Working site on citizenship and multiculturalism issues.
2023/08/05 Leave a comment
Good commentary on a significant study (Le sentiment d’appartenance des immigrants au Québec s’effrite par rapport au Canada):
When then-premier Pauline Marois unveiled her sovereigntist Parti Québécois government’s proposed Charter of Quebec Values in 2013, she got an earful from an unlikely critic.
…
Source: Bill 21 has made immigrants in Quebec grow even more attached to Canada
2023/08/04 Leave a comment
Of note. Wonder what the data says about separations by the various equity groups and disaggregated groups for IRCC (overall government data indicate lower for visible minorities, particularly for Black public servants How well is the government meeting its diversity targets? An intersectionality analysis):
Multiple employees at the federal government’s Immigration Department said they were subject to racist micro-aggressions, harassment and professional marginalization during postings in its offices abroad, according to a survey commissioned by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.
Staff cited management making fun of their accents, and group leaders expressing “overt disdain and even hatred for people from certain countries and for immigrants to Canada in general, using racial slurs and stating support for violence against people from other countries,” according to a summary of the survey’s findings published by the department.
“Being a black person here is an extreme sport. I kid you not. We are not protected,” one employee is quoted saying in the document.
Another employee expressed the opinion that long, overseas postings have enabled a level of comfort for leaders to express racist thoughts.
“The space enables it. It’s like seeing a shocking example from a training happening right in front of you. Expressed by an older white man.”
Employees are unnamed in the survey for confidentiality reasons. Pollara Strategic Insights was hired to conduct the work, and it interviewed 62 staff members.
Some progress in last two years
Pollara conducted a similar survey in 2021. Back then, multiple employees described supervisors and colleagues using offensive terms with racialized staff, who, they said, were also getting passed over for international postings and other professional development opportunities.
The more current survey noted some progress and behavioural shifts in the last two years, but not at the IRCC’s foreign posting locations.
“There has been a shift in acknowledgement that there is a problem. And now we have data showing there is a problem,” one employee said.
The survey noted a number of staff found the IRCC to be a better workplace than other federal departments where they have worked, “both in terms of its internal diversity (at least at lower echelons of the organization) and in terms of its commitment to tackle racism head on.”
Pollara also found employees saw a slight increase in the number of racialized staff getting hired or promoted, and praised “an increase in opportunities for employees to share their experiences with peers and allies through multiple working groups.”
However, asked to rate on a scale of 1 to 10 how much of a problem racism was at the IRCC, some 63 per cent of the surveyed employees gave it a 7 or higher.
Participants also asked for the creation of an independent office to report racism-related complaints, suggesting the department should have an ombudsman.
IRCC union not consulted
The Canada Employment and Immigration Union, which represents IRCC employees, said it was surprised by the existence of the report.
“We’ve been raising the red flag for years about the systemic racism issues at the IRCC,” said the union’s national executive vice-president Crystal Warner.
“We’re a bit frustrated to learn at the last minute again that something has been done on this front and that the unions were not consulted.”
She said it is not surprising employees would be asking for an ombudsman’s office. “This is a department with some of the worst staffing violations with nepotism and the way they hire people,” she said.
The union launched a policy grievance about systemic racism with the IRCC last year.
Source: Immigration Canada staff in postings abroad mocked, harassed by managers: employee survey
2023/08/04 Leave a comment
The independentiste take:
Le 25 mars dernier, lors de la fermeture du chemin Roxham, le premier ministre Legault était triomphant : nous cesserions d’être submergés par un flux incontrôlable de demandeurs d’asile. Nous apprenons maintenant que cela n’a nullement été le cas. Le flux est aussi imposant qu’avant.
Il y a quelques jours, nous apprenions que six jeunes hockeyeurs ukrainiens qui ont été acclamés au tournoi annuel de hockey pee-wee de Québec l’hiver dernier revenaient à Québec pour y étudier. Oh, surprise !, ils viennent étudier à l’école secondaire « publique » de langue anglaise St Patrick’s de Québec.
Ces enfants ne satisfont pas aux critères généraux d’admissibilité aux écoles publiques anglophones du Québec, leurs parents n’ayant pas la citoyenneté canadienne et leurs frères et soeurs n’ayant jamais reçu la majeure partie de leur enseignement primaire en anglais au Canada.
De plus, cinq des six joueurs ne sont pas, non plus, à la charge d’une personne qui séjourne temporairement au Québec. Reste une dernière possibilité de se qualifier pour être admissibles à l’enseignement en anglais dans une école secondaire publique du Québec : être admis en raison d’une situation particulière.
Venir d’un pays agressé par une puissance nucléaire constitue une situation particulière, c’est incontestable, tout comme peut l’être le fait de venir d’un pays soumis à une dictature ou d’un pays éprouvé par des cataclysmes naturels (incendies de forêt, tremblement de terre, hausse du niveau des mers, inondations, typhons, tempêtes tropicales, sécheresse, etc.), par des persécutions, des guerres civiles, une inflation galopante, une banqueroute nationale et le reste.
Tous ces gens possiblement admissibles ont potentiellement plus de chances de s’inscrire dans les écoles primaires et secondaires publiques anglophones du Québec que les « Québécois francophones de souche » eux-mêmes. Nous sommes dans l’absurdité absolue.Improvisation
Nous nageons, en matière d’immigration au Canada (et conséquemment, au Québec), dans l’improvisation et l’arbitraire les plus complets. S’ajoute à cela la décision du Canada anglais et de son gouvernement national de passer de 40 à 100 millions d’habitants au Canada d’ici 75 ans ; cela, sans qu’à aucun moment ne soit prise en considération l’incidence qu’une telle politique est susceptible d’avoir sur ce qui fut longtemps (jusque vers 1835) la majorité du Canada, la « nation » québécoise (officiellement reconnue comme telle par le Parlement canadien).
Face à tout cela, François Legault et la CAQ optent pour la politique de l’autruche. Les victoires sur papier sont célébrées, mais l’évidence du cul-de-sac dans lequel nous nous trouvons comme population francophone en Amérique ne les incite aucunement à remettre en question le cadre constitutionnel qui nous condamne à l’assimilation du fait :
1- De l’absence totale de prise sur les migrations interprovinciales ;
2- De l’omniprésence d’établissements primaires et secondaires anglophones à travers le territoire du Québec ;
3- De la marginalisation accélérée de la population francophone et du Québec à l’intérieur du Canada.
Tout homme d’État responsable ferait tout pour que la seule et unique voie de sortie, soit celle de la souveraineté, soit examinée avec sérieux. Or, le premier ministre Legault et son parti sont chaque jour plus fédéralistes et plus antisouverainistes.
Depuis sa fondation, la CAQ n’a jamais eu d’objectif plus évident que de tuer le mouvement souverainiste en se prétendant « nationaliste » tout en étant secrètement aussi fédéraliste que le Parti libéral du Québec. Sans la fondation de ce parti, Pauline Marois aurait, selon toute vraisemblance, eu droit à un premier mandat majoritaire et à un deuxième mandat, au moins minoritaire.
Un vrai parti québécois fédéraliste et nationaliste (ce que fut l’Union nationale de Maurice Duplessis) doit, au minimum, veiller à ce que le poids démographique du Québec ne chute pas à l’intérieur du Canada. Or, la CAQ opte à la fois pour l’extinction du mouvement souverainiste et pour la réduction voulue et planifiée du poids du Québec à l’intérieur de l’ensemble canadien. Cela est tout simplement suicidaire.
Face à l’histoire, François Legault et la CAQ porteront une immense responsabilité advenant notre transformation en simple groupe ethnique assimilé parmi d’autres. En sont-ils conscients ?
2023/08/04 Leave a comment
Understandable. But similarly need to be mindful of counterproductive approaches as this case illustrates:
A coalition of Black community organizations in Ontario is expressing concern that a government review of the circumstances that led to the death of a former Toronto District School Board principal will put anti-racism and equity measures under unfair scrutiny.
Speaking in front of the provincial legislature in Queen’s Park on Wednesday, representatives of the organizations said the death of the principal, Richard Bilkszto, is being used to dismantle these diversity measures at school boards and to discredit Kike Ojo-Thompson, an anti-racism trainer who led a workshop the former principal attended two years ago.
Mr. Bilkszto retired from the school board in 2019 after more than two decades in education, but continued to work on a contract basis. His lawyer, Lisa Bildy, has said he died in July by suicide. He had filed a lawsuit against the school board, alleging it had failed to protect him after a confrontation with Ms. Ojo-Thompson during the workshop.
Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce characterized Mr. Bilkszto’s allegations as “serious and disturbing” in a statement last month. He said that his government would review the circumstances that led to the educator’s death.
It is not clear if the workshop played any role in the death. Even so, the incident has galvanized right-wing commentators, who have been critical of equity, diversity, and inclusion training at school boards. The government has said it will investigate what happened during the workshop as part of its probe.
The group outside the Ontario legislature on Wednesday called for transparency in the government’s review.
“Any attempt to remove or restrict anti-racism education in this province will have severe and detrimental consequences perpetuating inequities and hindering the progress we have collectively made in fostering an inclusive and compassionate learning environment,” Amanuel Melles, executive director of the Network for the Advancement of Black Communities, told reporters.
“Any attempt to remove and restrict anti-racism education in this province, based on the death of one individual, is an intentional appropriation of the death for political gains,” he added. “This will not happen under our watch.”
Idris Orughu, a community organizer, told reporters there is an “active campaign to villainize and undermine anti-racism work in this province.”
The organizations are calling for the province to meet with them, reaffirm its commitment to anti-racism work and “denounce the scapegoating” of the trainer and her consulting firm, which is called the KOJO Institute.
In a statement on Wednesday, Grace Lee, a spokesperson for Mr. Lecce, said that while the review “into these disturbing allegations will occur, we remain firm that professional anti-racism and anti-discrimination training will continue.”
Before his death, Mr. Bilkszto was outspoken about diversity and equity issues. Last year, his name appeared on the conference agenda for New Blue, a newly created right-wing political party in Ontario. He was scheduled to speak on critical race theory in schools.
In his lawsuit, Mr. Bilkszto alleged that Ms. Ojo-Thompson “implicitly referred” to him as a racist and a white supremacist during the workshop, which was a professional-development course for administrators. Mr. Bilkszto alleged that senior school staff did not stop the harassment. He said this was contrary to the school board’s policy of protecting the well-being and safety of its employees.
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
A statement of claim provided by Mr. Bilkszto’s lawyer said that, during a session, Mr. Bilkszto expressed an opinion that challenged a claim by Ms. Ojo-Thompson that Canada was more racist than the United States and had “never reckoned with its anti-Black history.”
Mr. Bilkszto, who had previously taught in Buffalo, N.Y., disagreed and referred to Canada’s education and health care system. He said it would have been an “incredible disservice to our learners” to suggest Canada lagged the U.S. in this way.
In a session the following week, Ms. Ojo-Thompson emphasized the previous interaction with Mr. Bilkszto “as being a ‘real-life’ example of ‘resistance’ in support of white supremacy,” the statement of claim said.
Mr. Bilkszto said he was berated in front of his peers and felt humiliated, according to the claim.
In May, 2021, Mr. Bilkszto filed a mental stress injury claim with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board over the training. The WSIB decision, which was provided to The Globe and Mail by his lawyer, was in his favour. He was awarded almost two months of lost earnings in a ruling that described Ms. Ojo-Thompson’s behaviour during the training sessions as “abusive, egregious and vexatious.”
His lawyer, Ms. Bildy, said in a statement that the incidents caused her client “severe mental distress” and that he “succumbed to this distress.”
In a statement on the KOJO Institute’s website last week, Ms. Ojo-Thompson said her company would co-operate with the government review. She said allegations made by Mr. Bilkszto were false. The incident, she said, is “being weaponized to discredit” anti-racism work.
2023/08/03 Leave a comment
Good practical advice:
When you’re a new immigrant to Canada and entering the corporate workforce, you need to strike a fine balance. You need to believe in your value and in what you bring to the table, but also work to integrate into a whole new culture in which the learning curve can be steep. In the decades since I began that journey myself, I’ve gained a number of insights I wish someone had told me when I first arrived. I’ve also learned what some of the obstacles are that hinder growth and how to overcome those hurdles.
Communication styles may not be what you’re used to
I once had a manager who was a senior vice-president and managed more than nine nationalities. He said he initially tried the Canadian approach in other places he worked, but quickly discovered that each group wanted to be spoken to in a certain way. The British wanted things non-emotional while the Spanish were the opposite: he had to show he cared. French people wanted to start with an argument. He had to develop a playbook for speaking to groups from each nationality. But not every manager will have this skill level, so you may need to adapt.
In Canada, people often take a softer approach to communication than in some places. Feedback is often sandwiched – a positive, a negative, then another positive. If you don’t understand what a person means, be straightforward and ask direct questions. Don’t just let your imagination fill in the blanks. Also, be curious. Take the time to learn about what’s considered rude, passive-aggressive and so on, to prevent possible missteps.
Canadian corporations operate with flatter hierarchies than in some places
While there is hierarchy in the corporate structure, it’s not exercised the same way you may be accustomed to. I have seen examples of people who come from cultures in which having a title means they expect to be trusted blindly and to be treated like the boss. That’s acceptable in some cultures, but it doesn’t work that way in Canada. Leaders and managers are often less autocratic. This can play in your favour, in the sense that if you’re adaptable, you can gain advantage in a flatter structure that generally has decent respect for workers. However, if your mindset is stuck and you come from a place of entitlement or thinking that people owe you something, it will backfire.
One major difficulty can be feeling undervalued
Employers are often proud of being Canadian, and it can make employees, potential hires and even students feel that others are not good enough. Despite Canada’s messages about welcoming immigrants and valuing diversity, there is a difference between that initial PR machine and the on-the-ground experience, where people may make you feel like you don’t have the right accent or sufficient Canadian work experience.
And let’s be real – you may be subjected to discrimination, bias and racism. I myself have been isolated and bullied, and I’ve faced language barriers as a francophone; even after all these years, my mind works differently than those whose first language is English.
These factors can hinder your growth.
Networking is key
If you come here as an adult, you may not have school or university networks or friend circles. Join organizations, attend events and seek out networks to join. Find mentors and people who can guide and support you. Doing this, and finding the right mentor, can give you a real boost. Canada is a place where, overall, people take a favourable view of immigration and where there are many opportunities, but it’s important to be proactive.
Learn about your host country
Of course, you both should be learning about each other, but as an immigrant, you should take the lead. Learn about Canada’s customs and traditions. Don’t stay within your community exclusively – expand and meet others, including people who aren’t like you. It may be worth investing some time and money into additional formal education, too. It might not be easy, but it’s worth the effort, both for the diploma and for the connections you make while you’re doing it.
That being said, when you’re an immigrant, it’s not about becoming a different person.
Remember your value
You’re willing to face risk – or you wouldn’t be here. Keep that bravery, that sense of risk-taking. You may need to work harder or prove yourself more, and without drawing on that strength, you may quickly become disgruntled.
Be confident that you add value. Don’t come at it from the perspective of begging. If you’re here, it means you are adding value to this country. You add diversity to the table and it’s important. Celebrate your difference and see it as the positive that it is.
Finally, be willing to help other immigrants with the things you learn along the way. That, too, is an added value you can bring to Canada thanks to your own perspective and insights. Entering the workforce as an immigrant can be tough, but you’re tougher.
Karima-Catherine Goundiam is the founder and chief executive officer of digital strategy firm Red Dot Digital and business matchmaking platform B2BeeMatch.
Source: What I wish someone told me about working in Canada when I first immigrated
2023/08/03 Leave a comment
Of note (The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is well worth reading):
The family of Henrietta Lacks has reached a settlement with a science and technology company that it says used cells taken without Lacks’ consent in the 1950s to develop products it later sold for a profit.
Lacks was being treated for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins University in 1951 when doctors removed cells from her tumor without her knowledge or permission.
Those cells — now known as HeLa cells — had remarkable properties that allowed them to be endlessly reproduced, and they have since been used for a variety of scientific breakthroughs, including research about the human genome and the development of the polio and COVID-19 vaccines.
Lacks’ descendants have argued that she and other Black women were “preyed on” by a group of white doctors in the 1950s and that her family was never compensated for the use of her genetic material, which made such profitable scientific advancements possible.
“Not only were the HeLa cells derived from Henrietta Lacks — the HeLa cells are Henrietta Lacks,” Ben Crump, an attorney for the family, said during a news conference Tuesday.
Thermo Fisher Scientific, a Massachusetts-based science and technology firm, previously asked a judge to dismiss the case, arguing in part that the plaintiff’s claims were too old.
In nearly identical statements, the company and attorneys for Lacks’ family said the “parties are pleased that they were able to find a way to resolve this matter outside of Court and will have no further comment” on the settlement.
The terms of the settlement agreement are confidential.
Attorneys for Thermo Fisher Scientific said in an earlier court filing that only a “handful” of the many products that the company sells are “HeLa-related.”
Lacks’ life was the subject of a popular nonfiction book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and later a film of the same name starring Oprah Winfrey.
On its website, Johns Hopkins University says that it never profited from Lacks’ cells and that, though the collection and use of her cells was “an acceptable and legal practice in the 1950s, such a practice would not happen today without the patient’s consent.”
Speaking at Tuesday’s news conference, Alfred Carter, one of Lacks’ grandsons, called it a “day that will go down in history.” He noted that Tuesday was Henrietta Lacks’ 103rd birthday.
“It couldn’t have been a more fitting day for her to have justice, for her family to have relief,” he said.
Source: Henrietta Lacks’ descendants reach a settlement over the use of her ‘stolen’ cells
2023/08/03 Leave a comment
As can any group. Ibbitson and Bricker made the point about many immigrant-origin communities being more socially conservative in their 2014 book, The Big Shift but this has not hampered the Liberal government in the three subsequent elections, suggesting less important than other issues.
But valid that all parties need to be more careful in their ethnic and religious vote targeting to avoid greater divisiveness just as they also need to ensure inclusive messaging. Not an easy balance…:
Canada’s media-political universe continues to indulge one of the more fascinatingly insulting ideas in recent memory: That some socially conservative Muslims are lining up in opposition to LGBTQ- and especially gender-related school activities — drag queen story times are a prominent example — because they’ve been duped or manipulated into it by non-Muslim conservatives, especially those awful Americans.
There’s a far simpler explanation, of course: Muslim conservatives are leery-to-outraged by such things for the same reason non-Muslim conservatives are, namely some combination of religious and cultural norms, the shock of the new, and good old-fashioned gut instinct.
In addition, many Muslim-Canadians have their roots in countries where homosexuality is forbidden, never mind celebrated at elementary schools. It would be downright shocking if they had arrived pre-installed with Trudeauvian social values.
But some Canadian liberals just can’t seem to accept this.
“To some, the recent protests have been an example of conservative Muslims pushing back against causes championed by the left — which have in the past included standing against Islamophobia — amid concerns that prevailing progressive ideals conflict with their religious teachings,” the Toronto Star reported this week. “To others, it has tones of political manipulation, with members of a minority group being used to mask a larger push toward intolerance.”
“For white supremacists, expanding their base this way, or even appearing to grow support for their ‘causes’, offers (an) advantage,” Star columnist Shree Paradkar observed. “(I)mages with visibly Muslim people in their midst make for an effective cover.”
Paradkar called the situation “heartbreaking,” which epitomizes the condescension inherent in this narrative: After all Canada has done for these people, they take up with … with … conservatives? Woe!
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has ushered this idea from the country’s faculty lounges and opinion pages into the mainstream, lately lecturing real live Muslim Canadians in the flesh about the error of their ways. “Misinformation” about school curriculums and activities is “being weaponized by people who are not doing it because of their interest in supporting the Muslim community,” he recently admonished parishioners at a Calgary mosque. “These are people on the far-right who have consistently stood against Muslim rights and the Muslim community.”
There it is again — this idea that Muslims are defaulting on some kind of debt.
It’s an Upper Canadian twist on the narrative that’s taken hold in Quebec in recent years: Where Quebec nationalists and conservatives would rather Muslims abandon their hijabs and embrace French-style secularism (because it’s such a success!), liberals in the Rest of Canada are happy for Muslims to worship and dress as they please, just so long as they don’t fraternize with social conservatives or take up social-conservative causes.
This is not the multiculturalism that the Liberals market to potential immigrants — the freedom to believe and worship and influence Canadian society as they choose. It’s more akin to blackmail: “We support you. We stand with you. It’d be a shame if we stopped, wouldn’t it?”
I’m using a very loose definition of “social conservative” here, incidentally. A Léger poll for the Conservative Party of Quebec, published in May, found 38 per cent of Quebecers felt drag queen story times were inappropriate for children. Many if not most would bristle at being called socially conservative. And most would not show up outside a school to protest about it.
But there’s no good reason Muslims shouldn’t pursue so-con causes in Canada unabashedly. And if they make “unlikely allies” with their non-Muslim so-cons, as the media often put it, I submit that’s for one very bad reason: The paranoia over Islamic terrorism and mass Muslim migration that took hold in some quarters after 9/11, which thankfully in Canada has proven unfounded. If that’s now far enough behind us that conservative Muslims and non-Muslims can make common cause in pursuit of common interests, I dare say we might even be looking at a good-news story.
Surely Canada would be better off if its parties and candidates stopped courting ethnic and religious voters en bloc, as if membership in a certain community ought to determine one’s position on housing policy, or the GST, or carbon pricing, or all the other things that affect our day-to-day lives. It would be a big change for Conservative strategists as well as Liberal ones, but we would be much stronger for it as a nation.
Source: Chris Selley: In Canada, even Muslims can be conservatives
2023/08/03 Leave a comment
Valid observation:
Bigot.
That word — along with the corollaries racist, sexist, hater, et al. — get thrown around a lot, of course. It happens so often, these days, that those words have lost all meaning. Like they say: if everyone is a racist, then no one is a racist.
But Erica Ifill keeps at it, just the same.
To Erica, seemingly, everyone who isn’t like her — that is, a person with dark skin — is less than her. She’s been preaching division for years now, on social media and behind a paywall at the Hill Times. She calls herself “an award-winning anti-oppression journalist and economist.”
Full disclosure: I happily wrote for the Hill Times for years. When I was there, my editor was mainly Kate Malloy. Kate and I agreed that Hill Times columnists were not allowed to take cheap shots at each other, in the paper or elsewhere.
But if an occasion arose where criticism was merited, then the target would get a heads-up.
Other media have the same rule. When Ezra Levant and I did commentary at the Sun News Network, for example, we promised we wouldn’t go after each other — even though we didn’t particularly like each other. And we didn’t.
Despite that, I picked up the Hill Times one morning, where I found a column Erica Ifill had written about me. Among other things, she said I was toxic, unethical, disloyal, and that I had never “lived up to any modicum of respectable conduct.” And so on. Pretty good zingers, if not terribly original.
And then, she said I was a racist.
Given that I’ve spent most of my adult life documenting and opposing racism, that one was over the line — particularly coming from a newspaper I wrote for, and published without the courtesy of a heads-up. So, I quit, and I haven’t looked at the Hill Times since.
Until this week, that is. This week, Erica unburdened herself of some opinions that — if the world was still in any way sane — would see her losing her gigs at the Hill Times, Canadaland, CBC and the like. She won’t, but she should.
When Bingo, a Toronto Police dog was allegedly shot by one Kenneth Grant — the day after Grant allegedly shot and killed one Sophonias Haile in Etobicoke — Ifill was unmoved. Here’s what she put on Twitter (as it was then known):
“It’s amazing to me how white people show more compassion to animals than to people on the street. You people are reprehensible.” She then posted a graphic of a white person and a dog, mouth on mouth. It even looked sort of sexual. “WHITE PEOPLE BEFORE THEY LEAVE THE HOUSE,” the graphic read.
Can you imagine what would happen if a white columnist at the the Hill Times said that about black people?
Anyway. People were outraged, of course, because what the Hill Times columnist posted was insane. But she wouldn’t back down. She posted a “study” that read, in part: “The use of dogs as tools of oppression against African Americans has its roots in slavery and persists today in everyday life.”
“Slavery.” And here we simply thought that a dog had been shot and killed: turns out the dog deserved it, because of slavery. So said Erica, who wrote: “F*** Bingo. Guess he ran out of luck.” She then posted a smiling emoticon.
And, even then, she wouldn’t concede that she had gone too far. “Free speech is for white people and white feelings only,” she declared. She’d experienced a “whitewash,” she said. She was “glad y’all are offended,” she said.
For the Hill Times’ Erica Ifill, all of this is great fun. A giggle. She calls white people racist all the time.
She has suggested that “white people” have “a Nazi phase.” That Canada was “built on white supremacy and the fascism of right-wing, Christian dogma.” That Canada has “white supremacist and seditious elements within.”
Even the Justin Trudeau government is white supremacist, apparently: “When it comes to racism and white supremacy, this country continues to be two-faced. While the Trudeau government denounces white supremacist extremism at home, it meets with them in the dark.”
And so on, and so on. When you hear that Erica celebrated the death of Queen Elizabeth — a woman who “bathed in the blood of my ancestors” — well, none of this stuff is particularly shocking anymore.
It is, however, the sort of anti-white racism and black supremacy upon which Louis Farrakhan built his Nation of Islam empire. It is dishonest and damaging and divisive.
It is also the sort of thing you hear from bigots.
Like Erica Ifill.
— Kinsella is the author of the bestselling Web of Hate, and the leader of the group Standing Together Against Misogyny and Prejudice, which led a successful campaign against a pro-Nazi newspaper in Toronto.
2023/08/02 Leave a comment
A new study shows immigrants in London and Middlesex County regularly face discrimination with a majority of people surveyed reporting some form of harassment or discrimination.
The study, funded by the London and Middlesex Local Immigration Partnership, examined the experiences of 30 London and Middlesex County immigrant and racialized people.
Source: ‘Quite alarming’: Study reveals hostility toward immigrants in London, Middlesex
2023/08/02 Leave a comment
Of note:
Toward the end of graduate school, I embarked on a deeply personal spiritual journey, immersing myself in the study of the Qur’an. As a result, pop culture passed me by in the 1990s – including that era’s music.
So, it was only last week that I first saw the music video for Nothing Compares 2 U, the classic song by the Irish singer known professionally as Sinead O’Connor, after her death at the age of 56.The footage was mesmerizing and raw, and the glistening tears she shed elicited a well of emotions from me. And that voice! Words cannot do it justice.
I wasn’t paying attention in 1992 when she ripped up a photo of the Pope on Saturday Night Live, decrying sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. The photo had belonged to her mother, and upon her death, Ms. O’Connor took it with the intent to destroy it, in revenge for the ways in which she had suffered terribly at the hands of her mother, the Church and its institutions.
But the backlash was swift and brutal. Madonna, Frank Sinatra and Joe Pesci denigrated her; her albums were crushed by a steamroller at Rockefeller Plaza. Her actions were deemed “a gesture of hate” by Cardinal Bernard Law, the former archbishop of Boston, and “an example of anti-Catholicism” by a spokesperson for Cardinal Roger Mahony, then the archbishop of Los Angeles. (Cardinal Law would resign in 2002, while Cardinal Mahony would be removed from public duties in 2013, both for shielding sexually abusive clergy.)
Her courage was breathtaking. “I’m not sorry I did it. It was brilliant,” she told the New York Times in 2021. Nonetheless, “it was very traumatizing … It was open season on treating me like a crazy bitch.” The evisceration of her musical career was a steep price to pay for being a woman who was unflinchingly ahead of her time.
Throughout her life, Sinead O’Connor stood up for the dispossessed: abused women and children; gay, lesbian and transgender people; AIDS patients, racial minorities and Palestinians (she refused to play in Israel in 2014). She donated her Hollywood mansion to famine-stricken children in Somalia. There has been an outpouring of reflection about her honest struggles with mental health, and about her strength in the face of trials she endured, such as the heartbreaking suicide of her son last year.
But some tributes have underplayed her Muslim faith. In 2018, after years of studying texts from a range of religions and leaving the Qur’an for last (”I had bought into the nonsense that people talked about Islam,” she admitted), she found her home in the Qur’an, and changed her name to Shuhada’ Sadaqat. Umar Al-Qadri, chief imam at the Islamic Centre of Ireland and her spiritual adviser, spoke with NPR last week about what attracted her to Islam: “the fact that you can communicate with God directly,” he said, as well as the confirmation of the original Torah and Bible, along with the prophets.
A friend also gave her a hijab, which she donned in private, tweeting: “Not gonna post a photo because is intensely personal. I’m an ugly old hag. But I’m a very, very, very happy old hag.” Ms. Sadaqat would appear often in public wearing the hijab, believing that a woman had the right to wear it or not. In many photos, her inner radiance – her noor, in Arabic – shines through. And earlier this year, beaming from under her keffiyeh, she dedicated her Classic Irish Album award to Ireland’s refugee community: “You’re very welcome in Ireland. Mashallah. I love you very much and I wish you happiness.”
In a 2021 interview with Good Morning Britain, Ms. Sadaqat said that prior to converting, she would listen to the adhan (the Islamic call to prayer) and find solace in its perfection and optimism. And when she converted, Mr. Al-Qadri allowed her to give the adhan in his mosque; a recording of her prayer shows women, children and men of different races entranced, some weeping upon hearing her call. I wept too, when I watched it.
Upon Ms. Sadaqat’s death, many Muslims invoked another traditional prayer: “to God we belong and to God is our return.” It is a reminder that death will visit us all. She was our sister in faith, and we, her ummah – her world community.
She was a trailblazer, ahead of her time. Though she is gone, her light shines on. And while I may have missed her rise to fame decades ago, I am grateful to have learned – even now, after she has returned to God – about her compassion, her uncompromising commitment to justice, and her humanity. Let us all do the same.
Sheema Khan is the author of Of Hockey and Hijab: Reflections of a Canadian Muslim Woman.
Source: Sinead O’Connor’s road to Islam serves as an inspiration
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