(Bethesda, MD) The celebrated new “Anti-Hate Task Force” has a challenge. A leader of its Muslim group turns out to have a record of comments that, according to standards recently developed by the group’s Jewish participants, are antisemitic. Such “bias speech” is no trivial matter in Montgomery County, MD, a wealthy, diverse and progressive jurisdiction outside DC now working "to prioritize policies that promote safety and combat hate crimes." Local police -- supported by the County Council’s president, a former CNN reporter – already monitor bias speech, even when not linked to crime. “The MCPD (Montgomery County Police Department)…will not tolerate intolerance, exclusion, indifference, or open intimidation and asks that everyone report any incident of bias or hate crime.” (italics ours) The allegedly antisemitic comments, made in Tweets over several years, may come up Sep. 11th, when the “Muslim Cohort” of the Task Force holds a “Community Listening Session” on Zoom. The county council declined to comment directly about the Tweets or whether it screened the social media of Task Force applicants before appointing them. Said a county spokesperson: “Members represent a diverse coalition of faith and community leaders who have varying ideologies, values and backgrounds. Each member brings their unique perspective and personal experience, and each of the six cohort groups are encouraged to engage with and learn from one another.” The offensive Tweets come from the co-chairperson of the Task Force’s Muslim group. We are not naming this person as we have no desire for her to be “cancelled.” A social-science PhD, she works for a group seeking to improve perceptions of Muslims. She has not responded to our requests for comment and we will update this report if she does. Some of her Tweets appear to meet definitions of antisemitism in a recent report (at bottom) from the Jewish cohort of the Montgomery County group (Jews were on the receiving end of 91% of religious bias incidents last year, despite constituting only 10% of the county’s population, according to police statistics.) Antisemitism, notes their report, includes “Stereotypes and Scapegoating,” along with “Holocaust Comparisons.” The guidelines also condemn descriptions of Israel as an “apartheid state.” The co-chairperson’s Tweets appear to qualify:
THE TASK FORCE & WHO IS REPRESENTED, OR NOT The Task Force consists of “six cohorts,” each with four or five members, representing Black/African American, Latino/Hispanic, AAPI, LGBTQ+, Jewish and Muslim communities. There are no cohorts to represent straight white citizens, even though according to 2022 police statistics “37% of (bias) victims identified as White, while only 11% identified as Black.” Neither is there a cohort for Christians/Catholics, despite attacks on county churches, including a Catholic Church desecrated and torched last year, apparently by vandals upset with Catholic positions on abortion. The Task Force is now holding meetings to prepare by November 28th a final report, expected to include recommendations for additional legislation, regulations and/or policies. The next meeting of the Muslim cohort, a “Community Listening Session,” is on 9/11 and, based upon earlier sessions, is expected to focus on issues such as hate crimes, bias incidents and “microaggressions” against Muslim-Americans. It may be coincidental that the meeting was set for 9/11, although in past Muslim groups have used the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on America to highlight what they see as widespread “Islamophobia” in the country. HATE CRIMES VERSUS BIAS INCIDENTS VERSUS FREE SPEECH The Task Force was established this summer by the Montgomery County Council following a push from Evan Glass, Council President, former CNN reporter and member of the LGBTQ+ community. “The rise in racial, ethnic and LGBTQ+ hate crimes in Montgomery County is disturbing and frightening,” according to his resolution. “The Montgomery County Anti-Hate Task Force will prioritize policies that promote safety and combat hate crimes and incidents…” Statements from participants in the Task Force often combine discussion of hate crimes and “bias” incidents, sometimes appearing to diminish distinctions between the two. For example, the resolution leading to the Task Force cited FBI hate crime statistics but immediately transitioned to discussion of “bias incidents,” a far larger category that includes things such as racist emails and graffiti. An example included on the Task Force's page is the burning of Pride and Ukrainian flags. The Montgomery County Police Department says “bias incidents” are growing and provides annual reports with details on them and the much smaller number of alleged hate crimes. It’s unclear how many bias incidents are investigated as crimes by the department, which is struggling with a shortage of officers and increasing violent crime in categories such as carjacking. The “2021 Annual Report on Bias Incidents,” reports 143 reported bias incidents. It notes “(t)he fact that the offender is biased against the victim does not mean that a hate crime occurred. Instead, the offender's criminal act must have been motivated, in whole or in part, by their bias.” Of the incidents, seven were assaults involving nine victims. It appears these are the hate crimes officially reported by the County to the FBI (there are vagaries in statistical reporting by the county and local jurisdictions.) The police also list what they call “Assault (Simple/Intimidation),” which includes incidents such as the use of nooses to intimidate and “bias-based language” sent via email, text and social media. We asked the police department how many of these incidents were actually investigated as crimes. We will update this story when we hear back. In the publicly-available information we’ve found on the Task Force and police bias-incident program, there is little discussion of concerns the police are being asked to monitor incidents that may be examples of reprehensible but legal free speech. Maybe we missed it, but we also saw no mention of "free speech" or the "1st Amendment." Perhaps those concepts will appear in the Task Force's forthcoming recommendations on how to crack down more aggressively on "bias" and "hate" in Montgomery County. # A long-time resident of Montgomery County, Mark Sauter is co-author of the widely-used university textbook Homeland Security: A Complete Guide, from McGraw Hill. A former Army infantry and Special Forces officer, he researches and blogs about North Korean military operations and the history of the Korean Demilitarized Zone at www.dmzwar.com. Sauter is a graduate of Harvard College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. His posts on Need to Share News do not reflect the views of his employer or publisher.
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