Hatred has no place in the race to stop the coronavirus | Opinion

The widespread fear, anxiety and uncertainly rising from the coronavirus pandemic has caused a secondary societal infection: a surge in hate and bigotry. If unchallenged, it can further escalate. We must unify to confront the coronavirus rather than resorting to hatred and blaming others.

Throughout history, when pandemics have taken hold, paranoia and scapegoating have not been far behind. When bias has gone unchecked, it has become normalized and in certain cases has rapidly intensified from individual acts of hate to systemic discrimination and bias-motivated violence. Indeed, we have seen these symptoms throughout history.

Jews were accused of causing the bubonic plague; Irish immigrants in the United States were blamed for cholera and the LGBTQ and Haitian communities were maligned and vilified by politicians and pundits, across the country — and in South Florida — for the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have spread, and reports of discrimination and violence against Asian Americans in Florida and the nation have surged.

A new ADL report indicates that extremist groups are taking advantage of the situation to spread hateful lies. For example, the report cites a Telegram message by white supremacist and former Congressional candidate Paul Nehlen stating that China was targeted by a Jewish bioweapon designed to assert control over that country.

The current wave of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories spread the falsehoods that Jews have undue global influence and that they manipulate events to expand their power. Jews purposefully spread the disease, according to these accusations, and Israel conducts bioterrorism in an effort to gain power. While these are new claims, they are in fact regurgitations of age-old canards.

Anti-Semites believe that Jews — .02 percent of the global population — are not only on a quest for total world domination, but that they already control the banks, media, industry, governments, and even the weather.Central to this conspiracy is the conviction that Jews are manipulative and conniving schemers, who work in the shadows to advance a nefarious agenda. Antisemites often position themselves as ‘truth-tellers’, whose mission is to unmask a supposed insidious Jewish plot to take over the world.

While physically separated to slow the spread of the coronavirus, we must stand united against hatred.

That means we must immediately stop using racist terms for COVID-19 and resist the inclination to demonize or target any vulnerable members of our community. Doing otherwise can have tragic consequences. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, a deluge of hateful language and harassment was hurled at Muslim-American communities. On Sept. 15, 2001, a Sikh-American man was murdered in Arizona because his attacker assumed he was Muslim. While some leaders, including President George W. Bush, spoke out in support of the Muslim-American community, many of these messages did not permeate the American psyche. Now, as then, leaders must continue to use their voices to push back against the vilification of others.

We must work to find solutions that benefit all of us and build inclusive responses. That should include teaching our children about the impact of scapegoating, to help instill empathy for all people.

We must show strength by being allies to each other and seek out opportunities to stand with those who have been victimized. All of us must speak up and interrupt hate when it happens, including on social media.

The job of flagging hate cannot be limited to individual users. There is a critical role for social-media companies and internet providers. While racist and conspiratorial themes are prevalent on social-media platforms frequented by extremists, similar messages are also spreading on more mainstream platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Reddit.

These companies and providers must seize this moment to stand forcefully against hate. It is time for them to self-monitor and vigorously enforce the very guidelines they have created for hateful and harassing content. Additionally, since many employers and schools have moved to home-based work and learning, a new phrase has entered our lexicon — “zoombombing.” This refers to incidents where individuals join a Zoom call or webinar under false pretenses and share lewd, racist and anti-Semitic imagery and content.

For the foreseeable future, we will live our lives online more than ever before. Many of us are working from home now, and our children have become distance learners. If this is our new normal — we must stand together against extremists, bigots and hateful ideologies that seek to drive us apart.

Each of us must be the antidote against hate that our society needs.

Sheri Zvi is ADL’s Florida regional director.