Our Town: Acts of intolerance Our Town: Acts of intolerance (October 27, 2004)

by Don Kazak

Elizabeth and Jaime Wong went through an ordeal to win approval last year to rebuild and expand their Palo Alto home.

And when it was over, it wasn't over.

The Wongs received a favorable City Council vote in October 2003. Two months later, they received a letter with racial overtones telling them it wouldn't be wise to move ahead with their construction plans.

The letter was anonymous, of course.

The police treated the letter as a hate crime, since it was threatening.

Jeffrey Blum, a member of the Palo Alto Human Relations Commission, took note of the threat and began formulating "acts-of-intolerance protocols" that the commission adopted by unanimous vote Oct. 14.

Blum does not know if any other city has such a policy statement. He said his inspiration came from groups such as the Anti-Defamation League of B'anai B'rith (which combats anti-Semitism) and the Southern Poverty Law Center (which monitors hate groups and has battled the Ku Klux Klan in court).

"That's where I got the idea," Blum said. "My hope it that this might make people a little more aware that words can hurt when they say something inappropriate."

"An act of intolerance may pose a threat to the community," the protocols state. "It may hurt individuals and groups in a way that implicates a person or persons' social identity and background, making any and all members of a group a target of the offense. The act can escalate the injury from a random one against individuals to a sweeping one against an entire group. An entire community may be disrupted by such events."

The protocols aren't law. Hate crimes are already against the law, by definition -- but they set a moral imperative for people to not hurt each other on the basis of "sex, race, color, disability, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic and/or housing condition, national origin, and/or ethnic origin."

The protocols also give the commission the charge of putting together a "crisis team" when acts of tolerance do occur, and suggests preventive measures can be taken by having education, religious and community leaders condemn all forms of bigotry.

"It's a big goal and small step towards it," Commissioner Adam Atito said.

The mere act of taking a stand to say acts of intolerance are wrong was important for the commission to do, Commissioner Eve Agiewich said. "So much of what we do is symbolic modeling," she said. The protocols provide the a model of right behavior -- to not be passive in the face of bigotry.

The pain felt from hurtful, hate-based actions can be as real as from a physical injury.

The protocols may be a symbolic bandwagon, but it needs as many people as possible to get on board and to defend those who have been targets of hate.

They also give the commission an idea what to do when bigotry expresses itself. Think of the protocols as a bright light that will shine community awareness on such acts and shame those who commit them -- assuming the haters are capable of feeling shame. It can be argued that the most important thing in life is how we treat each other. It defines who we are.

And such acts happen, even in Palo Alto. Remember the swastikas carved onto the picnic tables at the Greenmeadow Community Center in July? As a supporter of the Southern Poverty Law Center, I know from the center's "Intelligence Project" how active hate groups are across the nation. Such groups need to know hate-based behavior won't be tolerated in this community.

The protocols give the commission the responsibility of determining if a hate group is involved and whether it is appropriate to recommend a course of action to the City Council.

The council will be sent the protocols as an information item.

LaDoris Cordell, the council liaison to the commission, applauds what the commission is doing. In her role as a vice provost at Stanford, she helped draft the university's own acts-of-intolerance protocols.

"I think it is appropriate to not be silent," Cordell said.

Blum said it is his hope "to make the commission a little more ready when the next hate crime occurs -- and it will occur."

Senior Staff Writer Don Kazak can be e-mailed at dkazak@paweekly.com.

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