HIA Poland Fellowship 2015

No Hate Speech

by Ashley Blackwell and Aleksandra Zagłoba

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me"
"Haters gonna hate"
"The pen is mightier than the sword..."

These are all variations on the role language plays in shaping an individual. In the case of hate speech, it is difficult to simply accept the idea that hateful words, pictures, or expressions directed to certain individuals or groups should easily be dismissed. In fact, hate speech has been proven to be internalized by people, and in many cases, translated into hate crimes.

But first - what exactly is hate speech? The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers’ Recommendation 97(20) on “hate speech” defined it as follows:
“The term “hate speech” shall be understood as covering all forms of expression which spread, incite, promote or justify racial hatred, xenophobia, anti-Semitism or other forms of hatred based on intolerance, including: intolerance expressed by aggressive nationalism and ethnocentrism, discrimination and hostility against minorities, migrants and people of immigrant origin.”
Even the most well-intentioned human rights activists have prejudices and biases that shape the work they do on a daily basis. So how do we combat these prejudices? During our workshops and Fellows’ Discussion we came up with some ideas how to combat these prejudices that can lead to hate speech:

1.    Know yourself. Understanding your social identity is key to learning where your position is in society, your privilege, and your grounds to discuss certain issues. Especially when considering developing campaigns, advocating for and alongside populations, it is important to understand the lens through which you perceive an issue you seek to address.

2.    Understand “the other”. One can be well-versed in history, research, and statistics that capture an issue or the experience of a population. However, there is a gap between knowledge and experience that limits one’s ability to understand “the other” or the populations one chooses to work with. Building one’s understanding of “the other” is key through learning from the population’s first-hand experiences. By not understanding one’s self or the population one seeks to help, one runs the risk of replicating the same violent structures that one seeks to address.

3.    Be an agent of change. Changing people’s language around certain groups and behaviors while in person or online is important. One has the power to transform the dialogue around certain groups with each conversation. There are also numerous campaigns to address hate speech on a broader level. For example, the No Hate Speech Movement works to instill a sense of online governance in youth to combat hate speech.  

As one considers one’s role as an agent of change across all spheres of life- home, work, school, church, etc.- it is important to have a critical consciousness regarding the methods one uses to address social issues, the biases/assumptions one holds, and one’s relationship with the community one exists within. As illustrated through previous examples of campaigns, social media is a tool used to address hate speech. In Poland specifically, research from the Centre for Research on Prejudice shows that the majority of teens encounter hate speech through the Internet. The issue of hate speech online is so prevalent that the Council of Europe has recognized the need for education on online governance and has dedicated a webpage detailing how to combat hate speech online. There is even a Liberal Agenda Against Online Hate Speech.

Throughout the week, Humanity in Action Fellows have learned about hate speech directed at specific groups- migrants, refugees, Roma, women, etc. However, many of these discussions have left a lot to be considered. To what extent can one truly internalize, reflect upon and comprehend the experience of these marginalized populations within the Polish context? Within this fellowship, we have various groups campaigning against hate speech directed at different minority populations in Poland. However, hardly any of us reflect the marginalized populations we are campaigning for. Given the advice to “know yourself”, it is becoming increasingly clear that it is not enough to simply know, but also transfer this knowledge into action and change our social interactions and choices we make on a daily basis.

Another question is whether enough information was provided to develop an effective campaign in little over a week? Not having lived the experiences of minorities in this context, or even minorities to speak to about their experiences, places fellows in a precarious ethical situation, which is only exacerbated by the lack of research related to these populations. Without lived experiences to rely upon, there is the concern that research and statistics fail to give a holistic view of the circumstances of minority groups. Given that “understanding the other” is another key aspect of counteracting hate speech, it is important to try to connect with organizations and people who can provide more insights about the populations we strive to raise awareness about. Nonetheless, the fact that we are all developing different competing campaigns to combat hate speech for multiple minority groups at the same time also may undermine the effectiveness of our efforts even if they were experts on the topics. However, it is also a situation that parallels the reality of countless organizations simultaneously running campaigns regarding different minority populations and inadvertently competing for attention.

One of the speakers encouraged fellows to be willing to stray from political correctness to have a more powerful impact and broader audience within our social campaigns. On the one hand, such methods have been proven to have more views, shares, and ultimately garner more attention to particular online social movements. In fact, creating campaigns that polarize and create debate about topics is presented as being better than sharing a campaign that makes a politically correct message but garners little attention.  But one must wonder: at what cost are these campaigns going viral? To what extent are values and ethics compromised in order to attract attention? Should one be willing to compromise one’s values and ethics at all in order to raise awareness about an issue, even if the means may reinforce stigmas/stereotypes?

Hundreds of campaigns have been made around hate speech, racism, sexism, homophobia, discrimination, etc. Despite thousands, and at times millions, of views and shares of these campaigns, there continues to be a seemingly stagnant, if not increasing, amount of hate speech towards various minority groups in Poland and broader Europe. As we endeavor to “be agents of change” by developing social campaigns, it is critical to question whether social media is the most effective tool to address hate speech and transform people’s biases and assumptions. Especially considering the need to condense content to a catchy slogan or racy campaign title, one has to recognize the limit of one’s reach and ability to translate such nuanced and complex social issues.

Above all of these questions, the one question that resounds in my mind is whether it causes more harm than good to fail to act at all in the face of hate speech? Of course, we are unable to change everyone’s perspectives, but as each campaign reaches an increasing number of people who internalize our message, we can only hope that incremental change begins to take place.  It is a herculean task to reverse the messages broadcasted daily for decades through national and international media regarding minorities. Carrying out this task to combat hate speech through our daily social interactions, advocacy work, and producing social campaigns is one that is undoubtedly worth fighting for.