The US Anti-Birthright Citizenship Brigade | Mother Jones

2015/08/31 Leave a comment

Background on some of the lawyers arguing that the 14th Amendment does not provide for birthright citizenship:

Eastman and Graglia, however, may not be the best proponents of their theory. Both have a history of controversial comments and opinions that make them easy prey for Democrats. Eastman, a professor at Chapman University School of Law in California, is the chairman of the National Organization for Marriage, a group that fought bitterly against same-sex marriage, and he once equated homosexuality with “barbarism.” Graglia, of the University of Texas at Austin’s law school, is a longtime opponent of affirmative action and busing programs. His comment in 1997 that black and Hispanic students “are not academically competitive with whites” earned him the moniker “the most controversial law professor in America.”

At April’s hearing, instead of inquiring about Graglia’s views on the Citizenship Clause, Democrats on the committee instead grilled him on these past statements and entered old articles about them into the record. For a Republican Party that hopes to appeal to Hispanic voters in particular, Graglia may not be the best ambassador on the citizenship debate, which many already find offensive. In recent years, the first people to introduce the idea that birthright citizenship is more limited than is commonly understood were two professors, Peter Schuck of Yale Law School and Rogers Smith of the University of Pennsylvania, who argued in a 1985 book that Congress could exclude the children of undocumented immigrants from automatic citizenship.

While they hold to that belief today, they don’t seem particularly pleased with the Pandora’s Box they opened. “This is just NOT an issue that should be occupying the country’s attention at this moment, if ever,” Smith said in an email. “We have far, far more important problems to deal with that we are not addressing, including mounting economic inequalities, persisting racial inequalities, environmental degradation, crumbling infrastructure, a crippled labor movement. That’s why I rarely talk about the issue these days. I believe very strongly that our focus should be elsewhere.”

Source: The Anti-Birthright Citizenship Brigade | Mother Jones

Filed under Birthright Citizenship, Citizenship Tagged with , ,

The Real Muslim American Threat? It’s Against Us – The Daily Beast

2015/08/31 Leave a comment

Dean Obeidallah on white extremism against American Muslims:

We have alarmingly reached an ugly place in America with anti-Muslim sentiment. And while Donald Trump has not targeted Muslims with his rhetoric (at least not yet), his fear mongering will no doubt embolden others to spew hate versus various minority groups, including Muslims.

And worse, this type of divisive language can inspire violence as we saw last week in Boston when two men attacked a Latino homeless man. After the assault, one of the attackers told the police: “Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported.”

Interestingly one of the two Boston attackers had also been convicted of a hate crime for assaulting a Muslim man shortly after 9/11. Thus again proving that bigots tend to hate more than just one minority group.

I would predict we will see even more plots to kill Muslims in America or at least attempts to gin up the hate toward the Muslim community. This, of course, makes ISIS ecstatic because the terror group would use any attacks on American Muslims as proof that the West hates Islam and that Muslims should join them.

I wish I could be more optimistic, but I’m a realist. My only hope is that our media starts covering these terror plots to make it clear that the threat of “radical Americans” is very real.

Source: The Real Muslim American Threat? It’s Against Us – The Daily Beast

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Why Dropping ‘Anchor Baby’ Is a Problem for US Politicians | TIME

2015/08/28 Leave a comment

Good article on the history of the term “anchor babies” in the US, and how it has evolved into an offensive term (in Canada, the term generally used is birth tourism, where the numbers are tiny):

This about-face stirred debates about who should decide what’s offensive and who shouldn’t. Was an American institution kowtowing to liberals? Or was a dictionary being descriptive about how a word is truly perceived among English-speakers? When Oxford Dictionaries quietly added their definition after that controversy settled, they tagged it with a bright orange offensive label. Those signs are, Oxford editor Katherine Martin says, not chosen by lexicographers making emotional decrees but affixed as guidance for people who want to use the language intelligently.

Often when language gets accused of being offensive, public figures and media shift to more neutral ground, which can lead to some exhausting phrasing. (When the AP banned their journalists from using undocumented immigrant and illegal immigrant, for instance, standards editor Tom Kent suggested to TIME that a more precise description might be “foreigners in the United States in violation of the law.”)

Martin says one problem with anchor baby is that there is no natural alternative, overwrought or otherwise—and not for the neutral reason suggested by Bush, whether or not he meant to insult anyone. “There is no neutral term for this because it is a term that is intended to be derogatory,” she says.

One indication of that intention, as the Washington Post‘s Amber Phillips points out, is that the idea it describes doesn’t entirely make sense in practice. As TIME explained in 2011, “the law says the parents of such a child must wait till she is 21 for her to be allowed to sponsor them to live and work legally in the U.S., and research shows that the vast majority of children of illegal immigrants are born years after the mother and father have arrived in the U.S.”

Regardless, the phrase has stuck. And, while debate over its use can actually lead to discussion of important issues like candidates’ positions on birthright citizenship (Bush is for it; Donald Trump, who also uses the term, is against it), that stickiness is just one more reason for conscientious politicians to steer clear of it, says linguist Zimmer. “The difficulty is that those pithy words and phrases are much more memorable and work their way into the public consciousness,” he says. “And once they’re there, they are difficult to dislodge.”

Source: Why Dropping ‘Anchor Baby’ Is a Problem for Politicians | TIME

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A Racial Gap in Attitudes Toward Hospice Care

2015/08/22 Leave a comment

Interesting. Wonder the degree to which it is similar in Canada? There is now and then anecdotes (see Family overjoyed as top court rules doctors must seek consent before taking a patient off life support) but have not seen any surveys:

It is an attitude borne out by recent federal statistics showing that nearly half of white Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in hospice before death, compared with only a third of black patients. The racial divide is even more pronounced when it comes to advance care directives — legal documents meant to help families make life-or-death decisions that reflect a patient’s choices. Some 40 percent of whites aged 70 and over have such plans, compared with only 16 percent of blacks.

Instead, black Americans — far more so than whites — choose aggressive life-sustaining interventions, including resuscitation and mechanical ventilation, even when there is little chance of survival.

The racial gaps are expected to widen when Medicare is expected to begin paying physicians in January 2016 for end-of-life counseling, and at a time when blacks and other minorities are projected to make up 42 percent of people 65 and over in 2050, up from 20 percent in 2000.

At the root of the resistance, say researchers and black physicians, is a toxic distrust of a health care system that once displayed “No Negroes” signs at hospitals, performed involuntary sterilizations on black women and, in an infamous Tuskegee study, purposely left hundreds of black men untreated for syphilis.

“You have people who’ve had a difficult time getting access to care throughout their lifetimes” because of poverty, lack of health insurance or difficulty finding a medical provider, said Dr. Maisha Robinson, a neurologist and palliative medicine physician at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla. “And then you have a physician who’s saying, ‘I think that we need to transition your mother, father, grandmother to comfort care or palliative care.’ People are skeptical of that.”

Federal policies surrounding hospice also arouse suspicion in black communities since Medicare currently requires patients to give up life-sustaining therapies in order to receive hospice benefits.

That trade-off strikes some black families, who believe they have long had to fight for quality medical care, as unfair, said Dr. Kimberly Johnson, a Duke University associate professor of medicine who has studied African-American attitudes about hospice.

Dr. Johnson said her black patients were more likely to believe there are actual religious prohibitions against limiting life-sustaining therapy, and that suffering can be redemptive, or “a test from God.” And those beliefs, she added, were “contrary to the hospice philosophy of care.”

But now some doctors and clergy members are trying to use church settings to reshape the black community’s views, incorporating the topic in sermons, Bible study groups and grief and bereavement ministries.

Dr. Robinson, who is black and a daughter of Tennessee pastors, has been helping pastors develop faith-based hospice guidelines. She tells them, “God can work miracles, yes he can, but even in hospice.”

That message recently rang out from the pulpit at God Answers Prayer Ministries, an African-American church in South Los Angeles, as Bishop Gwendolyn Coates-Stone tried a sermon theme on advance care.

“It’s such a great cost to hold on to some of those sicknesses and diseases that eventually are going to take us out,” she exclaimed into a microphone, bobbing and weaving in a swirl of royal purple robes. “Just like Jesus talked about his death and prepared his disciples for his death, we ought to be preparing our disciples for our death!”

A Racial Gap in Attitudes Toward Hospice Care – The New York Times.

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The [US] Foreign Service is too white. We’d know — we’re top diplomats.

2015/08/22 Leave a comment

Good article on the need for diversity within the US foreign service by former senior diplomats:

Like Wall Street and the medical and legal professions of the mid-20th century, the diplomatic corps long drew its members from traditionally elite, exclusive institutions, not themselves very diverse at the time. Moreover, college students of color rarely knew that diplomacy was a professional option for them.

That’s changing. Today, our diplomats are more representative. But we haven’t made nearly enough progress. According to the latest statistics, 82 percent of Foreign Service officers (the commissioned career officers serving in embassies and consulates abroad as well as some policy positions stateside) are white. Seven percent are Asian American, 5.4 percent are African American, and 5 percent are Latino. About 60 percent are men. In contrast, the U.S. population is more than 50 percent female, more than 17 percent Hispanic and more than 14 percent African American.

U.S. foreign policy is informed and improved by a wider range of experiences, understandings and outlooks. To represent America abroad and relate to the world beyond our borders, the nation needs diplomats whose family stories, language skills, religious traditions and cultural sensitivities help them to establish connections and avoid misunderstandings. For some of our international allies that are themselves facing diversity issues, American diplomats of diverse backgrounds can help them build bridges. For others, diversity in the American diplomatic corps makes the United States seem more approachable.

….How can the Foreign Service draw upon the country’s total talent pool? The challenge isn’t only eliminating the last vestiges of discrimination but also actively recruiting the most talented and dedicated people from every segment of society, especially those of great ability but limited means.

When the Foreign Service drew upon a narrow swath of the population, most future diplomats already knew people who had represented the country overseas. As part of their upbringings, these young people acquired the mannerisms that would make them at home in the Foreign Service. To diversify the diplomatic service, we must recognize that promising young people from less privileged backgrounds do not enjoy these advantages and assurances. They need to know that the Foreign Service welcomes their skills and experiences. They need role models with whom they can identify. And they need the reassurance that diplomacy can be rewarding and remunerative.

Not sure what the Canadian numbers are. Anecdotally from my time there, things were starting to change.

The Foreign Service is too white. We’d know — we’re top diplomats. – The Washington Post.

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LatinWorks Celebrates Multiculturalism in Marriott Campaign

2015/08/20 Leave a comment

American business realities compared to Republican party anti-minority messaging:

Each two-minute spots weaves footage of the actors utilizing Rewards tools like the Marriott mobile check-in to make their travel experience easier. Marriott collaborated with LatinWorks and director Braden Summers, in addition to Grey, on the campaign.

“We are proud to partner with such admired and compelling influencers in the Latino community who truly embody what the #LoveTravels campaign is all about,” said Stacey Milne, vice president, portfolio marketing strategy and planning, Marriott International. “Marriott embraces all and is dedicated to finding inspiring stories that illustrate how people pursue their dreams, and bring their passions to life when they travel.”

LatinWorks Celebrates Multiculturalism in Marriott Campaign | AgencySpy.

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What’s the Right Way to Teach Civics? – The New Yorker

2015/08/11 Leave a comment

Interesting article sent my way by one of my readers, and the US debate over what kind of civics education is likely to be more effective, and some of the politics behind it:

A more common criticism of the civics tests, especially from the left, is that it gives over-tested students yet one more exam to take, meaning that time-crunched educators have less flexibility to develop their own lesson plans. Even some who agree with Riggs that students are undereducated in civics are skeptical that a hundred test questions will solve the problem. It’s also unclear whether the test is the best way to inspire civic-mindedness. Joseph Kahne, an education professor who has studied civic learning, said that, by some measures, young people are woefully disengaged in civic life; for example, they tend to vote at lower rates than older citizens. (To be fair, by other measures—like involvement in their local communities—kids do better than older people.) But research, Kahne said, suggests there are better ways to educate students in civics. He and colleagues have found that when students discuss current events and form their own opinions on hot-button issues, they become more interested and knowledgeable in these topics; also, when students have the chance to volunteer, they become likelier to volunteer in the future. As for the citizenship exam, “What it measures actually isn’t what we care most about,” he said. “It’s a set of disconnected facts. Certainly the questions like, ‘What’s the name of the ocean on the West Coast of the United States?’ aren’t even related to civic and political life.”

Over the next year, Riggs told me, the institute aims to pursue its civic-education initiative in more blue and purple states—places like Iowa, Minnesota, and perhaps Colorado. He has noticed that he and his colleagues have had to work harder, in those kinds of states, to defend their campaign against critics, including those who feel that a new test of factual civics knowledge would give teachers less time to focus on more nuanced aspects of civic education. Riggs argued that the test would complement, rather than replace, higher-level approaches. “It doesn’t impede, and shouldn’t be substituted for, the teaching of more advanced civics,” he told me. “It’s intended to ensure that high-school graduates have at least the basic knowledge of American civics that we require of naturalized citizens.”

In Canada, the extension of the citizenship test to 14-17 year-olds is one manifestation even though the experience of my kids (anecdote warning!) in Ontario was that the half-year civics course in Grade 10 was a reasonable way to engage students (and they had plenty of Canadian history as well).

What’s the Right Way to Teach Civics? – The New Yorker.

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US: The Jobs Report Looks Good but Unemployment Rates Vary Widely for Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics

2015/08/10 Leave a comment

The persistence of economic differences among different groups:

For white Americans unemployment is back to pre-recession levels, or lower, in 14 states—and within 1 percentage point of pre-recession norms in another 28. African Americans, by contrast, remain the furthest away from their pre-recession levels. In Arkansas, Illinois, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina, the unemployment gap is more than two and a half times as large as the rate for white Americans. In Washington D.C., it’s five times as high. This year is the first since then that the national unemployment rate for black Americans  has dipped below the double-digit mark—and that feat has only been accomplished in 11 states. The lowest state unemployment rate for black Americans—6.9 percent, in Tennessee—is equivalent to the rate of white unemployment in West Virginia, the state with the highest share of jobless white Americans in the country.

Hispanics also trail behind. In Connecticut, the Hispanic unemployment rate is more than 3 times as high as the white employment rate. In North Carolina, it’s more than 2.6 times as high, and in Pennsylvania and Nevada, it’s more than double the rate for white residents.

Racial inequality is a constant in the U.S. economy. Black and Hispanic workers consistently have a higher rate of unemployment than their white counterparts—for blacks it’s usually twice the rate of whites and for Hispanics, it’s closer to 1.5 times. (These gaps were the smallest at the peak of the recession, since so many white Americans were also losing their jobs.)

In the recovery, white unemployment numbers have improved more rapidly than minority numbers. According to Valerie Wilson, the director of the Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy at the Economic Policy Institute, the recovery only really started for black and Hispanic Americans in 2014. “That’s when you saw the greatest improvements in the unemployment rate, the employment-population ratio, and labor-force participation,” she said.

To be clear, the unemployment rate between these minority groups and white Americans in most places never reached parity, and some of these states had pre-recession minority unemployment rates that were high to begin with. But the fact remains that seven years after the start of the recession, many black and Hispanic Americans are only now seeing their employment situation improve. That’s an important consideration especially when it comes to major policy decisions related to the recovery, such as  raising interest rates, which have been kept  low by the Fed after the downturn in an attempt to spur growth. Wilson says that changing things now, when the national picture looks better but just as many minorities are getting back on their feet, could dampen the long-awaited progress for these groups.

It’s also important to consider why this stubborn gap persists in the first place. Perhaps most troubling is the fact is that discrepancies in unemployment haven’t improved much over time, despite the fact that younger generations of minorities are graduating from college at higher rates. The stubbornness of the unemployment  gap points to other issues—such as systemic discrimination and racial biases—that existed long before the recession and its sluggish, unequal recovery.

The Jobs Report Looks Good but Unemployment Rates Vary Widely for Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics – The Atlantic.

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New US Poll Shows Half of Blacks Have Been Unfairly Treated by Police

2015/08/07 Leave a comment

Not surprising, likely reinforced by ongoing instances of police wrong-doing:

The AP-NORC poll shows that just a third of black Americans say they can always or often trust police to do what is right for their communities, while a large majority of whites say that. Nearly half of blacks trust the police just sometimes, and 2 in 10 trust them rarely or never.

Eight in 10 black Americans say police are too quick to use deadly force, and 7 in 10 say police officers who cause injury or death are usually treated too leniently by the criminal justice system. Just a third of whites say either of those things.

More than 8 in 10 blacks say police sometimes treat minority groups more roughly. A similar proportion says that police are more likely to use deadly force against a black person than against a white person. Most whites think race does not affect police use of deadly force.

Fifty percent of blacks, compared with just 3 percent of whites, say that they personally have felt treated unfairly by a police officer because of race. Another 15 percent of blacks and 5 percent of whites say unfair treatment by police has happened to a family member.

New Poll Shows Half of Blacks Have Been Unfairly Treated by Police | TIME.

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La radicalisation des intellectuels noirs

2015/07/20 1 Comment

Interesting piece on how the views of prominent Black intellectuels have become more radical and challenging, citing Ta-Nehisi Coates as an example:

L’insistance de Ta-Nehisi Coates à parler des sujets qui fâchent le distingue nettement de la génération précédente. Les identités étaient alors pensées dans leur pluralité, et non dans leur singularité, et le multiculturalisme devait pouvoir les réconcilier. Un nouvel ordre politique devait naître de la collaboration entre minorités par la défense d’intérêts communs. La large coalition qui permit l’élection de Barack Obama, en novembre 2008, confirmait cette thèse et signait l’entrée des États-Unis dans une ère postraciale où les discriminations, sans être tout à fait vaincues, étaient du moins significativement atténuées.

Hélas, le multiculturalisme, s’il a banalisé l’idée de diversité, n’a pas mis fin au racisme. Et c’est ce que Ta-Nehisi Coates estime nécessaire de rappeler à la majorité blanche. L’égalité devant la loi, obtenue dans les années 1960 par le mouvement des droits civiques, ne suffit pas. Le rappel de cette triste vérité est au coeur du nouveau radicalisme noir. Sur le plan des idées, l’intégration politique des descendants d’esclaves passe au second plan pour revenir à une question primordiale : la dignité des personnes noires. Ta-Nehisi Coates et plusieurs intellectuels interpellent donc aujourd’hui directement l’Amérique blanche pour lui demander une pleine reconnaissance des violences subies hier comme aujourd’hui. Le philosophe Chris Lebron et le politologue Fredrick C. Harris ont tenu des positions similaires dans le New York Times et la revue Dissent. La juriste Michelle Alexander avait en quelque sorte préparé le terrain, il y a deux ans, en publiant un livre dénonçant l’incarcération massive des hommes noirs, qu’elle assimilait à une nouvelle ségrégation.

La radicalisation des intellectuels noirs | Le Devoir.

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