Blog | Page 154 | Not in Our Town

Blog

July 17, 2012 - 6:20pm
Today we share with you one of our newest supporters, Katie, a 13-year-old from Glencoe, IL. We are so grateful to those who feel compelled to look behind the camera and support our work. We invite you to join Katie and donate to Not In Our Town.  
July 16, 2012 - 1:09pm
Not In Our Town needs your help. NIOT is trying to raise funds that will allow us to provide more communities with tools that will help them not only address hate as it happens but also prevent hate from happening in the first place.   For most of us, summer is a time of vacation and relaxation. Here at Not In Our Town, we worry. Some of the most heinous and high profile hate crimes have occurred in summers past.   The Summer of Hate in 1999 was particularly dreadful.  In a series of violent hate attacks by "lone wolf" white supremacists, five people were killed across the country. Communities in California, Illinois and Indiana were terrorized as synagogues were torched, day care centers attacked, and well-loved local citizens—Gay, African-American, and Asian-American—lost their lives at the hands of virulently bigoted murderers.   
July 4, 2012 - 1:24pm
This article, written by Dr. Becki Cohn-Vargas, originally appeared in the June/July 2012 California State PTA newsletter. Not In Our Town has partnered with CAPTA to work together to address bullying and intolerance in schools throughout California. Dr. Cohn-Vargas is the director of Not In Our School and an experienced educator. We hear a lot about bullying, but do we ever stop to really think about what it is and the consequences of bullying? After all, isn't just kids being kids, a part of growing up? Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school-aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully among others may have serious, lasting problems.
July 2, 2012 - 11:13am
Rhode Island is now the 13th state to include gender-identity and expression in its hate crime laws. The Transgender Hate Crimes Monitoring Bill (S2488) was introduced to the Rhode Island General Assembly on February 16. It passed the Rhode Island House on May 24, and Governor Lincoln D Chafee signed the bill on May 30. The Transgender Hate Crimes Monitoring Bill assists in the research and safety of Rhode Island’s transgender population. In addition, because the bill addresses all hate crimes committed from gender identity or expression bias, victims of all gender identities are protected under this statute. Specifically, the bill adds gender identity and expression to Rhode Island’s hate crimes reporting statute, which already specified race, religion, gender, disability and sexual orientation as motivating prejudices.
June 27, 2012 - 5:19pm
It’s hard not to cry, or feel like you’ve been punched in the gut while watching the ten minutes of horrendous bullying and harassment that Upstate New York grandmother and school bus monitor was subjected to by a group of middle school students.