Jury Dealt a Blow to White Nationalists, but the Politics of Hate Persists
Just over a week ago, a federal jury ordered the main organizers of the deadly 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., to pay more than $26 million in damages.
While the verdict was seen as a major rebuke to white nationalist groups, civil rights activists cautioned that the mainstreaming of far-right extremist ideology continues unabated.
“While some of the messengers have been eviscerated, the more mainstream versions of their hatemongering continue to have real currency, with broad exposure guaranteeing that the violence of the far-right fringes will unfortunately continue,” Brian Levin, the director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, said in the New York Times.
If you’re an educator or activist looking for resources to help combat the rise of hate groups, be sure to check out the award-winning documentary Healing from Hate: Battle for the Soul of a Nation.
You can stream Healing from Hate through your university on the Kanopy streaming platform. Click here to see if your university subscribes to Kanopy.
You can also purchase a 7-day streaming rental, get the film on DVD, or contact us to set up a public screening.
Praise for Healing From Hate
“A searing look at how bigotry, racism, and the discourse of dehumanization takes hold of individuals who are longing for some sense of meaning and community. This film should be shown to every student, adult, educator, librarian, and anyone else trying to understand how racism, bigotry, and xenophobia have moved from the margins to the center of power in the United States and what is being done to overcome the discourse of hate.”
— Dr. Henry Giroux | Author, American Nightmare: Facing the Challenge of Fascism
“The prevailing message is one of hope, hope that people can move away from lives of hatred to find empathy with those around them.”
— Andrew Brindle | Author, The Language of Hate: A Corpus Linguistic Analysis of White Supremacist Language
“Makes visible both the urgency of the threat of domestic extremists and the healing power of empathy to overcome the disease of hatred.”
— Beverly Tatum | Author, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?
“A no-holds-barred, raw masterpiece defining the causes and solutions for America’s ugliest disease: racism.”
— Daryl Davis | Author, Klan-destine Relationships: A Black Man’s Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan
“Promises to spark the type of collective soul searching our nation desperately needs in these divisive times.”
— Adam Hodges | Author, When Words Trump Politics: Resisting a Hostile Regime of Language
“If I had only one film to show my students to make sense of the Capitol riot, this would be it.”
— Sut Jhally | MEF Executive Director, Professor Emeritus at UMass-Amherst
