California now has a multilingual statewide hotline and website that encourages people to report all acts of “hate.”
While we already have a criminal justice system for hate crimes, this new program, CA vs Hate, wants to know about all hate “incidents.” What are those, you ask? The CA vs Hate website describes them this way:
A hate incident is a hostile expression or action that may be motivated by bias against another person’s actual or perceived identity.
Perpetrators may be motivated by different discriminatory biases, including, but not limited to; bias based on race, color, disability, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender, including gender identity.
Interestingly, the California Senate Public Safety Committee analysis stated the following:
1) Make sure that “hate incidents” are included alongside hate crimes wherever relevant
2) Define hate incidents with language provided by the Anti-Defamation League:
A hate incident is an action or behavior motivated by hate but legally protected by the First Amendment right to freedom of expression.
Including: name-calling, insults, distributing hate material in public places, and displaying hate material on your own property.
Just a reminder that hate speech or a hate incident is very different from a hate crime:
In the United States, hate speech is protected by the First Amendment. Courts extend this protection on the grounds that the First Amendment requires the government to strictly protect robust debate on matters of public concern even when such debate devolves into distasteful, offensive, or hateful speech that causes others to feel grief, anger, or fear.
…the FBI has defined a hate crime as a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity,” including skin color and national origin.
So what exactly does the CA vs Hate program do if the US already has a system to deal with hate crimes? Here’s the breakdown of the process:
Callers will be connected with a professional trained in culturally competent communication and trauma-informed practices.
Whether you report online or by phone, you will be contacted by a care coordinator who will follow up with you to ensure you are able to access resources and support, including legal, financial, mental health, and mediation services.
California vs Hate is not run by the police. Your report will not be shared with law enforcement without your consent. We will only connect you with law enforcement if you request it. Our team can share information about how to report to police or local prosecutors if needed.
California vs Hate will also identify civil legal options that don’t involve the criminal legal system, both through the Civil Rights Department and other agencies.
The law creating the hotline includes identity protections for incident victims, such as:
a) Advise callers and website visitors that their personally identifiable information will not be shared with local, state, or federal law enforcement, including immigration enforcement, without their express written permission; and,
b) Provide statistical data regarding hate crimes and related incidents reported to them to the Department of Justice (DOJ), in the form and at intervals prescribed by DOJ. This data shall not include any personally identifiable data regarding victims or reporting parties.
But there were no such protections that I could find for those accused of perpetrating a “hate incident,” nor could I find any sort of mechanism for dealing with false accusations. How will the data collected be used? The CA vs Hate website only says the following:
CA vs. Hate will use the information captured through the portal and network to improve services for people targeted for hate. The Civil Rights Department will also issue regular reports, sharing data about hate incidents and crimes across the state that will not identify individuals targeted for hate or people who report acts of hate. This data will help the Civil Rights Department, other government, and community leaders improve efforts to prevent and respond to hate.
One can only imagine how this data will find its way into the US’ burgeoning social credit system.
Here are some of the questions that CA vs Hate asks individuals reporting a hate incident to answer:
Governor Gavin Newsom says the reason behind the hotline is the rise in reported hate crimes – up 33 percent from 2020 to 2021. A deeper look at the data, however, shows that Newsom is guilty of cherry picking. From Public:
But convictions of hate crimes have been flat. In 2012 there were 107 hate crime convictions in California. In 2021, there were 109, according to the same data. It’s possible that hate crimes really did rise by 80%, and juries decided not to give prosecutors convictions. …But it’s also possible that convictions stayed the same because there was no increase in prosecutable hate crimes. And it may be that Californian prosecutors simply labeled more crimes as “hate” crimes because they were primed to do so by the media’s 700% – 1,000% increased focus on racism between 2011 and 2020.
Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency Secretary Lourdes Castro Ramírez said the following at the launch of the program on May 4:
With the launch of the CA vs Hate Resource Line and Network, we unequivocally state that there is no home or place for hate in California. We are doubling down on our commitment to combat hate by embracing the strength of our diversity and empowering Californians with resources and support to prevent and end hate in all forms.
While I certainly don’t condone hate, it’s hard to see exactly how setting up a hotline to report all types of aggression is supposed to cleanse everyone’s hearts. The program does, however, continue doling out boatloads of cash to the nonprofit industrial complex, which is of course incentivized to amplify the threat of hate.
The CA vs Hate hotline is part of a broader $166.5 million investment in state anti-hate initiatives that was passed in 2021. Since then, California has been sending that funding to nonprofits across the state “to provide support to victims and survivors of hate incidents.” In addition to fielding incident reports in the newly-established hotline, it includes the following:
Program Service Providers shall provide supports and services which may include, but not be limited to: community engagement and education; community conflict resolution; in- language outreach; services to escort community members in public; community healing; collaboration; cross-racial building; community diversity training; and local or regional rapid response to hate incidents.
The 2021 federal COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act is also beginning to dole out money to respond to hate incidents. and could be coming to a city and/or state near you. From Vox:
In a bipartisan move and as a response to a surge in anti-Asian violence, the House passed the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act to bolster hate crime tracking by providing grants to regional law enforcement agencies to create reporting hotlines and train police officers on hate crime response, among other efforts.
Many celebrated the law but as Vox’s Li Zhou reported, it won’t prevent anti-Asian hate crimes since it mostly addresses what takes place after the crime has already occurred.
Yes, fortunately we don’t quite have precogs yet.
It looks like the federal grants are helping to bring a hate incident hotline to Illinois soon, and a recent federal grant to the California Civil Rights Department will also help the state expand its efforts to eradicate hate:
This grant will support the development of sustainable infrastructure for engagement between [the California Civil Rights Department] and community-based organizations (CBOs) that have earned the trust of communities targeted for hate. This grant will help ensure that victims of hate are directed to local support services and, if they request, law enforcement. Projected activities include the creation of a new CBO Specialist position. The CBO Specialist will: (1) institutionalize regular input from CBOs to improve the services provided by CA vs. Hate and to hold CRD accountable to the needs of people targeted for hate; (2) improve service to CBOs that are serving individuals targeted for hate so those CBOs can help serve as a bridge between victims and CA vs. Hate; (3) collect hate incident and crime data directly from the CBOs; (4) develop a regional network of CBOs, and facilitate regular meetings to improve services; and (5) enhance collaboration and communication between CBOs to strengthen cross-community solidarity.
The California Civil Rights department also proposes to sub-grant more than 30 percent of the grant funds to California Black Media, “a culturally specific organization that will further advance these goals consistent with the federal, state, and local data… and will create opportunities that increase awareness and involvement in decisions and policy discussions that produce economic, social, and political impacts on underserved people.”
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So when should we expect hate to be eradicated from the Golden State? Hard to tell.
One could make the argument that this new program will only help exacerbate the issue in the following ways:
- The nonprofits are incentivized to oversell the preponderance of hate.
- The reports on the quantity of hate incidents will no doubt be given ample media attention, which will help drive the narrative that hate is everywhere.
- The “civil legal options” could lead to a strong backlash that will only stoke resentment and anger.
One big benefit of the program for the political class, however, is it keeps the identity politics train rolling along. It’s reminiscent of Hillary Clinton’s slogan “love trumps hate” for her failed 2016 campaign – one that wrote off a chunk of the electorate because their hearts were supposedly filled with hate. That allowed Clinton to justify not offering any economic policies that would benefit such “deplorables.”
Well now California Governor Gavin Newsom is going to do what not even Jesus himself could; he’s going to eradicate hate from the hearts of men. It might be a quixotic project, but it will also be a useful distraction from dealing with more concrete issues an elected official can actually control, such as the following in California:
This might shock politicians like Newsom, but falling living standards and plummeting life expectancy typically put people in a foul mood. Sometimes that anger is misdirected. Sometimes it’s exploited as people search for explanations for their despair. We have seen this time after time.
If the governor started fixing some of California’s economic inequality issues, he might find a little less hate in his state.
