WRITTEN BY DANA BARBEE AND JADEN FISKE On March 9th, the Valley Academy of Arts and Sciences hosted community members, primarily from the Museum of Tolerance and Los Angeles area, for an event of inclusivity and community called Combat Hate. Starting in the gym, students, teachers, staff, and speakers alike gathered for a dinner catered by Los Toros. Having arrived early, we got the chance to meet briefly with some of the speakers for the evening. A few of those people included Scott Schmerelson, Liebe Geft, Emily Thompson, and Jeff Schoep, the keynote speaker. As dinner progressed, we got to know the people at our table, who had all heard of this event from either neighborhood news and/or their children in community groups taking part in the event. Through our conversations with them, it was clear that members of the community care about the subject matter at hand. As the meal concluded, the director of the museum, Liebe Geft, briefly introduced herself and guided us towards the VAAS theater for the remainder of the event. It was during this portion of the event where various speakers from the community brought up topics such as: preventing hate, protecting yourself and loved ones, and sharing kindness with the people around you, as well as some personal experiences relating to the topic. Gathered in the theater, we had the opportunity to listen to some very interesting stories about experiences with hate and hate prevention. Though many of these stories were saddening, it was inspiring to hear what people in our community are doing to help handle the spread of hate. Some of these speakers included LA City Council Member John Lee, Alan Hamilton from LAPD, Liebe Geft from the Museum of Tolerance, VAAS sophomore Dana Barbee, and primarily, Jeff Schoep. Each speaker had a specific aspect of hate in their community that they wanted to address, spanning over a wide spectrum of experiences, further proving that hate affects everyone differently. John Lee shared stories of hate he has seen friends of his children experience as well as people in the Los Angeles community. His goal is to take a “full active approach to addressing these issues” and he believes that “one of the first steps is having honest and interactive dialogue together as concerned citizens.” Mr. Lee worked to share his thoughts on the best actions we can take towards ending the spread of hate, then proceeded to introduce Deputy Chief Alan S. Hamilton of LAPD who works with the Los Angeles community to end the spread of hate in the LA area. As a member of LAPD, Deputy Chief Hamilton shared some statistics about hate crimes/incidents in the San Fernando Valley, precautions to prevent them from happening in the first place, and actions that people can take to protect themselves from hate crimes if they do occur. He mentioned that at one point last year, within the city of LA, the rate of hate incidents had risen 118%. Hate crimes, though, were not up as much, yet still increased 40%. Over the span of the past couple of years they’ve done nothing but increase. Expressing acceptance for people of all races, genders, religions, etc. leads to a stronger connection in the community and less hate expressions towards groups in the area. As the sixth largest city in the USA, it is important to stand together to prevent the spread of hate. Deputy Chief Hamilton emphasized, “We are only going to fight this if we fight this together.” He also focused a lot on the importance of our generation as teenagers and the future of our community. As we grow up, we are going to be the ones who make the decisions in our world, government, and communities. Deputy Chief Hamilton believes that expressing love to the people around us is a great way to ensure acceptance in the community. He says that preventing hate crimes and hate incidents starts with a shared understanding of inclusivity and diversity. He encouraged us to, “Find strength in our diversity.” It is sometimes hard to decipher the difference between a hate crime and a hate incident. In Deputy Chief Hamilton’s speech, he explains, “Hate incident is an incident that espouses hate that may not reach the level of a crime.” He proceeds to give the example of a poster that expresses hate against another group posted on a wall is a hate incident but if taken to the extreme of vandalism on a car or property, then it is classified as a crime. The most important point he wants the community to know is, “You want to make sure that everyone understands there is no tolerance for hate.” The phrase “See Something Say Something” is often dismissed by students after hearing it on a school campus, but more attention must be brought to this phrase. LAPD often knows about instances before they evolve into a hate incident and a hate crime but that is only because of the communication skills of the people in the community. Keeping your eyes open for hateful activity is always beneficial to the community. What Deputy Chief Hamilton warns against, however, is getting involved if you see a hate crime unraveling in front of you. He encourages you to be a good witness if you are ever in this position. By saying “good witness”, he asks that you make sure to pay attention to the details of the occurrence and to report the information you collect to LAPD. Getting involved in the situation though, no matter your intentions, is strongly advised against. It is important to keep in mind that you never know if the people involved have weapons or have other people that you cannot see, meaning that your involvement may pose a physical threat to your own wellbeing. The most important thing you can do is be a good witness and call 911 to get professionals in law enforcement involved. Sharing the information you’ve collected is the strongest power you have to be able to stop these hateful acts. If you are involved in the incident yourself, Deputy Chief Hamilton recommends you remain involved through the whole investigation process and do not leave until it is complete. Exiting the prosecution prevents law enforcement from being able to stop that individual from committing further crimes. (click "Read More" to continue article) Following Deputy Chief Hamilton, Liebe Geft introduced Emily Thompson who spoke on the role of the internet in spreading hate in the community. Not only in Los Angeles County but in all of the United States, hate crimes have increased and are “on the rise”. Sadly, the targets of these crimes tend to remain the same primary groups as they have been for centuries. Disappointingly, hate crimes tend to target various races, sexualities, gender identities, religions, and many others. The primary groups that Ms. Thompson mentioned from her research includes the Black population, the Asian community especially amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-immigrant crimes often against Latino/a/x, religious hate that tends to focus on the Jewish community, and hate towards LGBTQ+ community which has focused greatly on transgender members. This hate and disrespect for people has also increased in schools, often as a result of online activity and internet use. The internet is full of sexist, racist, and homophobic content that perpetuates discriminatory ideology. In our day and age, the internet is such a critical part of how we live and there have been so many technological advancements that have encouraged that lifestyle with new games, social media platforms, and even music streaming sites that allow for anonymous communication and propagation of ideas. App algorithms online contribute to these issues as well, as they use content to keep people roped into the online world, as they suggest accounts and internet feed based on the content you view. The Combat Hate Workshop run by the Museum of Tolerance is meant to help students deal with the hateful content they see online and build digital literacy skills which aspire to help them analyze all forms of media. This program is one of many that exist to help teens and young adults learn how to use the internet positively and avoid harmful content. To adults who are less familiar with the internet and its many uses, Ms. Thompson suggests connecting with the young adults in your life to understand the world online if you yourself are not a part of it. It is uncommon to find someone who doesn’t have at least one social media app on their device, so more likely than not, talking to a young adult about their experience online will give you a pretty good idea of what it is like. She concluded her speech by mentioning that hate crimes and incidents found online can be reported to the Museum of Tolerance, who connect with websites and organizations to help them build their platform into the most positive space it can possibly be. She also provided a resource that consists of the research she herself has done with the museum which is linked below. https://digitalhate.net/inicio.php?year=_2023 As the student representative of the event, one of our Ssssource members, Dana Barbee, was given the opportunity to speak about her experiences in the community and what she sees happening around her in her day to day life. For those who were not able to attend the event, she was able to share her short speech with us for our article. “Like many others, I have learned that the world is full of hate. I‘ve heard slurs used as frequent parts of everyday conversation, I’ve seen minorities viewed as threats in the news, and I’ve seen posts online meant to propagate offensive ideas. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t seen at least one of these things happen in their community. When a representative from the Museum of Tolerance came to one of my classes, it was brought to our attention as a class that social media and the internet are often used to perpetuate racism and discrimination. We were shown examples of websites and even online games that use artwork and characters to stereotypically portray certain races and ethnicities. It is frightening to live in a world where people are hateful towards others based solely on their family’s country of origin, skin color, gender identity, sexuality and sadly, many more. Almost everyone has at least one aspect of their identity that has been targeted at some point in time leading everyone to have a sense of fear within society. I strongly hope that educating others about the origins of hate and how it is spread will help future generations, such as ourselves as teenagers, to prevent future ignorance and to eradicate hate.” Following Dana’s powerful speech, Rick Eaton, the director of research at the Museum of Tolerance, introduced the keynote speaker for the event, Jeff Schoep. Jeff Schoep used to be the leader of the National Socialist Movement, one of the largest Neo-Nazi organizations. He has since left the movement and now works to share his experience with the hopes of encouraging others to leave hateful environments and to spread positivity. During his presentation, he spoke about his experiences in the movement and what motivated him to join and, more importantly, what caused him to leave. We have more of these similar details about Jeff Schoep and his experience in the Neo-Nazi movement under our interview article with him through the link below titled, “How Anyone Can Overcome Hate: An Interview with Jeff Schoep.” Overall, this event showed us the importance of spreading kindness in this world. Hate is prominent in our society and harms many people. With this article, we hope you not only learned about how to prevent the spread of hate in your community but we also hope you remember to keep VAAS as a hate-free zone, working with us to maintain an inclusive community. If you or someone you know has faced hate in any way, especially on the VAAS campus, please don’t be afraid to reach out to a friend or trusted adult.
Remember, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” - Martin Luther King Jr. Below are some extra resource links if you're interested in the subject of combatting hate: https://ojjdp.ojp.gov/model-programs-guide/literature-reviews/hate-crimes-and-youth https://www.justice.gov/file/1507346/download https://www.justice.gov/hatecrimes/spotlight/preventing-youth-hate-crimes Comments are closed.
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EditorZachary Buenaventura Author
Yuliana Altamirano CategoriesArchives
June 2023
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