I grew up in the South during what I call America’s “apartheid.” In Savannah, as a white kid, when I went to Tybee, Black Americans weren’t allowed to swim in the ocean alongside me. As a child, I didn’t understand why.
At the time, Jim Crow laws created two separate and unequal classes of people: Black and white. Separate bathrooms, water fountains, restaurants, movie theaters and beaches were part of this segregated system.
I was only a kid, but even then, it struck me this separation and segregation were wrong.
Today, while we’ve come so far in so many ways, anyone paying attention is seeing a disturbing trend: Hate speech is being normalized again.
Credit: contributed
Credit: contributed
For several decades, thanks to the work of civil rights leaders and others, hate speech went underground. For example, using derogatory racial terms became shameful and socially unacceptable. Awareness was built around the harmful effects of calling people names based on their skin color, race, religion, sexual orientation or other immutable characteristics.
ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) recently released a report that shows racist, anti-Semitic, anti-LGBTQ and other hateful speech are at their highest levels in a decade.
As a Southerner raised in an era that was not tolerant of differences and that needed to change, I’m greatly concerned and saddened by this report.
Today, I call on all of us to support the work of groups like ADL – and now more than ever – to spread their message of acceptance and tools for understanding hate speech. There are not two sides to this issue.
ADL was founded more than a century ago to combat antisemitism and hate speech. Today, one of ADL’s core values is that “We have the courage to speak out against antisemitism and bigotry, discrimination and injustice — even when we stand alone.”
I’m really struck by that last phrase: “Even when we stand alone.”
As I reflect on that, I clearly know that as a young child I didn’t have a lot of power to voice my inner concerns about segregation, but as adults, we do. It only takes one voice – think of Rosa Parks’ lonely ride at the front of the bus – to create a domino effect of change.
This month, I had the great honor of receiving the 2021 Elbert P. Tuttle Jurisprudence Award from ADL Southeast for exemplifying ADL’s mission to “secure justice and fair treatment to all.”
I want to use this opportunity to ask people – how can you use your voice for justice today? Who can you champion? What person or group can you protect by speaking out?
ADL’s programming educates about the harm of hate speech – a tool called the Pyramid of Hate shows that at the top of the pyramid, genocide and violent behavior stem from biases and attitudes at the bottom of the pyramid – this is why it’s so important not to treat hate speech as normal or acceptable.
ADL also teaches us how to talk to each other about tough topics like race and implicit bias. This dialogue, albeit uncomfortable, will help our country heal.
I urge everyone to get engaged and to speak out for others to keep us on a multigenerational path to a more-just and fair society. ADL is here to help us.
Walter Jospin is an Atlanta lawyer.
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
