sign in sign up
<<
Home , Incel, Manosphere, Men Going Their Own Way

Winter  2019-20 Newsletter

A world without genocide - making it our legacy

by Ellen J. Kennedy, Ph.D., How Hate Spreads Executive Director Hate is often shared among ingroup members, which strengthens collective victimhood and intensifies the original “Around the world, hate is feelings of hate. This strength of the collectivity makes it easy to on the march,” said António spread hate online and makes it seem appealing. Guterres, UN Secretary- General. This issue is devoted Hate Crimes and to the hate in our country, in our Hate crimes are based on stereotypes or extreme negative communities, and around the sentiments about certain groups and are generally targeted world – where it comes from, how at visible groups, such as African Americans, , Native it spreads, who is endangered, Americans, Muslims, members of the LGBTQ community, and others. Hate crimes communicate a message that the targeted and how to stand up against it. group is unwanted. The haters want to terrify them and threaten their elimination. How Hate Works Psychologists explain that hate is based on negative Because the victims generally have done nothing and are perceptions of persons or groups. We hate them not because terrorized solely for who they are, they feel powerless. of what they do, but because of who we believe they are. Hate There are four types of hate crimes based on the offender’s can exist and even increase in the absence of any personal motivations: thrill, defense, retaliation, and mission. Whereas interaction between the hater and members of the hated group. the first type is a form of thrill-seeking (mostly by groups of The goal of hate is simple – to eliminate the groups we hate. teenagers), the second motivation is considered a strategy to Hate reassures the people who hate. Haters believe that they defend a way of living against intruders. The retaliatory third are fully ‘right’ in their hate because the ‘other’ makes them feel type of hate crime is revenge against previous hate crimes or so badly treated, threatened, or humiliated. Haters believe that terrorist attacks. An example is the increase in anti-Muslim hate the targets of their hate are dangerous and can enact their evil crimes reported to U.S. police departments after September 11. intentions at any time. Finally, with the last motivation, the perpetrator is on a moral mission to destroy outgroup members. Hate is very different from anger. In anger, we confront another person to try to change their behavior. But those who hate Guterres went on, “Hatred is a danger to everyone – and so believe that the negative characteristics in the hated group can fighting it must be a job for everyone. Together, we can put never be changed. Anger can lead to constructive rather than out the wildfire of hate and uphold the values that bind us destructive corrections, but hatred will always motivate people together as a single human family.” for destructive action, including attempts to eradicate the outgroup. WORDS MATTER.

Information about the psychology of hatred is taken from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1754073917751229

World Without Genocide at Mitchell Hamline School of Law | 875 Summit Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55105 www.worldwithoutgenocide.org | [email protected] | 651-695-7621 Printing by Jessen Press, St. Louis Park, Minnesota | Design and layout:1 Marcy Olson, Wendland Communications, Marshall, Minnesota Legal services: Brad Lehrman, Soffer Lehrman Law Group, Edina, Minnesota | Accounting services: Ellingson & Ellingson, Ltd., Edina, Minnesota From Online Hate to Offline

2. Video platforms YouTube, owned by Google, is a powerful purveyor of online hate speech with messages posted worldwide on video platforms. YouTube is almost as large as , with 1.8 billion users. YouTube updated its hate speech policy to ban supremacist content and videos that deny well-documented atrocities such as the Holocaust. YouTube reported last fall that the company had removed more than 100,000 videos, over 17,000 channels, and over 500 million comments for violating its hate speech rules. However, as soon as material is taken down, new material is posted and users simply move to other sites. 3. Online funding Hate groups use the internet to move money around and to raise funds, including money to defend against hate crime prosecutions.

From 1923-1945, Julius Streicher published Der Stürmer, a The popular crowdfunding site GoFundMe took a stand weekly newspaper widely distributed throughout Germany against hate speech following the Charlottesville “Unite the that called for the annihilation of the Jews. Streicher was Right” rally and shut down multiple campaigns to raise money tried at the Nuremberg tribunal following World War II. The for James Fields, the who was tried and sentenced to life prosecutors maintained that Streicher’s role in inciting Germans in prison for killing a woman and injuring dozens more. to exterminate Jews made him an accessory to murder and as 4. Websites/Webhosting culpable as those who actually carried out the killings. Streicher Websites are a basic piece of the hate propaganda machine. was found guilty of crimes against humanity and was hanged. Webhosting companies GoDaddy and Google Domains removed the white supremacist site , a WORDS MATTER. site created by neo-Nazi and modeled on Der When online hate goes offline to the streets, it can be deadly. Stürmer, after it published a derogatory story about the victim Recent mass shootings in mosques, synagogues, churches, and killed in the Charlottesville rally. other public spaces have been perpetrated by shooters who But getting removed from a web host, called de-platforming, read and learned about hate online and were inspired by other just forces a site to locate somewhere else. shooters’ online ‘manifestos.’ 5. The White supremacist Wade Michael Page posted in online hate- The dark web is part of the internet that can’t be searched by based forums and murdered six people at a Sikh temple in Google or most usual search engines. It can only be viewed Wisconsin in 2012. Dylann Roof became radicalized online and with a special Tor browser, and although that browser is murdered nine people at a South Carolina black church in 2015. banned in some countries, ‘work-arounds’ are easily found Robert Bowers was active on , a white supremacist website; online. he murdered 11 worshipers at a Pennsylvania synagogue in 2018. They inspire each other and strive to outdo previous atrocities. When The Daily Stormer was banned by GoDaddy, Google Domains, and a Russian hosting outfit, it simply moved to the HOW DOES ONLINE HATE WORK? dark web. It eventually returned to the mainstream web but According to CNN, there are five ways hate groups use the has been in a back-and-forth game with hosting sites. internet to get their messages out and to stir up violence. HOW TO PROTECT INNOCENT PEOPLE? 1. Social networking platforms How should we balance free The number of users is huge. speech with the responsibility to • 2.45 billion people on Facebook protect innocent people from hate? • 1 billion people on Instagram Censorship is a difficult issue. Who • 321 million people on gets to censor whom, and where are the lines drawn? In Europe, especially People inclined toward , in countries that had been occupied , , or by the Nazis, there are laws to protect find niches to reinforce their views ‘human dignity,’ which, to people in and to incite others to join their hate the US, would limit free speech. But agendas. platforms also as things currently stand, protecting offer violent actors the opportunity to the vulnerable appears to be a losing publicize their acts. battle.

2 From Der Stürmer to The Daily Stormer The Daily Stormer is a far-right neo-Nazi website that advocates intentionally inflicted emotional for the genocide of Jews – today, now, here in the United States. distress. A federal judge ruled that The messaging borrows directly from Julius Streicher’s Der Anglin’s harassment campaign was Stürmer, the hate publication distributed in Nazi Germany from not protected under free speech. 1923-1945. WORDS MATTER. Andrew Anglin is The Daily Stormer founder. In 2016 he incited Julius Streicher was hanged for his followers to harass Tanya Gersh, a Jewish real estate agent in inciting people to exterminate Jews. Montana, after accusing her of extortion. His army of online trolls Anglin’s punishment? On August 8, sent nearly a thousand messages to her filled with hate, including 2019, Anglin was ordered to pay $14 death threats to her and her family. million in compensatory and punitive Messages included the following: damages to Gersh. He fled the country, and although he will likely • Thanks for demonstrating why your race needs to be collectively never pay, the message was clear ovened. that words do, indeed, matter. • You have no idea what you are doing, six million are only the Cyber harassment is a federal crime and also a crime in many beginning. states, including Minnesota. In state houses across the country, • We are going to keep track of you for the rest of your life. legislators are working to stiffen prosecutions and penalties for • Hickory dickory dock, the kike ran up the clock. The clock struck hate crimes. Find out what’s happening in your state and lend your three and the Internet Nazi trolls gassed the rest of them. support. Tanya Gersh will receive the World Without Genocide ‘Outstanding The Daily Stormer also listed names and contacts of other Jews in Upstander’ award at our annual gala in May 2020. Invitations will that area and called on readers to “take action” against them. be available in late March; the event is open to all. Contact us to Gersh brought a civil suit against Anglin, alleging that he had receive an invitation: [email protected] Jewish Genocide of the White Race At the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” orchestrated by the Jews and they are the ones to blame, despite rally in August 2017, neo-Nazis from the fact that Jews are a minute percent of the US population - only around the country marched and 2% - and of the world - 0.18%. shouted “Jews will not replace us! Rise of Hate Groups in the US Jews will not replace us!” The violence and hate come from organized groups, individuals In fall 2018, a shooter killed eleven who are radicalized online, and from messages that emanate Jews in a synagogue, the directly from our government. worst-ever act of violence against Richard Spencer, the president of the National Policy Institute, Jews in the US. The shooter said that a white supremacist organization, created the term “alt-right,” he wanted all Jews to die because a movement based on “white identity” that advocates white- Jews were committing genocide European unity, ethnic cleansing of nonwhites from America, and against his people. the creation of a “white racial empire.” Last spring a gunman fired into a The Southern Poverty Law Center, a leading national civil rights synagogue in a town north of San organization, documents more than a thousand hate groups Diego. In an antisemitic and racist letter posted on , a in the US today, the majority neo-Nazi. SPLC data shows a website used by violent extremists, the shooter blamed Jews for 30% increase in growth that coincides with Trump’s the “meticulously planned genocide of the European race.” campaign and presidency. The SPLC predicts that the number The chant and the shooters’ messages refer to ‘white genocide,’ of hate groups will continue to rise “as President Trump fans the the white replacement or white extinction . flames of white resentment over immigration and the country’s Neo-Nazis and other alt-right groups maintain that non-white changing demographics.” About 60% of the U.S. population today immigration, low birthrates as a result of women’s rights is white. By 2045, whites will no longer be the majority. movements, abortion, non-heterosexual relationships, and other The FBI reports a rise in hate crimes, with about 850 open similar practices in supposedly white-founded countries will make investigations across the United States. Conspiracists have shot whites extinct. They attribute this threat to white hegemony to a or bombed at least 187 people to death since 2000 in increasingly Jewish-run plot to overthrow white Christian rule. frequent incidents, injuring at least 322 others. The ‘white genocide’ theory broadly blames all non-white, While foreign extremists are often the focus of fear and hate, non-Christian, non-heterosexual people for the decline in white, a far greater threat in the US today is from domestic male, Christian, heterosexual control. The targets of hate are motivated by . immigrants and refugees, African Americans, members of the LGBTQ community, women, and others. This shift is supposedly WORDS MATTER.

3 Misogyny and Hate message boards such as have developed an entire language to describe the hurt that young men feel: “Staceys” (conventionally attractive, sexually available white women) date “Chads” (jocks), ignoring “nice guys” who get “friendzoned.” Men who claim to be feminists are “manginas” and “white knights.” If these men date feminists, they are probably being “cucked” (cheated on), because women like real men, not “beta males.” What starts as Why won’t girls sleep with me? becomes Why can’t women be controlled? Anti-feminist ideology can become a full-blown conspiracy theory: is not about women’s equality. It is a guise to assert control over men. Feminists are presumed to influence all government decisions, even though women are still underrepresented at every level of elected office.

WHO ARE THESE MEN? These misogynists can be grouped into several categories. Image from www.adl.org • MRAs, Men’s Rights Activists, believe they’re being victimized According to the ‘white replacement’ theory and white by employment and family law, among other things. extremism, women’s sexual and reproductive freedom are a threat to white dominance. Birth rates are falling across the • PUAs are Pickup Artists. The goal of this group is seduction developed (read “white”) world. Women who reach higher and sexual success with women. The community exists online education levels have fewer children. The “family wage”— as well as in over a hundred local clubs known as “lairs.” The where a man earns enough to support a wife and children—has pickup culture of PUAs is filled with misogyny — entitlement, disappeared. Working women have greater economic freedom dominance, condescension, aggression, and intimidation and are less dependent on men. Many women find it easier (though still not easy) to leave abusive relationships. Women who • MGTOW - is an anti-feminist online can control their fertility and their bank accounts do not have to community advocating for men to separate themselves from a be subservient to men. And Western women are largely choosing society which they see as harmful to men, and particularly to for themselves whom to have sex with, rather than having their forego marriage and . sex lives dictated by families, religion, the state – or men. • , or involuntary celibates, number in the tens of FEMINISM IS DESTROYING WESTERN MALE CIVILIZATION thousands. They want to be in sexual relationships and view This reality runs counter to the ideology in the online their status of involuntary as the fault of women, not of ‘’: women’s natural role is to have children and to be themselves. Discussions in forums are characterized by subservient to men. Strong men are needed to save the world resentment, misogyny, self-pity, self-loathing, racism, a sense through violence. of entitlement to sex, and the endorsement of violence against sexually active people. Antisemitic beliefs are also regularly found These beliefs open the door to , and they on incel forums, with some incels blaming the rise of feminism on appeal to the demographic overwhelmingly responsible for mass a plot masterminded by Jews to weaken the West. shootings: young white men. Their sexist ideology is called “the blackpill,” a rejection of A VIOLENT BACKLASH women’s sexual emancipation, and they label women as cruel The ideologies of misogyny and white extremism overlap in a creatures who will choose only the most attractive men if given violent backlash against women. the choice. This leads to acts of everyday violence ranging A 24-year-old shooter who killed nine people in Dayton, Ohio, from harassment to violent assault. At least four mass murders, was reportedly in a “pornogrind” band that released albums resulting in 45 deaths, have been committed in North America by with names such as 6 Ways of Female Butchery, and he was incels. suspended from school for keeping a “ list” of fellow students. Alek Minassian, who killed ten people, eight of them Keegan Hankes, a researcher at the Southern Poverty Law women, and neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin are among the most Center, says that exposure to violent content on incel forums visible examples of this hatred. Though the communities in the “plays a very large role” in , and she describes manosphere tend to be relatively small—even big ones have violent posts on the forums as “more than I’m used to seeing on only about 100,000 members—their impact is felt across the even white supremacist sites.” web. They incubate predator trolls, they foment harassment campaigns, and they inspire real-world violence. WORDS MATTER.

4 “Sock Puppets” and Genocide #MeToo, the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, Greta Thunberg and climate action - revolutions and social movements have been launched or amplified on Facebook and Twitter. National governments initially responded to some political movements by censoring web content, blocking access to all social media, and even using surveillance technology to monitor and arrest users. But then they had a game-changing realization: they could launch a much more effective response. Sock Puppets, AstroTurf, and Trolls Governments began to use the internet to distribute their own propaganda, sent out by paid people called “sock puppets,” or “trolls.” The goal is to provide disinformation on key issues, undermine dissent, and change prevailing opinions. To maximize their effectiveness, they useastroturfing , masking the sponsors of a message to make the messaging appear as though it originates from grassroots participants. The messaging has credibility because of the sources it purports to represent. The term astroturfing comes from AstroTurf, a brand of synthetic Image from www.geopoliticalmonitor.com carpeting designed to resemble natural grass, as a play on the word “grassroots.” It implies that instead of a “natural” grassroots effort behind the activity, there is a fake or artificial unprecedented violence that led to the largest forced human appearance of support. migration in recent history, as nearly a million Rohingya fled the persecution into neighboring Bangladesh. Facebook in Myanmar Although Facebook took down the official accounts of senior In 2014, fewer than 1% of the 53 million residents in Myanmar Myanmar military leaders in August 2018, the breadth and details had internet access. Today, more than 21 million of its citizens of the propaganda campaign, which was hidden behind fake use Facebook, and ‘Facebook’ is synonymous with ‘internet.’ It names and sham accounts, went undetected. became everyone’s source for everything. Facebook admits ‘offline violence’ And that has been the tragedy. It was a perfect storm: a country with tensions between the majority Buddhist population and the This is a striking example of an authoritarian government using small Muslim minority, the Rohingya; an explosion of internet the social network to incite genocide against its own people access; and Facebook’s lack of language-proficient staff to – not much different from Julius Streicher printingDer Stürmer monitor and take down potentially hate-inciting posts. and circulating it throughout all of Germany to encourage extermination of the Jews. Genocide by Social Media Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has admitted the company’s Five years ago, as many as 700 members of the Myanmar inadvertent but tragic role in the genocide of the Rohingya and he military launched a systematic Facebook campaign against has said that the company is working to stop such abuses. Too the Rohingya, a group the UN has called “the most persecuted little, too late. The country of Myanmar is on trial for genocide at people on earth.” The military exploited Facebook’s wide reach in the UN International Court of Justice in The Hague, Myanmar with anti-Rohingya propaganda to incite Buddhists to and the Federal Courts of Argentina. Top Myanmar generals are carry out murders, , and scorched-earth activities. under investigation at the International Criminal Court. By using sock puppet accounts, military trolls looked for anyone with a large number of followers - pop stars, a beauty queen - WORDS MATTER. then sent out spam comments with hate speech. The result was

Join our email list at www.worldwithoutgenocide.org. Follow us:

5 875 Summit Avenue St. Paul, MN 55105

1. Vote. 6. Write op-eds Help others vote. Arrange voting registration at your faith community, Speak out by writing op-eds for your local newspaper, faith in your neighborhood, at your civic organization, and for your newsletter, online sites, etc. that promote positive inter-group professional associations. Contact your local chapter of the League relations and decry acts of hate in your community. See writing tips of Women Voters for materials at www.lwv.org/ Drive people to the at http://worldwithoutgenocide.org/toolkits/how-to-write-an-op-ed. polls, provide bus cards, and arrange van transportation for those 7. Support student leaders. who are mobility-impaired. Every vote counts. Support students from your community to attend our Summer 2. Combat voter suppression. Institute for High School and College Students. They are our human Voter suppression is happening around the country, particularly rights leaders of the future. in areas with populations of color and on college and university 8. Report threats and violence. campuses. Read about ACLU efforts to combat voter suppression at Report all threats and acts of violence to your local FBI office. Find www.aclu.org/issues/voting-rights. Contact your local ACLU chapter for information and action. Protect voting rights in your community. the field office nearest you www.fbi.gov/at 9. Take legal action. 3. Support human rights organizations. Support organizations that protect the safety and rights of minorities File a lawsuit if you have been a victim of cyber-harassment. Crimes who are targeted by hate and violence: CAIR, the Council on that go unreported and unprosecuted will be repeated with impunity. American-Islamic Relations; ADL, the Anti-Defamation League; the 10. Reach out to others. National Urban League; the NAACP; and others. Reach out to the newcomer or the stranger who might need a friend. 4. Support local schools. Be that friend. Support your local schools that have immigrant, refugee, and other minority youth. Provide supplies, tutoring, classroom assistance, or For more ways you can take a stand against hate, whatever the teachers and families need. contact World Without Genocide at 651-695-7621 5. Support local organizations. or email us at [email protected] Support local organizations that promote human rights. In Minnesota, connect with us. Elsewhere, there are chapters of Amnesty International or other organizations. Participate in lobbying and other advocacy to advance policy and legislation promoting social justice. Be AN UPSTANDER

Winter Programs at Mitchell Hamline School of Law Thu., Jan. 23 Collaborating with the Enemy: WED., Feb. 26 Genocide and Atrocities Today:

7:00-9:00 PM Jews, Nazis, and Echoes for Today 7:00-9:00 pm China, India, Syria, and Yemen

Sat., Feb. 8 International and Domestic Courts: Prosecuting Thu., April 16 A Holocaust Survivor Speaks:

10:00 AM-Noon Myanmar for the Rohingya Genocide 7:00-9:00 pm From Germany to the Shanghai Ghetto

Presentations held at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, Conservatory Room 147, 875 Summit Ave., St. Paul, MN 55105 For information and reservations, visit: www.worldwithoutgenocide.org/events

6