San Fernando Valley : Student Program Examines Racial Intolerance
The subject was “Intolerance in America,” focusing on hate groups that have begun to spread their messages via the Internet.
Afterward, Danny Rubenstein, a seventh-grader at Sierra Canyon Middle School in Chatsworth, said, “I never understood [racial intolerance] until today.”
About 150 middle and high school students and an additional 100 members of Temple Judea in Tarzana attended the temple’s 18th annual interfaith program Tuesday.
“Everybody needs to belong to something or some group,” but problems arise when one group develops hatred for others, Louis West, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA, told the audience.
West was joined on the panel by Rick Eaton, a researcher at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, and Barbara Bergen, an attorney with the Anti-Defamation League.
Eaton, who testified before Congress about hate crimes after the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, cautioned the audience to be wary of hate groups, such as militias and skinheads, that have learned to use technology as a recruiting tool.
He said his organization monitors about 300 such groups, including about 40 that have set up pages on the Internet to disseminate their views.
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