo-experts poised to peddle lies about prominent Muslim officials and groups have garnered support in both Congress and Mr. Trump’s inner circle.

In 2012, five members of Congress asked the State Department’s inspector general to investigate the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood on the department, citing family ties of Huma Abedin, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s closest aide. (The alleged connections were so convoluted that that they inspired a “Daily Show” sketch.) This summer, Senator Ted Cruz held a hearing in which a witness smeared the Islamic Society of North America, an umbrella organization for Muslim groups, claiming it had links to terrorist groups. The same witness also insinuated that the two Muslim members of the House of Representatives, Keith Ellison and Andre Carson, supported terrorism because they attended the group’s events, as had the Homeland Security secretary, Jeh Johnson.

The F.B.I. has a policy of marginalizing the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the country’s largest Muslim civil rights organization. The F.B.I.’s stance, which it claims is based on vague concerns over potential connections to terrorism, is difficult to understand given the bureau’s broad powers to seize the assets of any organization supporting terrorism. So unfounded is the F.B.I.’s stance that it has been resisted by its own field offices and the Justice Department, and the council is a frequent partner of local police departmentsand other agencies.

Baseless insinuations about Muslim groups and individuals are a regular feature on Breitbart, the website run by Stephen Bannon, chief strategist to the incoming president.

Like many campaign promises, Mr. Trump’s commission may never become reality. But it would be far harder to challenge in court than a Muslim ban or registry. It must be vigorously resisted as a threat not only to American Muslims, but all Americans who dread a return to McCarthyism.

Source: A ‘Commission on Radical Islam’ Could Lead to a New McCarthy Era – NYTimes.com

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Churches that grow tend to adhere to conservative theology, researchers say

2016/11/21 Leave a comment

Interesting study:

What St. Paul’s has in common with many other growing churches is that it takes what scholars describe as a more conservative approach to the Bible.

Conservative in this context is defined as taking a more literal interpretation of scripture and a greater openness to the idea that God intervenes in the world.

For years, scholars have tended to view the decline in religious attendance in the mainline Protestant churches as being unrelated to theology. But researchers David Haskell of Wilfrid Laurier University and his colleagues Kevin Flatt and Stephanie Burgoyne say that is not the case. The churches that grow tend to be those that adhere to conservative theology, the researchers say.

“What we found is that the conservative theological positioning of clergy and attendees is a significant predictor of numerical church growth,” Prof. Haskell said.

The researchers surveyed pastors and congregants in mainline Protestant churches in Southern Ontario – Anglicans, Presbyterians, Evangelical Lutherans and the United Church. They separated those churches into those in decline and those whose attendance has grown more than 2 per cent a year for 10 years.

Those in the growing churches are significantly more likely than those at the ones in decline to agree with statements such as “Jesus rose from the dead with a real, flesh-and-blood body leaving behind an empty tomb,” and “God performs miracles in answer to prayer.” They’re also more likely to pray and read the Bible daily, the researchers found.

Another interesting finding is the growing churches tend to innovate in the service. They are more likely to feature contemporary worship, with music that includes drums and guitars, while declining parishes often had the traditional organ and choir.

“These mainline churches that have conservative Protestant doctrine are like a peach: really easy to get into. They’re playing contemporary music, it’s family friendly, the pastor dresses in casual clothes, but there’s a hard core at the centre,” Prof. Haskell said. “The declining churches were more like a coconut. From the outside hard to access, and then once you were in, there really wasn’t anything in the middle. This is the impression we got from the criticisms of people who had left.”

Congregants at growing churches, frequently referred to their mission as evangelism.

Members of declining churches more often said their mission was the pursuit of social justice. Congregants tended to be about two-thirds over the age of 60 and their leaders tended to be slightly older than those of the growing churches.

Only 50 per cent of pastors in declining parishes agreed that it was very important to encourage non-Christians to become Christians, compared with 100 per cent among the growing churches.

Trying to explain why, in an increasingly secular society, some congregations grow and others shrink, is of importance to these groups. Attendance at most of the mainline churches has dropped by half since a peak in the mid-1960s, while the Canadian population has doubled, Prof. Haskell said.

Those that are growing seem to have success attracting adherents with a mix of evangelism and openness.

“When one’s doctrine reinforces a fairly literal interpretation of the Bible – and you take scripture like, ‘Go into all the world and make disciples’fairly literally, you’re going to be more inclined and motivated to use any number of innovative strategies to make the faith accessible,” Prof. Haskell said.

Source: Churches that grow tend to adhere to conservative theology, researchers say – The Globe and Mail

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The real secret to Asian American success was not education – The Washington Post

2016/11/21 Leave a comment

Interesting and relevant study on how barriers affect mobility:

This claim has been with us since at least the 1960s, when it served as a popular rejoinder to the challenges issued by the civil rights movement. Many newspapers printed flattering portraits of Asian Americans to cast skepticism on the people marching for economic and social justice.

“At a time when it is being proposed that hundreds of billions be spent to uplift the Negroes and other minorities, the nation’s 300,000 Chinese-Americans are moving ahead on their own,” claimed a 1966 story in the U.S. News and World Report, which noted their “strict discipline” and “traditional virtues.”

To the extent that all myths are rooted in truth, this model minority stereotype recognizes a real pattern of Asian upward mobility. A century ago, Asian Americans were known as laborers of the lowest wage. They were ditch diggers, launderers, miners. Yet over the decades, despite poverty, racial violence and widespread discrimination, many Asians managed to clamber up the socioeconomic ladder.

Until now, the story of how that happened has been poorly understood.

“The widespread assumption is that Asian Americans came to the United States very disadvantaged, and they wound up advantaged through extraordinary investments in their children’s education,” says Brown University economist Nathaniel Hilger.

But that’s not what really happened, he says.

Hilger recently used old census records to trace the fortunes of whites, blacks and Asians who were born in California during the early- to mid-20th century. He found that educational gains had little to do with how Asian Americans managed to close the wage gap with whites by the 1970s.

Instead, his research suggests that society simply became less racist toward Asians.

Asian Americans have been part of the United States for most of its history. The first major wave of immigrants came in the 1800s, when Chinese laborers flocked to California to help build railroads. Their presence soon stirred up resentments among white Americans. The Chinese Massacre of 1871, which took place in the streets of Los Angeles, counts among the largest lynchings in U.S. history.


Asians in the United States have often endured racism. The internment of Japanese Americans during World War II is one of the most infamous examples. (Russell Lee, April 1942, Los Angeles. Library of Congress)

In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which shut the door on the influx of low-skilled Chinese labor. By 1924, nearly all immigration from Asian nations was banned. Despite widespread discrimination, many families remained, settling mostly in California. Opinion surveys from that era show that whites expressed extreme prejudice against both Asian and African Americans. Asians also lived in segregated neighborhoods and often sent their children to segregated schools. To survive, many opened their own businesses because no one would employ them.

Hilger’s research focuses on native-born whites, blacks and Asians to rule out the effects of subsequent immigration. In 1965, changing laws ushered in a surge of high-skilled, high-earning Asian workers, who now account for most of the Asians living in the United States today.

But even before the arrival of those highly educated immigrants, the Asians already living in the United States had more or less closed the wage gap with whites.

At the time of the 1940 census, Hilger found, California-born Asian men earned less than California-born black men. By the 1970 census, they were earning about the same as white men, and by the 1980 census, the native-born Asian men were out-earning white men.

Throughout this time, many Asian American families did invest, increasingly, in their children’s education. But Hilger discovered that the improvements in educational attainment were too modest to explain how Asians’ earnings grew so fast.

The picture became much clearer when he compared people with similar levels of education. Hilger found that in the 1940s, Asian men were paid less than white men with the same amount of schooling. But by the 1980s, that gap had mostly disappeared.

“Asians used to be paid like blacks,” Hilger said. “But between 1940 and 1970, they started to get paid like whites.” The charts below shows average earnings for native-born black, white and Asian depending on how much education they had.


(Nathaniel Hilger)

In 1980, for instance, even Asian high school dropouts were earning about as much as white high school dropouts, and vastly more than black high school dropouts. This dramatic shift had nothing to do with Asians accruing more education. Instead, Hilger points to the slow dismantling of discriminatory institutions after World War II, and the softening of racist prejudices. That’s the same the explanation advanced by economists Harriet Orcutt Duleep and Seth Sanders, who found that in the second half of the 20th century, Asian Americans not only started to work in more lucrative industries, but also started to get paid more for the same kind of work.

In other words, the remarkable upward mobility of California-born Asians wasn’t about superior schooling (not yet, anyway). It was the result of Asians finally receiving better opportunities — finally earning equal pay for equal skills and equal work.

Why couldn’t African Americans close the wage gap? It’s hard to say. Hilger found some evidence that there were underlying differences in skill. Between Asians and African Americans with the same amount of schooling, African Americans tended to achieve lower scores on military enlistment tests during the 1940s.

But it’s also likely that postwar racial attitudes shifted differently for Asians than for African Americans. In the 1850s, newspapers in California complained that Chinese immigrants were the dregs of the laboring class, having “most of the vices and few of the virtues of the African.” Yet by the 1960s, attitudes had completely flipped. Journalists praised Asians for being hard workers who cherished education, kept their heads down and rarely complained.

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