RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS

I received a "back to school" letter today from Morris Dees, founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, seeking contributions to make resources available to teachers. Please consider this appeal. Mr. Dees wrote:

"With hate groups at record levels and extremism growing, it's critical that we nurture acceptance in our schools. Too many impressionable children are being exposed to hateful rhetoric in the media and, sadly, in their own schools. Here are just a few recent examples:

• A Utah student wore a KKK hood and shouted "white power."
• A black California student was chained to his locker while teammates allegedly yelled "slave for sale."
• A North Carolina teacher told an American child of Latino heritage to "go back to your own country!"

Our Teaching Tolerance program is making a real difference. For example, more than 50,000 copies of our free film kit about anti-LGBT bullying, Bullied, have already been sent to schools. Our Teaching Tolerance magazine goes to more than 400,000 teachers twice each year. The next issue mails in just a couple of weeks at a cost of more than $350,000.

Today, I'm asking if you will send whatever you can afford to help meet the demand for our free tolerance education materials and our other work for justice. Your gift now will help us accomplish even more in the year ahead."

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Sincerely, Dees" border="0" height="29" width="190"> Morris Dees Founder, Southern Poverty Law Center

Become a friend of the Southern Poverty Law Center on Facebook. Contribute at: http://www.splcenter.org

HATE AND YOUNG PEOPLE

A statement I share in many of my lectures dealing with communication and hate comes from the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2004:

"More than in generations past, young Americans are being taught to accept differences and embrace diversity. But . . . there's a disturbing counter-trend: Hate activity among kids has probably never been more widespread, or more violent."

What are high schools and colleges doing to teach about hate? What should they be doing? Your comments are welcome.

The Southern Poverty Law Center makes available great material through its Teaching Tolerance program. For more information, visit the SPLC web site.


http://www.splcenter.org/what-we-do/teaching-tolerance

A POWERFUL FILM: THE ANATOMY OF HATE

Mike Ramsdell's film, The Anatomy of Hate: A Dialogue for Hope, provides a powerful look at hate through the sounds and images of white supremacists, religious fundamentalists, soldiers and others. The 2009 film has enjoyed many screenings on college campuses, has won awards at several film festivals and has been broadcast on television. To view clips of the film or purchase a copy, go to The Anatomy of Hate website.

Filmmaker Ramsdell comments on what he learned:

"What I found was, for me, life changing. There was no boogieman, no devil, nor any person(s) of evil at the center of all this violence, war, and hate. Instead I found a planet full of creatures doing their best to fill the void of existence with limited psychological tools, and emotional shortcomings – myself included. And instead of embracing these shortcomings and using them as empathetic links to our fellow men, I discovered that we are tucking them into the shadows of our psyche, turning them into mythological jabberwockies that we can project onto others, declaring those 'others' as inferior, evil, or deserving of death. Then we use God, nationalism, or any other cultural concoction as rationalizations for this insanity, oblivious that in doing such we are tapping into the same primitive thought patterns which we have just condemned our “enemies” for espousing. It is an overwhelming cycle when judged by the pain, death, and destruction it has caused."

Comments? Reaction?

WHY THIS BLOG?

I have spent thirty years studying the rhetoric of white supremacist groups such as the Aryan Nations, White Aryan Resistance, and neo-Nazi Skinheads. My studies have taken me to a world filled with hate, not love; bigotry, not tolerance; oppression, not liberation.

I have given many lectures in which I describe the communication strategies of these groups, focusing on their powerful use of words and symbols to promote their vision of supremacy. I have watched as these groups focused on the "other." Jews and African-Americans are portrayed by white supremacists as sub-human, "false starts in G-d's" quest to create man." Like Hitler, the white supremacists label Jews "cockroaches, vermin and bacilli."

Last night I watched a video that I was sent for contributing to my local PBS station. The video was of a PBS special from 2004 featuring Peter, Paul and Mary, Carry it On. On the video, trio member Mary Travers, who died in 2009, states: "If we are going to teach the world to stop hating the different, the other, then we are are going to have to start with children."

So, my friends, I have started this blog in the hope that through collective wisdom we can find the means needed for ending oppression and welcoming the other.

Please, share your ideas.

Prof Jack