Conservatives Derail Congress' White Nationalism Hearing, Declare 'All Hate Speech' Matters
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Conservatives Derail Congress' White Nationalism Hearing, Declare 'All Hate Speech' Matters
Andy Campbell, HuffPost Tue, Apr 9 4:09 PM EDT At a white nationalist hearing on Capitol Hill, GOP witnesses dispute threat
A congressional hearing on hate crimes and the rise of white nationalism was derailed by conservatives questioning whether white supremacy exists today at all, with some urging the committee to focus instead on “all hate speech.”
The House Judiciary Committee had the perfect opportunity acknowledge the problem and attempt to address it at the source while questioning a panel of expert witnesses on extremism and hate in the country, as well as executives from Facebook and Google, whose platforms are under fire for amplifying that extremism.
Instead, the floor was repeatedly given to conservative witness Candace Owens, a Trump-supporting Infowars and Fox News contributor who recently said Hitler would have been fine if he had simply remained a nationalist in Germany. The focus of the meeting quickly shifted from the rising death toll in the name of white supremacy to Owens’ main talking point: that discussing white nationalism at all is a Democratic ploy to win elections.
“The hearing today isn’t about white nationalism, it’s a preview of a Democrat 2020 election strategy, same as the 2016 election strategy,” she said. “If they were really concerned about white nationalism, they’d hold hearings on Antifa.”
Such a willfully ignorant statement disregards the white nationalist violence that others on the panel had been trying to bring attention to all morning: the recent shooting at two mosques in New Zealand that claimed 50 lives; the 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh; the deadly Unite the Right rallies in Charlottesville in 2017; the Emmanuel A.M.E. Church shooting committed by a white supremacist in 2015 and more.
But Owens’ talking point gave Republicans on the committee an avenue of deflection ― a way of implying that Democrats, social media platforms and anyone else decrying white supremacy or demanding accountability are instead unfairly targeting conservative voices. One after another, Republicans bit on Owens’ prompt, and one after the other, they proved they didn’t come to talk about the rise in white nationalism at all.
Instead, they victimized themselves. Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-Texas) asked a Facebook representative why the platform is so hard on “my friends, Diamond and Silk,” referring to the pro-Trump social media stars. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) complained Democrats showed “animus” by listing Owens as a “conservative activist” in the witness list, and said white supremacist hate crimes aren’t worth focusing on.
“It isn’t that there isn’t hate speech, it’s that we need to condemn all hate speech,” he said, to which Owens responded, “I agree.”
Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) joked that Owens “triggers the left” and suggested she shoot guns with him in Colorado sometime. A few chairs away sat Dr. Mohammad Abu-Salha, whose daughters and son-in-law were shot to death in a 2015 hate crime.
These exchanges turned into an argument over whether white supremacy exists and whether Owens plays a part in its proliferation, despite being a black woman. When Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) was given the floor, he used his phone to play back Owens’ quote about Hitler becoming too global, which she said in February in front of members of conservative advocacy group Turning Point USA, of which she is the communications director.
As Google and Facebook executives provided statements in the hearing, the comment section of a YouTube livestream of the meeting was disabled because of racist comments that promoted neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideology almost exclusively.
Facebook in particular has come under scrutiny in countries worldwide after the New Zealand shooting was livestreamed on the platform. As countries across the world sought to enact new rules that penalized platforms for allowing such material to live on their sites, Facebook unveiled a new rule banning white nationalism and separatism ― a policy that was immediately debunked when a Facebook spokesperson told HuffPost a week later that prominent white nationalist Faith Goldy’s content was not at all white nationalist.
Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) mentioned HuffPost’s story and asked what Facebook is doing to proactively ban white nationalist leaders. Neil Potts, the public policy director for Facebook, noted Goldy had eventually been banned, and that the platform was working to ban other white nationalists when it sees them.
In reality, Facebook has a hard time enforcing its own rules, even when extremist content is obvious.
Last week, federal authorities charged a 22-year-old white supremacist who managed an extremist Facebook group. He and his cousin, the feds said, spoke admiringly of the Christchurch shooter and appeared to be plotting a similar attack. An FBI affidavit said that Facebook turned over information on the account on a “voluntary emergency disclosure” basis. The Facebook account and white supremacist group ― along with several other extremist Facebook groups with similar names ― were still live when federal authorities unveiled the charges.
At the end of the day, the discrepancies in the platforms’ action plans against white nationalist violence weren’t pushed or adequately questioned by Congress. It was unclear whether some considered white supremacy an issue worth addressing at all.
HuffPost reporters Ryan Reilly and Jen Bendery contributed to this report.
- This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
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Conservatives Derail Congress' White Nationalism Hearing, Declare 'All Hate Speech' Matters
Well in truth it does, malarkey to one side they may want to point this out to the head of their party.
Not long ago (barely a month), when the House was galvanized to condemn hateful speech by a specific member of their body (Ilhan Omar), Democrats pivoted to ignoring those specific comments in favor of declaring that all "hate speech" matters.
That was fine and dandy when Democrats did it, but when Republicans suggest something similar, it's outrageous.
If that were true, the Resolution could have been one sentence long.
In fact, the Resolution you speak of wasn't about 'hate speech'. It cites discrimination and bigotry.
You missed the point. The House action was initiated in reaction to the comments of Rep. Omar, but by the time they actually produced something, it didn't even mention her or her comment.
Actually, it was you how missed the point. You claimed:
I stated the fact that the Resolution was NOT about "hate speech", which makes your claim false.
I don't know what you're talking about, but I'm talking about House Resolution 183, passed on March 7, 2019 . It begins as follows:
So, it is expressly is about hate speech.
And the impetus to craft that resolution was the anti-semitic comments of House member Ilhan Omar.
Incredibly, neither she nor her comments were criticized in the resolution. Also, incredibly, anti- Christian intolerance was not condemned. So none of this supposed outrage is about genuinely investigating hateful expressions or hate crimes. It's only about securing a certain political base and pandering to it.
You're citing an non-existent limitation.
I don't limit my definition of 'expressions' to words and neither does the Resolution. It cites the Charlottesville Unite the Right march, the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church murders in Charleston and the Tree of Life Synagogue murders in Pittsburgh.
Yet no matter how butt hurt y'all are about it, it WASN'T crafted to expressly reprimand the Congresswoman. It didn't start out that way and the final changes were small and inclusive of religious and minority groups that are discriminated against, in word and DEED, based purely on animus.
So what? (that's rhetorical, don't bother trying to justify your obfuscation - not that I think you could)
You are making wild claims with no support; you split hairs and move around goalposts in such a way that honest conversation is impossible. Meanwhile, you dismiss my claims that are actually offered with support. What a waste.
How is my comment obfuscation Tacos!?
What would you like me to support? The fact that the Resolution cites what I said or the fact that the term 'expression' means more than speech?
The only goalpost I set are facts. If facts limit your ability to have an honest conversation, that's on you.
Arguing a point is the opposite of dismissing it.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
What, exactly, was your expectation here?
Of course. That's what these things are for...giving elected officials the opportunity to pander to their base on television.