For Immediate Release Contact: Tatiana Arizaga (626) 792-6462 tarizaga@nhmc.org
Pasadena, CA. - The National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) is horrified by the senseless shooting rampage that occurred over the weekend in Tucson, Arizona. Our condolences and prayers go out to the victims and their families.
We are saddened that it takes a tragedy of this nature for the media and the public to notice that we have a serious problem in this country with extremist rhetoric and activities.
Indeed, this month marks the second anniversary of NHMC's call to action on hate speech in media, whereby NHMC made two requests: (1) that the Federal Communications Commission open a public docket to examine the extent and effects of hate speech in media, and non-regulatory options for counteracting the violence that extreme rhetoric breeds; and (2) that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration update its 1993 report, The Role of Telecommunications in Hate Crimes so that it may address the realities of how people communicate in the digital age. To date, the government has not acted upon our requests.
In the meantime, we have witnessed the horrific murders and maiming of countless victims, many of whom remain in the shadows. The government must act NOW so that it may understand the underlying reasons behind hate crimes and other acts of rhetoric-induced violence. Only with this understanding may it protect the people of this country, including our members of Congress, who must be able to interact safely with their constituents in their districts so that they may represent them on the Hill - a fundamental tenet of our democracy.
To learn more about NHMC's campaign against hate speech in media, please click here. If you would like to join our plea for government action, please visit http://www.nhmc.org/content/take-action.
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The National Hispanic Media Coalition is a non-profit, media advocacy organization established in 1986 in Los Angeles, California. Our mission is to improve the image of American Latinos as portrayed by the media, increase the number of American Latinos employed in all facets of the media industry, and advocate for media and telecommunications policies that benefit the Latino community. Forward email
Op-ed in Chicago Sun-Times Voices Need for Inclusive Hate-Crime Legislation
The Chicago Sun-Times published an opinion piece reflecting on the prevalence of hate crimes against LGBT people at the 10-year remembrance of Mathew Shephard's murder. In his October 17 op-ed, "Expand hate-crimes law to cover transgender people," Ricky Garcia, the Public Policy Director of Equality Illinois, highlights the dangerous lack of comprehensive federal and statewide hate-crime legislation. Garcia draws upon his personal experience working in Illinois, and speaks to the need for gender identity to be included in the state's hate crimes law, which currently only encompasses sexual orientation. Most brutal attacks in the state have been against transgender people and those who do not fit traditional gender stereotypes. Garcia says, "unfortunately, as shown by the news, gay and transgender folks here in Illinois and across the country are too often the victim of brutal hate crimes."Â He also points to the recent murders of Lawrence King in California and Angie Zapata in Colorado as two tragic examples that highlight the dire need for inclusive state and federal hate crime legislation.
Monica Zapata, the sister of Angie Zapata, an 18-year-old woman who was brutally murdered in her home because she was transgender, shared her story in the Denver Post on October 7. In "Ten years after Matthew Shepard, no change," Monica paints a moving portrait of her sister Angie and the ramifications her murder has had on her family and friends. She calls upon readers to stop hate crimes, pointing out that not enough change has happened since Matthew's death, and that LGBT youth continue to be victims of hate-motivated violence. She says, "My sister and Matthew were both torn down in their prime. At the threshold of their lives, they were brutally torn down and denied the opportunity to achieve their hopes and dreams." Monica highlights the need for federal hate-crimes legislation and reminds readers that the time has come to end violence against LGBT people.
Associated Press Explores Experiences of Gay Seniors
The Associated Pressdrew attention to the estimated 2.5 million gay seniors in America and the challenges they face in an October 4 article titled, "Gay elders' distinctive challenges get a closer look." In his story reporter David Crary highlights the recent partnership between the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) and Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE), and shares the stories of several LGBT seniors and how they have worked to overcome a lack of familial and institutional support. Ruth Juster, an 85-year-old lesbian Crary profiles, illuminates the need for increased outreach to gay and lesbian seniors, explaining, "Society looked down on us. A lot of people remained under the influence of that prejudice and kept their lives secret. We have to reach these seniors and let them know life is much different now. You have to speak up."
Following Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin's comments prior to the election implying that being gay is a "choice," the Los Angeles Times published an October 8 opinion piece by Nathaniel Frank titled, "Gay is a choice?" Frank, of the Michael Palm Center, a public policy group that works on LGBT issues, debunks the legitimacy of the choice argument. He says, "calling homosexuality a choice is the time tested way politicians signal their belief that it is the wrong choice." On Palin's assertion that her gay friend has made a choice to be gay, Frank writes, "if Palin's gay friend is like other gays and lesbians, her sexual orientation is neither a choice to be tolerated nor a sentence to be served. It's an expression of her freedom to be herself, a freedom that, as Palin said in the debate, 'is always just one generation away from extinction.'" Frank's op-ed is a reminder that rhetoric that inaccurately suggests sexual orientation is a choice can be used as a justification for discrimination and intolerance towards LGBT people.
Prior to the elections, an episode of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck featured an interview with James Dobson, head of the anti-gay organization Focus on the Family. The subject of the interview was Proposition 8, which since has passed, and will eliminate future marriages for same-sex couples in California. Beck and Dobson made repeated false and misleading claims about Prop 8, suggesting that if it was not passed churches would be called "organizations of hate." Dobson continued by saying "There's no question about it. If Proposition 8 fails, there will be a spate of lawsuit against churches …." Dobson then repeated discredited assertions about schools, saying, "all textbooks would have to be republished" and "everything in schools will change." By giving an uncontested platform to an anti-gay activist to state falsehoods about Prop. 8, CNN Headline News and Glenn Beck perpetuated the kind of fear and misinformation that contributed to the passage of Prop 8.
Radio Station Gives Anti-Gay Activist Platform to Attack Transgender Youth
Kentucky News Talk radio station WKYX's gave Richard Nelson of the anti-gay group The Family Foundation of Kentucky a platform on the outlet's website to perpetuate misinformation about medical care for transgender youth. Nelson made a baseless and fallacious attack on Dr. Norman Spack, a pediatric endocrinologist in Boston who provides care and treatment to transgender youth. Nelson falsely claims both that the treatment is permanent and makes the false assertion that it is "the first step necessary for a sex-change operation." Expressing a blatant disregard for the struggles transgender children encounter, Nelson dispassionately states, "When little Johnny comes in for a checkup wearing a dress and women's jewelry, has it ever occurred to anybody, including his parents, that he should be told to wear pants and stop playing with Barbies?" These kinds of uninformed attacks disregard the expertise of medical and psychological professionals, and only serve to perpetuate distortions and fear of transgender people.
On the October 29th episode of Dr. Phil, Dr. Phil McGraw interviewed transgender children and their parents. Also on the show to discuss gender identity were Dr. Dan Segal, a clinical psychologist from UCLA, and Glenn Stanton of the anti-LGBT organization Focus on the Family. While Segal's dialogue was backed by research and medical experience, Stanton was not a credited or unbiased source in any way. While we encourage informative dialogue, the Focus on the Family representative was not an expert on developmental issues or transgender children and should not have been presented as a professional counterpart to Dr. Segal. Stanton baselessly asserts that children develop transgender identities when their parents fail to enforce gender roles.
TAKE ACTION: GLAAD encourages you to contact the Dr. Phil Show and voice your concerns about the platform afforded to the anti-LGBT organization, Focus on the Family, which allowed them to perpetuate misinformation about transgender children. Ask why producers presented Glenn Stanton as an equal counterpart to Dr. Dan Segal when Stanton lacks expertise or credentials in the fields of psychology, medicine or transgender issues. E-mail Stephanie Granader, Dr. Phil Producer (Just click here, pre-filled fields, all you'll have to do is 'SEND')
Thoughts on Current Events in the Life and Times of an Urbanite Residing on the Minnesota Prairie
About a month ago, my mentor Charlie Leck wrote a piece on the Agents of Hate who fill the airwaves with venomous rumor and innuendo as a means of influencing the electorate. Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, and O’Reilly have built careers on playing to the most basic instincts of the conservative public, whipping their listeners into a frenzy through fear mongering directed at Barack Obama and his supporters. This being America, the fear mongers are protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution and the incredible ratings they generate for their respective media hosts.
(Charlie Leck's: McCain/Palin Backed Forcefully By Agents of Hate)
It is sad that guys like Shaun Hannity, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and Michael Savage, all of whom have huge listening audiences, are such advocates of absolute hate. One could actually name another half-dozen of these guys. They are not about discussion and dialogue. If a caller disagrees with them they are rude and cruel to that caller. They don’t promote reasonable debate and careful, conscientious thoughtfulness about selecting a President or other electoral choices. Instead they whip their audiences into frenzy by claiming that the opposition is awful, dangerous and mentally unbalanced.
You probably think I'm exaggerating. I am not. I recently listened, thanks to Bill Moyers, to some of their programming. Moyers introduced me to a video that left him in despair. He warned that the language is so hateful some people would have a difficult time dealing with it.
Imagine Glen Beck telling his audience that someone should kill Michael Moore, the liberal film documentary producer. You say it would never happen? Listen to the video I’ll reference in another two paragraphs. Listen to Beck say he’ll provide the gun. Now, these are guys who claim to be the ultimate loyalists. The talker, Neil Boortz, may be the most horrible. Listen to what he says about Muslims and the residents of New Orleans. These are sick guys and they are responsible for making our society sicker and sicker with hate.
I gulped and clicked the button that started the video. It was as Moyer’s described it – shear, unadulterated insanity. More frightening is the fact that millions of people listen to these guys and accept what they say as gospel (what an unfortunate word to use).
Gird your loins! Now make the big click and listen to the hate that these guys promote. It is such a bad thing for our nation because it divides completely and pits citizen against citizen. The video is called Rage on the Radio.
These promoters of hate would have their audiences believe that liberals are enemies of the country – that we are insane perverts. Again, I am not being hyperbolic! If you haven’t clicked and gone and watched the Moyers video, go on back up a paragraph and do it now.
This is what the far right is selling to gullible people who are anxious to have an enemy on whom they can blame all the troubles of the nation.
It frightens the living day-lights out of me. It makes me fear for the life of someone like Barack Obama and it makes me fear for the future of our country.
There are so many reasons for those of us, who truly love our land, to throw all our energies and recourses into winning this upcoming election. Posted by Charles Leck at 3:23 P
Among the charges that are accepted as dogma among fans of the genre include (i) Senator Obama is a terrorist sympathizer, (ii) Senator Obama will sell out Israel to the Palestinians and Hamas, (iii) Senator Obama is a Muslim, (iv) Senator Obama gave $800,000 to ACORN to engage in voter registration fraud, (v) the Democrats are trying to stuff the ballot box in Ohio and steal the election using ACORN and its fraudulent voter registration tactics, (vi) Senator Obama will increase taxes on anyone making more than $42,000 a year, (vii) Senator Obama will push through a Canadian health care system where the government will dictate our medical care, (viii) Senator Obama will fine small businesses that do not provide health care for their employees, (ix) Michelle Obama is an unpatriotic angry Black bitch and (x) Senator Obama supports the anti-American “God Damn America” attitude of his long time pastor, Jeremiah Wright. There are many more core beliefs held by the Right; ten is a nice number to deal with and these rolled off my fingertips.
The problem, of course, is that fear mongering has a way of morphing into hate mongering and persons of little intellect, i.e., the audience in question, has a bad habit of wanting to act on their hate. I share Charlie’s sentiment express in his September 17th blog, “It frightens the living day-lights out of me. It makes me fear for the life of someone like Barack Obama and it makes me fear for the future of our country.”
I had already started working on this piece when I watched the third presidential debate tonight. As upset as I was beforehand, the cold reality of how far out of hand this has gotten hit home when the debate participants actually discussed before a national television audience the fact that attendees at McCain/Palin gatherings were chanting for the death of Senator Obama. Again, worked into a frenzy of hate by the blind acceptance of right wing propaganda, the Republican rallies have taken on a mob mentality that, if uttered publicly or privately on an individual basis would result in a visit from the Secret Service and possible criminal prosecution. Since Senator McCain would not disavow his running mate’s characterization of Senator Obama, allow me: Accusing Senator Obama of caring so little for his country that he pals around with terrorists as part of your campaign rhetoric is akin to shouting “fire” in a crowded theater. It goes beyond the pale of the First Amendment and one may not feign ignorance that the characterization may instigate a violent response and encourage extremely misguided vigilante behavior.
The contemporary impact of right wing hate mongering is bad enough. As Senator Obama suggested tonight, it eliminates the ability to have a meaningful discussion of the issues that must be addressed as this country slides toward third world status. Yes, we have a ways to go down that slide. But if you think in terms of not being able to provide adequate health care to our citizenry, of not being able to provide gainful employment opportunities to able-bodied workers, of not having a monetary system that serves as the world’s standard and, rather, is propped up by the lending whims of foreign investors, or of not being able to have any meaningful influence on world affairs because we have bankrupted ourselves in the eyes of other nations morally, militarily and monetarily, then you begin to realize what the stakes are. More than anytime in our history since, perhaps, the election of 1860, we stand on the brink as a nation. A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand.
The ten, “top of my head” characterizations of Senator Obama and his supporters itemized above are all nonsense, easily, and appropriately, dismissible with only a modicum of research accessible to anyone with a computer and an Internet connection. It is incumbent upon all of us who have something better to do than sit around listening to The Savage Nation or watching the “Fair and Balanced” Fox network to speak out against baseless character assassination and the politics of destruction.
Today, when a friend enamored with right wing conspiracy theories fretted over Senator Obama’s plan to steal the election using ACORN operatives, I sent him a link to an article quoting Ohio Republicans admitting that safeguards prevented any meaningful fraudulent influence on the Ohio polling. When he made the statement that Senator McCain had never had anything to do with ACORN, I sent him a link to an article describing Senator McCain’s past support for the work of ACORN, even delivering the keynote address at an ACORN sponsored event, complete with photographs of the grateful Senator sitting beaming next to his ACORN host in appreciation for being given a platform to discuss immigration policy.
We can do this. We can demand better of our public servants. In Minnesota, Senator Coleman has disavowed negative campaigning. Whatever his motives, his change of tactics was clearly influenced by the public's negative reaction to the heretofore destructive tone of his campaign. Senator McCain's defense of Senator Obama's character in Lakeville, Minnesota last Friday, delivered to an unidentified, disheveled supporter who is probably thanking God that her back was to the camera, was a start, a seedling planted for a crop of civility. Perhaps Senator McCain, too, realizes we reap what we sow.
It is getting harder and harder to be a Nellie Forbush cock-eyed optimist. But I can't get it out of my heart. This heart is sentimental and patriotic. This heart thinks The American President, scripted by Aaron Sorkin of subsequent West Wing fame, is one of the best movies ever made (partly because this heart is also in incurable romantic). During this campaign, I often think of the climactic speech in The American President, delivered by President Andrew Shepard to a speechless press corps. Sorkin has his American President go on the offensive and, as if with 2008 in mind, speak the truth about his conservative opponent's dishonest campaign tactics. When I watch that speech, time and again, my eyes swell and I find the strength to believe that those of us who see conservative negativism as a desperate attempt to make up for the absence of substantive solutions to our problems are on the right track.
Click the play button on the image below to watch it. It provides a quick, inspirational lesson in democracy. Pay particular attention to President Shepard's description of his opponent's tactics at about 2 minutes into the clip. See if it sounds familiar and, more importantly, see if you don't come away invigorated by President Shepard's closing, ready to help get out the vote on November 4th and thereby save our nation from continuing down the slide.
As hate speech spirals, a local group of community activists are organizing a demonstration in San Francisco against shock jock Michael Savage. The group, Hispanic / Latino Anti-Defamation Coalition SF, plans to rally in front of the building which houses radio station KNEW-AM where Savage transmits his nationally-syndicated program.
These kind of statements act as fuel for people who are already angry, resentful and violent. Take, for instance, Jim David Adkisson, who entered the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, opened fire with a 12-gauge shotgun, killed two people and wounded six others during the presentation of a children's musical. In his car, police found a four-page letter in which he expressed his hatred of the "liberal movement’, and wrote he targeted the church "because of its liberal teachings" and his belief that "all liberals should be killed" because they were "ruining the country."
Inside Adkisson’s home, officers found "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder" by radio talk show host Michael Savage; "Let Freedom Ring" by talk show host Sean Hannity; and the book, "The O'Reilly Factor," by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly. These three continuously demonize liberals, immigrants and others.
Neil Boortz suggests giving nuclear waste to illegal Mexican immigrants to take back to Mexico and tell them "it’ll warm tortillas", plus they will be easy to spot because of the "glow" if they try to return.
Shock jocks insist their rants are not hurting anyone and that they are not inciting hate attacks. Meanwhile disenfranchised groups continue to be targeted. Take, for instance, the savage beating of Luis Eduardo Ramirez Zavala by a group of four young white males in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania on July 12.
An eyewitness to the beating who happens to be a retired police officer, heard the youths telling Ramirez’s friends to "get out of Shenandoah or the same thing would happen" to them. "We saw a bunch of kids walking away and screaming things like "‘Go back to Mexico.’ We called the police," said Arielle Garcia, 17, a friend of Ramirez who was at the scene; Luis Eduardo died about 30 hours later.
Legislation and programs designed to provide basic human rights and services regardless of legal status are being curtailed or dismantled, while punitive anti-immigrant legislation is being enacted in localities in all the states and a number of hate groups and the violence leveled against minorities is on the rise. Human rights organizations are under attack, demonized for allegedly helping ‘criminals’
All of the above, plus immensely more, is made possible by the poisoning of the minds of millions of Americans, who are bombarded daily with outrageously false and inflammatory claims, designed to prejudice public opinion against groups and entire communities without allowing the opportunity to present opposing views and facts, which would refute the propaganda full of lies, misinformation and disinformation.
Aurora Grajeda is a community activist, member of the ‘Hispanic / Latino Anti-Defamation Coalition SF" currently organizing a demonstration in front the broadcasting booth of KNEW on Sept. 23, 4 to 6 pm, at 340 Townsend ST in San Francisco, whence Michael Savage transmits his program, to focus on the consequences of Hate Speech. and to demand that a more balanced view on the issues is presented in the Media so a much needed comprehensive debate in the public opinion arena takes place.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.
By Reverend Martin Niemüller. For his opposition to the Nazis, Niemüller was arrested in 1937, convicted of treason, and spent eight years in Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps.
