Above (left to right): Brian Levin, Corey A. Jackson, Candice Mays, and Luis Nolasco at How Does the Inland Empire Strike Back Against Hate?, July 16, 2024.
On July 16, 2024, California Humanities traveled to Riverside for a special partner program with Zócalo Public Square, UCR ARTS, and UC Riverside’s College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (led by Dean and California Humanities’ board member, Daryle Williams), part of our National Endowment for the Humanities-supported United We Stand initiative.
We gathered at the historic buildings of UCR ARTS in downtown Riverside for an insightful panel program examining the ongoing tension between hate and resistance in the Inland Empire, How Does the Inland Empire Strike Back Against Hate?.
The program drew from the region’s historic associations with hate and extremism—as a growing outpost for the Ku Klux Klan starting in the 1920s, and as the location of the Sherman Institute in the early 19th century, founded by the US government to assimilate and erase Native American culture—and looked at its resonance today, where the growth of a new generation of antisemitic, anti-Muslim, anti-Black, anti-Latino, anti-Asian, and anti-LGBTQ movements is on the rise.
Brian Levin, Professor Emeritus of Cal State San Bernardino’s School of Criminal Justice, led a conversation with participants from the world of policymaking and public history: Assemblymember Corey A. Jackson, Mapping Black California project director Candice Mays, and ACLU SoCal Senior Policy Advocate and Organizer Luis Nolasco.
Speaking ahead of the program to the Riverside Record, California Humanities’ President and CEO Rick Noguchi discussed the value of cross-disciplinary perspectives: “That’s what the humanities is about, bringing different perspectives to the table so you can understand the topic from different points of view.”
During an hour-long discussion and audience Q&A, the panel explored how lessons learned from the region’s history could chart a path forward for the rest of the state and nation.
In his opening, Levin acknowledged the reality of hate crimes on the rise. “My latest research shows that in major American cities in 2023, hate crimes increased at double digit levels. And, hate crimes have gone up in every presidential election year, since federal record keeping began in 1991.”
Spotlighting how the growth of hate crimes is manifesting in the Inland Empire, Assemblymember Jackson said he was unfortunately seeing the region “return to its roots.”
“We are all on the menu; it depends on what the dish of the day is. As a matter of fact it’s starting to become a buffet when it comes to hate,” he said.
As a state representative, Jackson spoke about how California is leading the way when it comes to institutionalizing anti-hate. “We saw the banning of books, ground zero was the Inland Empire…[I authored Bill 1078] and we stopped the banning of books that was signed by the Governor to push back against that.”
Institutionalizing anti-hate at the state level, in his view, is an important practice to model for cities and local institutions: “It’s time for us to start building anti-racist institutions, so we can make sure we institutionalize antiracist systems, knowledge, training, and advocacy.”
For Nolasco, an advocate and organizer with ACLU SoCal, a return to grassroots organizing can help keep local officials accountable for this ongoing work: “The real work here is keeping an eye on our county and our cities to ensure that the policies that they’re implementing are proactive…racism as a public health crisis is one of the big ones. How do we not let that go?”
Mays, whose work focuses on promoting data-driven knowledge to eliminate regional and local systemic inequities, acknowledged how not all forms of hate are overt: “In learning about the history of the Inland Empire, we’re also taught that this is place that doesn’t have a history,” Mays said. “And hearing about the stories of hate that Black residents have experienced, it’s not always violent or verbal, it’s often what someone didn’t do. The Black homecoming queen not getting her picture put in the yearbook, a little boy not being woken up on the bus and waking up in the bus yard. These are also variations of hate crimes that we’re not considering.”
In her work at Black Voices News, Mays regularly reckons with incomplete or nonexistent data to support their reporting of hate crimes in the Black community. “Who is the person that is holding those who are mandated for reporting hate crimes accountable? Far too often we’ll have requests for data from our Executive Editor or journalists that we can’t give them because the date doesn’t exist…How can the government hold law enforcement accountable so it’s not on us to deal with that?”
Promoting understanding in schools is another crucial front of the fight against hate. “We’re challenging the way that law enforcement and schools were punishing Black and brown children,’ Nolasco said. “A lot of our Black and brown children don’t have the support they need to fully perform in school.”
In the face of extreme hate, allyship has to be active, said Nolasco. “We’ve lost that sense of really putting ourselves on the line for our other communities,” he said. “This is something we all need to do for each other.”
And what about burnout? “We have to understand, that this is going to be a long slog,” Jackson said. “We have to take care of ourselves and learn how to take care of ourselves.”
Snippet:
“Newspapers rarely report on the happy things and we’re trying to actually be intentional about changing that,” Mays said. In our modern digital age, where we are increasingly isolated and processing bad news alone, we need to find connections with others: “I shouldn’t watch things that I should be watching. But I think it’s important to work in collaboration and connection with other people because then you’re restoring each other.”
To ground ourselves and prepare for the road ahead, we first need to check our own biases, and not fall into a culture of conformity in our institutional work and as every day citizens. “In our fight against hate, we cannot become the devils we are trying to fight,” Jackson said. “First, hold onto your own humanity. Speak up when other people are being targeted, because you might be on the menu tomorrow.”
Watch the program at the link below:
More to engage with:
“Look to California to Understand Jim Crow”, and essay by Lynne M. Hudson for Zócalo.
Read an in-depth reflection on the night’s events from Cal Matters, and from Sarah Rothbard, writing for Zócalo.
View more photographs from the event.