"Ghetto Dude" Insult to Government Job Applicant

From the Greater Toronto, Saturday, December 29, 2007, Toronto Star, page A16, a racist email sent to a job applicant in error:

'GHETTO DUDE' SLUR STILL HAUNTS JOB APPLICANT
Evon Reid - now a Queen's Park media analyst - can't forget emailed insult from government office

Whatever Happened to ...
Catching Up With the Newsmakers

Linda Diebel
Staff Reporter

In the young life of Evon Reid, 2007 turned out to be the best of times and the worst of times.

The worst because, on an otherwise uneventful day in July, he opened his email to find the term "ghetto dude" in a note to him from the Queen's Park office where he'd applied for a job.

Reid, 22, interpreted the offensive term as meaning, "I'm black," as he told the Toronto Star at the time of the incident.

"It's very insulting."

But it was also the best of times because, the day after his story was published, Premier Dalton McGuinty called him at home to personally apologize.

Other government officials apologized privately, dealing quickly with a situation that broke in a provincial election year.

Now, five months later, Reid is working as a media analyst at Queen's Park in just the type of job he wanted.

A happy ending, right?

Not completely, Reid said in an interview from Jamaica, where he is celebrating Christmas week with his father.

"I still don't have it sorted out," he explained. "I don't think I've come to a final verdict about what happened."

Of course, he's happy with his new job and says he's learning a lot.

He works on contract as a U.S. media analyst for the ministry of intergovernmental affairs, flagging issues relevant to Ontario, such as events taking place in the border states.

"The people are great and I feel really close to the action," he said, adding he chose the option of working in a different office than the cabeinet office where the offensive email originated.

It's an ideal situation for him. His contract runs until the spring, shortly before he finishes his fourth and final year in honours political science at the University of Toronto.

He has a stellar resume, with study in Hong Kong and fellowships with the federal government and on Capital Hill, and hasn't yet decided whether he will go to graduate school.

He believes he will have choices.

The public reacted strongly to Reid's story last summer and he was flooded with job offers and letters of support.

Many people wrote or called to describe incidents of discrimination they experienced in their own lives and thanked him for having the courage to go public.

But it's the other part of the equation that gives Reid "a small amount of unease" because he still can't quite accept the rationale for the email.

He has no problem agreeing with senior cabinet officer Craig Sumi's conclusion last July the term was "totally inappropriate" and appreciates the government's prompt action.

He called McGuinty's phone call "thoughtful" and expressed his appreciation.

However, his unease lies with the suggestion made by a couple of senior officals that the unfortunate incident occurred only because a "low level" employee had been involved.

The employee involved, who left the cabinet office shortly after the story broke, told the Star she'd been "multi-tasking" when she sent Reid the email, and that the term hadn't referred to him.

But Reid argues the "low level" official was the government for him - or at least his only contact with Queen's Park, as is often the case for the public.

And, while he would like to believe he would have gotten the job without the rush of publicity, there's that twinge of unease about the answer.

Questions on Use of Tasers

From the Ideas section of the Toronto Star, Thursday, November 29, 2007, an article about questions raised about the safety of the use of tasers by law enforcement officers:

QUESTIONS PERSIST ON USE OF TASERS

Alok Mukherjee

The death of Robert Knipstrom in Chilliwack, B.C., is certain to intensify the public discussion about Tasers that was unleashed by the unnecessary death of Robert Dziekanski.

Let me declare my bias right away. During 2004-05, based on medical and other research into Taser technology. I opposed the Toronto Police Service's proposal to acquire Tasers.

One such study was done in 2003 by Dr. Anthony Bleetman and Dr. Richard Steyn of Birmingham Heartlands Hospital in the U.K. Taser International had engaged them "to draw conclusions on the device's relative safety and to identify potential medical issues in deploying this product." Their pronouncement that "the device is essentially safe on healthy people" clearly begged the question: What if the Taser is used on someone who is not healthy?

Bleetman and Steyn identified "several ways that the Taser might cause injury," including electrical injuries, injuries from barb strikes, burns, indirect injury from falling uncontrollably and spontaneous abortion.

Their carefully worded conclusion was that it was "impossible to accurately calculate how much electrical energy the Advanced Taser delivers into the the human body ... More work is required to record the effects of the Taser on physiological variables and ECG tracings."

An article in The Lancet, the British medical journal, urged further investigation of effects such as ocular- or blood-vessel-related injuries and metabolic acidosis.

Other studies suggested that the Taser had not caused the reported deaths, but other factors, such as drug use, heart condition or excited delirium, were to blame.

After much debate, a majority of my colleagues voted to allow Tasers in the Toronto Police Service. However, it was to be a restricted distribution supported by through training, clear procedures, strict monitoring and regular reporting.

In Toronto, Tasers are provided to front-line supervisors and members of the Emergency Task Force. The weapon has been used more than 200 times, and there have been no deaths and very few injuries that can be called serious.

Today, my position is best described as cautious and evolving.

I am in complete agreement with Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair that good training, strong procedures, good training, strong procedures, close monitoring, regular reporting and public accountability are prerequisites for responsible use of Tasers. I also sympathize with the view of people from the mental health community that Tasers can be useful when dealing with people suffering from such an acute state of mental illness that they can do harm to themselves or others.

Yet I remain uneasy.

I am concerned that we do not have the necessary knowledge to say authoritatively that the Taser is safe in all circumstances and on all persons, regardless of their physiological, neurological, medical or psychological condition, age, ethnicity, ability or gender.

I also worry that the Taser could lead to lazy policing.

The Taser cannot be the first weapon of choice, unless it is absolutely essential. It should not be used, for instance, to control a crowd or to subdue an individual causing a disturbance who does not pose a threat to anyone.

It must be drilled into police officers that the Taser is not a completely harmless weapon. Above all, police organizations must make haste slowly in making the Taser available to their personnel.

Let us keep in mind that the Taser was originally developed as a military weapon. Surely, we owe a very great duty of care when deploying it on the civilian population in our own communities.

Alok Mukherjee is chair of the Toronto Police Services Board.

Anti-Violence and Women's Rights

From the Friday, October 5, 2007, page A16, an article about women's rights and wanting the government to take violence against women, sexual harassment and related issues seriously and some recommendations about how to help solve the problem:

'STEP IT UP' CAMPAIGN
Anti-violence pleas ignored

Lobby group laments lack of debate on women's issues - despite action plan

Debra Black

For the past 14 months Eileen Morrow and about 60 other women have been trying to get the provincial political parties to step up to the plate when it comes to violence against women.

When they conceived their Step It Up Campaign in June 2006 they had high hopes provincial politicians would get the relevance of their pleas.

"We want the government and the parties to look at violence against women in all of its aspects," said Morrow, co-ordinator of the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses, who helped run the lobby campaign that has been endorsed by 100 provincial organizations.

"Governments tend to look at what they call domestic violence. There has been good work in this area, but we don't have an overall framework. What we need is a gender-based analysis in government policy, budgeting that looks at the material conditions of women's lives and how that is contributing to violence against women in their relations, sexual violence, sexual harassment in school and the workplace."

With that lofty goal in mind, the women developed a 10-point manifesto for eradicating violence against women in the province against women in the province. They met with representatives of the Liberal Party, Progressive Conservatives, the New Democratic Party and the Green Party to make their case, asking for changes in areas such as poverty, housing, child care, education, access to justice and permanent funding for women's services.

Some of the specific recommendations call for:

* An increase in social assistance rates and indexing them to the cost of living, and an immediate increase in minimum wage to $10.

* More money for affordable housing and child care.

* A $50 million commitment for women's services.

* The establishment of a provincial women's advocacy council on violence - within the Ontario Women's Directorate to guide all policy development, program development and legislation related to women who experience violence.

* A sexual violence action plan, guided by women's advocates from the Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres and others.

* Amendments by the Occupational Health and Safety Act to include "harassment," including sexual harassment and a province-wide education campaign on sexual harassment in schools, workplaces and in the community.

* $5 million in annual funding for full-time legal support workers.

But with the election only days away, the parties, with the exception of the NDP, have not fully endorsed the campaign, a disappointed Morrow said, "How many years has it been since we've seen a debate on women's issues in an election campaign?" she asked.

The Liberals emphasized their own domestic violence plan, but added a promise to increase money to front-line services such as shelters and sexual assault centres.

The Tories suggested they meet again after the election, Morrow said. As for the Greens, a party spokesman said, they "love" the Step It Up campaign and endorse it. But according to Morrow the party has only incorporated some of the broader issues into its platform. And its position on violence was "disappointing," she said. The NDP were the most enthusiastic, adopting much of it into their platform.

The Liberal Party's Sandra Pupatello, a candidate in Windsor West, doesn't agree that her party has ignored the condition of the lives of women and children, stressing the Liberals recently released a platform designed specifically for women.

It includes promises to build on the government's Domestic Violence Action Plan created in 2005 that offers support for victims, training, prevention education and improvements to the justice system. It also commits to the creation of new child care spaces and the introduction of full-time junior and senior kindergarten.

"Child care, poverty and housing ... we believe that we are addressing all three of these from the Step It Up campaign," said Pupatello, minister responsible for women's issues.

"We are very supportive of the Step It Up platform," said Andrew Horwath, the NDP candidate and current MPP for Hamilton East as well as the NDP Women's Issues critic.

Representatives from the PCs did not return the Star's calls.

Human Rights in Prisons

From the World section, the Toronto Star, Friday, November 23, 2007, page AA3, an article about a terrible story of human rights abuse in Brazil in a prison involving a teenage girl and rape:

GIRL RAPED AFTER BEING PUT IN CELL FULL OF MEN
Assaulted repeatedly in month-long ordeal

Brasilia - A 15-year-old girl thrown in a jail cell with more than 20 men for a month was raped relentlessly and forced to have sex for food, human rights groups representing the just-released girl said yesterday.

"She was raped from day one," at the jail in Para state, a Children and Adolescent Defence Centre spokesperson said, adding that the number of men in the cell varied from 20 to 34 while the girl, a robbery suspect, was there.

"She was raped innumerable times and forced to exchange sexual relations for food," said Miere Cohen, president of the Order of Brazilian Lawyers Human Rights Commission.

The case has sparked outrage across Brazil, especially since it closely followed an incident involving a 23-year-old woman, also jailed in Para state for on month, who was put in with 70 men.

The teen, whose identity was not disclosed, was arrested in the state capital Abaetetuba Oct. 21 and held at a police station jail until an anonymous caller tipped off the media.

"Nobody really knows what she was charged with. She was a suspect in a robbery but police were unable to tell us which robbery. There was no formal charge," Cohen said.

The girl's lawyers said police at one point said they believed the suspect was not a minor.

"Whether she was 15, 20, 50, 80 or 100 doesn't matter. A woman should not have been kept in a jail cell with men," Para Governor Ana Julia Carepa told reporters, adding she would mete out "exemplary punishment" in the case.
Agence France-Presse