Hate's hard lesson

"Last week," writes a Jewish News reader, "some thoughtful person decided to drop off copies of "The Aryan Alternative" on every driveway in my nice quiet neighborhood in northwest Tempe. After inspecting the paper, I felt compelled to keep their racist, anti-Jew, anti-minority articles out of the hands of anyone stupid or gullible enough to believe their lies. ... I rounded up the copies and took them to the police station and filed a complaint."

So far so good, says Bill Straus, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League. But he would advise anyone who finds him or herself in the same situation to call the ADL, too.

And Straus doesn't condone the reader's next move, which was to take a photograph of "The Aryan Alternative" alongside a sign reading "Mission Not Accomplished, Tempe, AZ" and e-mail it to the publisher of the hate paper.

"I don't know that I would recommend that anybody send an e-mail to the publisher," Straus says. "There's no need for an individual to single themselves out on the radar of one of these groups."

That's what the ADL is for, Straus explains, adding, "These groups are not rational."

The reader's decision not to take the delivery of the nasty propaganda lying down, however, is laudable.

A handout from the ADL on how to respond to hate literature advises that we "report hate-related incidents to the police," as our reader did, because "hate speech ... is often the first step before a crime occurs." The handout further advises that we not repeat stereotypes or unexamined half truths about others, that we speak out against jokes or slurs that target people or groups, that we get to know our neighbors, especially people different from ourselves, and that we find out more about organizations that combat prejudice.

There's one more piece of advice that we should take to heart when dealing with this kind of incident. According to Holocaust scholar Nechama Tec, who grew up in Poland during World War II, people hate for one simple reason: to make themselves feel more important. The correct way to respond to that hate, she advises, is by not hating back. "Hate," Tec says, "does not create happiness in the one who hates."

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