Tracked tweets reflect racist attitudes online, says of U of A researcher

2014/08/13 Leave a comment

Not sure the numbers are as bad as portrayed as they cover a three-month period, and the numbers are very low in terms of total number of tweets.

Compare this to comments in newspaper columns on immigration and multiculturalism, where my anecdotal observations indicate a fair number of offensive comments, depending on the article:

“In Canada, we’re so reluctant to talk about race and racism specifically so often times in public discourse it’s rarely ever brought up but when you shift to the online realm people are … freely being racist,” said Chaudhry, who will present his findings at the Social Media and Society International Conference in Toronto next month.

To conduct his research, Chaudhry flagged common racist terms coming out of Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto and Montreal.

In Calgary, as well as Edmonton and Winnipeg, the majority of comments were directed at the aboriginal community.

About 50 per cent of all the racist tweets were real-time observations, said Chaudhry.

“I’d always notice people complaining to Calgary transit about aboriginals in public spaces,” he said.

Overall, he said the number of Calgary-based racist tweets was low. Toronto accounted for 434; Vancouver had 99; Winnipeg had 78; Edmonton had 60; and Montreal had 43. In Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, the n-word was the most common racist term.

Darren Lund, a professor at the U of C’s the Werklund School of Education who researches social justice issues, said he was disheartened but not surprised by the findings.

“It seems that most of us have been raised in a way that even if we’re really nice, well-intentioned people, we’re still taught in some ways to think of aboriginal people as less than, or as flawed,” he said.

Tracked tweets reflect racist attitudes online, says of U of A researcher.

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Ont. minister denounces ‘hateful’ anti-immigrant flyers; police investigating

2014/08/13 2 Comments

More on the flyer by Immigration Watch (Anti-immigration flyers single out Sikh community in Brampton):

Michael Chan says in a statement that he is “disgusted” by the flyers in the city northwest of Toronto and that “there is no room in our province for intolerance, hatred or division on cultural or racial lines.

The document shows a crossed-out picture of a man wearing a turban alongside text asking readers to “Say ‘No’ to the massive Third World invasion of Canada.”

Ont. minister denounces ‘hateful’ anti-immigrant flyers; police investigating – The Globe and Mail.

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Canadians pay 42% of income in tax — more than they spend on food, shelter, clothing combined | National Post

2014/08/13 Leave a comment

Unfortunately, all too typical of shallow economic analysis, aligned with ideology.

Of course, one can and should always question value for money with respect to taxation, as well as reviewing the need for government intervention and programs.

But an increase in the share of taxation from 33.5 percent in 1961 (pre-medicare) to 41.8 percent in 2013 without a corresponding analysis of the change in government services is the kind of sloppy “stop the gravy train” Rob Ford unsubstantiated bumper sticker.

A more serious approach would be to compare the increase in program spending with the increase in programs and services, and focus the discussion on whether or not the existing policy rationales and needs are still appropriate:

“Telling people that almost 42% of their income goes on taxes, that’s the first important takeaway. Then people can say, ‘Hold on, that’s one area that can be scaled back.’ We want to start that conversation and this is the data to do that,” he said.

Given that incomes have increased substantially since 1961, it’s inevitable taxes would also rise in terms of the amounts paid, but tax rates have increased because governments provide a wider range of services.

Since 1961, the average family’s tax bill rose by 1,832%, dwarfing increases in the costs of housing, clothing and food.Last year, the average family earned $77,381 and paid $32,369 in total taxes, or 41.8%. Food, shelter and clothing ate up another 36.1%.

For 1961, the numbers were $5,000 in income, $1,675 on taxes (33.5%) and food, shelter and clothing 56.5%.

Canadians pay 42% of income in tax — more than they spend on food, shelter, clothing combined | National Post.

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WWI racism: black, Asian and aboriginal volunteers faced discrimination

2014/08/12 Leave a comment

Another angle to the coverage of WWI and Canada’s role, and a reminder how Canada has changed:

Many of those remembered by the monument [honouring Japanese-Canadian soldiers] were denied the right to enlist in British Columbia at the start of the war and had to travel to Alberta, where they joined up with regiments like the Calgary Highlanders.

Dozens died while fighting in Europe, and shortly after the war ended, the limestone cenotaph was erected, etched with the names of the men who fought.

Professor Tim Cook, a historian at the Canadian War Museum and an adjunct research professor at Carleton University, said Canadians of African and Asian ancestry, as well as First Nations, all faced discrimination.

“Canada was not the multicultural country that it is today,” he said. “It was very much a prejudiced society.”

After Britain declared war on Aug. 4, 1914, most of the first recruits were Anglo-Saxon and English speaking, and those who weren’t were simply turned away, said Cook.

First Nations were treated a bit differently, he added, because they had a reputation for being snipers and scouts. Still, the government didn’t know what to do with aboriginal volunteers because it feared the Germans wouldn’t extend any mercy on the battlefield to those they captured. By the end of the war, about 4,000 First Nations served, said Cook.

About 60 per cent of Canada’s first contingent of soldiers were British-born, 30 per cent were Canadian and about 10 per cent were others, Cook said, adding that most of the recruits were former British soldiers who served in the Boer War or were members of the Canadian militia or professional army.

WWI racism: black, Asian and aboriginal volunteers faced discrimination | Toronto Star.

From the Vancouver Sun, a good profile of the Louie brothers, Chinese Canadians, who fought in WW1:

In 1917, when there were conscription riots in Canada by those not willing to fight, the brothers’ dogged insistence on joining the Canadian Army and fighting for a country that refused them full citizenship and whose racial policies deemed them inferior was nothing short of astonishing.

The brothers were among the 300 or so Chinese-Canadians believed to have volunteered to fight in the First World War but about whom very little is known.

The pair’s exploits, therefore, must stand in for all those unknown warriors who, like the Louies, didn’t seek safety behind what they might have considered a convenient aspect of racism — their exemption from conscription.

Col. Howe Lee, one of the founders of the Chinese Canadian Military Museum at 555 Columbia St., in Vancouver’s Chinatown, says the Canadian government exempted Chinese Canadians from conscription in the First World War as a means to continue denying them citizenship.

“It’s generally accepted if a foreigner fights for a country during a war, they are entitled to citizenship. The Louie brothers weren’t foreigners, they were born here, but that didn’t matter. When conscription came in, they were exempt because the government didn’t want to give citizenship to Chinese,” said Lee.

Photographs of both soldiers and some of the letters they wrote home from the Western Front on army-issue paper are now on display in a small room at the museum, as is Wee Tan’s steel helmet that he brought home from France.

Battling enemies overseas, fighting racism on home front

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Toronto’s diverse population requires multilingual health care: Goar | Toronto Star

2014/08/12 Leave a comment

Good overview by Carol Goar on an initiative to provide interpretation services in healthcare:

Patients using the service no longer have to bring a relative or friend to medical appointments. They don’t have to disclose sensitive information domestic abuse, mental health issues, sexual problems to their families to get help. They don’t have to impose the burden of being a go-between on young children. And according the Centre for Inner City Health, they believe the quality of the care is better when they can communicate without fear of being misinterpreted by their health-care provider.

Health-care providers have more confidence in the information they are getting from patients. They don’t have to deal with difficult family dynamics. They can involve patients in their own treatment. And they can be sure their instructions are being conveyed to the patient accurately. “It has fundamentally changed who we are able to offer services to,” one health-care provider said.

The researchers did find a few gaps and weaknesses:

  • Elderly patients often don’t like — and won’t use — the technology. The special dial-in code and the delays patching everybody into the conversation frustrate them.
  • The service is inappropriate for people with dementia or paranoia. For them, disembodied voices can be confusing or threatening.
  • It is obviously unsuitable for hard-of-hearing patients.
  • The interpreter’s gender can make some conversations difficult.
  • The cost is a barrier for certain community agencies.
  • And some patients prefer the old method.

On balance, however, the evaluation team gives the program high marks and recommends expansion with a few adjustments.

With the face of urban Canada rapidly changing, it is heartening to see Toronto take the lead in keeping medicare open and equitable.

Toronto’s diverse population requires multilingual health care: Goar | Toronto Star.

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We’re not a post-racial society. We’re the innocent until proven racist society | Danielle Henderson

2014/08/12 Leave a comment

Strong commentary by Danielle Henderson in The Guardian on the enduring presence of racism in the US (some of the examples apply more broadly), and the wilful or unconscious denial that occurs (with the caveat that correlation is not necessarily causation):

Racism is not just part of our shameful past as many would like to think: it’s a vicious factor in the gulf of inequality that still plagues us today.

People of color still suffer the effects of racism on a regular basis: statistics show that we incarcerate African-Americans and Latinos at disproportionate rates; white people then strongly support continuing criminal justice policies that disproportionately target Latinos and African-Americans when given information about the disproportionate rates of incarceration. Our schools still expel and suspend black students at “triple the rate of their white peers”. People of color are more likely to be arrested for drug related crimes, even though whites use and abuse drugs at similar rates, and, once arrested, get longer sentences than white people arrested for the same crimes. Unemployment is consistently twice as high among black Americans compared to white Americans, and black Americans have to search for work longer than white ones. African-Americans pay more for car insurance, for home loans and for access to credit, and they are racially profiled while shopping by store security personnel – including at Best Buy. Having tons of money is no panacea: even though they make up 65% of the NFL, black players receive 92% of the penalties for unsportsmanlike conduct, and a store clerk in Switzerland refused to show a $38,000 Tom Ford handbag to Oprah Winfrey, whose net worth is $2.9bn, because it was “too expensive”.

And yet, people still hold on to the belief that we live in a color-blind system in which nobody is a racist, despite such obvious examples of persistent racism. The “post-racial” society is an intellectual refuge for white Americans, who largely benefit from racism even when they’re unwilling or unable to admit it. We certainly shouldn’t keep denying that racism exists, but white America needs to wake up and recognize just how complicit it has become in a system constantly perpetuating false notions of equality.

Were not a post-racial society. Were the innocent until proven racist society | Danielle Henderson | Comment is free | theguardian.com.

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Amazon-Hachette Dispute: Amazon’s Self-Serving Messaging

2014/08/12 Leave a comment

Hadn’t been following this dispute that much but when Amazon sent me the letter below, pretending to be on the side of the angels, I reacted in my response to them below:

I am sorry, but this letter and its request, is self-serving and outrageous.

I say this as someone who has both bought and published with Amazon.
I will be contacting the publishers telling them I do not support Amazon’s position as detailed in your letter.
Cloaking your corporate interests in consumer-friendly language, neglecting the content creation aspects of publishing, and shamefully invoking Orwell, is an extremely cynical move.
Will be sharing your letter and my response on my blog.

The NY Times points out that Amazon has misrepresented Orwell:

But Orwell then went on to undermine Amazon’s argument much more effectively than Hachette ever has. “It is of course a great mistake to imagine that cheap books are good for the book trade,” he wrote. “Actually it is just the other way about … The cheaper books become, the less money is spent on books.”

Instead of buying two expensive books, he says, the consumer will buy two cheap books and then use the rest of his money to go to the movies. “This is an advantage from the reader’s point of view and doesn’t hurt trade as a whole, but for the publisher, the compositor, the author and the bookseller, it is a disaster,” Orwell wrote.

The real problem, the writer argued in an essay a decade later, “Books v. Cigarettes,” was with the books themselves. They had a hard time competing against other media — a point people are still making in 2014.

“If our book consumption remains as low as it has been,” he wrote, “at least let us admit that it is because reading is a less exciting pastime than going to the dogs, the pictures or the pub, and not because books, whether bought or borrowed, are too expensive.”

Bits Blog: Dispute Between Amazon and Hachette Takes an Orwellian Turn

The original letter:

Dear KDP Author,

Just ahead of World War II, there was a radical invention that shook the foundations of book publishing. It was the paperback book. This was a time when movie tickets cost 10 or 20 cents, and books cost $2.50. The new paperback cost 25 cents – it was ten times cheaper. Readers loved the paperback and millions of copies were sold in just the first year.

With it being so inexpensive and with so many more people able to afford to buy and read books, you would think the literary establishment of the day would have celebrated the invention of the paperback, yes? Nope. Instead, they dug in and circled the wagons. They believed low cost paperbacks would destroy literary culture and harm the industry (not to mention their own bank accounts). Many bookstores refused to stock them, and the early paperback publishers had to use unconventional methods of distribution – places like newsstands and drugstores. The famous author George Orwell came out publicly and said about the new paperback format, if “publishers had any sense, they would combine against them and suppress them.” Yes, George Orwell was suggesting collusion.

Well… history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

Fast forward to today, and it’s the e-book’s turn to be opposed by the literary establishment. Amazon and Hachette – a big US publisher and part of a $10 billion media conglomerate – are in the middle of a business dispute about e-books. We want lower e-book prices. Hachette does not. Many e-books are being released at $14.99 and even $19.99. That is unjustifiably high for an e-book. With an e-book, there’s no printing, no over-printing, no need to forecast, no returns, no lost sales due to out of stock, no warehousing costs, no transportation costs, and there is no secondary market – e-books cannot be resold as used books. E-books can and should be less expensive.

Perhaps channeling Orwell’s decades old suggestion, Hachette has already been caught illegally colluding with its competitors to raise e-book prices. So far those parties have paid $166 million in penalties and restitution. Colluding with its competitors to raise prices wasn’t only illegal, it was also highly disrespectful to Hachette’s readers.

The fact is many established incumbents in the industry have taken the position that lower e-book prices will “devalue books” and hurt “Arts and Letters.” They’re wrong. Just as paperbacks did not destroy book culture despite being ten times cheaper, neither will e-books. On the contrary, paperbacks ended up rejuvenating the book industry and making it stronger. The same will happen with e-books.

Many inside the echo-chamber of the industry often draw the box too small. They think books only compete against books. But in reality, books compete against mobile games, television, movies, Facebook, blogs, free news sites and more. If we want a healthy reading culture, we have to work hard to be sure books actually are competitive against these other media types, and a big part of that is working hard to make books less expensive.

Moreover, e-books are highly price elastic. This means that when the price goes down, customers buy much more. We’ve quantified the price elasticity of e-books from repeated measurements across many titles. For every copy an e-book would sell at $14.99, it would sell 1.74 copies if priced at $9.99. So, for example, if customers would buy 100,000 copies of a particular e-book at $14.99, then customers would buy 174,000 copies of that same e-book at $9.99. Total revenue at $14.99 would be $1,499,000. Total revenue at $9.99 is $1,738,000. The important thing to note here is that the lower price is good for all parties involved: the customer is paying 33% less and the author is getting a royalty check 16% larger and being read by an audience that’s 74% larger. The pie is simply bigger.

But when a thing has been done a certain way for a long time, resisting change can be a reflexive instinct, and the powerful interests of the status quo are hard to move. It was never in George Orwell’s interest to suppress paperback books – he was wrong about that.

And despite what some would have you believe, authors are not united on this issue. When the Authors Guild recently wrote on this, they titled their post: “Amazon-Hachette Debate Yields Diverse Opinions Among Authors” (the comments to this post are worth a read).  A petition started by another group of authors and aimed at Hachette, titled “Stop Fighting Low Prices and Fair Wages,” garnered over 7,600 signatures.  And there are myriad articles and posts, by authors and readers alike, supporting us in our effort to keep prices low and build a healthy reading culture. Author David Gaughran’s recent interview is another piece worth reading.

We recognize that writers reasonably want to be left out of a dispute between large companies. Some have suggested that we “just talk.” We tried that. Hachette spent three months stonewalling and only grudgingly began to even acknowledge our concerns when we took action to reduce sales of their titles in our store. Since then Amazon has made three separate offers to Hachette to take authors out of the middle. We first suggested that we (Amazon and Hachette) jointly make author royalties whole during the term of the dispute. Then we suggested that authors receive 100% of all sales of their titles until this dispute is resolved. Then we suggested that we would return to normal business operations if Amazon and Hachette’s normal share of revenue went to a literacy charity. But Hachette, and their parent company Lagardere, have quickly and repeatedly dismissed these offers even though e-books represent 1% of their revenues and they could easily agree to do so. They believe they get leverage from keeping their authors in the middle.

We will never give up our fight for reasonable e-book prices. We know making books more affordable is good for book culture. We’d like your help. Please email Hachette and copy us.

Hachette CEO, Michael Pietsch: Michael.Pietsch@hbgusa.com

Copy us at: readers-united@amazon.com

Please consider including these points:

– We have noted your illegal collusion. Please stop working so hard to overcharge for ebooks. They can and should be less expensive.
– Lowering e-book prices will help – not hurt – the reading culture, just like paperbacks did.
– Stop using your authors as leverage and accept one of Amazon’s offers to take them out of the middle.
– Especially if you’re an author yourself: Remind them that authors are not united on this issue.

Thanks for your support.

The Amazon Books Team

P.S. You can also find this letter at www.readersunited.com

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The Guardian view on Gaza and the rise of antisemitism | Editorial | Comment is free | The Guardian

2014/08/12 Leave a comment

The Guardian’s take on increased antisemitism in relation to Israeli government actions:

It should not need saying, but it does: people can be as angry as they like at the Israeli government, but to attack a synagogue, threaten children at a Jewish school, or throw a brick through the window of a Jewish grocery store is vile and contemptible racism. It cannot be excused by reference to Israeli military behaviour. The two are and should be kept utterly distinct.

Some may counter that that is impossible, given the strong attachment of most Jews to Israel. But this is less complicated than it looks. Yes, Jews feel bound up with Israel, they believe in its right to survive and thrive. But that does not mean they should be held responsible for its policy, on which some may disagree and over which they have no control.

Nor should they be required to declare their distance from Israel as a condition for admission into polite society. We opposed such a question being put to all Muslims after 9/11 and, though the cases are not equivalent, the same logic applies here. This is a test for those who take a strong stance in support of the Palestinians, but in truth it is a test for all of us.

The Guardian view on Gaza and the rise of antisemitism | Editorial | Comment is free | The Guardian.

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Hindu bride and Jewish groom? Someone will bring them together

2014/08/11 Leave a comment

Good piece on how a number of congregations and faith leaders are responding to increased intermarriage and diversity. Some good vignettes that reflect the reality below:

Between 1991 and 2001, interfaith marriages and common-law partnerships across Canada increased from 15 to 19 per cent. Statistics Canada projects that by 2031, nearly 31 per cent of Torontonians will be non-Christian, up from approximately 21 per cent in 2006. As Toronto becomes less religiously homogenous as a city, more and more romantic partnerships will reflect that increased diversity.

In turn, religious organizations will be forced to consider the impact of these interfaith couples on their communities, and decide for themselves whether accommodating members with different beliefs poses an existential threat or, alternately, the very means to that community’s survival.

Hindu bride and Jewish groom? Someone will bring them together – The Globe and Mail.

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Changing face of Surrey presents challenges

2014/08/11 Leave a comment

Profile on the changing face of Surrey, BC, given an increasing refugee population:

Tsering Yangkyi stirs a pot of tea she is making on the stove in a basement suite in Surrey. For Yangkyi, her husband Lhakpa Tsering and their three children, the Fleetwood neighbourhood where they currently reside is a far cry from the rural Tibetan settlement in India where they used to live.

Yangkyi and her family represent the changing face of the city as immigrants and refugees from countries around the world continue to settle in Surrey.

Thirty years from now the face of the city may be different from what it currently is, where South Asians make up the majority of immigrants in the city. Families like Yangkyi, Tsering and their children may be the future of Surrey, but there are many challenges up ahead for them and other newcomers.

Immigrants and refugees face a number of difficulties. Language and cultural barriers make it difficult for newcomers to access resources, and it also makes it challenging to find employment.

Surrey has become a top destination for government-assisted refugees: 32 per cent of government-assisted refugees in B.C. settled in Surrey in 2013. Among the many challenges these refugees face, one is having to pay back an interest-bearing loan provided by the government to cover transportation costs to Canada.

Changing face of Surrey presents challenges.

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