{"id":289470,"date":"2017-01-11T00:50:01","date_gmt":"2017-01-10T23:50:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/we-need-to-give-voice-to-the-people-who-feel-terrified\/"},"modified":"2017-01-11T00:50:01","modified_gmt":"2017-01-10T23:50:01","slug":"we-need-to-give-voice-to-the-people-who-feel-terrified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/we-need-to-give-voice-to-the-people-who-feel-terrified\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We Need to Give Voice to the People Who Feel Terrified\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Janine Jackson interviewed A.C. Thompson about hate crimes and Donald Trump for the <a href=\"http:\/\/fair.org\/home\/destiny-lopez-on-reproductive-rights-a-c-thompson-on-hate-crimes\/\">December 23, 2016, episode<\/a> of <strong>CounterSpin<\/strong>. This is a lightly edited transcript.<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5584744\" style=\"width: 611px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/fair.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/ACThompson.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-5584744\" src=\"http:\/\/fair.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/ACThompson.jpg\" alt=\"AC Thomson (photo: Lars Klove)\" width=\"601\" height=\"338\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>A.C. Thomson: &#8221; I think the goal of journalism at this time is to provoke some sort of meaningful response from the public and from officialdom that says, this is not something that will be tolerated.&#8221; (photo: Lars Klove)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"wrapperMI_0\" class=\"wrap-mjp  \" style=\"padding:5px 0px 40px 0px;margin:0px;width:100%\">\n<div class=\"Eabove-mjp\" id=\"Eabove-mjp_0\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"subwrap-MI\">\n<div class=\"jp-innerwrap\">\n<div class=\"innerx\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"innerleft\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"innerright\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"innertab\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"interface-mjp verdana-mjp\" style=\"height:71px\" id=\"interfaceMI_0\">\n<div class=\"MI-image Himg right-mjp\" id=\"MI_image_0\" style=\"width:auto;height:71px;overflow:hidden\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"T_mp3j_0\" class=\"player-track-title left-mjp norm-mjp plain-mjp childNorm-mjp childPlain-mjp\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"bars_holder\">\n<div class=\"loadMI_mp3j\" id=\"load_mp3j_0\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"poscolMI_mp3j\" id=\"poscol_mp3j_0\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"posbarMI_mp3j\" id=\"posbar_mp3j_0\"><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"P-Time-MI_0\" class=\"jp-play-time\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"T-Time-MI_0\" class=\"jp-total-time\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"statusMI_0\" class=\"statusMI\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"transport-MI\">\n<div class=\"play-mjp\" id=\"playpause_mp3j_0\">Play<\/div>\n<div class=\"stop-mjp\" id=\"stop_mp3j_0\">Stop<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"buttons-wrap-mjp\" id=\"buttons-wrap-mjp_0\">\n<div class=\"mp3j-popout-MI\" id=\"lpp_mp3j_0\">pop out<\/div>\n<div id=\"download_mp3j_0\" class=\"dloadmp3-MI\"><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"mjp-volwrap\">\n<div class=\"MIsliderVolume\" id=\"vol_mp3j_0\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"innerExt1\" id=\"innerExt1_0\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"innerExt2\" id=\"innerExt2_0\"><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"Ebetween-mjp\" id=\"Ebetween-mjp_0\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"listwrap_mp3j\" id=\"L_mp3j_0\">\n<div class=\"wrapper-mjp\">\n<div class=\"playlist-colour\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"wrapper-mjp\">\n<ul class=\"ul-mjp darken1-mjp verdana-mjp med-mjp childNorm-mjp childPlain-mjp left-mjp\" id=\"UL_mp3j_0\">\n<li><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<div id=\"mp3j_finfo_0\" class=\"mp3j-finfo\">\n<div class=\"mp3j-finfo-sleeve\">\n<div id=\"mp3j_finfo_gif_0\" class=\"mp3j-finfo-gif\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"mp3j_finfo_txt_0\" class=\"mp3j-finfo-txt\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"mp3j-finfo-close\" id=\"mp3j_finfo_close_0\">X<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"mp3j_dlf_0\" class=\"mp3j-dlframe\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"mp3j-nosolution\" id=\"mp3j_nosolution_0\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"Ebelow-mjp\" id=\"Ebelow-mjp_0\"><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>MP3jPLAYLISTS.MI_0 = [<br \/>\n\t{ name: &#8220;1. 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But that ignores how Trump\u2019s media-assisted prominence, the mainstreaming of his brand of brazen hatred, has encouraged and emboldened racist, sexist xenophobes around the country already. Donald Trump didn\u2019t invent hate crime, but he has put the relationship between legitimizing talk and violent action on a plate for media. So how will a press corps that still talks about \u201crace relations\u201d when they mean white supremacy deal with the particular brew now concocted?<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re joined now by reporter A.C. Thompson, co-author of the book <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mhpbooks.com\/books\/torture-taxi\/\"><i>Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA\u2019s Rendition Flights<\/i><\/a>; he works now at <b>ProPublica<\/b>, joins us now by phone from the Bay Area. Welcome back to <b>CounterSpin<\/b>, A.C. Thompson.<\/p>\n<p><b>A.C. Thompson:<\/b> Thanks for having me on.<\/p>\n<p><b>JJ:<\/b> We hear, of course, anecdotally or through social media, about individual hate crimes, people who are targeted for harassment or for violence because of their perceived ethnicity or religion or gender. I think people might be a little surprised to learn that the official data collection on the problem is really not very good, is it?<\/p>\n<p><b>ACT:<\/b> It\u2019s abysmal. What\u2019s going on is that there\u2019s federal law that\u2019s been in place since about 1990 that says, hey, FBI, you have to go out to state and local cops and ask them what\u2019s going on with hate crimes in their jurisdictions. The problem is, those local and state authorities are not compelled to compile decent statistics and give them to the FBI. So a lot of departments just don\u2019t participate; about 20 percent across the country don\u2019t participate at all.<\/p>\n<p>And then the others that do participate, I think a lot of them are lackadaisical. So in some of these states where we know there\u2019s a significant number of hate crimes, you\u2019re getting reports of two, three, five hate crimes a year, and people that follow this know that\u2019s simply not true.<\/p>\n<p><b>JJ:<\/b> We saw James Comey come out and apologize for the lack of data. He seems to do that a lot. He was apologizing that the FBI didn\u2019t have good numbers on law enforcement\u2019s killing of black people, and he\u2019s saying on this, too, yeah, we don\u2019t really have so much to go on. Is it your sense that there is a lack of motivation, perhaps, to collect these things, or is it really just that it\u2019s more work to do?<\/p>\n<p><b>JCT:<\/b> You know, there\u2019s several things going on here. One is that, at the local level, a lot of local law enforcement officials don\u2019t necessarily know what they\u2019re dealing with, even today, when they get a hate crime in their jurisdiction. So if you have a verbal assault that involves a racial epithet, that may be get written up and reported simply as a verbal assault, and not as a hate crime, in lots of different places. So that\u2019s one problem, is sort of training and the actual police work on the ground.<\/p>\n<p>The next problem is that there are no penalties for law enforcement agencies that don\u2019t submit accurate data to the FBI, and the FBI has not pushed them to submit accurate data. They have not been particularly forceful about getting decent data, on a lot of fronts, from state and local law enforcement. And so it just hasn\u2019t happened.<\/p>\n<p>There has been legislation that was introduced last congressional session saying, hey, this has got to change; federal funding is going to be tied to departments accurately reporting hate crime information. And that legislation didn\u2019t go anywhere. So it will be interesting to see if this comes up again in the next congressional session.<\/p>\n<p><b>JJ:<\/b> Of course, data by itself is not reporting. You have to talk to people or, more importantly, listen to people. What is the project that <b>ProPublica<\/b> is involved with? What are the goals of what you\u2019re trying to do around collecting this information?<\/p>\n<p><b>ACT:<\/b> What we\u2019re doing is we\u2019re building a big coalition that involves civil rights groups, ethnic media, journalism students and mainstream journalism outlets. And basically what we\u2019re trying to do is create a complementary data set to the FBI\u2019s data. What we\u2019re looking for are both things that would be defined under state laws or federal law as a hate crime, but also acts of intimidation and harassment that don\u2019t rise to that level. A lot of things that we\u2019re seeing on social media and <b>Twitter<\/b>, for example. And we are building this team to really try to understand, document and react positively to this moment, where we have a very direct linkage between political speech and crimes on the ground.<\/p>\n<p><b>JJ:<\/b> You were talking about police departments not knowing, maybe, the definition, or not categorizing things as hate crimes, and I think the same thing can go for journalists. You know, motives are always going to be murky. Somebody is always going to have a friend who says they don\u2019t have a racist bone in their body. I\u2019m not trying to minimize the difficulty of getting ahold of this issue, of talking about it. But of course we have to talk about it. I mean, we have to.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5584644\" style=\"width: 360px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/fair.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/MakeAmericaWhiteAgain.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-5584644\" src=\"http:\/\/fair.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/MakeAmericaWhiteAgain.jpg\" alt=\"Make America White Again graffiti\" width=\"350\" height=\"197\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Nazi graffiti in Wellsville, NY. (photo: <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/brianqwdr\">Brian Quinn<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><b>ACT:<\/b> Absolutely. I think what\u2019s unique about this moment in modern American history is that you have some very clear signs that what is happening, a lot of it relates very directly to the presidential election. So when you see graffiti that is a spin on the Trump campaign slogan, \u201cMake America Great Again,\u201d that says \u201cMake America White Again,\u201d and there\u2019s a big huge swastika, well, we know that this is a hate crime related to politics, to the current president-elect. When we see swastikas and the word \u201cTrump\u201d at a park in Brooklyn, we know what that\u2019s about. And a lot of the crimes that have occurred since the election, that have been documented by groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center, have quite clearly been connected to the political moment.<\/p>\n<p><b>JJ:<\/b> You just mentioned Southern Poverty Law Center. When I was speaking with Heidi Beirich from that group, she told me that journalists tell her that they don\u2019t want to report on white supremacy or on racist acts because they have a sense that exposing it is legitimizing or almost glamorizing it. That seems like an unwinning strategy. But I think it\u2019s partly because some journalists have kind of painted themselves into this corner of objectivity, where they can\u2019t say things are bad or wrong, and I think it leads to a kind of undercoverage.<\/p>\n<p>I wonder, what are you looking for from journalists on this? Obviously they use the data, but what would you like to see reporters doing? You\u2019re a reporter who doesn\u2019t just count numbers, but actually goes out and talks to people. What sort of journalism do you think would be helpful in this moment?<\/p>\n<p><b>ACT:<\/b> My belief is different than the people who say, oh, you know, we can\u2019t cover this because it\u2019s sort of legitimizing these kooks and giving them the attention they [don&#8217;t] deserve. I think we have to report on every one of these incidents that we can verify, and that we can get out there and interview people about. I think that\u2019s crucial. And I think what we need to do is do this journalism that in part is simply witnessing a very, very scary time in our lives, and giving voice to the people who feel terrified.<\/p>\n<p>There are people in my community who feel terrified. We\u2019ve had two very significant hate crimes in my community where I live. And those people, my neighbors, they need to be able to speak and say, hey, this is incredibly scary to us, it\u2019s tragic, it\u2019s very, very upsetting, and we need somebody to listen to us.<\/p>\n<p>And I think the goal of journalism in this moment is to generate some sort of reaction, whether that\u2019s a popular reaction that says, hey, we are not going to tolerate racism, ethnic hatred and the rest in our community, or whether that\u2019s an official reaction that says, hey, we are going to take every one of these crimes absolutely seriously, and we\u2019re going to put people away if they are attacking one another based on religious beliefs, or based on their race or ethnicity or gender orientation. I think the goal of journalism at this time is to provoke some sort of meaningful response from the public and from officialdom that says, this is not something that will be tolerated.<\/p>\n<p><b>JJ:<\/b> We\u2019ve been speaking with A.C. Thompson, reporter at <b>ProPublica<\/b>. Find them online at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/\"><b>ProPublica.org<\/b><\/a>. A.C. Thompson, thank you so much for joining us this week on <b>CounterSpin<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p><b>ACT:<\/b> Thanks a lot for having me on.<\/p>\n<p>This piece was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission from <a href=\"http:\/\/fair.org\/home\/we-need-to-give-voice-to-the-people-who-feel-terrified\/\">FAIR<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Janine Jackson interviewed A.C. Thompson about hate crimes and Donald Trump for the December 23, 2016, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript. A.C. Thomson: &#8221; I think the goal of journalism at this time is to provoke some sort of meaningful response from the public and from officialdom that says, this is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2521,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-289470","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289470\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}