I've been teasing this for months, and it's finally here!
As of this morning, our #OHREP website Hatepedia.ca is finally live. We've been working hard for months (and will keep working hard) to build it into an important resource in the fight against hate in Canada.
On Hatepedia, you'll find a few tools we've created to help people make sense of online hate. Most importantly, you'll find a list of symbols used to promote hate on-(and off)line in Canada.
All symbols were found in actual hateful memes, posted on major social media platforms.
This list includes ones you know about, like the Nazi swastika. It also includes ones you might not have known about, like the Black Sun.
It also includes symbols you weren't aware are hateful, because they've been co-opted by hate movements, like Pit Viper sunglasses.
Currently, our list includes a bit over 50 symbols. We've got over 300 in the pipeline - we're writing entries as we go, and we'll be updating the list gradually as time allows.
If you have symbols to recommend, please send them to neuverger@ujafed.org.
The purpose of our symbol list is to help educators, researchers and lawmakers with a tool to identify even discrete displays of hate online, so that no hate goes unnoticed.
Hatepedia.ca will also be the home of Canada's Hate Meme Database, a password-locked database of hate memes posted by Canadian accounts.
This is primarily for researchers (academic or otherwise) hoping to explore our data set and do their own research.
Hatepedia.ca will also host educational resources, intended to help teachers identify and counter displays of hate in classrooms and in schools.
This is a project I'm incredibly proud of, but it's far from being over. There's lots of work ahead, but for now, please explore our resource and let us (@DBPanneton, @SpinelessL and myself) know if you see any website issues, or if you have content recommendations.
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The ability to disregard all shades of nuance is a privilege that plays directly into the hands of warmongers.
I’ve seen too many people cheer on violence, murder and rape, all the while having to text friends of mine to see if they & their families are safe.
I woke up this morning to the news that 250+ were potentially killed at a festival for peace near the Gazan border. I’ve seen people I usually agree with celebrate this or labelling it as ‘decolonization’.
All North American settlers, of course.
Would these same settlers post their sassy little takes if it was their friends being shot to death at Osheaga?
I assume not.
Nuance sure makes a comeback when the dead are your loved ones, or your loved ones’ loved ones.
I'm playing a bit of catch-up here, but prominent Québec white nationalist Alexandre Cormier-Denis recently made a 2nd appearance on Radio X, one of the biggest radio stations in the province of Québec.
Obviously bad! But this one quote from the show illustrates just how bad.🧵
For context: Alexandre Cormier-Denis is the host of Nomos-TV, a French-language podcast with a not-insignificant following in Québec and in France. antihate.ca/quebec_nomos_t…
On his show, Cormier-Denis promotes the same racist, antisemitic, and anti-2SLGBTQA+ talking points you would expect from someone in that space. But he also jokes around, wears clean suits, and speaks with a slightly pretentious vernacular.
You've definitely seen it, but you might not have picked up on it: anti-fatness is everywhere in far-right politics. Unfortunately, there's been very little focus on why that is.
🧵Let's talk about it and start a conversation.🧵
One of my goals with #OHREP has been to look at communities targeted by hate which are too often ignored by researchers in our field. The targeting of fat people very much falls within that focus. It's puzzling, because anti-fatness is actually... very prominent in these spaces.
To give you an idea, our team has collected and analyzed over 2900 memes. Of these, a bit over 30 - or about 1% - directly targeted fat people. Most often, that's done through dehumanizing depictions.
Fat people are depicted as less than human, and their bullying as justified.
Some good news this morning - Gabriel Sohier-Chaput, aka 'Zeiger', writer of 1000s of articles for the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer, has been found guilty of promoting hatred against Jews.
Antifascists had been worried a different outcome was likely. Rather than consider the whole of Sohier-Chaput's writings, the trial was focused on a single article.
Still, even in this one article, Sohier-Chaput calls for 'Non-stop Nazism, everywhere'.
Sohier-Chaput's defense was mostly about poking holes in the prosecution's narrative. Firstly, he claimed this article was in jest, even comparing his Nazi worldview to Homer Simpson (!!!)
On Hatepedia.ca, we listed the Burger King Crown as a contextual hate symbol, meaning that's it's an otherwise innocent symbol which has been co-opted for hateful uses.
How so? Let's go on a journey together, in a short 🧵
1. In October 2020, a man wearing a Burger King Crown boarded a New York-bound flight and screamed anti-Black and misogynistic slurs at another passenger. The incident was caught on camera. nypost.com/2020/10/23/man…
2. Because of his racist and misogynistic actions (and the far-right's obsession with misogynoir), the man has gone on to become a figure of reverence in far-right online spaces.
The laser eyes are the symbolic equivalent of calling someone 'based' - it's a symbol of praise.
🧵 1. Part of why it’s important to understand the meaning of hate symbols/memes is that they can often tell you a lot about the person displaying them.
Let’s use this fresh basket of Hell as a case study. (Thanks @BaruchelNDG!)
2. There’s quite a bit going on here, so let’s start with one of the images that comes back a lot here.
This is a clown pepe/honkler. It more or less is used to express the belief that we live in a ‘clown world’. It’s a way of calling their opponents crazy, basically.
3. I know it’s a bit ridiculous, but that clown frog is actually pretty meaningful to these guys. There’s a whole worldview behind it. rightwingwatch.org/post/white-nat…