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Kay Whitlock & Michael Bronski outline the hows and whys of moving beyond the hate frame. #InformYourResistance. 1/
What is the “hate frame”?
We think of a frame as a conceptual, and often rhetorical, path that shapes how people think about an issue. It always suggests a particular direction we ought to go in to address the situation. 2/
We think of a frame as a conceptual, and often rhetorical, path that shapes how people think about an issue. It always suggests a particular direction we ought to go in to address the situation. 2/
In U.S. progressive politics the hate frame has four main assumptions:
1. Hate is rooted purely in irrational, personal prejudice and fear and loathing of difference.
2. Hate is hate, and the specificities don’t matter. 3/
1. Hate is rooted purely in irrational, personal prejudice and fear and loathing of difference.
2. Hate is hate, and the specificities don’t matter. 3/
3. The politics of hate is about personal prejudice gone amok.
4. Hate is perpetrated by extremists, misfits, and loners who are violating agreed-upon standards of fairness, and that hate violence is unacceptable and abhorrent to respectable society. 4/
4. Hate is perpetrated by extremists, misfits, and loners who are violating agreed-upon standards of fairness, and that hate violence is unacceptable and abhorrent to respectable society. 4/
Why should we move beyond the hate frame?
While the hate frame may be powerful in terms of increasing awareness of and mobilizing opposition to the threatening, violent actions of individuals and small groups directed against targeted communities… 5/
While the hate frame may be powerful in terms of increasing awareness of and mobilizing opposition to the threatening, violent actions of individuals and small groups directed against targeted communities… 5/
... it also, paradoxically, obscures the relationship of such violence to its systemic underpinnings. 6/
It’s so much easier to place the blame for violence directed against entire groups on criminal misfits, loners, and crackpots than to challenge the unspoken public consensus that permits broader cultures and structures of violence to exist. 7/
How can we move beyond the hate frame?
BE SPECIFIC. The “hate group” descriptor is imprecise and too-simplistic template. It gives the false impression that the hate is “out there” and “extreme,” when the problems are embedded in mainstream U.S. civic life and culture. 8/
BE SPECIFIC. The “hate group” descriptor is imprecise and too-simplistic template. It gives the false impression that the hate is “out there” and “extreme,” when the problems are embedded in mainstream U.S. civic life and culture. 8/
BE BROAD. “Hate crimes” are perpetuated and sustained by whole systems of power and belief. How do immediate acts of violence fit into broader structures of violence and injustice? 9/
BE INTERSECTIONAL. Avoid the pitfall that happens for progressive people when we fight in disconnected, parallel, single-issue ways. 10/
BE BOLD. Embrace bold visions of justice that call us to work more effectively together across issues and address not only the immediate acts of violence but also structural conditions. 11/
Until we work towards deeper shifts in consciousness, we’re always going to be tinkering with the machinery, and finding new ways to let old systemic problems persist. 12/12
https://www.politicalresearch.org/2015/07/27/beyond-the-hate-frame-an-interview-with-kay-whitlock-michael-bronski
#InformYourResistance
https://www.politicalresearch.org/2015/07/27/beyond-the-hate-frame-an-interview-with-kay-whitlock-michael-bronski
#InformYourResistance
