Nicolas | Racisme anti-palestinien

2024/05/11 Leave a comment

As mentioned earlier, I think the existing forms of racism, anti-Arab for both Muslim and Christian Palestinians, and anti-Muslim for Muslim Palestinians, cover the essential. The substantive examples raised by Nicolas can be addressed under both:

On apprenait mercredi dans le Toronto Star que la nouvelle version de la Stratégie canadienne de lutte contre le racisme, qui devrait être rendue publique sous peu, n’inclura pas de définition du racisme anti-palestinien.

Cette stratégie, publiée pour la première fois en 2019, « est conçue pour jeter les bases de la lutte contre le racisme systémique par des actions immédiates à l’échelle du gouvernement du Canada ». Plusieurs groupes ont fait pression sur la ministre de la Diversité, de l’Inclusion et des Personnes en situation de handicap, Kamal Khera, pour que le racisme anti-palestinien soit désormais défini et donc reconnu par le gouvernemental fédéral, au même titre que l’islamophobie et l’antisémitisme, le racisme anti-noir ou le racisme anti-asiatique, par exemple. Ça aura été en vain.

Pour l’instant, on continue donc officiellement à dénoncer l’islamophobie, du moins sur papier, laissant de son côté le racisme anti-palestinien se déployer au Canada. Ce n’est pas suffisant. Voici pourquoi.

D’abord, tous les Palestiniens ne sont pas musulmans. De larges pans du mouvement nationaliste palestinien ont toujours cherché à se rassembler autour d’une identité culturelle et d’une situation politique — et non d’une religion. Le keffieh, par exemple, est un symbole à la fois culturel et politique, selon le contexte, mais pas un symbole religieux. Le foulard blanc et noir a pris la signification qu’il a aujourd’hui après avoir été porté durant des décennies par le leader palestinien Yasser Arafat.

Lorsque le parlement provincial ontarien prend la décision de bannir le keffieh de sa chambre législative, comme il l’a fait le mois passé, on empêche l’expression culturelle et politique du peuple palestinien dans son enceinte. Parler vaguement d’« islamophobie », ce serait ici très mal nommer les choses.

En fait, pour bien comprendre le racisme anti-palestinien, il faut savoir qu’il se déploie notamment comme une forme de racisme anti-autochtone. Et ici, je fais très attention à mes mots et aux explications que j’en donne.

Être autochtone est une catégorie politique, et non pas seulement ethnique. Ce n’est pas simplement un terme qui réfère à « qui était là avant ». Il est important de le comprendre si on veut éviter de remonter aux temps bibliques. Le mot « autochtone », dans nos instances internationales, réfère notamment à une catégorie de personnes qui se retrouvent sans État qui parle en leur nom dans le système des Nations unies, parce qu’un État s’est construit « par-dessus » leur territoire ancestral, en quelque sorte. Si le mot référait seulement à de vieilles racines dans une terre, tous les Français chez qui on décèle une forme d’ADN gaulois pourraient participer au Forum des peuples autochtones des Nations unies, pour donner un exemple grossier. Le terme « autochtone » prend une grande partie de son sens à l’intersection de l’« ancienneté » et de la dépossession. C’est en ce sens que je m’exprime.

Lorsqu’un État assied sa souveraineté sur un territoire en dépossédant un autre peuple de ce même territoire, il doit déployer un récit national et un appareil idéologique qui normalise cette dépossession. L’âge d’or du colonialisme correspond avec l’invention de l’idée de terra nullius, par exemple, qui veut que lorsqu’un territoire n’est pas occupé — et par occupé, on veut dire occupé à l’européenne, sujet à des activités économiques « productives » dans une perspective européenne —, il est considéré comme vacant et donc disponible pour la prise de possession coloniale.

C’est aussi en pleine expansion coloniale que Friedrich Hegel et plusieurs autres penseurs européens ont développé leurs idées sur la téléologie de l’Histoire. D’abord, on a tracé une ligne arbitraire entre la « préhistoire » et l’« Histoire », puis on a posé l’État-nation comme l’aboutissement de l’« Histoire » et ainsi hiérarchisé les peuples selon leur « stade de développement ». On a, en quelque sorte, inventé la catégorie de « primitif » — une autre manière de naturaliser qui a le droit d’exercer sa souveraineté sur des terres, et qui peut en être légitimement dépossédé.

Ces idées continuent d’être mobilisées jusqu’à aujourd’hui un peu partout en Occident. Elles permettent notamment à certaines voix pro-israéliennes plus radicales de nier jusqu’à l’existence même de la Palestine, puisque le peuple palestinien ne disposait pas d’un État-nation indépendant avant la fondation d’Israël.

Ces notions nous permettent aussi de mieux comprendre, par exemple, les commentaires de Selina Robinson, qui était ministre de l’Éducation postsecondaire en Colombie-Britannique, lorsqu’elle a affirmé, en janvier, que la Palestine était un « morceau de terre merdique » (crappy piece of land) sur lequel « il n’y avait rien » avant la fondation d’Israël. Ses propos n’étaient pas « islamophobes ». Ils étaient un parfait exemple du racisme anti-palestinien ordinaire, appuyés sur une forme d’actualisation de la doctrine de la terra nullius. Finalement, Selina Robinson s’est excusée, a perdu son poste de ministre, puis a quitté le caucus du Nouveau Parti démocratique provincial.

Le maire de Hampstead, Jeremy Levi, nous a offert un autre exemple de dérapage anti-palestinien. La semaine dernière, il a encore déclaré sur X que le gouvernement canadien devrait « reconsidérer son plan d’immigration pour les Gazaouis », puisque « leurs valeurs semblent incompatibles avec les nôtres ». Il faut savoir que l’idée des « valeurs incompatibles » a été mobilisée durant l’histoire coloniale pour justifier le statut subalterne, « non intégrable » de certaines populations. Le discours est encore souvent employé à l’égard des Palestiniens, notamment dans les espaces médiatiques israélien et américain, pour justifier certaines inégalités ou violences structurelles.

La liste d’exemples pourrait être encore longue. Pour repérer le racisme anti-palestinien dans l’espace public, encore faut-il le comprendre. Pour le comprendre, il faut d’abord le nommer clairement.

Source: Chronique | Racisme anti-palestinien

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‘They don’t matter’: Advocates frustrated Ottawa not including anti-Palestinian racism in upcoming update of anti-racism strategy

2024/05/09 Leave a comment

Maybe I am missing something but wouldn’t anti-Palestinian be covered by a mix of anti-Arab and for Muslim Palestinians, Islamophobia? Not convinced by the arguments and like all one-off proposals, will have implication for other groups, including of course Israelis and Jews.

The broader question is whether the Canadian Anti-Racism Strategy has been effective, the rising numbers of hate crimes suggest it has not, as does the 2023 evaluation of the strategy:

Advocates for Canada’s Palestinian community have been told that a definition of anti-Palestinian racism will be missing from Ottawa’s newest anti-racism strategy, an inclusion they say would have helped Canadian institutions properly recognize and respond to the growing form of hate.

“I’m concerned that members of our community shared potentially traumatic, harmful, personal stories with the Trudeau government and that the government has disregarded those stories and ignored them outright,” said Dania Majid, head of the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association (ACLA).

“That’s going to make our people, our communities, those who participated (in government consultations) feel even more unheard, more unseen, and feel even more like they don’t matter.”…

Source: ‘They don’t matter’: Advocates frustrated Ottawa not including anti-Palestinian racism in upcoming update of anti-racism strategy

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Black Canadians’ economic disadvantage is worsening – here’s how to fix it

2024/04/13 Leave a comment

Not convinced by the recommendations of the EE Task Force with respect to the public service given the overall representation is largely comparable and in some cases, better than other equity groups as recent disaggregated data indicates (How well is the government meeting its diversity targets? An intersectionality analysis), private sector case may be stronger:

….The roots of Black inequality may be different in Canada than those seen elsewhere. Nonetheless, no country escapes the legacy of centuries of slavery endured by Africans. Slavery existed in colonial Canada, and after it was abolished in 1834, Black people who fled American slavery by seeking freedom in Canada experienced racism here, such that the majority of them returned after the Civil War. Historical policies and practices actively put Black communities in Canada at a disadvantage.

After Caribbean immigration to Canada increased throughout the 1960s, governments refocused immigrant recruitment on Asia. This had the effect of slowing growth in the Black community. Excessive and discriminatory policing practices in the Black community produced alienation and demoralization. Recent historical research reveals that government security agencies made covert efforts to discredit Black activism, further destabilizing community life. Black men were subjected to heightened scrutiny and exclusion. This environment exacerbated Black Canadians’ employment problems.

The worsening trend of Black disadvantage must be addressed. Reversing it will require new thinking and action at all levels of government and society. The federal government only recently started to move beyond traditional approaches of addressing the challenges faced by racialized minorities to recognize the extraordinary disadvantage facing Black Canadians.

Recently, the federal government promised to include Black workers as a distinct employment equity group. This is a positive step, but it is only a step, and so far, only a promise. In 2020, a Black class-action lawsuit against the federal government alleging systemic employment discrimination in the Public Service of Canada not only proposed the creation of a separate Black employment equity category, it also recommended establishing a Black Equity Commission to develop measures and co-ordinate efforts, and setting up an external reporting mechanism for discrimination complaints. These and many other sensible measures were contained in the report of the federal Employment Equity Act Review Task Force released in December. They are needed to counter Black employment exclusion, and the government should not resist the changes that the report recommends.

Provincial authorities must also act. In Ontario, employment equity was scrapped amid concerns of “race quotas,” but federal experience shows this fear is baseless. Meanwhile, opportunities have been lost.

Support for Black communities must extend beyond tokenism to include meaningful investments in education, job skills training, and community development. By acknowledging and rectifying historical injustices, we can uphold the ideals of multiculturalism and ensure the Canadian dream is achievable for all.

Rupa Banerjee is Canada Research Chair and associate professor of human resource management and organizational behaviour at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Wendell Nii Laryea Adjetey is William Dawson Chair and assistant professor of post-Reconstruction U.S. and African Diaspora history at McGill University.

Jeffrey G. Reitz is professor emeritus of sociology, and R.F. Harney Professor Emeritus of Ethnic, Immigration and Pluralism Studies, at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto.

Source: Black Canadians’ economic disadvantage is worsening – here’s how to fix it

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McWhorter: On Broadway, ‘Centering’ Antiracism Is Delightful

2024/03/30 Leave a comment

Refreshing take and approach, compared to the dry, humourless and ultimately limiting approach of many academics and activists:

My 12-year-old daughter practically had to drag me into the musical “Six,” currently raging on Broadway, in which Henry VIII’s six wives all have their say about what happened to them. I wanted to see “Kimberly Akimbo.” I’m afraid I have lost touch with modern pop, and from a distance the whole “Six” premise sounded kind of unpromising to me (a singing Anne of Cleves?).

But after 15 minutes I was already itching to give it a standing ovation. Each wife comes out, in her way, as a proud, self-directed figure. For one, I love that my daughters will get this slice of history from the point of view (even if stylized) of the women, and even more that the women are cast as people of color(s), fostering a view of them as humans rather than racial types. In this, the whole show is a kind of lesson in antiracism, regardless of whether a viewer is consciously aware of it. In that way, it is a quintessentially modern work of musical theater. My daughters can sit through “A Man for All Seasons” some other time.

Beyond the lessons “Six” teaches, the performers manage some of the deftest work on Broadway I’ve ever seen. All six sing, act and move during almost the whole show at top-rate levels — I don’t even know how they remember all they have to do during the hour and a half — and the score does its job and then some: Every song in “Six” pops even if the genre isn’t your everyday soundscape.

So, “Six” can change your lens in an antiracist (and antisexist) way — while also turning you on to art, wonder, curiosity and excitement.

And this got me thinking about how much less vibrant, or even constructive, the antiracist mission feels at universities. Remember when, in 2020, the new idea was for them to “center” antiracism as their focal mission? One may have thought this was more trend than game plan, but it remains very much entrenched nationwide. According to the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a conservative law firm, first-year law students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison just this semester were required to attend a “re-orientation,” learning that explained that white people have a “fear of people of color and what would happen if they gained ‘control’” and will never be free of “racist conditioning.” A University of Notre Dame “inclusive teaching” resource from last year notes that “anti-racist teaching is important because it positions both instructors and students as agents of change towards a more just society,” emphasis theirs, with the implication that this mission has unquestionable primacy in a moral society. Statements that antiracism (and battling differentials in power more generally) are central to university departments’ missions are now almost common coin. I just participated in a discussion of antiracism as universities’ central focus at the University of Texas at Austin and am regularly asked to do so elsewhere.

And I think the persistence of this centering of antiracism at universities is kind of scary.

It may understandably seem, after these four years as well as the ones preceding, that for universities to maintain antiracism as the guiding star of their endeavors is as ordinary as steak and potatoes.

But in the spirit of John Stuart Mill advising us to revisit even assumptions that feel settled, imagine a nationwide call for all universities to “center” climate change as the singular focus of their mission. Or STEM subjects, historical awareness or civic awareness, each of these positioned as the key to serious engagement with the challenges of the future. We might imagine the university is to “center” artistic vision or skill in public expression, or even physical culture.

Note that all of these centerings would be about things most consider good, and even crucial, but the question would be why the university, as a general rule, should make any of those things the essence of what an education should consist of. Any university that did so would openly acknowledge that its choice was an unusual, and perhaps experimental, one.

One might propose that antiracism deserves pride of place as a kind of atonement for the sins of slavery and Jim Crow. But while getting beyond evils requires being aware of them, redressing past injustices — in fact, redressing just one past injustice — is not the basic mission of a university. The Scholastics of the Middle Ages “centered” education on Christianity, with the idea that education must explore or at least be ever consonant with the essences of natural law and eternal grace. Today we may view this focus as antique or unintentionally parochial. But it’s not just Christianity: We should question the idea that that any one issue, even one that feels urgent at this particular moment, must be regarded as the heart of education.

I found Bradley Cooper’s biopic of Leonard Bernstein, “Maestro,” incurious in a related way. To build an entire film around Bernstein’s being gay or bisexual — with “West Side Story,” his masterful teaching on television and even the radical politics that led to the famous Black Panthers fund-raiser in his home left out or barely perceptible — is an almost boorish reduction of a life, soul and talent. Cooper’s focus reflects neither how life felt to Bernstein (which I have heard about from friends of his) nor how he should be presented to those new to him.

Imagine if Cooper was directing “Oppenheimer” and J. Robert Oppenheimer happened to be gay, and the film had focused on how he and his wife dealt with that rather than, well, what actually made his life significant. This is what it looks like to me for universities to make antiracism their core mission. Antiracism is important, but for a whole world to revolve around it yields a distortion of what America is, and what actual humanity, be it Black or white, is or can be.

I am especially dismayed by the utter static joylessness of the endeavor. The primum mobile is glum accusation, with observations considered most important (to the extent that they lend themselves to this mission). A curiosity focused mainly on condemnation is not truly curiosity.

A long time ago at a university function, a Black scholar was telling me about his dissertation. It described how in the 19th century in one state, Black people with a certain disability were offered fewer resources than white ones with the same disability. It isn’t that such injustice should not be chronicled, but for one, it would be hard to say that what he had discovered was exactly surprising. And I couldn’t help noticing the guy’s gloom. He talked about this dissertation, the product of years’ work, in the tone one would harbor to talk about bedbugs having been discovered in his house.

But near me, another Black scholar was talking about her study of a (very white) operetta composer of roughly the same period, whose work indeed contains richnesses often overlooked. This scholar was elated, intrigued, driven — and although I was polite and made sure to hear the gloomy guy out, I couldn’t help feeling that the woman studying operetta was expanding her mind more, not to mention getting more out of life. (I should mention that her work also involved issues related to Black people.)

In the foisting of an antiracist agenda upon the life of the mind, I see increasingly constricted space for what knowledge truly is. Our universities are becoming temples of a kind of dutiful score-settling, where the motto is less something about truth in Latin than “j’accuse.” It’s a narrow, soul-crushing abbreviation of what education is supposed to be.

Source: On Broadway, ‘Centering’ Antiracism Is Delightful

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Groups fighting anti-Black racism file complaint against Canadian Human Rights Commission

2024/02/28 Leave a comment

No surprise:

A coalition of human rights groups advocating for Black and racialized Canadians has lodged a formal complaint against the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) for discriminating against its own employees.

The coalition also outlined a number of actions Monday it wants the federal government to take to combat what it calls “systemic discrimination within its structures.”

“We’re relying on the Canadian Human Rights Commission to play a role in the fight to dismantle systemic discrimination, not to be the perpetrator in all of this,” Nicholas Marcus Thompson, executive director of the Black Class Action Secretariat (BCAS), said in Ottawa Monday.

The coalition said it has asked the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) to review the CHRC’s accreditation with the group.

GANHRI is an umbrella organization that coordinates policy and action between the United Nations and domestic human rights organizations.

The coalition said it wants Canada’s human rights body reviewed by GANHRI for violating international human rights law and failing to adhere to the Paris Principles.

Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1993, the Paris Principles are a set of principles national human rights organizations have to follow to access the United Nations Human Rights Council and other bodies.

The CHRC receives and investigates complaints from federal departments and agencies, Crown corporations and private sector organizations such as banks, airlines and telecommunication companies. It decides which cases will proceed to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.

Racism within the CHRC

Last spring, the Canadian government’s human resources arm, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBCS), reported that the CHRC had discriminated against its own Black and racialized employees.

The TBCS came to that conclusion after nine employees filed a policy grievance through their unions alleging that “Black and racialized employees at the CHRC face systemic anti-Black racism, sexism and systemic discrimination.”

“The organizations remain hopeful that this action will lead to significant reforms within the CHRC, ensuring it can effectively safeguard human rights and foster an inclusive society,” the coalition said in a statement released Monday.

The coalition said it does not wish to see CHRC’s funding cut but wants it to fulfil its role of combating systemic racism.

“We would like to see appropriate funding, and the government not cut funding for the [CHRC] as any type of remedy to address any shortfalls,” Thompson said.

The coalition is calling on the federal government to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to allow complaints to go directly to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, rather than through the CHRC.

The coalition also wants the CHRC’s role changed so that it acts to support people making complaints before the tribunal.

The group said it wants the Employment Equity Act amended “to better reflect intersectionality and to specifically include Black and other equity-deserving groups as designated groups.”

The coalition said it also wants the federal government to appoint a Black equity commissioner to serve as an officer of Parliament with powers akin to that of the Auditor General of Canada. The commissioner would be tasked with ensuring equity across “all levels of government and the public service,” the coalition said.

The coalition said it also wants public servants found to have committed acts of discrimination to be held accountable for their actions.

Criticism of the federal action plan

Last week, President of the Treasury Board Anita Anand announced the first steps of the Liberal government’s action plan to support Black public servants.

It includes boosting the number of Black counsellors providing mental health support to public servants and their family members to 60 across the public service.

Anand also announced the launch of an executive leadership program for Black executives to improve career development services for Black public servants.

The coalition criticized the move on mental health services, saying it would have preferred for the department to work with Black public servant groups to develop the initiatives.

“Black employee networks within the federal government [as well as unions] were not consulted on that … announcement about the employee assistance program,” Thompson said. “We’re very, very concerned about that. That approach has to change.”

The coalition includes the BCAS, the Canadian Black Nurses Alliance, the Public Service Alliance of Canada, the Red Coalition, the National Union of Public and General Employees, the Federation of Black Canadians and the Black Canadians Civil Society Coalition.

Later Monday, Anand conceded that her government has “a lot of work to do in terms of building trust with public servants from the Black community.” She said she did reach out to the community before her announcement last week.

“In advance of that announcement, I and my team engaged in consultations with a number of Black public servants,” she said. “Consulting with Black public servants is at the heart of what we are doing as we come forward with supports for Black public servants.”

Source: Groups fighting anti-Black racism file complaint against Canadian Human Rights Commission

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Canadian dream elusive for some racialized 2nd-generation Canadians, study finds

2024/02/23 Leave a comment

Insightful although the differences between racialized groups is not new:

New research has found that the Canadian dream is proving elusive for some racialized second-generation Canadians born since the 1960s, despite having higher educational levels than their white counterparts.

A new study, entitled “Is the Canadian dream broken? Recent trends in equality of opportunity for the racialized second generation,” found that educational attainment and employment earnings are not uniform across groups of racialized second-generation Canadians, with some groups experiencing further disparities below the mainstream average.

And while educational levels for some racialized groups have surged, employment earnings were lower for most groups compared to the mainstream population, the study found. It also discovered intergroup differences.

The study, by researchers at four universities and released on Wednesday, defines the Canadian dream for immigrants as equality of opportunity and the chance to achieve financial security. Even if the first generation lives in poverty, the next generation will be able to pull itself out of poverty and achieve economic success, according to this definition.

“I don’t think the Canadian dream is accessible to everyone equally,” said Rupa Banerjee, one of the authors of the study and associate professor at Toronto Metropolitan University.

“For some, the Canadian dream is holding pretty well, but for others, it’s failing. And that failure has really, really serious and significant repercussions, not just for them and their family, but for the entire society,” added Banerjee, also the Canada Research Chair in the economic inclusion of immigrants.

“We’ve always kind of been smug that Canada is not like Europe or Canada is not like the U.S., that we’re much more multicultural. We believe in pluralism. But I think that’s a bit of a myth that we’ve kind of felt good about but doesn’t really exist, and in that sense, the Canadian dream is failing.”

The study defines second-generation as Canadian-born individuals with at least one immigrant parent.

It looked at educational attainment and employment earnings in three of “successive 10-year birth-cohorts” of second-generation Canadians from the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s, specifically 1966-1975, 1976-1985, and 1986-1995.

It focused on people 26 to 35, using data from the 1981, 1991, 2001, 2021 Canadian Census of Population and the 2011 National Household Survey. Examining the progress of five racialized groups, South Asian, Chinese, Black, Filipino, and Latin American, it compared them to third-and-higher generation white Canadians.

The study sample would have completed their education and begun their work careers.

Anti-Black racism is real, study author says

According to Banerjee, the study’s main findings include:

  • Chinese and South Asian populations have maintained high educational levels, whereas Black individuals, and to some extent Filipino and Latin American individuals, show declining trends across cohorts.
  • Despite a higher proportion of second-generation individuals holding university degrees, earnings were lower for most groups compared to the mainstream population, with pronounced declines observed over time among Black second-generation men and women.
  • Changing characteristics of immigrant parents do not fully account for these trends, raising questions about longer-term integration processes among different ethno-racial minorities in Canada.

Banerjee said the study shows that anti-Black racism is real and Canada is not a post-racial society.

Source: Canadian dream elusive for some racialized 2nd-generation Canadians, study finds

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Germany: Would-be migrant workers worried by growing racism

2024/01/29 Leave a comment

Of note:

When German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Labor Minister Hubertus Heil turned up at the Vietnamese-German University (VGU) in Ho Chi Minh City, they were caught by surprise: Screaming students greeted them like rock stars.

Some of those students will go on to work for German companies.

Further acclaim awaited the German political VIPs at the Goethe Institute in Hanoi, where about 6,000 young Vietnamese people per year learn the German language. Seven times that number register for language tests that qualify them for professional training or study in Germany.

At the end of 2023, Germany began implementing its new Skilled Immigration Act, using a point system to lower the obstacles facing skilled workers who want to move to the country.

Since then, high-ranking German politicians have stepped up efforts to woo skilled workers in other countries: Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock was recently in the Philippines, for instance, and Development Aid Minister Svenja Schulze is in Morocco. In Vietnam, Steinmeier and Heil signed a memorandum of understanding that improves the regulation of labor immigration to Germany.

Vietnam steps in to help

In communist Vietnam, there is significant interest in working in Germany — where the Vietnamese diaspora has grown to more than 200,000 people. Vietnam is a young country demographically speaking and is thus less threatened by the kind of “brain drain” that affects many other nations. Vietnam’s leadership was also very interested in finding a joint agreement on improving control of labor migration to Germany by its nationals.

The Goethe Institute is important in this regard. For example, it is there that Phuong Phan, 22, is receiving the language training she needs to later work in the hotel and gastronomy industry in Thuringia. The eastern German state is among the first to have signed bilateral contracts with Vietnam.

Phuong Phan said she hopes her training in Thuringia will give her a “practical apprenticeship” while aiding her personal development. Her parents support her in the endeavor, and she combs the internet daily for information on “lovely Germany.”

Recently, however, she came upon something that was not so lovely: reports detailing the xenophobia that is sometimes encountered in Germany, particularly in the east. She does not want to talk about it in her conversation with DW but says the topic has also been dealt with in her language courses.

“Yes, we are watching developments. And gradually, we are starting to have reservations as we take on responsibility for these young people, with regard to their parents as well,” says Nguyen Thi Thanh Tam, a placement officer for Thuringia.

She is currently training another group of young Vietnamese in Hanoi and confirms that the topic of “racism in Germany” has been clearly discussed in recent lessons.

“We want the students to be prepared for unpleasant situations in this regard in Germany,” she says.

400,000 skilled workers needed annually

According to Germany’s Federal Employment Agency (BA), the country has 1.73 million vacant jobs.

Unlike Germany’s campaign to find workers 60 years ago, today’s efforts are not focused on industrial laborers but on highly qualified professionals and people with service-sector experience.

Back then, just under 300,000 people came each year. Today, studies say Germany needs around 400,000 a year.

Recently, Labor Minister Heil traveled to Brazil, India and Kenya to promote Germany as a work destination, and now he’s in Vietnam. “We have improved the conditions with the Skilled Immigration Act; now it’s down to putting things into practice,” he told DW in Hanoi.

Poor coordination

Officially, the Interior Ministry oversees the immigration of skilled foreign workers. But in practice, the responsibilities in this area overlap. One example is the some 350,000 asylum-seekers in Germany, who, if they are rejected, are not integrated into the labor market and many of whom have to leave the country.

More than 17% of people who applied for German asylum in 2023 are now Turks — mostly young, well-educated, liberal-thinking people who wanted to escape from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s regime. But only one in 10 Turkish asylum-seeks receives protection in Germany. And, at the moment, instead of permitting the rest an opportunity to look for work, Germany orders them to leave the country.

The Foreign Office, on the other hand, is known for its lengthy procedures to obtain a visa — something that also deters skilled workers. The Economy and Labor ministries and the Employment Agency also bear responsibilities, in addition to organizations such as the GIZ development agency and various foundations.

Many companies have their own recruitment and training programs because the bureaucracy prevalent in the public sector is too slow to meet their hiring needs.  Toan Nguyen, the managing director of the TY Academy, which acts as an agency for caregivers who want to go to Germany, complains that there are “too many people to go through and still a lot of obstacles to having qualifications recognized.”

Human trafficking another problem

This makes things difficult for interested skilled workers — and easy for dubious agencies and human traffickers. In Southeast Asia, women are the main prey of the latter, being smuggled into Germany and ending up in low-wage employment or even brothels.

“We must use legal immigration to suppress this practice,” Steinmeier said in Vietnam. The bilateral agreement that has just been signed is meant to provide trustworthy advice about fair working conditions and reputable employment agencies, as well as regular roundtables on work migration involving specialists from both countries.

Germany’s new citizenship law, however, makes the country more attractive to potential immigrants. “In comparison with Japan, where many Vietnamese also migrate but are allowed to work only temporarily, Germany now offers a longer-term perspective,” says Viet Huong Nguyen from the TY Academy.

Xenophobia a deterrent

In light of these positive developments for labor migration, current reports about racist groups in Germany are all the more disturbing.

Labor Minister Heil told DW that no one had spoken to him directly about the issue but that action needed to be taken before it was too late.

“We have to make it clear in Germany that we cannot maintain our prosperity without labor from abroad,” he said.

Vietnamese already living in Germany are also worried. One of them is Huong Trute, whom President Steinmeier invited to accompany him on his Vietnam trip. She has lived in Germany for 40 years and works in the gastronomy sector.

She says she has recently had to answer more and more questions from worried compatriots in Vietnam. After seeing how another group was being prepared for jobs in Thuringian hotels and restaurants at the Goethe Institute, she said: “Honestly? If I had the chance to take these young peopole somewhere else, I would do it.”

She says the developments in Thuringia are coming to a head, and that frightens her.

Source: Germany: Would-be migrant workers worried by growing racism

Filed under Immigration, Racism Tagged with ,

Right-Wing Influencers Are Going Full Racist in Anti-DEI Rants – The Daily Beast

2024/01/27 Leave a comment

Of note:

Boeing has had its fair share of negative news coverage lately, as the company’s decades of corner-cutting, outsourcing, and neglect led to some recent terrifyingmishaps.

You might wonder what this has to do with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). Well, it seems that efforts to create more just and equitable workplaces are the scariest thing imaginable to certain right-wing influencers. So terrifying, in fact, that they could lead to aviation disasters.

Elon Musk, the CEO of a car company whose vehicles have a tendency to catch fire, tweeted, “It will take an airplane crashing and killing hundreds of people for them to change this crazy policy of DIE.” The obvious innuendo is that Black people are responsible for Boeing’s failures. Musk has also referred to DEI as “just another word for racism.”

But Musk didn’t stop there. He amplified a tweet that suggested Black students have lower IQs, attacked HBCUs, and argued Blacks have “borderline intellectual impairment.” This is eugenics, plain and simple. It’s pseudo-science used to dehumanize Blacks, not dissimilar to when pro-slavery white people argued that Blacks were more suited for field work because they couldn’t learn and had smaller brains.

Not to be outdone, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk—a vocal Donald Trump sycophant—used Boeing’s issues to argue against the employment of Black pilots. During a podcast, Kirk said, “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified.’” Other MAGA celebrities expressed similarly racist concerns.

Just 3.4 percent of U.S. airline pilots are Black. White men have flown the friendly skies almost exclusively since the Wright brothers’ first flight in 1903. Even with mitigation efforts to make air navigation more reflective of the society it serves, training programs, recruitment strategies, and airlines have fallen short.

United Airlines and Delta Airlines, specifically, have advanced diversity in hiring, but even there the needle hasn’t moved much in diversifying the pilot class—it’s still overwhelmingly majority white male.

So why are the likes of Elon Musk, Charlie Kirk, and others using the pilot workforce situation as the target of their DEI takedown?

The simple answer is… because they can. There is a shortage of airline pilots, a growing number of pilots are of retirement age, and the pipeline must be expanded to keep up with consumer demand. These realities scare certain white men who are hellbent on believing they are the master race, and that all others are inherently inferior.

And the attacks on DEI are coordinated and relentless.

As of this week, Florida’s 28 public colleges are prohibited from using government funds for diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. And because everything’s bigger in the Lone Star State, Texas boasts 30 new anti-DEI laws. Thirteen states’ attorneys general signed a public letter in July 2023 after the fall of affirmative action in college admissions. The letter had nothing to do with college admissions, but the Republican AGs used the Supreme Court decision as a platform to directly voice their collective opposition to DEI in the workforce.

These efforts don’t even scratch the surface of the anti-DEI architects’ ultimate goal—stratifying the American workforce and reducing access to the C-suite, STEM careers, small businesses, and opportunities previously afforded almost solely to white men. America is more diverse today than it has ever been—and the fix is in to ensure diversity isn’t reflected in high-paying jobs, the highest levels of government, or leadership in America’s top educational institutions.

To be Black in America is to live in a constant threat of attack on your civil rights and humanity, the questioning of your abilities, and a belief that you are unworthy solely because of the color of your skin. Regardless of how often Nikki Haley says, “America isn’t a racist country,” the red, white, and blue time and again finds itself painfully erecting barriers to Black achievement, health access, and any marker of equity.

Source: Right-Wing Influencers Are Going Full Racist in Anti-DEI Rants – The Daily Beast

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with , , , ,

Keller:The day DEI World entered Canadian politics

2024/01/13 Leave a comment

Keller has shifted from valid critiques of current immigration policies to critiques of DEI, given the blinders by some to anti-semitism, with one of the more blatant examples. Another one might be the KOJO Institute as their website does not mention anti-semitism based upon a word search:

….But today’s anti-racism training often isn’t at all like that. Which is how you end up with Laith Marouf. He worked for an organization that received federal funding to deliver anti-racism education, and whose contract was terminated after it came to light that he was posting antisemitic content online.

In Liberal World, claiming to be against racism, while discriminating on the basis of race, is not only wrong, it’s a philosophical contradiction. But DEI World’s anti-racism doesn’t work that way. It starts by putting groups of people into either the good racial box or the bad one, so that one can decide who is oppressed and oppressor, and who is entitled to what sort of treatment.

That’s how you end up with people posting things online that, in Liberal World, are clearly racist – and yet these same people, their minds in DEI World, sincerely believe themselves to be anti-racists.

Source: The day DEI World entered Canadian politics

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with , , ,

McWhorter: Claudine Gay Was Not Driven Out Because She Is Black

2024/01/09 Leave a comment

Of note:

Since Claudine Gay’s resignation as president of Harvard University on Tuesday, it has become an article of faith among some of her supporters and other observers that she was targeted, criticized and essentially driven from the job largely because of her race. The idea is that the people who questioned her abilities and academic integrity — be they Harvard donors who found fault with her leadership after Oct. 7 or conservative activists who led an inquiry into plagiarism in her scholarly work — were marked and even motivated by animus toward a Black woman attaining such a degree of power and influence.

The Rev. Al Sharpton denounced Gay’s resignation as “an attack on every Black woman in this country who’s put a crack in the glass ceiling.” Janai Nelson, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, wrote that the attacks against Gay “have been unrelenting & the biases unmasked.” Harvard’s Corporation, or governing board, noted the “repugnant and in some cases racist vitriol.” And Gay herself, writing in The Times last week, referred to “tired racial stereotypes about Black talent,” and described herself as an “ideal canvas for projecting every anxiety” due to her status as “a Black woman selected to lead a storied institution.”

But I don’t think the notion that racism was substantially to blame for Claudine Gay’s trouble holds up.

As both Gay and Harvard note, she received openly racist hate mail. This is repulsive. But however awful it must have been for Gay to endure their abuse, those people did not force her resignation.

Nor does it seem that Gay was ousted on the basis of her race in the aftermath of her Dec. 5 testimony before Congress on the topic of antisemitism on campus. Of three university presidents who attended, only one resigned under duress shortly after the hearing, and she — Liz Magill of Penn — was white.

No, the charge that ultimately led to Gay’s resignation was plagiarism, of which more than 40 alleged examples were ultimately unearthed. And plagiarism and related academic charges have of course also brought down white people at universities many times. Ward Churchill was fired from the University of Colorado for academic misconduct, including plagiarism, in 2007 in the wake of his controversially assailing people working in the World Trade Center towers on 9/11 as “little Eichmanns.” The president of the University of South Carolina, Robert Caslen, resigned thanks to a plagiarism episode in 2021. And the president of Stanford, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, resigned due to questions of data manipulation just last July.

For many, the central issue seems to be that Gay’s plagiarism would not have been uncovered at all were it not for the efforts of conservative activists, which is true. The question then is whether the people who led the charge to oust Gay from her job — principal among them the right-wing anti-critical race theory crusader Christopher Rufo and the billionaire financier and Harvard donor Bill Ackman — were acting out of racial animus, or even an opposition to Black advancement.

And here things get slightly more complicated. Rufo and Ackman are unabashedly opposed to what both perceive as an ongoing leftward drift at elite universities such as Harvard. And both are opposed to the D.E.I. — or “diversity, equity and inclusion” — programs that are increasingly prominent on campuses, within corporations, and elsewhere. According to Ackman, D.E.I. is “not about diversity” but rather is “a political advocacy movement on behalf of certain groups that are deemed oppressed.” Rufo and Ackman both believed that, in accordance with the precepts of D.E.I., Gay had been appointed as Harvard president more for her skin color than for her professional qualifications.

To analyze this position as mere racism, though, is hasty. No one is trading in “stereotypes” of Black talent by asking why Gay was elevated to the presidency of Harvard given her relatively modest academic dossier and administrative experience. It was reasonable to wonder whether Gay was appointed more because she is a Black woman than because of what she had accomplished, and whether this approach truly fosters social justice. There was a time when the word for this was tokenism, and there is a risk that it only fuels the stereotypes D.E.I. advocates so revile.

To put it succinctly: Opposing D.E.I., in part or in whole, does not make one racist. We can agree that the legacy of racism requires addressing and yet disagree about how best to do it. Of course in the pure sense, to be opposed to “diversity,” opposed to “equity” and opposed to “inclusion” would fairly be called racism. But it is coy to pretend these dictionary meanings are what D.E.I. refers to in modern practice, which is a more specific philosophy.

D.E.I. programs today often insist that we alter traditional conceptions of merit, “decenter” whiteness to the point of elevating nonwhiteness as a qualification in itself, conceive of people as groups in balkanized opposition, demand that all faculty members declare fealty to this modus operandi regardless of their field or personal opinions, and harbor a rigidly intolerant attitude toward dissent. The experience last year of Tabia Lee, a Black woman who was fired from supervising the D.E.I. program at De Anza College in California for refusing to adhere to such tenets, is sadly illustrative of the new climate. (Like Ackman, she believes that what he calls the “oppressor/oppressed framework” of D.E.I. contributes to campus antisemitism by defining Jews as “oppressors.”)

D.E.I. advocates may see their worldview and modus operandi as so wise and just that opposition can only come from racists and the otherwise morally compromised. But this is shortsighted. One can be very committed to the advancement of Black people while also seeing a certain ominous and prosecutorial groupthink in much of what has come to operate under the D.E.I. label. Not to mention an unwitting condescension to Black people.

Try this thought experiment: Harvard appoints “White Fragility” author Robin DiAngelo to become the new president of Harvard. She comes equipped with the strongest D.E.I. credentials imaginable, but with a very slender academic record. Do you imagine that conservative activists would sit back contentedly, merely because she’s white?

Or take a non-hypothetical example: After a successful tenure as the president of Smith College, Ruth Simmons became the first Black woman president of an Ivy League School when she took over Brown in 2001. Yet I am aware of no conservative crusade against her during her decade-plus in that office — despite the fact that she led a yearslong campuswide examination of the school’s role in the slave trade.

The idea that a menacing right-wing mob sits ever in wait to take down a Black woman who achieves a position of power is a gripping narrative. But its connection to reality is — blissfully — approximate at best. It is facile to dismiss opposition to modern D.E.I. as old-school bigotry in a new guise. The lessons from what happened to Professor Gay are many. But cops-and-robbers thinking about racial victims and perpetrators will help answer few of them.

Source: Claudine Gay Was Not Driven Out Because She Is Black

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with , , , , , ,

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