One thing that I don't think has been made clear: people of colour cannot change their skin tone in order to mask their race. All other minorities, gays, lesbians, pro-choicers, etc. can, to some extent, hide who they are when they feel the need, which is way to often, imo. When hate-filled speech is spewed in a person's neighbourhood and it contains white supremacy rhetoric, it takes an incredible amount of courage, a thick skin, and strong self-assuredness to just ignore it, esp. if one is a person of colour. A much better alternative was illustrated by the town of Billings, Montana, noted below.

I worked with the Wyoming Grassroots Project, for years, to get enhanced penalties for hate crimes passed in Wyoming. We learned that those who were hate-filled did have a right to express themselves, but they did NOT have a right to turn that hate into violence against others. It is a very fine line.

We worked under the umbrella of the former Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment, a group founded in Coeur d'Alene in 1987 by the late Bill Wassmuth and others to combat the Aryan Nations and other hate groups.

One of the best and most positive things I learned from all of it was the way a community responds to hate speech and crimes is very important. Please visit this page to find out how Billings, Montana responded when hate came to their town: Not in our town. There are also links, on the left, to subsequent videos, etc. of other towns who banded together to counteract hatred and violence. They are all quite inspiring and very relevant to today, imo.

There are some good quotes and other info of shorter length about it on this page, which also includes a video clip of Not in our Town.

Ultimately, it has to begin at home, when children are little...the parents are the first line of defense in making sure children grow up in a positive atmosphere of safety, diversity, and community. To do that, we need to continually work at educating all peoples on the inherent value of all human beings and help them to release their incredible fear for that is what gives birth to the hatred and violence.

kat