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‘Geriatric Millennials’: 4 better ways to say that

Posted on May 17, 2021 by Joe Grimm

Let’s face it. Generations are hard — and hard on each other.

Photo by Christine Warner via Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons 2.0

The convenient but arbitrary cutoff dates that cleave generations always leave some people on the cutting room floor.

Start with the fact that the labels are usually imposed by other people and add the situation that people at the cusps of generations have more in common with the people who came before them in the previous generation or the one that comes up next.

Word that leading edge Millennials born between 1980 and 1985 (we have two sons in that mini-bracket) are being called “Geriatric Millennials” does not sit well with many of them. Some are cross. Some are meh. And some have alternatives. And you thought Gen X had attitude.

Lizzy Acker, a Millennial who knows when she is being called old, wrote about four alternatives for Oregonian:

The Oregon Trail Generation

The Home Alone Generation

The Book It Generation

Millennial

Check out Acker’s reasons. They make sense. And you can see how she dressed when she and a Millennial co-worker pitched the so-so-Millennial idea of a pop culture blog for KQED radio in 2012.

“100 Questions and Answers About Gen X and 100 Questions About Millennials” is available in one double guide from Amazon or the Front Edge Publishing bookstore.

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Pew on American Jewish identity

Posted on May 16, 2021 by Joe Grimm

A survey of American Jewish adults by the Pew Research Center confirms or updates some of our ideas. ideas about who they are. The results, released this month, come from 4,718 interviews. Here are five top takeaways:

Pew chart on religious affiliation of Jews

Pew chart notes found the youngest Jewish adults, aged 18-29, had larger shares of both Orthodox and people with no denominational identity.

27% did not identify with the Jewish religion. Rather, they call themselves Jewish by ethnicity, culture or by family. They describe their religion as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular.” While that proportion is similar to what it is for Americans in general, a key difference for Jews is that they can feel a cultural or ethnic connection to the faith, while other religiously unaffiliated people do not have any connection to a faith group.
Three-quarters of American Jews said there was more anti-Semitism than five years previously. Just more than half said they felt less safe than they did five years earlier.
Jews aged 18-29 were much more likely to identify as Orthodox, 17%, compared with 3% of Jews 65 and older. Eleven percent of Jewish adults under 30 say they are ultra-Orthodox compared with 1% of Jews 65 and older.
Jewish Americans with the exception of Orthodox Jews identified as staunchly liberal. The survey, conducted during the 2020 presidential campaign, found that that 71% of Jewish adults (including 80% of Reform Jews) were Democrats or leaned that way. Of Orthodox Jews, three-quarters said they were Republican or leaned that way. That percentage has been growing. In 2013, 57% of Orthodox Jews said they were Republicans or Republican leaners.
82% of U.S. Jews said caring about Israel is either “essential” or “important” to what it means to them to be Jewish. When the survey was conducted, between Nov. 19, 2019, and June 3, 2020, Jews who were Democrats or leaned that way were were much more likely (29% vs. 5%) than Jewish Republicans and leaners to say the U.S. was too supportive of Israel.

“100 Questions and Answers About American Jews” is available from Amazon or the Front Edge Publishing bookstore.

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Buddhists live stream Asian American ancestors ceremony on May 4

Posted on May 4, 2021 by Joe Grimm

Lion’s Roar reports that May We Gather, a national Buddhist memorial ceremony for Asian American ancestors, will be live streamed at 7 p.m. EDT, 4 p.m. PDT on Tuesday.

The day is seven weeks from the day of the Atlanta shootings which claimed the lives of eight people, six of whom were women of Asian descent, including 63-year-old Buddhist Yong Ae Yue.

The event website reads: “In many Buddhist traditions, forty-nine days after death marks an important transition for the bereaved. As we pray for the liberation of those who have come before us, these ancestors will likewise alleviate our community’s pain, for we are interlinked with each other, across generations, in our collective liberation.”

The ceremony will be live streamed from the Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple in Los Angeles. In Ferbruary, it was vandalized and set on fire.

“100 Questions and Answers About East Asian Cultures” is available from Amazon or the Front Edge Publishing bookstore.

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Asian American students in 6 words

Posted on May 3, 2021 by Joe Grimm

Check out Chalkbeat’s Student Voices project in which Asian American students use six-word stories, artwork, poetry and music to comment on the times they’re experiecning.

Kelly Shi, 15, of Queens, New York, is one student who contributed more than one piece. She shared this artwork and a six-word thought: “Why fit in? Stand out instead.”

Artwork by Kelly Shi, 15, Queens, New York

Chalkbeat Editor-in-Chief Nicole Avery Nichols said the students’ work took her back to discrimination she experienced as a fourth grader in Long Island. She told her own story and added, “In just six words, students of Asian descent and allies shared their thoughts about race, racism, culture, and the reparative conversations that are long overdue in America. Their mini-stories … are heartbreaking, powerful, jarring, insightful, thought-provoking, inspiring, poignant, and all too familiar.”

The students ranged in age from 6 to 33. As Nichols said, Their messages ranged from sad to powerful to angry to hopeful.

Nine-year-old Quentin Tai Murphy of Denver wrote, “Teaming up, we can stop racism.”

Their thoughts should touch you.

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What does APIDA mean?

Posted on May 1, 2021 by Joe Grimm

This year’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, which begins May 1, continues to evolve. There are at least three factors changing the month, first recognized as Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in 1990. It had previously been just a week, and Islander was added in 1992.

In 2021, as in 2020, the month will be celebrated under pandemic conditions. This year, rising protests against anti-Asian hate give the month a sharper edge. And now, the month’s focus is expanding as May is more frequently noted as APIDA month. That stands for Asian Pacific Islander Desi American.

Desi embraces South Asian people, typically those from or with ancestry in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The subcontinent also includes Bhutan, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Afghanistan and the Maldives are often considered part of South Asia, too.

Desi is from the Sanskrit word for a native of a “desh” or country. Desi is not a nationalistic designation, but rather, it is pan-ethnic and used in the name of the month to complete the concept of who Asian Americans are.

So far, the Bias Busters series has guides on East Asian cultures and Indian Americans. One on Sikh Americans, who are rooted in Punjab, is in the works. “100 Questions and Answers About East Asian Cultures” is available from Amazon or the Front Edge Publishing bookstore.

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Arabs and Muslims: Not the same

Posted on April 30, 2021 by Joe Grimm

As Arab American Heritage Month concludes, James Zogby writes in The Nation about a lifetime of slights, large and small, over his ethnicity. Zogby is a pollster and founder and president of the Arab American Institute.

James Zogby, author of Arab Voices, speaks to the Microsoft Political Action Committee at Microsoft campus in 2020.
Photo by BankingBum, licensed under Creative Commons

He recounts slurs, being excluded or marginalized and discrimination. He recalls The Rev. Martin Luther King’s observation that people can be alternately excluded or included not because of their qualifications but because of their ethnicity.

Zogby tries to set the record straight on a major misconception in the United States. Recently, rather than recognize Arabs in the United States for who they are, a group tweeted a celebration of AMEMSA Heritage Month. That stands for Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim and South Asian.

Zogby wrote this amalgamation is “not a shared heritage but rather a rubric created as a product of targeting by government national security policies. By choosing to recognize this invented category, they in effect canceled our decades of work to achieve recognition for our ethnic community.”

Islam is one of many religions practiced by Arab Americans. The also belong to many Christian faiths and, like more and more Americans, many are nonreligious. South Asia is a puzzler because there are no Arab countries there at all.

Zogby sees the mistake or misidentification as a denial of the Arab identity.

Who are Arab Americans? Learn more reading “100 Questions and Answers About Arab Americans,” which Zogby helped shape. “100 Questions and Answers About Arab Americans” is available from Amazon or the Front Edge Publishing bookstore.

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Did Justin Bieber commit cultural appropriation again?

Posted on April 29, 2021 by Joe Grimm

Justin Bieber has been accused, again, of appropriating Black culture for having his hair styled in dreadlocks, an ethnic hairstyle.

Is it wrong to adopt an identifying characteristic of a culture one does not share?

The answer is debated. It lies in why it was done, how it was done and how people who are of that culture see it.

Justin Bieber in dreadlocks on Instagram

Bieber’s April 2021 display of dreadlocks on Instagram is not his first. He did it in 2016 and was called out.

For many, the hairstyle represents a reclamation of Black identity. It signifies protest and beauty and a restoration of justice. It is in the face of White European standards that put it down. The twisted or locked hairstyle has roots in Hindu mysticism, Ethiopia, Nigeria and, later, Jamaica.

When someone from outside the culture wears it, motives come into question. Is it to express solidarity? Is it to draw attention or turn a profit? Worst case: Is it to ridicule?

Wearing the hairstyles of another culture can be taken as supportive or corrosive.

In 2016, Bieber told the artist Big Sean people were saying “‘You want to be black’ and all of that stuff people say. I’m like, ‘It’s just my hair.’”

To a lot of people, it is much deeper than “just my hair.”

Cultural appropriation or misappropriation comes up in several Bias Busters guides, including “100 Questions and Answers About African Americans.” It is is available from Amazon or the Front Edge Publishing bookstore.

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Online vigil on April 22 for Indianapolis FedEx shootings

Posted on April 21, 2021 by Joe Grimm

The Sikh Coalition is inviting people to an online vigil on Thursday, April 22, for the people killed and hurt in the shootings at Indianapolis’ large FedEx warehouse. Eight people have died, including four members of the Sikh community. #StandWithSikhsSikhs make up a large proportion of the workforce there. The shooter worked there in 2020.

The victims were between the ages of 19 and 74.

The online vigil is being organized by the Revolutionary Love Project. It is billed as a national, multiracial, interfaith event, It will be at 8 p.m. EST, 5 p.m. PST.

The Revolutionary Love Project is led by Valarie Kaur, a peace and interfaith activist who is Sikh.

A post by the Sikh Coalition, which has people helping in Indianapolis, says “the vigil is intended to allow all to grieve and stand in solidarity with the Sikh community one week after the mass shooting.”

You can RSVP to attend via Zoom.

The invitation says the event will be “a night of testimony, music, prayer, and song.”

It adds, “Join us for a multiracial interfaith vigil to grieve and stand in solidarity with the Sikh community one week after the mass shooting in Indianapolis. The massacre is touching the open wound of decades-long racial trauma.

“In the wake of the verdict over George Floyd’s murder, we will gather to recommit to ending anti-Black racism and racial violence in all forms. We will be joined by faith leaders, artists, activists, and Sikh community members. This online event will be a night of testimony, music, prayer, and song. We will gather in grief, rage, and love — and the Sikh spirit of Chardi Kala, ever-rising spirits even in darkness.

The Bias Busters team at the Michigan State University School of Journalism has just completed a guide called “100 Questions and Answers About Sikh Americans” and will publish it soon.

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The Blue Wall of Silence and the police killing of George Floyd

Posted on April 16, 2021 by Joe Grimm

The Blue Wall of Silence, also called the Blue Code or the Blue Shield, is a protective silence by police about officers who commit crimes, including police brutality.

The murder trial of Derek Chauvin, charged with killing George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020 has been cited in the press as a case where that silence crumbled, collapsed, was dented or cracked.

Prosecutors called the Minneapolis police chief and officers about the arrest, in which Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds.

The code of silence in other cases has included officers declining to testify or turning off their body cameras.

In the #BiasBusters guide “100 Questions and Answers About Police Officers,” there is an entry on the blue Wall of Silence. It says, “Police and deputies swear to protect the community and civilians, and they also back up and help each other. When an officer is in trouble, the first person to help is almost always another officer. This contributes to the idea that a code of silence keeps officers from reporting each other’s wrongdoing. This idea is behind a 1988 movie, “The Thin Blue Line,” about a wrongful conviction. It is also true that many officers want to see bad cops brought to justice and that they initiate or lead investigations into corruption.”

NPR reported that Minneapolis activist and civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong said she hopes “officers will be more willing to intervene when they see their fellow officers engaged in misconduct or abusing someone out on the streets.” However, NPR reported, “she remains skeptical of the trial’s outcome, given the history of juries often failing to convict police officers around the country.”

“100 Questions and Answers About Police Officers” is available from Amazon or the Front Edge Publishing bookstore.

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COVID protocols for Muslims during Ramadan

Posted on April 14, 2021 by Joe Grimm

The holy month of Ramadan, now being celebrated by Muslims around the world, is having some COVID-related adjustments.

CNN answers questions about what is different about this, the second Ramadan to fall under the shadow of the pandemic. The answers give an insight into Muslim practices.

Photo by Rachid Oucharia on Unsplash

Here is some of the advice:

Does getting a COVID vaccine violate daily fasts?

No. Several authorities have said that the vaccine does not violate the fast. Furthermore, they have said the shots are halal, that is, permissible, as they do not contain pork or alcohol. Observant Muslims who feel a vaccine violates the fast can take advantage of the rule that says missed days of fasting may be made up at the end of the month

Should I pray at the mosque this Ramadan?

Given the hazards of being indoors with groups if people, religious authorities advise against it. Some mosques are making adjustments to provide greater social distancing. Other precautions include staying away if sick, making ablution, called wudu, at home, praying outside and bringing your own prayer rug.

May Muslims gather for Ramadan’s special daily meals?

Suhoor, the first meal of the day, and iftar, the first meal after sunset, may still be shared with family or friends if gatherings are small. This could help ensure that everyone will be able to gather for this communal meals in post-pandemic times.

“100 Questions and Answers About Muslim Americans” is available from Amazon or the Front Edge Publishing bookstore. Photo credit to Rachid Oucharia on Unsplash.

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