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Jason Hibbs: Hate is all over the place, at least it seems like it these days.

Today on backstory, we're speaking with two people who are dedicated to fighting hate on a brown from the Division of Diversity, Belonging and Multicultural Affairs at Bowling Green State University.

She's the co-chair of Not in Our Town Bowling Green, created to champion diversity, inspire people to work together to stop hate and build safer, more inclusive environments.

And James Pash, the regional director for the Anti-Defamation League, a leading anti-hate organization.

Thanks so much to both of you for being here.

James Pasch: Thank you, Jason, for having us Ana Brown: Thank you, Jason.

Jason Hibbs: So the FBI's definition of a hate crime is an offense motivated, at least in part by a bias against a victim's race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender or gender identity.

But that definition varies greatly from where you are from state to state.

Ohio, for example, no mention of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Same thing in Michigan.

We're going to talk about those discrepancies in a moment, but James, the FBI's definition covers a lot of categories.

I know your organization.

The Anti-Defamation League was founded back in 1913 to fight antisemitism.

Now, since then, some things have changed.

Some things have stayed the same.

If you take a nationwide look at hate and hate crimes, what what type of hate and hate crimes are we dealing with most now nationwide?

James Pasch: I appreciate the question, Jason.

And ADL, though, we have had the same mission that we've had since 1913, which is first to stop defamation of the Jewish people, but also to secure justice and fair treatment for all the true two prong mission.

And the second part of that mission is equally as important as the first.

As we either rise together or we sing together, we fight hate together and no matter who we are.

There is no form of hate that is acceptable.

And when we talk about different categories of hate, Jason in Ohio are are hate crimes.

Are we in Ohio?

Call the ethnic intimidation statute, but it should also be renamed.

It does.

As you said, it doesn't cover sexual orientation or gender identity or expression.

It also doesn't cover disability.

So we have a variety of of individuals who are uncovered.

And at the end of the day, the reality here and I know I would agree with me that that says no matter who you are or who you love or who you pray to.

There is no form of discrimination or hate that should be tolerated by our communities or our society, and extra protection should be added to protect everybody.

And what we've seen across the nation is kind of an across the board rise in federal hate crimes.

So religious discrimination has increased, racial discrimination has increased.

LGBTQ discrimination has increased.

And with over 7000 reported hate crimes this past year, the FBI released, it was one of the highest marks we've had in over a decade.

And so we really need to figure out how to turn the tide both as a local community, as a state and as a nation.

Jason Hibbs: Ana, you're there on the ground in bowling green with not in our town.

What are you seeing there?

What are you dealing with there?

Ana Brown: I think we have a lot of discontent from various groups and organizations and individuals.

We're seeing a lot of our students reporting racial slurs being hurled at them from cars.

And it seems like it's more prevalent than it's been in years past.

We have a lot of protests that go on on campus from various various corners and various factions.

And it it's more of the same.

It hasn't changed, but I think what has changed is the intensity.

Jason Hibbs: What is it that causes someone first to hate and then to act out on that?

I mean, is it the way that kids are being raised?

Is the media to blame?

Is it online radicalization?

What happens before the hate crime is committed?

James Pasch: He is.

No one is born with it.

It is a learned behavior and it could be unlearned.

And and anyone who has had children knows no one is born with hate.

And so the quicker we teach our children, the better off we are.

Which is why us in our office or across our region and in Ohio, we've doubled down on education So we have our No Place for Hate program in our K through twelve schools and we are trying to spread that like wildfire across the state so that we we spread love and acceptance and tolerance at the earliest age possible.

Because as you pointed out, Jason, you know, it never starts with the hate crime.

That's the end result.

And when we talk about what we could do to legislate and better protect and create stronger hate crimes statutes, it's important to note that we can't legislate away hate crimes and hate, right?

You know, that's a that's a what happens after it has occurred.

A situation where we also need to concentrate with equal amounts of force and will is how we get it to stop at the base level.

Ana Brown: And if I may chime in on this topic to one of the things that we talk about a lot is that children see difference.

And I think that we do a disservice when we talk about oh, children don't see color, they don't see wheelchairs and like, No, no, no, they very much see difference.

The difference is, is that they don't attribute value to those differences.

Those values are implanted in them by adults.

And it starts at a very young age, as James has already alluded to.

So I think that when we say we don't want to talk about these things, we don't want to see these things, we have to acknowledge that these differences exist.

We have to acknowledge and talk about the differences, but without attributing value to them.

And the value judgments is where the heat starts is.

If this person is better, this person is worse.

If we just say no, it's just different and different.

Isn't that different?

It's just different.

Jason Hibbs: So I think I'm hearing both of you say parents need to talk to their children about this stuff.

And on a report finds that the hate crime laws across the country are inconsistent methods of addressing and reporting hate crimes are complicated or incomplete, confusing.

If you take a look at Ohio, the seventh most populated stat in the U.S., more than 11 million people in Ohio.

The number of hate crimes reported last year.

34, they're blaming a technical error.

That's bound to frustrate you, too.

How big of a problem is stuff like that.

Ana Brown: Well, I mean, I think that any time that we under report on this report crime, any time that we underreported or misreported any sort of legal issue, it's a problem because we can't fix what we don't know about and we can't address what isn't there.

So I think that we really have to have a multi-pronged approac to trying to fix these issues, both on the legal front, both on the reporting from and on the on the front end to to try and get ahead of the.

James Pasch: The the underreporting of hate crimes is, you know, is two fold.

So yes, we do have cities and agencies that are not reporting numbers for a variety of reasons.

You have cities that don't want to report hate crimes because they're tourist destinations and they don't want to.

For it to cut into their early companies are those are not good reasons to not report crimes.

But in addition to that, we also have underreporting that happens by by victims of hate crimes because they are in communities that they don't feel particularly safe going to the authorities.

So sometimes the most vulnerable in our society who are victims of hate crimes have a fear of reporting them.

So I think there's not one standard reason for the underreporting.

And, you know, and in both instances, we need to be able to, as a community, come together and do better so that we can accurately track where hate crimes are taking place, who who are the victims of hate crimes and what should we do as a community to solve it?

So, you know, the numbers are important, and I think all across the boar we could do, we could do better.

And that's part of the reason at our office of ADL, we have instituted hate crimes trainings for local law enforcement.

Jason Hibbs: What percentage of hate crimes are actually prosecuted as a hate crime?

There's actually not an accurate statistic about that, and that's because we can look at the federal statistics that the federal government only prosecutes a fraction of the hate crimes that are prosecuted across the nation, which is why you have to bring it back to why it's so important that local communities and states and throw statutes because otherwise , you know, the federal government is only prosecuting hate crimes when it involves interstate activity.

And so we really do need to take a step back and track more at the state level.

And if the local community level.

OK, well, we are talking about fighting hate here on back story today.

We've got to take a quick break.

We have some online resources for those of you at home, so grab your cell phone.

Open up the camera app.

Jason Hibbs: Get ready to take a photo of the screen.

We've got some great resources for you and we'll be back after this quick break.

Welcome back to back story, we are talking about fighting hate, let's jump back in on a we mentioned earlier that you're changing laws.

That's not the only answer to this, but would changing gun laws make a big difference?

And we are studying gun violence now more in the US than we were, you know, in the past.

But changing gun laws, would that help?

Ana Brown: I hesitate to say one way or another without one.

Whether or not that would do any good because there are a lot of responsible gun owners out ther who are doing everything right and we don't want to impinge upon their rights.

But at the same time, there are things that I think they can be put in place that would maybe curtail illegal access to guns.

I think that, you know, background checks are not necessarily a bad thing Closing loopholes are not a bad thing that will still not impinge upon our rights to own firearms but at the same time, they prevent some of the illegal use I think that there are a multiple ways to approach because gun violence isn't the only violence that happens in hate crimes.

In fact, I would wager that in rural places like northwest Ohio, where outside of Toledo, that it's actually less an issue with guns, but it is with other avenues of hate.

Jason Hibbs: James, before the break, it was mentioned that the intensity of hate seems to be increasing, hate crimes in the US rose to their highest levels more than a decade.

Highest levels in more than a decade last year That's according to the FBI.

Why is that happening?

James Pasch: And there is not one specific reason why it's happening, right?

There is multiple factors going on at the same time.

But one of the things that you touched on earlier in this show was the spread of of online extremism, which is certainly on the rise, right people becoming radicalized in their online worlds.

It's no longer just, you know, people in small subgroups that they meet, either through family or friends.

You have people who live thousands of miles apart from one another who radicalize one another online.

And you know, that leads to significantly more violence as people are more readily able to form those quote communities of hate And so, you know, that's one of the big reasons why we formed our center of technology and society and our center on Extremism so that we can track and monitor and work closely with law enforcement whenever needed to stop extremist acts from occurring, hopefully before they happen.

Jason Hibbs: And on an anti bias group says Ohio and Kentucky are among the top ten states for white supremacist propaganda.

Why do you think that's the case?

Ana Brown: I think there's a lot of fear.

I think that there's a lot of.

Not knowing where where we're headed as a country, as we look at demographic shift there, there's no doubt that the country is getting browner and I think to certain subsets of the population, that's a scary sign because when you're not in the majority as our history has shown us, when you're a minority in the United States, you can be subjected to different treatment, differential treatment.

And so I think that there is an underlying fear about that.

I would caution, though, that doesn't equate to shifts in power.

And just because the demographics are shifting doesn't mean that the power structure is changing But people don't recognize that.

And I think that that is an underlying underlying concern for a lot of folks.

I think that there's a lot of misinformation being spread through our social media and our media, and that we have to be really careful that people have a better understanding and the fact that we all tend to live in our silos.

So we tend to live close to or near people who are like us.

It's harder to get accurate information about those who are different from us if we're not interacting with them on a regular basis.

So the combination of all these things are coming together, I think, to to increase that anxiety around change.

Jason Hibbs: James, I hesitate to even mention this group by name and give them publicity.

But about two thirds of the total propaganda incidents were traced back to one white supremacist group, Patriot Front.

Who are these people and what are they trying to do?

James Pasch: The picture of freedom is largely responsible for the firing that's been happening across Ohio and Kentucky, and the pension front is a white supremacist group, you know, whose members maintain that their ancestors corporate America solely for them, and they spread their hateful propaganda on the internet.

They distribute banners and fliers and posters and stickers on park benches, other universities.

And one of the reasons they do this is it's their way of spreading their hate and their propaganda with anonymity.

It's cowardice.

Anonymity.

It's their way of getting their message out without people knowing who they are.

But they are simply a white supremacist organization, and there is no place for that ideology in Ohio or anywhere in this nation.

Jason Hibbs: What advice do you give to someone who may feel that they have a friend or family member starting to fall down, travel down that path?

Ana Brown: I think the biggest thing that is we mentioned before is is talking to one another, trying to figure out where these these feelings are coming from.

You know, I have I grew up in rural northwest Ohio, so I am accustomed to getting questions to getting looks sometimes and not being afraid to address those because a lot of people come from places of ignorance.

They don't come from places of harm.

But if we're not careful and we don't address the ignorance, that ignorance can mutate into harm.

And so I think that having conversations with our friends and family saying, I don't know where you found that information, but the information that I got is this.

And here's the source that I got it from making sure that our sources are reputable, making sure that our sources can be verified when we're having these conversations.

But I think the conversation and the confrontation is really important because if you just leave something alone, as we already know, it doesn't go away, it doesn't stop.

So we have to try to do somethin Jason Hibbs: And James, we mentioned white supremacy.

What's the difference between white supremacy, alt right, and neo-Nazi?

Because we're hearing these terms, it seems like more and more for.

James Pasch: So, you know, white supremacy is a term that is used to categorize various belief systems such as, you know, they believe that white people should have dominance over people of other backgrounds.

They believe that white people should live by themselves in white only societies.

And and that and that white people have their own culture that is quote superior to other cultures is their belief.

And when we hear the term, all right, Jason Boatwright is just kind of a minor repackaging of white supremacy by extremists that they're just seeking to mainstream their ideology by using less harsh rhetoric, right?

More accepting rhetoric to the mainstream.

But All all, all right adherents identify with a range of ideologies, but all of it is centered on quote white identity, and many writers are blatantly anti-Semitic and blame Jews for allegedly promoting anti-white policies such as immigration and diversity.

And there's large strains of anti-Semitism and racism that run through the alt right movement because the alt right movement is nothing but a modern adaptation of white supremacy.

Jason Hibbs: And the neo-Nazis.

James Pasch: So if neo-Nazis are a type of white supremacists, so and here adoptees are one of the main segments of the white supremacists with the United States and many other nations, they revere Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany.

And they try to sometimes adopt Nazi principles to their own geographic location as their own time.

And many neo-Nazis Adobe the same the mythology, and that's the symbols and the trappings of of Nazi Germany.

Jason Hibbs: OK, I have two final questions for both of you On a we can go to you first in a perfect world.

What could the federal government do to reduce hate crimes?

And then in a perfect world, what can we do individually to help reduce hate crimes?

Ana Brown: Well, I think I'll start with the individually and locally first, I mean, a groups like not in our town.

Our founding was because there were a string of incidents unrelated to one another that were racially biased or racially motivated.

And the community and the university got together and said, No, we need to do something about this.

We need to address these things.

So groups like not in our town are critically important because they're grassroots organizations.

They're everyday folks getting together to have conversations to to get to do things like a peace march, an interfaith breakfast where we have a bunch of different faiths, blocks from everything from the the Buddhist community, the Hindu community, the Jewish community, the Islam Muslim community, as well as different Christian faiths coming togethe to talk about how we can address our communit to make it safe for everyone.

So I think that that is a critical movement that we need to address.

And then when we look at federal interventions, we have to look very broadly at what has been done in the past.

And I think that we have to be again cautious with federal interventions because they're not always effective.

And so while I think that there is a lot of good that can be done when we're looking at statutes like protecting people from different backgrounds, they are marginalized minorities in our society historically.

I think that we need to look at federal protections, but also I don't I don't know that federal protections are the answer.

I think that looking more at state and local, it's going to be more of an effective way to address some of these issues James Pasch: I couldn't agree more with on, you know, the federal hate crime law is effective, but it's up to us and our local communities and our state legislators as leaders across the board, from universities and to our elected officials.

Everyone has to do their part to speak out against hate, to say something, to be an ally and to be there for one another We give each other up community by community, state by state, and that's how it's going to happen.

Jason.

Jason Hibbs: Thanks to both of you for coming on back story and thanks for the work that you are doing in our communities to fight hate.

That's all the time we have for this edition of backstory.

I'm Jason Hibbs and we'll see you next time.

Announcer: BackStory is made possible in part by KeyBank.

With additional support from the League of Women Voters and by viewers like you.

Thank you.