#StopWillow is taking TikTok by storm. Can it actually work?

By Ella Nilsen, CNN
 Sun March 5, 2023


From left, Elise Joshi, Alex Haraus and Alaina Wood raise awareness of the Willow Project through TikTok.

From Elise Joshi/Alex Haraus/Alaina Wood/TikTok

CNN —

When Elise Joshi posted a TikTok video about the Alaska oil drilling project known as Willow in early February, she didn’t have high hopes it would go viral.

Joshi, 20, posts often about climate issues on TikTok for the account Gen-Z for Change, as well as her personal account. She’s well aware “climate doesn’t trend very often,” as she told CNN. But Joshi’s video about Willow was very different. It took just a few days to accumulate more than 100,000 views, eventually surpassing 300,000.

“It’s my most-viewed video in months,” Joshi told CNN. “This is the entire internet advocating against Willow; [President Joe Biden’s] voter base, that trusted him to act on climate.”

Biden’s administration is expected to finalize its decision on whether to approve the ConocoPhillips Willow Project next week. If it goes through, the decadeslong oil drilling venture in the on the North Slope of Alaska would create thousands of jobs and establish a new source of revenue for the region.

But it would also generate enough oil to release 9.2 million metric tons of planet-warming carbon pollution a year, by the federal government’s estimate, about the same as adding 2 million cars to the roads.

While the project has both supporters and opponents in its home state, it has become a lightning rod on social media. Over the past week, TikTok users in particular have galvanized around halting the project, with a staggering number of people watching and posting on the topic.

Videos with anti-Willow hashtags like #StopWillow have amassed close to 50 million views in the last week, and on Friday, Willow was on the site’s top 10 trending list, behind celebrities Selena Gomez and Hailey Bieber. Much of the spike in interest has come in the last week alone.

The online activism has resulted in more than one million letters being written to the White House protesting the project, as well as a Change.org petition with 2.8 million signatures and counting.

“If that doesn’t emphasize the fact that it’s everyday Americans pushing back, I don’t know what does,” said Alex Haraus, 25, a TikTok creator whose Willow videos have garnered millions of views. “This is not an environmental movement, it’s much larger than that. It’s the American public that can vote.”

The sudden growth of #StopWillow

Climate advocates gather to protest the Willow Project in Lafayette Square in front of the White House on January 10.

Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

TikTok creators and climate groups CNN spoke to said the sudden surge in online activism around Willow has largely been organic, and much larger than any other climate issue on the app before.

Some climate and anti-fossil fuel groups have been working with specific TikTok creators and accounts around Willow, but no one group has spearheaded the online movement around the project. Similar TikTok campaigns have sprung up in the past few years around banning oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and stopping the Line 3 pipeline in Minnesota, but few have captured as much attention as Willow.

“I’ve been doing this for a long time and it’s very rare to see a climate issue go viral,” said Alaina Wood, 26, a scientist, climate activist and TikTok creator.

Wood told CNN she thinks the profile of climate has grown on apps frequented by younger generations, especially given Biden’s climate law passed last year. But there is also a lot of anxiety and fear about the climate crisis on TikTok – sentiments the Willow Project has captured and amplified.

“Anytime a project like this goes viral, the climate doom also goes viral,” Wood said, adding she’s made videos to try to counter the climate doomerism proliferating among some young people. “A lot of young people are under the impression that if Willow gets passed, climate change will be irreversible. We still need to fight Willow, but your life isn’t over if it’s passed.”

The growth of #StopWillow TikTok has both befuddled and delighted legacy climate groups, some of which were wondering why it took so long for Willow to get noticed. Even though Biden has already cemented part of his legacy on climate by working with Congress to pass the most ambitious climate bill in generations, activists who fought Keystone XL and the Dakota Access Pipeline during the Obama administration say one thing remains constant: massive fossil fuel projects tend to fire people up.

“Specific fights galvanize public attention way more than policy does,” said Jamie Henn, the director of nonprofit Fossil Free Media and a former co-founder of the environmental organization 350.org. “These are the issues that capture the public imagination. It is really foolhardy to ignore that.”

The White House has shown it cares about reaching TikTok’s vast, young audience. White House officials have invited TikTok creators to the White House multiple times, including for a meeting with Biden himself about the Inflation Reduction Act in October.

“I think Democrats and the Biden administration would do well to pay attention to these trends,” said Lena Moffitt, chief of staff for climate group Evergreen Action. “Young people increasingly want climate action from their elected officials and they’re going to demand it.”

Can a grassroots, digital campaign work?

Nutaaq Simmonds of Utqiagvik, Alaska, speaks at a protest against the Willow Project in front of the White House on Friday.

Ella Nilsen/CNN

Protests against Willow aren’t just happening on TikTok. On Friday, a group of about 100 people gathered in front of the White House in frigid drizzle to demonstrate against the project.

TikTok creators were thin on the ground. Those who had braved the chilly March weather included Alaska Natives and elders who had flown over 10 hours from Anchorage and villages on the North Slope to DC. Robert Thompson is one elder who made the grueling journey from his home village of Kaktovik.

Thompson told CNN he had wanted to speak about the effects of climate change on the region’s animals and spoke of over 200 caribou found dead near his home.

“We could see them from our house, it’s sad,” Thompson said, tearing up. “I was in Vietnam and saw a lot of things that were sad, but I never thought I’d see it at my home. I don’t know how you can accept it.”

This 2019 photo shows an exploratory drilling camp at the proposed site of the Willow Project on Alaska's North Slope.

ConocoPhillips/AP

Willow’s supporters – including a coalition of Alaska Natives on the North Slope – say Willow could be a much-needed new source of revenue for the region and help fund schools, health care and other basic services.

“Willow presents an opportunity to continue that investment in the communities,” Nagruk Harcharek, president of the advocacy group Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, told CNN. “Without that money and revenue stream, we’re reliant on the state and the feds.”

But others living closer to the planned project, including city officials and tribal members in the Native village of Nuiqsut, are concerned about the health and environmental impacts of a major oil development.

“We are saying that you are not allowed to make decisions that are going to make our world unlivable,” Siqiniq Maupin, executive director of the Indigenous activist group Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic, told CNN. “We are concerned about climate change, but we’re also concerned about Indigenous rights and human rights.”

Maupin and Thompson said they will continue to fight Willow through the courts if the Biden administration approves the project. Environmental legal group Earthjustice has also been preparing a lawsuit against the project if it is approved.

“We plan to do everything in our power to stop ConocoPhillips from doing construction in Nuiqsut this winter,” Maupin said. “We are going to continue to fight this by legal means, by direct action.”

As for whether the surge of online activism will work to halt or delay the project, TikTok creators themselves aren’t sure. If the project is approved, several told CNN they will continue to post about the project – detailing ways their followers can support Indigenous groups in Alaska and keep speaking out about Willow.

“We’re coordinated enough to do whatever makes the most sense,” Haraus told CNN. “If that’s in-person protesting, then we will happily do that. This is an issue that we will be voting on and will remember at the ballot box.

“Millions of people are waiting for the White House’s move.”

Opinion
‘History months’ celebrate those who were written out of the story

By E.J. Dionne Jr.

Columnist|
March 5, 2023

How we see the past shapes how we see our present and future — even as our contemporary insights, biases and preoccupations affect our interpretation of what happened before we got here. That’s what makes history controversial. It is inevitably a revisionist enterprise that helps us understand how and why our society has changed.

“In each era, we see the past differently, according to how we see ourselves and our own experiences,” historian Benjamin Carter Hett wrote in his book on the collapse of the Weimar Republic in 1930s Germany. “One era will notice things about the past that another will not. This is one reason why history is, and has to be, constantly rewritten.”

This ongoing revisionism is what leads to “history months” — Black History Month in February is followed by Women’s History Month in March. It also explains why the many fights we’re now having over school curriculums are understandable, even if efforts to censor books and repress ideas are counterproductive to learning and reasoned discussion.

The annual observance of these months is the fruit of egalitarian movements in the 1960s and 1970s that pushed new generations of historians to rebel against the exclusion of whole classes of people from our national story.
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Admirers of what was seen as more traditional history grumbled over the lifting up of “race, class and gender” as Black and working-class Americans, women, and immigrants at long last became the subjects of extensive scholarship. Traditionalists asked: What happened to recounting the exploits and achievement of the leading political figures in our history, almost all of whom were White men?

Washington, Adams, Hamilton, Madison, Lincoln and FDR never disappeared — and Lincoln has always been a special figure of fascination. By one count, made about a decade ago, some 15,000 books had been written about Lincoln. But it’s true that, for a while, political history lagged behind the new bottom-up social history.

In recent years, political history has made a comeback, but it’s a history far more mindful of the role of Black Americans, women and workers, and far more aware of racism, sexism and elitism.

As both a lover of political history and a sympathizer with the egalitarian impulse, I appreciate the new synthesis. Bringing the two together can help us notice the roots of political change and its extent. One example is the remarkable trajectory of women in our nation’s political life.

The change in the right direction is unmistakable, even as the process took way too long and still has a long way to go. In 1916, Jeannette Rankin became the first woman elected to the House of Representatives. A Republican from Montana, Rankin pushed for the 19th Amendment that enfranchised women across the country four years later.

In a Congress whose size is set at 535, it was not until 1961 that even 20 of the members of the House and Senate were women, and their numbers retreated for several elections. The 1990s were the first big breakthrough. The number of women in Congress rose from 33 to 54 after the “year of the woman” election of 1992. The numbers have steadily risen since, finally rising above 100 (to 101) in 2013.

The 2018 and 2020 elections were breakthroughs comparable to 1992. The number of women who are voting members in one of the chambers of Congress hit a new high of 149 after the 2022 elections — 106 Democrats, 42 Republicans and one independent, according to the Rutgers Center for American Women and Politics.

We should celebrate the achievement — and also ask why our democracy still lags far behind many others in electing women. While 28 percent of the members of the U.S. Congress are women, women make up between 40 to 50 percent of the parliamentarians in such democracies as France, Iceland, Mexico, Norway, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, Sweden and Switzerland. We’re definitely not No. 1.

The role of women in our public life is an excellent case study of how the questions we ask of history change over time. Precisely because the politically subordinate role of women was taken for granted by earlier generations of historians, it was not an issue they even thought of addressing. Examining the role of women in our history occurs to us now because of social and political changes that most of us welcome.

Does this mean that history has been “politicized?” The answer is “yes” only in the sense that political change always affects how we see history.

The better view is that history is more accurate and more complete when we ask new questions, include more people’s experiences and, as Hett says, notice things our forebears didn’t. It’s why everyone has an interest in celebrating months in honor of those who were once written out of history altogether.



Opinion by E.J. DionneE.J. Dionne Jr. writes a twice-weekly column for The Washington Post. He is a professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. His latest book, with Miles Rapoport, is “100% Democracy: The Case for Universal Voting.” Twitter

A Reflection: Black Trans People and the Pandemic

It is clear that the pandemic  had a devastating effect on the Black trans community, and it is incumbent upon all of us to help create an environment of acceptance and support for all members of the community.

March 5, 2023 by Stephen G. Hall, PhD 

by TS Candii

TS Candii is a transgendered woman and  founder of Black Trans Nation (BTN) a national nob-profit 501 3 (c) organization  advocating, educating, and motivating the public into collective action on behalf of the Black and POC Transgender community. With a core mission to end discrimination Black Trans Nation strives to accomplish this, by driving policymakers to enact policies that will Destigmatize, Decriminalize, and Decarcerate our community. And by organizing and implementing outreach initiatives and providing access to vital resources in the form of housing, health, recovery, employment, legal immigration, and other critical social services. She has also been involved in efforts to decriminalize sex work.  This reality inspired her to become active in the legislation to “Decriminalize Sex Work” most recently the successful repeal of “Walking While Trans” – the unofficial civil rights violating, policing practices dating back to 1976. The bill was signed into law by Gov. Cuomo on Feb 2, 2021. This resulted in over 10,000 cases being dismissed and approximately 800 unlicensed massage parlors dismissed. She is also the author of the best-selling memoir Becomonig Candii

The global pandemic subsumed the world from 2020  up through the end of 2021. More than 1 million people died from COVID-19 and the pandemic exposed gross inequities in the public health system, especially for minorities and other underserved and underprivileged populations. No population was more vulnerable than Black transgender people. Our guest columnist reminds our readers of the challenges faced by this population. Black Lives Matter and Black Trans Lives deserve special attention. 

1. How Black Trans People Are Affected by the Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic had an enormous impact on people around the world, and there is an especially large concern for Black trans people, who face an even more severe impact of the pandemic. This is because the already huge healthcare disparities faced by Black trans people are compounded by the effects of the pandemic, making it even more difficult to access the healthcare and other resources they need. In addition, Black trans people are more likely to experience job loss and housing insecurity, putting them at greater risk of poverty during the pandemic.

2. How Limited Access to Healthcare Exacerbates the Crisis

The shutdown of hospitals and medical centers due to the pandemic  made it even more difficult for Black trans people to access the medical care they need. Access to proper medical care is already limited due to discrimination and stigma, but the pandemic has only made the situation worse. Many non-essential medical procedures have been put on hold, and access to gender-affirming surgeries is even more limited. This has had a devastating effect on Black trans people, as they are unable to access the healthcare they need to feel safe and accepted in their bodies.

3. The Consequences of Job Loss

The economic downturn caused by the pandemic  had a particularly devastating effect on Black trans people, who are already more likely to experience job loss than the general population. Many Black trans people work in the service industry, which has been heavily impacted by the pandemic, leaving many of them without a job or any financial security. This has led to an increased risk of poverty and homelessness, which are already disproportionately high among the Black trans community.

4. The Challenge of Finding Safe Housing

The pandemic  had a profound impact on the already limited housing options available to Black trans people. Many of them face discrimination when attempting to rent or purchase homes, making it very difficult to find a safe and secure place to live in the first place. The pandemic has added an additional layer of difficulty as people are less likely to move and renting units become more expensive due to decreased demand. This has left many Black trans people without access to safe and secure housing, putting them in even greater risk of homelessness and poverty.

5. The Need for Advocacy and Support

It is clear that the pandemic  had a devastating effect on the Black trans community, and it is incumbent upon all of us to help create an environment of acceptance and support for all members of the community. There needs to be more advocacy and action taken to provide access to healthcare and housing, to support those struggling with job loss and economic insecurity, and to help protect the rights and dignity of Black trans people. This is a time of great uncertainty, but with the right proactive efforts, we can ensure that the Black trans community comes out of the pandemic with their rights and humanity still intact.

Previously Published on Historian Speaks

Freedom and rights: Gender affirming care is mental health care that saves lives

Drew Martel
Mar. 5, 2023 

Drew Martel

‘To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1859

According to Axios, Republican Lawmakers have proposed 340 bills across the nation targeting LGBTQIA+ individual’s rights in the first two months of 2023 alone. Iowa has led that charge, with a record breaking 19 bills proposed in the legislature.

It’s not just the state targeting vulnerable gender minorities, various religious lobbyist groups, who seek to impose their beliefs on others, as well as Former Vice President Pence’s ironically named Advancing American Freedom advocacy group, which is planning to run ads in Iowa to, well, restrict individual freedoms of gender minority individuals.

Minority Stress Theory posits that negative experiences and health disparities can result from being a member of a marginalized group (when your state systematically targets your rights with multiple bills, you are a marginalized group). Targeted groups are more likely to experience chronic stress due to the social, economic and political inequalities they face, which in turn can lead to a range of negative health outcomes, such as depression, anxiety, substance abuse and physical health problems.

Sexual minority youth, in particular, are especially vulnerable to this stress, with suicide attempt rates 4X higher than heterosexual counterparts, according to the CDC. A study out of Massachusetts found that sexual minority youth were substantially more likely to experience thoughts of suicide, make a suicide plan, and attempt suicide than their heterosexual counterparts. An analysis in the journal Pediatrics found that one third of sexual minority youth reported a suicide attempt in the past 12-month period covered by the study.

A common argument made by those attempting to curtail the individual rights of sexual minority individuals is that mental distress is a function of identifying as a sexual minority. That is to say, that somehow identifying as LGBTQIA+ you inherently are more likely to have thoughts of suicide.

This argument is not supported by any actual evidence, and to the contrary, the leading theory of suicide, The Interpersonal Theory of Suicide (Joiner, 2003) identifies a lack of belonging and the perception of being a burden to others among the factors that drive suicide thoughts and behaviors. No part of the interpersonal theory of suicide identifies sexual identification as a suicide driver.

This presents an inconvenient truth to policy makers, the various bills they are proposing, with the stated purpose of “protecting” youth, are actually marginalizing them. This reductive view is the result of confluence of factors, including ignorance about the etiology of suicide and mental health, a lack of expertise and curiosity on the topic, and a general belief among conservative policymakers that their personal values are the only values worthy of a free society.

On the contrary, a significant body of evidence has demonstrated positive outcomes of gender affirming care for transgender and nonconforming individuals. A study out of The Journal of The American Medical Association in 2022 found that gender affirming care was associated with a 60% decrease in odds of depression, and 73% decrease in odds of experiencing suicidality in a cohort of transgender and nonbinary youth.

This can only lead to one question: What is the actual purpose of these bills? As already outlined, the research indicates substantial harm to the wellbeing of these individuals occurs as a direct result of societal marginalization, while simultaneously indicating access to gender affirming care is a buffer against negative health outcomes.

My grandfather was a World War 2 Veteran, and a tough as nails type of guy. He rarely spoke about his experiences in WW2, which I really only learned about after I was given his service record at his funeral when I was on leave from the military myself.

I remember sitting at his house shortly after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and watching a news segment showing American’s burning flags, amidst calls to make flag burning a crime. To my surprise, my grandfather muttered “What the hell did I fight for if that’s made a crime..”

It’s not supposed to be about what you personally approve of, agree with, or like, it’s supposed to be about personal freedoms. We are a country that proclaims to be a freedom loving people. We are a country whose trajectory has almost always been in the direction of respect for the individual, and the right to pursue life in the individual ways we see fit. My grandfather knew this, having fought fascism abroad, where the only values and rights allowed were those of the ruling political party.

Gender affirming care and treatment is about freedom, it’s about the right to pursue life at the individual level, and it saves lives.

“Our liberties we prize, and our rights we will maintain” – State motto of Iowa.

Drew Martel is ]chief clinical and training officer at Foundation 2 in Cedar Rapids.

Opinion content represents the viewpoint of the author or The Gazette editorial board. You can join the conversation by submitting a letter to the editor or guest column or by suggesting a topic for an editorial to editorial@thegazette.com

I am a teenager asking you to learn about the experiences of trans youth

Kenna Wolbers
Mar. 5, 2023 

Kenna Wolbers

LGBTQ+ youth are under attack in Iowa.

That might sound like hyperbole, but with the recent bill making its way through the Iowa Legislature, it would be illegal to announce, promote or instruct on LGBTQ+ issues in kindergarten through eighth grade. This effectively silences any communication related to sexuality or gender in the classroom. What’s worse, schools would also be required to communicate any information a student shares about their gender to their parents if it differs from their “biological sex.”

Let me give you some perspective: I’m a gay teenager attending a Catholic high school in Iowa, ground zero for this war against LGBTQ+ kids. I’ve witnessed what spawns from limited education on gender and sexuality. I’ve become jaded to the relentless bullying, assault and death threats brought upon my peers. I haven’t met a gay or trans student who hasn’t thought of harming themselves because of this treatment. Silence isn’t saving children: It’s killing them. Gay and trans people exist. We’re not going away any time soon, which is why hosting open discussions about LGBTQ+ topics, particularly in middle school, is essential to developing healthier communities.

When Gov. Kim Reynolds and legislators peddle the idea of such discussions “corrupting” youth, they treat us like frogs ready for dissection. LGBTQ+ identity is more than clinical language and anatomy. When you talk about a husband and wife, you don’t immediately jump to thinking about their sex life. That’s inappropriate and invasive.

Similarly, acknowledging our existence does not mean you have to explain the logistics of intercourse to a 5-year-old. It’s as simple as saying some girls love other girls or not all girls look the same. Middle school is often the first place we begin thinking about sex and gender. It’s an incredibly vulnerable journey of self-discovery that needs proper guidance in a fact-based, educational environment.

I was fortunate enough to have parents to fill in the gaps of knowledge that Catholic sex-ed could not, but I know others who weren’t as lucky. Some of my friends have parents who’ve kicked them onto the streets for even questioning their gender identity. With this bill requiring teachers to report children’s preferences concerning gender to their guardians, we run the risk of losing more kids to violent abuse and homelessness. What’s the point? Why censor vital education on the realities of LGBTQ+ people?

The answer, as history has often informed us, is fear. By nature, parents agonize over the best choices for their children, leaving them vulnerable to bigoted language from manipulative people seeking personal gain. They’ll fall back on old stereotypes and claim to be protecting your children from “corruption.” They’ll deliver justice. They’ll keep your kids safe. It is easier to hate than to learn, to hear a politician say a certain group is “indoctrinating” children and become consumed by fearful speculation. People like Kim Reynolds know this and use it to fuel their careers.

I too have felt how intoxicating it is to unleash all your anxieties onto someone else. But in the aftermath of that high, there comes the crushing realization that you have hurt another human being. Is this the way we want to live?

I am not a politician with some sinister agenda. I’m not a leftist who wants to brainwash your kids. I am a teenager asking you, the reader, to try. Try learning about the experiences of trans youth. Try talking to acquaintances who are gay, bi, or trans. Try advocating for their rights. I hope you find we’re more than a scary statistic, that we’re, quite possibly, on the same side.

Kenna Wolbers is a student at Wahlert Catholic High School in Dubuque. Her column first appeared in the Dubuque Telegraph Herald.

Opinion content represents the viewpoint of the author or The Gazette editorial board. You can join the conversation by submitting a letter to the editor or guest column or by suggesting a topic for an editorial to editorial@thegazette.com

CASTEISM IS FASCISM

How India's caste system works, and why it's generating US controversy

Cities like Seattle have pursued bans on caste-based discrimination

Associated Press

Caste is an ancient system of social hierarchy based on one’s birth that is tied to concepts of purity and social status. Its history, evolution and current state are complicated.

A move to outlaw caste-based discrimination in Seattle has thrust this complex — and often misunderstood — system into the spotlight. If the Seattle City Council votes Tuesday to approve an ordinance that will include caste in its anti-discrimination laws, Seattle will become the first city in the United States to outlaw such discrimination.

While the definition of caste has evolved over the centuries, under both Muslim and British rule, the suffering of those at the bottom of the caste pyramid – known as Dalits, which in Sanskrit means "broken" — has continued.

SEATTLE BECOMES FIRST US CITY TO BAN DISCRIMINATION BASED ON CASTE

The word "caste" has its origins in Latin (castus), which means chaste or pure. Caste made its way into the Indian lexicon with the arrival of the Portuguese in the 1700s who first used the word "casta" with reference to the social hierarchy in the Indian subcontinent.

How Did the Caste System Originate?

References to a societal hierarchy can be found in the millennia-old Rig Veda where a hymn describes the origin of all life from the Purusha or "supreme being." A verse states that the four categories (varnas) of Hindu society came from this infinite being. The Brahmins (priest class) appeared from the being’s head, the Kshatriyas (warriors) from his arms, the Vaishyas (business class) from his thighs and the Shudras (laborers) from his feet. The hymn does not go into details about these categories or which is superior or inferior.

The varna system initially served to classify individuals on the basis of their attributes and aptitude. However, with time, it evolved into the caste system where a person’s occupation and status in society became determined by birth. Those who were outside the system became known as the outcasts or untouchables, and later as the Dalits.

The term "jati" appears in almost all Indian languages and is closest to the word "caste" because it is related to the idea of lineage. There are more than 3,000 jatis in India. Each region in India has its own ranking of jatis. However, in every region, the Dalits are at the bottom of the hierarchy and over the centuries, have faced discrimination. Members of the Dalit community have also historically performed tasks such as manual scavenging, the dangerous and inhumane practice of removing human waste by hand from sewers. The practice continues in many parts of the country even though the Indian government banned it in 2013.

Jati also occupies a significant role within the arranged marriage system where parents look for partners for their children within their caste. This is common in diaspora communities where online matrimonial sites can be filtered by caste.

India's caste system has long been a decider of social status in the tremendous South Asian nation. (AP Photo/Gurinder Osan, File)

Is Caste Exclusive to India or Hinduism?

While the concepts of varna and jati are referenced in Hindu texts such as the Manu Smriti and the Bhagvad Gita, caste divisions are not exclusive to India or Hinduism. Caste can be found in other countries such as Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and in the diaspora worldwide, and in faith communities including Buddhists, Christians, Jains, Muslims and Sikhs. Dalits who have converted to Buddhism, Christianity, Islam or Sikhism still report experiencing segregation and exclusion from places of worship and burial or cremation sites across the region.

COURT: INDIAN CANDIDATES CAN'T USE FAITH, CASTE TO GET VOTES

Is Caste a British Construct?

Under British rule, the caste system, which had previously been more fluid, was made more rigid with use of the census, which classified the entire nation into categories and schedules, said Ananya Chakravarti, associate professor of history at Georgetown University who focuses on South Asia and Latin America.

"While the British by no means invented caste, they did play a part in fixing these caste identities in perpetuity," she said. "As an institution, caste has had a very long life, way before Europeans showed up."

The British also introduced elements of affirmative action in India, which has provided marginalized groups with representation in education, employment, government programs, scholarships and politics. Based on constitutional provisions, central and state governments are allowed to set "reserved quotas or seats" in colleges, workplaces and government agencies for disadvantaged groups such as Dalits. The system of reservations has been the source of animosity between castes, with upper-caste Indians claiming that such programs and policies are antithetical to a merit-based system.

Are Race and Caste the Same?

Chakravarti cautions against equating race and caste, particularly in the U.S. where both are present. She gives the example of BAPS, a prominent Hindu sect, which is facing a lawsuit in New Jersey accusing the organization of forcing hundreds of low-caste workers to labor at temple sites across the U.S. under dangerous conditions for as little as $450 a month.

"In this case, all those involved in the case are the same race," Chakravarti said. "So race does not adequately cover the question of caste."

Cornel West, professor of philosophy at Union Theological Seminary and scholar of African American studies, says he feels kinship with Dalit activists, calling casteism and racism "institutionalized forms of hatred."

"We have no other alternative but to fight both morally, intellectually and politically," he said.

Opinion
How Israel’s culture war turns America’s upside-down


By Jason Willick

Columnist|
March 5, 2023 a

TEL AVIV — Israel and the United States each declared statehood amid wars of independence whose outcome was uncertain, and swiftly embraced the principle of popular sovereignty. As Neil Rogachevsky and Dov Zigler show in a new book, an early draft of Israel’s declaration of independence borrowed heavily from America’s. Both countries drew large-scale immigration first from Europe, and later from other corners of the world, growing more ethnically diverse over time.

So perhaps it was no surprise that I could hear echoes of polarized U.S. politics as I recently watched a major protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conservative government and its proposed changes to the judiciary.

The slogan that protesters chanted — de-mo-crat-yah, or “democracy” in Hebrew — is also on the lips of American liberals. As in the United States, a more secular coalition, rooted in the nation’s prosperous coast, is squaring off against a more religious and traditional bloc found in the nation’s inland. The pink Israeli flags at the protest, interspersed in a sea of traditional blue ones, recalled the iconography of the Women’s March in Washington and elsewhere in 2017.

But for all the similarities, Israel’s culture war is being fought on terrain very different from America’s. Recent decades have seen a dramatic decline in Christian identification in the United States, while traditional Jewish practice in Israel has ticked upward. If some Christians fear becoming a minority in the United States, it’s secular Israelis who worry about the country’s increasingly religious demographic trajectory.

In both countries, unelected supreme courts play a key role in calibrating the balance between religious and secular morality. Israel’s 15-member high court is seen as a bulwark of secularism, standing against the tide of religious opinion. It has ruled that more Tel Aviv businesses can open on Shabbat and that Israelis can’t be barred from bringing leavened bread into hospitals on Passover. The court has also limited gender separation in public spaces and circumscribed exemptions to military service for Yeshiva students. For many of Israel’s observant Jews — the ultra-Orthodox are expected to rise to 16 percent of the population by 2030, from 10 percent in 2009 — the court is an anti-democratic obstacle to a more authentically Jewish state.

That’s one key motivation for the Netanyahu government’s judicial overhaul. The prime minister’s career has been defined by security measures and economic policy, not religion, but his Knesset coalition — which broke years of gridlock by winning 64 of 120 seats in last November’s election — depends on increasingly powerful religious parties. Some of the coalition’s proposed judicial reforms are moderate, such as giving the elected government more control over judicial appointments. But one reform would allow a legislative majority to override the court, dramatically aggrandizing the power of the prime minister’s coalition. That proposal is driving the current wave of protests and deepening political crisis.

Judiciaries are designed as a check on political majorities. If Israel’s Supreme Court is defending the prerogatives of secular Jews in a religious country, the U.S. Supreme Court is keeping room for traditional Christian values in a secularizing country. “As recently as the early 1990s,” Pew Research noted last year, “about 90% of U.S. adults identified as Christians. But today, about two-thirds of adults are Christians.” Key Supreme Court decisions in recent years have pared back pandemic restrictions on religious worship, made religious schools eligible for state funding on the same footing as other private schools and, of course, allowed voters to set policy on abortion.

In response to this conservative direction, some Democrats have threatened to pack the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization abortion ruling overturning Roe v. Wade was preceded by waves of unlawful protests at conservative justices’ homes. The American judiciary is not (yet) under the sort of majoritarian political assault that Israel’s is absorbing. But judicial review doesn’t come naturally in democracies, where power lies with the people. Respect for the legitimacy of unelected courts must be conjured through judicial realpolitik — the balancing of judges’ power against the power of elected officials, which can win popular acceptance over time.

Israel’s modern system of energetic judicial policymaking dates only to the 1990s, when Justice Aharon Barak led a revolution on the high court. That revolution — the project of an older, secular Israeli establishment — might not survive the country’s religious transformation, and it might not deserve to. There’s an obvious path forward: For the ruling coalition to drop the override clause, pass the other provisions and accept a more gradual tempering of judicial power.

That outcome would probably align more closely with the preferences of most Israelis. But the opposition, having sent hundreds of thousands of supporters to the streets, might rather use the issue to bring down the Netanyahu government and win the next election. And Netanyahu, having burned many bridges in his long career, might be too reliant on the coalition partners on his right to credibly negotiate.

Religious versus secular morality, and minority rights versus majority rule — these are the inexorable contradictions of American and Israeli democracy. The two countries’ approaches might be drifting apart. But the test for both is whether the clash of voters’ preferences can create incentives for politicians to reach for something like the public interest. Sometimes it appears that the stronger incentive, especially for political coalitions that believe they are on the right side of history, is instead to see what they can get away with.


Opinion by Jason WillickJ writes a regular Washington Post column on legal issues, political ideas and foreign affairs. Before coming to The Post in 2022, he wrote for the Wall Street Journal and the American Interest. Twitter

THE SCIENTIFIC REASON HUMANS LAUGH

BY RICHARD MILNER/MARCH 5, 2023 7:00 AM EST

A chuckle, a chortle, a guffaw, a titter, a gut-buster — yep, we sure have lots of words for different types of laughs. There's the anxious, forced laugh deliberately employed to reduce tension in awkward or embarrassing situations. There's the piggish snort that makes others laugh, in turn. There's the villainous "mwah ha ha" laugh, preferably in an evil lair while stroking a purring white cat. With so many nuanced shades of laughter, it's safe to say that laughter isn't just an integral part of human life across the globe, but one that serves a lot more functions than a mere reaction to a humorous situation or statement.   

Babies, for instance, laugh before they can utter a single word. But babies aren't laughing at the clever wordplay of a politically-oriented talk show host; for them, it's endless peekaboo and tickling. As Upworthy says, there are even scientists whose entire field revolves around observing laughing babies. Some people think painful accidents are hilarious, like when somewhen falls off a skateboard. And if black-and-white movies are to be believed, physical gags like a pie in the face were once the height of comedy. 

With so many causes of laughter, how can we pinpoint a specific biological purpose? Animals might hold the clue. NPR reports that 65 species of animals exhibit laughter, including various birds and our close primate brethren, gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans. All of these animals are social by nature, and often exhibit laughter as a form of play.

THE ULTIMATE SOCIAL GLUE

Taking into account all the myriad reasons why a person might laugh, personal tastes in comedy, and cultural differences in humor, there's one ultimate no-brainer reason that people laugh: to maintain social bonds. How Stuff Works cites anthropologist Mahadev Apte describing a "bonding-laughter-bonding" group dynamic that occurs amongst strangers and friends alike, where people laugh and grow closer, and then because they're closer laugh more. This kind of pattern becomes reinforced through peer pressure and social norms, as folks don't want to be left out of the group. In fact, laughter is so tied to group behavior that people are 30 times more likely to laugh when in a group, as WebMD cites Robert R. Provine, Ph.D., a behavioral neurobiologist at the University of Maryland. Smiling and talking, by contrast, only happen six and four times more in a group.

For animals as social as humans, many researchers believe that laughter is our lynchpin social behavior, like barking to a dog or singing to a bird. Most critically, it extinguishes the fight-or-flight response. Imagine roving through a natural habitat and coming across a band of other people. How do you know they're safe to deal with? Friendliness and laughter. It's almost impossible to laugh and feel aggressive at the same time. As anyone who's been in an argument can tell you, laughter turns rigid, tense bodies to mush. And for those who've passed through dangerous situations, it's a way to calm down and give the all-clear.

SPOTTING A FAKE

If laughter developed as a way to diffuse tense situations amongst early humans, that means that laughter exists more to tacitly control others than to cheer oneself up. On How Stuff Works, Dr. Robert R. Provine says that laughter is deployed by group leaders to regulate the emotional tenor of the group. In fact, socially dominant individuals — like a supervisor in the modern world — use laughter more than members of lower social rank. This means that laughter is also a way for individuals to signify status. Further to the point, speakers laugh a whopping 46% more than listeners, as Scientific American says. This indicates that laughter is less of a response to others and more of an attempt to direct the behavior of others from the top down. 

And yet, not any laughter will do. The best laughter is authentic laughter. In an article published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers found that people can accurately tell just by listening which laughter comes from close friends rather than people who've just met; no body language, no visual cues, no conversation — just the laughter. This means that laughter is also a way to learn about the relationships of others in a group, and spot which individuals aren't totally integrated. That means it's an excellent way to spot a fake. It also means that people are more adept at discerning fake laughter than they are fake words.

INVOLUNTARY AND VOLUNTARY LAUGHTER

Things get a bit more complicated when figuring out why humans laugh in a physiological and neurological sense. For such a seemingly simple and commonplace action, there's quite a bit going on in the brain that produces laughter as an output. Science ABC tells us that there are actually two types of laughter: involuntary and voluntary. Involuntary laughter involves a simple, reflexive reaction like a baby responding to being tickled. Sensory information only passes through the most basic parts of the brain: the thalamus (an information relay center), the amygdala (related to emotional processing), and the brain stem (connected to automatic response). By contrast, voluntary laughter activates the temporal lobe related to the intake and processing of information. This happens when your mind is deciding in the moment, more or less, whether or not to respond to stimuli with laughter.

But whether involuntary or voluntary, there's no denying that humans are built to laugh. Besides all the aforementioned psychological and neurological causes of laughter, and all the social complications underpinning laughter, people also laugh because people like doing what feels good. The simple act of laughing is enough to make someone want to laugh more. To the point, Mayo Clinic says that laughter released endorphins, stimulates the flow of oxygen and blood through the body, reduces one's heart rate, decreases blood pressure, and over time improves the immune system, elevates mood, and even reduces pain. Isn't that enough of a reason to laugh?

How common is transgender treatment regret, detransitioning?

CONVERSION THERAPY BY ANY OTHER NAME

By LINDSEY TANNER

yesterday

South Dakota Republican Rep. Jon Hansen speaks during a news conference at the state Capitol, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2023, in Pierre, S.D. Hansen is pushing a bill to outlaw gender-affirming health care for transgender youth. (AP Photo/Stephen Groves, File)

Many states have enacted or contemplated limits or outright bans on transgender medical treatment, with conservative U.S. lawmakers saying they are worried about young people later regretting irreversible body-altering treatment.

But just how common is regret? And how many youth change their appearances with hormones or surgery only to later change their minds and detransition?

Here’s a look at some of the issues involved.

WHAT IS TRANSGENDER MEDICAL TREATMENT?

Guidelines call for thorough psychological assessments to confirm gender dysphoria — distress over gender identity that doesn’t match a person’s assigned sex — before starting any treatment.

That treatment typically begins with puberty-blocking medication to temporarily pause sexual development. The idea is to give youngsters time to mature enough mentally and emotionally to make informed decisions about whether to pursue permanent treatment. Puberty blockers may be used for years and can increase risks for bone density loss, but that reverses when the drugs are stopped.

Sex hormones — estrogen or testosterone — are offered next. Dutch research suggests that most gender-questioning youth on puberty blockers eventually choose to use these medications, which can produce permanent physical changes. So does transgender surgery, including breast removal or augmentation, which sometimes is offered during the mid-teen years but more typically not until age 18 or later.


Reports from doctors and individual U.S. clinics indicate that the number of youth seeking any kind of transgender medical care has increased in recent years.

HOW OFTEN DO TRANSGENDER PEOPLE REGRET TRANSITIONING?

In updated treatment guidelines issued last year, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health said evidence of later regret is scant, but that patients should be told about the possibility during psychological counseling.

Dutch research from several years ago found no evidence of regret in transgender adults who had comprehensive psychological evaluations in childhood before undergoing puberty blockers and hormone treatment.

Some studies suggest that rates of regret have declined over the years as patient selection and treatment methods have improved. In a review of 27 studies involving almost 8,000 teens and adults who had transgender surgeries, mostly in Europe, the U.S and Canada, 1% on average expressed regret. For some, regret was temporary, but a small number went on to have detransitioning or reversal surgeries, the 2021 review said.

Research suggests that comprehensive psychological counseling before starting treatment, along with family support, can reduce chances for regret and detransitioning.

WHAT IS DETRANSITIONING?

Detransitioning means stopping or reversing gender transition, which can include medical treatment or changes in appearance, or both.

Detransitioning does not always include regret. The updated transgender treatment guidelines note that some teens who detransition “do not regret initiating treatment” because they felt it helped them better understand their gender-related care needs.
Research and reports from individual doctors and clinics suggest that detransitioning is rare. The few studies that exist have too many limitations or weaknesses to draw firm conclusions, said Dr. Michael Irwig, director of transgender medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

He said it’s difficult to quantify because patients who detransition often see new doctors, not the physicians who prescribed the hormones or performed the surgeries. Some patients may simply stop taking hormones.

“My own personal experience is that it is quite uncommon,” Irwig said. “I’ve taken care of over 350 gender-diverse patients and probably fewer than five have told me that they decided to detransition or changed their minds.”

Recent increases in the number of people seeking transgender medical treatment could lead to more people detransitioning, Irwig noted in a commentary last year in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. That’s partly because of a shortage of mental health specialists, meaning gender-questioning people may not receive adequate counseling, he said.


Dr. Oscar Manrique, a plastic surgeon at the University of Rochester Medical Center, has operated on hundreds of transgender people, most of them adults. He said he’s never had a patient return seeking to detransition.

Some may not be satisfied with their new appearance, but that doesn’t mean they regret the transition, he said. Most, he said, “are very happy with the outcomes surgically and socially.”

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Follow AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner at @LindseyTanner.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Iran: US in No Position to Lecture Others on Human Rights, Democracy

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kana'ani deplored the US governments’ fake advocacy for human rights, and said supporters of occupation and aggression are not qualified to comment on human rights and democracy.

“There was a time the US was backing the apartheid regime in South Africa, the CIA helped it arrest Mandela,” Kana'ani wrote on his Twitter account on Sunday.

New details being published Monday by TIME appear to strengthen claims that the CIA helped South Africa's racist regime capture anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela in 1962. The report adds to evidence that President John F. Kennedy's administration played a role in Mandela's arrest at a time when US officials were coming to grips with an increasingly intense civil rights movement in America.

Mandela wound up spending 27 years in prison for leading the African National Congress (ANC), which opposed apartheid policies that kept South Africa's Black residents segregated, often in inhumane conditions. He finally was released in 1990 as apartheid crumbled, and was elected South Africa's first Black president in 1994, serving for five years. He died in 2013 at age 95.

“Today, it is a strategic ally and supporter of the apartheid Zionist regime. The US does not deserve to defend human rights and democracy," the spokesperson added.

"It does not believe in them at all,” he stressed.

Iran describes Israel as the root cause of the region’s instability and insecurity, but also stresses Israel's US-supported barbarity will not change the inevitable fate of the Tel Aviv regime.

Tehran says the history of the apartheid regime is full of assassinations, massacre, torture and killing of Palestinian kids, and described Tel Aviv regime's atrocities and massacre of Palestinian women and children as indicative of the destitute of Zionists.

The increased attacks of Israeli soldiers and settlers against the occupied territories have made 2022 the deadliest year for the Palestinians since 2005, according to United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The raids have claimed the lives of at least 220 Palestinians, including at least 50 children.

Kana'ani's remarks came after Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stated that the Palestinian village of Huwara "needs to be wiped out", adding that he thought "Israel should do it".

It comes after hundreds of armed Israeli settlers attacked Huwara and nearby villages and torched dozens of houses and cars. One Palestinian was killed during the settler rampage and at least 400 others were injured, with Palestinian media reporting stabbings and attacks with metal rods and rocks.

The Israeli regime's forces and settlers have escalated their deadly acts of aggression against the Palestinians since late December 2022, when Benjamin Netanyahu staged a comeback as the regime's prime minister at the head of a cabinet of hard-right and ultra-Orthodox parties.

Since the start of the year, at least 68 Palestinians have been killed as a result of the violence, including five, who were killed by Israeli settlers' gunfire, 13 children, four elderly people, and one prisoner.

Sufis Aren’t an Apolitical Counterweight to Political Islam, Babadzhanov Says

            Staunton, March 5 – Many post-Soviet analysts and officials have argued that Sufism, the mystical trend in Islam, can serve as a powerful bulwark against followers of political Islam and have even urged that their governments support Sufi orders as allies in the struggle against Islamism.

            (For background on such advocacy, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/03/view-that-sufism-represents-stabilizing.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/05/sufism-offers-spirituality-traditional.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/10/sufism-most-effective-means-to-counter.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2016/07/sufism-better-than-state-as-bulwark.html.)

            But that attitude and the policies that arise from it are beginning to change, as ever more observers recall the role of militant Sufis in the 19^th century and deal with the problems, often greater than those posed by Islamist groups, that some Sufi orders present across the post-Soviet space.

            (For examples of such problems, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/12/kadyrov-raising-military-unit-based-on.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/11/chechnyas-kadyrov-takes-up-cause-of.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/11/russian-officials-accuse-influential.html.)

            Now, Bakhtiyar Babadzhanov, a scholar at Tashkent’s Institute of Oriental Studies, has attacked as “a cognitive mistake” the view that Sufism in principle is “apolitical” and warned officials in Uzbekistan and elsewhere that Sufism is a militant threat (ia-centr.ru/experts/iats-mgu/ostanetsya-li-sufizm-v-tsentralnoy-azii-vne-politiki-/).

            It is likely that he will be accused of ignoring those aspects of Sufism that genuinely are pacific and apolitical in order to make his case; but it seems likely that Babadzhanov’s argument likely presages a shift in policy not only in Uzbekistan against a segment of Islam even the Kremlin thought it could work with.

            To the extent that is true, the Sufis are likely to respond not by withdrawing from politics and militance but by doubling down on both, something that sets the stage for potentially serious consequences not only in areas where Sufis have been traditionally strong but in others where they have been growing in many cases because of state protection.