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hate crimes

via Mick Haupt/Unsplash
A child looks really upset on a playground.

Robbie Pierce, his husband, Neal Broverman are no strangers to bigotry. The men and their two young children were traveling on an Amtrak train in California in 2022 when they were harassed by a fellow passenger at a stop in San Jose; an incident that made headlines.

"All of a sudden, there was a man standing there next to me," Pierce told The Advocate. The man told their son, "Remember what I told you earlier. They stole you and they're pedophiles," Pierce recounts. The man also said that gay people are abominations. (Broverman is the editorial director for print media at Pride, The Advocate's parent company.)

The police were called and the man was thrown off the train, but the incident was a frightening reminder that gay families could be the target of bigots any time and anywhere, even in liberal Northern California. "It's a new level of homophobia out there," Pierce added.

Seven months later, Pierce’s son was the victim of harassment, this time from a child at a park.


lgbtq families, religious trauma, indoctrination, gay, lgbtq, bullying, hate, advocacy, parenting, lgbtq parentingA day at the park turned hateful and confrontation for Roobie Pierce and his son.Dakota Lim/Unsplash

"A random unattended 7-year-old at the park told me and my son that gay people are the devil,” he recounted in a viral X thread. "My son scoffed, but the boy said it was true because God said so."

Maybe it was the incident months prior. Maybe it was a lifetime of harassment and judgment. But whatever it was, in that moment, Pierce had had enough. He reacted to the boy’s hatred — which he probably learned at home — with his own lesson.

“I told him parents made up God to make their Kids do what they want. His eyes got so big,” he wrote on X.

It's worth wondering: Did God really 'say so'? Biblical scholars are split on the Bible's true message around homosexuality. It appears open to interpretation, and it's clear that many people choose to interpret the words in a hateful and negative way, going so far as to show their children that it's OK to approach and confront gay people over their identities.

Addressing complex issues like religion and sexuality with a young child, who’s a stranger, is a tricky needle to thread, so Pierce admits he had some reservations about his response. But he stands by his decision.

“I'm sorry but if you teach your kids to hate I'm going to teach them to disobey you," he wrote on X.

As someone who has been harassed by religious, homophobic people in the past, Pierce took the opportunity to help steer a young child away from hatred. At the age of 7, most children believe whatever their parents tell them. However, Pierce planted a seed in the child’s mind that may one day encourage him to challenge his indoctrination when he gets older. The kid will likely remember that interaction for many years to come, and may look back at it with shame one day. That shame could be the much-needed catalyst for change.

"I was shocked at first and then...well...you may have planted a seed to grow a fine human out of the little homophobic bigot he was being trained up as. I can't argue with that," one user wrote on X.

The vast majority of commenters on X agreed with Pierce’s response to the child’s comment.

However, some people thought Pierce’s response to the child was inappropriate.

Bigoted words or not, it was still a child, and many people thought there may have been a more tactful way to teach the kid a lesson rather than invalidating his entire faith. Or perhaps Pierce could have tracked down the boy's parents and given them an earful instead.

One thing is clear: Something in our culture is definitely broken when we're more intent on policing people's responses to bigotry and hate versus addressing the root cause of these divides. The boy's parents should be the one on trial in the court of public opinion for teaching their son that this kind of behavior is acceptable.

No matter how one feels about Pierce’s reaction, what’s clear is that there is something very inappropriate about a 7-year-old child openly harassing LGBTQ families. The unfortunate problem is that this type of hyper-religious upbringing can cause lasting emotional and psychological trauma to a child. And it’s a common problem. A recent study in the growing field of religious trauma found that 1 in 3 Americans suffer from trauma related to religion at some point in their life.

While we might be quick to dismiss the child’s behavior as innocent or simply as a symptom of growing up in a religious household, the more we learn about religious trauma, the more these children appear to be the victims of abuse. Hopefully Pierce's words will help the boy rethink his relationship with his faith, and his parents, down the road.

This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.

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Why this Facebook post of New Yorkers removing anti-Semitic graffiti went viral.

It's easy to feel let down by the world, but don't give up all hope.

Onboard a subway car, New York-based lawyer Gregory Locke and his fellow passengers stood in uncomfortable silence as they took in their surroundings.

Swastikas and hateful messages were scrawled on the car's windows and advertisements in every direction. Messages like "Jews belong in the oven," "Destroy Islam," and "Heil Hitler" covered the walls. As Locke and his fellow passengers contemplated what to do next, a local chef named Jared Nied offered a suggestion.

"Hand sanitizer gets rid of Sharpie," Nied announced. "We need alcohol."


Immediately, the car's passengers rifled through their bags in search of hand sanitizer and tissues. Recounting the incident on Facebook post, Locke estimated that within just two minutes, the hateful symbols and words had been erased from existence.

I got on the subway in Manhattan tonight and found a Swastika on every advertisement and every window. The train was...

Posted by Gregory Locke on Saturday, February 4, 2017

The post has since gone viral, accruing over 500,000 Likes and over 400,000 shares.

In the wake of a contentious election season that saw the rise of white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and other members of the so-called "alt-right," it's easy to lose faith in the overall goodness of people.

In another incident reported in November, a New York subway car was defaced with racist and homophobic slurs. "White power," read one of the messages on the 1 train. According to the NYPD, instances of vandalism that included swastikas jumped by more than 500% in 2016 over the previous year. Additionally, hate crimes have seen a recent boost since Election Day.

Beastie Boys member Adam Horovitz speaks at a anti-hate rally at a Brooklyn park after it was defaced with swastikas in November 2016. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images.

To make matters worse, just last week Reuters reported that sources said the White House was considering a proposal that would refocus the Department of Homeland Security's Countering Violent Extremism task force solely on "Islamic extremism," and no longer put resources into fighting violent white supremacists. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman called the proposed changes "profoundly misguided."

But incidents like the one Locke posted to his Facebook page show that while the world has its share of bad people with hateful ideologies — there are always good people who are willing to set things right.

It's a sentiment echoed by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who Tweeted, "This is what New Yorkers do — we turn hate into love. And we won't back down — not now, not ever," along with a photo of a swastika that had been turned into a message of love.

"'I guess this is Trump's America,' said one passenger," wrote Locke in his Facebook post. "No sir, it's not. Not tonight and not ever. Not as long as stubborn New Yorkers have anything to say about it."

All over the world, there are people making a positive impact by snuffing out hate. Democrat, Republican, Independent, or other, it's crucial that we stand together against hate, no matter where it comes from or in whose name it's being done.

When a Victoria, Texas, mosque burned down under mysterious circumstances on early Jan. 28, 2017, members were distraught.

The fire, which collapsed the building, left the congregants of the Victoria Islamic Center without a place to worship.


That is, at least, until members of a local Jewish congregation showed up at a mosque founder's house with a key to their synagogue.  

"This is sad for everyone in the community and as Jews we especially have to feel for the Muslim community. When a calamity like this happens, we have to stand together," Robert Loeb, the synagogue's president, told Reuters.

Both communities are small — Victoria boasts a few dozen Jewish and about 100 Muslim residents — which synagogue officials said makes sticking together all the more important.

"Everyone knows everybody, I know several members of the mosque, and we felt for them," Loeb said.

Others in the community pitched in as well.

The Victoria Islamic Center, before the fire. Photo by Victoria Islamic Center/Facebook.

A few days after the fire, local high school students rallied in support of the mosque, praying and planting trees. Donations to a GoFundMe page set up to raise money for rebuilding have exceeded $1 million.

After an election year that saw an increase in anti-Semitic and Islamophobic incidents, Jewish and Muslim groups have been coming together to support one another.

Back in November, the Islamic Society of North America and the American Jewish Committee joined forces to create the Muslim-Jewish Advisory Committee, with the goal of combatting hateful speech and violence toward members of either faith and pushing for expanded rights for religious and ethnic minorities.

Meanwhile, groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations and Bend the Arc Jewish Action have been leading protests and petitions against Donald Trump's executive order barring travelers from Muslim nations from entering the United States.

While it's still unclear whether the Texas mosque fire was an act of hate, the synagogue said it had plenty of space to welcome their neighbors.

When terrible things happen to those nearby, the least we can do is find that space in ourselves.

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Why this badass 70-year-old is waging a one-woman war against Nazi graffiti.

'I want to prevent you from accepting dangerous and ever-present racism and hate as inevitable.'

70-year-old Irmela Schramm has a knack for spotting hateful graffiti.

She calls herself "Polit-Plutz" (which she says means "political cleaner" in German) because that's exactly what she does. Schramm spends her days walking the streets of Berlin, seeking out racist, neo-Nazi messages scrawled on public surfaces and covering them up.  

Photo by John MacDougall/Getty Images.


"I'm really concerned by this hate propaganda. And I want to take a stand," she told CNN. "I could look at that swastika and Nazi Kiez graffiti and say 'oh, that's awful' and walk by. ... Well, I don't want to wait for someone else to do something about it."

She's fine-tuned her graffiti removal skills over the past 30 years, ever since she first saw a flyer in support of Rudolph Hess at her neighborhood bus stop.

At the time, she only had her keys to remove the message. In the three decades since, she's armed herself with more efficient tools like nail polish remover, a scraper, and a can of spray paint. She carries it all in a cloth bag that reads "Gegen Nazis!" or "Against Nazis" in German.

Schramm and her bag. Photo by the Associated Press.

Born at the tail end of WWII in 1945, Schramm became politically active in the 1960s when West Germany still had leaders with Nazi backgrounds. While she joined many anti-Nazi movements, according to her website, she ultimately felt she could make the biggest difference with her graffiti-removing vigilanteism.

At this point, she claims to have removed over 130,000 Nazi stickers and posters, and she spends 17 hours a week on average doing so.

It's not a glamorous job and can often be downright dangerous. Schramm racks up expenses for graffiti-covering supplies and regularly receives threats from neo-Nazi groups.

Photo by John MacDougall/Getty Images.

Once, she came across a graffiti message that read, "Schramm, we're coming to get you."  

While the German government supports her work, and even reportedly gave her the Medal of the Order of Merits in 1994 (which she returned when a former Nazi was awarded it in 2000), they don't offer her any financial help. When she worked as a teacher, she spent 10% of her salary on her efforts, according to the Wall Street Journal.

But she perseveres, and even collects photos of the hateful work she wipes away.

Today, she's collected over 5,450 photos of graffiti, and 1,100 stickers and posters, which she shows at educational exhibitions.

Photo by John MacDougall/Getty Images.

"I just want to shake you up," she told 16-year-olds visiting her exhibition in a Berlin high school back in 2001. "I want to prevent you from accepting dangerous and ever-present racism and hate as inevitable."

At a time when hate crimes are on the rise, both in Germany and the United States, more and more people like Schramm are stepping up to stamp them out.

Sign painter Olivia Trimble from Fayetteville, Arkansas, has vowed to cover up any hate graffiti she comes across and even launched a movement called #RepaintHate, which called on artists around the country to paint over racist graffiti when they see it. Two days after the election, this couple covered up hateful chalk messages with messages of love outside Hillary Clinton's headquarters in New York City.

As Schramm well knows, it's a job that's often thankless, but, at the end of the day, ridding the world of hate makes a difference and that's what matters.

"People tell me I am intolerant, that I don't respect the far-right's freedom of speech," she told CNN. "But I say: Freedom of speech has limits. It ends where hatred and contempt for humanity begins."