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Winter 2019-20 Newsletter 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 Hate Speech 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, Jews, 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 Violence 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 Facebook, 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 man 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 The Daily Stormer, a WORDS MATTER. site created by neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin 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 dark web 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 Gab, 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 Twitter gets to censor whom, and where are the lines drawn? In Europe, especially People inclined toward racism, in countries that had been occupied misogyny, antisemitism, or homophobia 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. Social media 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.
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