On Honor Killings, veracity of facts, and people in glass houses

So this evening I came across the following tweet:

stacyhyatt Stacy Hyatt 

3000 Women Have Been Killed LAST YEAR, in Great Britain Alone, as #Muslim.Honor Killings : youtu.be/vOqAVTZY1Ok #Sharia #Islam

39 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply

Honor kills are a horrible. I have no room in  my life for violence against women (or men) in any form. I've sat in my office with Muslim women who escaped terrible violence (or are enduring terrible violence) as well as with Muslim women who have never known violence.

My attention, of course, was drawn to the exaggerated spewing of hate from the 700 Club that you can find in the link shared by Stacy Hyatt. The xenophobic-baiting gets me every time.

I did a little fact checking. Interestingly, the Guardian reports that the murder rate in England and Wales was 619 in 2010. Seems like someone has their facts wrong. I listened to the 700 Club clip--what was actually reported is that there were 3,000 honor attacks in Britain. Honor attacks are not quite murder, though both are pretty horrible things. I dug a little deeper and discovered that the actual number of honor attacks, as reported by the BBC, is 2,823.

Okay. So they aren't murders, they are attacks. There aren't 3,000 of them, there are 2,823. Some of you might say I'm quibbling about details. I think accuracy matters. Careful attention to details like this helps me judge whether or not anything else someone is saying has any veracity.

Why do I care? I care because I see our media covering the extreme and ignorming the mainstream. I'm also tired that 37.8 percent of our population who voted in the 2010 election speak for the other 62.2 percent (this doesn't really belong here, but I'm annoyed about it and just had to say it).

Back to our regularly scheduled program.

From all reports, violence against women in Muslim countries is pretty horrific. However not every Muslim women is abused. Those interested in domestic violence in Muslim countries might check out the website Women's Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality.

This really isn't the point. It's not about who is experiencing violence and who is not. It isn't about what kind of violence is worse. What really got my goat about this whole kerfuffle was two fold: inaccurate information being shared and an emphasis on 2,823 dramatic crimes with no attention paid to the millions of other women (in the United States and the world, many of whom are not Muslim) who suffer violence.

Our own country has abysmal statistics about violence against women. Before the folks from the 700 Club and the Stacy Hyatts of the world run to the street corners casing aspersions against the entire Muslim civilization, they need to look inside their own house.

People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Let's look at our glass house, also known as the statistics about domestic violence in the United States. Click here for the full report

• On average more than three women a day are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in the United States. 
• In 2005 1,181 women were murdered by an intimate partner.
• In 2008, the Centers for Disease Control and prevention published data collected in 2005 that finds that women experience two million injuries from intimate partner violence each year. 
• There were 248,300 rapes/sexual assaults in the United States in 2007, more than 500 per day, up from 190,600 in 2005. 

None of this is okay. We all need to own the violence perpetrated in our communities. We all need to be part of the solution to this violence.

UPDATE: January 14, 2012

Someone on Twitter, Abdul-Azim Ahmed, sent me this reference to crime statistics in the United Kingdom. To put the honor attacks in perspective in terms the general crime rate, click here. 

Rape, Injustice "Facts," and a Call to Better Scholarship

Those of you who regularly pay attention to me on Twitter know that I go a little crazy over items presented as "facts" that are either not referenced or not verifiable. I've seen way too many examples of blatant misinformation spread as well as generally smart people who become misinformed vectors spreading about even more misinformation.

Take for example the Twitter entity known as InjusticeFacts. They describe themselves as "an open, circulating database of facts that deal with the injustices which plague our world." In general, I think the idea is great. There are copious amounts of horrible injustices that happen in the world. Many of us have no idea that they are occurring. Consciousness raising is an important tool of social change, and I'm glad Injustice Facts is doing some of that work.

My complaint is that Injustice Facts offers up sloppy scholarship. People can provide them "facts" through their website. The organizers of the website then disseminate those facts. Are the facts vetted? Are there references that are made available so we know that the fact is true? 

No. At lest Injustice Facts does not explicitly say they do fact checking. The organization also doesn't not respond to Tweets asking if they fact check.

Arguably, good scholarship involves checking out the veracity of information. Not everyone does that. I think an organization or person who presents things as facts has some responsibility to actually verify whether facts are facts -- or if they are propaganda. We've become too trusting, and have rapidly lost our ability to critically think about the world around us.

Yesterday, someone who  I follow on Twitter re-tweeted this:

InjusticeFacts Injustice Facts 

29 women out of every 100,000 are raped in the U.S. each year, 1.6 women out of every 100,000 are raped in Canada each year.

13 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply

My (somewhat snarky) response :

jaypsyd Jason Mihalko 

@ 

.@InjusticeFacts @amandamcneil I usually like my facts with a side of references.

13 hours ago Favorite Reply Delete

My twitter follower's response, which has since been deleted by the follower, was "Questioning rape facts. Classy." I of course wasn't questioning rape. Violence is a despicable thing, and a good deal of my work as a psychologist is with women and men who have endured sexual violence. My complaint was about a disembodied fact--without reference, context, or verification--being represented as truth.

The snark probably obscured my message a bit.

I continued (I edited a few auto correct errors from my original tweets):

jaypsyd Jason Mihalko 

@ 

I question our collective lack of critical thinking about information that is presented without reference @amandamcneil @injusticefacts

12 hours ago Favorite Reply Delete

jaypsyd Jason Mihalko 

@ 

Why should I believe stats that aren't verified? That is not questioning rape. Its demanding good scholarship @amandamcneil@injusticefacts

12 hours ago Favorite Reply Delete

My twitter follower elected to unfollow me and ignore my responses. A shame, really, as she and I probably agree more than we disagree. I also think, by the way, that it's important to regularly be exposed to people who think differently than me. It makes my world bigger, richer and more diverse.

I've taken it upon myself to do a little fact checking. The UN's statistics for forcible rape in the United States for 2009 was 28.6 per 100,000 people. The count for Canada? 1.5 per 100,000 people. Ms. Magazine has put together a helpful table to demonstrate how difficult it is to get accurate statistics on rape. Scary, sad, and heartbreaking reading.

In this case Injustice Facts were accurate facts (there was a little rounding that happened). To be a more worthwhile source of information, and a trustworthy source of information, a simple addition of a reference would change everything.

It really isn't good enough to say something is true "because I said so." It's poor scholarship, breeds misinformation, and has the potential for great harm.

We need to be critical thinkers. We need to question what we read. We need to search out references to know that the facts we see are accurate and not propaganda. We need to be better scholars.

That is my point. I'm sad my Twitter follower didn't stick around long enough to hear me out.

Ellis Island: Early Notions of a Multi-Cultural Society

This past spring my niece and I took a weekend to ourselves and went to New York City. Despite having lived in New York City, I never managed to take the boat out to Ellis Island to visit that important part of American history. I'm glad we visited. The boat ride out offered fantastic views of Manhattan, the Statute of Liberty, and Ellis Island. The museum was a fantastic experience filled with an unvarnished look at what it was like to be an immigrant entering the country.

 What I found most interesting were some of the propaganda posters they had at the museum. In this first image, which had the date of 1919 on it, victory bonds were being sold. The advertisement was making a pitch toward making people feel like they were "real" American's if they bought bonds to support the government--and extended the idea of a "real" American to a variety of different ethnic backgrounds by making a mention of a variety of names. Reading through the names now, one might not be particularly moved. Thinking about what people thought about culture, ethnicity, and diversity in 1919 I was very moved. Here is a hodge-podge of names from countries all over Western and Eastern Europe. All seen as Americans. The last name on the list is what finally got me--a name usually associated with Spanish speaking countries. Might it be that I stumbled across early evidence of our society creaking toward a multi-cultural understanding?

Of course, even then we were trying to figure out the language issue. Here is a poster from my hometown advertising "Americanization" classes. From the picture, it appears that Little Red Riding Hood and a man with extremely large hands are learning the alphabet from a small child who dressed like a newspaper reporter. Modern day English only laws--and the merits or problems of a bilingual (or trilingual) society is a topic for another blog post. This poster made me wonder what images are we leaving behind today that someone will look at and wonder about in 90 years?

Part of what I really liked about the Ellis Island museum was that it wasn't all polished. Sure there were the well maintained and immaculate galleries. There were the shining display cases, detailed audio tours, and all the trappings of a modern museum. Other parts were a little more raw and uncensored. A few different places caught my eye. No better time to share them then now.

This first image is graffiti that a nameless immigrant left behind while waiting in line to be processed. As the building aged the plaster cracked away and revealed this drawing. We don't know anything about the artist (though we could have known more if my other image that I took wasn't blurred--the artist had words to go along with this face). A travel tip for all of you: don't leave home with a brand new digital camera that you've never used. You are bound to experience some disappointment. Anyway--I wonder who the face is? A self portrait? A relative left behind in their home country? Someone who died on the journey to America?

The main building on the island has been historically restored. It's in beautiful condition. I'm told that there are plans for some of the other buildings to be restored and turned into a conference center. I hope they leave some of the structures untouched. I like the reminder (both inside in the context of the museum and outside in the casual context of the grounds) that the immigrant experience was difficult, hard, and sometimes a failure. Many came with the hopes that sidewalks were paved with gold. Some found that gold. Others were turned away, treated harshly, or even died on Ellis Island.

This ominous looking sign is clearly going to require a blog post all on it's own. This little innocent looking (yet strangely ominous) sign spurred me to come back from this trip and create a folder on my computer that I've been slowly filling with images of what psychology  has been through the years--specifically images of how we have treated people considered "mad" or "ill". It's clearly going to require a whole blog post of it's own. Consider this sign a little teaser.

I've been told by people that I tend to dwell on small things. I'd be the one taking the picture of an interesting looking floor board on a boat while everyone else was rushing to take a picture of awhile breaching out of the water. This is a useful skill in therapy--often times when we notice the little things we can unravel the big things. This isn't always so useful when showing someone what a place looks like. I made an honest effort with the Statute of Liberty (see, I can improve). I assure you though I have plenty of pictures of her torch, or a fold in her dress, and taken from all sorts of strange angles. It's how I see things--and works for me.

With that in  mind, I leave you with two images that convey in a very personal way how I saw Ellis Island. Perhaps it will inspire you to think about how you see the world around you?

Importance of Looking Deeply

One of the things I have valued most about my graduate education is that my mentors insisted that I look at things deeply. Don't be satisfied with how things appear at first glance or even after just a little investigation. Dig deep and look at all the sources. Confront my own bias and interpretation. This morning I'm thinking a lot about the encouragement my mentors gave me.

At various times over the last several months I've come across a controversy between the Humane Society of the United States and HumaneWatch. I got sucked right into the kerfuffle on Twitter when the HSUS retweeted one of my postings and suddenly my screen became filled with Humane Watch proxies warning me about the "evils" of the Humane Society of the United States. They were generally two different types of messages. The first generally communicated that the Humane Society wasn't very humane because they allegedly euthanize animals and the other is that the Humane society is allegedly an ominous force because they advocate a vegan diet.

Oh no. Not a vegan diet! That's just plain evil.

This morning I got a few invitations to join a  Facebook page for the Humane Watch. My curiosity was finally piqued about this group and their propaganda. My first question was who is behind the organization.   Was it a group of concerned animal activists? Disgruntled former employees from HSUS? I figured if I knew the structure under the organization I could understand more of where they were coming from. I figured it would be difficult to find out. In the end, this was the easiest research I've ever done.

Scroll to the bottom of the Humane Watch webpage. There is a copyright noticed saying all content is copyrighted by the Center for Consumer Freedom. This center is an organization run by restaurant, tobacco, alcohol, and other similar organizations. They run a variety of media campaigns supporting the interests of the various industries they represent. Want to do some of your own deep research about the Center for Consumer Freedom? Check out Sourcewatch. That's one place to start.

What things are the Center for Consumer Freedom supporting? They provide financial surveillance on organizations and individuals that support "anti-consumer" organizations. They campaign against animal rights groups. They go after watchdogs such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Suggest that we ought not to worry about the levels of mercury in seafood (they must be really concerned, because they have another website too). Then of course there is the kerfuffle that started all of this with the Humane Watch that is, among other things, warning that the HSUS wants us all to be vegan.

Yes, there is more. To round up the sites that the Center for Consumer Freedom sponsors we have one about Obesity Myths in which we learn it is lifestyle, not diet, that makes us fat. PETA kills animals, according to another website they sponsor.  Another goes after the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine because it has the gall to suggest that high fat fast food is bad for us and eating more vegan foods might be better. The Center for Consumer Freedom calls this one Physician Scam. Lastly, we apparently don't have to worry about too much sugar in our foods because it is all just a Sweet Scam.

What makes me sad here is that science--real meaningful science--gets obscured by propaganda that is trying to sell more fast food, support more factory farms, and manage our environment in thoughtless and destructive ways. Good people end up getting manipulated by the science that is intended to educate and improve the lives of society.

Carefully read what you encounter out their in the world. Look deeply before you click "like" on facebook. Give some thought to who is trying to get you to believe what--and why they want you to believe it.