How should the community respond when public officials are threatened?

What is the correct response when you witness someone being terrorized by violent hate speech?  What is the role of a bystander when someone is threatened with violence via a disgusting racist phone call?  What is the role of the community when violent hate speech is directed to a public or elected official?  Why is the answer always, “It depends?”

There is bystander training for students who witness bullying.  There is bystander training geared to help victims of  intimate partner violence. Yet when an elected official is threatened with violence in a sexist racist rant, there is silence. 

Much like the acceptance and, if we’re honest, the expectation that there will be threats of race based violence against African-Americans, public figures who are African-American rarely share the deeply disturbing racist notes, calls, and manifestos that they receive.  The history of the U.S. has normalized hate and violence so much so that it is treated more like a birthright than an abomination.

Just this past October, the hanging of a black figure by a noose with arms and legs bound  from a tree in New Rochelle was not perceived or punished or treated like a hate crime despite the fact that the NYS anti-hate crime resource guide states, “Hate crimes can be perpetrated against an individual, a group, or against public or private property. For example, hanging a noose or painting a swastika could be deemed hate crimes.”

So what do we do when our elected leaders are threatened with racist attacks? What is our response as a community?  Make no mistake, we are not talking about a passionate disagreement around policy or even the dirty politics of false outrage about someone’s position.  We are speaking specifically about racist rants that threaten violence.   At a time when the study of the history of white-supremacist violence is being removed from our schools and acts of political violence are pardoned, what is our response when our public officials are terrorized?   

Surely it is not the job of the public official to manage race based hate.   In a democratic republic, it is the responsibility of the community to set the standard by which civic engagement is to occur.  Whether it is at public meetings, neighborhood associations, houses of worship, on social media, or around the dinner table, we have to fight to end race-based violence and all the intersecting manifestations that come from white supremacy. What is not acceptable in this era, at this time, is impotent, determined silence.