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End Hate Speech That Inspires Violence
Posted on Aug 05 2019
After the devastating massacres in El Paso and Dayton this weekend, we demand an end to hate speech from political leaders and a shift in policy to protecting rather than attacking immigrants, people of color, Jews, Muslims, LGBTQ+ communities, and other minorities now in peril.
The young white nationalist who massacred 20 people in El Paso and wounded more than two dozen others was inspired by racist and ant-immigrant hatred. He was precisely the kind of lone wolf that FBI Director Christopher Wray warned the Senate Judiciary Committee about less than two weeks ago. In testimony to the committee, Wray said:
“The FBI is most concerned about lone offender attacks, primarily shootings, as they have served as the dominant lethal mode for domestic violent extremist attacks. We anticipate law enforcement, racial minorities and the U.S. government will continue to be significant targets for many domestic violent extremists.”
The ADL annual report on murder and extremism in the United States found that in 2018, “every single extremist killing—from Pittsburgh to Parkland—had a link to right-wing extremism” and that “white supremacists were responsible for the great majority of the killings.” Perpetrators of violence are informed not only by divisive, racist, anti-immigrant tweets and public statements, but also by witnessing inhumane policies that treat immigrants and their children as subhuman. These include denial of asylum to immigrants seeking safe haven, forcing asylum seekers into filthy, overcrowded jail cells, and ongoing attacks on our legal immigration system.
“Those political leaders who marginalize and demonize immigrant, Black, brown, LGBTQ and other communities are aiming the guns, even if individual white nationalists are pulling the triggers,” said Lenore Millibergity, interim director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. “We need cultural and policy changes to end this epidemic of domestic white nationalist terrorism.”
Congressional leaders from both parties must step up and condemn racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies. Such irresponsible rhetoric inspires the violence that continues to take innocent lives.