 "Photo: Peyton Coker; The Daily Texan")
Mark Potok, editor of Intelligence Report magazine, addressed factors that create hate groups in the U.S. and how people can combat intolerance at a Tuesday lecture at the Flawn Academic Center atrium.
His lecture, titled “Hate in America: What Can Be Done?,” was part of the Dean Jack Otis Social Problem and Social Policy Lecture Series, presented by the School of Social Work.
“Potok probably knows more about [hate crimes] than anyone,” said Jack Otis, former dean of the School of Social Work at UT.
Potok serves in the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization based in Alabama that has documented 888 hate groups in the U.S. Potok has also testified before the U.S. Senate, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and other national and international venues.
Potok said people who are drawn into hate groups usually come from dysfunctional families and were alienated as children.“Hate group members join because they’re lonely and need a support group, an alternate family,” Potok said. “A small percentage of people join one of these groups because of an interest in its racial ideology.”
Potok used the story of Angela King to illustrate his point.
“Angela King was a white teen who moved from a private Christian school to a big public school after her parents were divorced,” he said. “She lived in a bad neighborhood with crack dealers across the street. Angie was all alone — her world caved in. Her only friends were neo-Nazi skinheads. She got into drugs and went wild.”
Potok emphasized hate crimes as an important social problem and challenged people to think about the issue and take action.
“All crime reporting is voluntary, but it’s wildly inaccurate when it comes to hate crimes,” he said.
To curb hate crimes, Potok said, there should be more after-school programs, mechanisms to encourage people to report crimes, an expansion of the federal Hate Crime Act to aid local communities and close monitoring of hate groups.
“It’s a mistake to say it’s a matter of mental illness,” Potok said. “It’s due to the real stresses on both kids and adults.”
There are exit programs aimed explicitly at preventing cases like King’s, Potok said.
“The people in hate groups are much smarter than you’d expect; their ideas have just been distorted,” Potok said.
Changes in society, such as the rise in minority power, women’s rights, gay rights and the increase of immigrants, cause hate groups to feel threatened, Potok said.
“I don’t have answers to the problem,” Potok said. “I’m just saying what social work should work on ... The poor strategy is to look away and not respond to hate crimes.”
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