Beautiful minds: Inside the identity politics of autism
Yes. I am clearly a high functioning autistic, almost to the point of being an alien. I have no interest in sport, no interest in dancing, no interest in the great outdoors and I really don't understand what scenery is all about. I have watched very few movies in my life and almost never watch TV. I find popular music unpleasant. I greatly dislike crowds and meetings and have mostly managed to avoid both. So it is clear that I am so far outside the norm that I might as well be an alien from outer space.
But I am outside the norm in positive ways too. Being a high-functioning autistic brings a high IQ with it and high IQ solves almost all problems. I have been rather successful in both academe and in business. I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation in 6 weeks (average is 3 years) and I made enough money to retire when I was 39.
It was late in life that I realized that I was autistic. I had already done pretty well by then but the realization of my status did help me with relationships
For most of her life, Sarah Langston didn’t know why she had so much trouble interacting with the world around her. She chalked it down to being a dysfunctional person. But it took its toll: intense difficulty regulating her emotions led to self-harm and repeat hospitalisations. She found it hard to hold down a job.
“For my whole life I had thought: I am broken, I am a mess, there’s something wrong with me, I’m too much, how could anyone love me. I had terrible self-esteem.”
That all changed when she was diagnosed with autism aged 38. All of a sudden, she had an explanation for behaviours that other people found puzzling, and decades of feeling on the outer. “I can talk a lot, use long words – I’ve always been a Scrabble champ – but I didn’t realise my bolshiness and wordiness were autistic. We’re difficult women. A lot of people don’t like us and we experience social discrimination,” she says.
The diagnosis has connected Langston with support services that have helped her function day to day. But that hasn’t been its most important legacy.
“What my autism diagnosis did was give me knowledge about myself. Knowing there’s a reason why I present the way I do, and there’s a whole community there for me to connect with, has been life-changing. My self-esteem went from being in the toilet to being pretty good,” she says.
Autism is no longer just a diagnosis. For many, it’s an identity: one that has transformed their understanding of themselves and the world, opened up a new community of like-minded people, and changed their lives for the better.
Well-known faces on Australian screens and airwaves – comedians Hannah Gadsby and Josh Thomas, activist Grace Tame and actor Chloe Hayden – are proudly autistic.
Hayden, who played an autistic character in the local Netflix production of Heartbreak High, has been at the front of this movement locally. “I see autism as a superpower. If you look at people at the top of their fields, so many of them are on the spectrum,” she’s said.
This new wave of voices has championed an autistic identity that rejects the old labels.
Many have come to their autistic identity later in life, after the criteria for a diagnosis significantly expanded a decade ago and prompted a new reckoning. One big driver of this has been parents whose children are autistic coming to learn they fit the diagnosis as well. Adults with autism are now one of the fastest-growing groups on the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
Young adults often wear their autism as a badge of pride; an antidote to the discrimination they may have faced when they were younger. Today, identifying as autistic doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve been formally diagnosed. The growing influence of TikTok also encourages people to self-diagnose, with signs of autism explained in short user-made clips.
That poses difficulties for policymakers, splits the autism community, and can puzzle others. When a clinical diagnosis takes on a meaning of its own, what do you do? And when an umbrella term like autism – which captures so many different experiences – hits the mainstream, who is left out?
“Autism came into existence as a clinical diagnosis. And what has happened over time – similar to other communities like the deaf community – is that that diagnosis has come to mean a lot more sociologically, particularly in terms of an identity,” says Professor Andrew Whitehouse, head of the autism research team at Telethon Kids Institute.
“People have found enormous purpose and belonging through the diagnosis, and that is a wonderful thing. What it also has done is [that] it’s clouded the differences. It’s made it challenging to differentiate between the clinical diagnosis of autism and the identity label of autism. It’s to be celebrated, but also to be examined.”
For Sharon Fraser, another late-diagnosed autistic mother, there’s a lot to celebrate. “It’s so much better for your wellbeing to know that your brain is just wired differently. It’s a huge relief and so helpful, when you get your autism diagnosis or realise you’re autistic. You can almost replay your life and go: oh, that’s why that happened,” she says.
”People will use all manner of unpleasant words to describe you, and they tend to be character flaws: you’re lazy, you’re ignorant, you’re rude. Taking on an autistic identity label is something that we can reclaim for ourselves. Identity is so important because it means we get to define who we are. Otherwise other people will give us labels that they think fit us better.“
The advent of the autistic identity is an even newer phenomenon than the diagnosis, which only came into existence in the 1980s.
“When I came into the autistic world, no one talked about autistic identity,” says La Trobe University Professor Cheryl Dissanayake, who’s been researching the condition since then.
“Temple Grandin was the first autistic voice. Now we have many autistic voices. People get a diagnosis because it really helps with their autistic identity. That just wasn’t a thing [before], when people only got a diagnosis because they needed support. It’s a different world, and we need to figure out how we navigate it.”
This has been propelled by the neurodiversity movement, which sees autism and other conditions as natural variations that occur in the human brain, rather than problems to be fixed. It sits alongside the social model of disability, which holds that disabilities arise from the barriers society puts up, rather than inherent personal deficits.
While neurodiversity was coined in the late 90s, it has taken off in the last decade, coinciding with a change to the psychiatrists’ manual – known as the DSM – which created a broad diagnosis of “autism spectrum disorder” in 2013, and collapsed a range of conditions such as Asperger’s into the one umbrella term.
“I think we started to reassess what it was to be autistic in that moment, when the convenient shorthand [terms such as Asperger’s] that we’d used previously no longer worked,” says Dr Melanie Heyworth, an autistic researcher who founded the organisation Reframing Autism.
“And so for us, it’s probably in the last 10 years that we’ve been intensively re-examining what it means to be autistic.”
A flurry of new research has advanced thinking about autism, increasingly co-produced with autistic authors. That swing to more inclusive research is still gaining momentum, Heyworth says. “Once you get research, things trickle down, and the way people talk about it, and universities teach it, changes,” she says. This extends to social media, where the TikTok hashtag #ActuallyAutistic – used to highlight autistic-made content – has more than 7 billion views.
One outcome of this awareness has been a trend towards self-diagnosis. Fraser says it’s most common in women, who were probably missed in childhood, when the diagnostic criteria was limited and it was mainly boys who were identified. (Autism is still diagnosed more in boys, but diagnoses in girls are on the rise).
Many come to the realisation after having autistic children; others arrive through reading, Fraser says. “They get that lightbulb moment of thinking: it’s not that I’m broken, I’m just an autistic person surviving in a predominantly neurotypical world.”
“For most people, that’s enough. They don’t need to go and spend thousands of dollars and time to get the piece of paper,” Fraser says. A clinical diagnosis can provide access to services, and is required to enter the NDIS. “But especially for adults, it may not be necessary that you access those services. You may have worked out other ways to exist.“
“They get that lightbulb moment: it’s not that I’m broken, I’m just an autistic person surviving in a predominantly neurotypical world.”
“That’s also one end of the spectrum; 20 to 30 per cent of autistic people will have an intellectual disability and very limited means of communications. For people with more severe needs, there are parents in their 70s and 80s who have never had a holiday. It’s like another whole job, helping high-needs adults navigate their lives, and I don’t think [these voices] are representing them. What their life is like, I don’t know, because we’re not hearing from them,” she says.
That’s where parents like Nicole Rogerson, whose son Jack is autistic but who is not autistic herself, enter the conversation. Rogerson thinks the neurodiversity movement comes from a good place: the idea that the world should be kinder and more supportive of autistic kids, that we need autism acceptance, not just awareness.
“But that social movement glosses over the reality of people with more severe types of autism, and does them a disservice,” she says.
“Have we achieved more awareness of autism? Yes, definitely. In our regular culture we have television, podcasts, books. There are well-known people who identify as autistic. The only downside to all that wonderful awareness and celebration is that it can confuse people.
“For some, autism is something they’re proud of and they wear as a badge of honour. But for 30 per cent of people with autism, it will be a severe disability that affects every aspect of their lives. In the focus on more mild forms of autism, which of course are to be celebrated, people with moderate to profound autism have been overlooked.”
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How pricey D.C. neighborhood less than a mile from the Capitol has turned into a crime-ridden 'war zone'
American law enforcement has died at the hands of Leftist permissiveness
At just a 10-minute walk from Capitol Hill, Navy Yard was once considered a convenient and even desirable place for members of Congress and their staff to live.
The Washington D.C. neighborhood is dotted with shiny new apartment buildings boasting some of the swankiest amenities and highest rent prices in the country – with a one bedroom apartment averaging approximately $2,500 per month.
But the area is also in the news nearly every day with a new shooting, stabbing, carjacking or other violent crime.
The dangers have become so prevalent that some congressional aides will take an Uber to work rather than risk the half-mile journey to their office.
Residents say it has become a 'war zone' over the last four years, many are fearful, and some are so fed up that they have packed their bags and moved to Maryland or Virginia.
'I left Navy Yard and left D.C. because of the rapid and drastic increase in crime,' Senior Legislative Assistant Rafaello Carone told DailyMail.com. 'I had to [leave] for safety and just affordability.'
Carone noted that the location is popular for lawmakers and Hill staffers because it is within walking distance to the Capitol complex. But he says many are forced to drive or use rideshare apps to get to work due to crime.
'The whole point of living in D.C. and close to the Capitol buildings is to get to work easy,' the staffer said. 'And now you're being forced to Uber and take other forms of transportation in order to just go to your job.'
Among those lawmakers DailyMail.com can confirm took up residence in Navy Yard over the last few years are Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) and Mark Takano (D-Calif.).
Notably, Cuellar was the victim of an armed carjacking in October outside his home at the Capitol Hill Tower condos in Navy Yard.
The Texas Democrat was not harmed by the three armed attackers, but they did take his white Honda CHR and sushi dinner.
'I left Navy Yard, lived there since February 2021, and I moved to Arlington,' Carone detailed, adding: 'Honestly, I think I left the same week that Congressman Cuellar was carjacked. And I just said you know, that's the last straw.'
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) expressed to DailyMail.com her growing concern with crime in her D.C. neighborhood and recently moved from the city to Virginia.
D.C.'s liberal City Council passed a law enforcement overhaul that was meant to hold officers more accountable, but instead appeared to embolden criminals and was deemed by critics 'soft-on-crime' policies.
Now, following public outcry that not enough is being done to combat crime, the council is already reversing some of these laws.
Ward 6 Council member Charles Allen, whose district encompasses Navy Yard, did not respond to a request for comment on the rising crime in the area he represents.
On Tuesday, an armed man connected to a shooting last year ran into the courtyard of an apartment building just a half-mile from the Capitol as police chased him through the Navy Yard area.
The building, called Illume Apartments, was sent into lockdown and residents were told to stay inside their units while SWAT teams cleared the area. U.S. Capitol Police also responded to the scene. The suspect was not found and remains at large.
At least a few members of Congress reside in Illume, according to The Spectator.
The incident followed a similar apartment manhunt last month in Navy Yard and just a block-and-a-half from the Department of Transportation.
A resident impacted by crime in the area and who lives near Arris apartments told DailyMail.com: 'I first noticed crime upticking in Navy Yard only a few years ago. I broke my lease when I was living near Half Street after three men approached my car and tried to steal it.'
The individual said they moved to an area further away from the highway into Navy Yard, but it continued to 'inch closer.'
'It seems like no one is doing anything to stop the rise in crime,' the source said and declined to share their name. 'It's making it impossible to live in Navy Yard without fearing that you're going to get mugged on your way home from dinner one night, or walking with your friends during the daytime because some of these incidents are happening in broad daylight.'
Carone blamed the rise in violence on the D.C. City Council for passing laws recently that allow criminals to get away with breaking the law more easily and face less repercussions if caught.
'Simultaneously with the crime drastically increasing, you have the DC City Council overturning normative crime laws penalizing those who are committing these crimes and now making it easier for them and giving them a pass, which has made the city largely a war zone,' he told DailyMail.com.
Mayor Bowser attempted to address the carjacking issue by handing out free Apple AirTags for residents to put in their vehicles so they would be more easily trackable if the vehicles were stolen.
'These tags and tiles will help MPD recover stolen vehicles and hold people accountable,' Bowser said at a press conference in November. 'The word will also get out this is not a community to come in and steal cars.'
Other Hill staffers and lawmakers have experienced violence in other D.C. neighborhoods, as well.
Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.), for example, was assaulted inside the elevator of her apartment building in February 2023. The congresswoman was punched and grabbed by the neck by a man believed to be homeless. She suffered bruising but was able to throw her hot coffee on the attacker and ward him off.
A staffer for Sen. Rand Paul's office was stabbed on H St. NE in Washington, D.C. last year in what was allegedly a random attack.
Another Navy Yard resident and her husband live in Illume and are moving to Virginia next month to get away from the 'crime and chaos.'
She told DailyMail.com that they are sick and tired of paying thousands of dollars in high rent while Navy Yard crumbles around them.
There have been multiple incidents of homeless men sleeping on the roof of their building, cars being broken into in the garage and armed carjackings, stabbings and robberies just steps away from their front door.
'We don't feel safe in our own home despite being less than a 10 minute walk to the U.S. Capitol,' she explained. 'It's shocking that these senseless acts of violent crime are happening down the street from where elected officials are meeting. This area should set the beacon of safety and freedom for the country, but instead it has unfortunately devolved into rampant crime and chaos.'
And although they've lived in D.C. for nearly 10 years, the crime has never been so widespread and rampant.
'We agreed that it's time to move across the river for our own safety.'
Carone also listed some of the recent occurrences and high-profile crimes, which he said made him rethink his living situation.
'You had a sitting congressman carjacked at gunpoint across the street from my apartment building. You have dogs being thrown from balconies. You have dogs being shot, you have people being shot.'
He added: 'They say you can't use the metro, they said you can't walk by the water anymore, they say that you have to walk in pairs going to and from work.'
It is known that several lawmakers live in the glamorous and very expensive Navy Yard apartment buildings that have sprouted up in the last decade amid a massive gentrification push.
Phase II of the Navy Yard expansion project is underway and seems to be undeterred by rising crime while multiple new buildings go up every few months.
Many times, crime in Navy Yard involves groups of minors targeting individuals walking around the neighborhood. Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) implemented a curfew for minors beginning at 11:00 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 12:01 a.m. on weekends.
Carjackings across all of D.C. have risen exponentially in recent years.
There were 959 carjacking incident reports in 2023 – with many occurring in Navy Yard. This compared to the year prior when the instances of carjackings were about half with 485 reported.
But just five years ago in 2018, there were only 148 carjackings reported in all of D.C.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13249257/pricey-dc-neighborhood-crime-ridden-war-zone.html
************************************************************Why Men Should Dress Well
This guy probably has a point but it is a long way from my inclinations. I always dress super-casually
Many men are under the the impression that putting thought into their appearance isn’t manly. But basic thoughtfulness about what you put on is actually quite masculine. It helps you fulfill your role as a man in society through its effect on your projection of maturity, leadership, and the ability to provide. Sure, it’s easier to throw on a faded T-shirt and some jeans than a button-down and a blazer. Yet the latter usually garners more positive results in how others perceive you, and how you perceive yourself. It better reflects your responsibilities and opportunities as a man.
Dressing well looks different in different situations, of course—you don’t need to get all gussied-up every time you go to the store. But even in the most casual of scenarios, there are ways to dress sloppily and slovenly, and there are ways to dress well. It makes a difference for you and for others. Let’s look at some aspects of masculinity and how good style can support it.
Maturity
We live in a culture that relentlessly pushes men to behave like perpetual adolescents. Culture tells young men:
“Don’t take on responsibility, let someone else do it.”
“Don’t try to advance in your career or be a strong leader because that’s toxic masculinity.”
“Don’t sacrifice yourself for a greater cause, just focus on yourself and your own needs.”
“Have a good time and enjoy yourself—there’s plenty of time for building a family and career later.” “Nothing is really worth getting out of your comfort zone for.”
All of these statements embody the mentality of a child because the fundamental difference between an adult and a child is that, in assuming responsibility, an adult contributes to society, while a child, because of their complete dependence, only takes from society. Men who are encouraged to keep taking from society, family, their girlfriends or wives, and the like, rather than giving and building up, are therefore behaving like children.
Psychologist Jordan Peterson points out that the trend of adults dressing like children stems from a mindset that rejects traditional standards of behavior, including adult responsibility, in favor of unlimited “individuality.” Poor style can reinforce an attitude of perpetual immaturity and ongoing self-indulgence, even on the subconscious level. The way we present ourselves reflects and reinforces our sense of self. So if you dress like a child, you’re more likely to act like one.
Leadership
Traditionally, men are leaders, at least within their own families, if not more broadly in society. A leader is someone whom others respect and trust. He has the self-confidence to make decisions and act on them (in the best interest of those under his authority). Dressing well can help in both these areas because it enhances our own and others’ perception of us. Research demonstrates that, when we encounter someone, we will assume based on one good trait, such as attractive dress and appearance, that the individual has other good traits as well, such as intelligence or reliability. This phenomenon is known as the “halo effect,” and it can be a powerful tool for persuading others and gaining their trust. Men’s fashion expert Antonio Centeno writes,
“There’s a very simple reason for this: you’re trying to influence, and therefore your clothes should be the clothes of an influential man. The halo effect will kick in for you once again, making people much more receptive to your words and ideas ... a well-dressed man speaking calmly about reasonable-sounding ideas is much more likely to be believed than the same man giving the same speech in a sloppy outfit.”
In addition to helping engender trust and openness in your followers, a sharp appearance makes you feel more confident in yourself. Studies have shown that dressing well not only affects how others perceive you but also makes you more self-assured and even aids your ability to think abstractly. Just as dressing in an immature style subtly and subconsciously reinforces an identity of childishness, dressing in a mature and respectable manner reinforces an identity of strength, capability, and confidence. The clothing we wear and the environment we inhabit is a constant message about who we are and who we want to become.
Providing
Throughout history, men have had the responsibility and privilege of providing for others. Today, this generally means earning a salary and using that to purchase food and other necessities for the family. Good style and grooming may help you perform that duty more effectively. All of the points about first impressions and the impact of our appearance on what others think of us apply equally here. Moreover—and at least in part for reasons related to the halo effect—a good body of research shows that more attractive and better-dressed individuals are more likely to advance in their careers and make more money. In one study, for example, men dressed with varying degrees of stylishness engaged in mock sales negotiations. The sweatpants-clad group earned a theoretical profit of $680,000, while the group decked out in suits earned $2.1 million. Dressing like a successful professional in your field might help you become that, which will allow you to better provide for your family.
Generosity and Gentlemanliness
Perhaps the most important and persuasive reason to dress well as a man has nothing to do with the practical benefits. In the end, dressing well is a matter of respect: respect for your own dignity as a human being, and respect for the dignity and importance of the people around you. “Don’t be afraid to look a little more dressed up than the people around you,” says Centeno. “That’s your way of showing them respect.” Similarly, Dr. Peterson relates that his father, a teacher, always wore a suit to class as a sign of respect to his students. Dressing up shows that you care enough about your interaction with others to put in some effort. It signals that you take others seriously, that you won’t waste their time, and that you want to look nice for them. It’s simply good, gentlemanly manners, that correspond to the importance of human beings and human interactions.
We ought to dress well because we ought to have a healthy regard for ourselves and for those we encounter. Brett McKay of The Art of Manliness website suggests that we think about dressing for others more than ourselves—they’re the ones who have to look at us, after all. “How you dress contributes to the ambiance, to the weight of an event—to how significant the occasion feels,” writes McKay, and this can be a gift to everyone involved. Important situations should be set apart, characterized by a more dignified ambiance, which is partly created by our appearance. As McKay argues, we don’t want our lives to run “together into an indistinct blur” by dressing the same in all situations, which “contributes to the horror” of mundanity and stultifying routine. McKay continues that “we’ve lost this idea that the creation of atmosphere is a cooperative endeavor; trained to be passive consumers, we expect to show up and have the atmosphere served to us. ... But ambiance is like orchestral music; when each of the players harmonize their sound, something magical is created. ... When you show up dressed well for something, it contributes to everyone feeling like they’ve momentarily escaped their everyday lives.”
When we eat an important meal together—say Christmas or Easter dinner—and we use the sterling silver forks, the ivory porcelain, and the finest china we own; when we light the candles, put out the tablecloth, and serve turkey and potatoes with wisps of steam dancing in the air; when we put on beautiful music to set the mood; and when we wear our very best and wash our faces and smile so that we can bring pleasure to those who look at us—then, we are designating time together as a mutual gift, worth some effort, worth making distinct, almost sacred, set apart from the ordinary, because it means something important.
In the end, we must remember that we’re not animals. We are rational beings, capable of and called to virtuous and civilized behavior, and our appearance ought to reflect that.
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Hindu/Sikh case breaks ground in Australian hate-speech law review
This is not really a complex case. It is clearly a religious matter but does have political implications. Sikhism and Hinduism are very different religions. Sikhs actually believe in one true God, which seems absurd to polytheistic Hindus. So many Sikhs want a State of their own so they can run their affairs in their own way. The divide is clearly religious.
About 76 percent of all Indian Sikhs live in the northern Indian state of Punjab, forming a majority of about 58 per cent of the state's population. So they want Punjab in whole or in part for their independent homeland
Modern India is however the result of coalescing many different ethnicities and language groups into a unitary State so making an exception for just one particulsr goup would be politically poisonous. Absent that context the Sikh request would be a reasonable one in line with modern customs of ethnic separatism but context is sadly very important here.
On the Hindu side, Indins are very much aware of examples such the former Yugoslavia, where a unitary State split into a number of smaller ethic state amid much bloodshed. They know that the impulse to ethnic separatism is strong and are understandably wary of it
A 24-year-old western Sydney man has unwittingly become the litmus test for NSW’s “inoperable” hate-speech laws, with a judge saying that eyes would be watching the matter given its breaking of judicial ground.
Avon Kanwal, who is of the Hindu community and Indian descent, is attempting to overturn a 2023 conviction of publicly threatening violence on the grounds of race for his alleged involvement in a Hindu-on-Sikh violent 2020 brawl in western Sydney.
“This will involve the first determination under this section (93z),” judge Jane Culver told Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court on Thursday.
Mr Kanwal’s appeal comes amid a rise in hate speech across NSW since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war, an apparent inability by police to lay charges on Sydney clerics giving anti-Semitic sermons, and the provision that he’s charged under – section 93z – being currently subject to a Law Reform Commission review given “inoperability” concerns.
The matter could have broader implications given criticism of the state’s 93z provisions, which are narrow in scope, and there has been no successful prosecution under the act since its 2018 amendment to include race and religion.
Judge Culver said she had to ensure she was “deliberately” examining the two solicitors, and their arguments, to “flesh out the provision’s ambit”.
READ MORE: Radical cleric a Saturday school principal | Clerics trigger hate-speech probe | Faith leaders back hate law probe |
“There’s been no judicial determination in this … (I’ve) put you through the hoops to assist this section’s ambit,” she said.
“I’m really trying to finely draw attention to the different aspects of the provision and the definitions.”
The Australian revealed how, since October 7, police were unable to pursue a raft of anti-Semitic sermons by southwest Sydney clerics – including reciting parables about killing Jews and praying for their death – saying that each had not breached criminal legislation.
If Mr Kanwal’s appeal is successful it could amplify calls to strengthen or broaden 93z. If the court convicts him, questions could be asked why police were unable to do anything about anti-Semitic sermons, and whether the legislation is missing “incitement of hatred” in its drafting.
The defence argued that the brawl – instigated by a feud that played out on TikTok between Mr Kanwal and the co-accused – was of a “personal nature” that had nothing to do with race.
The prosecution, however, alleged that Mr Kanwal was reckless in his incitement to violence, which they said was based on his opposition to the Khalistan movement in India, spearheaded by a section of Sikhs for an independent homeland, which they say is ethno-religious and falls under the confines of 93z.
Mr Kanwal’s co-accused, Baljinder Thukral, appealed the same conviction in February, which was upheld by consent given “procedural issues”.
During their sentencing in the local court, magistrate Margaret Quinn found that, with a Khalistan expert giving evidence, Mr Kanwal’s alleged incitement that led to the brawl was on the grounds of race and that Khalistan itself would also meet its definition.
Defence solicitor Avinash Singh argued that Ms Quinn’s “broad” definition of race was “wrong”, and her application of it to his client’s case.
“On the grounds of race, this element (Mr Kanwal’s alleged violent threats) can’t be proved,” he said, arguing that defining Khalistan as a race-based movement was a “legal and factual error”.
“Our submission is that the specific definition of race in the act (is what) the magistrate should have relied on.”
The definition of race enclosed in 93z includes “ethno-religion” and “ethnicity” – the defence argues Khalistan falls within neither of these, but the prosecution contests that.
In the TikTok videos, Mr Kanwal said that he had “no issue” with Sikhism or Khalistan.
Prosecutor Caroline Ervin, however, noted that he ended each with “hail Hariana”, a state in northern India.
“It wasn’t accepted by the expert that Khalistan was just a political movement,” she said, noting Mr Kanwal allegedly encouraged the co-accused to bring followers, and set a time and place for what turned into the brawl.
“There is a religious divide as part of Khalistan … each video is spewing derision for Khalistan.”
The matter will resume in June. Mr Kanwal is charged with publicly threatening violence on race-grounds, but also inciting the commission of a crime.
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See 
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