This week for part 2 of Volunteer Safety, #TuesdayTips of ten steps for handling hateful speech and actions (bias incidents or crimes), keeping your agency and team safe, and links to more resources for handling targeted hate and healing communities. These tips are for those organizations who may not be used to handling hate on the frontlines of civil rights, social justice, or other causes that are historically targeted by bigoted groups. If you work with a cause that focuses on dismantling or regularly handling hate speech/actions, please share your best tips in the comments as experts.
The profit motive of hate speech online, targeted stochastic attacks, and the increase of gun violence (especially in the USA) cannot be ignored and has an impact on your work and team morale and motivation. A bias incident can escalate to harmful hateful action within the team or from outside the community.
I share recent example of countering hate and threats targeting a hospital that came up in a recent webinar for the Beryl Institute on JEDI; Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.
Here are ten steps from the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit group in the USA that tracks hate-motivated activity and teaches community engagement to heal from hateful events.
1. Take Action; the problem won’t go away without addressing it, so proactively create an action plan for responding to targeted bigotry and increasing safety measures for the org and team.
2. Join Forces; learn from orgs that are already good at anti-hate work.
3. Support the Victims; understand, listen, and believe people who are reporting harassment or bias or threats.
4. Speak up; an action from joining forces and especially if someone who is targeted does not feel safe within the org reporting structure, seek out supportive agencies and allies.
5. Educate yourself; understand your own bias and any systemic issues within the org.
6. Create Alternatives; if “normal” org operations are too difficult or dangerous, change the roles or routine until wider organizational or community safety measure are in place and practice.
7. Pressure Leaders; is the problem coming from inside the org? How are other team members or faith leaders or local politicians helping or causing *more harm*?
8. Stay Engaged; weave JEDI/IDEA/DEI work into the org strategic plans and be personally engaged and informed on these topics – it’s always a work in progress and there are tons of resources!
9. Teach Acceptance; create positive action to shift hateful attitudes in the long term with community coalitions.
10. Dig Deeper; Commit to disrupting hate and intolerance at home, at school, in the workplace, and in faith communities. Acceptance, fundamentally, is a personal decision. It comes from an attitude that is learnable and embraceable: a belief that every voice matters, that all people are valuable, that no one is “less than.”
We all grow up with prejudices. Acknowledging them — and working through them — can be a scary and difficult process. It’s also one of the most important steps toward breaking down the walls of silence that allow intolerance to grow. Luckily, we all possess the power to overcome our ignorance and fear, and to influence our children, peers, and communities.
More information:
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