Continue reading "Darwinism, Adam Smith and Global Management Models" »
Posted on December 29, 2008 at 06:00 AM in Economic Issues, Management and Leadership, Society and Culture, Technology and Strategy | Permalink | Comments (5)
About a week ago we learned that an Ecuadorian man died from injuries incurred in a beating in New York City in what authorities say may have been a hate crime. CNN reported that:
"Jose Sucuzhanay and his brother, Romel, had left a party on December 7 at St. Brigid's Roman Catholic Church when several men approached them in a car in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, police said. The men allegedly began shouting anti-gay and anti-Latino vulgarities at the two men."
A month earlier, another Latin man, Marcelo Lucero was attacked by a group of seven high school students in Suffolk County and stabbed to death. The Suffolk District Attorney said that "the seven students charged in the attack admitted they regularly beat Hispanics for fun. He said one of the accused attackers, Anthony Hartford, 17, of Medford, told police 'I don't go out doing this very often, maybe once a week.'"
If such attacks against Hispanics are taking place in the New York area, among the most open-minded and diverse regions in the world, I can only begin to imagine what might be going on elsewhere in the US. The picture that emerges is not very pretty:
"FBI statistics show an alarming increase in the number of hate crimes across the nation. Latinos, the numbers say, have become the racists' target of choice in the last four years. Since 2003, hate crimes against Hispanics have increased by a shocking 40%. According to the FBI, almost 67% of crimes motivated by ethnic or national origin are committed against Latinos."
For several years now I have closely followed the immigration debates in the US. I have seen, with considerable dismay, the negative, mean-spirited tone that powerful figures in politics and the media sometimes display when discussing immigration issues. In particular, I have become increasingly alarmed at their mean-spirited, anti-immigrant words, especially aimed at poor Mexican immigrants. Do these words matter?
Continue reading "Do Words Matter?" »
Posted on December 22, 2008 at 06:00 AM in Diversity, Political Issues, Society and Culture | Permalink | Comments (7)
Continue reading "Managing across Borders and Cultures" »
Posted on December 15, 2008 at 06:00 AM in Education and Talent , Innovation, Management and Leadership, Society and Culture | Permalink | Comments (4)
Elitists and Populists
In a recent post, I wrote about the current meaning of political labels along the liberal - conservative spectrum, especially as they were used in the very long 2008 campaign for US president. My personal conclusion was: "The terms ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ are alive and well when it comes to social issues, but they are increasingly irrelevant when applied to economic policy."
Another set of terms we heard a lot during the campaign were "elitist" and "populist." Barack and Michelle Obama were cast in the role of chief elitists by a variety of political opponents and commentators. The populist mantle was primarily worn by John Edwards and Mike Huckabee during the primaries, and even John McCain was cast as a populist toward the end of his presidential campaign. But without a doubt, the role of populist-in-chief in the recently concluded campaign fell to the Republican vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin.
The frequent use of these terms caught my attention. I started hearing that Barack and Michelle Obama lived in the "elite" Chicago neighborhood of Hyde Park, where their daughters attended the "elite" University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, and that Barack Obama taught constitutional law for twelve years at the "elite" U of C.
Wait a second. I lived in Hyde Park for almost ten years, from the time I arrived in the US from Cuba in October of 1960 to the time I moved to the New York area to go work for IBM in June of 1970. I attended the Lab Schools for my last two years of high school, and then went on to study at the University of Chicago for the next eight years. I think of Hyde Park as a very diverse kind of community anchored by the university, home to many different kinds of people.
Continue reading "Elitists and Populists" »
Continue reading ""Serious" Virtual Worlds Applications" »
Posted on December 01, 2008 at 06:00 AM in Innovation, Technology and Strategy, Virtual/Augmented Reality | Permalink | Comments (6)