On the one-year anniversary of the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, it seemed important to reflect on how we, as concerned citizens, can and have responded to the continued existence of hate in our communities.
Over the past year, I have continued my now four-year long research project on this issue, attending protests at white supremacist rallies in Stone Mountain and Newnan, Georgia; Columbia, South Carolina and on August 12th in Washington, DC. I’ve followed closely the news reports of similar protests in Portland, Oregon and elsewhere in the country.
The impetus for my original interest in this issue was the famous proclamation by Justice Louis Brandeis in Whitney v. California, where he stated that when met with harmful speech, “the remedy to be applied is more speech.” This mantra is common in the United States. But how do we engage in “more speech?” And when we do, does it work?
I think the presence of thousands of people in Washington, DC who recently protested Unite the Right 2, compared to the small number of white supremacists who showed up looking for a Charlottesville 2, demonstrates that we are winning — that combating hate speech is worth the fight and can be successful.
But questions remain as we bask in successes and lament continued violence. What is the reality of countering hate speech in our democratic spaces? The government has placed the entirety of the burden of combating hate on its citizens, and that burden has been a heavy one, littered with violence. In what follows, I will provide two brief scenarios to consider as we move forward from our memories of Charlottesville.
Scenario one: online spaces. Let’s say I decide to participate in what is increasingly becoming the most widely used space for free expression in our democracy— social media. I am met with a racist, white supremacist, sexist, and/or anti-LGBTQ Tweet or Facebook post. I decide to take on the responsibility my government has left solely to me as a citizen and engage in “more speech.” But what are the risks in this space? If I am a woman, a person of color, LGBTQ, or other minoritized person, the risk to myself and my family is especially acute. I risk death threats, rape threats, or doxxing. Some might argue that doxxing is no big deal because anyone who can Google can likely find my home address or family members’ names. But the ease of finding that information isn’t the issue (it should be, but that ship has long sailed). The issue is that doxxing is a call to action — an encouragement to others to act on that information. Publishing personal information on social media encourages audiences to use that information to harass, intimidate, threaten, or worse.
The reality of meeting hate speech with more speech in this particular space is one that involves the effective nullification of my ability to participate safely in my democracy. Our laws haven’t really caught up with our technology. To be clear, participating in democracy has never been completely safe, as any cursory knowledge of social movements makes clear. Yet, our government seems quick to provide us with the burden of combating hate without the spaces needed to make that fight fair.
