Forgotten Fires - Understanding Hate

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Web of Hate

	Understanding Hate
		How Hate Stalks The Vulnerable
		Wanda Mitchum Interview
		Why Burn Churches?
		The Making of A Skinhead
		Web of Hate
	Responding To Hate
		Heroes Against Hate
		Resources for Responding
		Fighting Hate
		National Response

Despite the gains made in civil rights legislation, places of worship continue to burn and violent hate crimes are on the rise. The internet is a powerful, often affordable method for disseminating information, both good and bad. As individuals and groups become more familiar with technology, they use the internet as a tool for recruitment and advancement of their causes. While free speech is our legal right, the unfortunate rise of hate speak and hate-related sites on the net has been enormous.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center's (SPLC) Intelligence Report, the number of hate groups on the internet ballooned from 163 in 1997, to 254 in 1998. The SPLC study focused on what it considered to be explicit examples of hate speech on sites based in the United States. By a wider definition, the Simon Wiesenthal Center's CyberWatch found 1,526 sites "problematic," meaning they were either hate sites or sites that linked to hate sites, and international in scope.

No matter how hate sites are defined, the numbers are growing rapidly.

"More than fifty years after the horror of the Holocaust and strides made in Civil Rights, we are confronted on our computer screens by age-old anti-Semitism and racism repackaged to entice and incite some to act out their animosity," said Abraham H. Foxman, Anti-Defamation League (ADL) national director. "We have seen cyberhate's tactile twin in the form of arson attacks on houses of worship, swastikas on homes, and discrimination in the offices of corporate America..."

Organizations such as the ADL, SPLC, the Wiesenthal Center and Hate Watch monitor this type of activity. To "monitor and combat the changing face of hate," the Wiesenthal Center has created Digital Hate 2000, a CD ROM interactive report identifying more than 1,400 hate sites. The ADL's Hate Filter is a software tool designed for parents to protect their children by blocking access to sites that advocate hatred and bigotry.