Challenging Hate Speech

Periodically in recent years, there has appeared to be a resurgence of

activity in the U.S. by white supremacist groups, the Ku Klux Klan and neo

Nazis, marching openly in US cities often defending their right to

assemble and spout hate speech as constitutionally protected freedom of

speech. As the marches and gatherings occasionally become more frequent,

tensions have risen. Counter protesters appear on the streets to stand

against the divisive ideologies. Some of them are provoked to act

aggressively. And skirmishes have resulted. Fractions of both groups

choose violence. One of the high profile confrontations was in

Charlottesville, Virginia in the summer of 2017…and there have been

others.

It’s all sparked a debate about appropriate and effective ways to

demonstrate peacefully to counter hate speech and extreme ideologies. One

core riddle seems to have been, whether people of good conscience and

compassion should NOT show up to white supremacist rallies and just ignore

the hate speech, whether they should show up and engage in comedic put

downs of the extremist groups, or whether to show up and actively

out-shout and out number them, or should they be even more aggressive in

confronting the hate speech purveyors, as the groups that came to be known

as ANTI-FA for anti-fascist, tried in chasing and harassing the white

power groups. We’re going to offer our own conversation on the topic

today…

Our guests are social activist and author John Dear, Jesuit priest who’s

written extensively on Gandhi as well as books like Living Peace, Peace

Behind Bars, and A Persistent Peace.

Tonya Covington is Director of Conflict Resolution at Outcomes, Inc. in

Albuquerque, New Mexico. Tonya has been a trained mediator and teacher of

mediation for 27 years. Tonya has expertise in Workplace and

Cross-cultural conflict.

Brian Levin is a professor of criminal justice and director of the Center

for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University at San

Bernadino. He is a court certified expert on extremism in both the US and

the UK and has testified before both houses of Congress. He has also

consulted for the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, as well as for

universities and civil rights groups.

We’ve also heard on tape from Frank Meeink – a former skinhead who now

lectures on tolerance and compassion after long ago quitting is

association with neo-Nazi groups.