Researchers Shift Tactics To Tackle Extremism as Public Health Threat

Rebecca Kasen has seen and heard things in latest years in and around Michigan s capital city that she never would have expected It s a very weird time in our lives reported Kasen executive director of the Women s Center of Greater Lansing Last November a group of people were captured on surveillance video early one morning mocking a Black Lives Matter sign in the front window of the center with one of them vandalizing its free pantry That same fall Women s Center staff announced being harassed A couple of blocks down East Michigan Avenue Strange Matter Coffee which supports progressive causes in the locality has been confronted by First Amendment auditors outside its storefront Selected toted guns or cameras sometimes chanting slogans supporting President Donald Trump generally unnerving customers and staff Kasen commented In several cases extremist sessions and conduct throughout the U S over the past limited years have been driven by the deepening chasm of political partisanship and disinformation-driven rebellion against responses to the Covid- pandemic More in the last few days backlash against immigration and diversity equity and inclusion initiatives has heightened tensions Related Is there more political violence Here s what the limited research shows Last year the Southern Poverty Law Center documented hate and extremist groups nationwide sowing unrest through a wide range of tactics sometimes violent Over the last several years the group writes the political right has increasingly shifted toward an authoritarian patriarchal Christian supremacy dedicated to eroding the value of inclusive democracy and society institutions Researchers at American University s Polarization Extremism Research Innovation Lab or PERIL say that in online spaces hate is intersectional For example Pasha Dashtgard PERIL s director of research explains platforms dedicated to male supremacy are often also decidedly antisemitic Seemingly innocuous discussions erupt into vitriol The release of A Minecraft Movie prompted tirades against an alleged trend toward casting Black women and nonbinary people The continued escalations drove staffers at PERIL and the Southern Poverty Law Center to approach the challenge from a different angle Treat extremism as a populace medical concern Society Advisory Source and Tuition Centers are now operating in Lansing Michigan and Athens Georgia offering training advocacy referrals and materials to communities affected by hate discrimination and supremacist ideologies and to people susceptible to radicalization with a focus on young people The gang defines extremism as the belief that one s group is in direct and bitter conflict with another of a different identity ideology race gender identity or expression fomenting an us-versus-them mentality mired in the conviction that resolution can come only through separation domination or extermination Researchers who evaluation extremism say that as the federal cabinet terminates grants for violence prevention state governments and local communities are recognizing they re on their own CARE receives no federal funding Aaron Flanagan the Southern Poverty Law Center s deputy director of prevention and partnerships reported his organization and PERIL came together about five years ago to examine a shared research question What would it take to create a nationally scalable model to prevent youth radicalization one that s rooted in communities and provides solutions residents trust They looked to a decades-old German counterextremism model called mobile advisory centers The objective is to equip all levels of civil society with the skills and knowledge to recognize extremism and to engage in conversations about addressing it Dashtgard noted We re not about How do you respond to a group of Patriot Front people marching through your town Pete Kurtz-Glovas who until June served as PERIL s deputy director of regional partnerships explained during a training in January Rather How do you respond when your son or a member of your congregation expresses particular of these extremist ideas Michigan has long been considered fertile ground for extremism Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols convicted of the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City in were associated with a militia group in the state Various of the men charged in in the plot to kidnap Democratic Gov Gretchen Whitmer had ties to a militia group calling itself the Wolverine Watchmen The state s capital city and adjacent East Lansing where Michigan State University is are relatively progressive but have seen conflict Will Verchereau has a vivid recollection from the early days of the pandemic a pickup truck speeding down the street in their Lansing neighborhood a Confederate flag flying from it music blasting later joining a rolling protest that clogged streets around the Capitol to protest Whitmer s Covid lockdown directives Incrementally the locality has responded to these expressions of extremism After the confrontations at Strange Matter Coffee Verchereau a board member of the Salus Center which advocates for and supports the LGBTQ neighborhood disclosed people banded together to talk about how to be safe in those moments how to de-escalate when and where realizable The CARE initiative reinforces such efforts The centers offer tool kits catered to specific audiences Among them are a parent and caregiver guide to online radicalization a society guide to youth radicalization and Not Just a Joke Understanding Preventing Gender- Sexuality-Based Bigotry Flanagan announced the organization views this constituents strength model as separate from but complementary to law enforcement interventions The goal is to have law enforcement as minimally engaged as practicable to detect nascent warning signs and address them before police get involved The information help identify conditions that can make people more susceptible to manipulation by extremists such as unaddressed behavioral fitness issues and vulnerabilities including having experienced trauma or the loss of a loved one Lansing resident Erin Buitendorp witnessed protesters particular of them armed flood the state Capitol building during the pandemic over lockdown and masking orders She s a proponent of the population wellbeing approach It s providing people with agency and a strategy to move forward she announced It s a way to channel capacity and feel like you can literally create change with public Lansing and Athens were chosen for a number of reasons including their proximity to universities that could serve as partners and to rural communities In the small town of Howell miles southeast of Lansing protesters waived Nazi flags outside a production of the play The Diary of Anne Frank at an American Legion post In nearby DeWitt the local school district proposed a mini lesson on pronouns for a first grade class that involved reading the picture book They She He Me Free to Be Threats against school staff followed and representatives canceled the lesson Since then the CARE unit has helped provide endorsement to teachers there in holding conversations on contentious topics in classrooms and in dealing with skeptical parents It s really essential that rural communities not be left behind Flanagan noted They persistently are in America and then they re often simultaneously demonized for several of the greater part extreme or extremist political problems and challenges The CARE group hopes to expand its initiative nationwide Similar populace robustness initiatives have been launched elsewhere including Boston Children s Hospital s Trauma and Society Resilience Center and the DEEP activity run by New York City s Citizens Crime Commission And in June a new tool the Reach Out Reserve Hub went live offering guidance to help prevent violent extremism Robin Westman attacked children in a Catholic church Was it a religious hate crime Pete Simi a professor of sociology at Chapman University and a leading expert on extremism sees a daunting task ahead with extremism s having become more mainstream over the past years It s just devastating he noted It s really startling Simi stated that while there was previously talk of shifts in the Overton window the range of ideas considered politically acceptable to mainstream society I would say now it has been entirely shattered Violent extremists now feel unshackled supported by a new administration that has their back We are in a more dangerous time now than any other in my lifetime Simi declared The Rev Pippin Whitaker ministers the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Athens in Georgia which last year received a package of ammunition in the mail with no note included She embraces framing extremism and people s lack of awareness of it as a masses wellbeing issue If you have a germ out there Whitaker stated and people aren t aware that if you wash your hands you can protect yourself and that it s an actual matter you won t enact basic protective behavior KFF Vitality News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about robustness issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF an independent source of wellbeing framework research polling and journalism Learn more about KFF The post Researchers Shift Tactics To Tackle Extremism as General Soundness Threat appeared first on MinnPost