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What is Hate Speech?
Hate speech takes various forms, from words inciting violence, to those creating a climate of hate towards vulnerable groups. Hate speech has one common outcome: it creates an environment of hate and prejudice that legitimizes violence against its targets.

The presence of hate speech so widely in media creates a climate that makes it impossible to have reasonable policy discussions on issues like immigration reform, and cultivates a climate that condones violence against targeted groups.

Categories of hate speech:

• False Facts consist of incorrect, exaggerated, or de-contextualized facts.
• Flawed Argumentation is rooted in hidden assumptions, guilt by association, and appeal to fear.
• Divisive Language creates and/or encourages an “us vs. them” mentality. Hard times often incite blaming “others” as the source of trouble. Catholics, Jews, and African Americans have been routinely targets as scapegoats for those wishing to further their own agendas.
• Dehumanizing Metaphors evoke messages relating to warfare, heroism, disease, and biblical characters.

Where can we hear hate speech?
Hate speech is present in every form of media, specifically broadcast media. Between 1990 and 2006, the number of talk radio stations grew from 400 to 1,400. Radio reaches 90% of Americans every week. Michael Savage is the host of the nationally-syndicated radio program The Savage Nation, which reaches 190 million listeners per week. On a recent show Savage said, “Could the [swine flu] be a terrorist attack through Mexico? Could our dear friends in the radical Islamic countries have concocted this virus and planted it in Mexico?” Mexicans are “perfect mules for bringing this virus into America.” (Listen to more here) Similarly, on March 27, 2006, Rush Limbaugh called Mexican immigrants, regardless of legal status, “a renegade, potential crime element that is unwilling to work.” The Rush Limbaugh Show is broadcast on over 600 stations nationwide.

What is the harm of hate speech?
Hate speech influences peoples’ behavior and perceptions. Hate speech in the media has the same impact as effective advertising. The millions spent by advertisers illustrates that the media affect personal attitudes toward products and services. It is unlikely that the media have no similar effect on racial and ethnic perceptions.

Because the media has a powerful influence over people’s behavior and perceptions, hate speech may be producing concrete harms. The concrete harm of hate speech is that it incites violence. For example, in June 2006 four teenagers posed as federal agents and asked two Mexican men for their green cards. The teenagers then beat and robbed the two men, while accusing them of stealing jobs from U.S. citizens.

What is being done? What can we do?
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration released a report in 1993 on The Role of Telecommunications in Hate Crimes. Members of the So We Might See Coalition are encouraging them to update this report.

The National Hispanic Media Coalition has filed a Petition for Inquiry in the Matter of Hate Speech in the Media at the Federal Communications Commission. Members of the So We Might See Coalition support this petition.

Sign the So We Might See Letter to the NTIA and FCC »

What about the First Amendment, doesn’t it protect hateful speech?
The First Amendment does protect even the most vile speech. The government, however, can play a role in compiling statistics and adopting rules that will help members of the public form their own opinions and hold broadcasters and other media outlets accountable for purveying this speech. And, as explained in the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights recent report on hate crimes, “when speech contains a direct, credible threat against an identifiable individual, organization, or institution, it crosses the line to criminal conduct. Hate speech containing criminal threats is not protected by the First Amendment.”

More Resources on Hate Speech and Hate Crimes

Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
Report on hate crimes
http://www.civilrights.org/publications/hatecrimes/

National Conference of La Raza
Take the Hate out of the Immigration Debate
http://www.wecanstopthehate.org/

MALDEF Truth in Immigration
http://www.maldef.org/truthinimmigration/

Activity: Watch Transfers
A thought-provoking and controversial movie about domestic violence produced by the YWCA for the week without violence, resources include a discussion guide.
http://ywcaweekwithoutviolence.org/home.htm

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
Statement about FCC Letter