Blog

This week started with MLK Day, when the internet overflows with wonderful quotes from Dr. King about justice, equality, activism, and character. These quotes provide a stark contrast to what we’ve witnessed in our nation over the last year, and especially the last two weeks.  We are nowhere near achieving MLK’s dream. While some things have improved dramatically for our nation, other problems have just changed shape, and new technology has ushered in brand new ways for us to discriminate, bully, and divide. It is a new year, and starting today, we have a new president, but neither of those things will make this nation’s underlying problems go away.  As we move into this next chapter of our nation’s history, the New Tolerance Campaign has pledged to keep a close eye on three big issues: Big Tech Censorship This problem has been simmering for years as social media and search engines try to walk the line between promoting free expression and stopping things like bullying, bigotry, and promotion of violence. No doubt it’s a tough job, but almost all of the major tech companies have systematically failed at anything resembling fair enforcement of clear policies. This has never been more apparent than this past couple of weeks when Trump and many of his supporters were banned from many platforms while other accounts that routinely promote violence and even gross human rights abuses remain untouched. We recognize that these tech companies are private entities that are not bound by the First Amendment, but they have immense power to control the public’s access to information, and it is our duty as citizens to demand that they set fair, transparent rules and abide by them. The American Response to Uyghur Oppression in China American companies like Apple, Nike, the NBA, and Disney love to tell us how much they care about social justice with flashy ads and not-so-subtle messaging. But they only hop on bandwagons that are already popular and don’t cost them anything. Meanwhile, they are completely silent on the extreme human rights abuses happening in China, even while they take advantage of its lucrative consumer market and cheap labor. American government officials have been stepping up in some ways. In the last month alone, outgoing Sec. of State Mike Pompeo boldly accused China of ‘genocide,’ and the Biden campaign returned a donation from a lobbyist with Chinese ties.  This is progress, but it’s not enough. As influencers of social norms, major American companies must act responsibly, which at the very least means acting consistently. They should stop the use of hypocritical slogans and marketing campaigns that encourage poisonous phony tolerance. Anti-Semitism  While the fight against racism makes headlines every day, there has been a baffling amount of anti-Semitism that doesn’t seem to concern mainstream media, advocacy groups, civic leaders, and many public figures. If we mean it when we say as a country that we must end racism in America, that means fighting anti-Semitism just as earnestly as other forms of racism. Yet, some racial justice fighters have been allowed to spout anti-Semitism in the course of condemning other forms of racism. This must end. We have a biased tolerance problem in this country. A phony tolerance problem. We have forgotten how to address our problems in healthy ways. Acts of violence, shouting matches, canceling, and deplatforming – digital or in-person – make our problems worse. Let’s work together to call out biased tolerance in healthy ways so that understanding, compromise, and respect can prevail. If you haven’t checked out our campaigns page in a while, please do. Sign the petitions and send the messages that matter to you, and together we can make a real difference.

The New Tolerance Campaign launched at the very end of 2019, so we’re celebrating our first full year fighting against biased tolerance. And what a year it has been! One would hope that a global pandemic and increased focus on racism in America would bring us together and help us prioritize true tolerance, but unfortunately, we’ve seen the opposite. We have our work cut out for us in 2021, but first, we want to look back at 2020 and celebrate what we’ve already accomplished together! Over 10,000 of you told members of Congress to stop congratulating the anti-Semitic CAIR, and they heard you The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has a nasty history of promoting anti-Semites, and this year’s 25th-anniversary celebration was no exception. The event’s headliner was Rep. Ilhan Omar who has repeatedly and unapologetically made anti-Semitic comments. Nevertheless, over 120 Members of Congress wrote letters of praise that were published in the event’s handout. We ran a petition for concerned Americans to express their displeasure. For every 1,000 petitions, we sent 8 select offices a Care Bear toy (Care/CAIR get it? We think we’re clever) and a note about the campaign. After receiving 10 such packages in the mail, several Congressional offices told us that they got the message! We hope to see far fewer letters of praise next year. You can still sign the petition. We’d be more than happy to send out more bears! We had three victories for free speech on college campuses While we don’t shy away from going after the big guys, smaller communities like college campuses are often the place where we can have the clearest impact. This year, we called out one campus for its politically motivated rejection of the conservative club Turning Point USA. That decision has now been reversed! We learned that another campus was rejecting nearly half of all club proposals for strange and arbitrary reasons. After NTC activists sent messages, that campus has also changed its policy and is now much more welcoming to clubs of all varieties. A third university that claimed to champion the 1st Amendment was pursuing legal action against journalists for dubious claims of trespassing when they contributed to unflattering stories about the school. NTC took action, and now those charges have now been dropped. You called out ‘woke’ companies that were turning a blind eye to Uyghur oppression in China The way the Chinese Uyghurs have been treated in China is nothing short of revolting. They’ve been corralled into literal concentration camps, forced into slave labor, and are forbidden from practicing their religious beliefs. You called out companies like Nike and Apple that use social justice campaigns at home to market their products but have not been doing nearly enough to ensure that this slave labor is not in their supply lines. Similarly, you helped us hold the NBA accountable as they put trendy social justice slogans on players’ jerseys while refusing to acknowledge the atrocities in China where much of their revenue comes from. You pledged to boycott Disney’s Mulan which was partially shot near the camps and literally thanked the government officials in charge of the region in the credits. At the start of 2020, few Americans had heard about the Uyghurs’ plight, but now it is much more common knowledge, the U.S. government has begun to intervene, and companies are facing immense pressure to ensure that no slave labor is in their supply lines. If you haven’t already, you can still join us in calling on Apple to do a better job of ensuring that there is forced labor in their supply lines. Will you join us in 2021? We have a long road ahead of us, but we’re optimistic about what we can accomplish with your help! If you want to continue to be a part of that change, would you consider a tax-deductible donation? Every dollar we receive will go directly to fighting back against biased tolerance and creating a better tomorrow for all of us!

Facebook is making a great show of educating voters and fighting back against false information and hate speech while informing and empowering voters, but once again, they’re missing the mark and arguably making the problems of polarization and misinformation worse. The latest example comes as Facebook had demonetized satire site The Babylon Bee over an article titled “Senator Hirono Demands ACB Be Weighed Against A Duck To See If She Is A Witch” because according to Facebook it “incites violence.” If you missed the reference, it’s an allusion to a particularly silly scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where villagers dress a woman up as a witch complete with a carrot tied on to her nose and then demand that she be burned, prompting the knight in charge to use bad logic to discover if she’s a witch. The satirical message of the article is that Sen. Hirono’s line of questioning during Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing was akin to an illogical witch hunt. Politically charged and controversial? Clearly. But inciting violence? Hardly. Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon shared what happened via Twitter, tweeting as part of a long thread, “In what universe does a fictional quote as part of an obvious joke constitute a genuine incitement to violence? How does context not come into play here? They’re asking us to edit the article and not speak publicly about internal content reviews. Oops, did I just tweet this?” It’s understandable that some of the words in the article may have tripped an algorithm, but according to Dillon, a manual reviewer upheld the decision. It’s also disturbing that Facebook expects people to stay silent about the way Facebook is silencing them. Facebook is way past the days when it can claim to be “just a platform.” While they are a private company and, legally speaking, they can allow or disallow whatever they want, we have a responsibility as concerned citizens to hold powerful companies like Facebook accountable when they start weaponizing policies disguised as promoting tolerance. At best, Facebook’s actions were an exceptionally dumb mistake. At worst, they are a hypocritical silencing of a particular political viewpoint. Facebook doesn’t make it easy to contact them, but maybe if we use the platform to share our displeasure with this kind of irrational censorship, they’ll get the message.

At New Tolerance, we are always happy to end a campaign quickly because the subject of one of our activism projects chooses to do the right thing. That’s what happened this week with actor and media personality Nick Cannon. After a wide variety of people spoke up and mainstream institutions asserted their influence the right way, basic decency emerged and Cannon avoided being ‘canceled’ (although that’s not to say that he didn’t face consequences). Recently, Cannon espoused a wide variety of anti-Semitic statements on his podcast, ranging from denying historical facts about Jewish identity to pushing long-debunked conspiracy theories about outsized Jewish influence. He also praised Louis Farrakhan, a noted anti-Semite who has referred to Jews as “termites” and leads the Nation of Islam, which has been labeled anti-Semitic by organizations across the political spectrum. When people noticed and became outraged by his comments, Cannon initially didn’t show a hint of remorse. He said he was willing to be convinced he was wrong, but refused to apologize or acknowledge the anti-Semitic nature of his beliefs. Within just a few days of the outrage beginning, ViacomCBS dropped him, and many people began to speculate that Fox might replace him as host for the next season of The Masked Singer. At this time, New Tolerance launched a petition calling on Cannon to proactively take steps to learn the truth about the objectively hateful and objectively false ideas he was so enthusiastically spreading. Less than a day later, Cannon changed his tune. He apologized, deleted the offensive content, and tweeted “[my words] reinforced the worst stereotypes of a proud and magnificent people and I feel ashamed of the uninformed and naïve place that these words came from.” He has since announced that he plans to take a break from his radio show to give himself more time to educate himself and is even planning a trip to Israel. Cannon expressed several times that many people from the Jewish community reached out to him, not to condemn him, but to openly and constructively give him the facts and share their perspectives. He credits these people for his change of heart. While we strongly applaud those who reached out in friendship to share the truth, Viacom was clearly part of the wake-up call, and unnamed sources claim that Fox pushed for the apology behind the scenes. In a Facebook post, Cannon angrily recounted everything he’s accomplished for Viacom over the last 20 years, and it is indeed an impressive list. Viacom’s choice may hurt their bottom line, but they made it clear that they would not be an enabler of someone who spreads hate and malicious misinformation. And they made this choice only after Cannon initially said he would not apologize. We have a ‘cancel culture’ problem today in which people seek to punish instead of correct. This culture of death-by-social media-mob increases division and animosity when genuine desires for a better world quickly sour into a thirst for revenge. NTC, nor Viacom, looked to cancel Nick Cannon as a person. Rather, the actions both undertook aimed at canceling anti-Semitism after Cannon’s initial reaction contributed to more, not less, racism. Cannon’s (eventual) constructive response demonstrates that when society responds to hate-filled situations like this one in measured and principled ways, we leave the door open for critical reform. Nick Cannon now has a unique platform to share what he’s learning and contribute to the effort to eliminate anti-Semitism. Make it count, Nick! You’ve got work to do, but we’re rooting for you.

On Wednesday, June 17, Uyghur rights activists around the world celebrated as President Trump signed the “Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020” into law after it was near-unanimously passed by both houses of Congress. According to the Uyghur Human Rights Project, it is the first law anywhere in the world to address the unconscionable human rights abuses being enacted against the Uyghurs in China. For years, the Chinese government has been abducting, isolating, and brainwashing innocent people because of their religious beliefs. In March, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute released an explosive report revealing a sickening new twist to the terrifying saga: many of these already-tortured Uyghurs are being rented as slave labor to Chinese manufacturers producing products for well-known American companies. These heinous acts against the Uyghurs have been continuing for years, and the world has only recently started to pay attention. While this legislation is a big deal for raising awareness and putting pressure on China, the law itself is not a full solution. At this stage, it imposes some sanctions and requires various government entities to monitor and report on the situation. This could lead to more direct action down the line, but for now, private companies and mainstream institutions must step up and act responsibly to help. Many of you have already joined us in calling on Apple to stop working with factories that employ the forced Uyghur labor, but if you haven’t, please do. Many of you also joined us in calling on American foundations and universities to stop investing their endowments in Chinese companies that provide the tech used to carry out these atrocities. You further helped us call out the NBA when they took a stand on American equality issues while turning a blind eye to China’s.  We will keep a close eye on the situation, but we implore every American company that does any kind of business with China to make absolutely sure that they are not participants in this oppression. Ignorance is no longer an excuse or a defense.  New Tolerance Campaign is proud to be a part of the progress being made to address the Uyghur situation in China. But, for the million-plus Uyghurs living this horrifying reality every day, progress isn’t coming fast enough. We must do everything we can to end their suffering now, and part of that means pushing those with the power to coerce the Chinese government, like Apple and the NBA, to act quickly and decisively.

The past couple of months have been hard, but there have also been bright spots as people from all walks of life have stepped up to support healthcare workers, give to those in need, or just make the simple choice to stay home. One such act of service came from the charitable organization Samaritan’s Purse, which set up and staffed an entire tent hospital in Central Park. They partnered with Mount Sinai Hospital to provide care to over 350 COVID-19 patients when the main hospital ran out of beds. In response,  federal, state, and local officials scorned the group over some of their religious beliefs, begrudgingly taking their assistance before running them out of town as soon as they felt the worst of the virus had passed.  Samaritan’s Purse is an evangelical aid organization with a record of providing help where it is needed most. Its current homepage features stories about the team helping with tornado recovery in Tennessee, caring for mothers and babies in war-torn South Sudan, and providing clean water to the Bahamas. Its most well-known program is “Operation Christmas Child,” which provides Christmas presents to millions of impoverished children in over 150 countries. So why the animosity? Samaritan’s Purse is staunchly conservative Christian, and employees must sign a statement of faith that includes defining marriage as heterosexual-only. Furthermore, the organization’s leader Franklin Graham has repeatedly and unapologetically made strongly anti-LGBTQ and anti-Muslim comments.  On May 1, NYC City Council Speaker Corey Johnson put out a statement in which he called Graham “notoriously bigoted” and “hate-spewing” and said the group’s “continued presence” in New York “is an affront to our values of inclusion” and “painful for all New Yorkers who deeply care about the LGBTQ community.” After explaining that Good Samaritan was tolerated for a brief amount of time out of the City Council’s commitment “to supporting [health care system] workers and protecting our city’s public health,” he went on to demand that “Mount Sinai must sever its relationship with Samaritan’s Purse.”  Why? Because “[its] leader calls the LGBTQ community ‘detestable’ and ‘immoral.’ Not because the pop-up hospital refused to service members of LGBTQ community (they saw patients regardless of sexual orientation), and not because the NY healthcare system returned to normal operation (it remains under unusual strain). Speaker Johnson has every right to disagree with Graham and his organization, but there is a double standard when he calls those who put themselves at risk to save the lives of strangers while asking nothing in return an “affront to the community.” Pursuing tolerance is admirable, but pursuing tolerance so far in one direction that you become intolerant in another is not. At that point, you’ve gone from tolerance to tribalism. Johnson’s inability to accept the help of Samaritan’s Purse during the COVID-19 pandemic, of all situations, on behalf of others in desperate need, puts him squarely within the later.  Thankfully, not every New Yorker took Johnson’s stance. One man who strongly disagrees with Graham on many issues still found something in common with the group: the need to help people. He became one of the pop-up hospital’s best volunteers. His story is worth a read because it illustrates a critical lesson that Johnson has missed: as we fight intolerance, we must make sure we don’t become intolerant in the process ourselves. Photo courtesy of Samaritan’s Purse

This week, we asked our Facebook followers what they had learned or observed about tolerance during the pandemic. The answers were overwhelmingly pessimistic. Commenters expressed frustration with the new battle between people who want to re-open the country as soon as possible and those who want to extend stay-at-home measures until the pandemic has been well and truly defeated. They have a point. Social media and talk shows are rife with vitriolic exchanges between people accusing each other of wanting to sacrifice grandma to Wall Street, or on the other side, of being tyrants who don’t care about people being able to feed their families.  It’s an emotional time. People are dying, and the stories out of overwhelmed hospitals in places like Italy and New York City are heartbreaking and terrifying. On the other hand, people are struggling to afford the necessities. They are watching businesses that they’ve poured themselves into shuttering. They fear a lengthy depression where people aren’t able to support their families. The harsh truth is that almost anything worth doing involves risk. Car accidents claimed 38,800 lives in the United States last year. Contagious diseases have been killing us long before coronavirus showed up. Yet, we still choose to drive and attend crowded events. As individuals, it’s only natural that we have a wide variety of opinions on how much risk we’re willing to accept. We are going to disagree, and disagree passionately. However, we have a choice on how we express our disagreement. The choice to reopen and the choice to remain closed both have heartbreaking consequences. Calling someone heartless, stupid, or tyrannical for daring to take a stand doesn’t help anyone. Framing the situation as black and white is dishonest. Issuing arrest warrants for journalists who disagree with you is definitely the wrong approach (you can join our latest campaign to send that message to Liberty University).   Let’s all agree on three things:  COVID-19 is a serious threat Every human life is valuable Every day we remain shut down increases hardship and struggle  If we keep those basic truths in mind and approach each other with empathy and compassion, we can have an honest, constructive conversation about how to move forward. We can use this tough time to bring us closer together (even as we remain six feet apart). Finally, while there is far too much negativity circulating, let’s not miss all the good that’s happening. Neighborhoods are creating Facebook groups and using other online forums to meet local needs while major national charities have stepped up to feed thousands and even set up a functional hospital in Central Park. Restaurants are providing free food to healthcare workers, and distilleries are cranking out hand sanitizer to donate. Certain corners of the internet and TV shows that use conflict to get ratings will convince you of the worst. For our nation’s future and for your personal sanity, make a point of taking the time to seek out the best.

Much airtime has been given to the fight over how we refer to the virus that is turning the entire world upside down. One faction strongly opposes any China references, claiming it increases racism against people of Chinese and other Asian descent. Another faction has doubled down on calling it the “Chinese virus”, or more creatively, the “Kung Flu”, insisting that we must not forget that China should be held accountable for its part in the outbreak. But is the truth mutually exclusive? To at least to some degree, the Chinese government hid the true nature of the outbreak from the rest of the world, and it’s true that the Chinese people have been targeted outside China. The truth about how the virus started and why it spread so quickly has yet to be fully elucidated. However, we do know that the Chinese government initially silenced whistleblowers, that they sent bad test kits to other countries, and according to U.S. intelligence, they have been continuously downplaying their own death and infection numbers. These appalling acts are not out-of-character for this government either. They have imprisoned hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of innocent Uyghurs for their religious beliefs and then sent them off to factories to be used essentially as slave labor (NTC has run several campaigns in the hopes of relieving at least some of their suffering). They have responded to peaceful Hong Kong protests with extreme violence. Their surveillance and treatment of their entire citizenry is nothing short of dystopian. This oppressive government deserves far more scrutiny than it has received. At the same time, discriminatory conduct against Chinese Americans, and Asian Americans in general, have anecdotally increased since the outbreak reached the United States, and statistics on race-related crimes, when they are available, are likely to confirm the trend. It is especially egregious when the racism is directed by, and towards, children. There has been a flood of stories of Asian children experiencing bullying and rejection from their peers. While some bullies may have just been looking for an opportunity to be cruel, others are likely acting out of true fear or misunderstanding. That is absolutely something we as a society must correct. America has a history of tragedy bringing us closer together. Despite many acting with compassion in the face of the COVID pandemic (NTC recently ran campaigns in support of several of these good Samaritan projects), others have turned this into another opportunity to vilify each other. The solution is to keep perspective on the real villains and victims. We must deal with China’s government harming its own people and the world. We must also proactively stand up for victims of discrimination and racism and make sure our children know better. Those are both big tasks, and changing the name of the virus will not accomplish either. 

Coronavirus has just been officially labeled a pandemic, and public officials are begging us to wash our hands and, when possible, to stay home. If you find yourself at home with more free time than you previously anticipated, why not make it your goal to use that time meaningfully? Here are NTC’s 5 suggestions for how you can work towards a more tolerant world and a more tolerant you without leaving your couch. 1. Find small ways to encourage friends and family Start small with your network. Our daily lives can be so busy that it’s easy to overlook what is going in in the lives of our friends, family, and coworkers. Take a moment and think about the people that would appreciate a supportive or congratulatory note in the mail. Do you have a lonely friend or relative who would love a phone call? Is there a new parent or someone with a health struggle that could use a home-cooked meal? Now is the perfect time to stop putting off the relationships that need a little TLC, even if you don’t spend time together in person. 2. Have a real conversation with someone you disagree with Be part of the solution to end division in our nation. Think of someone in your life who you respect, but generally disagree with. Set up a phone call or FaceTime date and ask them why they believe what they believe. Make your goal to listen and learn, and avoid arguing. Hopefully, they’ll ask you to share as well. You may not change each other’s minds, but you’ll both likely leave the conversation with greater empathy for those you disagree with. 3. Read a non-fiction book or watch a documentary you wouldn’t normally watch Similarly, you can seek a book or a documentary from a different perspective than yours and absorb it with an open mind. Look for something thoughtful, not angry or inflammatory. Can you find more common ground with the people who hold that view than you previously thought? Are there facts or arguments that can make you more deeply examine your own beliefs? You might be surprised by what you find. 4. Make a list of the things you admire about people you disagree with and a list of things you would change about your team As a nation, we have become experts at identifying everything wrong with the people we view as our opponents while making excuses and exceptions for our own team. Take a moment to identify a few things you genuinely admire about people on the other side and then honestly think through your own side’s weaknesses. Thinking in this way can help us disagree more productively and respectfully, and reveal where we ourselves may be part of the problem. 5. Take action with us You can’t attend a rally or volunteer in a soup kitchen from home, but you can send an email or a tweet urging American institutions to fight intolerance. Check out NTC’s campaigns to see if something you’re passionate about is on the list or find some motivation – or maybe check out something that you’ve never delved into before. Whatever you decide to do, we hope you stay safe and find a way to make the most of an uncertain time. If you do try one of our suggestions, we would love to hear about it. Let us know on Facebook or Twitter!

NTC’s last campaign brought out some pretty angry responses. The campaign, if you missed it, focused on a Republican MT state rep who claimed that the Constitution calls for socialists to be shot. His own party had already called on him to resign, and we thought it was a no brainer to join the call. Isn’t the whole point of American Constitutional freedom that the government can’t punish you for what you believe? Here are just a few of the many responses that we got to our email announcing the campaign: “Go get f***ed you left wing b*tches!” “His concept is great! Gitmo would be more humane for the Socialists and Communist Leftists in America.” “When you can be a true American and support the president in the American people then I listen. But you know what Nazis that’s what you are. That’s all you are.” The troubling thing is that these people were on our email list because that had participated in a past campaign calling for some other entity to stop enabling intolerance. In fact, most of them had participated specifically with a campaign asking Congress to retract support for CAIR because of their history of alliances with anti-Semites like Linda Sarsour, a Bernie Sanders surrogate, and Ilhan Omar, a Democratic representative from Minnesota. To be clear, NTC is non-partisan and non-political although our campaigns do occasionally involve politicians. We take action on a wide variety of issues because tolerance touches a wide variety of issues, and true tolerance means calling out intolerance no matter who perpetrates it. That’s why we’ve targeted both Democrats and Republicans. While these email responses were a new level of vitriol and labeling, the basic pattern is nothing new. Since we launched in October, NTC’s social media channels have been full of commenters speculating about our politics and coming to wildly different conclusions based on the most recent post. As a society, we seem to have lost the ability to engage with other people or organizations as unique entities instead of members of “my team” or “the other team.” This tribalism that has gripped our nation has given everyone blind spots. Far too often, we will strongly condemn bigotry against some groups, then shrug off bigotry against others, or worse, quietly speculate about whether the victim deserved it…. or openly speculate that they should be shot! This needs to stop. When our society has so strongly sorted itself into us vs. them, it’s not surprising that people make assumptions about NTC. But ultimately, that’s why we exist. Bridging the divide starts with consistent standards. Bigotry is bigotry, no matter which “team” the victim or the aggressor is on. That’s why we’re asking you to join us. Our goal is to bring together people with a wide variety of viewpoints who can respectfully point out inconsistencies in others while welcoming constructive criticism themselves. So who’s side are we on? We’re on the side of anyone working in good faith to make our nation more tolerant. Are you in?