Iranian Canadians are reeling following this week’s devastating Ukrainian plane crash in Iran that killed 176 people, 138 of whom were flying to Canada. The tragedy highlights the struggles diasporic communities often face when watching political unrest unfold back home, and the dangers associated with speaking out when living abroad.

When watching news from Iran “you feel helpless,” said Payman Parseyan, a former president of the Iranian Heritage Society in Edmonton, Alberta. “The people of Iran are at the mercy of an authoritarian regime and, unfortunately, the people include your loved ones.”

Because Parseyan chooses to voice dissent against the Iranian government, he says he can’t visit Iran for the foreseeable future. He believes Iranian authorities would arrest him at the border if he tried.

“There’s only a limited amount of action we can take, because if you speak out too much—like what I’m doing right now—you can’t travel to Iran again,” he said.

Parseyan said anxiety started rocking Iranians living abroad about two months ago when protests first broke out in Iran. Difficult news has continued to surface since, including a state-backed internet shutdown in November, the U.S.-sanctioned killing of Iran’s top commander Qassem Soleimani, the subsequent rising U.S.-Iran tensions, and now, the plane crash.

That anxiety has turned into action: Diasporas around the world are connecting and informing others about political unrest taking place in their home countries.

“This is a responsibility that immigration comes with that many don’t talk about,” Parseyan said. “And that responsibility is to inform your neighbours.”

Plus, diasporas often have more access to free internet and international news than people back home, Parseyan said. That means they can share wide-ranging perspectives with relatives and friends who live in regimes marred with censorship and state surveillance, like Iran.

“The people [in Iran] don’t get to see what’s happening in the world through a lens of watching CBC, CNN, RT, and all of those broadcasters offering various angles,” Parseyan said. “If I love people in Iran—my aunts, my uncles—I should do something about it.”

Originally from Iran, Pegah Salari, 36, now lives in Edmonton. She works hard to spread awareness about events happening on the ground in Iran, and like Parseyan, she doesn’t think she can visit Iran safely.

“I said goodbye to going back to Iran as soon as I went on TV for the first time,” Salari said. “They’re watching us all the time. Comments, social media posts, whatever.”

Salari referred to news coming out of Iran as “exhausting,” but that doesn’t stop her from following current events closely and speaking out.

On social media, people following the news in Iran also pointed to the racism many diasporic communities, particularly racialized ones, face while trying to simultaneously make sense of their grief and anxiety.

Canadian writer Sarah Hagi tweeted, “I've been trying to find the words to tweet about this but I am not in the mood for death threats,” highlighting the hateful responses non-white immigrants and their kids often receive in times of strife.

University of Toronto sociology professor Luisa Schwartzman says governments, corporations, and universities need to do more to support immigrant communities. Otherwise, the responsibility to spread awareness falls on people most affected by crises—people like Parseyan and Salari.

“At least that way the individual is connected to something else and not just doing it by themselves or with their friends,” said Schwartzman.

Diasporas often witness very different crises unfold in their home countries. But immigrants around the world often express a similar sense of responsibility to their roots.

According to a 2018 study, about one in every 30 people globally live outside of their country of origin. In Canada, more than 20 percent of the population is made up of immigrants, and one in seven Americans identified as foreign-born in 2017. Neither of these figures includes first- or second-generation immigrants.

Priya Ramesh says diasporas have a responsibility to their home countries. Photo courtesy of Priya Ramesh

Priya Ramesh moved to Canada from India when she was 8. Now, as a dual-citizen in her 20s, she feels a pull to follow Indian politics closely.

“Diaspora people who have been to India and get to enjoy the things we have here in a secular, democratic country, being able to say whatever we want—those are luxuries,” Ramesh said. “It’s really whack if we don’t turn out and show others what’s going on.”

Since India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi was elected in 2014, Ramesh has been paying attention to the rise in far-right, Islamophobic rhetoric. “It’s a crazy thing for me to see as someone who grew up [in Canada],” said Ramesh. “I didn’t think this would happen, but here we are.”

Ramesh makes up one-half of Cartel Madras, a hip-hop duo that started out in Calgary, Alberta. The group started voicing dissent against Modi on social media last month. Ramesh said she feels responsible to people back home, especially since Modi introduced a new citizenship law that discriminates against Muslims.

Ramesh says people in diasporas who enjoy fewer privileges than she does shouldn’t feel pressure to stay politically active; as Salari and Parseyan pointed out, it can be dangerous. Even Ramesh wonders what will happen next time she visits India.

“We have plans to go in 2020 to tour there,” Ramesh said. “So, I’m trying to think of interesting ways to get to India without being detained.”

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Robots may be coming for our jobs, but they may also reduce prejudice among humans.

At least that’s what a recent study out of the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and Canada’s University of Alberta suggests. In reality, as any person of colour can tell you, fighting racism isn’t that simple.

As machines replace humans at work, the study’s researchers say, people might unite against the common droid-y enemy—instead of turning on each other like they usually do.

“[T]o the extent that the salience of robot workers increases people’s panhumanism, it may decrease prejudice and discrimination against human out-groups,” they write in an academic paper for American Psychologist.

Basically, the researchers suggest, the introduction of a new robot class might inspire humans to fixate less on their inter-species differences.

“When you’re thinking about robots as this completely different out-group, it makes the differences among humans less important,” one of the study’s researchers, Noah Castelo, told VICE.

“There’s this common threat that all humans seem to be facing,” Castelo said.

It’s all very I, Robot. But here’s the catch.

The study rests on the assumption that humans naturally segregate—often via racial or religious lines—without challenging how “in” and “out” groups are created.

“People learn to be whatever their society and culture teaches them,” Jennifer Richeson, a Yale social psychologist, told the Washington Post about racism, and most of us have been developing our implicit biases from infancy.

Combating racism and other harmful prejudices requires people to actively unlearn implicit biases, a process significantly more complicated than simply creating a common enemy that’ll unite the masses.

“Racism is much more complex,” Enakshi Dua, a York University sociology professor who specializes in race, told VICE.

“Racism is very much about the implicit biases that people have,” Dua said. “So the study doesn’t really allow us to address how people would work through that.”

Dua said she also finds the study’s methodology a little concerning.

Castelo and his colleagues divided their research into six experiments, most of which were conducted online. In one, participants were asked to read customized newspaper articles about robots taking human jobs and others that framed automation as mostly myth. Respondents were then asked a series of questions and their answers were measured and later compared for prejudice.

Their findings showed people were less likely to express prejudice after reading news stories about imminent automation and related job losses.

Because many of the surveys were online, Dua said she’s concerned only people with access to technology had opportunities to participate. This risks skewing research findings if researchers are unable to access diverse, representative samples.

Castelo and his colleagues made sure the participants reflected various political affiliations and incomes, according to the study’s methodology.

Ultimately, Dua said, racial divides cut deep, and simple solutions for eradicating racism rarely account for complexity.

The study acknowledges its own limits by outlining how tech revolutions have historically increased cleavages between humans: The researchers point to industrialization in the 19th century and the recent outsourcing of low-income jobs from the U.S. to China and India as catalysts for class- and race-based prejudice.

The researchers also point to their own analysis of nearly 40 nations that shows countries with higher levels of automation tend to have greater unemployment—and unemployment is correlated with prejudice.

“Politicians often blame [unemployment] on other human groups, and you can see that with Trump today when he blames unemployment on Mexicans, for example, or foreigners and immigrants,” Castelo said.

We’ve also seen how robots themselves can be racist because human beings are the ones building the machines, often programming them with the same implicit biases we all struggle with.

The new finding suggests maybe, just maybe, tech will manage to be less racist for once.

“It kind of seems like a paradox,” Castelo said. “[Robots] certainly aren’t going to get rid of racism altogether.”

For robots to eradicate prejudice, Castelo said, people need to be aware it’s actually humanoids that are replacing humans in the workforce.

But to suggest robots represent the North Star guiding us to an anti-racist society is a stretch.

“Automation could mediate prejudice,” Dua said. “But it’s unclear that automation is going to erode those kinds of forces that lead to racism and the commitments people have to racism.”

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In the wake of the deadliest air disaster involving Canadians since the Air India bombing of 1985, Iranian-Canadians from Edmonton to Toronto are coming together to remember their loved ones.

Sara Saadat, her sister Saba Saadat, and their mother were among the 63 Canadian passengers aboard a passenger jet commuting from Iran to Kyiv, Ukraine, a common transit point for flights to and from Tehran, when it crashed early Wednesday morning, Saadat’s close friend Melika Motamedi confirmed.

Now, Motamedi, who studies medicine at the University of Alberta, is grieving the loss of her friend. Motamedi said Saadat was 22.

“The last text I sent to her was, ‘Tell me you’re not on the flight’ and she wasn’t responding,” Motamedi said. Then, the phone rang. It was Saadat’s father.

“Please tell me this isn’t real. This is all a dream and this isn’t happening,” the father told Motamedi’s family.

He called Motamedi’s family to say he had just lost his wife and two daughters in the crash.

Originally from Edmonton, Saadat was studying in California. Motamedi hopes people remember Saadat and her sister for their ambition and intelligence.

“Most of all, they were just such kind gentle souls,” Motamedi said. “They always cared about making the other person feel better and had so much life ahead of them.”

More victim stories are starting to surface. Canadians aboard the flight lived across Canada in Halifax, Toronto, Winnipeg, and Vancouver. At least 27 passengers were from Edmonton.

Amirhossein Ghasemi photo courtesy of Amir Shirzadi

University of Manitoba researcher Amirhossien Ghasemi, 32, was flying back to Canada after visiting his mother in Iran during winter break. Ghasemi is one of eight confirmed victims from Winnipeg.

Amir Shirzadi, a graduate student at the U of M and board member with the school’s Iranian Student Association, was close friends with Ghasemi. He described the 32-year-old as someone who was extremely kind and deeply cared for the environment.

“It’s like a nightmare,” Shirzadi said. “I can’t imagine that he’s not going to be here anymore.”

Delaram Dedashnajad photo courtesy Facebook

Shirzadi also confirmed the deaths of Amirhossien Ghorbani, 21, Forough Khadem, 38, Mehdi Sadeghi, Anisa Sadeghi, 10, and Bahareh Haj Esfandiari, 41.

The scope of the loss is reverberating across Canada’s Iranian community.

Two sisters studying in Halifax, Masoumeh Ghavi, 30, and Mandieh Ghavi, 20, were flying back to Canada after visiting family in Iran; a student from Vancouver’s Langara College, Delaram Dadashnejad, was on the flight following a visit back home in Tehran; University of Alberta students, Arash Pourzarabi, 26, and Pouneh Gourji, 25, were returning to Edmonton with friends after getting married in Iran over the break.

Amirhossien Ghorbani of the University of Manitoba (left) and Masoumeh Ghavi of Dalhousie University (right). Photos via Facebook.

A spokesperson with the Islamic Shia Ithna-Asheri Jamaat, a Toronto-based mosque, has confirmed to VICE that four of their members were on the plane when it went down. The dead include Saharnaz Haghjoo and her daughter, Elsa Jadidi, Afifa Tarbhai and her daughter, Alina Tarbhai, and Asgar Dhirani. They were returning from Ziyarat—an Islamic pilgrimage.

Shirzadi said he hopes Canadians pay attention to the victim stories when they arise.

“We owe the victims these stories,” Shirzadi said. “They were really young, many were getting an education…All I can remember is they were filled with kindness.”

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With files from Mack Lamoureux.