Past Events
Thursday, September 2, 2021
Hate Speech: A Violent Attack on Canadian Diversity
Time: 5:00 p.m. EST
Who amongst us is not shocked and appalled by the increasing level of hate speech raging over the airwaves, online, in printed media and in the streets of our communities here in Canada and internationally? Hate speech inevitably incites hate crimes. Examples of these atrocities and their traumatic impact on our citizenry is all too evident in the past few years. As a society, it is our responsibility to investigate the causes of hate speech and find ways to counter its heinous effects. As someone has said “Hate is a demon Police can’t slay.”
Hate speech is complicated by the need to protect our right to free speech while creating and enforcing laws to protect us from hate speech that infringes on our right to live in peace, free from bullying, harassment, and fear. Hate speech impacts all of us, as it has few, if any, boundaries of race, colour, creed, culture, or sexual orientation. One can say that the “haters” are also “victims” of hate speech.
The impact of hate speech is enormous and far reaching, because of the digital technology (fake news – disinformation, misinformation) – a veritable frontier that is proving a challenge to regulate.
Join us on September 2nd, 2021, for the unique opportunity to explore these and the many other parts of this complex issue with our panel of Canadian experts.
Registration
About Our Panelists
Dr. Barbara Perry, Director of the Centre on Hate Bias and Extremism at Ontario Tech University
Barbara Perry is a Professor in the Faculty of Social Science and Humanities at Ontario Tech University, and the Director of the Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism. She has written extensively on social justice generally and hate crime and right-wing extremism specifically. She has published several books spanning both areas, including Diversity, Crime and Justice in Canada, and In the Name of Hate: Understanding Hate Crime. She was the General Editor of a five-volume set on hate crime (Praeger), and editor of Volume 3: Victims of Hate Crime of that set.
In 2019, she published Right-wing Extremism in Canada, with co-author Ryan Scrivens. Her work has been published in journals representing diverse disciplines: Theoretical Criminology, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Journal of History and Politics, and American Indian Quarterly. Dr. Perry continues to work in the area of hate crime and has made substantial contributions to the limited scholarship on hate crime in Canada, including work on anti-Muslim violence, antisemitic hate crime, hate crime against 2SLGBTQI communities, the community impacts of hate crime, and right-wing extremism in Canada. She is regularly called upon by policy makers, practitioners, and local, national and international media as an expert on hate crime and right-wing extremism.
Dr. Vivek Venkatesh, UNESCO co-Chair in Prevention of Radicalization and Violent Extremism and Director of Project Someone
Vivek Venkatesh is a filmmaker, musician, multimedia artist, curator, and applied learning scientist working at the intersection of public pedagogy and critical digital literacy. He is the UNESCO co-Chair in Prevention of Radicalisation and Violent Extremism, Director of the Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance, and Full Professor of Inclusive Practices in Visual Arts in the Department of Art Education in the Faculty of Fine Arts at Concordia University, Montréal, Canada.
He is also the co-founder of the Grimposium festival and conference series, co-founder of Project SOMEONE (Social Media Education Every Day), and musical performer (guitar, bass, keyboards, vocals, samples) with the bands Landscape of Hate, Landscape of Hope and Halka.
Amira Elghawaby, Journalist and Human Rights Advocate
Amira Elghawaby is a journalist and human rights advocate. She is currently a contributing columnist for the Toronto Star and PressProgress. Before joining the labour movement where she currently works, Amira spent five years promoting the civil liberties of Canadian Muslims at the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) between 2012 to the fall of 2017.
Amira is also involved with several initiatives to counter hate and promote inclusion, including as a founding board member of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network and the Silk Road Institute. She recently served as a Commissioner on the Public Policy Forum’s Canadian Commission on Democratic Engagement and was also a delegate of the 2020 Governor General's Canadian Leadership Conference. Her 2019 TEDX Ottawa talk is titled “Multiculturalism: Worth Defending”. Amira obtained an honours degree in Journalism and Law from Carleton University in 2001.