Commentary: Anti-Semitism often leads to hatred of minority and LGBTQ communities

After students fashioned a swastika out of red plastic cups, posed for pictures re-enacting Nazi salutes and broadcast them on social media, the community responded. At Newport Harbor High School, students and adults decried anti-Semitism and urged systemic change in a culture marked by entitlement and homogeny.

But this can only happen if adults in the community stop making excuses for hate speech as harmless ignorance. Widespread comments from adults have excused this behavior as not intending harm.

Not so fast. Even if kids ignored Holocaust lessons in sixth, eighth and 11^th grades, they posed and circulated pictures for attention, which suggests awareness about the swastika’s controversy. They know swastikas stand for the annihilation of Jews and the concept of a master race.

Stop excusing the normalizing of swastikas by stating that no one was physically harmed. Focusing on the lack of physical harm at this party minimizes the murders of millions of Jews, rising death threats and hate crimes across the U.S., as well as the fear felt by Jewish community members when they see a swastika. Newport Harbor High students spoke Monday of widespread harassment, including swastikas carved into desks and drawn on bathroom walls.

Do not pretend that the presence of a Jewish person excuses anti-Semitism. We have seen comments that the presence of a Jewish teen re-characterizes this event as a joke. Someone’s social identity does not — and should not — insulate them from liability for hate speech’s harm. Any attempts to normalize Hitler salutes and swastikas cause emotional suffering and dilute the history of millions of murders.

Oppression rarely has well-defined boundaries. Threats against one social group rarely stop with that group. As an organization that works for LGBTQ equality, we consider anti-Semitism a threat against LGBTQ well-being. We hope local parents will unite to learn how to raise upstanders, not teens who will follow a mob mentality. We applaud the teaching of empathy in schools.

We hope parents of the teen partygoers will require them to attend Jewish service and do community service for people of a different religious tradition.

We hope schools will educate students in accordance with the FAIR Education Act—in a manner that is meaningful, deep, and recognizes contributions from Jewish, black, Muslim, LGBTQ, native peoples and other groups that have faced historical barriers to equality.

We hope teachers and learners will receive immediate training in intersectionality of civil rights and will make that knowledge part of the standard curriculum.

Our group remains committed to ensuring every student has a safe place to learn, where they can be their authentic selves without intimidation or bullying.

Gialisa Gaffaney, Tom Peterson, Karyl Ketchum and Kathleen Treseder are members of the Orange County Equality Coalition’s School Compliance Task Force.