Evidence of systemic racism, implicit bias, etc.

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Now that I've given up all hope, I feel much better.

White Aussies Who Pretend to Be Aboriginal Are Taking Over Universities and Stealing High-Paid Jobs Meant For Real Indigenous Australians

Fascinating. But they don't explain why the jobs were restricted to Aborigines in the first place. I'm not saying they shouldn't have been. Just unclear whether it's because a non-Aboriginal couldn't reasonably be expected to be able do the job, or whether it's Positive Discrimination.

As someone who has recently returned to using a relaxer after being natural for six years, I value the convenience that having relaxed hair affords me, and a lot of other Black women do too. It means that I can more easily move through white spaces without stares and questions and that I don’t have to worry about my hair in the morning.

Today, a study by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences — conducted over a decade and including over 30,000 women from the ages of 35 to 74 — concluded that women who use hair relaxers could have a higher risk of uterine cancer than those who don’t, reported the New York Times.

Uterine cancer has one of the largest racial disparities reported of any cancer, with studies showing Black women dying at twice the rate that white women do from the disease. Uterine cancers have risen from 39,000 cases 15 years ago to 65,950 cases this year.

This is particularly upsetting news for Black women, who made up more than 60 percent of the study and more frequently use hair straighteners — especially perms and relaxers — because of societal beauty pressures as well as acts of discrimination in schools and places of work. It was only two years ago that the Crown Act was passed, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of natural hair as a form of race or national-origin discrimination. Natural hair has been banned from some schools, as was the case at Butler Traditional High School in Louisville, Kentucky, in 2016, when its dress code explicitly prohibited natural hair. Celebrities like Lupita Nyong’o and Zendaya have opened up about the struggles that come with having natural hair in Hollywood. And before the Crown Act, it was legal for employers and educational facilities to deny prospective employees or students based on hairstyles or textures.

Alexandra White, head of the Environment and Cancer Epidemiology Group of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the study’s lead author, acknowledged in a statement that there is a lot of pressure on Black women to have straight hair. “It’s not an easy decision to not do this,” she said. She’s right.

This news comes during a relaxer revival, thanks mostly to TikTok, where women have become more vocal about their decision to return to having a perm. The natural-hair movement, which gained popularity a few years ago with women like Solange, seems all but forgotten.

Beauty products, especially those used by Black women, are largely unregulated by the FDA. Previous studies have tied hair products like straighteners and dye chemicals to higher risks of ovarian and breast cancers. And sure, every woman’s hair journey is different, but it shouldn’t come at a risk to our health.

Protests and calls for two city council members to resign continue in Los Angeles, after a leaked audio recording of racist and bigoted comments by four of the most powerful city leaders appeared on social media October 9.

First brought to national attention by the Los Angeles Times, the audio recordings captured former Council President Nury Martinez, along with two Latino council colleagues and a top Latino labor leader, making racist and incendiary remarks about Black, Indigenous, Armenian, Jewish, and gay people in the city — including fellow council members.

[...]

The officials captured in the recording were meeting to talk about redistricting in the city. It’s a once-in-a-decade process in which an independent commission offers the council recommendations for divvying up the city’s neighborhoods for council seats. All four discussed ways to consolidate their own power while mocking others on the council, including Mike Bonin, a gay white council member representing the city’s Westside, whose young Black son Martinez said “parece changuito” (seems like a monkey).

The Los Angeles City Council’s racist recording scandal, explained by Christian Paz, Vox, Oct 19, 2022: "In their quest to shore up power, four Latino leaders managed to set back the city’s multiracial progress, and Latino representation."

The primary case discussed in the article involved a woman who "was working in what was then the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission and it would help her career if she was actually Aboriginal."

Yes, it certainly does make sense to have some jobs within a "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission" be reserved for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people! -- and preferably multiple such jobs, staffed by people from various different Aboriginal tribes.

Yes, but the primary case is a single case, which may or may not reflect the overall picture. I was hoping to find out whether or not Australia has Positive Discrimination laws for the Aboriginal folks, but no luck so far.

They exist but they are limited in their scope.

Yes, but the primary case is a single case, which may or may not reflect the overall picture. I was hoping to find out whether or not Australia has Positive Discrimination laws for the Aboriginal folks, but no luck so far.

Community Leaders warn many who claim to be Indigenous could be ‘fakes’
First Nations communities across Australia are struggling to cope with an influx of people who are not known or recognised by the people they claim to belong to, a number of senior First Nations community leaders have warned. They say fake claims can cause serious consequences.

The 2021 Census reported a 25 per cent increase in the Indigenous population in the five years since the previous census.

This compares with Census figures showing the total Australian population increased by 8.6 per cent between 2016 and 2021.

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In a phenomenon University of Sydney post-graduate student and Wiradjuri woman Suzanne Ingram described as “race-shifting”, people, who for the bulk of their lives have identified as non-Indigenous Australians, are now “box-ticking” ‘Indigenous’ as their identity in the Census, at workplaces, within cultural institutions and in educational settings, to name just a few.

Anyway, if there isn't much compulsory Australian Aboriginal PD then maybe those posers were on the whole more on the culpable side of the moral spectrum, though I guess we'll never know for sure.

Affirmative action laws are there but they are limited in how much they can help.

I'll give you one example. I tutor indigenous university students, most of whom are on some form of tuition scholarship. Since 2011 I estimate 90% of these students don't complete and drop out. There are a number of reasons for this, leaving their community and entering a hostile/alien environment is a big issue. Not being able to make friends and feeling unwelcome. A number of Australian universities have opened indigenous centres on their campuses which are safe spaces where indigenous students can come and use their facilities.

When aboriginal students graduate and enter the workforce they face employment barriers. You will never see an aboriginal or PoC hired for front office or client service jobs in major Australian companies. There is only a relative handful who have successfully navigated their way to become employed professionals.

It's rather different in universities in the UK where the only racism I was ever aware of in my last job was from a few little cliques of rather poorly educated non-academic staff. I saw one Indian worker who was bullied out of his job - horrible case of management-on-worker bullying - but even there I don't think race was the main issue (though very possibly it had some bearing on the matter), and he successfully sued the clowns responsible for constructive dismissal. I made no secret of my approval of his winning the case, and I noticed his colleagues (not the ones who bullied him) didn't share my delight. The same management had a go at me once or twice but couldn't budge me.

The students and academic staff I mingled with were from all over the world so it was rather a multicultural paradise, and I much preferred that to rubbing shoulders with those little white cliques, though some of those individuals were benign enough also.