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Series explores lived experiences around ability and disability

Explore campus at your own pace. Expanding W&Ms reach, educating for impact and evolving to excel. Celebrating the work of W&M faculty, staff and students. Find team highlights, scores, info and how were {em}All In{/em} for the Tribe. Nothing about us without us. That’s one of the mantras of the disability rights movement and a sentiment that helped frame the first in a series of discussions about ability and disability taking place this month at William & Mary. “Another common phrase in the disability rights movement is disability rights are human rights and disability rights are civil rights,” said Professor of Practice Christina Jones. “These seem obvious, but they point to the inhumane and uncivil ways that people with disabilities have been treated in the not too distant past. ”Jones is the director of the PELE Special Education Advocacy Law Clinic at W&M Law School. She is also the cousin of a young woman with autism, and she became a person with a disability herself last year when she was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. Jones was one of dozens of people who shared their stories in small group discussions Feb. 13 during the first session of this year’s Daily Work of Justice series. Sponsored by the Office of Community Engagement, the series “invites people directly involved in an issue to share their lived experience, as a way of providing space for others to engage with empathy, understanding and action,” according to its website. This year’s series is co sponsored by The Arc of Greater Williamsburg, which serves adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Two faculty members and a student with a disability were also part of the committee that planned the series. “William & Mary has been the backbone of support for The Arc for over 40 years,” said Executive Director Pam McGregor. “We have had the benefit of incredible faculty and student volunteer support, interns, athletic teams, the Best Buddies and the Pi Phi women’s fraternity who serve as tutors for our literacy program. With the support of William & Mary over the years, we have thrived and enriched the lives of many of our Arc clients and family members. ”All of the sessions are held from 6:30 to 8 p. m. in the Sadler Center’s Tidewater Room. The next is planned for Feb. 20 and will focus on people who work within systems to support those with disabilities. The third, scheduled for Feb. 27, will center on advocates, policy makers and community leaders who work toward change. The sessions are free and open to the public, but attendees are asked to register online. For participants who are living with a disability, they have an opportunity to tell their story, have their voice heard and share a perspective a non disabled person would not have, said McGregor. “For a community member listening, they gain insight, understanding, and an awareness of the challenges and realities of living a life with a disability. The participants also have an opportunity to see how a person with a disability has many abilities and has goals and dreams like everyone else. ”“The goal of DWOJ is to break down barriers and misconceptions about people with a disability and to raise awareness of the many ways a community can embrace and empower these amazing people. ”Jones opened the first session saying that disability presents itself differently in each person. “We recognize the many ways people in this room contribute to our campus and our world,” Jones said. “We strive to make our campus more accessible, our programs more inclusive and opportunities more widespread, knowing that it benefits us all.

https://www.wm.edu/news/stories/2020/series-features-lived-experiences-of-those-with-ability-and-disability.php

Institute for Disability Studies Leaders to Promote Self-Advocacy in Kenya

The University of Southern Mississippi’s Institute for Disability Studies has been awarded a mini grant to increase self advocacy awareness among youth and young adults with disabilities in Kenya. The award is funded through the Professional Fellows Program on Inclusive Disability Employment . PFP IDE is sponsored by the U. S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and administered by the Association of University Centers on Disabilities in partnership with the Institute for Community Inclusion at the University of Massachusetts Boston and Humanity & Inclusion. The mini grant will help IDS facilitate in person training for STEP UP International. Two young adult leaders Taylor Carley, IDS’ Self Advocacy Coordinator, and Nathan Hatten, an alumnus of several IDS Transition to Adulthood programs, have been selected to help lead this training. Carley and Hatten will travel to Kenya and share their personal stories and promote self advocacy and leadership skills for Kenyans with disabilities. Both are leaders in the Starting Today Empowering Peers through Uniting and Participating Council which celebrated its 12th anniversary in January. The STEP UP Advisory Council is composed of youth and young adults with and without disabilities. Council members serve as leaders within their schools, colleges/universities and communities. The Council focuses on issues facing all young people including leadership, self advocacy, transition, health care, education, employment, and recreation. Carley notes, “I am excited about going to Africa and sharing my passion for disability equality. My personal quote is that disability is an ability, and I am like everyone else. I can’t wait to share how I am reaching my dreams and inspire youth there to do the same. ” Since 2017, the Professional Fellows Program has supported opportunities for mid career professionals to participate in five week intensive international fellowships at a university based research and education center for disabilities in the U. S. The first year focused on fellow areas connected to the Americans with Disability Act and all fellows since 2018 have focused on inclusive employment. IDS was selected to host fellows from Kenya in both 2017 and 2018 and IDS’ Associate Director, Dr. Jerry R. Alliston, was selected as an outbound fellow to provide employment training and technical assistance in Nairobi and Mombasa, Kenya in November 2018. Since that time, IDS has continued providing assistance through on line training and guidance. “It has been a pleasure for us to assist our colleagues in Kenya to meet the needs of individuals with disabilities, specifically through the development of a self advocacy group in Mombasa and plans to establish additional groups across Kenya” said Alliston. Alliston, Carley and Hatten will collaborate with 2018 International Fellow Vincent Ogutu, a disability employment specialist in Nairobi, Kenya representing Cheshire Disability Services Kenya . In addition, self advocacy training will be coordinated through 2017 ADA Fellow Nuala Alibhai, the Learning Student Support Coordinator for junior and seniors at the Aga Khan Academy Mombasa. During the training, Nathan plans to share his personal motto to “Never give up. Keep striving to do your best and work towards your goals. ”

https://www.usm.edu/news/2020/release/ids-leaders-promote-self-advocacy.php

First Coast senator wants to end disability discrimination in organ donation

A senator from right here on the First Coast is advocating for the fair distribution of vital life saving organs.  Sen. Aaron Bean, who represents Nassau County and parts of Duval, filed a bill last year that would prohibit doctors and other entities from denying people organ transplants based on an individual’s disability. The issue was originally reported on by Everitt Rosen of Fresh Take Florida, who says that twelve states already have such laws in place. Many of those states have made the case that the practice is discriminatory. However, other lawmakers have concerns about the success rates of these procedures and the overall quality of life they provide.  A 2004 survey, detailed in a report from the National Council on Disability, found that only 52% of people with disabilities who requested a referral to a specialist regarding an organ transplant actually received a referral.  And 35% of those “for whom a transplant had been suggested” never even received an evaluation. Beans bill hopes to crack down on medical facilities that deny organ transplant services like evaluation, surgery and counseling to those diagnosed with disabilities. Read the full bill. More than 113,000 people, including children, are currently the national transplant waiting list. For more info about organ donation resources, check out OrganDonor. gov. Next up in 5Example video title will go here for this videoIn Other NewsNotifications can be turned off anytime in the browser settings.

https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/life/first-coast-senator-wants-to-end-disability-discrimination-in-organ-donation/77-9d814820-c378-4c8d-84a7-cd4fe9eed9d2

The Invitation ‘Come As You Are’ Gives To Disability

Wong and Actor Hayden Szeto attend SAG AFTRA Foundation Conversations presents Come As You Are at SAG AFTRA Foundation Screening Room on February 11, 2020 in Los Angeles, California. After the success of The Peanut Butter Falcon earlier this year it’s been wondered where the next film looking at disabled representation will come from. Though movies are slowly attempting to discuss disability or, in even smaller cases, hire disabled performers, there are still clear cut topics that are perceived as taboo. In the case of the new feature Come As You Are, a movie that frankly discusses sex and disability is breaking all manner of barriers. Director Richard Wong, star and producer Grant Rosenmeyer, and the subject the film is based on, Asta Philpot, sat down to discuss their indie darling and the struggles to discuss the interrelationships between disability and sex. Grant Rosenmeyer: What really excited me was the script by Eric Linthorst. I came to it back in 2013. I was in a Writers Workshop with Eric while he was developing the script for the American producers who were remaking the Belgian film, which was based on Asta’s life. Eric tapped me on the shoulder one day when I was 22 years old and he was like, “hey, youre an actor, right? Are you coming back next week because youd be really good to read the lead in this script Im developing called Come as You Are. ” He tells me the story and Im like, “thats the wildest logline Ive ever heard, how fun and different. ” I love road movies; I love this style of comedy, but the way in was through these three guys and Ive never seen that before. Theres something so poignant about it and so heartwarming, it also is so funny. Just knowing Eric has a child with a disability added another layer to it. It was such a special project and then seeing the documentary that Asta was in for the BBC, For One Night Only. Hes such a special human being. It was a no brainer. But it also took years to come together and I didnt understand what the holdup was in Hollywood for this story. Richard Wong: I had heard about it from a friend of mine and, much like Grant, when I heard the logline I was like, “Whoa, that sounds up my alley. ” If you watch my other films the connective tissue [is] movies about a community condition, and movies about regular people with regular problems and obstacles they have to overcome; the human condition and the things we all have in common. We all have our obstacles that are different but it connects us and is essentially what being human is all about. When I heard about the story and read it and ultimately fell in love with it, it was something that naturally attracted me because those are the kinds of stories Im interested in. I love movies that are not exactly high stakes but the stakes mean so much to those characters that it is high stakes. I love those slice of life movies and movies where you can jump into someones world for a minute and gain a new understanding of different kinds of people and different kinds of obstacles that they have. Asta Philpot: No, not at all. When I first did the BBC documentary I decided to do it because my friend died without ever having that sexual experience and its something we always talked about, me and my friends from school. After that I thought nobody with a disability should not have this experience because every human being should have [physical] contact and feel that connection with another human being. The feedback from the BBC documentary has been incredible and Im so happy with the movie Grant and Richard created. Its my lifelong passion to help people and make people happy in my position. Ive got a lot more to offer.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristenlopez/2020/02/13/the-invitation-come-as-you-are-gives-to-disability/?sh=4c8e83b5d7cc

UMD needs a disability studies department

Symbols used to mark areas and services accessible for persons with certain disabilities. Photo courtesy of National Park Service. Views expressed in opinion columns are the author’s own. The University of Maryland touts fearless ideas and innovation, especially in science and technology. But why not try to be on the forefront of progress in the humanities as well? Disability studies, which emerged as an academic field in the 1980s, can still be greatly expanded and it would benefit this university to contribute to that growth. Disability studies, like women’s and gender studies, sit at the intersection of disciplines in both science and the humanities. It focuses on the use of different lenses and theories to understand the way our society views disability and how those perceptions and policies can be harmful or productive.  About a month ago, the students of the group ASL NOW launched a petition to convince the University of Maryland to start an American Sign Language major. Garnering over 1,000 signatures, the petition demonstrates the need for such a major and a department to house it. It would also be one way to kickstart a robust disability studies program. Currently, the university only offers a disability studies minor, but it’s housed in the education college and has no formal department of its own. While Syracuse University has the oldest disability studies program, founded in 1994, other colleges, like Ohio State University and the University of California, Berkeley have also developed their own. Classes in this field might look like “Disability Law, Policy, and the Community,” or “Disability in Global and Comparative Perspective,” both of which are offered at the University of Washington. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of disability studies, it would open the door to more collaboration between STEM and the humanities. This university already encourages this interaction through programs like the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities. A full disability studies department with its own faculty could provide a clear space for such interaction using humanities lenses in conjunction with, for example, hearing and speech sciences, could place this university at the forefront of research in this area.  Another reason to create a disability studies department or major is that more students would take these topics more seriously. In my experience, our few ASL classes are often at maximum capacity because students see them as an easy way to fulfill a language requirement or as an easy class to fill their schedule. There’s nothing wrong with taking ASL classes for those reasons, but having a department dedicated to disability studies would allow the classes to be a gateway to learning more about the field and community as a whole.  And, much like our women’s studies department, most students don’t really understand the full potential of this field. As a women’s studies major, I’ve had plenty of people ask me for clarification on what the field even is or how I plan to use my degree.  Many people don’t realize that having a degree in disability studies, women’s studies or any related field gives you a variety of analytical perspectives through which to examine any other problem. Having experience in these fields ensures that you, in whatever profession, are empathetic, socially conscious and well rounded in your work. It can inform policy, create better health care practices and help produce a more equitable society overall.  This university has the resources to fund important research in this field and establish a dedicated new department. Disability studies could offer students an enhanced education and enrich academia this university would do well to contribute to it.

https://dbknews.com/2020/02/02/umd-asl-major-disability-studies-department/

It’s Time To Explore The Unique And Conflicting Narratives Of Disability Issues

In at least one way, disability issues are the same as any other issue. Facts and details are important, but they don’t explain the full range of debated approaches and priorities. Powerful narratives are also involved … some truthful and drawn from genuine, lived experience of disability, others dishonest or based on fear and prejudice. The increased prominence of disability issues in the 2020 Election campaign makes understanding these narratives more important than ever. Here are four disability issues that are getting some attention right now, along with suggestions about the competing disability narratives that lie underneath the facts, assertions, and arguments of each one. 1. Social Security Disability and SSIWhile Social Security itself is in general highly valued by people with disabilities, most agree that its disability programs are long overdue for reform. But disabled people, and others who look closely at Social Security, have vastly different ideas of what, exactly, needs to be changed. There are currently two dominant models: to narrow eligibility and serve fewer people, in order to preserve the program for the disabled people who “really need them” … or, to significantly expand and extend benefits, specifically by allowing disabled recipients to work, earn, and save a lot more than current rules allow, ultimately making disabled people more financially secure and fulfilled. These two very different ideas of Social Security Disability reform are at least partially animated by two very different narratives:Social Security Disability’s finances are out of control. Social Security is an important program, but it is threatened by cheating and lax eligibility standards. Too many people who aren’t really disabled are able to collect Social Security. This puts “truly” disabled people at risk of losing benefits someday if the program goes bankrupt. Or . . . Disabled people should be able to work and save without losing benefits. Social Security is financially essential for millions of disabled people. But its current medical and financial eligibility rules trap disabled people in poverty. Fear of losing benefits deters many disabled people from even trying to work, and when they do work they have to worry constantly about crossing arbitrary thresholds and losing benefits. Benefits are too low in general, and rules should be changed to allow disabled people who become able to work to work longer, earn more, and save more money without losing benefits. While these two narratives lead to opposite proposals, it’s interesting to note that they each look at a quite different “problem” with Social Security. Driven largely by the first narrative, the Trump Administration has proposed changes that would increase the frequency of Continuing Disability Reviews, in an effort to cut social security rolls and spending. Meanwhile, Presidential candidates Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren have both put forward plans to solidify benefits for disabled people who work. 2. Long Term Services and SupportsPeople with disabilities who need ongoing help with basic everyday tasks … like bathing, dressing, going to the bathroom, cooking, housekeeping, or just moving around . . . usually rely a variety of services broadly known as “long term services and supports. ” But while in theory these services belong to a single category, serving a single basic purpose, they actually differ a great deal. Long term services and supports in practice tend to reflect one of two different sets of priorities: health, safety, and control … or freedom, self direction, and integration. Details of each person’s services and choices typically involve a unique and personal combination of medical, practical, financial, and administrative factors. However, trends and policies in these services are also heavily influenced by competing narratives of disability and long term care:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewpulrang/2020/01/27/its-time-to-explore-the-unique-and-conflicting-narratives-of-disability-issues/?sh=767a42e2b69b

Former St. Paul mayoral aide alleges discrimination for her disability

A former employee in the office of St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter has filed a discrimination complaint against the city of St. Paul with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, claiming the mayor’s office failed to accommodate her disability. Carter said he was “disheartened” by the situation and will seek an independent investigation. Hope Hoffman said she joined the mayor’s office as a policy associate on June 17. She resigned Oct. 29 and filed her complaint on Tuesday, according to her and city records. On Wednesday, she testified before the state Senate Human Services Reform Finance and Policy Committee, which held a hearing on the treatment of public employees with disabilities. Hoffman, a former intern in Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton’s office and for federal Judge Donovan Frank, said she was born with spina bifida and lives with obvious walking limitations. Among them, she walks with a prosthetic leg as a result of a medical amputation a year ago. Hoffman said among her duties at City Hall, she was required to attend events with the mayor. “This wasn’t an issue until I was scheduled to an event that had no parking and enough walking that almost made me pass out,” she told the committee. “Following the event, I made a request over email that I be informed if events would have limited parking and significant walking. I received no email reply. And when talking with my manager a few days later, they suggested that I could instead Google Earth it and find out myself. ”Hoffman said that after her request, her work duties soon took a turn. “The kind of work I was asked to do changed,” Hoffman said. “I was asked to make quick trips between departments, which they knew would be tiring and difficult for me. I was asked to clean up conference tables with trays and pitchers they knew I couldn’t carry. … They intentionally gave me miscellaneous admin work, without clear direction, so that when I failed, they justified sitting in on all of the meetings I was assigned to in order to make sure that I was, quote, ‘able to do the work. ’ ”Hoffman said she filed a complaint with the city’s Human Resources department but was told to direct her concerns to the city’s Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator, who asked that she put in a formal request for accommodations. Hoffman said she received other assistance during her employment that did not require special documentation proving her disability, such as being allowed to park in the deputy mayor’s parking spot, which is closer to the City Hall entrances than typical street parking. On Wednesday, a spokesman for the Minnesota Department of Human Rights said he could not confirm or deny the existence of a complaint unless an investigation had closed. In a statement, Carter said, “I’ve disheartened our efforts to ensure Ms. Hoffman’s success were not enough to make her feel supported. I am working with city leadership and staff to learn from and prevent this experience from recurring in the future. ”Hoffman’s statements to senators Wednesday followed remarks by two former employees from the Minnesota Department of Human Services who allege their disabilities weren’t accommodated, a topic reported by the Pioneer Press in November. The lead Democrat on the committee is Sen. John Hoffman, DFL Champlin, who is Hope Hoffman’s father. We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. We reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request.

https://www.twincities.com/2020/01/22/former-st-paul-mayoral-aide-alleges-discrimination-for-her-disability/

5 Ways To Think About The Complicated Relationship Between Disability And Work

The relationship between people with disabilities and work is important, but also complex and often misunderstood. The high rate of unemployment for people with disabilities is a major problem, and increasing good employment opportunities is a high priority for the disability community. In 2018, the unemployment rate for people with disabilities was 8%, twice the rate for people without disabilities. The employment to population ratio for people with disabilities in December 2019 was 30. 6, compared to 74. 8 for non disabled people. Another sign of the issue’s importance is that so far, four of the candidates currently vying for the 2020 Democratic nomination have endorsed very specific policies related to disability and employment. Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren have all committed to ending the practice of paying less than minimum wage to some disabled workers. Additionally, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and Warren have proposed major changes in Social Security Disability rules that would allow disabled people who rely on benefits to work, earn, and save more without losing this support. These and other disability policy ideas assume that, by and large, disabled people want to work, and need help removing barriers to reaching their employment goals. For its part, the Trump Administration is proposing a different kind of change in Social Security, by stepping up the rate and intensity of Continuing Disability Reviews, with the aim of discovering people who maybe shouldn’t be receiving benefits and eliminating them from the rolls. This is also in line with the administration’s ongoing effort to encourage states to adopt work requirements for Medicaid eligibility, a policy direction based partly on the idea that benefits recipients, including some who have disabilities, need to be forced to work through negative incentives. Clearly, we need to think more deeply about what work means for people with disabilities. For a start, here are five things to consider:1. Some disabled people want to work, some don’t. It’s complicated. The first thing to understand is that while no type of disability makes paid employment completely impossible in all cases, any disabled person, at any particular time, may have good reasons for not working, or for making a deliberate, rational decision not to look for a job. For one thing, most disabled people go through times in their lives, usually more than once, when the physical or mental costs of trying to hold a job are just too high, and the sensible thing is to focus on basic survival and health. Plus, the kinds of work that are more compatible with a person’s specific disability may not be in demand, or not in line with a specific disabled person’s skills, training, or qualifications. Freelance writing can be a flexible option for people with fluctuating chronic illness or pain, but not everyone is a good writer. Likewise, job openings for construction workers may be plentiful in a given area during certain times, but those jobs may not be the best match for a wheelchair user. Most disabled people aspire in some way to a satisfying, well paying job and a promising career. But intending to work one day is not the same thing as actually looking for work at any given moment. Again, a sensible approach to financial security and pursuing life goals can include times when a disabled person is quite intentionally not looking for a job. And, while it’s important to recognize that most people with disabilities who are looking for work deserve a chance and can probably do a good job, we also need to acknowledge that there are some disabled people for whom employment may never be a top priority. Disability alone doesn’t determine this, but it can be a factor. The key here is that nobody can tell in advance, once and for all who is and isn’t “capable” of working, and nobody should try. But it’s a possibility that should’t be shied away from. In a society steeped in the work ethic, this is a difficult concept for some people to grasp, even for some with disabilities. Nevertheless, unemployment, underemployment, and inconsistent employment should never be prejudged as a moral failing, for any disabled person, or for disabled people generally.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewpulrang/2020/01/13/5-ways-to-think-about-the-complicated-relationship-between-disability-and-work/?sh=356c6c29586f

4 Ways To Understand The Diversity Of The Disability Community

Accessibility computer iconIt’s not easy to get a handle on what “The Disability Community” thinks. In July of last year, Rutgers University professors Lisa Schur and Douglas Kruse published a report on disabled people’s voting trends in the 2018 elections, which was a followup on a major report they issued on how disabled Americans voted in 2016. A background goal of these reports, one that disability activist groups are particularly interested in, is to try to identify what a “disability voting bloc” might look like and how it might shape not just disability policy, but actual elections. As we enter another big election year, with signs of more voting and political activity by disabled people, is it yet possible for candidates to harness a “disability vote?” Kruse and Schur’s data suggest that disabled Americans are nearly as diverse and politically polarized as the population at large. Disability itself is a widely diverse set of experiences, and disabled people’s views on disability issues fall into several very different patterns.  And it’s not just a puzzle for politicians. How can companies, community organizations, and individuals really know how to treat disabled people in everyday life properly when the disability community itself contains so many different perspectives and opinions? How do disabled people explain ourselves and what “we” want, when we so rarely agree with each other?People with different kinds of disabilities do share significant problems and experiences in common, as well as certain basic priorities, such as physical mobility, the right to make our own decisions, and the struggle for both financial stability and social respect. But then why are there such enormous differences by nearly every measure among the approximately 61 million people with disabilities in the United States?The disability community’s diversity can be confusing, but it’s not incomprehensible. We just need to dig a bit deeper to understand some of the most important differences in experience and thinking among people with disabilities, Here are four worth exploring . . . 1. Types of disabilityThe most obvious differences are between different types of disability. We can think of them in terms of broad categories, like physical, cognitive, sensory, mental health, and learning disabilities. Or we can focus on specific diagnoses, like spinal cord injury, Cerebral Palsy, and chronic pain . . . Down Syndrome and traumatic brain injury . . . blindness and deafness of varying degrees . . . depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia, or dyslexia, ADHD, and autism. Each comes with its own constellation of accompanying strengths and impairments. Each category and specifc type of disability also comes with different ableist stereotypes and intensities of discrimination. Physically disabled people are often seen as either lazy or excessively brave. People with intellectual disabilities tend to be either ridiculed or sentimentalized. People with mental illness are feared. Autism is still widely viewed as an “epidemic” and a tragedy for families. And these stereotypes aren’t only imposed by non disabled people; disabled people do it to each other, too. We often speak with concern and disapproval about a “hierarchy of disability” and “oppression olympics” the habit of people with one kind of disability trying to boost their own legitimacy by disassociating themselves from people with other kinds of impairments, or claiming some kind of higher status or greater degree of stigma and hardship. The most common example is people with physical disabilities minimizing the importance of being in a wheelchair by saying, “At least there’s nothing wrong with my mind!” as if having a cognitive disability was somehow less acceptable. The specific types of disabilities we have powerfully shape how we understand and respond to disability, how we view our place in society, and how we relate to our fellow disabled people. While we all share much in common, the real and perceived differences in perspective and experience can’t be wished away.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewpulrang/2020/01/03/4-ways-to-understand-the-diversity-of-the-disability-community/?sh=5b3e65ad3d3e

Disability community fights for higher wages

Kyle Stumpf may be different from his co workers, but at Papa John’s, he is treated and paid like any other employee. His biggest asset he brings is his amazing smile, Kyles father Bill Stumpf said. Workers with disabilities can qualify to be paid less than minimum wage, but the disability community is split on whether this helps or hurts them. Kyle used to work at a sheltered workshop, businesses staffed exclusively by those with disabilities. He made only $3 an hour. He had a place to go every day, he was paid a little bit and he was safe, Bill said. But over time, the Stumpfs began to feel the federal labor law, which allows people with disabilities to be paid based on a productivity formula, held their son back. It is the civil rights issue for the disability community right now, Alison Barkoff with the Center for Public Representation said. People with disabilities are not worth less and we cannot have laws that say that. ”Barkoff argues Congress should phase out the special minimum wage and sheltered workforces, like Alaska and New Hampshire did. Bill and Kyle came to Washington, D. C. to push for the same thing, and to show off Kyles success. But not all advocates for the disability community are convinced that is a good idea. “What would happen is people absolutely would lose their jobs over time because there is an economic factor to it. And the people with the most significant disabilities would have fewer opportunities, Kate McSweeny, vice president of government affairs and general counsel at ACCSES, said. If the House Democrats get their way, federal minimum and special minimum wage workers may get a massive raise to $15 an hour. But that appears unlikely to gain traction in the Republican Senate or with President Donald Trump.

https://www.kait8.com/2019/12/26/disability-community-fights-higher-wages/

Ableist Narratives That Poison Disability Policy And Disabled People’s Lives

Stereotype word cloud concept with abstract backgroundJust a few weeks before Christmas, word started to come out that the Trump Administration is proposing to change how Social Security reassesses the ongoing eligibility of Social Security Disability Insurance recipients. The goal is to reduce SSDI rolls by identifying people on SSDI who shouldn’t be … people believed to be likely to “get better,” or people who otherwise should be working. Whatever the specifics of the proposal, and regardless of its actual effects if it is adopted, the effort is largely driven by widespread belief in a specific narrative about disability … that disability benefits cheating and abuse is widespread, and that that thousands, maybe millions of people with a variety of physical or mental conditions don’t actually deserve the benefits and accommodations meant for “real” disabled people. Like many ableist stereotypes and narratives like this, there are small kernels of truth here. SSDI payments did go up, during and just after the Great Recession, suggesting that there may actually be more to some disability determinations than just medical facts. However, this narrative pre existed the recent rise in SSDI, and this ableist story apparently continues to thrive, even though SSDI rolls have since gone down. If it ever was a crisis, it isn’t a crisis now. Yet, the narrative lives on. And in the United Kingdom, a similar story and ideology of “benefits scroungers” has driven over ten years of the most stigmatizing and damaging policies faced by people with disabilities anywhere in the industrialized world. One of the key ways to combat any prejudice is to be able to identify specific prejudicial acts and beliefs when you see them in real life. Ableism is more than negative stereotypes or blanket assessments of disabled people’s character or habits. It is also a collection of shared narratives … or stories … made up of fleeting personal encounters, misapplied value judgments, and lightly substantiated rumors … all of which coalesce into what people “know” about disability and disabled people. What follows are descriptions of four of the most common ableist narratives of disability. To be clear, the statements and examples are meant to illustrate common ableist stereotypes, not approve them. These are faulty, harmful ideas. 1. FakersA lot of people who claim to be “disabled” really aren’t. They use the ambiguity of certain medical or mental conditions to steal benefits and accommodations meant for “really” disabled people. Examples:The most common story is that people in high poverty areas who can’t find work end up going on disability because they also happen to have chronic pain or long term illnesses that might not prevent them from working, but can be used to get them on permanent benefits. People with mental health problems like anxiety and PTSD are believed to use these fluid diagnoses to get financial benefits, or other accommodations like being allowed to take emotional support animals anywhere they want. And then there’s a real favorite … people who park in accessible parking spaces, but sure don’t look disabled. The effect on disabled people:Anyone who uses any disability related benefit or accommodation is subject to shaming or attack by people, institutions, or bureaucracies convinced we are cynically on the make, playing the system. This constantly deters people from using benefits and accommodations that could make their lives easier and more productive. And it keeps those of us who do use benefits in constant danger of having them taken away, based largely on an ideologically driven stereotype. 2. LazySome disabled people aren’t interested in working hard or improving themselves. Instead, they use their disabilities as an excuse for laziness or failure, and expect others to take care of them. Or, if a person does work hard and succeeds, then they can’t really be disabled.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewpulrang/2019/12/27/ableist-narratives-that-poison-disability-policy-and-disabled-peoples-lives/?sh=5e9e6c6937eb

Social Security Administration change in disability rules could cut benefits to tens of thousands

A Trump Administration proposal to require more frequent paperwork reviews of people receiving Social Security disability benefits could cut benefits to tens of thousands of people across the nation. The plan has alarmed advocates for people with disabilities, who say the rules will place older adults and children at risk for losing benefits in a federal program already under scrutiny for taking years to process disability paperwork and wrongly denying qualified applicants. This is kind of at the worlds on fire level in the social security disability world, said Jen Burdick, an advocate for federal disability program reforms who also serves as an attorney with Community Legal Services of Philadelphia. Its really just a backdoor way to cutting people from the program, she said. Social Security Administration officials say the plan is designed to ensure taxpayer funded benefits are going only to those who deserve them. The rule would ensure more frequent checks to verify if someones health has improved enough to go back to work. SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS CHANGES:What Trumps proposed cuts could mean for recipientsWe expect that the changes we are proposing would enhance program integrity and ensure that only those who continue to qualify for benefits will receive them, a statement from the agency said. The agency also expects to save money. The reviews will add $1. 6 billion in administrative costs over the next ten years, but save $2. 8 billion in disability benefits by cutting beneficiaries a saving of about $1. 50 in for every dollar spent. The projected savings, however, are significantly lower than in the past. In its annual report submitted to Congress in August before the new rules were unveiled, the Social Security Administration noted that every dollar spent on disability reviews had yielded $19 dollars in benefit costs. I dont think its a very efficient use of money, said Kathleen Romig, a senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities who opposes the new rule. Social Security Administration oversees two disability programs, SSI for low income individuals without a work history and SSDI for workers who become disabled. In total, more than 16 million adults and children receive disability benefits, including roughly 170,000 in Tennessee.  To qualify, adults must demonstrate they have a long term medical or psychological condition that prevents them from working. Children are eligible for disability if they are blind or have severe functional limitations that are expected to last a year or result in death. SSI recipients must also be low income. Once on disability, adults and children are subject to continuing disability reviews by Social Security staff. The reviews require recipients to submit medical records and other documents to prove they are still too incapacitated to work. The reviews vary depending on a persons condition. Individuals whose conditions are expected to improve with time  babies born prematurely, for example  are in a category called medical improvement expected and reviewed every six to 18 months. People with debilitating or terminal conditions are in a category called medical improvement not expected and reviewed every five to seven years.  The Social Security Administration is proposing a new category, medical improvement likely that would review some of these recipients every two years. Federal officials estimate they would conduct an additional 4. 4 million reviews over the next decade in this new category if the news rules take effect. The proposal did not estimate how many people would lose benefits, but experts who reviewed the plan calculated that the estimated number of reviews and projected savings reported by the agency would result in tens of thousands of people losing disability benefits each year.

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2019/12/26/trump-administration-disability-plan-could-cut-benefits-tens-thousands/2642632001/

As an autistic woman, the disability question at the Democratic debate finally made me feel seen

History was made at Thursday’s Democratic debate in Los Angeles, when Politico correspondent Tim Alberta asked a question about integrating people with disabilities into their communities and the workforce. For the 61 million American adults with disabilities, it was the first time ever that they’d seen themselves reflected in the questions asked of the candidates seeking to represent them in the Oval Office. The question was initially directed to billionaire longshot candidate Tom Steyer. When Steyer skirted answering the question, Alberta posed a similar question to tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang, asking if Yang could “outline specific steps that the government should take to help integrate these young people into the workforce and into their local communities. ”Yang responded by asking the audience if they had family members, friends, or neighbors with special needs or autism. Yang is the father of an autistic child. Audience members raised their hands and clapped in the affirmative. As an autistic woman myself, I perked up. Yang specifically elaborated on the issue of unemployment, saying, “We go to employers and say, ‘Hey, this special needs person can be a contributor in your workplace,’ which may be correct, but thats not the point. ” Instead, Yang argued, the point is that humans have “intrinsic value” and should be protected on those merits alone. He also plugged his signature Freedom Dividend of $1,000 a month, which he said is “going to help families around the country adapt. And then were going to take this burden off of the communities . . . and make it a federal priority, not a local one. ”Yang’s argument has merit. Disability drives innovation, and people with disabilities are able to bring competitive advantages to the workplace, so his focus on employment was sound. But his point that “we have to stop confusing economic value and human value” was salient, and his rhetoric echoed what disability community leaders, activists, and allies have been saying all along but from the powerful position of a presidential debate stage. While Yang’s answer was not perfect his repeated use of the phrase “special needs” garnered some criticism it exposed viewers to an issue of which many in the disability community are profoundly aware. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for people with disabilities was at 8% percent in 2018 more than double the unemployment rate for nondisabled Americans . As an autistic person, I am especially aware of the abysmally high unemployment rates for people with my same disability; the unemployment rate for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities like autism has been cited to be as high as 85%. After Yang’s response, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren jumped in to address the question. Warren, a former special education teacher, trafficked in specifics in her trademark wonky style. She in particular said she wants to prioritize the full funding of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, also known as IDEA, a law that requires that students with disabilities receive a free and appropriate public education. That means these individuals benefit from the creation of an individualized education plan in order to receive special education services after requesting and receiving an evaluation; the IEP is a collection of documents that detail a student’s strengths, weaknesses, and goals, helping to create a comprehensive, custom record of the student’s education. In 2017, the Supreme Court ruled that public schools need to provide more than the bare minimum so students with disabilities will be able to make “appropriately ambitious” progress. A bare minimum education would be a free education within the school system, rather than one that addresses all the complexities of a student’s situation. While the ruling did not make an immediate impact, it sends a clear signal that special education issues are being heard and respected nationwide and that standards need to be higher for students with disabilities.

https://www.mic.com/impact/as-autistic-woman-the-disability-question-at-the-democratic-debate-finally-made-me-feel-seen-19624939

School suspensions don’t just unfairly penalize Black students – they lead to lower grades and ‘Black flight’

School suspensions are intended to deter violence and punish students who demonstrate problematic behavior. Yet, when I interviewed 30 Black high school students in southeast Michigan who had been suspended from school and 30 of their parents, I learned that many students were suspended because school officials misinterpreted their behaviors. Additionally, the suspensions led to students’ grades dropping significantly and to some parents withdrawing their children from their school districts. I published my findings in the Children and Youth Services Review and Urban Education journals as part of my ongoing research on how Black students and parents view school punishment and its impact on their daily lives. You might assume that these punitive disciplinary practices have stopped since so many children are not physically in school due to the COVID 19 pandemic. You would be wrong. News reports show that suspensions have continued throughout the pandemic, while children are attending school remotely from their homes. For example, in September, school officials suspended 9 year old Louisiana student Ka’Mauri Harrison for six days because he placed a BB gun on a shelf in his room after one of his siblings tripped over it during virtual learning. In other incidents, such as when 12 year old Isaiah Elliot played with a toy gun during virtual art class, school officials sent law enforcement officers to his home – terrifying everyone in their household. Although these cases attracted considerable media attention, I believe most do not. Collectively, these instances of unwarranted school punishment raise important questions about their impact on millions of individuals – particularly Black students and parents. The most recent data shows Black students represent 15% of K 12 public school students in the U. S. but receive 39% of school suspensions. In one interview after another, students told me they were denied the opportunity to explain their side, which could have led school officials to determine a suspension was unnecessary. Parents also said educators and administrators ignored them throughout the disciplinary process. For example, Sandra, a ninth grader, received a five day suspension for de escalating a fight between peers. “I feel like they didn’t hear me out,” she said. “I told my mom and my dad and they was like, ‘Yeah, I don’t see why they suspended you. ’ … [T]he [school officials] was like, ‘We feel like you threatened her. ’ I’m like, ‘I didn’t, and the girl even said I didn’t threaten her. ’ When I came back to school she was like, ‘Why did you get suspended?’ and I was like, ‘[Because] they said I threatened you,’ and she was like, ‘How did you threaten me?’ I’m like, exactly. So, I just felt like they should have listened to me and let me explain the whole situation. ” Mike’s daughter Kimberly, a ninth grade student, received a five day suspension for hugging a boy. “To suspend a child for five days for giving a person a hug is ridiculous,” he said. “I raised my voice about it many times. Their policies around suspension are very unnecessary. ”Students also told me their achievement declined by as much as two letter grades due to suspensions. Students and parents attributed the academic declines to missing high point value assignments, experiencing difficulty catching up, missing vital instruction and educators’ unwillingness to distribute makeup assignments to suspended students. “[School discipline] affected my grades a lot,” said Marcus, a 10th grade student who received a 39 day suspension after he punched a gated window in response to his teacher calling him a “failure. ” “I go up there to get my work, but it’s hard to do the work when you are outside of school. You get where you’re not receiving the proper guidance to do the work. ”

https://theconversation.com/school-suspensions-dont-just-unfairly-penalize-black-students-they-lead-to-lower-grades-and-black-flight-150240

‘My vote will be Black’ – A wave of Afro-Brazilian women ran for office in 2020 but found glass ceiling hard to break

Messages urging Afro Brazilians to support Black candidates filled social media in the days before Brazil’s Nov. 15, 2020 elections. “Do not forget your masks, your identification, a pen and that you are BLACK!!!”“This Sunday my vote will be Black. ” People of African descent make up 56% of Brazil’s population and just 17. 8% of its Congress. But Black political participation is surging in Brazil, especially in local government. Some 250,840 Black Brazilians ran for city council this year, up from 235,105 in 2016. When the winners take office, Afro Brazilians will make up 44% of city councils nationwide. Afro Brazilian women also saw significant firsts in the 2020 election, winning 14% of city council seats nationwide. In the 2016 election, Afro Brazilian women won just 3. 9% of city council seats. Black women still hit a hard glass ceiling when aiming for higher office, though. Just 13 of the 513 representatives in the lower house of Brazil’s Congress are Afro Brazilian women, and the 81 member Senate has only one Black woman, Eliziane Gama. The first Black woman to have served as governor in Brazil, Benedita da Silva, this year lost her race to be mayor of Rio de Janeiro. But winning isn’t necessarily the only reason Afro Brazilian women hit the campaign trail. Black women’s political participation has soared in Brazil since the 2018 assassination of Marielle Franco in Rio de Janeiro. Franco was a Black lesbian city councilwoman who advocated for the city’s poor Black slum communities, in what Brazilian media dubbed the “the Marielle Effect. ”“Marielle’s murder could have had a chilling effect upon Black candidates, [but] it instead inspired a wave of Black candidacies,” writes the Afro Brazilian scholar Dalila Negreiros in the leftist publication NACLA Report on the Americas. Even before Franco’s killing, there were many Black women politicians – and my research shows how they opened the door for groundbreaking candidacies like Franco’s. Trailblazers include Benedita da Silva as well as Janete Pietá, who represented São Paulo in Congress from 2007 to 2015. I interviewed Pietá and many other Black female politicians in Brazil between 2004 and 2007. This was during Brazil’s economic boom under the leftist president Inacio Lula da Silva. Most of the women whose campaigns I studied were from Lula’s Workers Party, but one, Eronildes Carvalho, was a right leaning evangelical. I found that the women often used race and gender in their campaigns to mobilize voters, especially in predominantly Black cities. When running for Congress, Pietá told me she wore bright colors and did her hair in interesting styles, with short braids in the front, like bangs, and longer braids in the back, to show pride in her African ancestry – “even though it looks like a joke” to some. “A large part of the Brazilian population…have origins of African descent. Nevertheless, some of them are not conscious of this,” Pietá told me. Olivia Santana also put her race and gender up front when running for city council in the northeastern city of Salvador in 2004. She proudly announced herself as the “Negona da cidade,” the big Black woman of the city. “It was a slogan that was more about the history of elections, of Black participation in elections,” Santana told me in 2006. “My campaign made the Black racial question visible. ” While city council members may see their race and gender as an asset, I found Afro Brazilians running for federal office did not believe racial appeals would be helpful.

https://theconversation.com/my-vote-will-be-black-a-wave-of-afro-brazilian-women-ran-for-office-in-2020-but-found-glass-ceiling-hard-to-break-150521

Not a day passes without thinking about race: what African migrants told us about parenting in Australia

Race informs how Black parents raise their children in Australia. Our study, published in the journal Child and Family Social Work, found it complicates parenting in ways that non Black parents might not have to consider. We interviewed 27 highly skilled professional African migrants from eight different Sub Saharan African countries about their experiences of employment, belonging and parenting in Australia. Parents of Black African children told us they had to consider how race affected the identity, perception, opportunities and well being of their children. One parent, who overheard her daughter telling her friends about her experiences as a Black teenager, reflected: This week I heard her tell one of her friends; there is no one day that passes without her thinking about this . Yeah, and her friends were really, really […] shocked. They said they do not have to think about it. Then, she said, ‘Every day when I get on to the bus, you know, I think about who I am and if somebody is going to say something, when I am on the streets, you know, I think about what will somebody think or say or do. ’ Read more: Growing Up African in Australia: racism, resilience and the right to belong Many parents said they were unprepared for the extent to which race would become a defining marker of their parenting process in Australia. One parent noted school was especially difficult for his children. He described instances in which his son had been called “a nigger” and threatened with violence, as well as fighting for his daughter’s rights to wear her afro natural hair in school. It put a lot of pressure on them and on me as a parent to explain without creating differences between them and the white kids […] We create a lot of explanations and conversations around who they are. Parents of Black men and boys, in particular, reported feeling more concerned about the stereotype of black masculinity and how much more likely their sons were to be criminalized or profiled by police. One parent said she constantly reminds her son that, because he is a young African male, he must …always be conscious wherever he goes or wherever he is. Some parents reported feeling overwhelmed and unprepared to support their children to deal with racial slurs, micro aggressions and racial exotification . Participants reported a significant aspect of parenting involved teaching their children about their blackness and self worth. Because blackness is often interiorised in white dominant contexts, many told us they felt if their children weren’t taught about racial dignity and self worth, they would grow up internalizing feelings of inferiority. One parent explained how, for her two children:We have conversations about what they look like, how they are different to other people, and people may want to point out those differences. [We teach them] being different does not mean being inferior or anything like that […] we talk to them to be confident about who they are and to be proud about where they have come from and their African heritage. Another parent reflected:We have had instances […] where he has sort of alluded to the fact that somebody told him, ‘You are Black, you are not like us’. And we have taken that up very quickly with the school authorities we have tried to tell him in a soft way […] being African doesn’t make him inferior.

https://theconversation.com/not-a-day-passes-without-thinking-about-race-what-african-migrants-told-us-about-parenting-in-australia-149167

Biden wins – experts on what it means for race relations, US foreign policy and the Supreme Court

The American public has had its say and for the first time in a generation denied a sitting president a second term. President Donald Trump’s tenure lasted just four years, but in that time he dragged policy on an array of key issues in a dramatic new direction. Joe Biden’s victory, confirmed by the Associated Press late morning on Nov. 7, presents an opportunity to reset the White House agenda and put it on a different course. Three scholars discuss what a Biden presidency may have in store in three key areas: race, the Supreme Court and foreign policy. Brian Purnell, Bowdoin CollegeThe next four years under a Biden administration will likely see improvements in racial justice. But to many, it will be a low bar to clear: President Donald Trump downplayed racist violence, egged on right wing extremists and described Black Lives Matter as a “symbol of hate” during his four year tenure. Indeed, according to polls, most Americans agree that race relations have deteriorated under Trump. Still, Biden is in some ways an unlikely president to advance a progressive racial agenda. In the 1970s, he opposed busing plans and stymied school desegregation efforts in Delaware, his home state. And in the mid 1990s he championed a federal crime bill that made incarceration rates for Black people worse. He bungled the hearings that brought Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court by allowing Republican senators to dismiss Anita Hill’s damning testimony of Thomas’ sexual harassment and by failing to allow other Black women to testify. But that was then. During the 2020 campaign, President elect Biden consistently spoke about problems stemming from systemic racism. Many voters will be hoping that his actions over the next four years must match his campaign words. One area that the Biden administration will surely address is policing and racial justice. The Justice Department can bring accountability to police reform by returning to practices the Obama administration put in place to monitor and reform police departments, such as the use of consent degrees. More difficult reforms require redressing how mass incarceration caused widespread voter disenfranchisement in Black American and Latino communities. “My administration will incentivize states to automatically restore voting rights for individuals convicted of felonies once they have served their sentences,” Biden told The Washington Post. The killing of George Floyd earlier this year reinvigorated talk of addressing systemic racial discrimination through fundamental changes in how police departments hold officers accountable for misconduct and excessive force. It is unclear how far President elect Biden will walk down this road. But evoking the words of the late civil rights icon and Congressman John Lewis, he at least suggested at the Democratic National Convention that America was ready to do the hard work of “rooting out systemic racism. ”Biden can help address how Americans think about and deal with unexamined racial biases through reversing the previous administration’s executive order banning anti racism training and workshops. In so doing, Biden can build on psychological research on bias to make American workplaces, schools and government agencies equitable, just places.

https://theconversation.com/biden-wins-experts-on-what-it-means-for-race-relations-us-foreign-policy-and-the-supreme-court-149327

American suburbs radically changed over the decades – and so have their politics

Suburban voters in a number of areas are considered critical swing voters. The growing political stakes reflect the dramatic changes that have happened in American suburbia in recent years, says Dr. Jan Nijman, director and distinguished university professor at the Urban Studies Institute, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University. He edited the book, “The Life of North American Suburbs,” which examines how the once homogeneous suburbs have become far more diverse and varied from one other. The United States was the birthplace of the 20th century suburb. After World War II, the archetypal “sitcom” suburb of the 1950s – white, middle class households with male breadwinners and traditional gender roles, in single family homes – assumed near mythical proportions. They were seen as a settled, stable place where middle class families had “arrived. ” Change was not a part of that dreamy constellation. But suburbia proved far from stable, because of three major trends: the rapid growth of suburban populations, growing diversity due in part to immigration and economic changes that brought increasing inequalities. If you add up these trends, the result is the increased sorting of populations into highly diverse suburban patterns. By the year 2000, the suburban U. S. population exceeded that of central cities and rural areas combined. Today, there are many more types of suburbs than, say, 30 years ago. While cities are said to be diverse, they are really sorted into various types of suburbs where different types of people live in a sort of suburban bubble. If today somebody tells you they live in the suburbs, it does not tell you a lot. Rather, it raises the question “What suburb?”Suburbs now are definitely not all white, middle class or dominated by families with traditional gender roles. They vary a great deal in terms of well being, race and ethnicity. The distinction between central cities and suburbs has blurred. This is due to the suburbanization of previously excluded lower income groups and ethnic minorities, and to the gentrification of large parts of central cities – more wealthy people moving back in. Suburbia continued to grow, but increasingly because many lower income people didn’t have anywhere else to go. For some of the less expensive, far out suburbs, it was reflected in the phrase “Drive till you qualify. ” Since 2000, poverty in the suburbs has grown much faster than in central cities. By 2010, well over a third of the suburban population in the U. S. was nonwhite. The majority of African Americans now live in suburbs, and certain suburbs have also become the first and primary destination for foreign immigrants. What really stands out are the enormous contrasts and inequalities between suburbs. For example, in metro Atlanta, where I am based, one of the suburban areas to the north has a life expectancy of 84 years – as high as Switzerland’s – and household incomes twice Atlanta’s average, and the residents are mostly white. Compare this to an inner suburban area west of downtown, where life expectancy is only 71 – comparable to Bangladesh – incomes are less than half the Atlanta average, and most residents are Black Americans. You could drive from one world to the other in 15 minutes. The 2020 elections are sometimes referred to as a battle for the suburbs, for good reason. In recent elections, while urban areas have generally been strongly Democratic and small towns and rural areas have been predominantly Republican, it is in the suburbs where things are more dynamic. Especially in the all important swing states, the outcomes tend to revolve around “swing suburbs. ”

https://theconversation.com/american-suburbs-radically-changed-over-the-decades-and-so-have-their-politics-147731

In two political battlegrounds, thousands of mail-in ballots are on the verge of being rejected

Tens of millions of Americans have already cast their ballots for the 2020 election by mail, building on a historic shift in voting methods that started with primary elections held during the COVID 19 pandemic. Mail in ballots, however, aren’t automatically accepted as in person ballots are. Rather, they can be rejected if they have signature defects on their return envelopes. Unless cured by voters – which means that voters fix the signature errors on them – these submitted ballots will be rejected. Thanks to ongoing reporting of voter turnout in two battleground states, Florida and North Carolina, we can identify the number of mail in ballots at risk of being rejected. So far, we can tell that there are thousands of ballots flagged for rejection in these two states. In addition, racial minorities and Democrats are disproportionately more likely to have cast mail ballots this election that face rejection. Above, we use the word “risk” when describing ballots in Florida and North Carolina that have been flagged for rejection. While these ballots have signature defects, they have not yet been formally rejected. Not all states have the same requirements for mail in voting, but ballots usually face rejection if they’re missing a voter’s signature. Another source of defects is an ostensibly mismatched signature. This happens when an elections official concludes that a voter’s signature on a return envelope doesn’t match the voter’s signature on file. Some states, like North Carolina, require witness signatures on ballot return envelopes, with the lack of such a signature considered a defect. Our counts of mail ballots facing rejection in Florida and North Carolina are conservative. When calculating them using official data, we assume that any inconsistencies we find in the data are resolved in favor of ballot acceptance. That said, here is what we know as of Oct. 22. In Florida, 3,210,873 voters have cast mail ballots, and of these, 15,003 ballots face rejection, corresponding to a potential ballot rejection rate of 0. 47%. This rate is not an estimate. It is based on counts drawn from official statewide data. These thousands of mail ballots currently in limbo can make a difference. Consider the 2018 midterm election. In his successful United States Senate bid in this contest, Republican Rick Scott beat incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson by only 10,033 votes. Over 2 million Floridians have yet to return the mail ballots sent to them by county election officials, so the number of mail ballots subject to rejection in Florida could grow well beyond 15,000. In North Carolina, an even greater percentage of mail ballots face rejection. In that state, 8,228 of 701,425 mail ballots fall into this category, yielding a potential rejection rate of 1. 2%. As in Florida, North Carolina’s elections can be extremely close. In the state’s 2016 gubernatorial race, a mere 10,277 votes out of roughly 4. 6 million cast separated the winner, Democrat Roy Cooper, from incumbent Republican Pat McCrory. The number of ballots at risk in North Carolina – 8,228 – remains smaller than this margin but could grow as more ballots are returned. The risks of mail ballot rejection are not spread uniformly across voters, and rejected mail ballots are not politically neutral.

https://theconversation.com/in-two-political-battlegrounds-thousands-of-mail-in-ballots-are-on-the-verge-of-being-rejected-148616

Why is race still in the British blood pressure guidelines?

I looked around the lecture theatre and scribbled down what the lecturer had said: ABCD. ACE inhibitors , Beta blockers, Calcium channel blockers and Diuretics. These were the four groups of drugs used to treat high blood pressure – except there were exceptions. We didn’t use beta blockers anymore and ACE inhibitors don’t work for black people, specifically black African or Afro Caribbean people. The lecturer explained to us that all black people were inherently less likely to respond to ACE inhibitors. This is what I learned at medical school, and this is what medical students still learn today. Now, as a practicing GP, this is the guidance we use every day . On the other hand, in the US blood pressure guidance, there is no mention of race. Why the disparity? Do black people really react to blood pressure drugs differently from white people? Are black bodies different from white bodies? Speculation on why black people have higher blood pressure than white people is often attributed to a genetic adaptation to slavery: specifically, salt retention allowed black people to survive long trips on slave transportation ships across the Atlantic Ocean. The implication that there are inherent biological differences between black people and members of other races has entered blood pressure medication guidance. Black people are labelled “low renin responders” so are less likely to respond to ACE inhibitors. But there are several things wrong with this idea:The highest quality evidence found a small but statistically significant 4mmHg difference between the response to ACE inhibitors between black people and white people. If black people were all poor responders to this drug, you would expect the difference to be far bigger. There is conflicting evidence on whether ACE inhibitors are beneficial or detrimental in terms of heart disease outcomes for black people. If they didn’t work that well, surely there would be no change or a clear detriment. Even if black people are inherently different from white people, what medication should a person receive if they have a black parent and a white parent? What if they have a grandparent of African heritage? Using the “one drop rule” – where any person with even one ancestor of black ancestry is considered black – could be problematic as very few people can trace their ancestry back a few generations. This means it is difficult to rule out any African or Caribbean heritage in anyone’s lineage. A commercial genetics test probably won’t help you. Recent genetic research consistently shows that there are greater genetic differences between members of the same race compared with members of different races, looking generally and specifically at African Americans. The social and economic circumstances and the environment in which a person lives has a greater effect on health than biological or genetic factors. So could there be an alternative explanation for why black people have higher blood pressure compared with white people? Could poverty, stress or perceived racism be reasonable explanations? Medicine is not objective; scientific research is conducted by people who bring their own perspectives. These biases color the way research is conducted, the way data is analyzed and the way conclusions are drawn. Perhaps it’s time for an overhaul.

https://theconversation.com/why-is-race-still-in-the-british-blood-pressure-guidelines-144971

Kids’ perceptions of police fall as they age – for Black children the decline starts earlier and is constant

The deaths of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and most recently Dijon Kizzee at the hands of officers come in an age when over policing and underserving minority communities has, as some experts believe, resulted in a “legitimacy crisis” in American policing. The reality is that these events are also impacting children. Youth today are growing up in what has been described as an “era of mistrust” of police. Across racial and ethnic groups, youths’ perceptions of police have dropped in recent years to a decades long low. Yet, the amount of the decline differs across demographic groups. In fact, Black youth report the most dramatic declines, and the gap between their perceptions and white youths’ perceptions has been increasing. As scholars of policing and the criminal justice system, we study how and when perceptions of police change during childhood and adolescence. Studies have already shown that personal politics affects how people interpret news. But our research suggests this process may begin during the teenage years or even earlier. Research looking at high school seniors finds that how white youth perceive law enforcement depends on their political views. White students that identify as liberal or Democratic leaning report worse perceptions of police, whereas white conservative youths report substantially better opinions of the police. Yet political views do not seem to affect how Black teenagers view police. Black teenagers across the political spectrum report the most negative perceptions of police. It is perhaps not surprising that teens of color, and Black teenagers in particular, report the poorest perceptions of law enforcement – these perceptions reflect their lived reality where Black teenagers are often presumed criminal and unjust police stops result in stress, anxiety and depression. It also likely reflects the frequent reminders that Black teenagers have of unjust interactions between police and Black communities – through social media as well as their own experiences and those of families and friends. But our study found that perceptions of law enforcement take shape at much earlier ages. We surveyed nearly 1,000 children aged 7 to 14 in Southern California. At 7 years old, kids across all racial and ethnic backgrounds view law enforcement similarly in high regard. However, that does not last. While white youths’ perceptions of police remain relatively stable from the ages of 7 to 14, Latino kids’ perceptions begin to drop at around 9 years old. Black children’s perceptions decline even more rapidly and consistently beginning at around 7 to 8 years old. As Black kids grow up from ages 7 to 14, their perceptions of law enforcement drop every year – we did not find an age at which Black youth one year older did not report significantly worse perceptions of law enforcement. These perceptions don’t just affect individual kids; they affect society too. While research examining youths’ intentions of entering law enforcement as a career is still in its infancy, we believe that perceptions of the police clearly matter. While the racial and ethnic demographics of the United States have grown more diverse, policing has not caught up. Compared to the general public, a disproportionate majority of police officers are white, non Hispanic men, and that number is only growing larger across departments, according to newly released federal data. This is despite emerging research suggesting that increasing the proportion of minority officers might enhance community members’ perceptions of police and the criminal justice system.

https://theconversation.com/kids-perceptions-of-police-fall-as-they-age-for-black-children-the-decline-starts-earlier-and-is-constant-145511

Microaggressions aren’t just innocent blunders – new research links them with racial bias

A white man shares publicly that a group of Black Harvard graduates “look like gang members to me” and claims he would have said the same of white people dressed similarly. A white physician mistakes a Black physician for a janitor and says it was an honest mistake. A white woman asks to touch a Black classmate’s hair, is scolded for doing so and sulks, “I was just curious. ”It’s a pattern that recurs countless times, in myriad interactions and contexts, across American society. A white person says something that is experienced as racially biased, is called on it and reacts defensively. These comments and other such subtle snubs, insults and offenses are known as microaggressions. The concept, introduced in the 1970s by Black psychiatrist Chester Pierce, is now the focus of a fierce debate. On one side, Black people and a host of others representing multiple diverse communities stand with a wealth of testimonials, lists of different types of microaggressions and compelling scientific evidence documenting how these experiences harm recipients. Some white people are on board, working to understand, change and join as allies. Still, a cacophony of white voices exists in the public discourse, dismissive, defensive and influential. Their main argument: Microaggressions are innocuous and innocent, not associated with racism at all. Many contend that those who complain about microaggressions are manipulating victimhood and being too sensitive. Until recently, the majority of research on microaggressions has focused on asking people targeted by microaggressions about their experiences and perspectives, rather than researching the offenders. This previous research is crucial. But with respect to understanding white defensiveness and underlying racial bias, it’s akin to researching why baseball pitchers keep hitting batters with pitches by only interviewing batters about how it feels to get hit. My colleagues and I – a team of Black, white and other psychological scientists and students – went directly to the “pitchers” to untangle the relationship between these expressions and racial bias. We asked white college students – one group at a university in the Northwest, another at a campus in the southern Midwest – how likely they are to commit 94 commonly described microaggressions that we identified from research publications and Black students we interviewed. For example, you are meeting a Black woman with braids; how likely are you to ask, “Can I touch your hair?” We also asked our participants to describe their own racial bias using well known measures. Then, we asked some participants to come to our laboratory to talk about current events with others. Lab observers rated how many explicitly racially biased statements they made in their interactions. We found direct support for what recipients of microaggressions have been saying all along: Students who are more likely to say they commit microaggressions are more likely to score higher on measures of racial bias. One’s likelihood of microaggressing also predicts how racist one is judged to be by lab observers, as they watch real interactions unfold. We’re currently analyzing the same kind of data from a national sample of adults, and the results look similar. With some microaggressions, like “Can I touch your hair?,” the influence of racial bias is real but small. When the white woman who asked to touch the Black woman’s hair responds, “I was just curious,” she’s not necessarily lying about her conscious intentions. She likely is unaware of the subtle racial bias that also influences her behavior. One can demonstrate racial bias and curiosity at the same time.

https://theconversation.com/microaggressions-arent-just-innocent-blunders-new-research-links-them-with-racial-bias-145894

Diversity’s Ofcom complaints: audiences consume Black culture but don’t want to engage with the realities

After a Saturday night performance on ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent , Ofcom received more than 22,000 complaints and counting. This is its second highest number of complaints about a TV show since 2010. Was it nudity, violence, profanities or religious controversy that drew such outrage? No, it was a performance by the dance troupe Diversity that tackled racism and paid homage to the Black Lives Matter movement. The performance contextualized COVID 19 and racism as two diseases inflicting British society. It restaged the images of a white policeman kneeling on the neck of a Black man in direct evocation of the arrest and killing of George Floyd in the US in May. The piece was powerful, emotive and performed with utter integrity and passion, concluding with an invocation of love as the fundamental answer to the ails of our time. In that sense, the piece was far from being problematic or radical in content. The apparent outrage by members of the public manifested in a deluge of complaints to Ofcom and a barrage of racial abuse and hate on social media directed at Diversity and its leader Ashley Banjo. Much of the abuse did not mask the inherent and violent racism that prompted it, as one comment cited by Banjo on his Instagram showed: If you don’t like living in a white country go live in Africa. I think you would genuinely feel more comfortable there. As would I if you did. Criticism of the performance, the choreography, and the Black Lives Matter movement was all, sadly, expected, but the worst of the social media backlash, according to Banjo, was something else: No I don’t mean ‘criticism’… I mean ‘racism’. I mean hate… I mean the very thing that makes every single second of that performance and every single complaint worth it. The incomprehensibly high number of complaints, though astonishing, speaks to Britain’s problematic conceptualization of race and its relationship to racism. It shows a general intolerance to confront it. This, in part, is based on the denial of racism and a mythical idea of Britain as post racial, where racism and racial inequality no longer exist. These, in turn, foster and allow white supremacy as a system of structural white dominance to go unchecked. But, if anything, the backlash against Diversity “proves the large extent to which Britain’s got racism, rather than talent”, as the journalist Nicole Vassell wrote. Many complaints cited the political nature of the act; others the fact that BGT is a family show and therefore the wrong platform for the piece’s content. Both points are fundamentally flawed. In its long run, BGT has had numerous political acts . However, only Diversity’s was deemed too political and problematic. The complaints point at a more sinister disbelief, and perhaps outrage, that this predominantly Black dance crew were granted access and ownership of their representation because therein lies power as the sociologist Stuart Hall explains:[Power has to be understood] in broader cultural or symbolic terms, including the power to represent someone or something in a certain way within a certain ‘regime of representation’. It includes the exercise of symbolic power through representational practices. The complaints lead us to believe that political Black bodies and voices are deemed threatening and that Diversity is transgressing the limited and conditional space afforded to it. This is a subtle reminder to this predominantly Black dance troupe to “know your place” and “don’t be too big for your boots”. All is further evidence of the precarious, restricted and probationary access and representation of Black and ethnically diverse creatives in the cultural public space.

https://theconversation.com/diversitys-ofcom-complaints-audiences-consume-black-culture-but-dont-want-to-engage-with-the-realities-146263

Rocks: care, childhood and power in a story of modern urban girlhood

“You don’t know what hurt is,” 15 year old Rocks utters in a compelling and stark, cinematic take on friendship, family and the complexities of care. When Rocks comes home one day to find her mother gone, leaving only a brief note and some £20 bills behind, she is determined to stick with her younger brother, even if it means evading “the social” and other adults in authority. The film follows her and her East London friends as she struggles to care for her brother in increasingly difficult circumstances. It would be easy to interpret this film as a story of a girl made to prematurely shoulder adult responsibilities, as other reviews have. But my research with children and young people suggests that to do so would miss the mark. Instead, it shows how treating children as simply vulnerable dependants can mean that practices, policies, and institutions which are intended to protect them can end up belittling them or exacerbating children’s marginalization. “Close your eyes. Think of everything that is happy. And keep on breathing in and out. And stop thinking of all your worries,” Rocks’ brother Emmanuel says to her as they pass time in a gritty hotel room, paid for with the last of their money. This reassuring moment of emotional closeness is emblematic of many examples in the film of young people caring for each other. The film adeptly portrays both the challenges and joys of family and friendship as Rocks’ friends make every effort to support her, even if their efforts are refused or cause further problems for Rocks. My own research is full of similar examples of the ways that children care for others. A soft pat on the back provided by one 4 year old to another in tears. Showing newly arrived lone child migrants where to shop for familiar foods or how to cook on their own. Interpreting so those learning English can access education or housing. Providing advice and advocating for young people trapped in the woods around Calais or in the unofficial refugee camp. Sharing bus passes with those who do not have them. Sending money to family members trapped in war zones, refugee camps, or conditions of destitution. Laughing and joking together, to make space for joy. In the film, as in my research, young people have the capacity to care for each other and adults in their lives: emotionally, socially, practically and financially. Many also want to do so, feel that it is right to do so and feel a sense of pride in the way they care for others. It is not that it is fundamentally problematic for children to have responsibilities or that in doing so they are “adultified”. What is crucial in understanding Rocks’ experience, and those of the children and young people involved in my research, is understanding the conditions in which such care happens. “Listen Rocks. I think you should tell someone. About your mum,” Rocks’ best friend Sumaya says carefully. “I don’t think so,” Rocks replies firmly. While the reasons for her reluctance are never made explicit, her fear of being found by social services is palpable as is her distress when the moment eventually arrives. Insights from children and young people involved in my research offer some helpful ways of understanding Rocks’ reticence. Many social workers see themselves as working for children’s best interests and being guided by principles of children’s rights enshrined in the Children’s Act . But, for young people, it often feels like decisions are made for them and about them, rather than with them. Their limited institutional authority and fiscal independence exacerbate their sense of simply being told what to do. Their “best interests” are always determined by others. The more contact they have with social services, the less they feel any sense of control over what happens in their lives.

https://theconversation.com/rocks-care-childhood-and-power-in-a-story-of-modern-urban-girlhood-146223

What young people have to say about race and inequality in South Africa

Meritocracy is the belief that holding power or success should be judged on people’s individual ability, rather than on wealth or social connections. At first glance, this appears to be a reasonable proposition. But the focus on individual merit becomes harder to fathom as one enters the messy world of structural inequality and discrimination. As our research shows, ideologies of meritocracy and individualism create obstacles for collective action towards a more equal and just society. Our findings were published in the book Race in Education, the outcome of a thinktank on the effects of race at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study. Using a methodology called Dreaming Workshops, our study explored how Grade 11 students, of around 16 and 17 years old, from different schools in the South African coastal city of Durban imagined race, racism and non racialism in a utopian future. Young South Africans are being socialised into a highly racialised society and experience severe disparities. Expecting them to eradicate racism without dismantling material inequalities is a deferral of adult responsibility. Mindful of this, we designed a study to listen to young people’s ideas, as opposed to looking to them for solutions. The five schools that participated in this study, three government and two private, are located in a middle class, formerly “white” area in Durban. The schools have, on average, a diverse but mostly middle class student body, with some students travelling from townships to attend class. Under apartheid townships were poorly resourced and under serviced residential spaces designated for people racialised as black. Each school in the study had approximately 20 students per class. One school markets itself as girls only, one as boys only, the other three are open to all genders. Young people involved in the study were deeply aware of inequality. For them, reducing inequality was a priority if the country was to move towards a better future. It is notable that non racialism was not a concept volunteered by any of the students as a future ideal, despite it being a constitutional principle in South Africa. At present there is little clarity on the meaning of non racialism. It is equated to a multiplicity of ideas, among them mobilisation against apartheid, multiracialism, multiculturalism, nation building, and race blindness. What students did want eradicated from their utopia was racial discrimination and racism. The meanings they attached to race shifted depending on the conversation, for example, race when it related to racial quotas as opposed to race when it related to culture, identity or politics. Racial identities played an important role in these young people’s sense of self. But some thought it is the “weirdest thing ever” that people sit in “race groups” during lunch breaks. They make sense of this by explaining that people sit with others who share their culture. Using race and culture as proxies for each other is very much part of the South African experience of racialization. The “commitment” to racial identities, however, was more complex than it first appeared. There was an uneasiness between accepting and feeling pride in racial identities, and not wanting them to count as measures of social value. They frequently vocalized a rejection of racial stereotypes and racism.

https://theconversation.com/what-young-people-have-to-say-about-race-and-inequality-in-south-africa-141451

Black and Latino essential workers experience greater safety concerns than their white counterparts

Assistant Professor of Sociology and Labor Studies, UMass Amherst Professor of Practice and Graduate Program Director, UMass Amherst Professor of Sociology; Director, Center for Employment Equity, UMass Amherst The Center for Employment Equity receives funding from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. Clare Hammonds and Jasmine Kerrissey do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. UMass Amherst provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation US. View all partnersThe Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. Black and Latino essential workers are more likely to feel stressed over job safety and security as well as family pressures than white workers, according to a recent survey of essential workers we conducted in Massachusetts, among them doctors, sanitation workers and grocery employees. Specifically, 70% of Black workers and 78% who are Latino reported that they didn’t feel safe on the job, compared with 58% of white people. This is not simply because Latino and Black workers were more likely to be in low wage jobs. When we analyzed low wage workers separately, Latino and Black people in this group were still far more likely to feel unsafe in the pandemic than their white counterparts. We found that access to benefits on the job is critical to maintaining personal and family health. Across all of the dimensions we looked at, workers of color were less likely to have access to basic job benefits, including health insurance and paid sick leave, compared to white essential workers. Black and Latino respondents were also more likely to report that the intensity and stress of their work had accelerated since the pandemic began. A Black woman working as a cashier at a grocery store said:“It is really stressful. We are all working really hard to keep it together because we have families to provide for, and people think we are robots that are just there to get pay. We have to care for ourselves and for each and every client that comes in, making sure they keep the right distance and sometimes they don’t even listen to us. ”Stress also comes from experiences off the job. We found that Latino and Black essential workers were over 10% more likely to have experienced food, child care and housing insecurities compared with white essential workers. All essential workers have good reason to feel unsafe doing their jobs in the middle of a pandemic, but it’s particularly bad for those who earn low wages, a higher percentage of whom are people of color. Since Massachusetts has some of the strongest labor market protections in the United States, whatever is happening to essential workers there is most likely worse in many other states. In our opinion, there must be universal solutions to combat racial inequalities and the risks associated with working during the pandemic. Universal health care and expanded paid medical leave can help prevent COVID 19 from arriving and spreading at workplaces, while improving testing and treatment in Black and Latino communities is also important, as these communities face the highest risk of infection. Individual workplaces can do their part to address racial inequities by providing all essential workers with substantial hazard pay, organizing the job site to allow for maximum social distancing and ensuring that personal protective equipment – like masks and hand sanitizer – is provided to all workers. As states grapple with how to reopen workplaces safely, it is critical to establish health and workplace protections that help address longstanding racial inequities in the labor market. We are sociologists of work, labor and inequality. For this particular study, we surveyed 2,600 essential workers throughout Massachusetts from April 24 to May 1.

https://theconversation.com/black-and-latino-essential-workers-experience-greater-safety-concerns-than-their-white-counterparts-141180

Changing the Federal Reserve mandate could provide a down payment to ending racial inequality

The job of slicing up the economic pie in the U. S. has traditionally fallen to Congress, with the Federal Reserve tasked with making sure there is enough to go around. But this could soon change. Under proposals put forward by Democrats in Congress, the mandate of the Fed would be tweaked for the first time since 1977, when its objectives were made explicit: promote maximum employment, stable prices and moderate long term interest rates. Under the new proposals, the central bank would gain an additional task of reducing racial inequality. In short, the central bank could be handed the pie cutter and told to make sure everyone gets a fair share. If passed, the Federal Reserve Racial and Economic Equity Act would shift some of the responsibility for addressing systemic racial inequality away from Congress. Given that the nation’s politicians have failed to level the playing field to date, that may not be a bad thing. My work with economist Valerie Wilson finds that the economic position of Black Americans is equivalent to their relative position in 1979, with Black men earning on average 31% less than white men and Black women 19% less than white women. When you factor in the incarcerated population, Black Americans are no better off than they were in 1950. As a former chief economist at the U. S. Department of Labor who has researched racial inequality, I believe that the proposed changes to the Federal Reserve’s mandate would improve the economic status of Black Americans and that the Fed can achieve this in three key ways. The main tool the Fed has in guiding the U. S. economy is through the setting of interest rates. Adjusting its benchmark interest rate changes the cost of borrowing for companies and consumers, which in turn can stimulate or subdue their spending. When the unemployment rate is extremely low – as it was prior to the pandemic – the Fed may increase interest rates. This puts a brake on private consumption and investment and protects against inflation. The problem is that currently the Fed focuses on the national jobless rate, the same one reported every month in the news. This figure obscures the wide variation among different regions and demographic groups, not to mention it ignores the growing share of Americans who are underemployed. At present, the Fed uses the national unemployment rate to help guide its rate setting. But even during times of prosperity, the Black American jobless rate is roughly two times the white rate. As a result of the Fed targeting the national unemployment rate – which is roughly equal to the white rate – interest rates are hiked before many Black Americans fully experience the benefits of a deep and lengthy economic boom. My research with former Fed economist Seth Carpenter shows that when the Fed puts its foot on the brakes, the Black jobless rate rises more. Black teen unemployment suffers the most from this brake pumping. But in line with a change to the mandate to include reducing racial inequality, central bankers could ditch the national rate as its target and instead use the Black unemployment rate. Doing so would still maintain strong economic growth for white Americans but would enable the Fed to set rates in a way tailored to addressing the economic needs of Black people too. The Fed can also use tools handed to it under the Community Reinvestment Act to narrow racial wealth differences and provide Black Americans with greater access to credit. The act, enacted in 1977, requires the Fed to use its oversight powers to encourage financial institutions to help meet the credit needs of the communities in which they do business, particularly in low and moderate income neighborhoods. The new proposals specifically call on the Fed to aggressively implement the act.

https://theconversation.com/changing-the-federal-reserve-mandate-could-provide-a-down-payment-to-ending-racial-inequality-144102

How Hollywood’s ‘Alien’ and ‘Predator’ movies reinforce anti-Black racism

What makes Black people more likely than others to be killed, beaten, tortured and raped by white police officers and vigilantes? Although Black men are killed by the police more than any other group, Black women are regular targets of police violence even though this fact is often rendered invisible. A culture and history of racist misrepresentation may have something to do with it. Why has there been considerable tolerance among the silent majority of white people for animal like, demonic representations of Black people in media and popular culture? The short answer is that we are dealing with a culture of domination. It is a culture that thrives on the sexualized demonization of Black people. Two examples of this are Ridley Scott’s Alien, which comports with the trope of Black women as alien breeders and Predator, written by brothers Jim and John Thomas, that riffs on images of Black men as dreadlocked, violent and superhuman. Read more: George Floyds death reflects the racist roots of American policing George Floyd’s recorded and widely publicized killing as well as the killing of Breonna Taylor in her own home serve as catalysts for many white people discovering anti Blackness and the reality of police violence. This reckoning asks that we examine the racist anti Black cultural tropes that span art, politics and social control. On March 13, Breonna Taylor, a nurse in training, was killed by Louisville, Ky. , police officers in her own home after police broke in using what is known as a “no knock” warrant. Some researchers count as many as 80,000 no knock warrants every year in the U. S. as many times as there are people at an average NFL game. Until recently, there has been considerable complacency about police killing and raping of Black people. There is equally little effort to conceptualize in theoretically accessible ways how representations in cinema mesh with political racism. Black women have been portrayed in contemporary white social and political culture as super fertile and indestructible breeders whose sexual reproduction must be controlled. This is a shift from the slave breeding campaign that emerged across the Americas after Britain’s abolition of the slave trade in 1807 and slavery in 1834. This shift in public policy and white attitudes toward Black women’s sexual reproduction is evident in the U. S. , especially with the 1965 Moynihan Report and 1970 Moynihan Memorandum. As part of the Republican Party’s Southern Strategy, Richard Nixon set in motion the myth of the Black welfare queen. This myth was later adopted by the Democrats. It is now so fundamental a mythology in the white imagination that hardly any amount of contrary evidence can dislodge it. Enduring narratives about Black family pathology particularly that of the overbearing and single Black mother have led to damaging representations of Black women. Read more: Raising children under suspicion and criminalization Ridley Scott’s Alien franchise, with its vicious and endlessly breeding carbon black alien mother, came at the height of neoliberal experiment and in the U. S. especially, an all out assault on Black people. In the context of anti Black culture, the film signifies the Black woman as an unkillable and ceaselessly breeding alien who threatened the body politic. In terms set by historian Lothrop Stoddard’s white supremacist 1920 book The Rising Tide of Color, a Black woman’s sexual reproduction is imagined to signal the genetic extinction of the white republic.

https://theconversation.com/how-hollywoods-alien-and-predator-movies-reinforce-anti-black-racism-127088

Coronavirus: The ‘yellow peril’ revisited

This past spring, Asian students at Queen’s University indicated that they were victims of racial discrimination as a result of COVID–19. Their complaints echoed similar incidents of racial discrimination and exclusion of Chinese students at other Canadian universities. This rise in anti Asian sentiments is not limited to university campuses. The president of the United States recently yet again called COVID–19 the “China Virus. ” While some American officials have tried to downplay the president’s rhetoric, others blamed China’s culture for the virus. Despite consensus among social scientists that race is a social construct, xenophobic attacks on Chinese communities and Asians at large during the pandemic show that race has real life consequences for groups marked as an other. Blaming Chinese people or Chinese culture for the pandemic only serves to reinforce stereotypes of East Asians as the “yellow peril. ”How do constructions of the Chinese as “diseased” inform their dehumanization and that of East Asian communities in Canada and globally? How does their dehumanization at this time mirror the techniques of racialization of other racial and ethnic groups that have often played out in popular media? These are difficult questions that can be better understood by examining the racism that Chinese communities in Canada and the U. S. have suffered well before they were regarded as members of today’s “model minority. ” Chinese immigrants first arrived in Canada when Chang Tsoo and Ah Hong entered British Columbia to prospect in the Cariboo gold rush in 1858. By 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act legally restricted Chinese laborers from the U. S. and resulted in Chinese migration to Canada and Mexico. At the time, the law was the first of its kind at the federal level in the U. S. and denied Chinese immigration for over 80 years. The act was in place until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 and prohibited Chinese laborers, both skilled and unskilled, from entering the U. S. In a study of the historical antecedents of severe acute respiratory syndrome , writer Carianne Leung found that Chinese communities in Canada were historically constructed as the “yellow peril” and their presence compared to that of the plague. Chinese settlements in the country “were regarded with the same hysteria as an infectious disease spreading across Canada. ” In 1885, a commissioner described Vancouver’s Chinatown as an “ulcer” and suggested that, if left untreated, would “cause disease in the places around it and ultimately the whole body. ” At that time, newspapers discursively cast Chinatowns as relating to “disease and filth. ” By the mid 1890s, the Vancouver municipal council included Chinatowns as categories for inspection, along with “sewage,” “slaughter houses” and “pig ranches. ”Linking COVID 19 with China invokes a well worn narrative of Chinese people as “diseased,” a link also present with the appearance of SARS in 2003. It is a technique of racialization that works to dehumanize via discursive practices. Language is used to cast Chinese communities as a foreign and dangerous other. In this example, the idea of illness, sickness and disease is invoked. A group must first be dehumanized and stripped of their humanity before their marginalization can be justified.

https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-the-yellow-peril-revisited-134115

We need to unpack the word ‘race’ and find new language

Evan Pugh University Professor of Anthropology, Penn State Senior research associate, Department of Anthropology, Penn State Nina G. Jablonski receives funding from the National Science Foundation of the U. S. A. , the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. George Chaplin receives funding from the National Science Foundation of the U. S. A. Penn State provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation US. View all partnersRace thinking has been discredited for decades. But it is still with us. Yet race is a historical contingency, not a state of nature. One of the most sinister things about race is that its sibling, racism, not only lasts, but continues to grow. Race has so co opted our consciousness and language that any attempt to deal with the effects of racism has been very difficult. The language of race was one of the questions that occupied us, a group of academics, during the course of a multi year series of discussions that constituted the Effects of Race project at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study. The addictiveness of race thinking thwarts all efforts to unite humanity into a common cause. New endeavours to utilise race for economic, educational, biological, and – most recently – genetic reasons continue despite the fact that people share so many overwhelming commonalities. Any subdivisions erected between people are essentially meaningless. Many embrace race as a concept, but it mostly persists because the damage caused by racism persists. The economically powerful see race as a shorthand for class, intelligence, education, ability, as well as biology. The economically disadvantaged see it as the cause of their suffering and as a uniting principle. In both cases, it is a factor used to justify an Us Them dichotomy. What can be done about the durability of the concept of race? One thing we can consider is changing the vocabulary. Language space is constantly changing, but the reuse of value laden words has the power to reinforce past preconceptions and prejudices. Reusing old race words in new contexts doesn’t remove their original meanings, it only adds to them. The language space of race is so crowded that new terms with no connections to past meanings are hard to derive, but a new vocabulary is what is needed because so many of the old words are derogatory and hurtful. Neologisms like “people of colour” arose in the 1930s after “coloured people” became restricted to mean African American people in the United States. It was revived again at the end of the twentieth century as an inclusive group of people identified as anyone who wasn’t a person of European descent with light skin – “whites” – and who were subjected to differential treatment by the dominant white culture. Read more: Why does racism prevail? Leading scholars apply their minds One successful effort has been the conversion of hateful speech by subjugated people themselves. The word “queer” was once a highly derogatory term for people who prefer partners of the same gender. Redeployment and repurposing of the word as a positive identifier has lessened its impact as a slur, even though it is still used as marker of Us Them. In fighting homophobia, the upbeat neologism “gay” has been more effective at thwarting discrimination of non binary sexuality. Repurposing official race labels like the apartheid era “Black” and “Coloured”, for utilitarian purposes of government and social restitution in South Africa, has not seen the power and confusion of those words diminish much. Any reuse or redefinition of race thinking terms just reinforces all previous meanings. So, should we stop talking about race? In a word, no. We must understand the full expanse and power of racial language. Denial of race will not bring about the demise of race, instead it only cloaks terms that perpetuate the power of the concept and its potential for harm.

https://theconversation.com/we-need-to-unpack-the-word-race-and-find-new-language-138379

Telework mostly benefits white, affluent Americans – and offers few climate benefits

Back in in 2018 – in the pre pandemic world – about 5% of the U. S. workforce teleworked from home. That changed dramatically with the onset of the COVID 19 pandemic; by May 2020 that number had jumped to about 35%. Tech giants Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Twitter announced plans to extend teleworking well into the fall and possibly beyond. It’s a sea change that will permanently alter the way America works – and how companies conduct business. Telework offers a host of potential advantages, including improved productivity, lower costs for employers, greater flexibility and less stress for workers, lower exposure to pollution for commuters and less traffic congestion – not to mention job security during the pandemic for those who can do it. A study conducted in 2017 found that many job applicants valued the option to work remotely and would, on average, accept about 8% lower wages to do so. Our team is researching connections between the pandemic, how people live and work in cities and city climate action. Transportation is central to this issue because it is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions and access to reliable and affordable transportation is inequitably distributed – and it was severely disrupted by the pandemic. Early research suggested that teleworking reduced vehicle use – and with it, emissions – so it’s frequently touted as a way to combat climate change. But subsequent studies revealed a more nuanced picture. Our research indicates that a rush to embrace teleworking should be tempered with two realties: Increased telework will exacerbate inequality in America under current economic and social conditions, and the climate benefits are probably very modest, at best. Opportunities to telework vary greatly in the U. S. , depending on race, income level and occupation. About 37% of jobs could be performed entirely at home, particularly in the fields of education and professional, scientific, technical and information services; in management positions; and in finance and insurance. These positions are overwhelming held by white Americans. Meanwhile, low wage, work from home jobs are among the few available to people of color. Well paid telework is a quality of life benefit that is unavailable for many, especially those who are among the bottom half of U. S. wage earners or who lack a college degree. The service sector is a good example, with just 1 in 100 employees able to telecommute. Meanwhile, one fifth of Black and Hispanic men work in service occupations. Poor teleworking opportunities track alongside disparities in income and education. One in 5 workers in the top 10% income bracket work at home, but for the lowest bracket, numbers drop to just 1 in 100. Education matters, too: 37% of those with a bachelor’s degree or higher reported working from home in 2019 compared with just 16% of those who only held a high school diploma.

https://theconversation.com/telework-mostly-benefits-white-affluent-americans-and-offers-few-climate-benefits-142251

Edmonton finally drops the Eskimos — and may my grandchildren never hear the E-word again

It’s a good day in Edmonton. It’s a good day in Canada. It’s a good day for Inuit. After all the years that I and other Inuit Canadians have been complaining about the name of Edmonton’s team in the Canadian Football League, it’s good to know the franchise has finally decided it will no longer be known as the Eskimos. It’s been a long time coming, and it has finally arrived. I’ve been an outspoken critic of Edmonton’s refusal to rename its CFL team. As an Inuit writer and researcher, this has been a very personal cause for me. Read more: Edmonton Eskimos is a racial slur and its time to stop using it My cause lies in the names of Joel, Isaac, Ellie, Mack and Aurora my grandchildren, who I am hoping will never have to experience the E word. They are brilliant and beautiful children who deserve to grow up in a world where racist terms won’t harm them. After years of campaigning for a name change, I wasn’t confident the team would do the right thing. One of Canada’s top sports columnists said it would be “insane” to make the change now, given the costs associated with rebranding the team. I heard DJs on a local radio station lamenting that there wasn’t a need for yet another sports team to change its name. Through it all, I wondered why they never heard what Inuit were saying about a term we consider racist. As someone who has publicly criticized the team for years, I’ve been called the b word and the c word, among other things. To those people who filled my Facebook page with the most horrible language and the worst name calling, all I can say is shame on you again. It’s tragic to know that in 2020, there are still so very many people who will not hear the Indigenous side of an issue or who will sigh and say that they are sick of the constant change and everyone having a cause. I am not alone in my constant campaign against the name. I stand next to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson, national Inuit leader Natan Obed and artists Tanya Tagaq and Susan Aglukark. Sen. Murray Sinclair has been suggesting the need for a name change since he released the Calls to Action from his Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015. The commission listed several ways sports could lead to reconciliation, including the promotion of anti racism awareness in sports. It only took five years for Edmonton to pay attention. As an advocate for a name change, it’s been disturbing that the general public doesn’t understand the harm created by the E word. They want to stay loyal to a team name instead of considering the opinions and feelings of the Inuit, the smallest Indigenous Canadian group that have the highest amounts of disparity. Ignoring those feelings suggests it’s OK that Inuit Canadians live their lives in poverty, that there remains food insecurity in the Canadian North based on the price of food alone and that most Inuit parents eat once a day so that their children can eat three times in a day. It’s OK that teen suicide and drug and alcohol abuse is rampant and yet there are a lack of treatment centers in northern communities. The debate about the team name also revealed that most non Indigenous Canadians don’t want to examine their own racism. They don’t want to think about what that E word does to future generations of Inuit youth and small children. They don’t want to think about what the E word makes people think of that cute little guy in a fur ringed parka, standing next to a seal breathing hole with a harpoon in his hand.

https://theconversation.com/edmonton-finally-drops-the-eskimos-and-may-my-grandchildren-never-hear-the-e-word-again-143170

Addressing anti-Black racism in post-secondary institutions can transform Canada after the COVID-19 pandemic

COVID 19 has brought issues of racism and inequality in our education systems into stark relief. We must now consider the role of colleges and universities in transforming Canada for the better after coronavirus. Some have argued that the humanities and social sciences have a particularly important role in shaping our responses to the pandemic. Others suggest that now is the time to rethink higher education and pivot to a more decentralized model that reduces demands on the environment and opens up horizons for innovation and flexible learning. Canadian colleges and universities are an important site for imagining and enacting a better Canada post pandemic. Addressing the experiences of Black students, staff and faculty in these institutions is essential to move through and beyond crisis towards societal transformation. One way to approach such fundamental issues is to examine the experiences of Black people within the academy. Black people in Canada have always had challenging relationships with educational institutions. Their experiences can be characterized as an enduring crisis, one that will most likely outlive our current pandemic. As important sites where future workers are educated and developed, and where global events like COVID 19 are studied and theorized, universities and colleges offer unique spaces to think deeply about these critical interconnections as we engage in protest against anti Black racism and move toward possible transformations beyond the pandemic. So what might we glean from all of the ways in which Black people in higher education have managed to survive and persist during the coronavirus? And how might understanding their experiences be useful in thinking about how colleges and universities can contribute to a post coronavirus future?As a Black college administrator and someone whose doctoral research looks at the experiences of Black people in higher education, I have witnessed how the pandemic has wreaked havoc in the lives of Black students and colleagues first hand. I’ve observed how Black students, faculty and staff have had to attend to home lives shot through with constant worry for loved ones who are employed on the front lines; the constant threat of layoffs that has disproportionately impacted Black and racialized staff; and how the need to maintain employment has made the continuation of studies near impossible for far too many Black students. Indeed, the coronavirus continues to have a disproportionate impact on all aspects of Black life. All of this comes on top of an already tenuous and vexing relationship with post secondary institutions, where historically high push out/dropout rates, social isolation and anti Black racism is pervasive. Read more: Living and breathing while Black: Racial profiling and other acts of violence Black people have known crisis ever since the trans Atlantic slave trade, and we have known it in the academy well before COVID 19. To be Black and active in the academy is to know what it means to survive, largely by practising what York University humanities scholar Christina Sharpe has termed “care”. Care can be discerned in the countless check ins on the states of well being of Black students and colleagues; in the meetings after the meeting where what was both said and left unsaid by non Black colleagues is unpacked; and in the spontaneous email threads where supports and mental health resources for Black people are shared.

https://theconversation.com/addressing-anti-black-racism-in-post-secondary-institutions-can-transform-canada-after-the-covid-19-pandemic-141366

How the dimensions of human inequality affect who and what we are

Professor emeritus of Sociology, University of Cambridge Göran Therborn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. University of Cambridge provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK. View all partnersWhat does it mean to be human today? It is an excellent starting point for thinking about human inequality. To be human, in an elementary sense, means three things. First, you are a sexed living organism, capable of feeling pain and pleasure and of reproduction, with a delimited lifespan of development and decay, subject to vicissitudes of health and illness. Secondly, you are a person, with a self and a reflexive capacity, flourishing or suffering in social environments. Thirdly, you are a creative, goal oriented actor, collective as well as individual, endowed with resources of varying size and kind. The possibilities of flourishing as a human are shaped by processes of equality. Differences are either given – by God or by Nature – or chosen as lifestyles. Unlike difference, inequality is a historical social construction. The three dimensionality of humanity gives us three kinds of human inequality. These are vital, existential and resource. Vital inequality refers to socially determined distributions of health and ill health and of your lifespan. It can be measured in life expectancy and in health expectancy or your years without serious illness. Where demographic life tables are missing, infant and child mortality are more accessible indicators. Existential inequality sums up the unequal social treatment of persons. On one end of the spectrum resides denial of recognition, autonomy, existential security, dignity and respect. These can be achieved through acts of neglect, bullying, degradation and humiliation. The ultimate result is a denial of their humanness. At the opposite end are selective attention, freedom, emotional security, encouragement, respect and admiration. Existential inequality is structured and processed by categories and lenses of othering – such as sex, race, ethnicity, caste or religion. It is arguably the most hurtful and wounding of inequalities. It has given rise to a range of egalitarian movements – feminist, anti racist, nationalist, anti caste, anti bigotry. It has been an important driver of workers’ movements, in which the demand for recognition of workers’ human dignity has been central. So far, however, existential inequality has received little systematic analysis and study. It is hardly quantifiable and is difficult to compare. Legal practices and public norms, recurrent demographic and health surveys, opinion surveys, anthropological studies, autobiographies and media reporting provide qualitative evidence. Resource inequality expresses the unequal allocation of resources to act among human actors. It is most frequently gauged through distributions of income and wealth and of so called human capital. Less studied in this context, although highly relevant, are distributions of power and rights. The three dimensions of inequality are interconnected and interact or “intersect”, but each has its own dynamic and trajectory, globally and nationally. Othering means seeing and treating a set of people as being of a different kind than you and your type of people, as strange, peculiar and inferior. Viewing “race” as a category of existential othering means highlighting its character as a socio cultural construction that is subject to change. This occurs alongside many other constructs such as gender, ethnicity, caste and religion. In early 20th century Europe, “race” was often synonymous with ethnicity. For example, “the British race” or references to geo ethnic groups, such as the “Alpine” or “Mediterranean race”. In continental Europe today, “race” is hardly used at all.

https://theconversation.com/how-the-dimensions-of-human-inequality-affect-who-and-what-we-are-137296

Why does racism prevail? Leading scholars apply their minds

Evan Pugh University Professor of Anthropology, Penn State Professor Emeritus of Law, University of South Africa Nina G. Jablonski receives funding from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National Science Foundation . Barney Pityana is affiliated with The 70s Group, an independent gathering of South African political activists from the 1970s. It aims to contribute to informed political and economic thinking in society. Penn State provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation US. University of South Africa provides funding as a partner of The Conversation AFRICA. View all partnersAll people belong to one biological species and there are no human “races”. So why does belief in race persist? It may be a scientific misconception, but it is real. It defines the lived experience of many people and determines how governments act and how people treat one another. How did race come to have this power and this durability? A project was undertaken to address these very questions and to get at the heart of the “everydayness” of race in South Africa and elsewhere. Called the Effects of Race Project, it was started at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study in South Africa in 2013 as part of a broader project at the institute called Being Human Today. One of us along with political sociologist Gerhard Maré organised and convened the project. Our goal was to create new scholarship that could eventually inform outlooks and policy on “race thinking”. Seven years later, we wanted to present a brief summary of some of the outcomes of the project and why they matter. When we began the project, we couldn’t see exactly what the future held in store, but we knew that the poisons of race thinking and racism were killing people. Temporary antidotes were no longer going to work. Soon, the toxic nature of race thinking and racism would be exposed and fully understood so that they could be expelled from the body of humanity. We gathered together scholars from South Africa, the US and Europe who had years of experience in thinking about race. They came from sociology, anthropology, geography, law, the humanities, and education. Some of them were anti apartheid leaders and are still engaged in efforts to raise South Africans out of that chasm of injustice. The group met for about two weeks each year from 2015 to 2017, in the cold of the winter in the Western Cape. At the beginning of our work we had little more than hope. We fully appreciated that race thinking and racism were big and powerful topics that had defied and defeated many previous expectations. We also recognized that we needed to inspect common misconceptions about race and understand how these continued to exist in public policy ecosystems. The perspectives on race and racism that each of us brought to the group were never the same, but we listened carefully and responded thoughtfully. Through successive discussions, we cultivated the mutual respect and trust that made it possible to venture into the most difficult and sensitive subjects at length without fear of judgment or reprisal. As one of our members, Njabulo Ndebele, put it one afternoon:The elephant is in the room, and we are petting it. We mused over whether we were not just being indulgent academics, failing to respond practically to matters that affect the lives of ordinary people. But we then realised that much of what we accomplished was the act of discussion itself. Significant insights and realisations emerged from honest, probing discussions among trusted parties. The process was as important as the subject matter. We realised people of all ages and sorts, and especially children and youth, who had long been segregated by the weight of the built environment, needed more opportunities to mix in formal and informal settings, and share their experiences, dreams, and aspirations. This was not a new insight, but the fact that all of us felt its impact, to our bones, made it profound.

https://theconversation.com/why-does-racism-prevail-leading-scholars-apply-their-minds-138363

Black churches have lagged in moving online during the pandemic – reaching across generational lines could help

From online campaigns for justice to popular TikTok challenges, Black young adults are at the forefront of social media trends. But when it comes to the Black Church, the same cannot be said – it has lagged behind in the rush to go digital. There is a reason for that. But as a scholar of online religious practices, I believe that ascribing the problem to a generational divide and declining church engagement among young people is overly simplistic. Such a view, I argue, fails to understand the complex dynamic between Black young adults and the Black Church. The pandemic is one case in point. Early in March, before state and federal guidelines were handed down, Black churches were split over whether to remain open or close their doors to congregants during the pandemic. Some churches designed innovative practices to cater to congregants during the lockdown, like church service by phone, drive in services or livestreaming worship before empty pews. But others continued with in person services despite stay at home orders. A survey in late April found that worshipers at historically Black churches were the least likely to say that their services had moved online. The slow move to online technology by some Black churches has been attributed in part to an aging hierarchy. Nonetheless, studies suggest that racial and economic disparities could also be factors in why many Black churches struggled to go online prior to and during the pandemic compared to non Black churches. On average, Black Americans face greater barriers to internet access and high speed connection at home than do white Americans. This disparity extends to Black young adults. So called Black millennials – those age 23 to 38 – total well over 11 million. They are the largest living population of African Americans. Polling suggests a declining number are involved in the Black church. The number of young adults and Black Americans identifying as Christian fell by 16 percentage points and 11 percentage points, respectively, between 2009 and 2019. Those who do identify as Christian – 65%, according to a 2014 Pew survey – participate in a diverse range of faith practices. In my forthcoming book on religion and Black young adults, I note the emergence of Black young adults who make a living through online faith based practices. These include D. Danyelle Thomas, founder of Unfit Christian, who fosters a popular Facebook community and provides intuitive tarot readings by email. There are others who provides Christian content through art and sermons to online subscribers, like Joseph Solomon, and YouTube personalities like Umar Johnson, who espouses Pan Africanist thought as a response to religion. The technological prowess of Black young adults as religious content creators is out there. But it can sometimes be overlooked in part due to longstanding perceptions of young people as lazy or feckless that dovetail with similar tropes about Black people that have been around since the 19th century. It is also complicated by misconceptions over the behavior of so called millennials, and how that term is applied to Black young people. Back in 1991, researchers Neil Howe and William Strauss wrote the bestselling book “Generations,” coining the term “millennial” that went on to describe those born between 1981 and 1996. They followed it up with a more in depth look at the generation in “Millennials Rising. ” But the generalizations that Howe and Strauss make are based on a very small, mostly affluent white student population in Fairfax County, Virginia.

https://theconversation.com/black-churches-have-lagged-in-moving-online-during-the-pandemic-reaching-across-generational-lines-could-help-132170

Coronavirus weekly: racism, COVID-19, and the inequality that fuels these parallel pandemics

The protests against systemic racism and police violence sweeping the globe highlight the intersection between two pandemics: COVID 19 and racism. Researchers are pointing out that structural inequalities mean people of color are hit harder by the coronavirus. Politicians are also concerned the protests may trigger an increase in the spread of COVID 19, so public health experts are providing tips on how to protest safely. And while many countries grapple with increasing rates of COVID 19, New Zealand has declared it has eliminated the virus, and is now aiming to keep it that way. In this week’s roundup of coronavirus stories from scholars across the globe, we explore the disproportionate impact of COVID 19, New Zealand’s success, and the latest on drug trials. This is our weekly roundup of expert info about the coronavirus. The Conversation, a not for profit group, works with a wide range of academics across its global network. Together we produce evidence based analysis and insights. The articles are free to read – there is no paywall – and to republish. Keep up to date with the latest research by reading our free newsletter. Past pandemics have exposed existing inequalities, and this one is no different. Our experts explain why COVID 19 is having a greater impact on people of color and other marginalized groups. Disproportionate impact. Black Americans have been dying from the coronavirus at nearly three times the rate of white Americans, while black people in the United Kingdom are four times more likely to die from COVID 19 than their white compatriots. Medical historian Mark Honigsbaum writes about the relationship between pandemics and inequality. Social justice is crucial to healthcare. Systemic racism means marginalised groups have limited access to resources that impact health, according to an interdisciplinary team of US health researchers. Doctors need to be trained to understand the social determinants of health to deal with problems like COVID 19, argue researchers from Rwanda’s University of Global Health Equity. Safely protesting. Public health experts are concerned the protests will increase the spread of COVID 19. An infection prevention researcher at Monash University gives some tips on how to minimise the risk of transmission when taking to the streets. “Fear of what others might think when they see a Black man in a mask. ”. Despite masks providing increased safety during the pandemic, black and other minority groups are often subjected to racist abuse or discrimination when wearing them. Jasmin Zine of Wilfrid Laurier University explores the racial politics of mask wearing. A lack of clean water. Clean water is crucial for hygiene and hand washing, key elements of infection control. But many people do not have access to good quality water, especially in slums and refugee camps, according to researchers from the National University of Singapore and the University of Glasgow. New Zealand has hit the historic milestone of zero active cases, and lifted almost all its coronavirus restrictions. Two of the leading public health experts behind the successful elimination now explain the challenge of maintaining it. Meanwhile, across the Tasman Sea, experts chart Australia’s journey in controlling the virus. Cautious celebration. New Zealand has successfully eliminated COVID 19, but elimination is not one point in time: it requires ongoing work. Two public health professors from the University of Otago describe five ways the country can protect itself in the long term. Asymptomatic cases. Removing coronavirus restrictions in New Zealand increases the chance of a new outbreak to 8%, according to modeling from an interdisciplinary research team. This is because there may be hidden asymptomatic cases that haven’t been uncovered by testing.

https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-weekly-racism-covid-19-and-the-inequality-that-fuels-these-parallel-pandemics-140255

Seven ways businesses can value black lives (beyond social media posts)

Protests have erupted across the world in response to the killing of George Floyd on May 25 in the US. Then came, where black squares dominated social media in a bid to show support for the Black Lives Matter movement. While this has raised awareness, that is only the first step towards addressing racial injustice. The next step is to actively make a change. Here are some ways businesses can show their support beyond tokenistic social media posts. They can play a pivotal role in actively changing their workplaces. Advocating for diversity and inclusion publicly should be more than just a marketing exercise, otherwise, it’s just Black Power washing. This is where brands issue empty statements about their commitment to ethnic minorities without showing a real commitment to change their practices. One of many examples of how to stand for real change is Nike’s sponsorship of Colin Kaepernick, which showed that a company was willing to stand for freedom of speech when the NFL and their customer base was divided on the issue of racial injustice. This action involved taking a risk and alienating some of Nike’s customers. Simply posting a black square on Instagram one day and going back to business as usual the next day is disingenuous. Businesses should pledge to be part of the solution. By now we all know that as consumers we have some power to vote with our wallets. This means you can actively seek out black owned businesses to spend with. Some lists can make your spending more informed, from those that list businesses supporting black communities and others that compile the responses to racial injustice of various brands. There are two main reasons to be anti racist. The business case: the idea that avoiding discrimination makes good business sense. And the moral case: the idea that avoiding discrimination is the right thing to do ethically and legally. An anti racist takes action to challenge racial inequality. It is not enough to avoid acting on the unconscious biases we all hold. Being anti racist is about speaking out on and changing structural inequalities at work. This year, 2020, is the poster year for anti fragile businesses, organizations that improve and strengthen from crises and stress. We can combine being anti fragile with being anti racist. How has your organization responded to recent crises? Would uncovering racism or other forms of discrimination in your organization be an opportunity to change and improve? Do your employees have the freedom to speak up and out about discrimination? We are all diverse and unique. However, for some, these characteristics of diversity combine to create a toxic cocktail of inequality. Race inequality can be compounded by issues of class, gender and age. The same efforts made to promote equality based on one characteristic should be applied to all. In the UK we are now committed to reporting the gender pay gap. The next step is reporting the pay of different ethnic groups within the organization. Minority groups are disproportionately affected by conflict and war and many become refugees who can no longer depend on their state for protection. Businesses can join the 150 UK workplaces, colleges and community groups who sponsor refugees through the citizens UK’s scheme or international ones. Discrimination is still a major factor in the unemployment of ethic minorities. To reduce this you could invest in blind hiring practices. Removing names from CVs is the first step. This can be followed by diversity auditing. We can ask ourselves how diverse are the teams making hiring decisions? Are we advertising in places that may attract a diverse talent pool?

https://theconversation.com/seven-ways-businesses-can-value-black-lives-beyond-social-media-posts-140096

As Minneapolis burns, Trump’s presidency is sinking deeper into crisis. And yet, he may still be re-elected

Violence has erupted across several US cities after the death of a black man, George Floyd, who was shown on video gasping for breath as a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, knelt on his neck. The unrest poses serious challenges for President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden as each man readies his campaign for the November 3 election. If the coronavirus had not already posed a threat to civil discourse in the US, the latest flashpoint in American racial politics makes this presidential campaign potentially one of the most incendiary in history. COVID 19 and Minneapolis may very well form the nexus within which the 2020 campaign will unfold. Trump’s critics have assailed his handling of both and questioned whether he can effectively lead the country in a moment of crisis. And yet, he may not be any more vulnerable heading into the election. As the incumbent, Trump certainly faces the most immediate challenges. Not since Franklin Roosevelt in the second world war has a US president presided over the deaths of so many Americans from a single cause. The Axis powers and COVID 19 are not analogous, but any presidency is judged by its capacity to respond to enemies like these. With pandemic deaths now surpassing 100,000, Trump’s fortunes will be inexorably tied to this staggering figure. Worse, the Minneapolis protests are showing how an already precarious social fabric has been frayed by the COVID 19 lockdowns. Read more: Donald Trump blames everyone but himself for the coronavirus crisis. Will voters agree? Americans have not come together to fight the virus. Rather, they have allowed a public health disaster to deepen divisions along racial, economic, sectional and ideological lines. Trump has, of course, often sought to gain from such divisions. But the magnitude and severity of the twin crises he is now facing will make this very difficult. By numerous measures, his is a presidency in crisis. And yet. Trump, a ferocious campaigner, will try to find ways to use both tragedies to his advantage and, importantly, makes things worse for his challenger. For starters, Trump did not cause coronavirus. And he will continue to insist that his great geo strategic adversary, the Chinese Communist Party, did. And his is not the first presidency to be marked by the conflagration of several US cities. Before Minneapolis, Detroit , Los Angeles and Ferguson, Missouri were all the scenes of angry protests and riots over racial tensions that still haven’t healed. And in the 19th century, 750,000 Americans were killed in a civil war that was fought over whether the enslavement of African Americans was constitutional. Trump may not have healed racial tensions in the US during his presidency. But, like coronavirus, he did not cause them. Not unhappily for Trump, Minneapolis is a largely Democratic city in a reliably blue state. He will campaign now on the failure of Democratic state leaders to answer the needs of black voters. Trump will claim that decades of Democratic policies in Minnesota – including the eight years of the Obama administration – have caused Minneapolis to be one of the most racially unequal cities in the nation. In 2016, Trump famously asked African Americans whether Democratic leaders have done anything to improve their lives. What do you have to lose by trying something new, like Trump? He will repeat this mantra in the coming months.

https://theconversation.com/as-minneapolis-burns-trumps-presidency-is-sinking-deeper-into-crisis-and-yet-he-may-still-be-re-elected-139739

Riot or resistance? How media frames unrest in Minneapolis will shape public’s view of protest

Assistant Professor of Journalism, Indiana University Danielle K. Kilgo receives funding from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Indiana University provides funding as a member of The Conversation US. View all partnersA teenager held her phone steady enough to capture the final moments of George Perry Floyd’s life as he apparently suffocated under the weight of a Minneapolis police officer’s knee on his neck. The video went viral. What happened next has played out time and again in American cities after high profile cases of alleged police brutality. Vigils and protests were organized in Minneapolis and around the United States to demand police accountability. But while investigators and officials called for patience, unrest boiled over. News reports soon carried images of property destruction and police in riot gear. The general public’s opinions about protests and the social movements behind them are formed in large part by what they read or see in the media. This gives journalists a lot of power when it comes to driving the narrative of a demonstration. They can emphasize the disruption protests cause or echo the dog whistles of politicians that label protesters as “thugs. ” But they can also remind the public that at the heart of the protests is the unjust killing of another black person. This would take the emphasis away from the destruction of the protests and toward the issues of police impunity and the effects of racism in its many forms. The role journalists play can be indispensable if movements are to gain legitimacy and make progress. And that puts a lot of pressure on journalists to get things right. My research has found that some protest movements have more trouble than others getting legitimacy. My co author Summer Harlow and I have studied how local and metropolitan newspapers cover protests. We found that narratives about the Women’s March and anti Trump protests gave voice to protesters and significantly explored their grievances. On the other end of the spectrum, protests about anti black racism and indigenous people’s rights received the least legitimizing coverage, with them more often seen as threatening and violent. Decades ago, scholars James Hertog and Douglas McLeod identified how news coverage of protests contributes to the maintenance of the status quo, a phenomenon referred to as “the protest paradigm. ” They held that media narratives tend to emphasize the drama, inconvenience and disruption of protests rather than the demands, grievances and agendas of protesters. These narratives trivialize protests and ultimately dent public support. Here’s how this theoretically plays out today: Journalists pay little attention to protests that aren’t dramatic or unconventional. Knowing this, protesters find ways to capture media and public attention. They don pink “pussy” hats or kneel during the national anthem. They might even resort to violence and lawlessness. Now the protesters have the media’s attention, but what they cover is often superficial or delegitimizing, focusing on the tactics and disruption caused and excluding discussion on the substance of the social movement. We wanted to explore if this classic theory fit coverage from 2017 – a year of large scale protests accompanying the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency. To do so, we analyzed the framing of protest reporting from newspapers in Texas. The state’s size and diversity made it a good proxy for the country at large. In all, we identified 777 articles by searching for terms such as “protest,” “protester,” “Black Lives Matter” and “Women’s March. ” This included reports written by journalists in 20 Texas newsrooms, such as the El Paso Times and the Houston Chronicle, as well as syndicated articles from sources like the Associated Press. We looked at how articles framed the protests in the headline, opening sentence and story structure, and classified the reporting using four recognized frames of protest:

https://theconversation.com/riot-or-resistance-how-media-frames-unrest-in-minneapolis-will-shape-publics-view-of-protest-139713

Coronavirus: its impact cannot be explained away through the prism of race

Reader in Toxicology and Clinical Biochemistry, Director of Impact and Innovation, University of East London Winston Morgan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. University of East London provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK. View all partnersFrom the start of the coronavirus pandemic, there has been an attempt to use science to explain the disproportionate impact of COVID 19 on different groups through the prism of race. Data from the UK and the US suggests that people categorised as black, Hispanic and south Asian are more likely to die from the disease. The way this issue is often discussed, but also the response of some scientists, would suggest that there may be some biological reason for the higher death rates based on genetic differences between these groups and their white counterparts. But the reality is there is no evidence that the genes used to divide people into races are linked to how our immune system responds to viral infections. There are certain genetic mutations that can be found among specific ethnic groups that can play a role in the body’s immune response. But because of the loose definition of race and recent population movements, these should be seen as unreliable indicators when it comes to susceptibility to viral infections. Indeed, race is a social construct with no scientific basis. However, there are clear links between people’s racial groups, their socioeconomic status, what happens to them once they are infected and the outcome of their infection. And focusing on the idea of a genetic link merely serves to distract from this. Read more: Coronavirus: BAME deaths urgently need to be understood, including any potential genetic component You only have to look at how the statistics are gathered to understand how these issues are confused. Data from the UK’s Office for National Statistics that has been used to highlight the disparate death rates separates Indians from Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, and yet groups all Africans . This makes no sense in terms of race, ethnicity or genetics. The data shows those males categorised as black are over 4. 6 times more likely to die than their white counterparts from the virus. They are followed by Pakistanis/Bangladeshis , and then Chinese and Indians . Most genome wide association studies group all south Asians. Yet, at least in the UK, COVID 19 can apparently separate Indians and Pakistanis, suggesting genetics have little to do with it. The categories used to collect government data for the pandemic are far more suited to social outcomes such as employment or education. This problem arises even with recent analysis that purportedly show people from ethnic minorities are no more likely to die once you take into account the effects of other illnesses and deprivation. The main analysis only compares whites to non whites, masking the data for specific groups, while the headline of the newspaper article about the study refers only to black people. Meanwhile, in the US the groups most disproportionately affected are African Americans and Hispanics/Latinos. All these groups come from very different population groups. We’ve also seen high death rates in Brazil, China and Italy, all of whom have very different populations using the classical definition of race. The idea that COVID 19 discriminates along traditional racial lines is created by these statistics and fails to adequately portray what’s really going on. These kinds of assumptions ignore the fact that there is as much genetic variation within racialised groups as there is between the whole human population.

https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-its-impact-cannot-be-explained-away-through-the-prism-of-race-138046

Inquiry into coronavirus nursing home deaths needs to include discussion of workers and race

Professor, Department of Equity Studies, York University, Canada Tania Das Gupta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. York University provides funding as a member of The Conversation CA FR. York University provides funding as a member of The Conversation CA. View all partnersCOVID 19 has most severely affected elderly residents and their caregivers in long term care nursing homes. In Ontario, coronavirus has claimed the lives of well over 1,400 people, both residents and caregivers, in the long term care system. Although many issues have been discussed in relation to this crisis in long term care, one crucial factor has not been discussed as much: the issue of race. Why is race important here? Nursing homes and long term care in Canada are predominantly staffed by immigrant women, migrants and refugees mostly women of colour. In Montréal, up to 80 per cent of the workers in long term care are racialized women. Many of us have recently learned that long term care homes are increasingly funded by the private sector animated by profit making. This business model has created challenging conditions within which COVID 19 and other infections rapidly spread. A team of researchers led by Pat Armstrong at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives said the high incidence of deaths in long term care homes are an indication of the lack of value placed on two groups of people: the elderly and their caregivers. Having a conversation on racism is a challenge in an environment where race talk is often seen as an indication of racism. Even the collection of race based data has been controversial. The reluctance to speak about race in long term care homes may be contributing to what appears to be race blind reporting of the way the pandemic is impacting communities. In general, long term care workers are so poorly paid that many have to survive by combining multiple jobs in different care homes. As a result, they can inadvertently become potential carriers of infection. But they often have little choice. Many are not unionized, which means they do not have sick leave benefits. Even if they are not feeling well, some would hesitate to stay home because of lost income. British Columbia recognized this issue and acted quickly. The province restricted caregivers to one nursing home, topped up their wages and made them full time workers. If we were not in the middle of a pandemic affecting elderly residents would these reforms have been made? Probably not. To make profits in these privately owned and operated care centres, owners have relied on a racialized and gendered workforce of immigrant and migrant women, assumed to be both cheap and disposable. Their cheapness and disposability are predicated on societal assumptions about their inferior quality of labour, lack of skills and unavailability of better employment opportunities. Despite the fact that they are considered “essential” workers, they earn low wages, are insecure and even subjected to workplace violence. Expendability becomes synonymous with long term care workers. Research conducted by the Canadian Union of Public Employees and Ontario Council of Hospital unions concluded that about 90 per cent of long term care staff in Ontario have suffered physical violence, while around 70 per cent of racialized and Indigenous staff have experienced related harassment. This culture of violence is due to their social vulnerability as women of colour and as immigrants. The perceived disposability of these workers is perpetuated not only by their insecure status as part time, temporary and contractual workers, but also due to their status as newcomers and non citizens.

https://theconversation.com/inquiry-into-coronavirus-nursing-home-deaths-needs-to-include-discussion-of-workers-and-race-139017

Race-based health data urgently needed during the coronavirus pandemic

Assistant Professor, Social & Behavioural Health Sciences, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto Assistant Professor, Centre for Studies in Family Medicine Associate Program Director of the Public Health & Preventive Medicine Residency Program at the University of Toronto, University of Toronto Kate Mulligan works for the Alliance for Healthier Communities. She sits on the Toronto Board of Health and the board of the Association of Local Public Health Agencies. Jennifer Rayner works for the Alliance for Healthier Communities. Onye Nnorom does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. University of Toronto provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation CA. University of Toronto provides funding as a member of The Conversation CA FR. View all partnersA one size fits all approach to COVID 19 does not work. David Williams, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, recently said the province will not collect data on race and other indicators of who is being hardest hit by the COVID 19 pandemic, saying, “regardless of race, ethnic or other backgrounds, they’re all equally important to us. ” Williams says he’s following the guidance of the World Health Organization and he’s not alone. No Canadian province or territory currently collects these data, although Alberta’s Chief Medical Health Officer Deena Hinshaw committed last week to looking into it in partnership with First Nations communities. A spokesperson for the Public Health Agency of Canada similarly said the federal government has “no plans” to collect disaggregated data on social determinants of health as risk factors for COVID 19. There are outbreaks in shelters, among migrant farm workers and in long term care homes. LGBTQI2S people have been harder hit by economic shutdowns. Meanwhile, temporary closures of consumption and treatment services for people who use drugs have increased their vulnerability. Public facing essential workers continue to risk exposure, all pointing to their expendability masked under a one size fits all response. While the provinces are unresponsive to calls for race based data, there has been some movement. After thousands of people and hundreds of organizations called for the collection of race based and sociodemographic data, some local public health units in Ontario stepped up to fill the provincial void. Peel, Toronto and London Middlesex public health units have all announced plans to collect and use sociodemographic and race based data for contact tracing. Nationally, groups like the Pan Canadian Dialogue to Advance the Measurement of Equity in Health Care continue to advance the conversation. But the federal and most provincial governments still refuse to act. An Ontario Ministry of Health spokesperson claims that current legislation does not “authorize health information custodians to collect race based data. ” Yet, as researchers in health equity, we know this is possible under current laws, because we and our partners have long gathered data on race and other social factors that affect health and healthcare. Long before the pandemic, many racialized communities were advocating to advance the systematic collection of race based data in health care. The WHO says health systems need equity informed data to take informed action. Strikingly, the Ontario Public Health Standards require the collection of these data, supported by Williams’ own 2018 report Improving the Odds: Championing Health Equity in Ontario. The United States does collect race based data. The evidence shows that African Americans and Indigenous people are among the hardest hit by the coronavirus. Systemic anti Black racism has been cited as a root cause of African American health disparities.

https://theconversation.com/race-based-health-data-urgently-needed-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic-136822

Coronavirus discriminates against Black lives through surveillance, policing and the absence of health data

The claim that COVID 19 and its associated medical and social responses do not discriminate belies the history of how pandemics work and who is most impacted by them. States of emergency show that citizenship privileges some, is partial for others and disappears others. In our early analysis of national media coverage, those experts sharing the grim statistics of infections and deaths, those front line workers seen as risking their lives and those who have lost loved ones are predominantly white. Black, Indigenous and racialized people, and many whose lives have been further imperilled by this pandemic, remain virtually disappeared from the Canadian landscape. That makes collective care for members across our communities untenable. We take pause and reflect on how this will impact Black people across economy, health and policing, to name three areas of concern. Black people tend to be employed in low paying and highly feminized jobs: these include clerical jobs, janitorial staff, orderlies and nursing assistants who are now determined as essential services. Black people are also more likely to work in the grey and underground economy, which are forms of labour that might involve payments outside the regular labour force and taxation system, and not counted in GDP. Effectively, anti Black racism has already ensured that Black people and undocumented residents are less than citizens in late modern capitalist Canada. Yet, the people who are likely most at risk are the ones who are being asked to sacrifice their lives. Collectively, Black people in Canada find themselves among the most disadvantaged in all indicators of what is considered a “good life. ”The attempt to interrupt the spread of the virus has brought together policing and public health. Since at least the post emancipation period in the Americas and this period includes Canada public health and policing have been launched against Black communities. Both public health and policing depend on assessing Black people as wayward. In the post emancipation Americas, early public health campaigns sought to “train” Black women on child rearing, cleanliness of homes and food preparation. Indeed, as late as the 1960s, one of the justifications for the destruction of Africville, N. S. , was the public health claim that the community was at a health risk as there was no sewage system. Instead of providing necessary services, the community was forcibly removed. Public health has historically been an extension of policing for Black people that has positioned us as suspicious and nefarious in our actions and movements. In our current state of emergency, this union of policing and public health has led to more Black people being arrested, detained and physically restrained in the name of public health protection. The current rules around movement put Black people at risk, more vulnerable to intensified policing when in public and potentially exposed to the virus at work.

https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-discriminates-against-black-lives-through-surveillance-policing-and-the-absence-of-health-data-135906

The unintended consequences of marijuana decriminalization

America’s decades long war on drugs disproportionately harmed minorities. Now, it seems that decriminalization of marijuana hasn’t leveled the playing field. Black men are 12 times more likely than white men to spend time incarcerated in the United States. College enrollment for black men has declined since the 1986 Anti Drug Abuse Act went into effect. I am a scholar of public policy. In my book, “From Criminalizing to Decriminalizing Marijuana: The Politics of Social Control,” I aim to provide a historic overview of marijuana legislation and its impact on minorities. Some drug laws related to marijuana are easing. As of this writing in early 2020, twenty five states have introduced decriminalization reforms, with 11 states allowing adult recreational use. Such reforms directly impact adults 21 years of age and older, but they also have indirect effect on younger Americans. Even though marijuana is still illegal for people under 21, evidence is emerging that decriminalization is increasing the number of kids who consume weed illegally. As I wrote in my book, young people have always been the main buyers of marijuana. Smoking marijuana has become an important part of growing up for many U. S. teenagers, a fact not acknowledged by any marijuana reform advocacy analysis. Additionally, crime data show that even in the most permissive legal environments, minority youth continue to be disproportionately arrested and convicted on marijuana charges. From 2000 to 2014, self reported usage rates in Americans 15 years of age and older doubled. These rates include teens and those under 21, for whom marijuana use continues to be and most likely will continue to be illegal. Those who advocate for marijuana reform ignore the fact that looser laws promote more marijuana use, especially by young and marginalized Americans who buy the drug in illegal markets. For example, arrest data show that in Colorado, legalizing recreational use for anyone 21 and over caused a significant increase in the arrest rates of African Americans and Hispanics under that legal age limit. At the same time, arrests for underage whites decreased. In Washington state, arrests on all marijuana charges fell by 90% between 2008 and 2014, but “hazard rates” for African Americans remained unchanged. This means they were still twice as likely as whites to be arrested on marijuana charges. In other words, decriminalization has done little to change historical patterns in national marijuana arrest trends. Liberal Americans tend to believe marijuana legalization drives reform. There are three distinctly different categories of marijuana policy reform – decriminalization of possessing a small amount of marijuana, legalizing medical marijuana and decriminalizing recreational use. The reform diffusion trend picked impetus in 2000, when Hawaii and Nevada legalized medical marijuana through their state legislatures. This signaled the beginning of the political normalization of marijuana reform. Previously, medical marijuana laws were reformed largely by ballot initiatives in states with constitutions that have a direct democracy measure. In my book, I analyzed the political, economic and demographic predictors of each type of policy reform from 2000 to 2014. The results indicate that rising marijuana usage rates, a ballot initiative allowing voters a say in the matter and the experience of neighboring states are the main factors driving decriminalization in general.

https://theconversation.com/the-unintended-consequences-of-marijuana-decriminalization-131270

Coronavirus is not the great equalizer — race matters

One of the first stories to use race based data to talk about the risk that Black communities face because of COVID 19 came on March 30 from the Charlotte Observer. The article said Black residents in Mecklenburg County, in Charlotte, N. C. , accounted for 43. 9 per cent of the 303 confirmed COVID 19 cases locally, but Black residents make up only 32. 9 per cent of the county’s population. More recently, the non profit investigative journalism site Pro Publica published a story on April 3 based on early data that shows “African Americans have contracted and died of coronavirus at an alarming rate. ”Indigenous communities globally have also been speaking about how the new virus may have more devastating impacts on their communities. The fear and mistrust of health systems expressed by many in Black, Indigenous and racialized communities stem from historical eugenic practices of both governments and individual doctors. These communities have experienced systemic racist violence for generations. They have recently experienced xenophobic responses to COVID 19 and historically, other health crises. I have worked for over 25 years in community health and as a health scholar. I have worked with survivors of trauma who have experienced colonial violence. I am concerned how anti Black racism, anti Indigenous racism and other forms of intersectional violence will impact the health of our communities during this crisis. Based on my research, I believe that the actions and omissions of world leaders in charge of fighting the COVID 19 pandemic will reveal historical and current impacts of colonial violence and continued health inequities among African, Indigenous, racialized and marginalized folks. Recently, I have had discussions about COVID 19 with family, friends and colleagues globally about the impacts of the coronavirus on the health of African, Indigenous, racialized and marginalized folks. The question often asked is: how will we navigate health systems that continuously violate us? We are talking about those who, like us, live with intersectional social locations, such as race, indigeneity, age, ability, gender/gender identity, sexual orientation, refugee status, class and religion. Will these social factors play an implicit role in health care workers’ decisions? Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said: “Our government is going to make sure that no matter where you live, what you do or who you are, you get the support you need during this time. ” This sounds good in a speech, but how will it be practiced in a system that does not provide adequate services for racialized and marginalized communities? African and Indigenous folks encounter racist health systems that impact their physical, mental, financial and spiritual well being. To add to this, low income communities’ ability to protect themselves from COVID 19 is severely restricted, as money is needed to support social distancing, pay bills, buy food supplies and hand sanitizer. History tells us these disparities increase during stressful times. Many government leaders ignored the warning signs emitting from China at first, including U. S. President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Did racism impact the way some leaders initially responded to the virus both in their response to China and to the African leader of the World Health Organization ?

https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-is-not-the-great-equalizer-race-matters-133867

We are entering a recession – but what did we learn from the last one?

Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Texas at Austin Postdoctoral Researcher, Stanford University Ken Hou Lin receives funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, and the Institute for New Economic Thinking. Megan Neely does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. View all partnersAs the coronavirus continues to spread around the world, it is abundantly clear that the global economy is entering a recession – the first we’ve seen since 2008. Some officials have compared the last period of economic decline – also know as the Great Recession – to the Depression, which began in 1929. Yet it is clear that these two downturns differed not only in severity but also in the consequences they had for inequality in the United States. Though the Depression was bigger and longer than the Great Recession, the decades following the Great Depression substantially reduced the wealth of the rich and improved the economic security of many workers. In contrast, the Great Recession exacerbated both income and wealth inequality. Some scholars have attributed this phenomenon to a weakened labor movement, fewer worker protections and a radicalized political right wing. In our view, this account misses the dominance of Wall Street and the financial sector and overlooks its fundamental role in generating economic disparities. We are experts in income inequality, and our new book, “Divested: Inequality in the Age of Finance,” argues that inequality from the Recession has a lot to do with how the government designed its response. Reforms during the Great Depression restructured the financial system by restricting banks from risky investment, Wall Street from gambling with household savings and lenders from charging high or unpredictable interests. The New Deal, a series of government programs created after the Great Depression, took a bottom up approach and brought governmental resources directly to unemployed workers. On the other hand, the regulatory policies since the financial crisis that began in 2008 were largely designed to restore a financial order that, for decades, has been channeling resources from the rest of the economy to the top. In other words, the recent recovery was largely focused on finance. Governmental stimuli, particularly a mass injection of credit, first went to banks and large corporations, in the hope that the credit eventually would trickle down to families in need. The conventional wisdom was that banks knew how to put the credit into best use. And so, to stimulate economic growth, the Federal Reserve increased the supply of money to banks by purchasing treasury and mortgage backed securities. But the stimulus didn’t work the way the government intended. The banks prioritized their own interests over those of the public. Instead of lending the money out to homebuyers and small businesses at historically low interest rates, they deposited the funds and waited for interest rates to rise. Similarly, corporations did not use the easy credit to increase wages or create jobs. Rather, they borrowed to buy their own stock and channeled earnings to top executives and shareholders. As a result, the “banks and corporations first” principle created a highly unequal recovery. The financial crisis wiped out almost three quarters of financial sector profits, but the sector had fully recovered by mid 2009, as we covered in our book. Its profits continued to grow in the following years. By 2017, the sector made 80% more than before the financial crisis. Profit growth was much slower in the nonfinancial sector. Companies outside of the financial sector were more profitable because they had fewer employees and lower wage costs. Payroll expenses dropped 4% during the recession and remained low during the recovery.

https://theconversation.com/we-are-entering-a-recession-but-what-did-we-learn-from-the-last-one-131435

Black turnout in primaries might make Democrats think twice about swing voter strategy

Big wins for Joe Biden on Super Tuesday and in the South Carolina primary a few days earlier have seemingly bolstered a centrist view of how best to capture the presidency: appeal to the middle, pick up swing voters. It is true that a sizeable chunk of moderates cast a ballot for Biden over his main rival, the more radical Bernie Sanders, in these contests. But a closer look at how the vote broke down suggests a different interpretation: Biden’s surge may be less about moderates and more about getting out the anti Trump vote. As a political scientist who teaches in South Carolina and studies African American politics, I believe that understanding what drove the outcome of these early primaries may be key to creating a successful Democratic strategy to beat Donald Trump. One clear takeaway from the recent primaries is that African American voters are indispensable to Biden – or any other Democrat who wants to win the presidency. In the South Carolina primary, Biden enjoyed a 29 point victory over Sanders. This was due in large part to 61% of South Carolina’s black voters swinging behind Biden – a weight of support no doubt helped by an endorsement by the state’s influential black U. S. Rep. Jim Clyburn. In fact, black voters cast nearly 60% of all votes in that contest. This support carried through into Super Tuesday. In Alabama, 72% of black voters supported Biden, representing nearly half of Democrats posting a ballot in that state. Overall, Biden received a median of 58% of the black vote across the 14 Super Tuesday state primaries, compared to just 35% of the median white vote. Biden needs black voters so much, he has hinted at selecting a black running mate – possibly Sen. Kamala Harris or 2018 Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. This direct courting and mobilization of the black vote stands in contrast to an “expansion election” strategy touted by some Biden supporters. An expansion strategy – similar to what Hillary Clinton’s campaign tried in 2016 without success – seeks to appeal to moderate Republicans and independents while still inspiring high turnout among the party’s traditional base. At a campaign rally on the eve of the Texas primary, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, speaking in support of Biden, stated that as he could mobilize a broad anti Trump coalition. Klobuchar said it would include not only a “fired up Democratic base” of African Americans and other minorities, but “independents and moderate Republicans” as well. At the heart of this strategy is the belief that there are sufficient numbers of crossover voters who can be persuaded to switch party. Political scientists call this the “median voter” theory: Candidates have a better chance of winning a general election if they tack to the center and capture a wider electorate rather than focus on their own partisans. Exit polls from Super Tuesday provided mixed support. They revealed that Sanders got a third of all independent votes – 8 points more than Biden, but that Biden beat Sanders among self identified moderates and conservatives by a margin of 30 points. Therefore, political scientist Rachel Bitecofer has argued that this swing voter strategy is deeply flawed at a time when the electorate is so polarized. Borrowing from the “negative partisanship” theory of Alan Abramowitz and others – which suggests that voters are motivated by which party they are against rather than who they are for – Bitecofer’s models assume there is really no such thing as a swing voter in the modern American electorate. This is especially true given how race or racial differences inform both party allegiances and party policy.

https://theconversation.com/black-turnout-in-primaries-might-make-democrats-think-twice-about-swing-voter-strategy-132729

Why some Americans don’t trust the census

More than 4 million Americans may not be represented in the upcoming 2020 census. This is a problem, as the once every 10 year census affects everything from federal funding to political representation to research projects that rely on accurate census data, like the ones my colleagues and I conduct at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The 2020 census is fraught with uncertainty for a variety of reasons, including a lack of money, a growing distrust in government and the months of debate over the now dropped citizenship question – which the Census Bureau itself called a major barrier to participation. According to a report from the Urban Institute, an economic and social policy think tank, in the Census Bureau’s 2018 Rhode Island census test, “There were still reports that, despite the question’s exclusion, people did not want to answer the census because of immigration related fears. ”Researchers who work with census data know that people don’t participate in the census for different reasons – several of which may be related to fear over how data is stored and used. The Census Bureau conducted a survey in 2018 to better understand what attitudes the average American may hold about the census, and what motivates them to participate, if they choose to. This data would ultimately help drive the bureau’s marketing strategy for the upcoming census, as well as identify key strategies for reaching hard to count communities. A nationally representative survey was sent to 50,000 households across all 50 states. Approximately 17,500 people responded to the survey. These results were then weighted to represent all householders in the United States ages 18 and older. The Bureau conducted 42 additional focus groups with audiences that are at risk of low census participation: racial and ethnic minorities, those with low internet proficiency, rural residents and people who recently moved. They found a lack of trust in all levels of government, across all surveyed groups. Roughly one quarter of respondents were worried that their responses to the census would be used against them. Those most concerned? Non Hispanic Asians, households not proficient in English and those born outside of the U. S. A quarter of respondents were worried about data privacy and confidentiality. Racial and ethnic minorities were much more concerned about this than non Hispanic whites. Ten percent of the people surveyed believed incorrectly that the census could be used to “locate people living in the country without documentation. ” Another 37% didn’t know if the data would be used in that way. Over a quarter of households surveyed indicated a low likelihood – or no likelihood whatsoever – of filling out the census form this year. In hopes of encouraging those least likely to participate in the census, the Census Bureau also sought to identify what would be most likely to motivate households to participate. They asked respondents to choose from a list of options which was “the most important reason, to you personally, that you should fill out the census form. ”Many of these same communities that were concerned about data confidentiality and privacy also said that they are more likely to participate in the census if they are made aware of its benefits to the public good. Funding for public works projects was the most popular choice, with 30% of householders identifying it as their primary or most important reason for participation.

https://theconversation.com/why-some-americans-dont-trust-the-census-130109

7 lessons from ‘Hidden Figures’ NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson’s life and career

Katherine Johnson, an African American mathematician who made critical contributions to the space program at NASA, died Feb. 24 at the age of 101. Johnson became a household name thanks to the celebrated book “Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians who Helped Win the Space Race,” which later became a movie. Her legacy provides lessons for supporting women and other underrepresented groups in mathematics and science. As a historian of mathematics, I have studied women in that field and use the book “Hidden Figures” in my classroom. I can point to some contemporary ideas we can all benefit from when examining Johnson’s life. Early in her life, Johnson’s parents fostered her intellectual prowess. Because there was no high school for African American children in their hometown of White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, the family relocated to Institute, West Virginia, during the school year. Johnson entered West Virginia State College High School as a preteen and enrolled at the age of 14. While at West Virginia State, Johnson took classes with Angie Turner King. King taught at the laboratory high school while she worked to become one of the first African American women to earn masters degrees in math and chemistry. She would go on to earn a Ph. D. in math education in 1955. King taught Johnson geometry and encouraged her mathematical pursuits. Thirteen years older than Johnson, she modeled a life of possibility. Johnson graduated from West Virginia State College at the age of 18. While there, she had the good fortune to learn from W. W. Schieffelin Claytor, the third African American to earn a Ph. D. in mathematics in America. Claytor encouraged Katherine to become a research mathematician. In the 1930s, a little over 100 American women counted themselves as professional mathematicians. Once Johnson completed the standard mathematics curriculum at West Virginia State College, Claytor created advanced classes just for her, including a course on analytic geometry. Mathematics concepts build on one another and the mathematics she learned in this class helped her in her work at NASA many years later. She used these analytical skills to verify the computer calculations for John Glenn’s orbit around the earth and to help determine the trajectory for the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the moon, among others. Long before psychologist Angela Duckworth called attention to the power of passion and perseverance in the form of grit, Katherine Johnson modeled this stalwart characteristic. In 1940, she agreed to serve as one of three carefully selected students to desegregate West Virginia University’s graduate program. She also had to be “assertive and aggressive” about receiving credit for her contributions to research at NASA. In 1960, her efforts helped her become the first African American and the first woman to have her name on a NASA research report. Currently, the NASA archives contain more than 25 scientific reports on space flight history authored or co authored by Johnson, the largest number by any African American or woman. When NASA was formed in 1958, women were still not allowed to attend the Test Flight briefings. Initially, Johnson would ask questions about the briefings and “listen and listen. ” Eventually, she asked if she could attend. Apparently, the men grew tired of her questions and finally allowed her to attend the briefings. In 1940, Johnson found herself among the 2% of all African American women who had earned a college degree. At that time, she was among the nearly 60% of those women who had become teachers.

https://theconversation.com/7-lessons-from-hidden-figures-nasa-mathematician-katherine-johnsons-life-and-career-132481

Goldman Sachs’ push for board diversity doesn’t go far enough

Several European countries – including Norway, Germany, Finland, France and Spain – have introduced quotas for women on company boards. Other countries have introduced voluntary targets and imposed penalties for failing to appoint women directors. And this year, public companies in California will face a US$100,000 penalty if their boards don’t include women. Recently, Goldman Sachs announced that it will not take a company public unless the business has at least one woman on the board of directors. This signals a growing consensus among large investors that companies with all male boards are less profitable and less competitive than other companies. This push is important, particularly as women directors remain significantly underrepresented on corporate boards and the U. S. falls behind a number of other countries in women’s presence on boards. But it’s not enough. We are a sociologist and a management professor, and for more than a decade, we have analyzed the impact of board diversity. Our research shows that companies with diverse boards are more innovative, enjoy stronger community relations, have better equity and diversity policies and outcomes, pursue more environmentally sustainable practices and are better governed. While a single woman on the board can move a business in the right direction, companies with a critical mass of women directors – that means three or more – outperform others on nearly every measure. Our work shows that women’s presence on the board increases leadership opportunities for other women. When women serve on the board, other women are more likely to be appointed CEO and enjoy longer tenures compared with women CEOs in companies without board diversity. Women on the board also shield women CEOs from the glass cliff, the tendency to appoint women to top leadership roles during times of crisis. Board service can also serve as an important leadership pipeline. Only 5% of Fortune 500 companies have a woman CEO and fewer than 1% have a woman of color at the helm, so fostering talent is necessary to create change. All too often companies practice a “one and done” policy when it comes to appointing women to corporate boards. Women are most likely to be appointed to boards when the current woman director is stepping down. In other words, the end of one woman’s tenure motivates the board to appoint another woman. This tendency reveals that many companies view women as tokens, necessary to check the right box but not vital to board functioning. Appointing a single woman to a board can limit her ability to demonstrate the full range of her talents. Being the “only one” on the board can heighten one’s outsider status, increase performance pressures and exacerbate sexist stereotypes. Appointing a single woman to the board also doesn’t guarantee influence. Often women are relegated to lower prestige board committees and denied leadership roles. While women hold 23% of corporate board seats in the Fortune 500, they hold only 5% of board chair positions. Our research also shows that women directors’ influence over board decisions is the true source of change. In a recent study, we analyzed whether women’s presence on executive boards influenced the gender wage gap among senior executives. We analyzed companies under three conditions: Women served on the board, women served on the compensation committee and women chaired the compensation committee. Women’s presence on the board or on the committee had little effect on compensation outcomes, but when women chaired the all important compensation committee, the gender wage gap disappeared.

https://theconversation.com/goldman-sachs-push-for-board-diversity-doesnt-go-far-enough-130985

Even very young children can become prejudiced but schools can do something about it

Racism has negative consequences for children’s health. It harms the kids who experience it personally and those who witness it, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, an organization that represents 67,000 doctors who treat children. I’m a developmental psychologist who studies the origins of prejudice in children, including teenagers. The research team I lead investigates the kinds of experiences that can help make kids become less prejudiced. We help local school districts with their efforts to encourage all children to get along well with others, including their classmates and teachers. Getting along well with others in childhood is about making friends, respecting others’ viewpoints, and thinking about what’s fair when resolving conflicts. Kids who have repeated conflicts with their classmates suffer in many ways, including experiencing stress and anxiety. Consequently, they may become withdrawn and not feel like going to school. Bias can make it harder for people from different backgrounds to become friends with each other. That includes implicit biases that lead to things like microaggressions – everyday verbal and nonverbal insults that are often unintentional but nevertheless convey negative messages about others based on personal characteristics. It is also hard to make friends when other kids at school exclude you simply because your family is from another country. By adolescence, implicit bias can lead teenagers to use explicit racial slurs or harass their classmates. Unfortunately, instances of explicit bias in childhood and adolescence – such as calling someone the n word or disparaging them for being an immigrant – are growing more common. What’s important to know, though, is that while these biases are taking hold, children also are developing positive beliefs about the importance of what it means to be fair. That can mean the need to take turns, share toys and avoid hurting anyone. This contradiction can sometimes result in confusion and conflict. Children often don’t get the consequences of their actions or what makes someone else feel bad. The good news is that the biases of children are not as hard to overcome as is the case with adults. Scholars like me call friendships with other kids from different cultural, ethnic and racial backgrounds “cross group friendships. ” These bonds play a positive role to help children to reject or at least question stereotypes, from the internet, movies, politicians, the media, family or peers may not be true. My research team has found that children who have friends from different backgrounds are able to reject stereotypes. When children observe others who are friends from different groups then they are more likely to think “If someone from my group likes them then they must be OK. ” Discovering shared interests, hobbies, and values with new kids helps to diminish attitudes that might be based on stereotypes. Psychologists have found that people who form cross group friendships when they’re young are less likely to harbor prejudice as children or adults. My colleagues and I have learned that when teachers encourage children to listen to one another, care for each other, and form friendships, children do better in school. What’s more, when students learn about the historical contributions of famous individuals from both majority and minority backgrounds, they are less likely to display prejudiced attitudes. Our University of Maryland program, Developing Inclusive Youth, is an eight week program for elementary school students in third through fifth grade. Students log into an online curriculum tool and watch social exclusion scenarios among an animated group of characters, boys and girls, spanning many ethnicities as well as different immigration and class statuses. These situations occur during recess, in class, at home, and other everyday situations.

https://theconversation.com/even-very-young-children-can-become-prejudiced-but-schools-can-do-something-about-it-116936

Expanding the definition of family to reflect our realities

The second Monday in February is Family Day in parts of Canada. Started in Alberta in 1990, four additional provinces celebrate Family Day: British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Ontario and New Brunswick. Québec is one of few jurisdictions that does not have a civic holiday in February, though the province has generous family leave policies. This year, to coincide with the emphasis on family, Concordia University and the Vanier Institute of the Family are hosting a conference on families and family life on Feb. 20. The conference will explore some of the tensions and dichotomies embedded in families. For one, how do we define what family means? How we define family is an important starting point for conversations on family life. Who’s in? Who’s out? Who actually counts as family? For some, family means married parents with children, or married heterosexual parents with children. For others, it may mean a chosen family, or a cohabiting couple with no children. For our conference, we are using an adaptation of the Vanier Institute’s definition: a family consists of any combination of two or more people, bound together over time, by ties of mutual consent and/or birth, adoption or placement, and who take responsibility for various activities of daily living, including love. Our research has identified the need to attend to extended families, including grandparents, aunts and uncles. It also includes the need to extend the definition of family to non traditional family forms including LGBTQ2S+ families, chosen families, multi generation families that include grandparents, single parents and people living alone. It wasn’t until 2001 that Statistics Canada gathered information on multi generational households, and in 2011 the census first counted stepfamilies and foster children. Families in Canada are diverse and our programs and policies should be responsive to this diversity. We find that a narrow definition of family can neglect the experiences of single parent, poor and minority families. For example, research shows that women of color and low income women often experience and interpret motherhood differently than white, class privileged mothers. Recently, researchers began to examine how diversity related to race, class and sexual orientation affects grandparent grandchild relationships. To continue to expand our understanding of families’ experiences, we need to think more broadly about what factors matter in families. How we define family impacts social policy like parental, maternity and paternity leave entitlements and child care tax credits. Caregiver benefits and compassionate leave policies are also tied to family status. Eligibility depends on whether you are a family member. In health care contexts, visitors in intensive care units and emergency departments are often restricted to immediate family and grandparents often don’t have rights when it comes to child custody cases. So a comprehensive definition of family influences how we develop programs for families and who is eligible.

https://theconversation.com/expanding-the-definition-of-family-to-reflect-our-realities-131743

Minority patients benefit from having minority doctors, but that’s a hard match to make

In today’s America, minority patients still have markedly worse health outcomes than white patients. The differences are greatest for black Americans: Compared to white patients, they are two to three times as likely to die of preventable heart disease and stroke. They also have higher rates of cancer, asthma, influenza, pneumonia, diabetes, HIV/AIDS and homicide. For many of them, structural racism and unequal treatment remain a contributing factor to disease and death. I am a physician who studies health disparities and ways to improve health care delivery. My work focuses on people of color, including those who are black and indigenous. Improving health care delivery for these groups of people is a complicated and multi layered task, but solutions exist. One of them is to increase the probability that minorities see doctors of their race or ethnicity, which I refer to as patient provider racial and ethnic concordance. I have partnered with Prof. Edwin Lindo, a critical race theorist, to help explain why. In the current workforce, diversity among physicians is limited. That can lead to mistrust in doctor patient relationships, even during routine checkups. Black patients, for instance, may feel more wary with a white doctor than a black doctor, and white doctors may feel less comfortable caring for minoritized patients. Mounting evidence suggests when physicians and patients share the same race or ethnicity, this improves time spent together, medication adherence, shared decision making, wait times for treatment, cholesterol screening, patient understanding of cancer risk, and patient perceptions of treatment decisions. Not surprisingly, implicit bias from the physician is decreased. A Stanford University study paired black men in Oakland, Calif. , with either black or non black doctors. The men seen by black physicians were more likely to engage with them, and even consent to preventive services like cardiovascular screenings and immunizations. And, the study found that black doctors were more inclined to write detailed notes about their black patients. Those men who had the least trust in the medical system – and the least exposure to it – benefited the most from racial/ethnic concordance. The study estimates this approach could reduce the black white mortality gap due to heart disease by 19%. But what happened in Oakland is not going to happen anytime soon across the U. S. Based on the latest figures, white doctors make up 56% of the physician workforce, with Asian doctors at 17%. Just under 6% are Hispanic doctors. Only 5% are black doctors. Yet by 2042 – just over 20 years away – the combined minority population is set to become the majority in the U. S. Based on those numbers, it will be difficult for the physician workforce to mirror the population in the near future. But given the benefits of a more diverse workforce, all educational and medical institutions – from grade school through completion of medical training – should invest in building a more diverse workforce. In the meantime, there is another way to augment patient provider racial/ethnic concordance: Increase the presence of minority providers who are part of a team based model of care, including registered nurses, doulas, certified nurse midwives and nurse practitioners.

https://theconversation.com/minority-patients-benefit-from-having-minority-doctors-but-thats-a-hard-match-to-make-130504

Is hiring more black officers the key to reducing police violence?

High profile cases of officer brutality against black citizens in recent years have caused Americans to question the racial makeup of their police departments. Many advocates believe that diversifying these forces will help reduce police violence against people of color. My research suggests increased representation might not solve the problem. I interviewed nearly 200 protesters and residents of Ferguson and Baltimore – cities that saw widespread unrest following the officer involved deaths of two black men, Michael Brown and Freddie Gray – for my book “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot. ”What I heard repeatedly was that hiring more officers of color wasn’t enough. The people I spoke to said issues of structural inequality in society and a problematic police culture were creating the breakdown of trust between communities and police. Citizen distrust of the police can strain police community relations because officers typically depend on cooperation from the public to solve crimes. Residents are more likely to cooperate when they view the police positively. Racial diversity has long been an issue within U. S. police departments. Of the 701,000 full time sworn officers working in 2016 – the latest year for which national data is available – just 27% were officers of color. The proportion of minority officers has nearly doubled in 30 years, growing from 14% to 27% between 1987 and 2016. But minority hires still lag behind the general population, where nearly 40% of Americans are non white. Small departments tend to be less diverse. Forces serving fewer than 10,000 people are 87% white, while the largest departments are on average around 50% white. Take Baltimore for example. Just over half of the city’s police are officers of color – below the 63% of Baltimore residents who are black, but still more diverse than neighboring departments and the national average. Yet, the Baltimore Police Department was found by the Department of Justice in 2016 to have engaged in a pattern of unconstitutional racially biased policing. This came despite Baltimore making “efforts to attract and promote minority candidates,” as the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division noted in its report. Around a quarter of the people I spoke to in Baltimore and Ferguson said they believe black officers enforced the law more fairly than their white colleagues, and were more courteous and respectful. But a similar proportion of those who reported having personal experiences with black officers said they believe non white officers operate aggressively when they encounter black civilians. Scholars have offered several explanations as to why there doesn’t appear to be a strong correlation between an officer’s race and how they treat civilians. The culture within the police department is often cited. New recruits learn to perform police work by observing the practices of their colleagues, internalizing them, and then executing them. Pressure to conform to a prevailing police culture plays a critical role in shaping behavior and determining how officers treat civilians of different races. Officers of color are not exempt from this process. They may even feel obliged to adopt the values of the department to fit in or advance their careers. Evidence suggests that hiring a racially diverse police force on its own will not solve the problems of policing. Some studies have found that hiring more minority officers is not correlated with a reduction in the killing of citizens. Others have shown that the use of lethal force increases with the proportion of black officers.

https://theconversation.com/is-hiring-more-black-officers-the-key-to-reducing-police-violence-126075

A brief history of black names, from Perlie to Latasha

Most people recognize that there are first names given almost exclusively by black Americans to their children, such as Jamal and Latasha. While fodder for comedians and social commentary, many have assumed that these distinctively black names are a modern phenomenon. My research shows that’s not true. Long before there was Jamal and Latasha, there was Booker and Perlie. The names have changed, but my colleagues and I traced the use of distinctive black names to the earliest history of the United States. As scholars of history, demographics and economics, we found that there is nothing new about black names. Many scholars believe that distinctively black names emerged from the civil rights movement, perhaps attributable to the Black Power movement and the later black cultural movement of the 1990s as a way to affirm and embrace black culture. Before this time, the argument goes, blacks and whites had similar naming patterns. Historical evidence does not support this belief. Until a few years ago, the story of black names depended almost exclusively on data from the 1960s onward. New data, such as the digitization of census and newly available birth and death records from historical periods, allows us to analyze the history of black names in more detail. We used federal census records and death certificates from the late 1800s in Illinois, Alabama and North Carolina to see if there were names that were held almost exclusively by blacks and not whites in the past. We found that there were indeed. For example, in the 1920 census, 99% of all men with the first name of Booker were black, as were 80% of all men named Perlie or its variations. We found that the fraction of blacks holding a distinctively black name in the early 1900s is comparable to the fraction holding a distinctively black name at the end of the 20th century, around 3%. We were interested to learn that the black names of the late 1800s and early 1900s are not the same black names that we recognize today. The historical names that stand out are largely biblical such as Elijah, Isaac, Isaiah, Moses and Abraham, and names that seem to designate empowerment such as Prince, King and Freeman. These names are quite different from black names today such as Tyrone, Darnell and Kareem, which grew in popularity during the civil rights movement. Once we knew black names were used long before the civil rights era, we wondered how black names emerged and what they represented. To find out, we turned to the antebellum era – the time before the Civil War – to see if the historical black names existed before the emancipation of slaves. Since the census didn’t record the names of enslaved Africans, this led to a search of records of names from slave markets and ship manifests. Using these new data sources, we found that names like Alonzo, Israel, Presley and Titus were popular both before and after emancipation among blacks. We also learned found that roughly 3% of black Americans had black names in the antebellum period – about the same percentage as did in the period after the Civil War. But what was most striking is the trend over time during enslavement. We found that the share of black Americans with black names increased over the antebellum era while the share of white Americans with these same names declined, from more than 3% at the time of the American Revolution to less than 1% by 1860. By the eve of the Civil War, the racial naming pattern we found for the late 1800s was an entrenched feature in the U. S.

https://theconversation.com/a-brief-history-of-black-names-from-perlie-to-latasha-130102

Where are the Hispanic executives?

Many organizations have prioritized workplace equality and access to high paying, executive level jobs for minority groups in recent years. Several 2020 presidential candidates are putting forward plans to increase minority executive positions by diversifying corporate boards, punishing companies with poor diversity track records and increasing funding for minority led business institutions. However, according to our own 2019 analysis, white men still hold the majority of executive positions such as CEOs, management directors and financial officers. As economic and communication scholars, we looked at Equal Employment Opportunity Commission employment data for executives at large and mid sized companies. Our analysis shows that white men sit in 65. 5% of these high paying boardroom positions while representing only 38% of the U. S. workforce. The dominance of white male executives, however, is by no means evenly distributed across the country. Our report tracks representation among Hispanic executives city by city. As of 2019, Hispanics are the largest minority group in the U. S. at 18. 3%. Statistics from 2017 show that Hispanics make up 17% of the labor force. However, they occupy only 4. 3% of executive positions in the U. S. Hispanic representation is roughly equal to that of black executives and somewhat lower than Asian American executives. The gap between labor force and executive representation is wider among Hispanics than any other group. Executive jobs offer salary – US$155,586 on average – benefits and job security that simply are not available in lower level positions. They also offer the power to drive initiatives, including those focused on diversity. Pittsburgh is the only large city in the U. S. to nearly reach equity. Hispanics comprise 1. 3% of the city’s executive workforce and 1. 4% of its overall labor market. That low overall representation is a trend among cities with the best equity. Four out of five American cities with the most equitable representation – Pittsburgh, Detroit, St. Louis and Cincinnati have Hispanic populations of less than 4%. These findings fall in line with our earlier research showing that minority representation in executive positions is highest in areas with the lowest minority population. The final city in the top five, Miami, stands out for its high representation of Hispanic executives at 24. 6% and high percentage of Hispanics in the overall workforce at 44. 1%. Miami is also an anomaly among other large cities with Hispanic work forces such as Houston – 43% overall labor force and 10. 3% executive representation – and Los Angeles – 34. 2% labor force and 8% executive. Driving Miami’s high representation is likely the city’s strong economic connections to Central and South America, which favors Hispanic cultural background and Spanish language capability among top executives. This is especially true with regards to the many media based companies located in Miami, such as Telemundo, which targets consumers throughout the Spanish speaking world. So how do things look at the other end of the scale? New York City has the largest Hispanic population in the U. S with 2. 3 million individuals. They comprise of 22. 6% of the city’s total workforce, including 28. 7% of its service workers and 40% of its laborer positions.

https://theconversation.com/where-are-the-hispanic-executives-128981

Why you don’t see many black and ethnic minority faces in cultural spaces – and what happens if you call out the system

Have you ever been to the theatre, looked around, and thought about how predominantly white the audience is? Does the same impression come to mind when visiting museums? If it does and the answer is a resounding yes, then you’re not alone. There is a major problem in Britain’s cultural industry and it’s time we all took a hard look at why. For years now, there has been a growing recognition of the ethnic inequalities in the creative sector. Arts Council England found it to be prevalent and persistent, particularly in theatres and museums: 12% of the workforce in national organizations in the council’s portfolio were from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, and just 5% across its major partner museums. In positions of leadership, this fell to only 9% of chief executives and 10% of artistic directors in national portfolio organizations. On executive boards at partner museums it was 3%. A recent survey showed that 92% of top British theatre leaders were white. In TV, a report from communications regulator Ofcom showed that ethnic minorities were also considerably underrepresented. It highlighted “a cultural disconnect between the people who make programs and the millions who watch them”. This is all despite a number of leading institutions introducing action plans and policies to improve their diversity. While Arts Council England launched the Creative Case for Diversity in 2011, to emphasize the importance and value of diversity in the arts and its significance in enriching artistic practice, leadership and audiences, leading broadcasters the BBC and Channel 4 have ramped up efforts to increase diversity. Yet change of the status quo seems to be minimal and in some cases static. The cultural sector remains steeped in ethnic inequality. There are many factors for why Britain’s cultural sector appears to be circumscribed by whiteness in ideology and practice, production and consumption. Diversity strategies seem to be failing so far, partly because “diversity” itself is a problematic term that can often dilute the problem and depoliticize the issue of racial discrimination. In the creative sector, it has morphed from an aspiration to tackle racial inequality into a drive for better business and economics – a rationale that downshifts the social impact of ethnic inequality, as film studies fellow Clive Nwonka argues. The business case for diversity can help campaign for ethnic equality, but using it merely as a business tool can mask discriminatory practices and shift focus away from deeper issues of structural racism – for example, in embedded attitudes about art production, its consumers and its exclusivity; attitudes that enforce creative hierarchies that align with racial and class hierarchies. Many a myth still exist about cultural creation, what constitutes high or low culture, and the attitudes of ethnic minorities towards cultural participation. Commonly held opinions include, for example, that audiences from black and ethnic minorities are hard to engage – a view that ignores the lack of ethnic representation in the sector, among other realities pertaining to education and class. In 2014, and in response to calls by actress Meera Syal for theatres to cater to Asian audiences, distinguished actor Janet Suzman was staunchly criticized for claiming that theatre was a “white invention”, that “runs in their [white people’s] DNA”. Consciously or not, statements like these contribute to a segregation of culture, and a hierarchy of cultural production. In What is this “black” in black popular culture?, Stuart Hall articulated how the ordering of culture into high and low serves to establish cultural hegemony:

https://theconversation.com/why-you-dont-see-many-black-and-ethnic-minority-faces-in-cultural-spaces-and-what-happens-if-you-call-out-the-system-128792

Children of color already make up the majority of kids in many US states

Demographers project that whites will become a minority in the U. S. in around 2045, dropping below 50% of the population. That’s a quarter century from now – still a long way away, right? Not if you focus on children. White children right now are on the eve of becoming a numerical minority. The U. S. Census Bureau projects that, by the middle of 2020, nonwhites will account for the majority of the nation’s 74 million children. The share of the U. S. non Hispanic white population has fallen since the mid 20th century. Between 2010 and 2018, the number of white children fell by 2. 8 million, or 7. 1%. In contrast, nonwhite children grew by 6. 1%. In 2018, the last year for which data are currently available, the proportion of people in the U. S. under 18 years of age was just barely more white than nonwhite. However, children under 11 were more nonwhite than white. In almost one third of U. S. states, nonwhite children outnumber all white children under 18 in 14 states – including Nevada, Hawaii, Georgia and Maryland – plus the District of Columbia. Nonwhite children currently outnumber white children ages 0 to 4 in these 15 states and in Louisiana. In the next few years, the same will be true in North Carolina, Illinois and Virginia, followed a little later by Connecticut and Oklahoma. In the coming decades, the percentage of all white children will drop – from 49. 8% in 2020 to 36. 4% in 2060. Why will white children become the numerical minority? We draw on the insights of demographer Kenneth Johnson and his colleagues to understand this trend. First, the declining number of white children reflects the significant aging of the white population. Whites in the U. S. have a median age of 43. 6, much higher than those of all other racial or ethnic groups. Latinos, in particular, are much younger, with a median age of 29. 5. Slightly more than one fifth of whites are age 65 and older, while elders account for only about one tenth of nonwhites. Indeed, today in the U. S. there are more white elders than white children. The older age of whites is mainly due to fewer white births than white deaths. Between July 2017 and July 2018, there were 0. 88 white births in the U. S. for every 1 white death. In the case of Latinos, the ratio was 5 births for every 1 death. Whites also have lower fertility rates than most other racial and ethnic groups. Even if white women increased their fertility levels, their actual numbers of births would not go up that much, because there is a shrinking number of white women of childbearing age. Only 41% of white women aged 15 and older are in the childbearing ages of 15 to 44, when most births occur, compared to 57% of nonwhite women. In the coming decades, people of color will have an increasing presence in all U. S. institutions, in higher education, the workforce and the electorate. Americans are already seeing the consequences of these demographic shifts in higher education. Between 2009 and 2017, the number of white undergraduate students in the U. S. dropped by 1. 7 million, while the number of Latino undergraduates rose by 1. 1 million. In addition, U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projections show that, between 2014 and 2024, the white share of the civilian labor force is declining, while the share of nonwhites is estimated to rise. Furthermore, people of color will increasingly be part of the voter rolls and slates of political office seekers in the coming decades.

https://theconversation.com/children-of-color-already-make-up-the-majority-of-kids-in-many-us-states-128499

3 big ways that the US will change over the next decade

The U. S. has just entered the new decade of the 2020s. What does our country look like today, and what will it look like 10 years from now, on Jan. 1, 2030? Which demographic groups in the U. S. will grow the most, and which groups will not grow as much, or maybe even decline in the next 10 years? I am a demographer and I have examined population data from the U. S. Census Bureau and from the Population Division of the United Nations. Projections show that whites will decline; the number of old people will increase; and racial minorities, mainly Hispanics, will grow the most, making them the main engine of demographic change in the U. S. for the next 10 years and beyond. The U. S. population today, at the start of 2020, numbers just over 331 million people. The U. S. is the third largest country in the world, outnumbered only by the two demographic billionaires, China and India, at just over 1. 4 billion and just under 1. 4 billion, respectively. Ten years from now, the U. S. population will have almost 350 million people. China and India will still be bigger, but India with 1. 5 billion people will now be larger than China, with 1. 46 billion. The U. S. is getting older and it’s going to keep getting older. Today, there are over 74. 1 million people under age 18 in the U. S. There are 56. 4 million people age 65 and older. Ten years from now, there will almost be as many old folks as there are young ones. The numbers of young people will have grown just a little to 76. 3 million, but the numbers of old people will have increased a lot – to 74. 1 million. A lot of these new elderly will be baby boomers. For example, take the really old folks – people over the age of 100. How many centenarians are in the U. S. population today and how many are there likely to be 10 years from now? According to demographers at the U. S. Census Bureau, the number of centenarians in the U. S. grew from over 53,000 in 2010 to over 90,000 in 2020. By 2030, there will most likely be over 130,000 centenarians in the U. S. But this increase of centenarians by 2030 is only a small indication of their growth in later decades. In the year of 2046, the first group of surviving baby boomers will reach 100 years, and that’s when U. S. centenarians will really start to grow. By 2060 there will be over 603,000. That’s a lot of really old people. I sometimes ask my undergraduate students how many of them have ever actually seen a person 100 years old or older. In my classes of 140 or more students, no more than maybe six raise their hands. Lots more college students will be raising their hands when they are asked that question in 2060. In 2020, non Hispanic white people, hereafter called whites, are still the majority race in the U. S. , representing 59. 7% of the U. S. population. In my research with the demographer Rogelio Saenz, we have shown that the white share of the U. S. population has been dropping since 1950 and it will continue to go down. Today, after whites, the Hispanic population is the next biggest group at 18. 7% of the U. S. , followed by blacks and Asians. What will the country look like racially in 2030? Whites will have dropped to 55. 8% of the population, and Hispanics will have grown to 21. 1%. The percentage of black and Asian Americans will also grow significantly. So between now and 2030, whites as a proportion of the population will get smaller, and the minority race groups will all keep getting bigger. Eventually, whites will become a minority, dropping below 50% of the U. S. population in around the year of 2045.

https://theconversation.com/3-big-ways-that-the-us-will-change-over-the-next-decade-126908

What happens when black Americans leave their segregated hometowns

Where someone grows up is profoundly important for their life chances. It influences things like the schools they attend, the jobs, parks and community resources they have access to and the peers they interact with. Because of this comprehensive influence, one might conclude that where you grow up affects your ability to move up the residential ladder and into a better neighborhood than the one you grew up in. In a new study, my co authors and I show that for many children, where they grow up is profoundly important for where they end up as adults. But for black Americans who move away from the cities of their youth, moving out often means moving up the residential ladder. One important kind of residential disadvantage that social scientists like me are interested in is racial segregation. This generally refers to the separation of black people from white people in the neighborhoods in which they live. Considerable research shows that living in a more racially segregated area is connected with worse outcomes for black people in a variety of areas of life, influencing everything from the probability of graduating from high school to life expectancy. Black people remain highly segregated from white people in many areas of the United States, including Chicago, Detroit and New York. Indeed, a 2015 study found that over 50% of black people in the U. S. lived in highly segregated areas. In other words, the majority of U. S. black people live in neighborhoods that are predominantly black and racially isolated. These neighborhoods are often underfunded in terms of business and educational investment, distant from job opportunities and more likely to be targets for crime. Children in these neighborhoods are at a distinct disadvantage in terms of their health, education and future economic prospects. Given these disadvantages, it would seem that growing up in a segregated area would have dramatic effects on a person’s life chances going forward. For children who stay in the same place where they grew up, this seems to be the case, as my co authors and I found in a recent study. We looked at data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, a survey of 4,800 families and their descendants that began in 1968 and has continued surveying these individuals to this day. Specifically, we looked at where black children grew up and where they lived as adults. We broke down geography by metropolitan area. Each metropolitan area generally includes a city and a number of surrounding neighborhoods, totaling 100,000 residents or more. First, we looked at those who grew up in segregated metropolitan areas and stayed in those same areas as adults. They ended up living in more impoverished, racially isolated, lower income neighborhoods in their adulthood, compared to children who grew up in less segregated metro areas. However, when we turned our attention to individuals who moved out of the metro areas they grew up in, into new cities or states, we found a profoundly different set of relationships. It didn’t matter whether a person had grown up in an area that was highly segregated or not – they lived in less impoverished and racially isolated neighborhoods as well as higher income neighborhoods after they moved to a new metro area. This was true regardless of their own education, income and employment status, among other characteristics.

https://theconversation.com/what-happens-when-black-americans-leave-their-segregated-hometowns-128277

The long moral shadows cast by South Africa’s colonial history

The post apartheid state in South Africa inherited many colonial legacies. It has transformed considerably over the past 25 years. But it retains mechanisms of a state that secured power for a select few at the expense of most of its citizens. In my book, Queering Colonial Natal, I looked at the ways in which the settler state “queered” African and Indian social practices in the 19th century. By “queered” I mean that settler regimes defined these practices as threats to the social order they wanted to impose in colonial Natal established by the British in 1843, today South Africa’s KwaZulu Natal province. They did this by decrying the practices as inherently wrong and themselves as superior and civilized. At the same time, colonial archives reveal that both African and Indian people challenged these claims. For example, parliamentary reports show that while settler marriage laws imposed monogamous, heterosexual unions as the only legitimate form of matrimony, local populations asserted the legitimacy of their own polygynous institutions in colonial courts. I traced the complicated histories of race, sexuality and power in contemporary South Africa, focusing on colonial Natal. The colony offers a particularly valuable space to study as it hosted competing African, Indian and European settlers in relatively close proximity. Understanding the social and legal issues in colonial Natal gives insight into the ways power operated in southern Africa – and the British Empire more broadly. The entanglements of race, gender, class and sexuality in contemporary South Africa flow in part from the contradictions of the settler colonial state. In tracing the history, I believe it’s possible to see the long shadows that colonial history casts over the country’s complicated present. This provides the opportunity to see that situations aren’t inevitable. It is possible to look for new ways to understand and navigate the contradictions in our contemporary world. One of the major themes I looked at was state control. This extended to marriage and social reproduction, the legal managing of alcohol and the ways mission institutions claimed civilizing power over all peoples. I also examined the politics of access to education in the colony. This was to show how different people used ideas of race and gender to claim legitimacy and belonging. I argue that the colonial state attempted to mark African social practices as aberrant. Or, as I write in the book, as “queer”. This included practices such as isithembu , ilobolo , clothing and beer drinking. Settlers marked these practices as inherently wrong. They oriented themselves in opposition to them as a way of asserting their normalcy or civilized status. Africans and Indians in Natal didn’t accept this labeling. As my research shows, they challenged it. Using occupation, belonging and settlement, people sought to challenge easy claims to power and authority. At the very least, they tried to “unsettle” them. They also used colonial courts to challenge legal pronouncements. One case I examined was the continuous effort of the settler state to ban alcohol consumption by Africans and Indians. The ban on Africans drinking liquor began in the 1850s. The Natal legislature debated – but frequently failed to pass – legislation banning the brewing or consumption of umqombothi, so called “Native beer”, throughout this period.

https://theconversation.com/the-long-moral-shadows-cast-by-south-africas-colonial-history-127123

Why support for the death penalty is much higher among white Americans

Sentencing a person to die is the ultimate punishment. There is no coming back from the permanence of the death penalty. In the U. S. , the death penalty is currently authorized by the federal government, the military and 29 states. The primary rationale for using the death penalty is deterrence. As public policy, I believe that capital punishment has largely not proved to be an effective deterrent. Nevertheless, for decades the death penalty has been popular. However, support for the death penalty has been declining over the past 25 years and is near historic lows. Critics point to issues such as inhumane killing procedures, a plunge in crime rates and the death penalty’s high cost. I study the impact that public policies like the death penalty have on African Americans, and I see a problem that isn’t often discussed in the media: the significant racial disparity in public opinion about the death penalty. The racially inequitable application of the death penalty was highlighted on Nov. 15, 2019, when, in an unexpected turn of events, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals halted the execution of Rodney Reed less than one week before he was scheduled to be executed for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites. The case was racially charged. Reed, a black man, is accused of killing Stites, a white woman, and was found guilty by an all white jury. The Reed case is one of many capital murder cases that present an opportunity to critically examine the application of the death penalty. As director of the Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis at the University of Texas at Austin, I lead an organization that is committed to the elimination of racial bias and disparities through promoting equitable public policies. Since 1976, people of color have accounted for 43% of total executions and make up over half of inmates who are currently scheduled to be executed. In Texas, African Americans make up less than 13% of the population yet represent 44. 2% of death row inmates. Nationally, African Americans make up 42% of death row inmates. When both race and gender are considered, disparities in sentencing become even more pronounced. Homicides involving white female victims are significantly more likely to result in a death sentence than homicides with any other victim characteristics. However, beyond the explicit examples of racial bias in the criminal justice system that typically get the most attention, there remains another, more subtle bias related to the beliefs held by jurors. People who oppose the death penalty cannot serve on a murder case jury where the death penalty is a possibility. Only individuals who say they would consider the death penalty can serve. When you examine the numbers behind support of the death penalty, a trend emerges. White people make up the core of support for the death penalty in the United States. Studies indicate that white people show significantly higher support for the death penalty than do black people. This is consistent with a 2018 poll by the Pew Research Center, which found that 59% of white people favor the death penalty, compared with 47% of Latino and 36% of black people. Among white people, evangelical Protestants show the strongest support for the death penalty, with 73% favoring it. Why do white people support the death penalty at much higher levels than black people? According to research, one answer is racial prejudice. White Americans tend to associate criminality with racial minorities. In one study, researchers found that, after controlling for factors including education, family income, religion and political ideology, white people with stronger anti black attitudes were more likely to support the death penalty.

https://theconversation.com/why-support-for-the-death-penalty-is-much-higher-among-white-americans-127853

Was that joke funny or offensive? Who’s telling it matters

In September, before the start of its 45th season, “Saturday Night Live” brought on some new cast members. The decision to hire one of them, Shane Gillis, was roundly criticized after disparaging jokes he’d made at the expense of Asian and gay people quickly surfaced. A week after announcing Gillis’ hire, the show fired him. On the other hand, critics widely lauded the addition of comedian Bowen Yang. Ironically, Yang also tends to poke fun at Asian and gay people during his sets. So, why did Yang get to keep his job, while Gillis lost his? We study why some jokes land and others don’t – and why the identity of the person telling the joke matters. Yang, it seems, can “get away” with this sort of humor precisely because he is both Asian and gay, while Gillis is neither. Many of us intuitively understand that it’s more permissible for people to openly judge or criticize social groups they belong to than those they do not belong to. For example, many Americans may feel justified in calling out the country’s faults while lambasting a non American for doing the same. This phenomenon is called the intergroup sensitivity effect, and we wondered whether it applied to humor. To test this, we ran a series of studies in which we examined whether people’s reactions to disparaging jokes would change based on who was telling the joke. In our first study, we showed participants a mock Facebook profile belonging to either a gay or a straight man who had posted a joke about gay people. We then asked the participants to rate how funny, offensive and acceptable they found the joke. Participants considered the joke funnier, less offensive and more acceptable if the poster was gay. We wanted to know whether this effect also applied to jokes about race. So, in a second study, we showed participants a mock Facebook profile belonging to an Asian, black or white man who had posted a joke about Asian people. Here, participants rated the joke as funnier, less offensive and more acceptable when the owner of the Facebook profile was Asian. We then ran a third study in which we directly asked participants how acceptable it was for members of different social groups to make jokes about their in group or various out groups. We found that participants, on a consistent basis, were more receptive to humor based on gender, race and sexual orientation if the person making the joke was also a member of the targeted group. So why, exactly, does the group membership of the joke teller matter so much? We think it may have something to do with how an audience interprets the joke’s intent. Some humor researchers distinguish between what they call “antisocial intentions” – in which humor is used to inflict harm and reinforce stereotypes about a social group – and “prosocial intentions” – where humor is used to empower the group and challenge stereotypes about it. When humor is deployed in a self referential way, perhaps the audience is more prone to perceive it through a prosocial lens. For example, when Bowen Yang speaks with an exaggerated Chinese accent, audiences may more readily construe this as coming from a benign place. Maybe he’s satirizing the racist ways in which others portray Chinese people, or perhaps he’s affectionately parodying his own culture. But no matter the real reason, he certainly wouldn’t want to inflict harm on his own group – or so the thinking goes. On the other hand, when Shane Gillis does the same, audiences may be less likely to give him the benefit of the doubt – and more likely to infer malign and racist intentions. He doesn’t identify with his targets in any way. Maybe he truly does harbor disdain.

https://theconversation.com/was-that-joke-funny-or-offensive-whos-telling-it-matters-126167

The Disability List Aims To Change Perceptions And Create Profitable Projects In Hollywood

As Hollywood inches toward giving minority communities a voice and a more representative onscreen presence, The Disability List, announced last month at the 40th Annual Media Access Awards, has shown Hollywood the reasons why diving in is preferable to tiptoeing. The newly curated list of promising unproduced scripts, created by The Black List in partnership with the Media Access Awards, Easterseals, and the Writers Guild of America Writers with Disabilities Committee, acknowledges the largest minority community in the United States and showcases the fact that strong screenplays include characters who have disabilities. Producer Deborah Calla and writer producer Allen Rucker, both members of WGA Writers with Disabilities Committee, serve as co CEOs of the Media Access Awards, founded by Norman Lear, Fern Field, and Norman G. Brooks in the late 1970s to advance the portrayal and employment of people with disabilities. Calla notes that this collaborative effort is focused on accessibility and normalizing the experience of disability, shining a light on the fact that the disabled community has lacked accurate onscreen representation. To date, the disparity between real life and big screen is calculable and the forces behind The Disability List hope to narrow the gap. According to the CDC, one in four adults in the United States, 26% of the population, have a disability. Less than 3% of onscreen roles depict them. And inclusion in the writers room and beyond are equally as rare. In many ways, The Disability List, like the Media Access Awards is about educating the industry as much as educating the public. Having a writer with a disability in the writers’ room “brings a uniqueness that is missing in storytelling,” says Calla who also notes the specificity that that writer is able to address with respect to characters who share similar experiences. Says film executive and The Black List founder Franklin Leonard, “The goal here is to raise the visibility of these scripts and sort of free ride the reputation that The Blacklist has created for identifying great quality material, so that everyone says, Wait a minute, heres a list that The Blacklist is vouching for, we should probably read those scripts. So the hope is that a bunch more people read the work thats on them and if one of those, or many of those people that read it say, ‘Hey, I love this. Id love to find a way to get it made,’ it sort of shifts the demand curve for the supply of material that has gone overlooked for reasons having nothing to do with its actual value. In order to be considered for inclusion on the prestigious list of ten scripts, each script required at least one prominent character with a disability. Scripts did not have to focus on disability, merely character representation. Writer Katherine Beattie’s selected manuscript Unstable focuses on the life of a woman with cerebral palsy. The logline : “For a young woman with Cerebral Palsy, being disabled isn’t a problem it’s her family that’s the challenge. ”Beattie’s semi autobiographical script features a main character who, like her, has cerebral palsy. “Its meant to be like any other comedy except, you know, the main character is disabled and theres a lot of humor that comes from that. ”A writer for NCIS: New Orleans, Beattie notes that while the scripts acknowledging disability have always been out there, they have also been overlooked. “Nobody has been able to find them because theyre not looking. Because up until very recently, Hollywood has been like, Well, why would we want to tell that story? Thats sad. Thats not going to make us any money. And what having an organization like The Black List, and the Media Access Awards vouch for these scripts says to Hollywood is that, No, these arent sad. These are good scripts and its just a natural part of the human experience that we dont often get to see. ’”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nancyberk/2019/12/16/the-disability-list-aims-to-change-perceptions-and-create-profitable-projects-in-hollywood/?sh=34d36c5cefa7

Divergent Diversity: Why Has LGBTQ+ Achieved Such Progress And Disability Hasn’t?

In the last decade, we have seen 28 countries worldwide pass same sex marriage laws from Portugal, Iceland and Argentina in 2010, to Austria, Costa Rica and Taiwan in 2019. There has been a raft of other pieces of right based legislation passed into law, from adoption rights to outlawing hate speech and hate crimes. In the last decade we have witnessed legislative progress on disability rights too. The most significant is the 2011 new Americans with Disabilities Act mandating increased accessibility requirements for recreational facilities as well as standards of service provision. In the US, about 15 million Americans identify as LGBTQ+ whereas there are 40 million people living with a disability. In terms of volume, the bigger minority has made less progress. In the minds of many businesses and governments LGBTQ+ is not a cost line item, whereas they view disability as a significant budget commitment. However, legislation is only the start. It’s been the shift in cultural attitudes that has seen greater inclusion of LGBTQ+ people than ever before. And the lack of shift that has left many disabled people out in the cold. LGBTQ+ change has been cultural, disability legislativeHow do we witness cultural change? When Casey Stoney, the Captain of the England Women’s football team, came out as lesbian, it was a major milestone for straight people supporting a gay role model. When Ireland voted by a huge majority to legalise same sex marriage, it was the first country in the world to do so by a referendum. When Prince William appeared on the front cover of gay magazine, Attitude, stating that no one should be bullied because of their sexuality, it was another landmark moment. In Pete Buttigieg we now have an openly gay man running to be American President. We haven’t yet seen such a cultural shift in attitudes towards disability. A lot of change surrounding disability has been resisted, rather than embraced, such as captioning requirements for broadcast video and, since 2014, internet based businesses also. It’s been the law, rather than culture that has led the way, for example the 2010 Rosas Law, which changed references in many US federal statutes that referred to mental retardation to make them refer, instead, to intellectual disability. Barack Obama renamed White Cane Safety Day as Blind Americans Equality Day. It was left to the UN and World Health Organisation to release a joint international statement “eliminating forced, coercive and otherwise involuntary sterilization”. Horns and halo effectThis divergence between culturally led LGBTQ+ advancement and legislatively driven disability stalling has partly become a self fulfilling prophecy. We can understand it in terms of the horns and halo effect. When we come to regard something as positive, we can see subsequent tropes in its image as positive – a halo effect. Conversely, when we remain fearful or ignorant of something, we can be subject to the horns effect. For example, the more LGBTQ+ inclusion becomes normalised the more straight people want to include. The longer disability appears segregated, the harder it remains for non disabled people to include. It was only in 2006 that countries started to adopt the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities . Whilst the CRPD has now been ratified by 163 countries, the cultural change is in many cases yet to start. Much of the disability legislation still focuses on fundamental basic rights. For example, the launch of the UN Global Initiative for Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies aims to allow everyone to simply communicate with each other.  Many of the LGBT rights passed such as permitting the celebration of civil partnerships in religious buildings in the UK are great but these buildings often remain physically inaccessible for disabled people, essentially leaving the door shut to some while opening it for others. One of the more recent high profile disability issues to hit the US media has been emotional support pets on flights. For many, this just fuels the horns effect.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sfrost/2019/12/17/divergent-diversity-why-has-lgbtq-achieved-such-progress-and-disability-hasnt/?sh=6a36d123fb43

Disability History: Fundraising Special

Nadina LaSpina is a well known activist in the disability rights movement who has been arrested countless times for civil disobedience. She’s been in the streets with Disabled In Action, ADAPT, The Disability Caucus, and other groups. After teaching Italian for many years, Nadina LaSpina created and taught courses in Disability Studies at The New School. She lives in New York City. Her book, Such a Pretty Girl: A Story of Struggle, Empowerment. and Disability Pride has been reviewed prominently and she was featured this week in appearances at . Jean Stewart became disabled in 1978 following pesticide exposure. This launched a life of disability rights activism and midwife her novel, The Body’s Memory, from St. Martin’s Press. Her stories, poems, and essays have appeared in many anthologies including Staring Back: The Disability Experience from the Inside Out, from Penguin. Jean is also a naturalist with a degree in botany who currently devotes herself to environmental and climate change activism. She is a founding member of EEL, Electricity Equals Life, a disability group formed in response to PG&E’s power shutoffs. Her disability rights activism has taken her to Cuba, India, Brazil, and Mexico. We discuss Kim E. Nielsen’s book,A Disability History of the United States. the first analysis of disability throughout United States history. It covers the period prior to European arrival through the present. Dr. Nielsen is a Professor of Disability Studies, History, and Women’s & Gender Studies at the university of Toledo. Her scholarship centers on historical debates about who is fit to participate in civic life; using gender, disability, and changing notions of competency as her tools of analysis. Her other books include Beyond the Miracle Worker: The Remarkable Life of Anne Sullivan Macy and Her Extraordinary Friendship with Helen Keller ; Helen Keller: Selected Writings ; The Radical Lives of Helen Keller ; and Un American Womanhood: Anti Radicalism, Anti Feminism, and the First Red Scare Adrienne Lauby and Eddie Ytuarte are hosts at Pushing Limits and they co produced this program. Y

https://kpfa.org/episode/pushing-limits-fundraising-special-december-06-2019/

Let’s not be silent around disability. It’s an asset.

Having a disability is central to my identity it is both an attribute and an asset. I believe it makes me a more empathetic leader, a better listener, a natural collaborator, and I’m fortunate to have employers, and my team, see it the same. I’ve moved steadily up the ladder and held leadership positions at some of the most respected organizations in Chicago. My path is paved both by hard work, but also because of many mentors, colleagues, and employers who believed in my ability to lead teams, guide decisions, and make a positive impact both on the organization and the communities they served. I was good for their bottom lines. I may also be an exception, though not because I’m an exceptional person. Despite accounting for nearly a quarter of the city’s population, unemployment and poverty outcomes for people with disabilities track among the worst. Those rates are even more bleak for those who experience disability and are people of color. Diversity and inclusion strategies that are leveraged in the workplace should be no different when applied to disability. That’s because disability touches every community, every race and ethnicity, all genders, all sexualities. We are everywhere. We are everyone. But we don’t always reveal ourselves. In a study of disability and white collar jobs, Center for Talent Innovation found that only 3. 2 percent of employees self identify as having a disability to their employers, yet 30 percent of employees have a disability. This silent 27 percent does so out of fear of discrimination, misjudgment and stigma. The result? A real lack of representation and voice where we need it most: tables of influence and decision making. Today, I lead an organization that’s seeking to change the culture and narrative around disability. ADA 25 Advancing Leadership is connecting leaders with disabilities to those very tables of power. Our 140 Members sit on commissions and nonprofit boards, and they are leading in those spaces with their whole selves, which includes disability. Our paths are different, but they are impactful, and ultimately, they are creating a culture of inclusion. We need partners and allies in this work. We need employers from all sectors to create strategies that are inclusive of disability and that not just retain, but advance, talent. We need policy makers to include people with disabilities at the tables when they create and implement policies that impact all communities. We need leaders with disabilities pushing us forward. Most important, we need to make disability and our conversations around it, natural. Disability is not a pejorative, a bad word, or an unfortunate condition. It’s an aspect of life and a point of view that is powerful and deserves to be emboldened.

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/opinion/lets-not-be-silent-around-disability-its-asset

The US needs to lead again on disability rights

There are more than one billion disabled people worldwide. That’s about one in seven people and these numbers are only growing. People acquire disabilities through natural disasters, conflict, military service, age, climate change and disease .  In 2010, I was appointed as the State Department’s first special adviser on international disability rights. This was the natural progression of American leadership: the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act which will celebrate its 30th birthday next year has become a global gold standard, and served as the foundation for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities . However, the special adviser position has been vacant since January 2017, and the U. S. has been noticeably absent from international disability rights fora. American leadership on disability rights has eroded. There is still real political will within the State Department to promote the rights of disabled people, and highly capable staff to implement this vision, but the authority, access and respect garnered by a high level political appointee is the missing piece. The right leadership will elevate the Office of International Disability Rights; put a much needed disability lens on State’s everyday work; and give international disability rights its rightful place in leadership conversations on funding, resources and inclusion.  There are ambassadors at large and special envoys for other critical issues and groups, including the Office of Global Women’s Issues; Trafficking in Persons; Monitoring and Preventing Anti Semitism; and International Religious Freedom. Yet, because the special adviser position remains empty, there is currently no political appointee dedicated to the rights of disabled people, which at 15 percent of the global population is one of the largest minority groups in the world.  Beyond the sheer size of the disabled population, international disability rights is simply good policy. Disability rights are human rights, and the core of State’s mission is to advance the human rights of all people worldwide. The political participation and leadership of disabled people, including those who belong to other underrepresented groups such as women, young people and internally displaced people, is crucial to resolving conflict and sustaining peaceful and prosperous democracies. In short, the U. S. needs to be doing more not less on disability rights.  Fortunately, Congress is taking action. Both the House and Senate are introducing versions of the Office of International Disability Rights Act, which would codify the Office of International Disability Rights at the U. S. State Department ; mandate a high level political appointee to lead the office; and require a State wide disability policy something the agency currently lacks. H. R. 3373, the bipartisan House side version of the act, already has 25 co sponsors.  This bill is critical. In government, titles do matter, granting access and sparking responsiveness both within State and abroad. With the authority granted to me as the special adviser, my team and I improved inclusion agency wide and helped raise the visibility of and respect for disabled people. For example, after the establishment of a politically appointed disability position, U. S. embassies all over the world began to substantively engage with the disability community. The perspective and information provided by disabled persons organizations provided a critical, previously unheard perspective, resulting in strengthened annual country reports on human rights and trafficking in persons.  Furthermore, before the creation of the international disability rights team, there was not a single disabled person participating in the Young African Leaders Initiative . By 2017, there were 65 disabled YALIs. This leap was only possible because I, as the special adviser, happened to be in the right meeting at the right time. How many opportunities is State currently missing, every day, to advance the human rights of disabled people, simply because there are no disability rights staff with access to the high level conversations where critical decisions are being made?

https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/473438-the-us-needs-to-lead-again-on-disability-rights/

International Day Of Persons With Disabilities – Disability Inclusion Is Long Overdue

Over the last decade progress on gender and sexual orientation in the Western world has been palpable, yet not on disability. In Ireland, gay marriage has been sanctioned by a popular vote, something unimaginable even ten years prior. In the UK, gender pay gap reporting is now mandatory for all large companies. Yet when it comes to disability, we have not seen comparable progress. Why?Who you know mattersOne of the reasons lies in what academics refer to as “inter group contact theory”. In other words, meeting people outside one’s usual circle of friends and associates. One of the main reasons for gender being taken ever more seriously in Western corporations is the undeniable fact that women are half the population and the most vocal “minority”. Female pressure from customers, shareholders, politicians and employees has moved this up the agenda. One of the main reasons for LGBTQ+ issues being taken ever more seriously is the fact that most straight people now know someone who is LGBTQ+. It could be a family member, colleague or friend. This decreases the fear of difference, because it becomes more known, more real, even more friendly. In Ireland, it was young LGBTQ+ people persuading their grandparents to advocate for equality online that was a key factor in the successful gay marriage campaign. Disability inclusion requires more contact between disabled and non disabled people. One of the best examples of this happening en masse is the Paralympic Games. In Beijing, prior to 2008, disabled people were virtually invisible. As a direct consequence of the Games coming to town, the city bulldozed thousands of drop curbs to make sidewalks easier to navigate and made a large part of the city’s transit system accessible. This contributed to more interaction between disabled and non disabled residents. OtheringThis increased familiarity with “minorities” can decrease the “othering” they experience. But while many straight people now know LGBTQ+ people and increasing numbers of men have female professional equals at work, the same cannot be said for disabled people. Take Brooke Ellison, for example. She is the first quadriplegic person to graduate from Harvard and now a leading professor in her field. While a student, she recalls a class when the women in the class, fed up with male dominated conversation, self organized. They corresponded by email and then at the start of the class took over the stage to change the course of the conversation. Except that Brooke was not included on the emails and could not have mounted the steps to the stage in any case. Did the female classmates not see one of their own? Familiarity is one of the best ways to deal with othering. Given that over 80 million Americans have a disability there is a large group of people for the remaining 247 million to get to know. Someone in the family has a mental health condition, there will be a colleague with a hidden disability, there is a need for all of us to become allies. Overcoming barriersIn terms of physical barriers, the majority of offices and workplaces are still not accessible. Public transport is another key barrier, and even new technology is not inclusive. Cities like Beijing, London and now Tokyo have made great strides in this area but many more cities could follow suit. In terms of non physical barriers, there is still much stigma around mental health, lack of knowledge of even basic terminology or how to flex work environments to accommodate different needs. Organisations like the City Mental Health Alliance in London are raising this up the agenda and global organizations such as KPMG and EY have publicly supported partners that have disclosed mental health conditions, acting as role models for others in their firms.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sfrost/2019/12/03/international-day-of-persons-with-disabilities--disability-inclusion-is-long-overdue/?sh=150472f82f0d

Disabled workers paid 12% less, 'damning' UK official figures show

Charities say negative attitudes and lack of understanding of disability hold people backDisabled people continue to face prejudice in the workplace campaigners have said, after latest government figures showed they were paid on average 12. 2% less than those without impairments, equivalent to £1. 48 an hour. According to Office for National Statistics data, the median pay for disabled employees in 2018 was £10. 63 an hour, compared with £12. 11 an hour for their non disabled counterparts. The disability pay gap was widest for people classified as having a mental impairment – defined by the ONS as depression and anxiety, mental illness, nervous disorder, epilepsy or learning disability – who earned an average of £9. 82 a hour. People with a physical impairment faced a pay gap of 9. 7% while those with other impairments – defined as including cancer, HIV and multiple sclerosis – faced the narrowest gap, at 7. 4% . The highest pay gap was in London, where disabled employees were paid 15. 3% less than non disabled employees, while the narrowest was in Scotland, at 8. 3%. James Taylor, head of policy and public affairs at the disability equality charity Scope, said: “The disability pay gap is a damning symptom of disabled people being hindered in the world of work. “Plenty of things stack up against disabled people to prevent them from getting into, staying in and progressing in employment. Sometimes it’s negative attitudes and assumptions, or a lack of reasonable adjustments that hold disabled people back. Sometimes it’s a simple lack of understanding or knowhow from employers. Although the pay gap has remained more or less unchanged since 2014, the ONS statistics found that the disability employment gap has shrunk slightly since 2013. In 2018, 50. 9% of working age disabled people were in employment, compared with 80. 7% of non disabled people, a gap of 29. 8 percentage points compared with 34. 2 points in 2013. The Conservative government promised in 2016 to halve the employment gap by helping an extra 1 million disabled people into work, although the party’s 2019 election manifesto downgrades this by committing them merely to “reduce” the disability employment gap. Jill Miller of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development said: “Too many disabled people continue to face prejudice and struggle to get into employment or to remain in work, and are less likely to progress to senior management roles or to work in professional occupations. “Businesses that aren’t inclusive – and don’t manage health and disability effectively – risk missing out on hard working and talented individuals, and damaging their reputation among staff and customers. They could also face legal action if they fail to comply with equalities law. ”The study found almost one in five of Britons between 16 and 64 had a disability last year, with the proportion rising from 11. 9% among the youngest age group, to 31. 4% among those aged 60 64.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/dec/02/disabled-workers-paid-12-less-damning-uk-official-figures-show

‘Green Book’ director Farrelly, brother get disability award

Green Book director Peter Farrelly and his filmmaker brother, Bobby Farrelly, are being recognized for pressing Hollywood to do a better job of casting and portraying people with disabilities In Peter Farrellys 2018 Oscar winning film, “Green Book,” chauffeur Tony Lip quips: “The worlds full of lonely people afraid to make the first move. ”Neither Farrelly nor his brother, Bobby Farrelly, the director of 1998’s “There’s Something About Mary,” fits that description. Both are being recognized for pressing Hollywood repeatedly and publicly to do a better job of casting and portraying people with disabilities. The Boston based Ruderman Family Foundation, a leading voice in calling for more opportunities for the disabled, said Wednesday the brothers are the recipients of its sixth annual Morton E. Ruderman Award in Inclusion. The foundation told The Associated Press it picked the Farrellys for their outspoken efforts to make movies more inclusive and authentic. They’ll be presented with the award next spring. “When you tell a story, you want it to take place in a real world and it’s not a real world if they don’t include everybody,” said Peter Farrelly, who co wrote and directed “Green Book,” which won Oscars for best picture and best original screenplay. Bobby Farrelly recalled how the brothers played with children with disabilities in the neighborhood where they grew up in Cumberland, Rhode Island, just over the border from Massachusetts. “They made us laugh. They were our friends,” he said in a videotaped message. “And so when we started making movies, we thought, why wouldn’t we include people with disabilities in the movies in the stories that we tell because they are a part of our life. ”The brothers have collaborated on other hit films including “Dumb and Dumber,” “Me, Myself & Irene” and “The Heartbreak Kid. ”Ruderman says its research shows that only 5% of the characters on top TV shows are played by actors with disabilities. In reality, Peter Farrelly says, 20% of the U. S. population has some kind of disability. It says Hollywood, meanwhile, frequently depicts people with disabilities in a way that “perpetuates misconceptions and stereotypes. ” The foundation works for more inclusion and opportunities for the disabled. Previous recipients of its award include Olympic swimming champion Michael Phelps, Oscar winning actress Marlee Matlin and former Democratic U. S. Sen. Tom Harkin, of Iowa, a driving force behind the Americans with Disabilities Act. “Despite its immense potential for leadership in inclusion, social justice and civil rights, Hollywood has for far too long left disability out of the conversation about diversity. But changemakers like the Farrelly brothers are indispensable players in efforts to shift the conversation,” foundation president Jay Ruderman said. Actor Dwayne The Rock Johnson, who has worked closely with the foundation, also has been calling for Hollywood to cast more actors with disabilities. This story has been updated to correct that Dwayne Johnson has worked closely with the foundation, but not a member of the foundations board.

https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/green-book-director-farrelly-brother-disability-award-67488602

Biderman: Learning not to hide a disability was the best lesson of all

My hearing loss had been a millstone that I carried alone. Once technology allowed me to hear more, I could share my burden. There is a hard lesson I have learned: trying to hide a disability comes with a painfully high cost. I grew up with a serious hearing loss, bluffing and pretending to hear. Then, as now, there was a stigma attached to my deafness: it implied that you were not too bright, doddering if aged, not worth talking to, someone to avoid. Because it is an invisible disability, those with a hearing loss often try to hide it. But my lesson applies to those with more visible disabilities as well. After I started wearing a hearing aid at the age of 11, I self consciously hid it under long thick hair. I did not discuss my disability; I did not ask for accommodations, even when I went to York University in Toronto, for there were none. I did not advocate on my own behalf and didn’t even know how to. Instead, I kept my head down. I over compensated. I faked it. This all changed when I learned to hear with cochlear implants, surgically implanted devices that stimulate my hearing nerves directly. It was then that I slowly became aware of the cost of trying to hide my disability. People were interested in my new bionic hearing in a way that they had never been interested in my boring old hearing aids. Colleagues at work wondered what kind of digital processing chip my device had. “Is it a pentium chip?” one asked. Instead of something to hide and be ashamed of, my hearing loss and my admittedly imperfect – but improving – ability to understand speech, birdsong, even symphonies with my new technology became a point of pride. In the early days after receiving my implants, I was constantly recruiting hearing people to help explain the strange noises I heard with my cochlear implants. The buzzing noise I heard at work? The fluorescent lights. The whooshing sound outside? The wind in the trees. Whereas my hearing loss had been a disability that I carried on my own shoulders, alone, ironically once I could hear more, I could share its burden. Friends, family and acquaintances were willing to share the load; they were curious about this loss, this technology, this ability to hear with mere electrodes zapping the nerves of my inner ear. They were prepared to help me interpret the strange sounds I heard, prepared to believe that someone deaf was worth talking to. I used to pretend that I could hear, smiling at jokes for which I did not catch the punch line – because to stop the conversation and say, “pardon,” aside from ruining a good joke, was often of no avail because I would still not understand. And then, I would feel guilty at the wasted good will of the person patiently repeating what was said. I hid my disability rather than shared it. But now, with my new bionic hearing, I had a fighting chance! I could ask for a repeat and hear it. And the repeats were not needed as often. I have so much more sound information to work with than I had when I used my old hearing aids. Now, there is no need to fake it because I am open about my hearing loss . I am unashamed. Ironically, when my hearing improved, I understood better how to live with a disability. I understood that there is no need to hide it for it was the hiding of my disability and not my disability itself that made me appear foolish and not too bright. The cost of not advocating for my needs and trying to hide my disability had been my authenticity. Where previously I had been bluffing, inauthentic and closeted, now I have come out of the closet of deafness and become more authentic. I have slowly learned to ask for the accommodations that I need. This is part of the lesson that all persons with a disability, young and old, with visible and invisible disabilities, need to learn. No matter what the disability or it’s extent, it is neither something to hide, nor yours alone to bear.

https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/biderman-learning-not-to-hide-a-disability-was-the-best-lesson-of-all

Mindset Matters: How The Image of Disability Impacts The Corporate Bottom Line

Part One: Setting The Groundwork Mindset Matters is going to use the next several columns to take a deep dive into the world of image and perception and how that directly effects business and the overall culture. There is a direct correlation to the value proposition and economic realities of persons with disabilities based on how they are perceived across the mainstream culture. The upcoming columns will focus on industries like film, television, advertising and fashion where it is not only image that drives perception but shapes our cultural understanding of what is considered acceptable. In developing that general acceptance these industries are becoming the driving force in setting trends and becoming the taste makers for the society at large. This is why over the year’s artists, innovators and entrepreneurs have pushed so hard to have a voice and cultivate an image of disability within these spheres of influence to educate and broaden a cultural awareness of the disability community as a critical demographic. It is important to reiterate that in setting the groundwork for understanding the power of perception business must play an essential role in this process. We are at a tipping point in our society where the disability community can no longer be ignored. Just by the shear numbers any business who excludes those with disabilities are failing their organization both internally and externally. In the United States alone, there are 61 million people with disabilities making up over 20% of the population and this does not include the impact on family and friends. For companies that rely on a business to consumer model it is essential that they begin to explore their business strategy through a disability lens or pay the consequences of loosing a potential competitive advantage. Corporations need to cultivate a new strategy towards integrating disability into the mainstream culture and enlightening businesses on the true value of this community long term. Creating a foundation of meaning making within the larger cultural framework is essential. This is where public relations, advertising and communication firms play a critical role in shaping perception and defining the image of disability across a range of social milieus opening up new categories to the larger culture. A prime example of how communication firms are establishing the framework for culture change is the Valuable 500 “Diversish” campaign developed by Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO. This campaign has served as a seminal moment in the intersection between disability, business and how that is shaping corporate leaders’ perception towards accountability and inclusion. The “Diversish” campaign was unveiled at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Summit in Davos, Switzerland.  This had been the first time where disability took such a prominent role by being discussed on the main stage of the event. Using satire as backdrop Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO where able to poke fun at businesses that call themselves diverse but, either ignore, overlook or defer anything related to disability. The “Diversish” campaign offers a mockumentary style approach to show the often absurdity of corporation’s inability to not only see disability as an essential cornerstone of any diversity strategy, but through the power of the moving image helps redefine the judgement of disability. Society needs public relations, advertising and communication firms to be the spark plug in helping to reframe peoples understanding of disability by stabilizing the narrative and aligning the disability experience not as an outsider but rather allying with brands that are familiar to a larger swath of society. By doing this a new tone can be set where the very notion of disability is treated as something that has inherent value and is important to both the business and consumer. It also displays that the disability community can and is actively participating in the culture at large.  This framework helps to define a new reality where the perception of disability is being transformed and the power of numerous media platforms offer the next wave of communication.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathankaufman/2019/11/18/mindset-matters--how-the-image-of-disability-impacts-the-corporate-bottom-line/?sh=5c349e716c65

Literature as a mirror: Representing disability in fiction

The stories that we hear shape how we see the world. Since childhood, we have looked to literature as a source of identification. We associate ourselves with characters that we read about, and these associations shape our assumptions and beliefs about ourselves.  In an ideal world, literature would accurately reflect the demographics of our society.  However, as most of us have probably recognized, this is not the case. The majority of literary figures are white, cisgendered, straight, often male and of able body and mind. This leaves many demographics of people underrepresented in the literature they read, which has insidious and often overlooked effects on their view of themselves and their place in the world.  One of the most vastly underrepresented groups are those with disabilities. Over 56 million Americans are living with a disability representing nearly 19 percent of the civilian population.  However, this population is rarely ever portrayed in literature. And when they are, the narrative surrounding them is often harmful.  Disability activist and author Kenny Fries has created a set of questions to test the representation of disability in literature. The Fries test asks, Does a work have more than one disabled character? Do the disabled characters have their own narrative purpose other than the education and profit of a nondisabled character? Is the characters disability not eradicated either by curing or killing? It seems we should be able to name thousands of works that pass the Fries test due to the prevalence of disability in America. However, when novelist Nicola Griffiths compiled a list of all of the books that pass the Fries test, she found a total of only 67 books.  Author Marianne Ryan, who has a disability, writes that when people with disabilities are represented in literature they, more often than not, “serve as merely the means to an end, a perpetuation of ableist thinking that construes and objectifies people with deformity or disability as inherently pitiable, powerless, defeated. ” One popular example of this harmful narrative is the book “Me Before You,” which was later turned into a popular movie. It follows the life of Louisa Clark, who is tasked with caring for a quadripeligic man, Will Traynor.  Throughout the novel, the two slowly develop a romantic relationship. Will, however, cannot bear to live as a quadripeligic and seeks out assisted suicide, leaving Louisa a sizeable inheritance. This narrative presents disability as something irreconcilable with happiness, and treats the death of a main character as a cathartic ending.  “Searching the cultural landscape for references and role models, it’s not easy to find many women simply living their lives while disabled,” Ryan states.  This is the complicated truth of disability representation in literature. People with disabilities are either completely erased from the narrative, or they are seen exclusively as something to be cured and pitied.  Disability activists such as Ryan and Fries are fighting for the normalization of disability a literary character with a disability should also be able to have a rich personal and public life, and not be solely defined by their disability.  Ryan goes on to describe the unique challenges facing the representation of women with disabilities, people of color and queer people. She quotes Griffiths, stating, “You only seem to be allowed one degree from the norm. If the norm is straight white rich boys, then you can be a woman, you can be queer, you can be crippled, but you can’t be all those things. ” Representation is incredibly important for people who are outside the norm because it allows them to create an identity for themselves in an environment that so often ignores their existence. When it comes to disability representation in literature, it is clear that we need to redefine that norm.

https://www.dailycardinal.com/article/2019/11/literature-as-a-mirror-representing-disability-in-fiction

Fluidity in disability: Exploring the spectrum of language, identity

If language is an expression of identity, why does it often favor able bodied folx? When it comes to disabilities, mental health or chronic illnesses, a label is prescribed to the individual whether they control it or not. While some can open doors to support and treatment, others can confine people into boxes built on ableist assumptions.  This language, in turn, can force people with disabilities to be isolated to society’s view of themselves and limits the words they use to describe their experiences.  Words have the ability to oppress or empower individuals what we don’t realize is how our language can be extremely harmful and perpetuate binaries. Therefore, through this ableist lens, “normal” is valued, while difference in experience is “othered. ”Society has become increasingly aware of racist, sexist, homophobic language, but ablesist language is too often disregarded.  Many times, people are uncomfortable with disabilities, and the words ascribed to folx with disabilities allows those people to be more comfortable with their own experiences  not allowing the person with a disability to have ownership over their body. Half of the slurs and insults used against others are deeply rooted in casual ableism mocking people with disabilities or mental illness. It may not be an active intention to target people with mental illnesses, but by creating these negative connotations it has already assigned a certain meaning. “If a culture’s language is full of pejorative metaphors about a group of people, that culture is not going to see those people as fully entitled to the same housing, employment, medical care, education access and inclusion as people in a more favored group,” said Rachel Cohen Rottenberg, a disability rights activist. By using language that harms people with disabilities, it “others” the experiences that most people face throughout their lifetime, including interactions with healthcare professionals and interviews for jobs. This affects how people interact with one another, how teachers educate their students and how legislation is written.  Often, people in positions of power use microaggressive language that can belittle a person with disabilities. But these small moments of oppression add up and inflict how able bodied folx view people with disabilities   and how they look at themselves.  The language of ableism contributes to the idea that the dehumanization of people with disabilities is culturally acceptable. When it comes to disability, there are certain diagnoses widely recognized and considered acceptable by society. If it is invisible or non apparent generally, chronic pain, illnesses and mental health it is excluded from the conversation. Invisible disabilities are not given the recognition or support they need, further stigmatizing mental health and chronic diseases. There are some people who have a chronic illness but choose to not consider it a disability since the definition of disability does not fully cover their experience.  According to the Social Security Administration, disability is defined as the “inability to engage in any substantial gainful activity by reason of any medically determinable physical or mental impairment which can be expected to result in death or which has lasted or expected to last for a continuous period of not less than 12 months. ”One of the biggest problems to recognizing chronic illness as a disability is being seen as something static or unchanging. Those living with chronic illness know it is not static it can inhibit work or performing daily tasks but it is not predictable. The ever changing form of disability poses problems within the system, limiting who is able to receive benefits and who isn’t.  Disability comes with a range of labels and identities, serving as an umbrella term. Labelling can be helpful to provide access to support but it can also be a crude way of grouping people together to separate from abled bodied people confining them as “othered. ”

https://www.dailycardinal.com/article/2019/11/language-of-disability-ed-board

Castro unveils sweeping disability plan

Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro on Wednesday issued a comprehensive disability plan that his campaign called “the most ambitious and intersectional agenda this cycle” to advance disabled people’s rights and opportunities. The plan would make major investments in special education and infrastructure to ensure schools are compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act It would also expand affordable housing to ensure access for disabled people, adding at least 450,000 accessible units, and developing disability inclusive natural disaster evacuation plans. The plan also includes a section on “Dignity for People with Disabilities,” calling for an end to institutionalization and defending the landmark Olmstead v. L. C. decision, which held that mentally disabled people have the right to live in communities rather than institutions if professionals determine it to be appropriate. Castro’s plan calls for ratifying the U. N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and convening a global summit with other heads of state to address disabled rights. The plan calls to do away with the Social Security Disability Insurance “benefit cliff” that prevents disabled people from earning an income and to scrap the Trump administration’s expansion of the “public charge” rule expanding the types of public aid immigrants can be denied a green card for receiving, which advocates have said will particularly harm disabled people. “There should be no second class citizens in America. I’m fighting for a future where everyone counts, including people with disabilities,” Castro said in a statement. “ But progress doesn’t happen by accident. We have to be intentional with our policies so that everybody has the ability to prosper. That’s what this People First Disability Plan is all about connecting the dots between different issues to lift up people that have been left out,” he added. “There are no highly paid lobbyists walking the halls of congress advocating for the poorest disabled Americans to have a better life, and we don’t have deep pockets for campaign contributions. Which makes what Julián Castro has done all the more remarkable,” Matthew Cortland, a disabled disability rights lawyer based in Massachusetts, told The Hill. “Secretary Castro has proposed raising the maximum benefit a disabled SSI recipient can possibly get from just 74% of the federal poverty level to at least 100% of the federal poverty level, ending the Social Security Administration’s hostile approach towards disabled people, and tearing down the barriers in the SSI program that prevent disabled Americans, including me, from marrying,” Cortland added. The Hill has removed its comment section, as there are many other forums for readers to participate in the conversation.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/470192-castro-unveils-sweeping-disability-plan/

Ensuring racial equality – from classrooms to workplaces – depends on federal regulations Trump could roll back

The Trump administration is considering eliminating one of the federal government’s most basic tools for preventing racial discrimination.When the government runs or funds programs, those programs are obligated to ensure that everyone gets equal access and treatment. This duty comes from something called “disparate impact regulations.” These regulations require the programs to pay careful attention to whether their policies cause racial disparities.From my perspective as a scholar of discrimination law, abandoning these regulations would be a major departure from the federal government’s mission since the 1960s of ensuring racial equality. In the 1950s and 60s, civil rights advocates challenged racial segregation and inequality in every facet of public life – from schools, buses and bathrooms to employment, housing and restaurants. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to stamp out as much of that discrimination as possible, prohibiting discrimination in all those areas and more. But Congress went beyond just prohibiting “discrimination.” It recognized that prohibiting policies with obvious or explicit intent to discriminate was not enough to ensure equality. Following Congress’s lead, the Department of Justice concluded in a 1966 report that policies that impact one racial group more than another should also be prohibited. Numerous other agencies agreed and put in place what we now call “disparate impact regulations.”The fact that some policy or practice disproportionately affects a racial group does not alone violate the regulations. The disparity, if serious enough, simply triggers further investigation by a federal agency. That investigation involves two key additional questions. First, does the program have a good reason, or “legitimate justification,” for the policy that is causing the racial disparities? If not, the agency can block the policy because the disparities are unjustified. But if the program has a good reason, which it often does, the second question is: Can an alternative policy achieve the program’s goals without producing egregious racial disparities? If so, the program should pursue the less discriminatory alternative because the disparities are clearly unnecessary. Today, discrimination and inequality continue largely due to subconscious racial biases. These biases are rampant and affect everything from who gets a job to who gets suspended from school. These regulations alleviate the need to dig into individuals’ minds and search for very difficult to prove racial motives. These regulations, like in decades past, further racial equality by asking that officials justify disparities and pursue alternative policies when possible. For instance, a 2014 report from the U.S. Department of Education found that schools were suspending and expelling African-Americans more than three times as often as white students. Most of the time it was for minor misbehavior. While racial bias often plays a role in these disparities, federal agencies focused on the negative long-term consequences of school exclusion – consequences that are unnecessary. The Department of Education asked districts, when possible, to pursue alternatives that would bring down disparities and still maintain school order. This could include programs that prevent misbehavior before it occurs – like student behavioral supports and staff training. Schools that implemented those alternatives saw misbehavior and school exclusion drop, and saw academic achievement increase. Agencies’ ability to push this change rested solely on the power given to them by disparate impact regulations.

https://theconversation.com/ensuring-racial-equality-from-classrooms-to-workplaces-depends-on-federal-regulations-trump-could-roll-back-110868

The US adoption system discriminates against darker-skinned children

When it comes to adoption, Americans might assume that each child is treated equally. But research shows that darker-skinned children are repeatedly discriminated against, both by potential adoptive parents and the social workers who are charged with protecting their well-being. Social workers are often called upon to assess a newborn’s skin color, because skin color influences potential for placement. As a 2013 NPR investigation found, dark-skinned black children cost less to adopt than light-skinned white children, as they are often ranked by social workers and the public as less preferred. According to Washington University law school professor Kimberly Jade Norwood, “In the adoption market, race and color combine to create another preference hierarchy: white children are preferred over nonwhite. When African-American children are considered, the data suggest there is a preference for light skin and biracial children over dark-skinned children.” As a social worker with an interest in the social effects of skin color, I believe that the social work profession must be held accountable for its discriminatory practices. Regardless of race, adopting parents prefer to adopt a light-skinned child. A 1999 study at the Institute of Black Parenting, a Los Angeles adoption agency, showed that as many as 40 percent of the African-American couples expressed a preference for a light-skinned or mixed-race child, regardless of their own complexion. Children who are white are slightly more likely to be adopted out of foster care. Of the more than 400,000 children in foster care awaiting adoption in 2017, about 44 percent were white, while the majority were children of color. However, of those who were adopted with public agency involvement, 49 percent were white. According to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 2004 data shows that children with lighter skin were adopted more quickly out of foster care. While white children waited 23.5 months on average, black children waited 39.4. In preparing a paper on this subject in 2017, I found a 1999 report from the American Civil Liberties Union which conducted a court-authorized review of 50 adoption case files in New York City. They concluded that the practices of social workers favored children with more Caucasian features. When social workers were asked about this, they contended that it was to insulate dark-skinned children from rejection. Research suggests that the skin color issue continues to be a problem across the U.S. A study similar to that of the ACLU’s was conducted in 2010 in the state of Michigan. This study looked at 1,183 adoptive Michigan families who adopted children from 2007 to 2009, through both public and private adoption agencies. According to the findings, 42 percent of adoptive parents’ most recently adopted children were “very fair or somewhat fair” in skin color, while 31 percent were “somewhat dark or very dark.”Finally, research shows that it costs more to adopt a white child in the U.S. than it does to adopt a black child. According to the NPR investigation, it costs about US$35,000 to adopt a white child, absent legal fees. Meanwhile, a black child cost $18,000. These prices, which are set internally at adoption agencies based on a number of factors, suggest that white children have a higher market value in the adoption marketplace and are more highly sought after by adoptive parents. The evidence suggests that social workers do discriminate based on skin color. What’s more, private agencies that do not employ social workers no less enable skin color discrimination by referring to adoptees’ skin color.

https://theconversation.com/the-us-adoption-system-discriminates-against-darker-skinned-children-110976

Emotion-reading tech fails the racial bias test

Facial recognition technology has progressed to point where it now interprets emotions in facial expressions. This type of analysis is increasingly used in daily life. For example, companies can use facial recognition software to help with hiring decisions. Other programs scan the faces in crowds to identify threats to public safety. Unfortunately, this technology struggles to interpret the emotions of black faces. My new study, published last month, shows that emotional analysis technology assigns more negative emotions to black men’s faces than white men’s faces. This isn’t the first time that facial recognition programs have been shown to be biased. Google labeled black faces as gorillas. Cameras identified Asian faces as blinking. Facial recognition programs struggled to correctly identify gender for people with darker skin. My work contributes to a growing call to better understand the hidden bias in artificial intelligence software. To examine the bias in the facial recognition systems that analyze people’s emotions, I used a data set of 400 NBA player photos from the 2016 to 2017 season, because players are similar in their clothing, athleticism, age and gender. Also, since these are professional portraits, the players look at the camera in the picture. I ran the images through two well-known types of emotional recognition software. Both assigned black players more negative emotional scores on average, no matter how much they smiled. For example, consider the official NBA pictures of Darren Collison and Gordon Hayward. Both players are smiling, and, according to the facial recognition and analysis program Face++, Darren Collison and Gordon Hayward have similar smile scores – 48.7 and 48.1 out of 100, respectively. However, Face++ rates Hayward’s expression as 59.7 percent happy and 0.13 percent angry and Collison’s expression as 39.2 percent happy and 27 percent angry. Collison is viewed as nearly as angry as he is happy and far angrier than Hayward – despite the facial recognition program itself recognizing that both players are smiling. In contrast, Microsoft’s Face API viewed both men as happy. Still, Collison is viewed as less happy than Hayward, with 98 and 93 percent happiness scores, respectively. Despite his smile, Collison is even scored with a small amount of contempt, whereas Hayward has none. Across all the NBA pictures, the same pattern emerges. On average, Face++ rates black faces as twice as angry as white faces. Face API scores black faces as three times more contemptuous than white faces. After matching players based on their smiles, both facial analysis programs are still more likely to assign the negative emotions of anger or contempt to black faces. My study shows that facial recognition programs exhibit two distinct types of bias. First, black faces were consistently scored as angrier than white faces for every smile. Face++ showed this type of bias. Second, black faces were always scored as angrier if there was any ambiguity about their facial expression. Face API displayed this type of disparity. Even if black faces are partially smiling, my analysis showed that the systems assumed more negative emotions as compared to their white counterparts with similar expressions. The average emotional scores were much closer across races, but there were still noticeable differences for black and white faces. This observation aligns with other research, which suggests that black professionals must amplify positive emotions to receive parity in their workplace performance evaluations. Studies show that people perceive black men as more physically threatening than white men, even when they are the same size.

https://theconversation.com/emotion-reading-tech-fails-the-racial-bias-test-108404

Clemency for Cyntoia Brown was long overdue

Cyntoia Brown will be released from prison in August — a surprising and welcome development in the case of a teenager who was convicted of killing a man when she was just 16 and forced into sex work.In announcing his decision to grant clemency in the high-profile case, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam said a recent ruling by the state’s Supreme Court that Brown must serve 51 years in prison before being eligible for parole was “too harsh, especially in light of the extraordinary steps Ms. Brown has taken to rebuild her life.”News stories and social media have widely reported and shared Brown’s plight. Many compared her harsh sentence to lesser ones for white juveniles since the state of Tennessee first tried her case more than 10 years ago. In 2004, Johnny Allen, 43, solicited sex in exchange for money from Brown, who was 16 at the time. Brown argued that she feared for her life and thought Allen was going to shoot her, so she shot and killed him in self defense, according to court records. Despite these details, the state of Tennessee still tried her as an adult and convicted her of first-degree murder. There was so much wrong about this story, which underlies the treatment of young, poor girls and women living in unstable situations. Many of these youth are regularly exposed to drugs, violence and multiple forms of trauma. A 2011 PBS documentary about Brown’s life and trial revealed the challenges Brown faced in her young life. The documentary showed Brown, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, hair pulled into ponytails, waiting to hear from a judge to see if she would be tried as a juvenile or adult. Her mother was raped at age 16 by an older man and she was given up for adoption. Her adoptive father routinely inflicted physical abuse on her. At 15, she ran away and met a 23-year-old drug dealer, “Kut Throat,” who raped her and forced her into sex work. After a disagreement with him, she left and went to a local burger place. That is where she met Allen, who asked if she was looking for “action” — meaning was she selling sex? After bartering, they agreed on $150 for the “exchange.” They went to his home, ate, had sex and remained in his bed. Allen boasted about being a former soldier and said he had multiple guns in his home. He grabbed Brown and rolled over. She feared for her life, grabbed a gun and shot him.Brown’s sentence seemed even harsher in light of the fact that the United States Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to give juveniles mandatory life sentences without parole. According to the Tennessee Supreme Court, Brown’s sentence fell within the parameters of the constitution because she would have been eligible for parole once she turns 67. But thanks to the governor’s decision on clemency, she will be released from prison to supervised parole on Aug. 7 after serving 15 years. Brown’s story mirrors other marginalized young women of color living in the United States. I have conducted fieldwork with 50 incarcerated Latinas, age 12-19, in Southern California and wrote a book about their lives: Caught Up: Girls, Surveillance and Wraparound Incarceration. The girls I spoke with often experienced abuse in their homes. They ran away to escape the abuse. They spoke about being left no choice but to engage in high-risk behavior, including shoplifting, hitchhiking or soliciting. They were vulnerable prey for older predators who began “relationships” with them, exchanging sex for access to clothes, food and shelter. Many like the ones I spoke with end up behind bars.

https://theconversation.com/clemency-for-cyntoia-brown-was-long-overdue-108776

How a race scare left South Sudanese star basketballers with nowhere to play

One of Australia’s most successful youth basketball organizations, the South Sudanese Australian Basketball Association, was forced to cancel their 16th annual Summer Slam tournament last week after being unable to find a venue in Melbourne willing to host them. Players were distraught when the association called off the event. This is the second cancellation of one of the association’s basketball tournaments in Victoria over the past two years. Read more: Sudanese heritage youth in Australia are frequently maligned by fear-mongering and racism The Association issued a statement in response: We have struggled to get stadiums to host the tournaments. When we got a stadium, unrealistic barriers were put in the way so that the event was not held. Stadium managers are afraid to host our event because of the African gang stories they see in the news. Some of our partner organizations have also had concerns towards our event because of the fear that has been created. The actions of a few teenagers in the community are being unfairly used to stereotype the vast majority that are doing the right thing. The cancellation of the tournament has national implications. Last year, the Victorian Basketball Association called the South Sudanese Summer Slam “a boon for hoops”.Australia’s national team, the Boomers, frequently calls up naturalized immigrants, especially those from South Sudan, who have had notable successes in the NBA and in universities across the US. Current national level players of South Sudanese descent include Thon Maker, power forward for the Milwaukee Bucks; Deng Adel, who plays in the NBA’s development league; Mangok Mathiang; Ater Majok; and Mathiang Muo. Many of these players competed in the South Sudanese Australian Basketball Association’s Summer Slam tournament. The cancellation has been reported in the New York Times under the headline “In Australia, a Sudanese basketball league finds itself sidelined by racist fears”. The South Sudanese Australian Basketball Association blamed the media for their coverage of “African youth issues”. Over the past year, liberal politicians in Victoria and nationally have used the threat of gang violence in Melbourne to stoke support before last month’s election in Victoria.In July, liberal politicians faced criticism for a poster that promised “only the liberals will stop gangs hunting in packs”. From Canberra, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton echoed this extreme rhetoric when he claimed in January that Melburnians were afraid to eat out because “they’re being followed home by these gangs”. Read more: Dutton's demonization of refugees is the latest play in a zero-sum game Past South Sudanese Australian Basketball Association tournaments have been linked to property destruction and violence. A group of teenage girls trashed an Airbnb apartment and bombarded responding police with projectiles. In 2015, a fan was stabbed in the car park of the Warribee Stadium. However, there is no evidence that South Sudanese sporting events are more violent than similar competitions and the Victoria Police have had to correct false claims made by politicians correct false claims made by politicians about Sudanese immigrant criminality. Moreover, unlike recent AFL and NRL scandals, there are no allegations that the Sudanese basketball players have engaged in anti-social or violent behavior, although South Sudanese sporting associations are frequently mistaken for gangs both in Melbourne and in Sydney.

https://theconversation.com/how-a-race-scare-left-south-sudanese-star-basketballers-with-nowhere-to-play-107940