Re: [SDCPJ] MEDIA RELEASE - Summit in East County to Focus on Activities of Hate Groups and hate-motivated behavior

Dear Friends-

    Once in a while a group gets its courage up and takes its meeting out into a part of the community that it is really concerned about.  The United For A Hate Free San Diego is doing just that this coming Thursday evening.  The audience at the Ronald Reagen Community center may prove to be a raucous one, peopled largely by those who are in denial about the Hate Crime problem that, based on data from the FBI and the CA Attorney General’s Office, really exists in their environs. I am attaching a recent article in the East County Magazine which underscores the importance of this meeting.   If you at all can see your way clear to be with us there that evening to register your protest of the series of hate crimes that have been perpetrated in that area, recently,, please rsvp and join us there on Oct. 1^st.  Thanks.

Yours for a more positive future, John

John P. Falchi, Coordinator

Plan of Action in a Changing Era

San Diego, CA 92107

619-222-6036

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Please forward this.

 

NEWS

For Immediate Release: September 28, 2009

Contact: Joe Kocurek (619) 818-5834

 

Summit in East County to Focus on Activities of Hate Groups

and hate-motivated behavior

 

 

SAN DIEGO - James McElroy from Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) will headline United for a Hate Free San Diego’s second annual Hate Crimes Summit with a presentation on the recent increase in hate crimes and the disturbing rise of hate groups over the past decade.

 

United for a Hate Free San Diego (UFHFSD), a coalition of faith and community leaders will hold its Hate Crimes Summit on Thursday, October 1, from 6:00-8:00 p.m. at the Ronald Reagan Community Center, 195 E. Douglas Ave, in El Cajon.

 

Other panelists will include representatives the Sheriff's and District Attorney's offices. 

The Southern Poverty Law Center has reported in 2008 that since 2000 hate groups have grown from 602 to 926 nationwide, an increase of fifty-percent in eight years. California leads the nation with 84 hate groups with the largest concentration in Southern California.

 

Recent months have also seen an increase in hate crimes and hate-motivated behaviors committed by people under the age of 21 in San Diego.  Incidents have ranged from racial slurs painted on the vehicle of an African-American family to a shooting by an alleged white supremacist that resulted in the loss of a Latino student’s eye.

 

Assembly Member Lori Saldaña (D-San Diego), the founder of UFHFSD, said she was disturbed by this trend of younger people participating in these acts of racially-motivated violence and vandalism.

 

“In some cases, it seems, we haven’t done a good job of inoculating young people against the influences of prejudice,” Saldaña said. “These influences can take the form of the latent bigotry heard on talk radio and television, the casual racism and homophobia heard in conversations with family and friends or the outright hatred encountered in the music and on websites produced by groups like neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan.

 

“Our job as parents, teachers, elected officials and faith leaders is to make it clear that this behavior is never acceptable, legal or sanctioned,” Saldaña said.

 

The summit is free. Advanced registration is required. For more information or to RSVP, contact Crystal at the Center for Social Advocacy, 619-444-5700 ex. 310 or email UnitedForAHateFreeSanDiego@gmail.com. For additional information, visit http://hatefreesandiego.org

 

 

Joe Kocurek

Press Secretary

Office of Assembly Member Lori Saldaña

Speaker pro Tempore

(619) 645-3090 (Office)

(619) 818-5834 (Cell)