Editorial

We can all just get along

Posted

Intolerance seems like an uncomplicated issue: Most rational people would agree it has no place in civil society. Yet it persists, and when acts of intolerance appear in headlines and news reports, they’re usually easy to recognize as worthy of condemnation.

A 29-year-old Valley Stream man was struck by and dragged under a pickup truck in Queens in July by a Setauket man who reportedly called his victim a terrorist and told him to go back to his country. The victim, who is Sikh, apparently had been blocking the man’s truck with an open car door. The pickup driver was arrested in August and charged with a felony hate crime.

The incident was part of a trend. The New York City Police Department recorded a marked increase in bias attacks citywide this summer, according to a New York Post report, which put the total number in all five boroughs at 224. There were 192 in the same period last year. As news from Israel and the Gaza Strip began dominating headlines, crimes targeting Jews and Muslims increased, according to the report.

Fliers with information about the Ku Klux Klan appeared in several Long Island communities in August and September, including Rockville Centre and Wantagh. The discoveries prompted a statement from the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County condemning the group and its apparent outreach efforts.

These cases demonstrate the insidious, emotionally charged nature of prejudice — it doesn’t take much to bring divisive sentiments to the surface. To prevent acts of bias, we need to identify and understand the thought patterns that lead to them, especially when local and world events stir the emotions of our neighbors and ourselves.

Much of it starts with the way we talk. Gregory Maney, a professor of sociology at Hofstra University who specializes in peace movement discourse and the dynamics of ethno-nationalism, says that hate-based behavior begins with language that dehumanizes people. “You don’t have to go far to see how deeply embedded this is in our social life,” Maney says.

Page 1 / 3