Racism fuels terrorism recruiting, says visiting French justice minister

2015/04/25 Leave a comment

Hopefully, Canadian ministers will listen to her words with an open mind and recognize that radicalization has also to be considered from a socio-economic, not just a security perspective:

The marginalization caused by racism has an alienating effect that makes people more vulnerable to terrorist recruiters, says France’s visiting justice minister.

Christiane Taubira knows of what she speaks: as France’s most prominent black politician, she has faced repeated public racist slurs in her country.

Taubira made it clear that she doesn’t see being discriminated against as an explanation or excuse for terrorism.

“I’m not sure I want to understand the causes of terrorism,” she said in an exclusive interview Thursday at the French Embassy in Ottawa. “Terror is terror, just absolute.”

But Taubira said there is a link between a young person being pushed to the margins of society and “how easy” that makes it for a terrorist to recruit them, especially using the Internet.

“Because it’s so easy for (terrorists) to say, ‘You will be very important because you will be very powerful, you will be able to kill, and afterwards you will be happy,’” she said.

“The link is there. It’s easy to convince young people that there is a better life in terrorism than in hoping in the society.”

Taubira said being on the receiving end of some vicious racist slurs has only made her stronger.

“It keeps me vigilant because I realize how violent a society is against so many people who are not as strong as I am. I’m strong because I’ve been fighting for a long time.”

She said this week’s appointment of Toronto’s first black police chief, Mark Saunders, carries the sort of symbolism that can give some young people a sense of hope. But she was quick to add: “I don’t want just one person on TV, one person in the government … I want equality for all.”

Taubira was on a visit to meet her federal counterparts in Ottawa, Justice Minister Peter MacKay and Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney, and will travel to Montreal on Friday.

Racism fuels terrorism recruiting, says visiting French justice minister (paywall)

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France Announces Stronger Fight Against Racism and Anti-Semitism

2015/04/20 Leave a comment

Serious government money and reasonably comprehensive approach:

Deadly attacks on Jews by Muslim extremists in January and a sharp spike in anti-Muslim acts since then have prompted the French government to elevate the fight against racism into “a great national cause,” leading government officials said on Friday.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls announced a detailed plan that dedicates 100 million euros, or $108 million, over the next three years to programs and policies that combat “racism and anti-Semitism,” including a nationwide awareness campaign, harsher punishments for racist acts and increased monitoring of online hate speech. “Racism, anti-Semitism, hatred of Muslims, of foreigners and homophobia are increasing in an intolerable manner in our country,” Mr. Valls said after visiting a high school in Créteil, a suburb of Paris that has large Jewish and Muslim populations.

“French Jews should no longer be afraid of being Jewish, and French Muslims should no longer be ashamed of being Muslims,” he said.

…Jewish organizations welcomed the effort, as did Muslim groups, whose leaders said they had been consulted on a recent official report on racist acts against Jews, Muslims and other populations.

The report, published last week by the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights, a government watchdog, found that from 2013 to 2014, the number of anti-Semitic acts had risen to 851 from 423, and that there were more aggressive acts targeting Muslims in January of this year than there were during all of 2014.

Many of the recent attacks have been violent. Places of worship have been damaged and vandalized. Muslim women who wear a hijab, or head scarf, have been physically attacked, including a veiled pregnant woman who was recently beaten in Toulouse.

…While the title of the government’s plan did not include the term “Islamophobia,” which is how French Muslims describe acts against them, Muslim leaders said they were gratified that the government did speak specifically about the need to fight anti-Muslim sentiments and actions in France.

“The president of the republic, François Hollande, has used the word ‘Islamophobia,’ he has recognized Islamophobia,” said Abdallah Zekri, the director of the National Observatory Against Islamophobia at the French Council of the Muslim Faith.

However, Mr. Zekri said he noticed that Mr. Valls had avoided using the word in the past. “Many people do not want to hear the word ‘Islamophobia’; they want to hear the word ‘anti-Muslim,’ ” he said.

Mr. Valls’s presentation of the plan did not mention racism targeting people who are black or Roma, but all racist behavior would be covered by the new measures.

The Canadian government largely ended broad anti-racism messaging and programming around 2008 (Canada’s Action Plan Against Racism or CAPAR) in favour of a narrower focus on antisemitism. CAPAR itself was a hodge-podge of initiatives, with minimal funding, and apart from Statistics Canada police reported hate crimes reporting, its end was no great loss.

But the lack of broader anti-racism and discrimination messaging, and the linkages between antisemitism and other forms of prejudice is an opportunity missed.

While the French have gotten so many things wrong in the citizenship, integration and multiculturalism policies and programs, this one they appear to have right.

France Announces Stronger Fight Against Racism and Anti-Semitism – NYTimes.com.

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Racial Terror, Fast and Slow – NYTimes.com

2015/04/18 Leave a comment

Reflections on race and the contrast between particular events and the more insidious structural issues:

Another truth lies in plain sight, echoing through videos of the last moments of a man’s life and hashtags of protest: The lived experience of race often feels like terror for black folk, whether that terror is fast or slow. Fast terror is explosive and explicit; it is the spectacle of unwarranted black death at the hands of the state, or displays of violence directed against defenseless bodies.

Slow terror is masked yet malignant; it stalks black people in denied opportunities that others take for granted. Slow terror seeps into every nook and cranny of black existence: black boys and girls being expelled from school at higher rates than their white peers; being harassed by unjust fines by local municipalities; having billions of dollars of black wealth drained off because of shady financial instruments sold to blacks during the mortgage crisis; and being imprisoned out of proportion to our percentage in the population.

The last moments of Mr. Scott’s life, captured on video and widely watched, are classic fast terror. Watching the video made me sick; it was, perhaps, the breathtaking indifference to moral consequence that seemed to grip Officer Slager as he fired at an unarmed black man in broad daylight. A frozen frame from the video shows a police officer, gun drawn, in pursuit. Fifty years earlier, a lawman, in pursuit, pulled his gun and shot dead the Selma protester Jimmie Lee Jackson, whom the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called “a martyred hero of a holy crusade for freedom and human dignity.”

The failure to be seen as human unites black people across time in a fellowship of fear as we share black terror, at both speeds, in common.

The way we see race plays a role in these terrors: Fast terror is often seen and serves as a warning; slow terror is often not seen and reinforces the invisibility of black suffering. Fast terror scares us; slow terror scars us.

Racial Terror, Fast and Slow – NYTimes.com.

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‘Reclaiming Australia’ from Islam is really about reclaiming whiteness

2015/04/11 Leave a comment

Yassir Morsi commenting on “Reclaim Australia”:

Any contest over what is “obvious” about Islam or “real” about Islamism, or whether Muslims need “fixing”, however, misses the point. The Reclaim Australia rallies were never about Islam in the first place, but were a clash of different ideas about being Australian.

Racism is rarely about the reality of the other; the Reclaim protestors, without irony or self-reflection, were able to appropriate the Indigenous flag in their cry to reclaim Australia.

With the presence of swastika tattoos, and the general demography of the rally’s participants, it is obvious that race still remains central to our political culture in a constitutive sense; being “white” continues to play a formative role in how we construct what it means to be authentically Aussie.

For some, Aussie still simply means “white”, a sentiment that itself obscures the mostly forgotten English bigotry against the Irish, Australia’s first other.

These days the un-Australian is commonly a figure of colour, who is easily transmittable from one ethnic identity to another. The foreigner as a “form” always remains a thing to respond to, even as we openly acknowledge that, in Australia’s history, its content has always been interchangeable: Asian, African, Arab, Muslim – and yet, always Indigenous.

The foreigner is a piñata doll, the thing you beat so you can still feel you own a stick. It’s a thing to say “no” to, a thing whose integration is to be always measured against “our” standard and in doing so making that standard feel more real than it is.

In these cacophonies of “no” to foreignness, the foreigner is contradictory, fragmentary by its nature. Its truth is secondary to its function as a crude shorthand for the negating of difference and change.

No sensible adult could think Australia is becoming Islamic, and Reclaim Australia has little to do with halal, sharia, jihad or terrorism. These words are like traumas, a backdrop against which the repressed frustration of losing privilege plays out.

Yet despite official denunciation and celebration of diversity, racism as a concept in this country endures, adapting and readapting, chameleon-like to the changing social and political times. It does so because its aim, in part, is to address the sensitive needs of the dominant white nation’s sense of self.

‘Reclaiming Australia’ from Islam is really about reclaiming whiteness | Comment is free | The Guardian.

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Cosmo accused of racial bias in trends that ‘need to die’ list

2015/04/06 Leave a comment

Cosmo TrendsSomeone not thinking (unconscious bias at play):

Fashion magazines are always publishing their Do’s and Don’ts columns, but Cosmo’s latest — in which black models are used to illustrate trends that “need to die” but not showcased for any that are deemed trendy — is being given a major DON’T online.

The feature, appearing on Cosmopolitan.com, focused on fashion faux pas and was accused of being racist. It included 21 beauty trends that are dying and Cosmo-approved alternatives, but overwhelmingly the women of colour that are featured appear exclusively in the Don’t column. While the examples of Do’s are almost exclusively all white women.

The reaction was harsh and unforgiving.

Cosmo accused of racial bias in trends that ‘need to die’ list – Trending – CBC News.

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Why we can’t run from Starbucks’ #RaceTogether campaign

2015/03/25 Leave a comment

Although over-taken by Starbucks decision to cancel the campaign, good piece by Tabitha Southey on the Starbucks #RaceTogether campaign:

As for the rather precious outcry that people are just trying to get their coffee, and so this is hardly the place for this kind of thing, you can still just get a coffee – but let’s not ignore the long and raucous tradition of discussing politics, philosophy and current affairs in coffee houses.

Coffee houses were once predominantly about discourse and debate and, yes, they too had owners who made money – yet still managed to be hotbeds of sedition. Cheer up, grumpy radicals, the French and American revolutions were both plotted in the Starbucks of their day.

I know that, when I walk down a street in New York with my wonderful sister-in-law, who is black, we’re walking on different streets. I know, of course, that racism is entrenched and systemic – and that I benefit from it every day.

No one’s suggesting that it is a little personal “issue” that can be solved by coffee talks, but we shouldn’t underestimate the power of small stories, of moments of connection, to provoke change.

Small stories are how we organize our world, and I find I can’t laugh for long at anything that encourages us to glimpse down the other’s road.

Why we can’t run from Starbucks’ #RaceTogether campaign – The Globe and Mail.

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Ferguson’s predatory police are not the only ones

2015/03/12 Leave a comment

Good summary of the US DOJ report on the Ferguson police:

The report is the story of gun-toting, badge-wearing louts who probably spent hours imagining themselves as impassive, reluctant heroes, telexes in their ears, steely eyes concealed behind sunglasses, preparing to do whatever necessary to enforce the law.

In reality, they ran their little corner of Missouri like a lawless seigneury, bullying citizens, ignoring the law, abetted by an equally bent municipal court system. Ordinary folks didn’t stand a chance.

The federal report effectively describes Ferguson’s police as thuggish tax collectors, willing to use Tasers, fists and boots to satisfy their political masters’ desire for ever more revenue.

Their real job was writing tickets, not protecting the public. How much they could milk from motorists, or pedestrians, determined their career paths.

A few highlights:

  • Ferguson’s mostly white police department blatantly targeted black citizens. “Failure to comply” with police orders that the DOJ said were often illegal, and “walking unsafely in the street” were among the most popular money-generating citations.
  • Officers were particularly harsh with anyone who dared record their behaviour. They would issue an order to stop recording “for safety reasons;” those who kept rolling were charged with failing to comply. Smartphones were seized, video erased.
  • Drivers were cited for imaginary offences. One man was written up and fined for making a false statement. He’d given his name as “Mike” instead of “Michael.”
  • Ferguson police disproportionately went after the poor, who, if they didn’t pay promptly, did jail time and had their fines increased. One woman spent days in jail and paid hundreds of dollars for two parking tickets; she still owes $541.

Ferguson’s predatory police are not the only ones – World – CBC News.

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Winnipeg: Getting Past the Divide – New Canadian Media – NCM

2015/03/11 Leave a comment

Third party in a series reporting on the links between racism against Aboriginal people and visible minorities:

The declaration of Winnipeg as Canada’s “most racist city” [by Macleans] has spurred discussions around grassroots solutions that can serve as a starting point for all Canadians.

“Prior to coming to Canada, my only window into the First Nations were from western movies,” shares Shahina Siddiqui, chair of the Islamic Social Services Association (ISSA). “For most newcomers, this is all they know.”

Siddiqui has worked with many ethnic groups in the city and through this experience she realized that the stereotypes of First Nations from western movies were as pervasive as stereotypes of Muslims in Canada – and that the only way to combat them was to open a dialogue. At first, when the Maclean’s article came out, she was apprehensive of the controversial statement it made. “But then I realized that this is an important conversation to have.”

“Accepting a person for who they are and what they are, that can only happen if you have face to face conversation… when you share your stories, when your children play together, when you stand up for each other.” – Shahina Siddiqui, Islamic Social Services Association

Champagne’s reaction was more immediate. “One of my takeaways was relief, that finally we were having this conversation.”

For Siddiqui, the development of community is essential. She says that because newcomers and Aboriginal people have so much in common coming from colonized experiences, it is important to understand and share that.

“Accepting a person for who they are and what they are, that can only happen if you have face to face conversation… when you share your stories, when your children play together, when you stand up for each other.”

With this idea in mind, ISSA runs Conversation Cafes with several of the ethnic and Aboriginal groups in the city, focusing on sharing tradition and histories one on one. Other groups in Winnipeg have begun similar programs with the same goal. Manitoba Educators for Social Justice (MESJ), a group of concerned educators from across the province, hosted its first Salon in which they discussed new strategies to address racism.

Winnipeg: Getting Past the Divide – New Canadian Media – NCM.

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Racism casts long shadow over Canada’s past, present | The Chronicle Herald

2015/03/02 Leave a comment

Former Senator Don Oliver, on the persistence of racism in Canada:

But even today, studies continue to show that if you’re a black Canadian, you are more likely than any other ethnic group not to get a job or a promotion. You are also more likely to get pulled over —“driving while black” — or to be discriminated against in the courts. What is more, there are very few blacks occupying the corner offices of Canadian companies or key political roles. That’s because racism still exists — in an undercurrent of apathy and ignorance that continues to impede people’s advancement.

Consider these statistics from Ryerson’s Diversity Leads. In the Greater Toronto Area, Canada’s most diverse region, the representation of blacks and other visible minorities in senior leadership roles inched up from 11.6 per cent in 2009 to 12.8 per cent in 2014, yet visible minorities account for 53.7 per cent of the population studied.

It’s not better in Greater Montreal, where only 5.9 per cent of senior leaders are visible minorities when they account for 22.5 per cent of the population. On corporate boards, the numbers are particularly dismal. The 2014 report of the Canadian Board Diversity Council reveals that visible minorities hold only two per cent of board seats when they make up 19.1 per cent of the population.

To change the future of black history in Canada, we urgently need more eminent black role models like Lincoln Alexander, Michaelle Jean, Julius Isaac and others to be appointed to senior government and corporate positions. We need all Canadians to embrace our country’s diversity. Once and for all, we need Canadians to demand an end to racism.

Racism casts long shadow over Canada’s past, present | The Chronicle Herald.

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Ontario must combat racism, says outgoing human rights commissioner Barbara Hall

2015/02/27 Leave a comment

Barbara Hall’s exit interview:

In an interview at commission headquarters, Barbara Hall said she strongly believes the very success of our society depends on ensuring the disadvantaged or marginalized are able to contribute fully.

“The most discouraging part of this work is the persistence of racism, particularly as it impacts black Ontarians and aboriginal people,” said Hall, whose 10 years as chief commissioner ends Friday.

“We see progress on issues but we need to — as a commission, as a society — be vigilant about these issues. It requires constant pushing.”

Discrimination, Hall said, is something that can touch everyone. As examples, she cited women returning from maternity leave to find their jobs have “mysteriously” disappeared or those sexually harassed at work.

Ontario must combat racism, says outgoing human rights commissioner – Macleans.ca.

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