The fourth-annual Eradicate Hate Global Summit returns to Pittsburgh this week, amid a year pervaded by violence and division in the U.S. and abroad.
The conference, which formed in response to the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue mass shooting that killed 11 people in Pittsburgh, convenes experts and leaders from around the globe to discuss tactics to address hate-fueled violence — this year, falling just days before the sixth anniversary of the tragedy.
The summit also comes on the heels of the U.S. presidential election which has been marked so far by two assassination attempts on former President Donald Trump, including one just 40 miles from the city, as well as intense ongoing ideological divides. Political violence is at the forefront of this year’s summit.
“This could not be a more essential time for everyone to take a moment, take stock and learn concrete steps they can take to reduce the risk of hate-fueled violence. Be that political or otherwise,” said Brette Steele, President of the Summit and Chair of the Prevention Practitioners Network in an online video.
Mary McCord, the executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (ICAP) and a visiting law professor at Georgetown University, spoke on a panel about reducing political violence. She emphasized that political violence is more than just physical violence and can include threats, intimidation and harassment.
“It might be based on race. It might be based on ethnicity, religion, LGBTQ status. It's ideologically driven, and it makes people less comfortable engaging in core democratic processes.”
Participating in protests or rallies, petitioning your government, attending board meetings and hearings, working election polls, voting, or even running for office, were all examples provided by McCord of those democratic processes.
“All of these are things that our democracy is based on — civic participation — and threats of intimidation and harassment, as well as actual acts of violence can really dampen civic participation.”
McCord also pointed to misinformation as a driver of ideologically-motivated attacks, both on and offline. She specifically highlighted the recent spread of false narratives about migrants in Charleroi, Pennsylvania and Springfield, Ohio, thrusting largely Haitian migrant communities in both towns into the national spotlight where they became targets of hate and physical threats. McCord said such political rhetoric is feeding a broader, baseless narrative about non-citizens voting.
“All of these things will morph into other types of false narratives because that's driving this sort of ‘we can't trust the election because we had non-citizens voting’,” said McCord. “There's no basis in fact there. But that's how the seeds of the false narratives germinate and grow up into more and more and more falsehoods.”
As Election Day approaches on Nov. 5, McCord said it’s important to realize that people can be vulnerable to political violence in the form of intimidation and threats long before and after they go to the polls.
“We have early voting that's already started in many states. And so and even for those who haven't started yet, we're on the cusp of it,” said McCord, “So there's the potential for different types of political violence.”
In states like Pennsylvania, where ballot counting can take several days, false narratives about the delayed results can spread like they did in 2020, so it’s important for local municipalities to be prepared for threats, said McCoy.
Though she has concerns around the current state of national affairs, McCord said she also feels hopeful about ongoing efforts she’s seen to bridge political divides, bringing people from different sides of ideological spectrums together in-person.
“It's really hard to say something vicious and mean and nasty to someone's face,” McCord explained. “And when you start to talk about, ‘Oh you’ve got family,’ ‘Your son plays little league,’ or ‘Your father worked here or there,’ and, ‘We have that in common, too,’ — then the people start seeing the human side of each other, that their differences in political views really don't bleed over that much into their differences of how they approach their days every day, how they raise their kids,” said McCord.
The Eradicate Hate summit’s focus on political violence continues Tuesday with keynote addresses from CBS News correspondent Major Garrett as well as former congresswoman Gabby Giffords who survived an assassination attempt and mass shooting in 2011.
