The Resurgence of Hate Speech

With Donald Trump’s rise in popularity in American politics, reports point to the current presidential circuit as one of the main reasons for the rise of crimes against minorities in the United States, as well as a rise of hate groups and hate speech. Last year was marked with a level of hate speech in mainstream politics not seen in decades. Constant rhetoric about women, immigrants, and followers of Islam have catalyzed discriminatory actions and permeated into the minds of teenagers across the country.

   During the week of Open House, an incident surfaced when a student targeted a teacher, along with multiple ethnic groups, with hatred, intolerance, and anti-semitic comments through the use of a homework assignment — raising questions about the campus climate and whether this occurrence is indicative of a larger problem.

  After assigning his sophomore English class with the task of writing a letter of acknowledgement and appreciation to a family member or guiding person during their high school year, Matthew Leffel discovered a letter that immediately caught his attention: a letter containing discriminatory and bigoted language.

  “As I was collecting them [the letters], I found another that clearly stood out, and I checked to see what it was: it was a letter of hateful, inappropriate, leering, highly insensitive, highly inappropriate, highly disrespectful comments directed toward me and directed towards other people who may be part of the school community — hateful statements just in general,” said Leffel. “It was expressing bigoted remarks towards me directly — hateful remarks towards me, my ethnic background, as well as to other ethnicities…It was using a particularly inhumane form of humor to express its points. It was also making a mockery of the assignment itself, which was asking students to write a personal note to a family member.”

  Leffel’s reaction to the letter was a mixture of shock and sadness: the student’s use of the letter to make disparaging comments about him and others was sorrowful and the breadth of bigotry revealed in the assignment was appalling.

  “It caused me to question, as well, what level of tolerance we have, what level of understanding we have for tolerating difference and embracing difference and diversity at this school,” said Leffel.

  The letter Leffel received was not just given to him, but through use of social media and text, it was rapidly circulated around the school and the community. Adding that students and staff have a right to feel safe at school, Leffel commented on a growing atmosphere of insensitivity.

   “The fact that a document like this is not just a note that is passed to a teacher but is something that is seen, potentially, by many or most of the students at this school is a dangerous thing because this is a document that contained hateful speech, that is designed and has no purpose other than to make people feel unsafe and imperiled and under-threat. And I’m not speaking of only myself, I’m speaking of other people who may have seen this. I know that there is a climate –– in our culture –– of intolerance that seems to be rising right now. We as educators share a lot of the impetus to help to grow out of that because these are not things that we can allow to be nurtured or grown in our society, what-so-ever, particularly in a school where if people are going to learn, they need to feel safe,” explained Leffel.

   Asked if there were any other instances where he had identified hate speech in the community and on campus, Leffel cited numerous examples of bigoted language that he had encountered.

  “I’ve heard incidental comments: people adopting modes of speech that are related to anti-semitism, to anti-Black speech, to immigrant rhetoric, to insensitivity to Islamic people, so I’ve heard in school and out-of-school comments of those natures,” said Leffel. “In many cases, I think that it’s possible that people do not understand what they are saying, and do not understand the origins and the background of some of that rhetoric, and certainly people don’t understand that when it comes to hate speech there’s no such thing as a joke; when it comes to racism, there’s no such thing as a joke.”

  Some may use hate speech as humor, but the power of language is undeniable.

  “There are laws protecting against hate speech on the books, and those laws as we have seen in our society are necessary. Sad that they are — we wish that moral laws could guide us against committing these kinds of offenses — but we have legal consequences as well for hate speech, and we know the historical background of that hate speech: hateful speech leads to hateful acts, and people have the right to feel safe from having violence perpetrated against them,” said Leffel.

   With more situations in which minorities, ethnicities, or other groups have been a target of inflammatory rhetoric, this incident calls into question the overall climate on campus. Senior Destiny Williams shares her personal experience with anti-black bigotry.

  “I’ve walked around Petaluma and I’ve been yelled at by people from big trucks with flags being called nigger and being flipped off a few times. I would like to think our school isn’t as bad as it could be, but with the election approaching there is an increasing amount of hate speech and white supremacy. Last year, I was interviewed for going to a protest and a student had made fun of me on his Snapchat saying I was so dark and ugly that I blended in with the color of the newspaper. Me being the person I am, I realized that because of their own insecurities they felt the need to belittle me and it didn’t work,” said Williams.

   Hate speech against African-Americans is not the only form of bigotry expressed by students. Senior Rosa Colin elaborated on anti-immigration rhetoric she has heard here during her high school career.

   “The first time I experienced hate speech on campus was when I was signing up to take AP classes. When I went to go turn in my AP contract to my teacher, there were a couple of boys behind me also going to turn in their contracts. When I dropped mine off, I heard one of the boys ask his friend ‘Wait, immigrants can take AP classes here too?’ I turned around to see who had made the comment, but I walked away because I didn’t see a point in arguing with them about how I wasn’t an immigrant and they just assumed that because I’m Latina,” said Colin.

   Colin was born in Greenbrae, California in Marin County.

  A few months ago, junior Linda Rashed was asked by a referee during her basketball game multiple times to remove her hijab, a headscarf that female followers of Islam wear, in order to continue with the game. In her three years of playing basketball at this school, this has never been an issue — until now.

   Along with this incident, Rashed also noticed anti-muslim bigotry coming from her fellow students during her high school career.

  “They [students in Rashed’s class] were joking around: because they were Hispanic, they were making Hispanic jokes, and I was just sitting there at the table. The next thing you know, one of them was like ‘Hey guys, I saw Linda on the scene of 9/11 on T.V.,’” said Rashed. “Right after class, I went to H-5 and told them what happened, but they said they couldn’t do anything because he was a ‘good student.’”

   Whether it is a joke or intentional harm, hate speech has no place in society, especially not on a high school campus.

   “Any time people are using language or using their voices; it can be anything, their physical voices or their online voices, whatever…  in a way that does not take into account the potential harm that it could cause to others, are engaging in hate speech,” said Leffel. “We have to take responsibility for our words.”