Daily Archives: September 20, 2019

One night at a watering hole outside of Seattle, Ralph Taylor overheard a man a few beers in bragging about how easy it was to get certified as a minority business owner, thus gaining access to potentially millions of dollars worth of state contracts.

Taylors ears perked up. He asked the man exactly how this all went down, and the man told him the Office of Minority and Womens Business Enterprises (OMWBE) the Washington state office that certifies small businesses for these government contracts had a relatively lax application process. All Taylor had to do to get a Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) certificate, the man said, was provide a sworn affidavit that he belonged to a specific minority class and submit a photo ID. Then hed get approved.

There was a potentially huge payoff: Washington state agencies have a budget of almost$3 billion per year to contract with businesses. Right now, small businesses with white owners get more than six times as much money as small businesses with black owners. But as part of an initiative by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D), the state is attempting to level the playing field and award more money to women and people of color. Last year, minority- and women-owned businesses were awarded around $154 million, with nearly $90 millionspent on contracts with certified MBEs.

A few years after that bar conversation, Taylor, who works in the risk management industry, applied to have his own business, Orion Insurance, certified as minority-owned. And in 2014, Washington state awarded him an MBE certificate. It was a remarkable turn of events because, for most of his life, Taylor has been treated as a white man.

HuffPostRalph Taylor took a test that showed he had 4% African DNA. He now wants his small business certified as minority-owned.

That hasnt stopped Taylor from launching a crusade to be legally recognized as Black, based on his own sense of identity and the results of a genealogy test that revealed that he has 4% African DNA.

When Taylor applied to the very same office for a similar federal certificate(a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise, or DBE), his application was rejected on the grounds that he didnt meet their criteria of someone belonging to a minority group.

In a letter to Taylor informing him of the denial, the office wrote, The laws governing the state and federal certification are different. While OMWBE has certified an application by your Firm to the Washington State MBE program, that certification is not binding on the Federal DBE certification program.

Flummoxed, he says he contacted the OMWBE by email and phone to fight the denial. I asked, What is the Black culture? he recalls one afternoon in Seattle when we meet downtown outside the federal courthouse, at his behest, so he can demonstrate to me how his racial status changes from Black on state property to white on federal property. He asked the OMWBE to clarify why they excluded him from the program even after, he says, he provided additional evidence of his proposed blackness, including his DNA test results.

According to Taylor, the office questioned whether he was truly part of a minority group.Taylor says he tried to clarify again: Is it Condoleezza Rice, is it Snoop Dogg? Is it Dr. Dre? Or is Ludacris? Or is it Colin Powell? I mean, thats a wide variety of people there, so what is Black culture? They said something to the effect that, If you dont know what it is, thats because youre not Black.

So, he sued the OMWBE. Beyond his own racial status, Taylor claims to be fighting for a greater good, exposing flaws with affirmative action programs.

DNA tests complicate perceptions of race.

HuffPostDNA tests are becoming increasingly popular, though they only look at a small fraction of our genetic materials.

DNA test kits are often marketed as novelty items something fun to bring up at a dinner party or romanticized as a means to unlock fairy tales hidden in our past. Or theyre the subject of true-crime sagas, with podcasts like Serial inspiring Reddit pages fixated on convicted murderer Adnan Syeds case. DNA tests have even gotten glossy Netflix treatment with documentaries like Making A Murderer.

More recently, these kits entered our politics when Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren revealed the results of a genetic ancestry test to back up earlier claims of indigenous heritage. Warren was criticized by some tribal leaders for implying a relation between DNA and tribal citizenship, and she subsequently apologized.

These controversies aside, DNA kits have become cheaper and more popular; 23andMe, for instance, was originallypriced at $999 when it came to market, but now kits cost around $99. And yet, University of Pennsylvania sociologist Wendy Roth says we still dont fully understand what happens when we send our saliva off to a laboratory and we dont know how to properly interpret the results.

Right now I dont think that [companies selling at-home genealogy kits] are generally doing a good enough job of explaining how these tests should be interpreted and what the limitations are and what some potential negative impacts could be, says Roth, whose work is focused on DNA as it intersects with culture and identity.

Humans share 99.9% of the same genetic makeup, so at-home genealogy kits only look at a small fraction of our genetic materials. These tests are then further limited by the fact that the majority of people who have taken them have predominantly European ancestry (white people love this stuff!) so they are less accurate for other groups.

HuffPostUniversity of Pennsylvania sociologist Wendy Roth says we still dont fully understand what happens when we send our saliva off to a laboratory.

Still, companies are getting frighteningly good at identifying Americans of European descent who have never even taken a genetic test themselves. Law enforcement agencies, for example, use existing samples to triangulate information and solve crimes; it was a distant relatives DNA that led to the capture of the suspected Golden State Killer.

Despite all this, Roth says these tests are not particularly accurate as a means of determiningracial ancestry. Race is not something that is just genetic. Genetics play a part, but only a part, Roth explains. The way that sociologists define race is something that is socially determined, that refers to aspects of your biology or your ancestry. But its only referring to them.

Black cultural theorist and author Mychal Denzel Smith agrees. DNA is not telling you your race, because race is not a biological fact, he says. Race is a social and political construct. It is something that is lived.

For his part, Taylor tells me that he has always considered himself multiracial and sees race as fluid. DNA, he says, will prove that our racial makeup is just genetic mutations at the end of the day.

Roth says that understanding race as a social construct can sometimes lead people to think that they can pick and choose their race as they like, without consequence. In a qualitative study she conducted in 2018, Roth found that white respondents were most eager, of all respondents, to change their ethnic or racial identity. They wanted to discover ancestry that made them distinctive or exotic, or they wanted a more specific tradition to distinguish themselves. Roth called this phenomenon symbolic race.

People want to be able to enjoy the privileges or the benefits of a racial group without any of the costs, she says, adding that shes working on quantitative studies to further explore these patterns. They dont experience any discrimination, and because they dont have to tell anyone that they have this ancestry or this identity, they can just use it when its advantageous for them and hide it when its not.

Could DNA impact affirmative action laws?

All 50 states have an OMWBE or equivalent. The amount that each state allocates to minority contractors varies, as does the impact of each program. One recent report commissioned by Washington state discovered that some MBEs felt that certification was actually a detriment because it can be viewed by other firms and agencies as a stigma.

Butthe majority of the country still sees a benefit to affirmative action, and the number of Americans saying they favor such programs has risen in the last few years.

Affirmative action programs are trying to adjust for a specific form of oppression which has to do with racial hierarchies, the legacy of slavery, the legacy of Jim Crow, the legacy of lynching, the legacy of redlining. It is specifically meant to address that, cultural theorist Smith explains, adding that race is something that is lived.

Similarly, writer and HuffPost Black Voices Editor Taryn Finley sees affirmative action programs like the OMWBE to be a sort of corrective to historic racial injustices. Its not a fix-all, but it levels the playing field for people of color, for marginalized people.

Finley takes umbrage with Taylors method of exposing what he says are flaws with the system, and says the ends do not justify his means. If you look at a lot of the loudest voices, the folks who are going up against affirmative action are people like Ralph Taylor, who dont know how to use their privilege or relinquish their power in ways to actually help marginalized folks.

HuffPost"Being able to tip-toe back and forth across a line between 'now Im Black, now Im white, now Im multiracial' -- thats not identity. Youre playing a game," says HuffPost Black Voices Editor Taryn Finley.

So how might DNA tests impact whos eligible for affirmative action programs? The truth is, the issue has not yet been legally tested.

In 2003, when these tests were in their infancy and still costly, Alan Moldawer, a father of adopted twin boys, made headlineswhen he said he was considering using the outcomes of a genealogy test to try and secure financial aid for his kids on the grounds of their minority status. While white-presenting, his twin boys were 9% Native American and 11% North African, according to the tests Moldawer commissioned. It was one of the first reported instances where DNA tests were raised as a possible entry point to affirmative action programs.

More recently,a judge this year allowed Princeton student Nicole Katchurs lawsuitagainst the Sidney Kimmel Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University to proceed. Katchur, who is white, is suing for racial discrimination, claiming that an admissions officer told her that if she were to take a DNA test and discover Native American or African-American lineage, her chances of getting accepted into the medical school program would go up. (The medical school is seeking to dismiss the suit.)

The case was reminiscent of Fisher v. University of Texas, in which Abigail Fisher sued the University of Texas in 2008 for what she perceived to be anti-white bias in its admissions process. Fisher lost in 2016 when the Supreme Court upheld the universitys use of race in admission decisions.

What Taylors case and these college-based lawsuits have in common are the questions they raise about the gatekeepers of these programs who gets to decide whether someone is a deserving applicant or not. And more often than not, the first barrier to entry is phenotype (what we look like) rather than genotype (what our genes reveal).

When it comes to race, how we see ourselves isnt always how others see us.

Despite attempts to codify race, it is not as static an idea as many would like. In her book The Limits of Whiteness, sociologist Neda Maghbouleh explores how Iranians and other Middle Eastern Americans moved across the color line and documents how the U.S. Supreme Court used Iranians as a racial litmus test to determine the classification of other Middle Eastern or Arab people. Drawing on work by Middle East historian Nina Farnia, Maghbouleh shows how between 1909 and 1939, Iranians skin color was classified and reclassified as white and nonwhite by claimants in eight separate Supreme Court cases.

In 1896, in the landmark case Plessy v. Ferguson that led to the infamous separate but equal principle, the Supreme Court drew the color line in a different place. Justice Henry Billings wrote a majority opinion that refers to the one-drop rule or the idea that any person could be Black even if not discernible to the naked eye.

Taylors case somewhat oddly and uncomfortably evokes Plessy. A small amount of centiMorgans (the unit of measure of DNA) reveals some distant African ancestry, allowing him to claim access to an affirmative action program.

Smith cautions against this protocol. Thats just getting us into another position in which we are trying to scientifically determine something that does not exist scientifically, he says.

HuffPostDNA is not telling you your race, because race is not a biological fact, saysBlack cultural theorist and author Mychal Denzel Smith.

Roth further notes that the sheer volume of African-informed DNA has no bearing on how race is constructed socially. Should Taylors 4% be enough for society to accept him as Black? What if his results came back with 44%, or 64%?

I think what makes the difference is how the person is seen by others within their community. If the person is seen by others within their community as a white person, then the percentage doesnt matter, Roth argues. In the case of somebody who has a very small percent, like 4%, its very unlikely that that is going to be visible enough that its going to influence peoples interactions with them.

Roths position is one that has historically guided government agencies.

Take the U.S. census. The census was originally filled out by an enumerator who went door to door and filled out the survey for you. As Roth points out, these people were often neighbors who may have known your family history chances are, they might have known if your grandfather was a Mulatto or a person who was white and so may have filled out the forms based on their knowledge of your family history, in addition to how they took in your appearance.

This changed in the 1960s and 70s with mailouts and that simple shift in data collection had a more profound sociocultural impact. The meaning of this race question just completely shifted without anyone really paying any attention to it at all, Roth explains. It really went from something that was all about how youre seen by others to how you mark yourself.

There are many more recent instances where how we are viewed by other people has been instructional as to how were viewed in the eyes of the law. A recentLos Angeles Times investigation revealed businesses in at least 18 states won certification as minority contractors by claiming Native American status, even though birth, census and other government records identified the firms owners or their ancestors as white.In response, two House committees are investigating.

In Brazil, eyeing someones racial makeup has been at the heart of a protracted legal battle, after the government introduced a quota system for federal jobs and made the postings public. People started hunting down and searching peoples Facebook and social media profiles, sleuthing and cross-checking to see if their named racial backgrounds matched with how they appeared in photographs.

Taylor went through a similar process in his quest to be awarded federal minority designation after he was denied. He attempted to submit scores of Excel spreadsheet data with the names of people who were awarded federal minority status alongside hyperlinks to the LinkedIn profiles or company websites, in an effort to reveal how many people were, he says, gaming the system. Taylor claims that his own research into states minority business owner programs shows that 65% of enrollees were white, based on his perception of their photos. The spreadsheet was ultimately disallowed by the 9th Circuit court as evidence.

When I asked the OMWBE over email about the validity of Taylors claims, they said: This is not an area of fraud our program has seen.When I asked about whether it ever turns down applicants, the office said, Each year is different depending on the number of applications we receive.

HuffPostTaylor believes he should qualify as a minority.

Is being Black about more than DNA?

Taylor is tall and surprisingly soft-spoken. He rarely raises his voice, even for emphasis. Nonetheless, he has loudly advertised his identity with contemporary stereotypes. To flex his Black culture bonafides, Taylor argued that he was a member of the NAACP, subscribes to Ebony Magazine and takes a great interest in black social causes. In 2017, he changed his birth certificate to reflect what he says is his multiracial status of Black, Native American and Caucasian.

He says he has received death threats as a result of his story. In order to prove to his detractors that hes not pursuing his case for financial gains, he took a polygraph test, which he shared with me: It was never about the money, he says, adding he hasnt benefitted financially from his MBE status.

When he talks to me about this in the bar, the conversation turns, inescapably, for a moment to Rachel Dolezal. Dolezal, who now goes by Nkechi Diallo, was the woman who sparked outrage in 2015 when it was revealed that she had been posing as a Black woman for most of her adult life, despite being born white. Taylor says he feels sorry for Dolezal, and wished he could have told her that all she had to do was identify.But this kind of physical code-switching is typically only a one-way street.

Being able to tip-toe back and forth across a line between now Im Black, now Im white, now Im multiracial thats not identity. Youre playing a game, says Finley of HuffPost Black Voices. Its a very nefarious way of using your privilege, and I dont think that youre genuinely trying to expose a flaw in the system.

Nicholas K. Geranios/APThis July 24, 2009, file photo shows Rachel Dolezal, who made headlines for saying she was Black, even though she had been born white.

Finley, who took a DNA test herself to uncover her own previously unknown family history, is 10% European. But, she says, Im a Black woman. My lived experience as a Black woman cannot be passed [as white].

Smith also takes exception to Dolezal and Taylors claims to Blackness. He roots Black culture in a community of people with shared experiences.

Theres the common experience that all of our ancestors had of slavery. They formed culture out of that. You have the common experience of segregation. They formed culture out of that, he says. If you cannot point to your life as a shared experience with those people, then how can you claim that status?

Taylor, however, sometimes claims that affirmative action entry points shouldnt be focused on race at all. Instead, he says equal opportunity programs should look more at socioeconomics in part because, in his telling, we are all multiracial. Simultaneously, Taylor claims that his 4% African DNA results mean that he should be considered Black enough to qualify for the OMWBE program anyway.

In December 2018, the 9th Circuit judges unanimously ruled against Taylor, and in favor of the OMWBE, which the court argued did not act in an arbitrary and capricious manner when it determined it had a well founded reason to question Taylors membership claims.

Smith expresses some sympathy for the gatekeepers of these affirmative action programs. What were trying to determine is if you are a part of a class of people that has been discriminated against and therefore you are eligible for the corrective program, right? Its really, really confusing and tricky to do, he says. What were asking then is for you to prove a history of discrimination on the basis of how you look. Thats difficult for anybody to suss out.

Is this just trolling to make a point?

Speaking with Taylor at the bar outside of Seattle, its hard not to wonder if, frankly, he isnt just trolling us all and the government.

Taylor says he has already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars litigating his case. He jokes that hes willing to live out of his car if it means seeing this through to the end, though what that end looks like is at this stage unclear. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear his case over the summer, and he has run out of appeals to the 9th Circuit. But he says he plans to reapply to the OMWBE for certification later this month.

In a June 2019 email to the director of the Washington state OMWBE, which he shared with HuffPost, Taylor inquired about resubmitting the paperwork to get his DBE certification and be recognized federally as a minority business owner. In the note, he states that hes sending in his newly amended birth certificate, but asks should I have the certificate amended to state that I am black without any other ethnicities and adds I can also have the certificate amended to state female if that will help.

The glibness is part of Taylors point he wants to expose the flaws in the process of becoming minority certified, and more broadly with what he says is the somewhat arbitrary nature of the affirmative action system.

The system the way it is now needs to break, he says.

Kayvon Afshari, Lindsey Davis and Emily Bina contributed reporting.

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A DNA Test Revealed This Man Is 4% Black. Now He Wants To Abolish Affirmative Action. - HuffPost

A few months ago, an art project appeared online that offered people the chance to see just how one of the most widely used photo research databases would categorize them.

People can upload photos of themselves to the project, called ImageNet Roulette, where they're matched against the "people" categories of ImageNet, the 10-year-old photo database at the heart of some of the biggest machine learning efforts. The system then classifies people based on similar photos tagged in the database.

The results are frequently wacky it thought Donald Trump Jr. was a "steward/flight attendant" but also often offensive. As exhaustively aggregated on social media since the project resurfaced recently, caucasian-appearing people are generally classified in terms of jobs or other function descriptors; darker-skinned people or even just dark pictures of anyone are frequently described in terms of race:

Women, as well, are often classified by how the algorithm assesses their appearance:

The author of this article gave it a try, as seen in the illustration at the top, and was categorized as "draftsman, drawer: an artist skilled at drawing," which is about as wrong as it can be.

This is, in fact, the point of the project, created by Trevor Paglen, a noted technology artist who has received a MacArthur Fellowship "genius" grant.

Paglen and his co-creator, Kate Crawford, co-director of the AI Now Institute at New York University, say explicitly that the project is a "provocation designed to help us see into the ways that humans are classified in machine learning systems."

"That is by design: We want to shed light on what happens when technical systems are trained on problematic training data," Paglen and Crawford say. "AI classifications of people are rarely made visible to the people being classified. ImageNet Roulette provides a glimpse into that process and to show the ways things can go wrong."

ImageNet, the giant image database used by the project, hasn't directly addressed the web tool. But as the tool went viral, reinvigorating the debate around the development of artificial intelligence systems and the biases that can be introduced through existing datasets, ImageNet announced this week that it would scrub more than half of the 1.2 million pictures of people cited in its sprawling collection.

"Science progresses through trial and error, through understanding the limitations and flaws of past results," ImageNet said in a statement. "We believe that ImageNet, as an influential research dataset, deserves to be critically examined, in order for the research community to design better collection methods and build better datasets."

ImageNet Roulette returned to wide attention on Monday in connection with an exhibit called "Training Humans," which opened last week at Fondazione Prada, a modern art museum in Milan, Italy.

Paglen and Crawford say they don't generate the offensive descriptions, which they say come solely from the language categories that ImageNet uses.

It's the same language structure that ImageNet uses to catalog all of its 14 million images into 22,000 visual categories the same language structure that has influenced the work of research teams from some of the biggest names in technology, including Google and Microsoft, which have used it in competitions to refine the algorithms driving their own object recognition systems.

Concern that such programs can embed racial and gender bias in artificial intelligence systems has been at the forefront of artificial intelligence discussions in recent months as companies and law enforcement agencies increasingly adopt facial recognition technologies to identify everyday people with greater accuracy.

Last year, the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, used Amazon's technology, called Rekognition, to build a database of 25,000 publicly available arrest photos. It then ran the official photos of all 535 members of Congress against the database which, it said, identified 28 of the lawmakers as other people who had been arrested for alleged crimes.

Facial recognition surveillance by governments and large institutions "threatens to chill First Amendment-protected activity like engaging in protest or practicing religion, and it can be used to subject immigrants to further abuse from the government," the ACLU said.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has been sounding similar alarms throughout this year.

In January, Ocasio-Cortez pointed out that facial recognition algorithms "always have these racial inequities that get translated, because algorithms are still made by human beings, and those algorithms are still pegged to basic human assumptions."

In May, in questioning AI experts at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, she elicited testimony that today's facial recognition technology is ineffective, to a statistically significant extent, in recognizing anyone other than white men:

"So, we have a technology that was created and designed by one demographic that is only mostly effective on that one demographic, and they're trying to sell it and impose it on the entirety of the country," she said.

ImageNet Roulette would appear to substantiate that assertion, and to that extent, it accomplishes its goals in a vivid manner.

But notwithstanding how the project has been described in publicity materials and news reports this week, ImageNet Roulette isn't itself a sophisticated artificial intelligence system. It's an art project, one that created and uses its own algorithms to tell ImageNet how to process photos. Like any other algorithm, it's subject to whatever biases are shared by its coders.

Moreover, ImageNet is primarily intended to be used in recognizing and classifying objects, not people. It said using ImageNet to classify people has always been "problematic and raises important questions about fairness and representation," suggesting that projects like ImageNet Roulette aren't a rigorous test.

Other AI experts raised similar doubts.

Peter Skomoroch, the AI venture capital investor who is the former principal data scientist at LinkedIn, went so far as to call ImageNet Roulette "junk science," writing on Twitter: "We can and do examine these issues using real machine learning systems. That's not what is happening here.

"Intentionally building a broken demo that gives bad results for shock value reminds me of Edison's war of the currents."

(Skomoroch was referring to the campaign in the late 1880s by Thomas Edison, an advocate of using direct current systems, or DC, to deliver electricity, to discredit Nikola Tesla's alternating current system, or AC, which powers the United States' electric grid today.)

Paglen and Crawford couldn't be reached directly for comment, but they've been discussing ImageNet Roulette widely online this week as their exhibit opens in Milan.

In a 7,000-word essay they posted Wednesday, Paglen and Crawford said their purpose wasn't to discredit AI and facial recognition technologies.

Instead, they said, it was to demonstrate to everyday people that the algorithms used to train such systems the rules the systems follow are fundamentally flawed because they're written by people, and people are flawed.

"ImageNet is an object lesson, if you will, in what happens when people are categorized like objects," they wrote. "And this practice has only become more common in recent years, often inside the big AI companies, where there is no way for outsiders to see how images are being ordered and classified."

That's a valid criticism when it comes to Imagenet, even though it's considered to be among the most reliable and vital databases used to train object recognition systems.

Imagenet was built beginning in 2009 using a catalog of descriptive labels created by WordNet, an academic database designed in 1985 to slot all of the nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs in English into categories called synonym sets, or "synsets."

The word "dog," for example, is assigned to sets related to canines, carnivores, mammals, vertebrates, animals and so forth. It pops up in categories related to wildlife and sports ("sled dog" and "sleigh dog"), food ("frankfurter" and "hot dog"), smithwork ("dog-iron" and "firedog," which are other words for "andiron") and pursuit ("to dog," or to chase after).

Because WordNet is value-neutral, it seeks to recognize all synsets that a word like "dog" can fit into, and not all of those sets are politically palatable "dog" also shows up in sets related to women's appearances ("frump, dog: a dull unattractive unpleasant girl or woman").

Because WordNet lists such meaning, they're picked up by ImageNet, and in turn by ImageNet Roulette. When you shift your attention to words that can relate to race, gender and the like, you can quickly see where things go wrong.

Paglen and Crawford contend that datasets like ImageNet "aren't simply raw materials to feed algorithms, but are political interventions," because "at the image layer of the training set, like everywhere else, we find assumptions, politics and worldviews."

Racial assumptions in data systems, in particular, "hark back to historical approaches where people were visually assessed and classified as a tool of oppression and race science," they wrote.

ImageNet said this week that it recognizes that "WordNet contains offensive synsets that are inappropriate to use as image labels." Specifically, 437 subcategories of the "people" set are "unsafe" (that is, offensive regardless of context), and 1,156 more are "sensitive" (meaning they're offensive depending on the context).

ImageNet said it has been working on the problem for a year and is removing all 1,593 "unsafe" and "sensitive" subcategories. And it said it's removing its database links to all of the photos in those subsets wiping out 600,040 of the images in the "people" set and leaving only 577,244 intact, or fewer than half.

"Finally, our effort remains a work in progress," the project wrote. "Our research report is awaiting peer review and we will share it shortly. We welcome input and suggestions from the research community and beyond on how to build better and fairer datasets for training and evaluating AI systems."

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Playing roulette with race, gender, data and your face - NBC News

IOK matter of survival of Pakistan: Firdous

ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information and Broadcasting Dr. Firdous Ashiq Awan Monday called for unity among different segments of society, including religious and political, to effectively highlight the plight of Kashmiri people.

Speaking at an All Parties Kashmir conference here, she said there were close bonds between the Pakistani nation and Kashmiri people, adding that Pakistan was incomplete without Kashmir.

She said Kashmir was not a political issue but a matter of survival of Pakistan. It is a matter of pride for the nation that a daring leader in the form of Imran Khan is today the prime minister of Pakistan, who has openly challenged Indian PM Modi, she said.

Talking about the governments endeavours to project Kashmir issue, particularly after August 5 illegal actions of Indian regime, she said it was for the first that the European Parliament had discussed the issue of Pakistan.

She continued that the declaration issued by the Human Rights Council was a big success of Pakistan. However, she emphasised that there was a lot to be done yet for settlement of Kashmir issue as per the UN Council resolutions.

India, she noted, had unleashed a wave of oppression in the Occupied Kashmir but the Kashmiri people there were standing firm with regard to their just struggle for the right to self-determination.

She said, It is part of our faith that oppression perishes when it exceeds limits. Dr. Awan contended that the government had effectively highlighted Kashmir dispute at the international level under the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan and achieved diplomatic successes.

Prime Minister Imran Khan, she said, had in unequivocal terms exposed the fascist face of Modi government. She said Imran Khan will effectively raise the voice of Kashmiris in the UN General Assembly.

Earlier, in tweets, she said the government's stepsfor prosperity of people and national development had started yielding results. She said the government was implementing the agenda of economic reforms under the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan and taking measures to improve the countrys economic condition.

She explained that enhancement of tax revenue and reduction in fiscal deficit were the governments priorities, adding that Rs580 billion tax in the first two months of the current fiscal year had been collected against Rs509 billion in the corresponding period last year.

Moreover, she said six lakh more people had filed tax returns. The credit for this success goes to Prime Minister Imran Khan, who for the first time turned tax revenue collection into a national movement, she said.

Dr. Awan noted it was for the first time that the government income, not of rulers, was increasing. This is a good news for the country and the nation, she remarked.

She said 73 percent reduction in the current account deficit was a major achievement, while there had been a significant increase in exports and decrease in imports. She said Rs70 billion had been received from two cellular companies under license fee, and another Rs70 billion was expected to come from another cellular company.

As a whole, she noted Rs200 billion would be received from this sector, adding that the government was striving to promote economic activities and facilities the business community. Dr. Awan said the government had reduced its expenditures and no supplementary grant was approved during the two months, and the government saved Rs246 billion due to appreciation in the currency value during the last few weeks.

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IOK matter of survival of Pakistan: Firdous - The News International

PUTRAJAYA: Malaysias new Foreign Policy Framework under the Pakatan Harapan government has been launched and will serve as a definitive guide for Wisma Putras foreign policy direction.

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said the framework was a result of thorough and comprehensive reviews and assessments as well as consultations with various stakeholders.

This participatory approach has become the cornerstone of the current government in upholding and promoting cardinal principles such as transparency, openness and good governance.

Foreign policy cannot be effective if it contradicts the expectations and realities of the domestic environment.

Therefore, inter-agency cooperation in implementing policies formulated by the government is important, he said at the launch of the new framework at Perdana Putra here yesterday.

Dr Mahathir said the basic elements of Malaysias foreign policy remained the same, with differences in the way the country approaches certain issues.

The overarching theme of this framework is Change in Continuity. This will be the direction of the implementation of our foreign

policy.

We are living in a world where changes take place at a rapid pace. These changes bring both challenges and opportunities.

It is, therefore, only logical that Malaysia does not stick to the traditional methods of engagements and instead proactively seeks to explore new approaches, he said.

Dr Mahathir outlined three approaches that Malaysias foreign policy would take, which included participating actively in discussions at various international fora where Malaysia is already a member.

For international fora that Malaysia is not a member, the country will aim to influence the decision-making processes.

Malaysia will also be looking to shape the discourse on emerging issues such as Industrial Revolution 4.0 and the blue economy.

Dr Mahathir also said that Malaysia would continue to pursue an independent, principled and pragmatic foreign policy, founded on the values of peace, humanity, justice, and equality.

The country, he said, would continue to maintain friendly relations with all countries and seek peaceful resolution of disputes based on international law and norms.

Despite that, Malaysia reserves the right to express its opinion and if necessary, its protestations, against injustices, oppression and other crimes against humanity that is committed by any nation.

Malaysia has never shied away from what it believes to be a responsibility and commitment to mankind, he said.

Dr Mahathir also expressed concern on powerful countries unilaterally imposing their will on others, while violating international agreements and United Nations resolutions.

There are also powerful countries imposing unilateral sanctions, not respecting trade agreements and blatantly disregarding multilateral framework.

This affects not only the particular country singled out but other countries also.

Malaysia will submit what it must but it will be under open protest, he said.

The 80-page document can be accessed at the Foreign Ministrys website.

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New Foreign Policy Framework, new approach - The Star Online

Enoch Powells 1968 Rivers of Blood speech has infamously seared itself into the British public's mind for its apocalyptic hyperbole and guttural prejudice but less so for its conspiratorial nature. Powell warned of the demographic change brought about by immigration which, if not dealt with, would lead to irrepressible damage and the destruction of Britain itself.

He speaks of positive forces and vested interests exerting undue power and control. He railed in particular against white oppression, facilitated by the state through equal-rights legislation, which would enable immigrants to organise to consolidate their members, to agitate and campaign against their fellow citizens, and to overawe and dominate the rest.

Powells speech, which was denounced as extreme by the Tory leadership at the time but struck a chord with millions, remains more relevant than ever over half-a-century-later and demonstrates the importance of 'demographic conspiracies especially when it comes to immigration and the far right.

Demographic conspiracies argue that immigration and multiculturalism are not merely negative influences on society which should be slowed, stopped or reversed, but the product of an intentional plan by elites to weaken or even eradicate national (or European) identity. The origins of these ideas are difficult to pin down and come from multiple sources dating back to early 20th century eugenics and Nazi Germany, such as the 1934 pamphlet produced by the Research Department for the Jewish Question entitled Are the White Nations Dying?.

More recent incarnations include Bat Yeors Eurabia: The Arab-Euro Axis (2005), which argues that European and Arab elites have collaborated to ensure the Muslim domination of Europe as well as Renaud Camus The Great Replacement (2011) which similarly posits that elites are seeking the replacement of white Europeans through mass migration and subsequent demographic change. The phrase white genocide which can be found in more extreme circles, and particularly amongst the alt right (as well as on Donald Trumps Twitter feed), reflects the same ideas in a more hyperbolic fashion.

The three most deadly far right terror attacks this decade (with two occurring this year) have all made explicit reference to demographic conspiracies. Anders Breivik focused heavily on the alleged Islamisation of Europe in his manifesto, inspired by Eurabia conspiracy theories. Patrick Crusius, who killed 22 in El Paso in August, rationalised his attack targeted at the local Hispanic population by arguing that he was defending my country from cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by an invasion. Brenton Tarrant, responsible for the Christchurch mosque shootings in March which killed 51 (who entitled his own manifesto The Great Replacement) similarly argued that the attack was to show the invaders that our lands will never be their lands, our homelands are our own and that, as long as a white man still lives, they will NEVER conquer our lands and they will never replace our people.

Yet, demographic conspiracies should not be seen as fringe enterprises restricted to gullible extremists they have an increasingly mainstream appeal. Crucially, they feed into wider decline of the West narratives promoted by mainstream right-wing and conservative writers who argue that nefarious elites are purposefully undermining the majoritys way of life. Indeed, conspiratorial language has become an important rhetorical style for populists and their supporters more generally.

Take The Times columnist Melanie Phillips book Londonistan: How Britain is Creating a Terror State from Within (2006) as an example. In the book, written in the aftermath of the 7/7 attacks, Phillips describes multiculturalism as an attack on the nation which had been 'imposed by the revolutionary left. Multiculturalism has become, she argues, the driving force of British life, ruthlessly policed by a state-financed army of local and national bureaucrats enforcing a doctrine of state-mandated virtue to promote racial, ethnic and cultural difference and stamp out majority values.

With such a dystopian presentation of immigration and its outcomes, it is perhaps no surprise many seek to explain it through grandiose and farfetched conspiracies. When Britain is described by Phillips apocalyptically as a decadent society, weakened by alarming tendencies towards social and cultural suicide, again, many are likely to ask questions about how such a status has emerged which cannot be answered through conventional means.

Such language is likely to strike a chord with a British public seduced by conspiratorial thinking (Opinium found in a survey that three in five Brits believe at least one conspiracy theory). Evidence that the country has become increasingly concerned about demographic changes brought about by immigration is well documented and played a key role in the vote to leave the EU in 2016 (although sentiment has become more positive towards immigration since the vote). It is, however, clear that the public is becoming more mistrustful and suspicious of the governments role in immigration policy which has lent currency to far right demographic conspiracies.

In a 2018 report by Sophia Gaston published by the Henry Jackson Society, polling indicated that 58% of the UK believe the government is hiding the true cost of immigration from the public and 51% believe that the government has deliberately sought to make British society more ethnically diverse through immigration over the past 20 years. Such views rocket to 75% and 70% amongst Leave voters and 64% and 63% amongst Conservative voters. It is therefore clear that conspiratorial thinking relating to immigration is widespread and appears in both moderate and extreme forms.

Debates over immigration and demographic change are an inevitable part of the democratic process and are likely to become sharper over the coming decades as white majorities decline. Yet, there is a worrying tendency towards viewing such processes as being dictated by shadowy elite plots. This is always likely to play into the hands of the far right, for whom conspiracy theories are presented as reasoning for extreme solutions.

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The great replacement theory: a historical perspective - Open Democracy

On Wednesday, September 4th, Judge Anthony Trenga of the U.S District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that the Terrorist Screening Database colloquially referred to as the "Watchlist"was unconstitutional. The case was brought forward by the Council on American Islamic Relations on behalf of 23 Muslim American plaintiffs.

In his decision, Judge Trengaa Bush appointeeheld that the Watchlist was a violation of the due process clause of the Constitution and of the Administrative Procedures Act. He reasoned that the procedures currently available to those on the Watchlist did not provide notice concerning whether a person has been added to or remains on the Watchlist, what criteria is used in adding individuals to the Watchlist, or an opportunity to rebut the evidence upon which the government relied in making that determination. Consequently, he held that the Watchlist "does not provide to a United States citizen a constitutionally adequate remedy under the Due Process Clause."

But even though the having the infamous Watchlist declared unconstitutional can be seen as a significant win for the Muslim American community, the remedy requested by the Plaintiffs is narrow and is unlikely to affect the many other policies that target Muslims. And without addressing the context in which the Watchlist exists, this decision risks the ultimate creation of what could amount to two Watchlists for two classes of people. One for U.S. citizens, including notice, the opportunity to rebut one's listing, and whatever other procedures the court deems appropriate; and a second Watchlist that is not bound to any of those procedural requirements for all non-U.S. citizens, who, at any given point in time are not on U.S. soil.

Further, the ruling gives no indication that Judge Trenga believes the foundation of the Watchlist is problematic. Consider a question in his ruling asking what "kind of remedy can be fashioned to adequately protect a citizen's constitutional rights while not unduly compromising public safety or national security." As with other national security policies that have been challenged, this statement seems to be rooted in the idea that the Judge views the Watchlist, to some extent, as a legitimate counter-terrorism intervention and one that might be refined and reformed.

After more than 15 years of the the Watchlist was established, the ruling underscores a key premise of the War on Terror: Muslims are seen as guilty until proven innocent. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the same tropethat placing Muslims under suspicion somehow makes American more secureis stressed in the government's response, in which they state that "plaintiffs request this relief on the basis of very little evidence, and in the face of compelling Government declarations showing that such additional procedures could not be implemented without considerable risk to national security." As in other War on Terror policies, the actual rights of Muslimsboth citizens and non-citizensare not seen as a given but are positioned to compete head to head with the state's theoretical right to fight terrorism in the way it deems fit.

Important though it is, the ruling affects only American citizens and non-citizens living on US soil. The numbers are also quite small as American citizens, comprise (with lawful permanent residents) a mere 4,600 out of a list of 1.16 million people. This victory underscores the premise that non-citizens who do not live in the United States are not entitled any practicable rights in the War on Terror. This is important because non-citizens living abroad have been targeted en masse not just through the Watchlist, but through U.S. militarism in Muslim-majority countries that have left over a million dead.

This ruling also has the potential of being misrepresented to the public as an indication of America's renewed commitment to rule of law and constitutional protections, remedying the excesses of the war on terror - when in fact it leaves this excesses largely untouched..

Even as we hail this important but limited victory, it's important to capitalize on its momentum and work to disrupt the entire apparatus of the War on Terror. We need to disrupt and subvert dominant narratives of Muslim criminality that allow policies like the Watchlist to be initiated in the first place, while discarding those attempts at counter-narratives that adhere to unsophisticated representations of the good versus bad Muslim dichotomy.

The premise of collective responsibility must be categorically rejectedespecially so long as the U.S. continues to pride itself on the notion of innocent until proven guilty. Lastly, we must acknowledge the totality of the U.S.' collateral damage, from those subject to extra scrutiny at airports to those being bombed in their home countries for nothing more than adhering to Islam. And for those of us who identify as Muslim Americans, we must embrace and uplift the humanity and rights of Muslim non-citizens, lest we be complicit in their oppression.

Dr. Maha Hilal is the Co-Director of Justice for Muslims Collective, an adjunct Professor at George Mason University, an organizer with Witness Against Torture, and a Council Member of the School of the Americas Watch.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own.

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Admitting the Terrorism Watchlist Was Unconstitutional is Important, But Not Nearly Enough | Opinion - Newsweek

Myanmar military chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing visits Bahadur Shah Zafars tomb in Yangon on Sept. 17. / Myo Min Soe / The Irrawaddy

By Htun Htun 18 September 2019

Yangon Some of the mosques that were closed following a wave of inter-faith violence in Magwe Region 10 years ago reopened on Tuesday.

As the temporary prayer sites are small and inconvenient, the government is allowing prayer at mosques that were previously shut, Magwe Region Chief Minister Dr. Aung Moe Nyo told The Irrawaddy.

The Irrawaddy was not able to confirm the number of mosques reopening in the region, or how many had been closed. U Soe Win, a lawmaker for Chauk Township in Magwes regional parliament, said two mosques in his constituency were being reopened.

Previously, they were designated as restricted areas. Now prayer is allowed again. It is to ensure freedom of religion in line with the policy of equality articulated by the government, U Soe Win told The Irrawaddy.

Sectarian violence broke out between the Buddhist and Muslim communities following the rape of a female villager in Salin Township. The violence spread across Magwe and some mosques, including the two in Chauk, were torched by rioters.

The reopenings follow military chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaings recent donations to non-Buddhist communities. The regional authorities had previously tried unsuccessfully to reopen the two mosques.

The regional government conducted a poll about the reopening of the two mosques in Chauk earlier this year and sought the approval of Buddhist monks. Residents reportedly raised some objections and the reopening was delayed.

Muslims have lived here since the Bagan period and the population is increasing. Mosques are places for prayer. If religious buildings are closed, the prison doors will be open. If you want to close the prison doors, there is a need to open religious buildings, said Muslim leader Hajji U Aye Lwin.

On Tuesday, Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing donated cash and provisions to a Muslim hospital, a Christian home for the aged, Hindu religious communities as well as a monastery and the Sangha Hospital in Yangon.

It was the militarys third series of donations to non-Buddhist religious communities in two months, in a move it stated was aimed at building unity. The military chief previously made donations to churches and mosques in Naypyitaws Pyinmana Township and Mandalay.

The donations were aimed at building political, social and religious cohesion in the country, military spokesman Brigadier-General Zaw Min Tun said.

The senior general said during his visit to the Tomb of Bahadur Shah Zafar in Yangon on Tuesday that there would be no discrimination on the grounds of race and religion against real citizens, according to Hajji U Aye Lwin, who was present.

There might be various reasons behind these donations. In my opinion, they have changed their mindset and tactics a little. It is the first step on the right track. This is better than no visit [to non-Buddhist communities] at all, and we should welcome it optimistically, Hajji U Aye Lwin told The Irrawaddy.

Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing was accused by some observers of making donations to non-Buddhist communities in response to international pressures. The military denied this.

While meeting non-Buddhist faith leaders in Mandalay earlier this month, the commander-in-chief called for cooperation and unity to ensure rule of law and stability, warning against the abuse of religion to incite political unrest and conflict.

The military chief met the Kachin Baptist Convention leader, Dr. Hkalam Samson, days after the military dropped a lawsuit against him.

In July, during a meeting with US President Donald Trump, the Kachin Christian said there was no religious freedom in Myanmar and that oppression and torture were still common. He also asked the US to back Myanmars transition to genuine democracy and to support federalism. The military then filed a complaint against him.

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Mosques Reopen in Myanmars Magwe 10 Years After Bloody Riots - The Irrawaddy News Magazine

IOK matter of Pak survival: Firdous

ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information and Broadcasting Dr. Firdous Ashiq Awan Monday called for unity among different segments of society, including religious and political, to effectively highlight the plight of Kashmiri people.

Speaking at an All Parties Kashmir conference here, she said there were close bonds between the Pakistani nation and Kashmiri people, adding that Pakistan was incomplete without Kashmir.

She said Kashmir was not a political issue but a matter of survival of Pakistan.

It is a matter of pride for the nation that a daring leader in the form of Imran Khan is today the prime minister of Pakistan, who has openly challenged Indian PM Modi, she said.

Talking about the governments endeavours to project Kashmir issue, particularly after August 5 illegal actions of Indian regime, she said it was for the first that the European Parliament had discussed the issue of Pakistan.

She continued that the declaration issued by the Human Rights Council was a big success of Pakistan. However, she emphasised that there was a lot to be done yet for settlement of Kashmir issue as per the UN Council resolutions.

India, she noted, had unleashed a wave of oppression in the Occupied Kashmir but the Kashmiri people there were standing firm with regard to their just struggle for the right to self-determination.

She said, It is part of our faith that oppression perishes when it exceeds limits.

Dr. Awan contended that the government had effectively highlighted Kashmir dispute at the international level under the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan and achieved diplomatic successes.

Prime Minister Imran Khan, she said, had in unequivocal terms exposed the fascist face of Modi government. She said Imran Khan will effectively raise the voice of Kashmiris in the UN General Assembly.

Earlier, in tweets, she said the governments steps for prosperity of people and national development had started yielding results.

She said the government was implementing the agenda of economic reforms under the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan and taking measures to improve the countrys economic condition.

She explained that enhancement of tax revenue and reduction in fiscal deficit were the governments priorities, adding that Rs580 billion tax in the first two months of the current fiscal year had been collected against Rs509 billion in the corresponding period last year.

Moreover, she said six lakh more people had filed tax returns.

The credit for this success goes to Prime Minister Imran Khan, who for the first time turned tax revenue collection into a national movement, she said.

Dr. Awan noted it was for the first time that the government income, not of rulers, was increasing.

This is a good news for the country and the nation, she remarked.

She said 73 percent reduction in the current account deficit was a major achievement, while there had been a significant increase in exports and decrease in imports.

She said Rs70 billion had been received from two cellular companies under license fee, and another Rs70 billion was expected to come from another cellular company.

As a whole, she noted Rs200 billion would be received from this sector, adding that the government was striving to promote economic activities and facilities the business community.

Dr. Awan said the government had reduced its expenditures and no supplementary grant was approved during the two months, and the government saved Rs246 billion due to appreciation in the currency value during the last few weeks.

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IOK matter of Pak survival: Firdous - The News International

OTTAWA Images of Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau in blackface produced widespread reaction to the images themselves, and on the issue of race and racism in Canada. Here is some of what was said by politicians, federal party leaders and candidates:

I never talked about this. Quite frankly, I was embarrassed. It was not something that represents the person Ive become, the leader I try to be and it was really embarrassing. Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau

The fact is, I didnt understand how hurtful this is to people who live with discrimination every single day. I have always acknowledged that I come from a place of privilege, but I now need to acknowledge that comes with a massive blind spot. Trudeau

When we reflect on mistakes weve made in the past, thats a question that were always going to be asking why did we do that? Why did we think it was OK? Why did we think it was a good idea at the time? It wasnt a good idea. It was a terrible idea. It was something that minimizes and takes advantage of a reality that I have not had to live with of being discriminated against, of being marginalized, of being judged, for the colour of my skin, for my language, my background. Trudeau

I have to recognize I let a lot of people down with that choice, and I stand here today to reflect on that and ask for forgiveness. Trudeau

I believe that Canadians might have been able to accept his apology if he had been truthful and open, if he hadnt based that apology on a lie, but he was specifically asked if there wereother incidences where he engaged in this type of racist behaviour and he indicated that there was only one other incident and now we know that there was at least three. Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer

I first saw the video this morning when it was published this morning, and I can say there was an individual who was concerned by this and brought it to our campaign and our campaign did turn it over to a news outlet for verification. We left it in their hands. Scheer

When youve got a prime minister that is mocking the lived realities of Canadians, it can inflame those tensions and give more oxygen to those who believe in discriminating (against) people based on the way they look. Thats why its deeply concerning. The impacts that this has on Canada and on the lives of Canadians cant be underestimated. This is massive. And thats why its so important for us to think about what people are going through right now and how they might be hurting. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh

I thought he (Singh)showed genuine concern, and as someone who obviously has been victim of these types of things in a way thatI never have, I think he responded with a lot of class and dignity and, obviously, he was speaking on behalf of so many Canadians who have been victims of racist acts or mockery like that. Scheer

I can understand that some people were hurt with these pictures. But Mr. Trudeau said that he was sorry, so we have to talk about something else. Quebec PremierFrancois Legault

I told him, Prime Minister, people are going to hurt, but I think the black community will be forgiving.The reason why they are going to be forgiving is because they have seen what he has done and they have appreciated what he has done. Greg Fergus, Liberal candidate, chair of Parliaments black caucus

There is no place in our country to take pictures or act in that way. As Indigenous people, as an Indigenous person myself who has faced racism and discrimination, its entirely unacceptable. Jody Wilson-Raybould, Independent candidate and former Liberal cabinet minister

When I saw that picture last night certainly it was a sucker-punch. I think for me and for a lot of people from minority communities it really makes you start to think, When is this ever going to end? You work so hard, you go to school, you know you have to be just a little bit better than the next person because you have to prove just a little bit more, you succeed, you go on in your career maybe you even become the mayor and then youre reminded in the worst possible way that people you respect, people you admire, people who are allies in the battle with you, still need a little bit of education. Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi

I dont know what to say. Im sick about it. And I think about the impact for every child in this country, Indigenous or people of colour, and how it impacts them personally. It does harm. Its racist. Green Leader Elizabeth May

Ill just make three brief comments of principles that I think we need to keep in mind in response to this. One is that when we see acts of racism, we should call them out as well as understanding their systemic roots and that theres something deeper going on. The second is that I think we should expect the highest levels of integrity from our leaders and that means that nothing should be hidden from us, certainly not for a long period of time. And the third is that I think we need to hold our representatives to account. And in the case of party leaders, I think other representatives of that party should hold their leader to account. Jane Philpott, Independent candidate and former Liberal cabinet minister

This is not about whether or not the prime minister is racist, its about the system in which we live in that is inherently racist and makes people think it is OK to mock racialized peoples lived experiences and appearances. People should be looking at this and talking about this; not just in respect to the prime minister, but critically looking at the racism, oppression and hate that us brown, black, and Indigenous people experience in our day-to-day lives. Samya Hasan, executive director, Council of Agencies Serving South Asians

I was very disheartened and disappointed to see these images. These indefensible images bring back many painful memories of racism that I and other racialized Canadians have experienced throughout our lives. The prime minister has sincerely apologized and expressed his regret. The Justin Trudeau that I have come to know over the last four years is a champion of diversity and inclusion, and a strong ally of racialized communities. Amarjeet Sohi, Edmonton Liberal candidate and cabinet minister

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2019.

The Canadian Press

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From Chinatown Art Brigades #ChinatownNot4Sale tour on May 17, 2019 (photo by Hrag Vartanian/Hyperallergic)

On August 1, 2019, the Bill de Blasio administration launched its Create NYC Action Plan to celebrate the progress they have made since launching New York Citys first Cultural Plan in 2017. How much progress has really been made? The answer: It is impossible to tell precisely because the Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) is hiding the data necessary to evaluate their progress on cultural equity, the distribution of their overall funding by borough and neighborhood, and the distribution by large and small institutions.

Coverage from leading art journals has taken the administrations claims at face value by failing to point out that the $1 billion allocated for fiscal years 2017, 2018, and 2019 is actually less than the allocations made in almost any three years under Bloombergs tenure. From fiscal years 2004-2014 (Bloombergs last adopted budget) DCLA Expense + Capital funding averaged $480 million annually, with a 3-year average of $1.4 billion (40% higher than the 3 year period celebrated by de Blasio). The three years from FY2009-FY2011 actually saw $1.7 billion in total DCLA allocations. So while DCLAs expense budget has increased under de Blasio, its capital budget has declined much more significantly, making the overall totals lower.

There are several worthy accomplishments DCLA did highlight in August: The addition of the Weeksville Heritage Center into the Cultural Institutions Group (CIG), the increased funding for the 900+ Cultural Development Fund (CDF) grantees, and the creation of Diversity Plans by the CIG institutions. These are all important and positive. Yet, they easily distract from the bigger picture, that arts funding was, and remains, one of the most inequitable city services according to the CUNY Equality Indicators study. While New York City is certainly the most generous public arts funder in the United States, how it distributes those funds is extraordinarily inequitable, a problem the Cultural Plan was created in part to rectify.

As the following chart shows, prior to the creation of the cultural plan, DCLAs funding heavily favored the institutions in the CIG (the 33 mostly large institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History) over the nearly 1,000, mostly smaller institutions funded through the Cultural Development Fund (CDF). Manhattan got more than 50% of total funding for all five boroughs and received a per capital allocation five times that of Brooklyn and 10 times that of Queens.

Since DCLAs primary mission is as a funding (rather than programmatic) agency, how it distributes its grants is the single most significant action it can take to create cultural equity in NYC. At the two-year mark, we should be able to track that progress. However, the Action Plan gives us no such information. Furthermore, on NYCs Open Data website, there is no indication of the location or size of DCLA grantees, preventing us from truly evaluating progress toward funding equity.

However, we are able to evaluate DCLAs claim to having increased equity within the Cultural Institutions Group (CIG) by providing a 17.5% increase for smaller institutions and an 8% increase for larger institutions in 2019. Giving a greater increase to smaller institutions seems like the very definition of equity, until one looks more closely to see that these increases, rather than giving greater funding to lesser-funded organizations, are proportional to the existing allocations (captured in the chart above) that are hugely inequitable. So even though the percentage increase for the smaller institutions is higher, a 17.5% increase to $300,000 or $400,000 is still significantly less than an 8% increase to $12 million or $4 million and the net result is increasing inequity rather than increasing equity the exact opposite of the administrations claim.

DCLAs records show that in fiscal years 2017 and 2018, it increased one-time funding to the smaller CIGs by 12% and the larger CIGs by 6%, a similar sleight-of-hand. As you can see in the following chart, the inequity between the three highest-funded and three lowest-funded CIGs actually increased by $1.6 million dollars under the de Blasio 2017 and 2018 budgets; between the Metropolitan Museum (the top-funded CIG) and the Bronx County Historical Society (the lowest funded CIG) the inequity increased by $623,376.

While we do not have the granular data for Fiscal Year 2019 for the lowest-funded institutions, we do have DCLAs percentage figure (17.5% vs. 8%) along with figures for the increases of the top three recipients which show that the 8% increases for the Met, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) were $908,062, $879,505, and $848,473 respectively.

Based on DCLA statements in the Action Plan (Objective 1, Strategy A, Action 3), Cultural Development Fund (CDF) grantee increases were also based on a proportion of their existing funding, with higher proportional increases not higher dollar increases going to the less-funded organizations. As shown in the chart above, higher proportional increases can actually result in smaller dollar increases for smaller organizations when the existing inequity is great. Thus, instead of increasing equity in the cultural budget, de Blasio has actually made the inequities worse in his budgets since 2017 the exact opposite of the stated goal of CreateNYC.

The Peoples Cultural Plan would welcome comprehensive data from the de Blasio administration disputing any information analyzed here. For example, a chart similar to the FY2015 chart, showing the change in total funding allocations by borough and neighborhood, and the change in total funding allocations broken down by institution size including capital funding (which was not included in the FY15 chart). A true cultural plan would require DCLA to report annually on its progress. Two years after the CreateNYC, there is no ambition to share such information with the public.

Low ambition is the hallmark of CreateNYC. The Peoples Cultural Plan called for ending the burdensome annual grant-cycle for the smaller CDF institutions, instead funding them through baselined operating support like the CIG. The action plans strategy to offer more flexible and multi-year support to small organizations instead listed the following as one of its successes: extending the FY20 CDF application deadline from 6PM to midnight. In other words, they have done nothing to change the fundamentals of the granting cycle, nor to reduce the complexity or length of the application itself, which is a significant burden for small organizations.

Before we discuss the progress on our other concerns (the housing crisis and labor equity for artists and cultural workers) it is worth stopping for a minute to analyze why de Blasio hasnt made any progress on funding equity despite the rhetoric. Ultimately, the large CIGs have a stranglehold on power in the cultural sector, stemming from their boards of directors that include major capitalist power brokers, drawing heavily from the real estate industry. A nave analysis would highlight the fact that these trustees are also major donors to de Blasio, and that de Blasio has taken huge amounts of real estate money an industry invested in increasing property and land values, which drives inequity.

On deeper analysis, the decline of industrial production in New York City, combined with the rise of real estate to become 60% of the worlds assets, has meant that the city government has little choice but to direct nearly all policy toward increasing property values, which feeds city revenue through property taxes. Sam Steins book, Capital City, highlights the structural binds placed on city planners, and the resulting capitalist-democracy contradiction:

In a nominally democratic capitalist republic, the state and its planners have to perform a delicate balancing act: planners must proceed with enough openness and transparency to maintain public legitimacy, while ensuring that capital retains ultimate control over the processes parameters. The people must have their say, but their options must be limited. If the system is entirely opened up, people might demand the full socialization of land, the abolition of private property and all the rest. If the system is completely closed, however, they might revolt against an unjust and unaccountable government. Planners are therefore tasked with creating public processes that are open but rigged. From this capitalist-democracy contradiction arises the familiar landscape of participatory planning public comment periods, community boards, planning commissions, design charettes and a host of other interventions. (p.33)

Thats an apt description of CreateNYC. The Peoples Cultural Plan advocated for more radical changes, such as popular control over-generous and equitably distributed public funds as well as for eliminating de Blasios developer-friendly housing policies, items not likely to be considered by an administration dominated by real estate. That the consultants hired to work on the cultural plan in 2016 came largely from the real estate sector was the consequence of these structural realities.

Cultural policy has been subsumed under real estate development imperatives. DCLA reports to The New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC). The DCLA was moved from under Deputy Mayor Tony Shorris portfolio to the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development, initially Alicia Glen, now Vicky Been. Ali Davis, the recently hired Senior Advisor for Arts and Culture to the Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development (the position which directly oversees DCLA), was most recently the Chief of Staff of REBNY (the Real Estate Board of New York), before which she was an Assistant Vice President at the EDC under Bloomberg.

DCLA continues to direct significant capital funding to projects that have a net effect of increasing property values, and cultural institutions continue to artwash development projects While the SHEDs initial public funding allocation of $75 million dollars came from Bloomberg, the de Blasio administration has been excitedly promoting its opening over the last several months. More than $1.2 billion in public funds intended for poor neighborhoods were diverted to the ongoing development of Hudson Yards under de Blasios tenure, using gerrymandering practices that treated it as a part of Harlem.

The Action Plans strategies to support living wages for artists and cultural workers and alternative models for artists and cultural organizations to acquire and operate affordable property and share resources have been superficial. The accomplishment highlighted is the allocation of $13.9 million in capital funds for the development of only 209 units of affordable artist workspace. More disturbing is the partnership with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) with three Brooklyn-based cultural organizations (unnamed) to operate a facility in a city-led affordable housing project in Brownsville, Brooklyn (Action Plan p. 16).

Another accomplishment highlighted by DCLA has been its work on diversity in the cultural workforce. The requirement that CIGs adopt Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) plans, stemming from CreateNYC, has at least elevated the discourse in the city. However, beyond discourse, nothing is being done to address the structural causes of that lack of diversity.

Reports from CIG employees who wish to remain anonymous due to fear of retaliation, state that DEI plans created have been thoroughly watered down by boards of directors even in cases of vigorous staff advocacy, and that DCLA has had a very light touch, not actually requiring much to be enforced. Due to the federal EEOC employment policy preventing organizations from specifically hiring people of color, the actions of CIG institutions will be limited to more vigorous recruitment, and vaguely-defined improvements to organizational culture. Furthermore, DCLAs threats to cut funding for lack of progress are empty. Despite prior comments about reducing funding to the MET in order to distribute some of that funding more equitably, the METs 2019 budget allocation was $27,454,185 (More than all the expense funding going to Queens and Staten Island combined in 2015). DCLA Commissioner Tom Finkelpearl recently admitted as much at a hearing this week.

While overt racism and implicit biases certainly play a role in limiting diversity at major institutions, the low proportion of people of color able to enter the field, resulting from historical exclusion and oppression, is a much greater factor. In the Labor Plank of the Peoples Cultural Plan, we called for an investment of $142 million annually to address this problem across the city. A jobs program on that scale could at least make a dent in the problem.

However, funding investments toward DEI initiatives highlighted in the Action Plan amount to a total of only $1,500,560 over two years (Action Plan, pp 10-11). The bulk of this will go to fund low-paid internships for CUNY students, which is certainly beneficial for a few. Yet many CIGs have privately acknowledged that it will not have much of an effect since there are no new jobs available at the end of it.

While the city continues to do next to nothing to advance cultural equity, artists have continued to be active in anti-gentrification protests, and in developing alternative models of housing and property, such as Community Land Trusts (CLTs). Groups such as the Chinatown Arts Brigade, Artist Studio Affordability Project (ASAP), Take Back the Bronx, the Brooklyn Antigentrification Network, Mi Casa No Es Su Casa, the Movement to Protect the People, and many others have placed housing and gentrification at the center of the conversation in the world of arts and culture, including through numerous protests and actions this year alone. The many groups involved in anti-gentrification protests who joined the protests against Warren Kanders shows that our analysis is deepening and we are making connections across the different forms of our oppression. The victory against Amazons attempt to move to Queens was due in part to artist groups like ASAP, which put forward an artists pledge not to take money from Amazon, and to Queens Neighborhoods United (QNU), a group involving many Queens artists, which took a bold stance from the beginning.

People are organizing, and culture and the arts are an essential part. A peoples cultural plan is taking place all around us as different groups build more power among themselves. This is what it will take to change the systems of oppression. True equity among all people is the foundation for cultural equity.

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The Deficiency of Bill de Blasio's Plan for Cultural Equity - Hyperallergic