It was a cold winter night in Jacksonville. A woman with only a phone in her hand darted out from a riverfront home. Fearing for her life, she hid behind the bushes next to a dark street nearby. In a panic she called her sister and at her urging she used the remaining one percent of battery on her phone to dial 911. The police arrived on the scene and found her bruised and shaken. After speaking with her and the accused, they found probable cause to arrest her husband and mother-in-law. The police report describes the incident as “domestic battery,” which is a first-degree misdemeanor under Florida law and is defined as without consent the touching, striking or the intentional causing of bodily harm of another family or household member. Despite the victim and her family being long standing members of the local mosque, no one from its leadership paid met with the victim. To the contrary, the victim faced enormous social pressure to “reconcile” with her abuser.

After meeting with the victim, I could not help but recall the award-winning Indian (Hindi) movie Thappad (“The Slap” is available on Amazon Prime), whose fiction mirrored reality.  The movie revolved around a woman seeking divorce after she was slapped for the first time by her husband. She too faced enormous social pressure to “reconcile” and “move on” because it was “bas itni si baat” (such a small thing). Just as in the movie, the victim in aforementioned incident encountered similar dismissiveness. From the ubiquitous “log kya kehenge” (what will people say) to the retrograde “shaadi mein sab kuch chalta hain” (in a marriage anything goes), were all distressingly familiar.

Most Imams (Muslim clergy) are untrained in professional counseling and yet they are the first person many turn to for help. For women victims, the situation is worse. While women are the primary victims of domestic violence, there are virtually no women imams for them to turn to.  Other than perfunctory sermonizing from the mosque pulpit about the mutual duties of a husband and wife, Imams do very little to raise awareness about the scourge of domestic violence.

Juliane Hammer, author of the book “Peaceful Families: American Muslim Efforts against Domestic Violence,” noted that many Muslim American leaders feel ashamed to air the dirty laundry of their faith community. Concerns about rising anti-Muslim bigotry in society exacerbates the situation further. Muslim women fear that reporting or seeking help will draw even more negative attention to their faith community. Fear of “log kya kehenge” (what will people say) overwhelms any urge to hold the abuser accountable, further silencing victims. In this twilight zone, abusers find compliant surrogates who use unhealthy religious guilt tripping, which the Huffington Post in a November 2019 story titled, “Muslim Survivors of Domestic Violence Need You to Listen,” describes as, “cherry-picked lines of Islamic text to try to justify their actions and guilt their victims into staying in an abusive relationship.”

An article in the Journal of Muslim Mental Health noted that while Muslims in America constitute only 1 percent of the overall population, they account for 10 percent of the media stories on domestic violence. The preponderance of data shows that domestic violence is just as pervasive among Muslim Americans as it is in the rest of society. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 1 in 4 women and 1 in 9 men have experienced severe physical violence by an intimate partner during their lifetime.

Certain Quranic verses, such as 4:34, which when read without context, may appear to sanction marital violence against women. Preachers from the mosque pulpit need to make it unequivocally clear that domestic violence is not sanctioned by the faith, particularly given that Prophet Muhammad never struck or beat his wives. Instead of silencing victims, the Muslim community will be better served by holding abusers accountable. Islamic sacred texts urge morally upright actions (Quran 4:135) and condemns slander (Quran 49:12 and 24:15), a practice that is often deployed by abusers to further oppress their victims.

But preventing pervasive domestic violence will take more than preaching. The booklet Domestic Violence and Faith Communities, published in 2016 by the State of New York, outlines a few practical steps that all faith communities can undertake to hold abusers accountable:

• Focus on behavior and not the social standing of the abuser.
• Refrain from conspiring with the abuser in any way.
• Do not let fear prevent you from holding the abuser accountable.
• Remove the abuser from any leadership roles, committees, or groups.

Will my faith community give the issue of domestic violence its due urgency and in doing so prevent the next victim? Or will all this, yet again, be brushed under the rug as “bas itni si baat” (such a small thing)?

[Parvez Ahmed, Ph.D., is a 2-term Human Rights Commissioner for the city of Jacksonville and professor at the University of North Florida. He has held numerous leadership positions in local and national Islamic organizations.]

Although the election results in Virginia were hardly a surprise given that the party not in the White House usually wins the gubernatorial elections in that state, pundits were too eager to declare Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a major factor in the “surprise” results. Whether it played a role or not, I am familiar how the propaganda surrounding CRT has misled otherwise well-meaning people. Recently, I was presenting about racial wealth inequality when someone asked my views about CRT being taught in schools. When I inquired which schools, the questioner had no answer, because CRT is not taught in K-12 schools.

I do not teach CRT either. However, as an economist interested in wealth and income inequality, I do ask questions similar to those posed by CRT scholars. According to a study from the Urban Institute, in 1963, during segregation, “the average wealth of white families was $121,000 higher than the average wealth of nonwhite families.” By 2016, that disparity had grown to over $700,000. In addition, white families accumulate more wealth over time than Black or Hispanic families. When a family is in their 30s the average white family has $147,000 more in wealth than Black families. However, the time those families reach their 60s, the gap balloons to $1.1 million. What explains the persistence of such disparities?

CRT scholars, as well as many economists, will point to past laws. For example, when the Social Security Act was passed in 1935, it left out two occupations – agricultural workers and domestic servants. Not coincidentally these workers were predominantly Black and brown, thus left out from benefitting from this social welfare program. Similarly, when the Wagner Act of 1935 granted unions the right to collective bargaining it carved out a loophole allowing unions to exclude nonwhites. Well into the 1970s, some worker unions remained all white, once again depriving Black and brown people the benefits of union negotiated wages and benefits. A New Deal program on housing, allowed the Federal Housing Administration the practice of excluding predominantly Black neighborhoods from being eligible for FHA housing loans, also known as redlining. As a result, between 1934 and 1962, $120 billion in FHA backed home loans went to whites, a staggering 98 percent of the time. Thus, over generations, Black families disproportionately suffered under laws that were ostensibly race-neutral but effectively perpetuated wealth divides. The net effect, that by 2019 the median wealth of Black households in the United States was $24,100, compared with $189,100 for white households, a disparity of nearly 1:8. Even after controlling for education and marital status, these disparities persist.

CRT posits that systemic or structural factors explains the persistent Black-white divides not only in wealth creation but also in criminal justice, education, healthcare, and housing. Other inquiring minds are certainly within their right to disagree, but they should at least posit plausible alternative explanations. But instead of robust intellectual debates that will force corrective legislative actions, politicians have found it electorally advantageous to demagogue the issue, invoking imagined fears about CRT.

Nearly a decade after 9/11, in 2010, I witnessed first-hand how demagoguery led to a media frenzy around my nomination to the Jacksonville Human Rights Commission. That same year hysteria also erupted around the so-called Ground Zero mosque, which was a term invented to distract from the original plan that was to be called the Cordoba House. The project was a nod to the spirit of Cordoba, a city remembered as being part of a civilization that witnessed extraordinary coexistence between Jews, Christians, and Muslims, in 15th century Spain (Al-Andalus). With zero evidence to back any claims, flames of hatred were fanned calling the project a “monster mosque” and a “victory lap” for terrorism. The divisive tactics worked. The project envisioned to revive a culture of mutual coexistence was ultimately sacrificed at the altar of hate.

Having tasted success by creating controversy out of nothing, hatemongers looked for newer targets. The anti-CRT legislations now sweeping across GOP controlled state legislatures, were preceded by similar delirium around anti-Sharia law bills (Sharia is to Muslims what Halakah is to Jews and Canon law is to Catholics). Southern Poverty Law Center documents that 201 anti-Sharia law bills have been filed in state legislatures since 2010. At least 14 of these have become law. Similar to anti-CRT bills, they are legislations in search of a problem. Just as CRT is not being taught in K-12 schools, American law is under no threat of being overrun by Sharia law, because our Constitution prevents any foreign law to subsume national laws in the United States.

The rise in anti-Sharia law legislation also coincided with increasing hate crimes against Muslims. Anti-CRT propaganda too is ensnaring innocent victims, as it being used as an excuse to infringe on academic freedoms in higher ed and put a chill on schoolteachers attempting to prepare students for a world that is increasingly diverse.

With each passing year, America will become more diverse, soon becoming a country where no one racial group will be a clear majority. Our city of Jacksonville is already in that state of being majority-minority but leadership across many institutions in our city do not reflect this reality. As a result, from city government to higher ed, from corporate board rooms to non-profit boards, diversity has yet to be fully harnessed as a source of our strength and the reason for our growth. Instead, diversity is offered as a lame excuse for our polarization.

While it is easy to blame politicians, ultimately in a democracy, the fault dear Brutus is not in our stars but in ourselves. We the people are failing we the people. Until that changes, new enemies will be imagined as way to distract us from the real problems facing our collective humanity, from climate change to unequal access to prosperity. We can either learn from the echoes of our past or ignore them at our own peril as merchants of hate fan the flames of outrage to further erode our democracy.

Parvez Ahmed, Ph.D., is Director of Diversity and Inclusion and Professor of Finance at the Coggin College of Business, University of North Florida.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Guest Column: Misinformation about Critical Race Theory continues ]]> http://forcommongood.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=620 0 http://forcommongood.com/blog/?p=614 http://forcommongood.com/blog/?p=614#comments Thu, 19 Aug 2021 19:45:35 +0000 Parvez Ahmed http://forcommongood.com/blog/?p=614 Florida Times Union, Aug 13, 2021

Concerned about the uncontrolled spread of COVID-19’s Delta variant across our region, on Aug. 3, I joined a group of parents and doctors at a rally to demand that the Duval County Public School Board mandate masks in schools. This small exercise in democracy was instrumental in forcing the School Board to mandate masks, albeit with a perplexing opt-out clause. Despite the threats of retaliation from Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis, people standing up for their right to protect their loved ones prevailed, rekindling the seemingly dying embers of our flawed democracy.

This was not the first-time ordinary citizens in Duval made their voices count. Ordinary citizens made a difference last year when they banded together to oppose the privatization of our public utility, JEA. Earlier this year, ordinary citizens made a difference once again when they objected to hundreds of millions of tax dollars being directed to the private development of Lot J, without clarity on the payoffs to taxpayers. To his credit, Jaguars owner Shad Khan responded to these concerns by going back to the drawing  board and returning with a proposal that had both greater transparency and better return on investment (ROI) for taxpayers.

The $120 million Jaguars performance center will be 50 percent funded by taxpayers and seems to assuage the fears of many Lot J critics, such as David Miller, owner of Brightway Insurance, who called the new proposal, “transparent, thoughtful and significant.” I was at the June 3 unveiling of this ambitious project. While listening to the impressive presentation put together by the Jaguars, I could not help but reflect on the power of ordinary citizens collectively raising their voices and the responsiveness of businesses that value such voices. Democracy allows diversity of worldviews to play out in the marketplace of ideas, often producing outcomes that are good for businesses and good for the communities. Studies have shown that societies that fully embrace democracy are more stable and therefore provide the optimal environment for businesses and communities to flourish

A new era of corporate social responsibility could be upon us. Perhaps due to the ubiquitous nature of social media or in part due to the persistence of grassroots community organizing, businesses are realizing something that I have been researching and writing for over two decades – a commitment to social responsibility is no impediment to the core corporate goal of value or profit maximization.

Toyota serves as a recent case study. In the aftermath of the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol Hill, that ended 44 consecutive peaceful transitions of Presidential power, spanning over two centuries, Toyota along with many other major corporations pledged to no longer donate to those members of Congress who sowed needless doubts about the democratic process when they voted to not certify the Presidential elections of 2020. A few months later Toyota resumed their contributions. Facing a storm from stakeholders dismayed that the company was funding those who directly or indirectly aided and abetted a frontal assault on democracy in its most perilous hour, Toyota reversed course.

A 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer report found a staggering 86 percent of respondents want corporate CEOs to lead on societal issues. When government actors fail in their fiduciary duties, 68 percent want businesses to engage on social issues, “with the same rigor, thoughtfulness, and energy used to deliver on profits.” Paying attention to the proverbial bottom line of cash flow but ignoring the perils posed by socially irresponsible actions, such as promoting the big lie of a stolen election, is no longer a sustainable business practice.

Freedom House, America’s oldest organization devoted to the support of democracy reports that, “In every region of the world, democracy is under attack by populist leaders and groups that reject pluralism and demand unchecked power to advance the particular interests of their supporters, usually at the expense of minorities and other perceived foes.” Jan. 6 was the most vivid example here at home about the fragility of our democracy.

Amid the worry about where we go next, I find hope in the small steps our Duval community. Witnessing the successes of a small group of committed citizens, even against strong headwinds, restores hope that democracy will remain the most effective form of governance, so long as people are resolved to making their voices heard and businesses commit themselves to listening.

Parvez Ahmed, Ph.D., is Professor of Finance and Director of Diversity and Inclusion at UNF’s Coggin College of Business

Published in the Florida Times Union, May 9, 2021.

by Parvez Ahmed

About a year ago, I received the devastating news about my Mom’s terminal cancer. As she took her last breaths, I could not visit her in Kolkata, India. The first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic was underway. Global travel had come to a virtual standstill and India, like the rest of the world, was in the midst of lockdowns and quarantines. A year later, while the pandemic here at home is beginning to wane, in India it has metastasized into a carnage. The US State Department has urged Americans to not travel to India and a travel ban from India has now been instituted for non-US citizens. Once again, I am forced to cancel my summer travel plans to visit family in India.

Almost every Indian American I talk to knows someone, either a member of their extended family or someone from their circle of friends, who have been personally impacted by this new wave in India. The 7-day average of daily COVID-19 cases is over 400,000, not only the highest in the world today but also a number not seen anywhere in the past year. The 7-day daily average of deaths is over 3,000. As alarming as these numbers are, experts on the ground contend that the official daily new cases and deaths in India are a severe undercount.

In one of many examples, a crematorium in the capital New Delhi that receive 10 bodies a day during normal times, is now receiving over 100. Graveyards are running out of space too. If that is not dystopian enough, consider the daily “normal” scene of patients entering hospitals with their own oxygen cylinders in tow. Family members pumping someone’s chest as they gasp for air in a car parked outside the hospital as a scramble for bed ensues are not scenes from a M. Night Shyamalan movie.  As patients gasp for air, Indian social media is replete with people pleading for hospital beds or oxygen cylinders.

How did things turn so grave? The tale should be familiar to most Americans. It starts with a national leader in denial and engaging in wishful thinking. Recall on February 26, 2020, then US President Donald Trump boasting, “You have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.” Almost a year later, on January 22, 2021, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi boasted that atmanirbhar Bharat (a self-reliant India) has beaten back the pandemic. India’s ruling political party, Modi’s BJP, hailed the “visionary leadership of Prime Minister Modi” that has made India “victorious nation in the fight against COVID.”

This new wave in India was partly driven by a more transmissible variant but mostly due to Modi government’s negligence. Not only did Modi, much like Trump, engage in large political rallies during a pandemic, he also pandered to the religious establishment by allowing a major Hindu festival, which attracts millions, to go forward. With mask wearing nary in sight, the results were predictable. Cases exploded and the Indian health system collapsed. The Prime Minister who was prematurely boasting of a self-reliant India is now receiving generous donations from many countries, with the United States being a major benefactor. The Biden administration, rightfully understanding that the pandemic cannot be controlled if a major nation like India is on fire, is sending vaccines, large-scale oxygen generation units and N95 masks.

The generosity of the American people will undoubtedly be appreciated by my family, friends and untold millions. However, the challenge in India remains one of sane governance. Modi and his allies seem more worried about critical social media posts and editorials in foreign newspapers than about the plight of people gasping for air. Just as Trump made states fight for COVID-19 test kits, Modi has left the states in India to fend for themselves in securing supplies of vaccines. Even as a practicing physician, my father cannot secure a vaccine for himself much less his family. Following threats from “powerful people” the CEO of Serum Institute, India’s leading vaccine manufacturer, has fled to London.

Growing up in India, I have lived through many social traumas. But through it all, I have always found my family and friends resilient even in the face of overwhelming odds. But now I sense resignation and a foreboding of disaster. They feel powerless in the face of this incalculable tragedy. Dealing with this fatalism has only made matters worse for the Indian diaspora in America.

Parvez Ahmed was born in India and is professor of finance and director of diversity and inclusion at the Coggin College of Business, University of North Florida.

Pro sports provide the ultimate test for meritocracy, but the owners of major league sports teams, particularly in the U.S., make money regardless of success on the field. Despite this reality, many of those owners shamelessly coerce taxpayers to subsidize their enterprise. Ironically, some of the biggest cheerleaders against socialism are happy to accept socialism as long as it lines their pockets or supports their parochial interests.

Over the past two decades, the value of pro sports franchises has increased exponentially while public infrastructures in the same cities that these franchises call home have deteriorated. One example: the city of Oakland. Their championship teams — the Golden State Warriors, Oakland Athletics and at one time the Raiders — have increased respectively in value 12 times, 4 times and 5 times since 2000, while Oakland remains home to some of the worst roads in the country and the school district is struggling with funding. Sound familiar?

This brings us to our lone major league franchise, the Jaguars. The team is seeking various taxpayer subsidies to finance its private enterprise with a not-so-subtle threat that if taxpayers do not pony up, the team could find greener pastures elsewhere. This is just not right.

Team owners argue that professional sports add tangible economic well-being and intangible civic pride for citizens. But the reality suggests otherwise. A recent article in The Atlantic noted, “Imagine a stadium as a giant drain. Money flows from the community into the stadium, where it whirls around for a bit, then funnels down some murky pipes, exiting far, far away. Some leaves with players, some with owners and ownership groups, some with the league itself, the headquarters of which are in New York.” In other words, the very taxpayers who subsidize profits for the owners are the last in line for any benefit from such deals.

A study published by Brookings suggests that any major taxpayer spending on sports facilities or its affiliated developments have negligible impact on economic activity and employment in the region. Given the finite recreational budget for most families, any spending that occurs on game day is a substitute for other local recreational spending, as are any taxes collected on such spending. If a family spends on a football game, they are likely to forego spending on movies. Most studies that are touted to show economic benefits from major league sports are self-promotional and  fail to account for the net economic cannibalization that major league sports has on other entertainment in the city.

As an avid sports fan with a son aspiring to play in the professional leagues one day, I am not the Grinch trying to run our beloved Jaguars out of town. But there is scant data to support large-scale taxpayer subsidies for sports stadiums or any other stadium related projects that must be publicly financed to keep our Jaguars in town. The aforementioned article in The Atlantic summed it up best: “Pro sports teams are bad business deals for cities, and yet, cities continue to fall for them. But municipalities can support local sports without selling out their citizens in the process.” If a deal indeed must be made, it ought to be done with utmost transparency and the consent of taxpayers. That will be meritocratic and democratic.

Parvez Ahmed is professor of finance at University of North Florida.

With due apologies to Sound of Music, how do you solve a problem like sedition? How do you catch the perpetrators and pin them down? How do you decide if to aid it, ignore it, or squash it? The answer should be obvious. The business sector understands this. Unfortunately, too many Republicans do not. They want to skip the first step of accountability and move on to the last of unity.

Following the violent attempted coup by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, a day that will live in infamy, social media companies have finally realized the potential for mayhem their unregulated platforms can bring. From Facebook to Twitter, all have been culpable in giving Donald Trump unfettered ability to spew the big lie that the 2020 election for the president of the United States was “stolen.” Realizing that the big lie spawned an armed insurrection against the U.S. government, these social media companies have finally taken an important step towards dismantling the network of radical white extremists. Despite fear of backlash from a sitting president, they suspended Trump’s accounts. Amazon Webhosting went a step further and took down Parler, the social media platform where right-wingers hatch conspiracies. Owners of right-wing talk radio have sent a memo that their hosts stop talking about the election being stolen or face termination. PGA has terminated its contract with Trump’s golf properties. Other corporations from Marriott to Blue Cross are suspending their political donations to all Republicans in Congress who voted to overturn the results of a legitimate election. Coups are not good for business. It is not good for democracy either.

According to the latest Quinnipiac poll, 7 in 10 Americans are concerned that our democracy is under siege. According to PBS Marist poll, 9 in 10 oppose the actions of Trump supporters who rioted at the U.S. Capitol. But 1 in 5 Republicans expressed support, an ominous sign that recovering from this body blow will take a concerted effort, combining the skills of law enforcement with the imperative of deradicalization. But as the post 9-11 era taught us, none of this is easy, particularly when the enemy is within. The FBI issued a warning that armed protests are being planned in all fifty state capitols and at the US Capitol starting this weekend and continuing till Joe Biden’s inauguration. Trump’s 4-year peddling of racism followed by fanning the big lie of a stolen election has transformed white supremacy into our greatest security threat today.

With every passing day the attempted coup on Jan. 6 appears far more sinister than appeared at first blush. After receiving, as the AP put it, “stirring encouragement from Trump and more explicit marching orders from the president’s men,” the rioters got to work – breaking into the seat of U.S. government, openly chanting about killing elected officials and killing or injuring the few brave police officers who tried to resist. The AP further added, “The FBI is investigating whether some of the attackers intended to kidnap members of Congress and hold them hostage. Authorities are particularly focused on why some in the mob were seen carrying plastic zip-tie handcuffs and had apparently accessed areas of the Capitol generally difficult for the public to locate.”

Unless Republicans want fascism to succeed, they must hold all conspirators to this bloody coup accountable. They can do what Republicans did during Nixon. Walk into the Oval Office and demand that a President credibly accused of high crimes and misdemeanors resign. Pressure Mike Pence to apply the 25th Amendment and if that fails, impeach, remove, and permanently ban Trump from public office. After than we can talk unity and figure out a path to never again.

Parvez Ahmed teaches at The University of North Florida.

On the heels of a record-setting election turnout and an election free of any substantive voter fraud, Republicans in Georgia enacted new legislation that can be best described as voter suppression. That the bill was premised on the big lie of a stolen election, makes its passage all the more insidious. Republicans did not like the outcome of the last elections in Georgia. Who likes to be on the losing side? But instead of figuring out how to better appeal to voters, Republicans have chosen the path of reducing voter access to the ballot box. This has provoked predictable outrage. Several major corporations have now joined the fray. United Airlines summarized it succinctly, “Legislation that infringes on the right to vote of fellow Americans is wrong.”

Businesses influencing our politics is not news. Over a decade ago, in the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision cited the First Amendment in opening the floodgates for corporate spending in elections. By my rough estimate, from the federal campaign contribution website OpenSecrets.com, of the top 50 organizational donors in 2020 election cycle, 34 were corporations. These 34 corporations provided over $1.1 billion in campaign donations, 52 percent going to Republicans and 48 percent to Democrats. Even more money, this time unaccounted, flowed into groups who legally do not have to disclose their donors. Republicans cheered Citizens United. But now they decry those same corporations exercising their 1A rights to speak out on social justice issues.

Corporations have begun to broaden their understanding of what drives firm value. Paying attention to the proverbial bottom line of cash flow but ignoring the social perils surrounding their customers and employees is no longer a sustainable model. Free markets, necessitate democracy, which needs a commitment to social justice. Businesses realize, now more than ever before, that the blind worship of free markets has not made each generation doing better than the previous. To the contrary, unfettered crony capitalism has led to grotesque income inequality, an erosion of trust in institutions and staggering environmental degradation.

Businesses need democracy to work. More importantly they need democratically accountable governments to help markets remain not only free but also fair. While undemocratic governments are easy to corrupt, which may favor corporate interests in the short run, but flawed democracies eventually endanger business interests. This does not mean businesses having discovered religion are now going to pull back from authoritarian economies, such as China. But it does mean that where businesses perceive that its newfound moral voice will make a difference, they will be unafraid to speak out. Baby steps forward.

A 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer report found that a staggering 86 percent of respondents want corporate CEOs to lead on societal issues. When governments fail, 68 percent want businesses to engage on social issues, “with the same rigor, thoughtfulness, and energy used to deliver on profits.” After Major League Baseball pulled its All-Star Game from Atlanta, 48 percent of MLB fans and 62 percent of avid fans expressed support for MLB’s decision.

Some derisively call this wokeness or cancel culture. But from my vantage point of researching capital markets for over two decades, I see corporations haltingly but surely charting their path back to Adam Smith’s conception of free markets where, “necessary assistance is reciprocally afforded from love, from gratitude, from friendship and esteem,” and where social responsibility is fiscal prudence.  Businesses realize that if they do not step-up and step-in, society could descend into dystopia as social injustice, wealth inequality and climate change, further plunge the world into unprecedented chaos.

Parvez Ahmed is professor of finance and director of diversity and inclusion at the Coggin College of Business, University of North Florida.

Published in the Florida Times Union, Feb 7, 2021.

by Parvez Ahmed

When terrorists claiming to act in the name of my faith attacked the homeland on Sept. 11, 2001, Muslims in America were not only targeted for surveillance, they were also repeatedly asked to condemn terrorism even when the only thing they shared with the terrorists was their religion. Frenzied protests were mounted when a group of Muslims wanted to build a spiritual community center not far from the World Trade Towers.

At a personal level, I recall with pain, my own saga going through the process of being confirmed as a Human Rights Commissioner for the city of Jacksonville. City Council members grilled me on “Islamic” terrorism and cared little about my views on human rights. During the confirmation hearing one Republican council member went as far as asking me to pray to “my God” before voting against me.

Despite having no material connections to any terrorists, many Muslims were hounded by the media, their loyalty questioned in public and frequently discriminated at work. The frenzy reached its peak when candidate Donald J. Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the U.S. and followed up with his first executive action to essentially criminalize my faith by enacting a travel ban from several Muslim majority countries. The U.S. Supreme Court later upheld a watered-down version of this discriminatory policy. Post 9-11 realities, from government-sanctioned detentions at airports to privately ginned up “protests” by hate groups, have left a deep scar in ways unimaginable. All this in the name of national security.

Fast forward to the Capitol attacks on Jan. 6. The rioters, far from being an impromptu flash mob, were incited by repeated assertions of a big lie that the presidential election was stolen. They planned in plain view to storm the Capitol. They wanted to kill or kidnap the next two in the line of succession to the President – Trump’s own Vice President and the Democratic Speaker of the House. A report released in October 2020 concluded that white supremacist groups pose a grave danger to the nation. And yet no one is asking all elected Republican officials to put out clear statements of condemnations. No one is demanding that Republican voters explain why their side is aiding and abetting terrorism. No security agency is engaged in surveillance of Republicans.

Despite my trauma of being harassed and surveilled, I am not advocating for its reciprocation. I am weary of additional intrusive laws against domestic terrorism that could lead to stereotyping and when the inevitable abuses happen, Black and Brown communities will be its primary victims. However, it is hard to miss the contrast in the treatment of Muslims versus Republicans, both Americans.

That White perpetrators of terrorism are being treated differently than Black or Brown perpetrators, is no accident of history. This is the outcome of our caste-based system so graphically and eloquently outlined in Isabel Wilkerson’s bestseller “Caste – The Origins of Our Discontents.”

The long arc of American history is not just the rosy stories we tell ourselves about the triumphs of justice but the stories we hate to admit – the perpetuation of our caste-based society where “a fixed and embedded ranking of human value” is based on, “the presumed supremacy of one group against the presumed inferiority of other groups on the basis of ancestry and often immutable traits.”

If not the presumed superiority, what explains the hypocrisy in the way terrorism committed by Muslims is distinguished from terrorism committed by Whites who responded to the incitement of a Republican President? It appears that once again as a society we are failing to hold White supremacy accountable for its sordid history of violence and sedition.

Parvez Ahmed is Director for Diversity and Inclusion and Professor of Finance at UNF’s Coggin College of Business. His views are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of UNF or the Coggin College of Business.
 
You can read more about the author here.

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Published in the Florida Times Union, Aug 9, 2020.

by Parvez Ahmed

To mitigate the health and economic impact of COVID-19, besides a national testing and contact tracing program, President Donald Trump had to do three things: mandate masks nationwide, institute a near nationwide extended lockdown and provide stimulus money to cover the economic hole created by the lockdown.

If he did all this in March and April, the country would be returning to a semblance of normality by now, as much of Europe is beginning to do.

Instead, we are in the middle of the worst public health crisis since the H1N1 flu pandemic of 1918, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of 1929-33 and the worst civil unrest since the Civil Rights Movement of 1954-68.

That all three crises have converged is not coincidental.

The U.S. is 4.2 percent of the world’s population but accounts for nearly 25 percent of all COVID-19 cases and deaths. Over the past two weeks, the U.S. has been averaging nearly nine times the number of cases and deaths than in the European Union.

Although EU’s gross domestic product shrank more, due to widespread and strict lockdowns, it did not suffer higher unemployment because of a well-implemented stimulus program. The U.S. spent 13 percent of its GDP on stimulus spending while the EU is spending about 4 percent. The EU got more for its sacrifices because they realized that what is good for the public’s health is also good for their pocketbook.

Following the death of George Floyd, our ongoing quest for racial justice erupted into an unprecedented national movement partly because the public is tired of an inept and divisive administration.

As the initial COVID-19 victims turned out to be disproportionately Black and Brown in mostly Blue states, the Trump administration’s response was unmistakably political. A new report in Vanity Fair suggests that in the early days of the pandemic the Trump administration had crafted a national response plan. But the plan never came to fruition because the White House determined that the virus was going to be limited to primarily Blue states, which would “benefit” Trump as he pinned the failures on Democratic governors.

Only in the last couple weeks, as the pandemic spiked in several  Republican-led states, has the crisis begun to resonate with Trump, according to a report in The Washington Post. And yet there still is no sign of a nationwide mask mandate or targeted shutdowns. As Trump and his supporters clamor for opening schools, there is no desire to learn from the experiences of other countries. Israel, for example, reopened schools on May 17 after reporting 10 new cases on that day. Several weeks later, daily cases are once again in the thousands and several schools were shut down again.

An unprecedented 8 in 10 Americans believe that the country is heading in the wrong direction. The president, despite a grudging nod toward the efficacy of masks, still by-and-large refuses to wear one in public. Through tweets and golf trips, he demonstrates how little he cares about the lives and livelihood of ordinary Americans.

This callousness is a factor in the outrage that drove an estimated 15 million and 26 million people to engage in mostly peaceful demonstrations for Black Lives Matter —  the largest and the most diverse gathering of Americans ever engaged in direct action.

The specter of unnamed and unmarked federal security forces pointing guns and firing tear gas at unarmed protestors should make all of us fearful that our democracy could be slipping out of our hands.

Trump’s recent flirtation with postponing the November election drew a sharp rebuke from Steven Calabresi, a staunch ally and co-founder of the conservative Federalist Society. After describing Trump’s tweet as “fascistic,” he called for a second impeachment inquiry.

Congressman John Lewis in an opinion column published on the day of his funeral poignantly reminded us, “Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble. … I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe.”

Solving the unprecedented confluence of three major crises will require many John Lewis’ creating a lot of good trouble.

Parvez Ahmed is Director for Diversity and Inclusion and Professor of Finance at UNF’s Coggin College of Business. His views are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of UNF or the Coggin College of Business.

After acts of racist violence, from the gunning down of worshipers at a Black church by a White Supremacist to the murder of a helpless Black man by police, there have been protests, vigils and marches. And yet no meaningful change came about. But this time could be different. The brutality and brazenness of the murders of George Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor has ignited mostly peaceful protests in all 50 states. In addition, large rallies have broken out in cities as far flung as Auckland, New Zealand. Sensing deep anxiety among their constituents, many educational institutions and some businesses are speaking out.

The President of my university called out the “systemic oppression” that has impacted “our students, faculty and staff of color.” He asked people with privilege, those not from underrepresented minority communities to, “self-reflect, educate yourself about your biases, whether they are conscious or subconscious, and use your knowledge to help make a positive difference.”

While many businesses, including but not limited to Nike, Netflix, Disney, have spoken out, none has been more direct than Ben and Jerry’s. The brand, which is owned by Unilever, said that the killing of George Taylor was the result of, “inhumane police brutality that is perpetuated by a culture of white supremacy.” It went on to say, “What happened to George Floyd was not the result of a bad apple; it was the predictable consequence of a racist and prejudiced system and culture that has treated Black bodies as the enemy from the beginning.”

We as country stand at a perilous crossroad. One path leads to the continued erosion of democracy and constitutional rights. Not even my worst fears envisioned an American president using tear gas to clear out peaceful protesters for a photo op in front of a historic church. Images of national monuments in the nation’s capital being guarded by unidentified military personnel further points to a level of dystopia, hitherto unseen.

The other path is being blazed not only by a rainbow coalition of protesters on the streets but also by thoughtful policy advocates, such as Campaign Zero that laid out explicit action items to stem police brutality – end “broken windows” policing that target black bodies for offenses such as loitering or jaywalking or marijuana possession that do not threaten public safety; end racial profiling that leads to stopping and frisking civilians on mere “suspicion” based on their blackness or brownness; establish effective civilian oversight of police forces, such as a Citizens Review Board; review use of force protocols and ban maneuvers like choke holds or knees on neck; end  the federal program that provides military weapons to local police departments; institute mandatory training on implicit biases. This well researched list of reforms can reduce police violence by nearly 70 percent. Educators and businesses can play a crucial role in advocating such commonsense reforms.

In addition, higher educational institutions can retool their curriculum to make critical race and ethnic studies a general education requirement. Institutions must ensure that their student body is representative of the population they serve. But it will be hard to recruit minority students unless the makeup of faculty and university administration reflect the diversity of its constituency. The study of racial disparities in wealth or health must be integrated across all disciplines. Without such urgency to reform, we can remain hopelessly stuck in our status quo.

Business leaders need to lean forward. They should not solely use stock price to measure success. Sustainable business practices must integrate social responsibilities. Watching the current disconnect between stock markets and society can give even experienced market watchers a whiplash. While 40 million Americans are out of work, a pandemic is raging and there is social strife on the streets, the stock market keeps ticking up. This cognitive dissonance needs correcting via greater public and private investments which addresses the structural inequities that undergird our system where privilege accrues to a smaller and smaller slice at the top of the economic and social pyramid.

In this moment, silence is complicity. Inaction is hypocritical. We are all in it together, cannot be a mere slogan. To make it our lived reality, our institutions must do better.

[Parvez Ahmed, Ph.D. is Professor of Finance and Director of Diversity and Inclusion at the Coggin College of Business, University of North Florida]