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Ice on Immigration: Dealing with the hate

By L. Patricia Ice, Featured Columnist

Question:  There seems to be a lot of controversy and hate surrounding the immigration debate in the US.  What can immigrants, immigrant advocacy groups and other minority groups do to alleviate the hate speech and messages that surface in conversation, the media, and beyond?

Answer:  People of African descent and other minority groups have endured vicious hate speech and actions ever since they came to American shores.  Hate speech in conversations and the media have escalated, however, against recent immigrants, especially Mexicans and other Latin Americans.

For years the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has tracked hate groups targeting African-Americans and others, and has had promoted tolerance. There are very good materials on the following SPLC websites regarding tolerance:  http://www.splcenter.org/center/tt/teach.jsp and hate groups: http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intpro.jsp. 

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) was founded in 1913 “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.” Now one of the nation’s premier civil rights/human relations agencies, the ADL fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects civil rights for all. The ADL has an excellent web site that can assist individuals with combating hate:  http://www.adl.org/combating_hate/. 

More recently the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), one of our nation's largest Latino civil rights organizations, has developed materials to provide information on hate groups, the code words they use and how often they appear in the media.  They also have information about what individuals and organizations can do to take action.  You can find NCLR anti-hate materials at the following web site in English and Spanish: http://www.wecanstopthehate.org/. 

We must all participate in the fight against hate speech and hate actions against all groups of people.  Each individual can start this process himself.