Let Them Know Hate Is Not OK

This opinion piece, published in the Fort Collins Coloradoan on August 26, was written by Charlotte Miller, a Friends Committee on National Legislation constituent.

I was deeply saddened by the murder of security guard Stephen Johns at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. It's unfortunate that it sometimes takes a tragic event like this to focus our attention on the very real threat of domestic terrorism.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is working hard to track and expose extremists such as the anti-Semitic fanatic who lashed out. In fact, in its latest issue of the Intelligence Report, it warned about a dangerous resurgence of right-wing extremism since President Barack Obama was elected. Lately, Fort Collins, Denver and other Colorado communities have been assailed by hate-filled, extremist pamphlets. This behavior encourages more violent and personal attacks in the community, threatening the safety of us all.

It is important that our law enforcement communities have the latest intelligence on extremists as well as training to combat hate incidents, hate crimes and domestic terrorism. In addition to the Holocaust Museum shooting, there have been the murders of five police officers by extremists in recent months and the assassination of a prominent Kansas physician by an extremist tied to the anti-government militia movement.

These killers might have acted alone, but they were all influenced by the hate movement in America. What's alarming is that this movement is now being aided and abetted by far-right pundits on cable TV and talk radio, who are fanning the flames of hate with their increasingly hysterical rhetoric targeting our president, our government, our immigrant neighbors and others who are not like them. These are the same commentators who ridiculed the recent Department of Homeland Security that predicted the very kind of violent attacks we're now seeing.

We all need to speak out against hate. It is not enough to say that we support free speech. We must speak out against hateful speech and propaganda filled with untruths about people who are different in racial, ethnic, religious identity, as well as language use and political beliefs. If you hear someone saying discriminatory or derogatory things about those who differ from them, please speak up and let them know you disagree with them, and discrimination is not OK.

This week: in our community

Juana Villegas: A Pregnant Woman Detained
This video documents Juana Villegas relate the trauma of being shackled and detained while giving birth. She was nine months pregnant when she was stopped for "careless driving," but instead of receiving a customary traffic citation, she was arrested and detained, and remained shackled while giving birth. All of this took place because of the 287(g) agreement between local police and federal immigration authorities.

Ali: An HIV+ Man Suffers in Detention
This video tells the story of Ali, a lawful permanent resident who had been living in New York City for 30 years. After being picked up on a misdeamor, he spent more than a year in an immigration detention facility where he witnessed the worst kind of physical abuse and medical mistreatment, including having to fight to get his daily HIV medications.

Immigrant Detention Centers Under Suspicion
In this program, NPR's radio show Tell Me More talks with NY Times reporter Nina Bernstein and her experiences reporting from the Donald W. Wyatt detention facility in Central Falls, Rhode Island. The Wyatt facility had been under suspicion for an immigrant death in its facility, but, as Bernstein finds out, detention facilities do not have to report deaths in their facilities or let family members know if an immigrant has been picked up or transferred.

Obama's Immigration Challenge: More about Words than Policy
This article put out by the Center for International Policy's (CIP) Americas Program analyzes what role President Obama could have in pushing for immigration reform this year through his ability to tell a story and weave a new narrative about immigration in this country.

Push on Immigration Crimes is Said to Shift Focus
This New York Times article points out how the last administration's push on immigration enforcement has drawn resources away from fighting other crimes, notably weapons prosecutions, organized crime prosecutions, and public corruption prosecutions. This data is further backed up by a recent Trac Report.

Latinos Recall Patterns of Attack Before Killing
This NY Times article discusses the pattern of attacks on Latinos before Marcelo Lucero was killed last month. It emphasizes how both immigrants' fears of reporting crimes to police due to enhanced immigration enforcement and the police's failure to not consistantly enter crimes against Latinos into their computerized pattern tracking system caused a pattern of hate crimes against the Latino population to go unnoticed.