Globe editorial: Three things Canada must do to help Ukraine, and Ukrainians [immigration section]

2022/03/05 Leave a comment

The Globe, long an advocate for increased immigration and supporter of the Century Initiative and Business Council of Canada and other advocates, becomes realistic in noting that large scale increases in Ukrainian temporary and permanent immigration should be within the current high levels, not additional to them:

… Immigration: Unless by some miracle the war ends soon, a flood of refugees is coming. As of Thursday morning, the United Nations estimated that a million Ukrainians had left the country. The UN says as many as four million may leave – though if this war is anywhere near as destructive as in Chechnya or Syria, that is likely to be an underestimate.

In response, Canada must be generous and smart.

The Trudeau government said on Thursday that it will create a new visa category, allowing an unlimited number of Ukrainians to come to Canada to live, work or study for a period of up to two years. The government said it will also create an expedited immigration process for Ukrainians fleeing the country, and who have family in Canada.

Some have urged the government to simply drop the visa requirement and allow anyone from Ukraine to buy a plane ticket to Canada, no questions asked. That would be a mistake. The government says it worries about nefarious actors, including people who fought in pro-Russian militias, taking advantage of a zero-security approach. It’s right to worry.

Canada only allows visa-free travel for people from a limited number of countries where the risk of a vacationer choosing to overstay is low. But this program is not about Ukrainians holidaying in Canada – obviously not. It is about allowing people who are basically refugees to come to Canada for two years, after which, depending on the situation back home, many will surely apply to become refugee claimants or immigrants.

Canada always vets people before allowing them to relocate, temporarily or permanently, from overseas. There’s no reason to abandon that approach here.

In terms of immigration and refugee application made directly from Europe, Canada can and should welcome a large number of Ukrainians in the months to come. It’s a chance to make some lemonade, for Canada and Ukrainians, out of this lemon of a situation. However, given Canada’s housing crisis, and already high immigration levels, a big jump in immigrants from Ukraine should be counterbalanced by a temporary lowering of arrivals from other sources.

Canada should also do everything it can to entice the most educated and skilled Ukrainian exiles to choose our country. That would be good for us, and for them. More on all of this, next week.

Source: Globe editorial: Three things Canada must do to help Ukraine, and Ukrainians [immigration section]

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Federal government warns Canadians against fighting for Russia in Ukraine

2022/03/05 Leave a comment

Of note. Apart from some of the legal issues raised in the article, always felt from a citizenship perspective that taking up arms for another country suggested a higher loyalty to that country than Canada (which country are you willing to die for?). The citizenship oath requires one to “faithfully observe the laws of Canada,” which again, as noted by the experts cited in the article, have considerable ambiguity.

And of course, there are differences in terms of which military one fights for (formal allies such as NATO members or informal ones such as Ukraine and more arguably Israel) or whether, more questionable, fighting for foreign brigades or irregular forces (fighting for a listed entity like ISIS would be in contravention of Canadian laws):

Ottawa is warning that Canadians who decide to fight for Russia in Ukraine could face severe consequences, even as it acknowledges for the first time uncertainties about whether it is legal to bear arms for the Ukrainian side.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland delivered the warning to anyone contemplating joining the Russian military invasion of Ukraine on Thursday as she announced more Canadian sanctions on Moscow and support for Kyiv in response to that attack.

Asked at a news conference whether Canadians who pick up arms for Russia would be prosecuted, Freeland said: “We are very clear that this war is illegal. And Canada will take a very appropriately severe view of anyone who is fighting this war.”

Yet federal ministers appeared less confident about the legality of fighting for Ukraine, whose government appealed last weekend for foreign volunteers to join an “international brigade” to help defend the country from Russia.

Numerous Canadians have since said they plan to answer the call to arms, with some having already flown overseas.

Appearing alongside Freeland, Defence Minister Anita Anand told reporters that while she understood the desire that many Canadians have to bear arms for Ukraine, “the legalities of the situation … are indeterminant at this time.”

The federal government had previously avoided directly addressing the legality of Canadians fighting in Ukraine, or whether it supports those who want to do so. Federal ministers instead couched the issue as a matter of personal risk.

That stood in stark contrast to the United Kingdom and Australia, whose governments have noted the potential legal issues that their citizens could face if they fight in a conflict that does not involve their countries.

Anand instead encouraged people to enlist with the Canadian Armed Forces, which has launched a new recruitment drive as it struggles with a shortfall of thousands of active service members while facing growing demands at home and abroad.

“If there are Canadians who are interested in the Armed Forces, the Canadian Armed Forces is currently recruiting,” said Anand, who worked as a lawyer and legal scholar at the University of Toronto prior to entering politics.

“And we would very much welcome applications from across the country to the Canadian Armed Forces, where we have had a training mission in Ukraine since 2015 and have trained over 33,000 Ukrainian soldiers.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau later sidestepped a similar question about the legality of Canadians fighting for Ukraine, referring back to the government’s previous warnings about the risks of travel in Ukraine before adding that he was not a lawyer.

While Freeland did not say whether Canadians who fight for Russia could be prosecuted, author and historian Tyler Wentzell suspected federal lawyers are now taking a hard, long look at the Foreign Enlistment Act and how it can apply today.

Passed in 1937, the act was intended to keep Canada neutral during the Spanish Civil War and basically banned joining a foreign military to fight a country Canada considers “friendly.” Those who violate the law can face a fine of up to $2,000 and two years in prison.

But exactly what counts as a friendly country is not defined, and Wentzell noted the act specifically gives cabinet the power and flexibility to determine which foreign conflicts are allowed or banned.

“They can issue regulations that unequivocally say: You can’t join the Russian Armed Forces,” said Wentzell, who has studied Canadians’ involvement in previous foreign conflicts and written a book on Canadians fighting in the Spanish Civil War.

“They can also issue regulations that say: We will not prosecute anyone, or we require ministerial authorization to prosecute anyone for the following offences.”

Some experts have noted that certain paramilitary units in Ukraine, and even some segments of the Ukrainian military, have been linked to far-right extremism and hate, and even accused of past war crimes.

That has raised concern about Canadians who decide to fight against Russia either knowingly or unknowingly becoming involved with such units and becoming complicit in such activities and later held to account.

Wentzell said it is noteworthy that the government is not only discouraging Canadians from fighting in Ukraine, “they’re not promising anything. In fact, what they’re really saying is that they’re not promising anything.”

Source: Federal government warns Canadians against fighting for Russia in Ukraine

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The long fight for Freedmen citizenship continues in Oklahoma tribal nations

2022/03/05 Leave a comment

Long standing issue that pops up in my news feeds from time to time:

In 2016, LeEtta Osborne-Sampson, a council representative of the Seminole Nation who is Black, approached some colleagues about a disturbing picture hung on the wall of the Mekusukey Mission, which is used as the Seminole Nation council house and courthouse.

“It was a Black man sitting under a tree,” Osborne-Sampson said. “This Black man had a cloak over his head, a noose around his neck and his hands bound and his feet bound.”

Osborne-Sampson went to the Seminole Nation chief at the time, Leonard Harjo, and asked for the painting to be removed.

“You can’t get that removed,” she says Harjo told her. “It’s history.”

Osborne-Sampson is one of four members of the Seminole Nation General Council who are Freedmen — descendants of enslaved people brought to Oklahoma by tribal nations that were forcibly relocated here in the 19th century. The Seminole Nation grants Freedmen only limited citizenship rights, and three of the other five largest Oklahoma tribes don’t recognize their Freedmen as citizens at all.

Though Freedmen were guaranteed tribal citizenship by treaties signed in 1866, many of those rights have been chipped away or revoked entirely over the years. But Freedmen in all five tribes have been fighting to reclaim their status as tribal citizens, with mixed success. Despite setbacks, their efforts have gained momentum and are even the subject of a bill currently before Congress.

The history of disenfranchisement still surfaces today, Osborne-Sampson said, recalling incidents in which racist slurs and other insults were hurled at her and the other Freedmen council members. She also recalled stories of discrimination that her grandfather, Sam Osborne, who also served on the Seminole Nation General Council, used to tell her.

“To hear my grandfather tell us these things over the years I grew up, and he sat on Council as well — nothing has changed,” Osborne-Sampson said. “Racism is very high in the Seminole Nation.”

‘Their blood didn’t count’

In 1866, the United States signed treaties with the Cherokee, Muscogee, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole tribes which granted reservation land to each tribe and abolished slavery within the tribal nations. According to those treaties, former slaves were to be recognized as full tribal citizens.

Today, however, only the Cherokee Nation recognizes Freedmen as full citizens. The Muscogee, Choctaw and Seminole nations have since amended their constitutions in ways that exclude Freedmen, and the Chickasaw Nation never enrolled Freedmen into the tribe at all, despite treaty stipulations.

The 1866 treaties declaring citizenship rights for Freedmen are the same ones cited to reaffirm the five tribes’ reservations following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma. Cheryl Phifer, a Chickasaw Freedman, said she sees the tribes’ unwillingness to accept Freedmen while claiming the jurisdictions given them by the McGirt ruling as hypocritical.

“They want the United States to uphold the treaty, but they don’t want to uphold the treaty either,” Phifer said.

Full citizenship in tribal nations would allow Freedmen to vote, run for office, and benefit from tribal services such as housing, education and health care, many of which are heavily funded by the federal government.

The exclusion of Freedmen goes all the way back to the institution of the Dawes Rolls in 1907, just months before Oklahoma was granted statehood.

The Dawes Rolls are a list of Native American people compiled by the federal government as part of the Dawes Act, which divided millions of acres of communal tribal land into individual allotments (which also violated the 1866 treaties). Those who accepted the divided tribal lands were allowed to receive U.S. citizenship.

“The purpose of the land allotment was to teach a concept of private land ownership, because the tribes prior to that all owned land in common,” said Angela Walton-Raji, a Choctaw Freedman author and genealogist. “Now once all the land allotments were finished, the purpose of [the Dawes Rolls] was to then open up the remaining millions of acres of land for white settlements, so Oklahoma could join the union.”

The Dawes Rolls included three categories: natives by blood, whites who had married into the tribe and Freedmen. Although many Freedmen had native ancestry, they were listed only as Freedmen, essentially erasing their blood relation to their tribe.

“They didn’t write down any blood quantum if they were Black. It was an application of the concept of a one-drop-of-blood type of thing,” said Walton-Raji. “The result was that any native blood that people who had been classified as Freedmen had, basically, their blood didn’t count. It was never recorded.”

So when the Cherokee, Muscogee, Choctaw and Seminole nations each barred Freedmen from tribal citizenship decades after the Dawes Rolls were finalized, many descendants of biracial natives were disenrolled from their tribes entirely, Walton-Raji said.

Cherokee Nation decision a victory for Freedmen

Among the five tribes, the Cherokee Nation is the only one that recognizes Freedmen as full citizens today. Freedmen had enjoyed citizenship rights until the 1980s, when the nation began excluding those not classified as “by blood” on the Dawes rolls. leading to a number of court battles. The “by blood” restriction was officially passed in a 2007 special election, and removed only recently by a unanimous ruling of the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court on Feb. 22, 2021.

On May 12, 2021, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland approved a new constitution for the Cherokee Nation which explicitly ensured the protection of Freedmen’s rights and citizenship.

“We encourage other tribes to take similar steps to meet their moral and legal obligations to the Freedmen,” Haaland said.

The decision to remove “by blood” was in response to a 2017 U.S. District Court ruling in Cherokee Nation v. Nash, which determined that Freedmen descendants are entitled to full citizenship rights.

Marilyn Vann — who was appointed by Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. to the Cherokee Nation’s Environmental Protection Commission in September 2021 and is the first Freedman to hold a governmental office in the tribe — was a plaintiff on the case. Vann is also the president of the Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes.

Vann said the legal change has not transformed everyone’s thinking, however.

“It’s true that the Cherokee Nation since Judge Hogan’s ruling in the Cherokee Nation v. Nash and Vann case has tried to live up to its treaty rights and treaty obligations,” Vann said. “But myself, as a Freedman tribal member, I’m aware that there are persons in the Cherokee Nation who oppose Freedmen’s citizenship.”

In a December 2019 interview with NonDoc, Hoskin said he and his administration have worked hard to improve relationships with Cherokee Freedmen.

“I’m very mindful that we need to make sure all of our services and all of our accessibility to the government is done based on that core principle of equality, and that even if overt or hostile discrimination is wiped away, there can sometimes be inadvertent acts that exclude people based on their descendancy, and I want to make sure that doesn’t happen in our government,” he said.

‘I’m not sure it will ever happen. Not in my lifetime.’

In 1979, the Muscogee (Creek) Nation adopted a constitution that restricted tribal citizenship to descendants of people listed as “Indian by blood” on the Dawes Rolls.

Muscogee Freedmen have made efforts over the years to regain citizenship rights. The Muscogee Creek Indian Freedmen Band even filed an unsuccessful petition in 2011 to register as an independent, federally recognized tribe.

The group also filed a lawsuit against the Muscogee Nation and U.S. Department of the Interior in July 2018, challenging the tribe’s constitution, but the suit was dismissed in May 2019 because the plaintiffs did not provide records showing they had applied for citizenship and had been rejected within the preceding decade.

Ivory Vann (no relation to Marilyn Vann), a Muscogee Freedman and a member of the Muskogee City Council, said the 2018 lawsuit was the best shot Muscogee Freedmen have had at regaining citizenship.

“That was the closest we’ve ever been towards doing the right thing,” Vann said. “I’m not sure it will ever happen. Not in my lifetime.”

Muscogee Nation communications director Jason Salsman said in a July 2021 interview with NonDoc that Muscogee Nation Principal Chief David Hill believes Freedmen citizenship is an issue that should be left to a vote of the people, and it could even be placed on a ballot this year. Salsman also said Hill was considering a string of town hall meetings on the issue.

Walton-Raji was skeptical of the idea of town halls to discuss Freedmen citizenship.

“Imagine having a town hall issued to discuss what is right,” Walton-Raji said. “Let’s have a discussion, shall we treat these Black people right?”

Asked about 2022 updates on the Freedmen question in the Muscogee Nation, Salsman provided a statement Thursday that community forums surrounding are expected to begin this spring:

We expect this spring to discuss the timing and logistics of community forums for Muscogee (Creek) Nation citizens to engage on the topic of citizenship eligibility for Creek Freedmen descendants.

Since we first brought up the idea of community discussion the nation has installed a new speaker of our National Council, we have navigated the issues presented by COVID and we have necessarily directed resources to not only implement McGirt, but, importantly, to protect the nation’s interests in an onslaught of legal challenges from the state.

This is a deeply personal and highly emotional issue that goes to the heart of identity for both Creek citizens and the descendants of Freedmen. The issue of citizenship eligibility also is a fundamental component of our Constitution, which can only be changed through a deliberative process that concludes with a vote of Muscogee (Creek) citizens.

Ivory Vann believes the only way Freedmen will be able to claim citizenship rights is through monetary pressure. He is a proponent of House Resolution 5195, a bill proposed by U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA43) which would tie federal funding for tribal housing and infrastructure to compliance to the 1866 treaties.

“If you take their money, they will come to the table,” Vann said.

However, the language regarding 1866 treaties has proved controversial, and HR 5195 is in danger of stalling, while a similar bill that does not include that language was passed by the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on Feb. 16.

‘Voting privileges only’ in the Seminole Nation

In 2000, the Seminole Nation voted to restrict citizenship to those who had one-eighth Seminole ancestry based on the Dawes Rolls, disenrolling nearly 2,000 Freedmen from the tribe.

Freedmen believe that a complicated 2002 court case regarding voting rights — Seminole Nation v. Norton — effectively upheld the Seminole Freedmen’s 1866 treaty rights, but the Seminole Nation has not granted them full citizenship as a result.

“When the Seminole Nation lost Seminole Nation v. Norton 20 years ago, they were directed by the BIA that the Seminole Freedman are members of a federal tribe, that we’re entitled to federal services,” Marilyn Vann said. “What did they do? They reissued the people’s tribal membership cards to say ‘Freedmen’ on the front, ‘00 blood quantum,’ ‘voting privileges only’ on the back.”

Today, the Seminole Nation grants only limited citizenship to its Freedmen, allowing them to vote, sit on governmental committees and hold office on the tribe’s General Council within the tribe’s two Freedmen bands. They are not eligible to hold senior leadership positions or to receive a number of services.

In October 2021, the federal Indian Health Service announced that Seminole Nation Freedmen are eligible for health care, after months of reports that the tribe was denying Freedmen COVID-19 vaccines.

Osborne-Sampson said relatives of hers who lived near Wewoka, where the IHS has a clinic, struggled to get health care early in the pandemic.

“Since COVID started in 2020, I have 17 family members that died of that, in that area,” Osborne-Sampson said. “There’s no doctor. You had to go 50 miles out just to get help, but that clinic sat right there.”

In November 2021, Osborne-Sampson met with Seminole Nation Chief Lewis Johnson and Assistant Chief Brian Thomas Palmer, who were elected in July and August respectively, to discuss the future of Freedmen in the tribe.

“They told us that they wouldn’t do anything different than the former chiefs, because they’re only going to go by what the Council says,” Osborne-Sampson said. “We took that as, you’re not trying to pull the nation together as one.”

Now, Osborne-Sampson and other Seminole Freedmen are preparing to pursue legal action by reopening Seminole Nation v. Norton.

“We are looking to take them back to court, to Washington federal courts and reopen that case to ask for our citizenship to be recognized and given,” said Osborne-Sampson. “The judge already granted us this, but we need to open it again to show that [the Seminole Nation leaders] have not done anything.”

A spokesman for the Seminole Nation said Chief Lewis Johnson had no statement regarding the citizenship question for Freedmen at this time.

Will the Choctaw Nation have a ‘meaningful conversation’?

In 1983, the Choctaw Nation created a new constitution that said tribal citizens must be descended from “by blood” citizens on the Dawes Rolls.

On July 1, 2021, Choctaw Chief Gary Batton wrote an open letter announcing an initiative to consider membership for Choctaw Freedmen.

“Today we reach out to the Choctaw Freedmen. We see you. We hear you. We look forward to meaningful conversation regarding our shared past,” Batton wrote.

Walton-Raji said the Choctaw-Chickasaw Freedmen Association (of which she is a member) and other Freedmen groups have inquired about starting the promised discussion but have not heard back.

“We have not heard anything as of yet, and perhaps it was never received. We don’t know,” Walton-Raji said. “But we wrote a letter immediately to Chief Batton’s office.”

What Walton-Raji does know is that members of Freedmen organizations have been following tribal council meetings since Batton’s open letter, and Freedmen have not been discussed so far.

“It’s not a discussion, it’s not on any of the agendas,” she said.

So, while the open letter is encouraging, Walton-Raji said she is not sure if there will be any further action from Batton.

“He’s maybe considering it, but it might just be a private thought. It’s never come up officially,” she said. “At least, it doesn’t seem as if there’s any action to go beyond the open letter.”

Randy Sachs, director of public relations for the Choctaw Nation, said tribal leaders had no further comment on the Freedmen question as they are “still evaluating the situation.”

‘Eventually, right is going to come’ in the Chickasaw Nation

The Chickasaw Nation jointly signed a Reconstruction treaty with the Choctaw Nation in 1866 but never enrolled its Freedmen as full citizens, as required in the treaty.

“In the Chickasaw Nation, it’s just a bunch of frustrated people who know they were never given citizenship,” Walton-Raji said.

Because the tribe never enrolled its Freedmen in the first place, Chickasaw Freedmen have a worse chance at winning a lawsuit regarding their citizenship, Walton-Raji said.

“They failed to do their judiciary duties for us,” said Verdie Triplett, a Chickasaw Freedman and Choctaw by blood.

Because they were never brought into the tribe, Chickasaw Freedmen were left without a nation until Oklahoma joined the union, in 1907, and without U.S. citizenship until Congress enacted the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924.

“They broke the treaty and have been allowed to continue business as usual since that time,” Walton-Raji said.

In response to Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland’s asking tribes to uphold their “moral and legal obligations to the Freedmen,” Chickasaw Nation Gov. Bill Anoatubby said in a statement that “Chickasaw citizenship is a matter of sovereignty and is clearly defined in the Chickasaw Constitution.”

Triplett said he is not sure what the path toward citizenship entails, but he remains optimistic that Chickasaw Freedmen will eventually receive citizenship.

“I really don’t know what it’s going to take. I don’t know if it’s going to happen in my lifetime,” Tripplett said. “But eventually, right is going to come, it’s going to become reality. These tribes cannot continue to do what they’re doing because what they’re doing is wrong, and wrong is not going to prevail.”

Source: The long fight for Freedmen citizenship continues in Oklahoma tribal nations

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Uncertainty For Malta As US Bill Seeks To Ban Countries Which Sell Citizenship From Visa Waiver Programme

2022/03/05 Leave a comment

Of note:

Two US Congressmen, from both sides of the American political fence, have presented a bill to exclude countries which sell citizenship from its visa waiver program.

This bill could have serious implications for Malta, which is one of 40 countries that benefit from the program, which allows people to travel to the US for 90 days or less without obtaining a visa.

Republican Congressman Burgess Owens and Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen have now presented the ‘No Travel for Traffickers Act’, which would revoke a country’s eligibility for the US Visa Waiver Programme if they participate in citizenship-by-investment schemes.

The Act would also direct the US executive to cooperate with the EU and the UK to eliminate Schengen area visa-free travel for countries that sell passports and prohibit US public funds to vet ‘golden passport’ applicants.

“Also known as ‘golden passports’, these schemes require little vetting and are notoriously abused by human traffickers, international criminals, and corrupt oligarchs,” the Congressmen said. “Russia is one of the world’s worst offenders when it comes to using these golden passport schemes as a back door into other countries.”

Rep. Owens said the Act signals a critical step “in our efforts to isolate bad actors around the globe”, while Rep. Cohen warned citizenship-by-investment schemes allow traffickers to escape accountability for their crimes. 

Malta launched its original citizenship-by-investment scheme in 2013 but revamped it in 2020, only allowing applicants to apply for citizenship after one year of residence in the country against a €750,000 fee, or after three years if they pay €600,000.

The government has insisted due diligence procedures to vet applicants are among the strictest in the world.

It is facing renewed international pressure to scrap the scheme, including by European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

“We can no longer sell passports to Putin’s friends allowing them to circumvent our security. No more,” Metsola said this week.

Source: Uncertainty For Malta As US Bill Seeks To Ban Countries Which Sell Citizenship From Visa Waiver Programme

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Nicolas: Le choix des mots

2022/03/04 Leave a comment

Another good column on the differences on how groups are portrayed differently, particularly Ukrainian compared to other refugees:

L’invasion de l’Ukraine par la Russie n’a débuté qu’il y a une semaine. L’issue de la situation demeure incertaine. Toutefois, il apparaît déjà clair qu’il s’agit d’un conflit pas comme les autres, et surtout d’un conflit dont on ne parle pas comme les autres.

D’abord, on assiste à un mouvement de solidarité quasi unanime envers le peuple ukrainien. Au Conseil des droits de l’homme de l’ONU mardi, la presque totalité des diplomates a quitté la salle lorsque le ministre des Affaires étrangères russe a commencé son allocution. Des manifestations en appui aux Ukrainiens sont organisées partout dans le monde, et la colère face à l’invasion de l’armée russe semble tout aussi forte même au Canada. Un sondage de la firme Maru publié cette semaine montre que 91 % des Canadiens sont en « opposition totale avec la tyrannie de la Russie de Vladimir Poutine ». J’aurais du mal à nommer une autre situation de guerre où l’opinion publique mondiale s’est montrée aussi campée, aussi rapidement, contre une agression armée. Il semble plus simple de décrire l’horreur d’une bombe qui tombe sur des civils innocents lorsque cette bombe n’est pas, par exemple, américaine.

Ensuite, la vague de solidarité pro-ukrainienne ne semble pas, du moins pour le moment, se traduire en tsunami de haine envers le peuple russe ou les personnes d’origine russe. Plusieurs leaders importants ont donné rapidement le ton, à commencer par le président ukrainien lui-même, Volodymyr Zelensky, suivi par la vice-première ministre du Canada, Chrystia Freeland, aussi d’origine ukrainienne. Tous deux ont lancé des messages au cours des derniers jours pour marteler que le conflit en cours n’est pas avec le peuple russe, mais avec le président Vladimir Poutine et son entourage. On relaie également des images de manifestations antiguerre dans les grandes villes de Russie — des rassemblements qui seraient certainement encore plus importants si ce n’était de la violence de la répression policière dans ce pays. À la télévision, on semble éviter d’utiliser des formulations comme « les Russes » pour désigner des responsables de l’agression militaire, préférant parler de Vladimir Poutine lui-même ou de son régime.

Cette conscience du poids des mots et du risque de dérapage est rafraîchissante. On sait que les débuts de la pandémie dans la région de Wuhan et que les relations diplomatiques pour le moins tendues avec la Chine ont donné lieu à toutes sortes de commentaires sur « les Chinois » et à une montée des crimes haineux envers les personnes d’origine asiatique.

On sait aussi qu’un nombre déplorable de nos concitoyens n’hésitent pas à dériver d’une critique du régime saoudien ou d’un groupe comme Daech vers des généralisations sur « les Arabes » ou sur « les musulmans ». Pas plus tard que l’été dernier, des imbéciles ont aussi commis une série d’actes antisémites dans l’arrondissement de Saint-Laurent, comme s’il s’agissait là d’une manière de critiquer l’État d’Israël. Et on se rappelle que, durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, le Canada a notamment cru bon d’interner ses propres citoyens d’origine japonaise.

Puisque la liste de tristes précédents est longue, le souci actuel des mots détonne. Je ne vois personne de sérieux lancer l’hypothèse que l’autoritarisme de Poutine trouverait ses sources dans une tare particulière de la religion orthodoxe ou que la culture russe prendrait ses racines dans un éloge unique de la violence. L’analyse porte surtout sur les enjeux politiques, économiques et humanitaires. Enfin, croisons les doigts pour que ça dure.

Finalement, des réfugiés ne se sont pas présentés comme des menaces à refouler aux frontières. Le président de la Bulgarie, Roumen Radev, a peut-être eu la déclaration la plus candide à ce sujet. « Ce sont des Européens », a-t-il lancé plus tôt cette semaine. « Ces personnes sont intelligentes, éduquées… Ce ne sont pas les vagues de réfugiés auxquelles nous sommes habitués, des gens à l’identité incertaine, aux passés incertains, qui auraient même pu être des terroristes. » Des commentateurs, des experts et des journalistes ont aussi parlé de leur choc devant la guerre touchant le monde « civilisé » — omettant de transmettre du même coup une liste des régions du monde « barbares ». Cette nouvelle ouverture aux victimes de la guerre semble donc venir de l’identité des Ukrainiens : on leur ouvre les portes au nom de leur européanité et non de leur humanité. Le mauvais traitement réservé aux Africains et aux Asiatiques résidant en Ukraine à la frontière polonaise, dénoncé mardi par le Haut-Commissariat aux réfugiés de l’ONU, vient d’ailleurs démonter cette nuance importante.

L’humanisation particulière du peuple ukrainien joue un rôle positif très important dans le sort de cette population. Il y a la guerre, les blessés, la mort, les familles déchirées. Il y aura encore peut-être la faim, le manque d’eau et de ressources, et on ne sait quoi encore. Aucun individu ne devrait avoir à endurer ces horreurs, déjà. Il est encore plus abject d’avoir à affronter en plus, au milieu de ces tourments, l’indifférence du monde, ou son hostilité. Pour le moment, le respect de la dignité de la population ukrainienne semble être une préoccupation centrale d’une grande partie de la planète. Espérons que ça durera et que d’autres victimes des guerres contemporaines pourront bientôt en bénéficier.

Je ne veux pas ici faire un portrait jovialiste de la couverture de la guerre en Ukraine. L’actualité des dernières semaines est très difficile, ses implications sont historiques, et les défis qu’elle implique sont nombreux. Cela dit, j’ai rarement vu un souci d’humanisation aussi généralisé des parties prenantes d’un conflit, et je crois qu’il est important de le souligner. Plusieurs semblent regarder ce qui se passe dans l’est de l’Europe en se disant : « Ces gens sont comme moi, ça pourrait être moi. » La vérité, c’est que chaque être humain est en bonne partie comme soi, et qu’il offre un miroir de soi. C’est une chose de le dire, et une autre de transformer son regard sur les nouvelles internationales à partir de ce principe.

Source: Le choix des mots

Filed under Multiculturalism, Refugees Tagged with ,

Milloy: The role of religion in the Ottawa protest

2022/03/04 Leave a comment

Of interest:

The end of the “freedom convoy” in Ottawa has already led to much soul searching — how could it have happened? One of the topics certain to be discussed is the role that the Christian faith played in the protest. There wer

The end of the “freedom convoy” in Ottawa has already led to much soul searching — how could it have happened?

One of the topics certain to be discussed is the role that the Christian faith played in the protest.

There were a lot of Christians up in Ottawa — you could see it in protest signs and hear it in media interviews. There were numerous accounts of prayer services and Christian preachers addressing the crowd and an American Christian crowdfunding website helped funnel money to the cause.

As a CBC report concluded: “Christian faith — with an overtly evangelical feel — flows like an undercurrent through the freedom convoy in Ottawa.”

The situation puts me in a bind. Although I watched the protests in horror, I also regularly write, teach and speak about the positive contribution that faith, particularly my Christian faith, can make to public discourse.

So, in response, let me offer several observations.

First, I can’t criticize someone for holding strong religious beliefs. As a person of faith, I recognize that it is part of their identity. People are frustrated and scared, and these are often the circumstances where you most often look to God.

The situation is also far from black and white. Governments have made their share of mistakes in dealing with the pandemic and are not above criticism. I tried to think about the protesters with compassion and take their views seriously.

However, I also held the protesters to account for their actions — particularly those using Christianity as a justification for what they did.

I think it is legitimate to ask how Christians can be associated with something that went far beyond a peaceful demonstration and disrupted the lives of many Ottawa residents. How could they join forces with individuals who reportedly had ties to white supremacist groups? How can they explain the hate that was everywhere — symbolized by the profanity laced signs condemning the prime minister?

The protest was apparently about personal freedom and although that is certainly something recognized by Christianity, it is not its most important message. In my opinion, the core message of Christianity is summarized by the call to love God and to “do unto others as you would have them to do unto you” — even the stranger and those we dislike.

Although I suspect that many of the Christians at the protest were anti-abortion , there were many signs that read “My body, my choice” — an obvious takeoff on a pro-choice slogan. Anti-abortion individuals that I have encountered acknowledge that a woman has rights over her body. They argue, however, that those rights need to be balanced by her responsibility toward others — namely the unborn child.

Isn’t the principle the same here? We certainly all have rights when it comes to vaccines or whether to wear a mask, but don’t those rights need to be balanced by our responsibilities to our fellow citizens, particularly the elderly and those with health issues?

Some will say that religious faith is too divisive to be welcome in our public debates.

On the contrary. A big part of the Christian message is about building bridges to others — even your enemies. There is a constant call for humility and a recognition of the dignity of others.

Perhaps the basic problem is that these days Christians on all sides of public policy discussions too often fail to demonstrate that aspect of their faith.

Source: The role of religion in the Ottawa protest

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with ,

Mood shifts in Polish border town as alt-right supporters go after dark-skinned refugees from Ukraine

2022/03/04 Leave a comment

Sigh….:

The Przemyśl train station is a spot that’s come to be known in the last six days for its heartwarming scenes of volunteers welcoming tired and hungry refugees with a cup of hot tea and a smile. On a grey Wednesday morning, however, under a brooding, overcast sky, tension is building on the ground.

Yellow-vested volunteers, who days before held their positions alone outside, are now crowded out by a heavy police presence. Officers in green and blue uniforms pace through the parking lot of the square, and tall guards frame the entryway to the platforms, scanning everyone who makes their way in and out of the building.

“It’s really scary now,” says Soufiane, an Algerian volunteer who’s been offering translation services in Arabic, French, English and Polish. The change, he explains, was the immediate result of the actions carried out the night before by a group of alt-right supporters targeting refugees who fled the Russian invasion.

Tuesday evening, a Polish outlet shared video footage of a dozen black-hooded men descending on the train station. Their targets, explained the reporter who was quick enough to pull out her phone when she saw the men rushing the station, were the arriving refugees. But, she adds, only the ones who “looked like they weren’t Ukrainian.”

“They began shouting at the group of three Indian men, ‘go back to the railway station, go back to your country,’ ” says Anna Mikulska, a reporter with oko.agency.

Among hundreds of thousands of refugees from Ukraine arriving in Poland are Africans, Indians and others lacking Ukrainian passports. Some reported racist treatment by officials on the Ukrainian side.

Around the same time that night and a bit further down the road, a similar scene, albeit more contained, began playing out in the parking lot of the relief centre in the town of Medyka. There, we saw a similar group of balaclava-clad men prowling the aisles where volunteers were offering free food and clothing while a determined line of police followed closely behind.

While there were no reports of anything serious happening at Medyka, the same cannot be said for Przemyśl.

“We were just going to our car … when we were stopped by some people,” starts one of the three German men in the video captured by OKO. “They slapped us and tried to hit us.”

The group of Germans came to Poland with the NGO Humanity First to assist with volunteer efforts. The attacking football hooligans — as they’re called locally here — appeared to mark them because of their skin colour.

“We’re just trying to find another way to get to our car,” says the German man, timidly.

Football hooligans, Przemysław Witkowski tells me the morning after the incident, are called that because they’re all fans of specific teams. “But they all share similar affiliations of nationalist and anti-refugee sentiment,” says the academic, who specializes in studying the far right in Poland.

“These people represent a small minority of the Polish people,” he underscored. “But they’re still out there.”

Groups like these organize primarily on platforms like Facebook groups to communicate. In recent days, they have begun using the social media tool to co-ordinate street patrols.

“Two beige on beige walking down the street,” reads one of the posts uncovered by a freelance Polish journalist who specializes in tracking the movements of these groups.

This kind of sentiment isn’t new, Witkowski explains. Even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine prompted masses of people to arrive on Poland’s doorstep, these groups were rife with anti-refugee sentiment.

The recent violence can be traced back to a series of social media posts that began making the rounds in the last few days. The tweets and Facebook posts falsely allege that women and children are being targeted by those who had recently arrived from the Przemyśl train station.

“They then see it as a call to arms, to protect their Polish women,” says Mikulska, the reporter. The pressure from these posts eventually prompted the local police to issue a tweet to dispel the rumours.

The tweet says there is “false information in social media that there have been serious criminal offenses in Przemyśl and border counties: burglaries, assaults and rape. It’s not true. The police did not record an increased number of crimes in connection with the situation at the border.”

Some are attributing this flurry of fake news accounts to a Russia-fuelled disinformation effort. Witkowski agrees that, while he can’t confirm these specific stories were plants, that kind of strategy has been used in the past by the Kremlin and would be advantageous to them now.

“Presenting Poland as racist and aggressive towards other countries is exactly the kind of soft power that Russia could wield to destabilize the country’s standing on the global stage,” he said.

Indeed, later that day, Witkowski sends along the latest figures from the Polish Institute for Internet and Social Media Research, which found more than 120,000 attempts at disinformation in Poland under the hashtags #Ukraine, #Russia and #war in the last 24 hours. Much of the content related to fuelling anti-refugee hysteria.

The trains are still arriving in Przemyśl — 47,000 people in the last 24 hours, Soufiane tells me — but the feeling on the ground has certainly shifted. Blanket-huddled figures are now being quickly shuffled onto buses to their next destination and volunteers are encouraging people to move onto bigger cities like Warsaw and Krakow instead of lingering.

“I’m afraid today because I’m thinking: what if they think I’m a refugee?” Sanoufie tells me as we jockey between two officers in their own blue balaclavas. He’s been living in Poland for seven years, and this is the first time such thoughts have entered his mind.

“I took the bus home last night. Walking just didn’t feel safe.”

Source: Mood shifts in Polish border town as alt-right supporters go after dark-skinned refugees from Ukraine

Filed under Racism, Refugees Tagged with , , ,

Wagner: Work permit change urged for Afghans now needed for Ukrainians to come to Canada

2022/03/04 Leave a comment

More pressures:

Many thousands are leaving Ukraine with heartbreaking separations from spouses, parents and homes. Meanwhile, in Canada, a single change to work permits can support people in far larger numbers to come here after being forced from their homes. That change is waiving a rule that requires someone to prove they can leave Canada again.

All applicants to temporary visas must demonstrate their ability and willingness to leave Canada by showing they have somewhere else to go, even if they already applied for permanent residence, or intend to.

This is an old rule that predates Canada’s goal of retaining its international workforce, once they arrive, through permanent residence programs. If it’s arcane for others, it’s absurd and prohibitive for those in refugee circumstances.

Among the Afghans who left as the Taliban took power in August were lawyers, cooks, electricians, and software developers — skills needed across Canada — yet so many are in a humanitarian queue instead of here on work permits. The same barrier faces Ukrainians.

In effect, Canada’s largest immigration option is closed as soon as someone needs it most. In 2019, before the pandemic, Canada welcomed over 404,000 people on work permits, many of whom go on to become permanent residents. For comparison, the refugee resettlement target the same year was 46,450.

blob:https://multiculturalmeanderings.wordpress.com/27e4c896-162d-472c-8c0f-cf96eb3fe425

Only recently has the idea of using skilled immigration as an additional option to refugee resettlement gained traction globally and in Canada. Canada first launched the Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot in 2018 as a test to help people in refugee circumstances, who got job offers in Canada, to work through barriers, such as needing a valid passport and police certificates, which are impossible for many in displacement to get.

The test cases were a runaway success. But for all the pilot’s innovation, its main drawback is significant. The flexibility introduced, like accepting expired passports, only applies to permanent residence pathways and not to work permits and the barriers that come with them.

This disadvantages displaced talent for two main reasons: A lack of speed and space. Skilled immigration largely relies on a job offer and most employers can’t hire someone on a permanent residence timeline, which is eight months or longer. And only a portion of skilled immigration space is left open when work permits are off the table.

We analyzed 66 permanent residence pathways and found just 15 are free of a requirement for in-Canada work experience or points systems that reward it. In other words, 77 per cent of these pathways are either inaccessible by or disadvantageous to displaced applicants who can‘t access work permits.

Many people displaced by conflict have in-demand skills and, despite the timeline, incredible Canadian teams are already hiring and relocating them. More companies want to. We need to unlock these opportunities.

Work permits promise speed and scale. By waiving a single requirement and extending the flexibility now in place for displaced applicants under an innovative pilot, Canada can open a major route to safety and opportunity for Ukrainians, Afghans and others before them.

Dana Wagner is co-founder and managing director of TalentLift, a non-profit talent agency.

Source: Work permit change urged for Afghans now needed for Ukrainians to come to Canada

Filed under Immigration, Refugees Tagged with , , ,

Doug Ford government scraps diversity hiring targets for transit projects

2022/03/04 Leave a comment

UPDATE: Reversed!

The Ontario government will no longer include hiring targets for disadvantaged groups in its agreements for provincial transit projects, a reversal of a groundbreaking policy intended to deliver jobs to marginalized communities where new lines are built.

Advocates warn the decision will undo years of progress toward bringing women, people of colour, and Indigenous and Black residents into the workforce, and raises questions about whether Premier Doug Ford’s subway program is eligible for federal funding.

The hiring targets were first included in a so-called community benefits agreement the previous Ontario Liberal government reached for the Eglinton Crosstown LRT in 2016, which was hailed at the time as setting a precedent that would inject funding, training and employment into neighbourhoods in need.

But the Toronto Community Benefits Network (TCBN), a coalition of labour and community groups, says the targets are being left out of plans already underway for Ontario’s $28.5-billion subway program, which consists of the Ontario Line, Yonge North Subway Extension, Scarborough Subway Extension, and Eglinton West LRT.

Metrolinx, the provincial agency responsible for transit construction in the GTA, will be “on the wrong side of history” if it scraps the hiring thresholds and other key aspects of the benefits framework, said Rosemarie Powell, executive director of TCBN.

The group is expressing “deep concern” about the province’s change of heart, which it says will undermine a program that has helped ensure people who get opportunities through public infrastructure investment “come from and reflect the diversity of local communities.”

Metrolinx is overseen by Ontario Minister of Transportation Caroline Mulroney. Asked why the province is dropping the hiring targets, the minister’s spokesperson Dakota Brasier said the province “will continue to facilitate a pathway for local communities to develop the skills and qualifications needed to find good-paying jobs in the sector.”

She said Ontario’s “historic” transit plans are on course to “generate thousands of jobs, create more connections for people across the province and boost our economy.”

The community benefits agreement signed by the province, Metrolinx, TCBN and the company building the Crosstown LRT six years ago set a target that 10 per cent of work hours for the project go to local groups that have historically faced employment barriers, like racialized residents, women and newcomers.

The target wasn’t a legal obligation under the LRT contract and was described as “aspirational,” but the signatories pitched it as a meaningful way to give hundreds of people from groups traditionally shut out of the construction industry a path to a decent career.

The Ontario government of the day said the agreement would serve as a framework for future projects, and a similar deal was struck for the Finch West LRT.

In addition to not including the 10 per cent hiring target in agreements for the new provincial subways, TCBN says Metrolinx hasn’t committed to other measures around consultation, transparency and local procurement that represent “a minimum standard” for a community benefits agreements.

In a Feb. 11 letter to the group, Metrolinx CEO Phil Verster confirmed the agency is taking a “different approach” to community benefits, but one that it believes will still deliver “the same objectives” and “meaningful change.”

Although it doesn’t include hiring targets, Verster wrote that Metrolinx’s strategy will provide local employment opportunities, require contractors to develop and report on apprenticeship and workforce development plans, and direct contractors to develop “shop local” campaigns and host trade shows to connect employers with job-seekers.

The agency is also committed to making public realm improvements and in some cases could provide amenities like community centres or affordable housing as part of transit projects.

Metrolinx spokesperson Fannie Sunshine said the “broader” approach will give the agency the “flexibility” required “to meaningfully engage” with communities, and allow it to “identify better opportunities.”

Powell acknowledged implementing the original agreement hasn’t been easy. Crosslinx, the private consortium building the Crosstown, hasn’t reached the 10 per cent hiring goal, and is instead hovering around five per cent, according to TCBN. A spokesperson for Crosslinx said she didn’t have up-to-date figures.

But Powell said Metrolinx has been a good partner on the benefits program to date, and she had expected the agency to address problems with the strategy, not weaken it.

“Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater,” she said.

TCBN also points out that when the federal Liberal government announced more than $10 billion in financial support for Ford’s subway program in May 2021, it said the funding was dependent on the province satisfying a number of conditions, including community benefits agreements and “meeting employment thresholds for under-represented communities including Black, Indigenous, people of colour, and women.”

Sunshine said Metrolinx’s position is that the workforce development plans included in its new approach “will help to enable federal requirements.”

Zoltan Csepregi, a spokesperson for Infrastructure Canada, said community benefits agreements are still a condition of the funding, and the federal government will “work collaboratively with the government of Ontario to ensure that Metrolinx upholds these conditions.”

Source: Doug Ford government scraps diversity hiring targets for transit projects

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Mintz: Reckoning With Inequality

2022/03/03 Leave a comment

Thoughtful analysis and discussion, along with some useful suggestions of how to approach inequality from a variety of lenses:

I was struck in the New York Times obituary of one of the great historians of race, Leon Litwack, by the casual and condescending way his landmark scholarship was dismissed. Sure, the article’s subtitle was positive: “One of Berkeley’s most popular professors, he brought passion and nuance—and a love for blues music—to his award-winning study of the marginalized and the oppressed.”

The obituary also mentioned that his scholarship “illustrated how racism had structured institutions and relations” and “focused on the way Black Americans experienced their freedom and shaped it.”

But toward the obituary’s end, the author observed that “many fellow historians complained that it placed unrelenting emphasis on Black people as victims and failed to tell a more nuanced tale about resistance.” It then quoted the Princeton historian emeritus Nell Irvin Painter:

“Litwack implies that African-American institutions function merely in response to white oppression, as though blacks had no existence beyond their connection with whites—Black Southerners as victims rather than Black Southerners as people … For all its picturesque appeal, ‘Trouble in Mind’ is stale.”

We mustn’t confuse an obituary with a eulogy, and without engaged and rigorous criticism, scholarship isn’t worthy of its name. But I fear that the Litwack obituary feeds into a common misconception: that scholarship in the humanities, like its counterpart in the natural sciences, is progressive, as more recent research supplants and supersedes its predecessors.

I consider this generational condescension utterly wrongheaded. Since the humanities disciplines are interpretive and analytic, humanities scholarship doesn’t necessarily progress and newer works certainly don’t sweep their predecessors into the dustpan of history.

Litwack’s historical scholarship, while focusing on highly specific historical topics—notably, Black lives during Reconstruction and the age of Jim Crow—also represented an attempt to grapple with race and racial inequality multidimensionally. He was as interested in racial socialization, racial etiquette and the intricacies of Black lives in extraordinarily difficult contexts as he was in Black resistance to racist violence.

Reality is multidimensional, but the academy is siloed.

At this historical moment, no issues draw more attention within the academy draw than those involving inequality and stratification. Departments across the humanities and social sciences offer a vast array of courses that speak to issues of anti-Semitism, homophobia, racism, sexism, xenophobia and other forms of bias, prejudice and persistent inequality.

But our students would be hard-pressed to study these topics holistically.

The reasons are obvious. Not only is the subject of inequality too broad to be treated with the nuance and complexity that it deserves, but none of us are knowledgeable enough to speak to the topic with the expertise that we take for granted in more specialized courses.

Also, there’s the danger of conflating inequalities that have different historical roots, trajectories and manifestations.

Classism, racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism and other forms of bias, prejudice and inequality have economic, historical, legal, political, psychological, sociological and even linguistic and theological dimensions. Inequality needs to be understood as ideological and institutional, but also as lived experience. Similarly, resistance to inequalities takes multiple forms: day-to-day resistance, cultural resistance, acts of collective protest and more

Efforts to eradicate inequalities not only involve policy and politics but philosophy, too, as we contemplate the host of ethical issues that the subjects raise involving personal and collective responsibility, atonement, forgiveness, and reparations.

As scholars, our expertise is rooted in particular disciplinary specializations. My discipline, history, focuses on change over time. Historians ask how inequalities are constructed socially and culturally, and their manifestation, meaning and function in specific economic, political and social contexts.

Yet, to take just one facet of the broader issue of inequality, gender inequities, any serious attempt to grapple with the subject would require us to examine, in addition to women’s history:

  • The ideological dimension: How various fields, including medicine and psychology, have pathologized women’s minds and bodies.
  • The legal, economic and political dimensions: How law, the market and policy embed and perpetuate gender inequities.
  • The representational dimension: How gendered depictions in art, advertisements and various media have distorted and misrepresented women’s realities.
  • The psychological dimension: How gender identities are socialized and how sexism has shaped women’s identities, expectations and behavior, pushing women to provide various forms of support to others.

I lead my life according to a series of mantras, one of which is “Anything worth doing is worth doing half-assed.” By that, I simply mean that we need to do the best we can even if we can’t accomplish everything we might wish.

So what if we, as a collective endeavor, tried to structure a multidisciplinary humanities and social sciences cluster around gender and racial inequalities, with a goal of providing students with “the big picture”? How might we address such an expansive and sweeping topic without lapsing into superficiality or punctuating broad themes with excessive narrowness?

Here, I can only begin to sketch what such a cluster might look like.

1. A history class might begin with the oldest, most long-standing form of inequality, patriarchy, and women’s systematic exclusion from “the creation of law, symbolic values, and structures of meaning.” Such a course might begin with the Middle Assyrian Laws of the 15th to the 11th centuries BCE, which required “women to wear head-to-toe veils and forbade them from speaking to non-family males or walking outdoors except in the company of a close male relative,” in the guise of protecting them from male predation.

The notion of separation or segregation as a form of guardianship and a shield against social conflict is a recurrent theme used to naturalize and legitimate restrictions and various forms of segregation.

Such a class might move on to Aristotle’s equation of women with slaves and domesticated animals—which served as the prototype for the “animalization” of other subordinate groups.

This class might also examine how anti-Semitism served as a seedbed for racism, and how, beginning in the 14th century, modern racism emerged, how European expansion and the slave trade reinforced racist thought, and how racism was institutionalized in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This class would also need to look at the fluidity of definitions of race, which have varied geographically and chronologically, and the complex legacy of religious sectarianism and the Enlightenment, which at once offered new justifications for racial and gender inequalities while also fostering the first collective challenges to slavery and gender and racial inequalities.

2. An economics course might explore occupational and residential segregation; differentials in wages, owned assets and savings; debt levels; discrimination in loans, mortgages and patronage of businesses; and the concentration of women and Blacks in low-wage occupations. But it should also examine, through economic history, women’s unpaid labor, the intersection of labor systems and race, and efforts to contest subordination and labor exploitation.

3. A political science class might examine the role of law, public policy and civic institutions in promoting, reinforcing and perpetuating racial and gender hierarchies, as well as the political uses of racial and gender ideologies to preserve and exercise power, promote group solidarity, and distance subordinate classes from supposedly inferior groups.

4. A psychology class might reckon with the discipline’s racist and sexist past and examine the affective, emotional and psychological functions of gender and racial bias. Topics might include gender and racial socialization, stereotyping, implicit bias, scapegoating, and the role of emotional aversion in maintaining racial and gender boundaries. It might also examine the psychological costs of racism and sexism.

5. A sociology course might explore:

  • Racism and sexism as systems of structural, systemic and institutionalized privilege and advantage.
  • Racism and sexism through the lens of intersectionality: how gender, race, sexuality and other forms of social hierarchy and discrimination reinforce one another and help define status and power.
  • The relevance of caste, with its stress on heredity, group hierarchy and purity and pollution, to an understanding of gender and racial inequalities.
  • The complex relationship between race, gender and socioeconomic class.

6. A philosophy course might explore ideas of race and gender in the history of philosophy. It might also speak to some of today’s hottest topics: how best to address relics of a racist and sexist past; the meaning and value of meritocracy and the validity of the mechanisms used to assess merit; the desirability and practicality of reparations; and issues relating to atonement, forgiveness and closure.

I am convinced that many students crave the context and perspectives that the humanities and the social sciences offer on the issues of our time. But the discipline-based surveys and introductory courses and the narrow upper-division courses that reflect faculty members’ research interests fail, all too often, to capture students’ imagination or ignite their passions.

I understand the reluctance to tackle a topic as expansive and interdisciplinary as gender and racial inequalities. But please consider following my advice and remember my mantra—if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing half-assed.

Steven Mintz is professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin.

Source: Reckoning With Inequality | Higher Ed Gamma

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