In this seminar we are asked to address three issues: 1] the local context in which incidents of racial violence occur, 2] the “globalization” of local incidents [i.e., the extent to which local incidents have relevance for the analysis and understanding of the intolerance phenomenon at the national or international level, and 3] what we can learn about varying patterns of response to local incidents and their implications both for research and policy-making.

While the study of a specific case might be a more appropriate framework for eliciting responses to these three topics, I wish to draw on a range of recent occurrences in the United States, in order to make a modest contribution to this discussion based on what we think we are discovering from American encounters with the phenomenon of intolerance, as well as to highlight what I think are the salient features and factors of this problem.

• If we begin with the more prominent of the incidents that have occurred in the United States, we find that they have taken place in small towns and large cities, in the most sophisticated of urban areas and prototypical rural communities, on both seacoasts and in the country’s heartland, in both the nation’s North and its South. These latter specifications are important for socio-cultural reasons; it is common in the U.S. to think of the interior sections and especially of the South - the once slave-holding, racially segregated region of the country - as particularly vulnerable areas for problems of intolerance. The shooting death of an African immigrant and the brutal sodomization of a second immigrant from Haiti by New York City police officers, the shooting of three Black males by an armed citizen [the Goetz affair] in the same city and, on the West Coast, the well-known Rodney King episode serve to suggest that the characteristics many in the States either presume - or perhaps wish - to be definitive are not so.

Much the same pattern - or more accurately, lack of a pattern - maintains if we focus attention on the backgrounds of the perpetrators. Except for the fact that all the perpetrators have been White males, there is little else that they appear to have in common. Alcohol is a factor in some incidents but not in others; in several cases strong ideological motivations can be discerned but in other cases no such motivations are apparent, neither does level of educational attainment on the part of the perpetrators seem to be a relevant or defining factor. If we were to hypothesize either that there is something distinctive about the local communities in which incidents of intolerance occur or that there are common characteristics among the perpetrators, the most prominent of the occurrences in the United States would suggest that this assumption is not valid.

 

• As to the globalization of these incidents, we can note the extent to which those that occur as a result of some ideological motivation on the part of the perpetrators are those in which it is most likely that we can find national and especially international linkages. In the United States, for example, we know of close ties between various militia organizations united by a fundamentally anti-government set of convictions and the network of white nationalist groups who contend that white people, primarily those of northern European descent, constitute and are all part of a single nation, no matter in which countries they might live. In the case of this ideology in the States, Americans who are not White are considered as aliens and the United States and its federal government are regarded as a “multi-racial” or “multi-national” state, hence the hostility toward the national government and its policies [see The Dignity Report, Vol. 7, No. 2, Summer, 2000]. The degree to which these groups provide a climate in which acts of intolerance occur has not been empirically established; their contribution to a climate of violence, however, is well-known, the most destructive example of which was the bombing f the Federal building in Oklahoma City in which 168 people were killed.

We know also of the close international connections between either some of these same groups or between the leadership of these groups. There is, for example, an American support group of the British National Party [The American Friends of the BNP] which jointly sponsors efforts with the America First Party - a notoriously racist and antisemitic organization and the American press has recently reported on the movements of David Duke, one-time leader of the Ku Klux Klan in Louisiana who is now one of the principal spokespersons for White nationalism in the United States, who has been trying to organize similar efforts here in Europe.

 

• I should like, however, to devote the remainder of my time to the third issue we are asked to address which focuses on patterns of response to this problem. Perhaps the most important point to be made is that, in one sense at least, when we move t o this level of analysis, it must be accompanied by the recognition that we are simultaneously acknowledging failure - in the sense that an incident of intolerance has already occurred [and very likely one of great seriousness] and we are concerned with what might be done to deal with its aftermath. Here, we usually examine the role of the police in efforts to find and apprehend the perpetrator[s], the role of the media in bringing the incident to the attention of the public, the role of policymakers in examining and determining whether there is a need for additional legislative tools to respond to such events. Important and well-intentioned though all these efforts are, they take place after some considerable damage has been done - obviously to the victim[s] but also to the sense of security that persons in the society will feel who are vulnerable by reason of race, skin color, ethnic background or sexual orientation.
For these reasons, I would suggest that we focus attention on a fourth strategic consideration for local communities - that of prevention. Here, I would suggest three factors for review:

 

In the United States, local police services, in many jurisdictions, are severely limited by the amount of monitoring, if any, that they may pursue in trying to keep tabs on racial and ethnic hate groups. This policy results from the widespread abuse of police intelligence powers during the so-called “Red Scare” era in America when local police forces intensively monitored civil liberties and civil rights groups and kept extensive intelligence files on any and every individual who could be labeled a social activist, regardless of the nature of the individual’s interest. In reaction to this practice, many municipalities passed ordinances that forbid police intelligence operations, except where clear criminal activities are involved; while hate groups, by the definition of most thinking persons and, in fact, in some countries under the definition of law can be considered as criminal activities, in the United States one also has to contend with the constitutionally guaranteed privileges of free speech which preclude the kind of surveillance that many would like to see applied to hate groups.

Consequently, the monitoring of hate groups in America is conducted primarily by NGOs [nongovernmental organizations]. In several respects, this arrangement is a distinct improvement over police surveillance, at least in the American context. NGOs are able to respond to hate groups in ways that the police, even under the best of circumstances, could not contemplate. For example, the Southern Poverty Law Center, based in Atlanta, GA, has virtually put the Ku Klux Klan out of business by successfully filing several civil actions in the courts that resulted in large monetary penalties against the organization and the seizure of Klan assets to satisfy the judgment. In a similar action, the SPLC won a major legal judgment against a pseudo-religious hate group in northern Idaho that was a key center of racial intolerance and some documented instances of violence in the Northwest. The legal judgment has all but bankrupt this group.

 

No one would suggest, of course, that these legal victories have put an end to hate group activity in the United States. While legal tactics and monitoring are pursued, there is the collateral effort of educating the public - especially young people - regarding the dangers that hate groups present to modern societies. This is a task in which both governmental and non-governmental bodies have major responsibilities. The challenge to the schools in this regard is one which was highlighted at the international forum which met here in Stockholm last year; it is also a major challenge for the media which, in my opinion, must be encouraged not only to inform the public when incidents of intolerance and violence occur -which the media does well - but also to provide insight and understanding on the background, ideologies and motivations that drive the groups which spawn these problems.

 

The final item for attention is the matter f public censure. Hate groups are able to survive only to the extent that they are able to maintain a minimum level of legitimacy - that is, to the extent that they articulate issues and frustrations as well as express values that resonate with segments of the general populace. To the extent that they are not challenged and condemned in the public sphere by traditional and influential spheres of public opinion, they continue to thrive. It becomes imperative, therefore, that religious bodies and the professional associations of advocates, educators, be willing to issue public condemnations of hate groups so as to make clear that such groups stand outside the boundaries of responsible and respectable public opinion.

An important precedent in this respect is provided by the dissenting or Confessional wing, as it was called, of the German Evangelical Church during the era of the German Third Reich. The Confessing Church, which issued several public condemnations of the Nazi enthusiasts in their midst, is rightly criticized for basing its condemnations on too narrow a set of theological considerations and f failing to see the wider implications f German National Socialism, including and especially its relentless antisemitic policies. But the Confessing Church deserves credit at least for its willingness to take a public stance against what it saw as the heretical implications of Nazi policy.
The problems posed by hate groups are more complex and difficult than exclusive appeals for governmental intervention either admit or allow. Only a combined effort of governmental and non-governmental resources are sufficient to deal effectively with this scourge of modern societies.