We received an email from an anonymous stranger asking how she can help with our cause to end hate at the podium. First of all, to this individual: thanks for getting in touch! I would like to post a verbatim version of my response here, because this answer applies to everyone:
Thanks for getting in touch! Sorry for the late
response. I don't check this email address as much as I should. We are
just getting started, but we're growing quickly. We've already heard
from people in multiple cities where Tim Wise is speaking during his
current tour. I should clarify that we are not just against Tim Wise. We
are against people who seek to profit from stoking racial tensions,
especially white people who do this. Tim Wise just happens to be a very
prominent example of this.
You ask how you can help. There
are a number of ways. First, if you live in a city where Tim Wise is
speaking you can help organize protest against him. We are basically
just asking venues where he is speaking to disassociate themselves from
him and cancel his speaking engagement. At the moment, there doesn't
seem to be much incentive for venues to cancel. Probably they have to
pay a hefty fee if they do. So in the long run, we hope to show that
there are better people to speak on these topics than Tim Wise. We
recommend hanging flyers and speaking to people directly. We have found
that when we talk about Tim Wise with people on the street they have
never heard of him and are outraged by what he says, so simply engaging
with people is an effective way to raise awareness.
Second,
if you are not in a city where Tim Wise is speaking then you can help
in other ways. If you have graphic design skills, we could use
assistance in developing flyers that we can provide to protesters in
each city where he is speaking. Also, we could use writers for our blog.
We would like our blog to include regular analysis of inflammatory
statements by Tim Wise and others like him. There is much to be said,
but so far we have not had time to fully document everything that could
be said. In fact, there are many other people less famous who use the
same tactics as Tim Wise and we would like to eventually start campaigns
against them as well. It's truly unconscionable that people
deliberately work to create racial tension and then profit from speaking
out against the problems they have instigated. If you hear about people
who do this, please let us know.
Lastly, and perhaps the
most easy of ways to help, please share our Facebook page, blog, and Twitter account with people who you think might be interested in
stopping hate at the podium. This is a new initiative, only started a
few months ago, and while we are impressed with the progress we are
making, we have not been very successful in getting the word out. For my
part, I've been shocked at how my friends have completely ignored my
requestes for them to pay attention to this cause. On the other hand, we
have been hearing from a few brave people such as youself, who are
looking to make a difference. So we are still pleased with the results
thus far, and we believe that we can succeed!
Hope to hear from you soon,
Avi
If you have further questions please email us at nohatersatthepodium@gmail.com. We apologize in advance for delayed responses. We are an all volunteer organization.