We Must Oppose Hate Speech — Bigotry & Racism — “Normalized” by Trump Extremists
The vulgarity expressed through hate speech – you know, the stuff Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Nick Fuente, Kanye West and too many others traffic in – has come to stain the South Riding community here in Loudoun County.
We shouldn’t be surprised given the efforts of right-wing conservatives to normalize such behavior.
Yet, we should respond with outrage and commit ourselves to teaching our children, and some adults, why American democracy, and those things we hold sacred – such as the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and all of the freedoms that flow from those documents – demand that we treat hate speech as an obscenity, never permitted to flow freely in society.
“We are sickened by the hateful vandalism perpetrated by bigots that has darkened the streets and walls of our community,” said Avram Fechter, Acting Chair of the Loudoun Democrats. “The Loudoun County Democratic Committee thanks our elected officials who have already condemned these acts of intimidation and we hope that the criminals responsible are rapidly brought to justice.”
The South Riding incident involved racist, antisemitic, and homophobic vandalism found at a local shopping center Sunday morning. The FBI is joining in the investigation, which the Sheriff’s Office called “hateful, racist rhetoric,” adding: “There is no place in society for this behavior.”
Indeed. The most obvious reason for rooting out this evil is that allowing cancerous hate speech to go unchallenged and untreated causes it to metastasize leading to the kind of tragedies we have seen at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, a Buffalo Grocery store, a Charleston, S.C. church, a synagogue in Pittsburgh, the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Of course, we must be aware that these incidents arose from a society suffering dual epidemics of hating “the other” and easy access to guns.
The Loudoun County Democrats will continue to target these epidemics, seeking to elect officials who champion common-sense gun laws and programs that teach how we are all stronger and safer when we are inclusive, diverse and equitable.
