Talk:Ethnic discrimination in Ethiopia

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Moving to Ethnic conflict in Ethiopia

Like other ethnic conflict

Ethnic conflict in Ethiopia instead using "discrimination" (an act of disdaining or showing hatred against ethnic group), or use "violence". 196.188.241.215 (talk) 14:59, 11 February 2021 (UTC)[reply
]

The content of this article is mainly about discrimination in Ethiopia, not violent ethnic conflicts in Ethiopia. Have a look at pdf page 25/numbered page 19 of Riddle (currently ref [1]). There you'll see the definitions of discrimination used by Minorities at Risk: they cover different levels of how much a discriminated-against-group is represented in socio-political positions of power and decision-making.
In general, there's a whole spectrum of ethnic conflict possible, in the wider sense of the word "conflict", ranging from the existence of words that symbolically divide people up into "separate" groups all the way through to genocide; see
ten stages of genocide
. It makes sense that the different stages are (more or less) covered as different topics, as each is significant. In the classification there, this article is mainly on stage 3 - discrimination.
Ethnic discrimination in Ghana, to help people understand the intermediate stages before discrimination evolves into lethal violence. Boud (talk) 01:48, 12 February 2021 (UTC)[reply
]

Requested move 19 March 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Ethnic discrimination in Ethiopia → Racism in Ethiopia – This is the only Wikipedia article in existence that uses the form "ethnic discrimination in Foo" instead of common "racism in Foo". Also, from the lead of our article on racism: "According to a United Nations convention on racial discrimination, there is no distinction between the terms "racial" and "ethnic" discrimination.". See also racism in Africa, Category:Racism by country and the wider context at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Discrimination#"Ethnic_issues_in"_vs_"Racism_in"_problem. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:08, 19 March 2021 (UTC) —Relisting. S Marshall T/C 10:31, 26 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Previous closure

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Jack Frost (talk) 13:53, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

see Relisting comment below
Ethiopia is divided by ethnicities (language primarily), not race. Amharic, Tigrayan, Oromo, etc. are not races, they're languages.
Consistency is being poorly-argued. All the other articles with "Racism in..." in their title are actually talking about races in their content. This one is not. It is talking about ethnic problems. Do not impose one the other in a misguided attempt at consistency. Actually check their contents first.
All RS's (as pointed above) treat the troubles in Ethiopia in ethnic terms, not racial terms.
If you can't live with this article's title under the generic category of "Racism by country", then remove this article from that list. But do NOT change the title of this article.
Wikipedia should not be playing the role of 19th C. European "scientists" and inventing new races and imposing it on other countries. Walrasiad (talk) 16:58, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Walrasiad, "Race and ethnicity are not the same concept". No. But "racism" and "ethnic discrimination" are pretty much one and the same, as far as most scholarly literature is concerned. AjaxSmack already pointed it out to you in the WikiProject discussion a while ago. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:26, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You repeat that assertion, and provide no evidence. This sounds like
WP:OR. Bring me RS's that refer to this as racism in Ethiopia, and we can have this conversation. Walrasiad (talk) 10:02, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply
]
Walrasiad, At WikiProject, I already gave you plenty: "GScholar: "ethnic discrimination in Ethiopia": 4 hits, "racial discrimination in Ethiopia" 3 hits, , "racism in Ethiopia" 9 hits. While the topic is not very well researched, academic works do seem to support my argument at a ratio of about 3:1 (13 hits vs 4 hits)." which you dismissed with an unclear comment "That is some rather poor use of scholarly sources." and then ignored my request to clarify what you meant. Will you address the sources this time? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:45, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Did you actually look at any of these articles? They are talking Italian racism in Ethiopia during the 1930s, or anti-Black racism, etc. which use the term correctly because that is between "races". But that is unrelated to the topic of this article. Ethnic problems in Ethiopia abound. Topic is not under-researched. There are manifold articles and books about it. e.g. "Amhara domination" yields up 318. It is just not characterized as "racism". Please provide real RS's. Walrasiad (talk) 07:55, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If the OP is right, it should be pretty easy to find reliable sources that refer to it as such. And zero have been provided. He has a "hunch", that is all. This is entirely
WP:OR
.
On the general point, Piotrus's allegation is precisely wrong, and his comment is in fact a tad bit suspect, as if he is trying to minimize historical racism in the West by pretending "other countries had it to". Whatever the motivation, inventing races and racial differences, and foisting them on people, like 19th Century "scientists" liked to do, is not an exercise Wikipedia should engage in.
Racism pertains to race. It's in the word, and it's in the ideology. Now, it may be that European and North American societies have been dominated by the ideological concepts of race and racism over the past couple of centuries, so I can understand if Westerners have a habit of viewing things in racial terms, and have a hard time conceiving or talking outside of them. But race construction is not something that Wikipedia should be engaging in lightly, much less implicitly promoting. That is merely repeating bad 19th Century habits and effectively endorsing and promoting racist ideologies. Wikipedia should not be a place for tossing around racial theories of editors' invention, so you have to take caution. Unless it is referred to explicitly in those terms in reliable sources, it should not be here. Walrasiad (talk) 00:58, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Premature closure

We were only made aware of this discussion yesterday at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Discrimination#"Ethnic issues in" vs "Racism in" problem. This was still in active discussion. Why was this closed and moved? What is the rationale? Walrasiad (talk) 14:37, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Walrasiad, you also posted this question on my talkpage, I have answered you there. Jack Frost (talk) 14:52, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Please note this is now being discussed at Wikipedia:Move_review/Log/2021_March#Ethnic_discrimination_in_Ethiopia. Ping participants of the above RM who did not comment there yet: @Ortizesp, Gnominite, HueMan1, and Yitbe:. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:18, 2 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The lead should not inaccurately blame a single cause

A phenomenon such as racism/ethnic discrimination very rarely originates from a single cause, especially in a country with thousands of years of history. This edit placed all the blame/fault on Amhara elites during one particular epoch, using a sentence describing information from a single source for just one epoch of the period covered. The claim that all the racism in modern Ethiopian history (Haile Selassie through to the present, over a century) comes from a single cause is not a fair summary of the current sourced content of the article.

The word "typically" does not strongly constrain a frequency, but 318 sources (Walrasiad 07:55, 26 March 2021 (UTC); see above) on a sub-topic of this topic compared to (Piotrus 4+3+9 = 16 sources on the overall topic, 04:45, 26 March 2021 (UTC)) can conservatively be described as "typically". The debate above was only about the title of the article; it didn't change the main content of the article, which has references that use terms such as ethnic discrimination. If we take Bulcha 1997 (currently reference [1]), then we find that racial|racist|racism occurs zero times (case insensitive), and ethnic occurs 68 times (case insensitive). Boud (talk) 09:55, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Just to see where the sentence came from: elites perceived the oromo identity and languages as hindrances to Ethiopian national identity expansion looks like a copy/paste in this edit, by MfactDr, from the OLF and Oromia Region articles, except that oromo became various southern minority. This explains why a reference from 1997 was wrongly dated to 1970. A bit of copyediting is probably still needed, and this is not a valid sentence to summarise the whole topic. Boud (talk) 10:22, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV tag due to whitewashing to remove references to racism

As this article has been whitewashed by removing references to racism, making Ethiopia the only country in the Category:Racism by country to have an article which doesn't use 'racism' in its title, I am tagging this with NPOV. Ethiopia is not the world's raceless paradise, it has issues with racism just like the rest of the world. Denying this is absurd. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:12, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Piotrus, this is in really poor taste. You have been attempting to impose your race-centered view on articles where they make no sense. Your RM did not succeed for the simple reason you had no sources characterizing it as such. Please don't vandalize the article resentfully now.
Also could you please elucidate which "references to racism" were removed from the article? Otherwise your allegation is false and please remove the tag. The only thing I see is an allegation inserted by PaineEllsworth back on Apr 30 dif during the first move request to make it consistent with your ill-conceived title. That allegation should have been removed when the RM went against the move. However, it remains there without sources, but has yet to be removed (and should be removed, should it remain without sources). I imagine it shouldn't be hard to find. On the other hand, I asked you for sources before, and you couldn't produce any. So perhaps it's not as easy as all that. Walrasiad (talk) 00:16, 3 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Not satisfied. The "racism" the first article talks about is self-hatred as Blacks (a racial category), which is not the topic of this article ("Abyssinian elites deny their race", "Black is associated with sinfulness", etc.). He is not actually characterizing the ethnic conflicts discussed in this article as racism. Once again, Piotrus, you fail to read the content of what you're citing. Please do make a better effort. This is far too weak and not acceptable. Please come up with better sources.
Just finished reading that second Jalata article. Pretty unhinged Oromo nationalist rant, with loads of self-referencing, hyperbolic language and some highly dubious claims, including some rather speculative race-construction of his own. Not sure how it made it past review. It's really poorly written. Surely you can find something better? You shouldn't really hang a rather serious allegation in the lede on a single openly biased fringe article. EDIT: Jalata is pretty openly an Oromo nationalist & political activist 1, blog. Need something a little more NPOV please. Walrasiad (talk) 16:44, 3 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Walrasiad: I admit that I only browsed the two articles quickly. Dago & Eisen make generalisations that I personally would call racist, such as "Abyssinians ... assert"; "the Amhara to this day believe"; I don't seem to see even any vague qualifiers such as "many" or "frequently" (which don't help much; only proper opinion polls can measure that; or public statements by concrete named individuals can be used to show their opinions). The Jalata article also has racist statements such as "This query shows that Habashas consider Oromos as inferior human beings." I can't judge the dubiousness of the many claims made, but "hyperbolic language" is fair. In any case, on this sort of topic, a source that itself makes racist statements is a rather dubious source; I'm reverting my addition of these two references. Readers are not going to learn about reality through sources that themselves assert stereotypes as factual statements. Boud (talk) 01:25, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It is not our job to decide whether the statements are racist or not. What we should do is to decide whether the
Journal of Pan African Studies is reliable or not, and ditto for the authors. That journal seems pretty minor judging by its lack of being indexed in any major indices ([1]). Habtamu Dugo is a professor in the Communication department at University of the District of Columbia, I didn't find much about the Joanne Dale Eisen who is labeled as 'independent researcher'. If the source is reliable, then what is says is acceptable for Wikipedia. Ditto for the other sources. Journal of Black Studies seems quite reliable (much better indexed: [2]). That article's author is Asafa Jalata, an Associate Professor of Sociology, global studies, and African and African American Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Anyway, the first source seems to be of borderline reliability (minor journals can be partisan), but the second one seems quite reliable. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 12:29, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply
]
Piotrus, your job is to read the articles you are proposing to cite. Which it seems you haven't done yet. Go read it, and come back. Political advocacy pieces with racist constructions are not good enough for the statement. If you want to include a perspective section, it should be worded reflecting its actual opinions with in-text attribution as the fringe view that it is, e.g. "some expatriate Oromo activists, like Mr. Jalafa, have sought to characterize it as a race conflict between dark-looking Whites (as he characterizes the Amhara, Tigryans, etc.) and the Oromo, whom he calls the only true indigenous Africans in the region, and urge others to consider Oromo liberation as part of the general Black African struggle against White colonial oppression". Walrasiad (talk) 14:15, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
20 cents: Jalata is clearly a partisan source, who certainly has a POV (namely, an Oromo-focused Afrocentrist one that considers Semitic "Habesha" domination to equate to colonialism), but that doesn't change the fact that he is RS and commands a considerable following, judging by the proliferation of his works and extensive citations [3]. It is the same for sources on the "other side" -- sources coming out of Ethiopian academia itself have a noticeable ideological slant in the other direction too. And none of this changes the fact that Piotrus is rightly critical of the whitewashing of the reality of racism in Ethiopia on this page. The proliferation of POV in this topic area is truly worrying. I just recently had to remove a disgusting blurb describing
Afars as, yes you read that right, troglodytes [[4]]. This racist trash had been on the page for no less than ten months [[5]]. --Calthinus (talk) 15:34, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply
]
Here is a source documenting the description of anti-Black racism in Ethiopian culture by emigrants of Ethiopian origin themselves in Canada [[6]]. --Calthinus (talk) 15:53, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Here is a source, in the domain of public health, that documents what it explicitly calls racism against the Oromo, and its effects on their well-being: [[7]]. Some pertinent quotes: Racism and discrimination affect people’s ability to improve their health. Racism stems from the belief that one group of people should be treated differently simply because of phenotypic differences and/or real or assumed cultural differences. There is considerable evidence that successive Ethiopian regimes have covertly and overtly developed racist policies that have denied the Oromo people educational opportunities, evicted them from their homes, hindered the development of their leadership and kept them in poverty and ill-health... the intent of the Ethiopian government policies were overtly and covertly deny the Oromo people educational opportunities... the Ethiopian language policy denied the Oromo people the right to know about health risks and this had implications on the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Oromia... Critical analyses in the history of Abyssinian and Oromo relations reveal that longstanding Abyssinian racistassumptions about the Oromo people informed Ethiopian government policy makers. For example, according to Asma Giyorgis the influential authors in the Royal family of King Menelik the Oromo people came into being after an Abyssinian starving lady went to Lalo (an Oromo man) in search of milk. The document suggests that Lalo married the woman and she produced seven children... The document says that these children grew up and became thieves, outlaws and robbers. In the forest,Lalo and his children nourished themselves with khat, coffee and milk and worshipped the devil. The devil theyworshipped taught them a new language and caused them not to understand the Christian language, i.e. Amharic. Regardless of what we think, sources are calling this racism. --Calthinus (talk) 15:57, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Here is a case not concerning the Oromo, but rather darker skinned groups in the western border regions, explicitly calling out the role of skin color in Ethiopian decision-making: in the 'racist' framework of Ethiopia's national identity, which is constructed in the language of skin colour, namely, that the blacker one is the less Ethiopian one becomes... [8] --Calthinus (talk) 16:14, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand. Are you proposing Wikipedia should adopt partisan recasting of Ethiopia's ethnic conflicts as a White-Black race war? They're all phenotypically the same Cushite race, with differences only in language and some cultural attributes, but it serves propaganda purposes to call one group "Whites" and the other group "Blacks". I can understand expatriate activists in the West characterizing it as such - Western audiences are seeped in racist ideology and tend to only understand things in racial terms, so I can see the point of partisans twisting it that way. Shall we also recast India's caste system as a racial conflict? I've seen that done by activists too. Western racist ideology is fun - everyone can participate! We can impose it anywhere and everywhere! But, of course, we must first be good "race scientists" and look for and identify the "White characteristics" and "Black characteristics" of parties in any given conflict. Where's my 19th Century race construction manual? I see you have the light-dark skin distinction down. Do you also happen to have cranial measurements? Walrasiad (talk) 16:17, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
None of us are qualified to say what is or is not a "race" or "racism". We are all here in capacity as wiki editors. There are sources saying Ethiopian authorities make decisions based on race, determined by characteristics real or imagined. The third source I posted pertains to the treatment of people who cannot be called "Cushitic" even if we are to abuse linguistic classifications for determining "race" (we shouldn't). It clearly states that Ethiopians in positions of power perceive the inhabitants of western border regions as darker skinned and therefore "less Ethiopian". This is literally the poster case example of racism. If you have sources disputing the view that what is going on is "racism", then we can portray both views. But Piotrus is right that a relevant viewpoint in scholarship is being suppressed here. --Calthinus (talk) 16:29, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Jalata can and constructs it openly. Your source is another expatriate Oromo activist (making the same parallel assumptions for Western audiences, comparing them to Black slavery in America). But I don't see him saying health services are being denied on the basis of race, or even the basis of ethnicity, or even being denied at all. His entire article is about Oromo language - that the Oromo need a Oromo-language free media because better communication and information might improve public heath outcomes in Oromia. I wish you guys would actually read what you cite. Walrasiad (talk) 16:46, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The ethnicity of the authors is not relevant to our discussion. Whether something is
WP:RS depends on the reliability of the publisher, not the author's ethnicity. Furthermore, I posted three sources, not one article. Did you actually read them? Dereje Feyissa -- I do not know his ethnicity and I also do not care -- is a credentialed academic with a doctorate from a university in Germany [9]. Yes, Begna Dugassa is a professor in Oromo studies so quite possibly an Oromo, yet why focus on that and not his PhD and prestigious faculty position at the University of Toronto [[10]]? And then my first source was by Atsuko Matsuoka and John Sorenson -- I'd say I'm pretty confident the chances taht Matsuoka and Sorenson are both emigre Oromo nationalists is effectively zero. But again, why focus on the authors' ethnicity in the first place? --Calthinus (talk) 16:55, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply
]
Oh, I don't care about the author's ethnicity. I do care if he is a political activist, which means the source is biased and should be weighed accordingly. That he prefaced a relatively humdrum media article with a political diatribe replete with race construction, should raise an eyebrow. It didn't take long to find the rest of his activist chips. In sum, what you have shown is that some expatriate Oromo political activists like to recast their political & language struggles as a White-Black race conflict, to generate sympathy in Western audiences. I guess we can put a line in the article about that. Walrasiad (talk) 17:11, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Very few academics in social sciences I know of are not activists. That you dislike some of their stances doesn't make them unreliable, instead it means that you need to revisit
WP:COI and think hard about whether you are indeed neutral and unbiased when it comes to editing (and discussing) those topics. Wikipedia is not a place for activism, or for righting perceived wrongs, it is a place to summarize what reliable sources say - even if you disagree with them. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:07, 5 July 2021 (UTC)[reply
]
Apparently you don't know many academics then. Incidentally, Matuoka & Sorensen do warn about Oromo immigrants sometimes spouting a rather peculiar and unique 'theory' about being colonized, quite different from other Ethiopian immigrants. Even so, in their summary, they don't give it any credence nor couch it in terms of race. I don't see why we should either. I've already suggested, and as they show, there are neutral ways of carefully stating the Oromo political perspective, with in-text citations, rather than treating some lone activist's fringe White-Black race theories as statements of fact. As to my own stance, I'll be honest - I don't think Wikipedia should be used as a platform to promote race construction and endorse racist ideologies. I prefer it to be taken more seriously and treated with caution. Walrasiad (talk) 15:10, 5 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is a platform for
WP:RS material. We have three potentially Oromo professors, all with great academic credentials, that you are speaking of -- you should be more respectful of their accomplishments and credentials, especially on a topic like this. Does this make it correct? No. The way you deal with this is not suppressing it, it is presenting alternate points of view. You are still running in circles around the other issue -- Oromo stuff aside, we have an RS explicitly saying Ethiopian treatment of the Nilotic and Omotic speaking "lowlanders" in the west is shaped by considerations based on skin color whereby, and I quote, "the blacker you are, the less Ethiopian" you are. You cannot with a straight face say this is not racism, I'm sorry, that is just ridiculous. Nobody is talking about "white" and "black" -- all races are constructed, imaginary groupings, no exception.--Calthinus (talk) 18:11, 5 July 2021 (UTC)[reply
]
Incidentally, I just read through your Matuoka & Sorensen article, since you seemed very insistent on it. Did you read it? They very clearly describe it as ethnic differences, not race, and quite consistently so. They do talk about facing racism in Canada, not in Ethiopia, and Ethiopian immigrants generally (not any particular group) not liking to be put in the same pot with African-Americans (Jamaicans in particular) in North America. That immigrants do not like to think of themselves as "Blacks" in a Western country where White-Black categories and racism is prevalent is not a surprise. You'll find a similar reluctance by any African immigrant community here - Blacks are not particularly well-treated in North America, nobody is in a hurry to adopt that label. That Ethiopian immigrants may have some extra cultural arrogance to go along with it (viz. Jamaicans) is par for the course. Come on. Walrasiad (talk) 19:05, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There have been no new comments for five months. Are there any objections to removing the NPOV tag, since the dispute seems to a title dispute - racism vs ethnic discrimination - hidden as an NPOV dispute (there is no evidence of edit warring or similar difficulties in editing the content)? Boud (talk) 03:53, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Boud: Remove Ue3lman (talk) 11:38, 29 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Boud Remove Efekadu (talk) 12:57, 29 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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