Archive for the ‘Tolerance’ Category
May 17, 2010
Lena Horne died last week at 92. I only knew of two prominent African-Americans when I was growing up in segregated Wilmington, Delaware. One was heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis, and the other was singer Lena Horne. I knew she was a good singer, and quite beautiful, but I didn’t know anything else. I’m indebted to Jack Marshall’s EthicsAlarms.com blog for educating me about her groundbreaking role in the civil rights movement.
Marshall called Horne “Ethics Hero Emeritus” for her relentless fight against segregation and her principled refusal to play demeaning roles in the racist Hollywood environment of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Her career suffered, and she finally left Hollywood for Europe, where people didn’t seem to care much about her skin color.
There’s a fascinating PBS Fresh Air program, broadcast on May 14, that replays an interview that host Terry Gross conducted with Horne’s daughter, Gail Lumet Horne, in 1986. Listen to it for an inspiring story of this heroic woman.
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Tags:African Americans, civil rights, Ethics Hero, EthicsAlarms, Fresh Air, Gail Lumet Horne, Hollywood, Jack Marshall, Joe Louis, Lena Horne, segregation¸ Wilmington Delaware, Terry Gross
Posted in Business ethics, Entertainment, Ethics-general, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »
May 12, 2010
Some Americans are up in arms over the prospect of a big new synagogue in the old Burlington Coat Factory site near Ground Zero, the site of the World Trade Center towers destroyed on 9/11. There’s even a Facebook page called “1,000,000+ people who disapprove of building a synagogue at Ground Zero!” It has 20,389 members, up from about 7,000 two days ago. The word is spreading virally on the internet, and people are thronging to the site to sign up.
The site’s self-description reads,
Jews want to put a SYNAGOGUE WITHIN 600 FEET “GROUND ZERO”! This page’s opinion is this synagogue is a symbol of conquering America; they could have put it somewhere else away from Ground Zero – hallowed ground – but they chose this spot for a reason.
Join us, and show America – and the Jewish world – that is an insult, and cannot stand!
This groups is NOT about attacking Judaism or Jews; it’s about the appropriateness of putting such a building in that location. Also, Obama has nothing to do with it; if you want to blame someone, blame Mayor Bloomberg – he approved of it.
The man leading the effort to build the synagogue is Rabbi Frank Rubenstein, who explained to The New York Times, “We want the world to know we condemn 9/11. In my congregation are many people who died on 9/11.” The Times described the rabbi as following a path of Judaism focused more on spiritual wisdom (more…)
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Tags:"1, 000, 000+ people who disapprove of building a mosque at Ground Zero!", 9/11, American Muslims, anti-Semitism, Burlington Coat Factory, Christian Science Monitor, Facebook, Ground Zero, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, mosque, Muslims, New York Times, What’s Right with Islam, World Trade Center
Posted in Ethics-general, International, Politics, Tolerance | 6 Comments »
May 11, 2010
President Obama’s Supreme Court nomination of Elena Kagan is expected to breeze through the Senate, largely because of the absence of a “paper trail” –written opinions that a nominee who is a judge would have left for inspection. For example Republican opposition to Sonia Sotomayor crystallized around her opinion in the New Haven firefighter suit, which was wrongly characterized as Sotomayor favoring unqualified minorities over hard-working qualified whites. Kagan has left no signed opinions to be swift-boated about.
Her only sin, it appears, is to have refused to allow Harvard Law School, which she headed, to cooperate with military recruiters because the military discriminated against gays with its “Don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) policy.
Administration officials give an energetic lawyerly defense of Kagan’s position: she didn’t draft the policy and it was in place before she became dean. The military was allowed to recruit at Harvard, they just couldn’t get help from the law school’s career services office.
Kagan explains that DADT discriminates against gays. Surely it does. She opposes it. So does JCS Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen and probably the 90 percent of the military under the age of 25. So do I. So what.
DADT is not—and never was—merely anti-gay policy of bigoted generals. It was the law of the land, enacted in 1993 to prevent President Clinton from allowing openly gay people to serve. When Harvard—and Kagan—opposed cooperation with military recruiters they were opposing legitimate national defense activity, being carried out in accordance with the law.
Or perhaps Harvard policy trumps law? I hope that’s not the explanation of a Supreme Court nominee. Stay tuned.
Read The Ethics Challenge: Strengthening Your Integrity in a Greedy World
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Tags:DADT, Don’t ask, don’t tell, Elena Kagan, Harvard Law School, JCS Chairman Mike Mullen¸ Clinton, military recruiters, New Haven firefighter suit, Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court
Posted in Ethics-general, military, Politics, Tolerance, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
May 9, 2010
If you’re in business you don’t want to offend your customers. Not even half of them. That’s why you avoid taking a public position on controversial issues. If asked you just say, “I don’t know about that,” or That’s politics, my game is basketball,” or whatever.
So what do you do when you think your state has acted against “our basic principles of equal rights and protection”? If you’re in business in Arizona you keep your mouth shut. Why alienate the 70 percent of Arizonans who favor the state’s new legislation to crack down on illegal immigrants and those who help them or hire them? Or else why alienate the majority of Latinos who despise the new law?
Why? Because you believe in something and you believe it’s your duty to speak up. Robert Sarver, owner of the National Basketball Association’s Phoenix Suns, had his team wear special jerseys emblazoned with Los Suns for the playoff game on May 5, Cinco De Mayo, the day that Mexican Americans celebrate their Mexican heritage.
Amid the rancor over the new law, Sarver said he was taking the controversial action “to honor our Latino community and the diversity of our league, the state of Arizona, and our nation.”
Hooray for Sarver and Los Suns.
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Tags:Cinco De Mayo, illegal immigrants, Immigration law, Latinos, Los Suns, Mexican Americans, National Basketball Association, Phoenix Suns, Robert Sarver
Posted in Ethics-general, Politics, Sports, Tolerance, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
April 23, 2010
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer today signed into law what President Obama had just called an irresponsible act that “threaten[s] to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and their communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe.”
The new law makes it a crime to lack proper immigration paperwork and requires police, if they have reasonable suspicion that someone is in the country illegally, to determine their immigration status. It also bars people from soliciting work as day laborers.
The President made his remarks at a naturalization ceremony for 24 active-duty military people. He acknowledged that the Arizona action resulted from “our failure to act responsibly at the federal level,” as he called for Congress to enact comprehensive immigration reform.
So we now wait and see whether the new law increases or decreases the security of the people of Arizona. To her credit, Gov. Brewer spoke forcefully about her determination not to tolerate racial profiling by police officers. On the other hand, when a reporter asked her what an illegal immigrant looked like, she answered simply, “I don’t know.”
She said she signed the law to combat the “murderous greed of drug cartels, drop houses, kidnappings, and violence.” We can expect that the murderous greedy drug kingpins will no longer congregate in Wal-Mart parking lots looking for day labor.
Read The Ethics Challenge: Strengthening Your Integrity in a Greedy World
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Tags:Arizona law, comprehensive immigration reform, day laborers, drop houses, drug cartels, ethics, fairness, immigration, Jan Brewer, kidnappings, naturalization ceremony, police, President Obama, racial profiling, reasonable suspicion, Wal-Mart parking lots
Posted in Ethics-general, military, Politics, Tolerance | 3 Comments »
April 18, 2010
Screaming Frog Productions has produced a gem of a movie that helped me to think about the issue of immigrants—legal and illegal—who congregate to seek work as day laborers. It was directed by Jonathan Browning and has been shown at over 150 film festivals all around the world and won over 30 awards. Watch The Job, a three-minute movie that changed the way I think of day laborers. And made me laugh heartily.
The great first century Jewish teacher, Hillel, was asked—according to the Talmud—by a cynic to teach him the whole law (Torah) while standing on one foot. That was easy for Hillel. “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. This is the whole Torah; all the rest is commentary. Go and learn it.”
Hillel was expressing the Golden Rule, which is at the center of ethical behavior in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Shintoism, in fact in every religion we know of, dating from the earliest recorded history. It’s hard enough to practice the Golden Rule when your “neighbor” is literally your neighbor, but it gets progressively harder as the “neighbor” becomes more removed from one’s experience. The Job made it easier for me.
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Tags:day laborers, ethical behavior, ethics, Golden Rule, Hillel, immigrants, Jonathan Browning, Screaming Frog Productions, The Job
Posted in Ethics-general, International, Politics, Tolerance | 5 Comments »
April 15, 2010
Ethics can be
confusing. Like the case of illegal immigration: how do we decide between compassion and legality? {Disclosure: My ideas may be affected by my family experience. My grandparents came here from Russia and Germany in the 1880s, when there was no such thing as illegal immigration. You just had to be free of TB and you were admitted. Had they not been admitted the whole family would likely have been subjected to fierce anti-Semitism, then murdered in the Holocaust.)
The Arizona House of Representatives this week passed America’s toughest state law against illegal immigration. It makes it a crime to lack proper immigration paperwork and requires police, if they suspect someone is in the country illegally, to determine their immigration status. It also bars people from soliciting work as day laborers. Its author, state Sen. Russell Pearce, explains, “When you make life difficult, most will leave on their own.”
I certainly believe in making life difficult for lawbreakers, but there’s serious collateral damage here. What about the “foreign-looking” people who will be challenged to prove their legal status? Like Graciela Beltran of Tucson, who, the Los Angeles Times reports, was asked for immigration papers while boarding a bus. And the other dark-skinned people who will be “profiled.”
And along with the lawbreakers there are innocents, like the U.S.-born children of illegals, who face having their parents deported. Or who face hunger because their fathers can no longer find day work from the Walmart parking lot.
Americans have contributed to the problem by allowing so many to overstay their visas or to enter illegally. Now it seems to me that we have an obligation to be humane in our treatment.
What’s an ethicist to conclude? Let me know your opinion.
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Tags:. Russell Pearce, anti-Semitism, Arizona House of Representatives¸ immigration status, collateral damage¸ Graciela Beltran, compassion, day laborers, ethics, Holocaust, illegal immigrants, illegal immigration, profiling, Walmart parking lot
Posted in Ethics-general, International, Politics, Tolerance | 12 Comments »
April 14, 2010
Many Americans yearn for a return to civility in our political life. We’re saddened by politicians of all stripes demonizing people they disagree with, and even demonizing people they agree with when there’s a political edge to be gained. This column has long admired the political philosophy of Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, who wrote, ‘The temper of and integrity with which the political fight is waged is more important for the health of our society than the outcome of any issue or campaign.”
This week Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) raised the temper and integrity of the political fight at a town meeting with his Oklahoma constituents. When a woman complained bitterly that the IRS was going to put people in prison for not purchasing health insurance, Coburn rebuked her:
“That makes for good TV news on Fox, but that isn’t the intention. I’m disturbed that we get things like what this lady said and others have said on other issues that are so disconnected from what I know to be fact. (more…)
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Tags:civility, CNN, demonizing, ethics, Fox News, health insurance, IRS, New York Times, nice lady, Oklahoma, Pelosi, political fight, politicians, Reinhold Niebuhr, Reinhold Niebuhr award., Sen. Tom Coburn, town meeting, TV news, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post
Posted in Ethics-general, Politics, Tolerance | 2 Comments »
April 9, 2010
Hatred of the “other” in America is on the down slope. We still have some way to go, but we’ve come a long way since “No Irish need apply” for employment, gays and lesbians barred from teaching,lily-white major league baseball, and deed restrictions against selling houses to Jews. Heck, we even elected an African-American President.
It seems like the only minority it’s ok to hate is the Muslims. Ann Coulter’s many fans laughed when she said that Muslims should not be allowed to fly on airplanes and should take “flying carpets” instead. When a Canadian Muslim student protested that she did not, in fact, own a flying carpet and asked how she should travel, Coulter’s rejoinder was “Take a camel.” Haha.
More serious hate-Muslim screeds are viral on the internet. And worse than the crude screeds are the seemingly analytical pieces laying out the danger we face from a growing Muslim population, (more…)
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Tags:Ann Coulter, burning of Christian churches, Canada, deed restrictions, Denmark Germany, flying carpets, France, gays and lesbians, halal, Hatred, Hitler, internet hate, Islam, Islamic Law, Israel, Jews. African-American President, Martin Niemöller, massacres, Muslim population, Muslims, No Irish need apply, Russia, Sharia, synagogues, Take a camel, The Netherlands, the other, they came first, UK, What is A Devout Muslim
Posted in Ethics-general, International, Tolerance | 5 Comments »
Lena Horne died last week at 92. I only knew of two prominent African-Americans when I was growing up in segregated Wilmington, Delaware. One was heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis, and the other was singer Lena Horne. I knew she was a good singer, and quite beautiful, but I didn’t know anything else. I’m indebted to Jack Marshall’s EthicsAlarms.com blog for educating me about her groundbreaking role in the civil rights movement.
Ethics Bob 
