Researchers say racist Internet sites breed Hate

Get Flash Player

Download

In the Los Angeles suburb, Sikhs and other community members gathered for a vigil to remember the Sikh victims of the Wisconsin shooting.

Some also tried to understand Wade Michael Page, the accused shooter and his motive.

Temple member Nachhatar Singh Bhullar calls the act senseless.

"It could happen anywhere. Somebody you konw, come anywhere and can do those things," he said.

But researchers say Page had ties to music groups with a white supremacist message and they speculate that his hatred sparked the rampage.

Tim Zaal came to the temple to offer condolences, he says he once hated all dark-skinned people. At 1980s he was an organizer for the neo-Nazi group White Aryan Resistance.

"The whole white racialist movement was moving into a different direction. Rather than have all these great big huge organizations, they started to operate in these little cells," he said.

And organize online.

Rick Eaton researches hate groups at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the centre monitors social sites such as Twitter and Facebook, and distributes an online application to law enforcement agencies.

Eaton asked his face not be shown.

He says hatred thrives on music, epithets and symbols.

"The name of the song is Keep Fighting, and it says everybody that their job is to keep fighting and if you don't, I'll kill you myself," he said.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, also of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, says online hate sites spread ideas, and attract recruits.

“It's empowerment, it's validation," he said.

Rabbi Cooper says the sites create the illusion of a mass movement. But lawenforcement if limited, no matter how offensive the language, says Teresa Carlson of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“Until somebody actually threatens, there’s a threat of force or violence, we can not open an investigation on them." she said.

Rabbi Cooper says Internet companies need to do more.

"The social networking companies on the Internet could and should be doing a lot more to marginalize the message, messages and messengers of hatred and intolerance and terrorism," he said.

Meanwhile, Sikhs of California struggle to understand how house of worship could be transformed into a crime scene.

supremacist: 種族優(yōu)越論者

empowerment: 許可，授權(quán)

validation: 批準(zhǔn)；確認(rèn)；合法授權(quán)

Related stories:

黑皮膚、白人心的“奧利奧”

歐洲人眼里的歐洲人

有“地域偏見”的placist

Fashion star going to court over 'racist tirades'

（來源：VOA 實(shí)習(xí)生朱眉霖）