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CSUSB theatre professor says early support was key to successThe SunJan. 18, 2018
Kathryn Ervin grew up surrounded by the arts in her hometown of Detroit.
“It’s a great town for music, theatre, dance and visual art,” says the San Bernardino resident. “Those were all part of my experience.”
A professor in the Cal State San Bernardino Department of Theatre Arts since 1989, Ervin will be one of only ten people inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Theatre in Washington, D.C. in April.
One of the other ten people who will be honored is her childhood friend, Michael Dinwiddie, who teaches at New York University.
“It’s a great group and I’m excited to be included,” says Ervin.
It was when she was much younger that she found her calling in theater.
Ervin explains that her parents were always taking her to see various forms of entertainment. One of those was “Ceremonies in Dark Old Men,” a play by Lonne Elder III at the Detroit Repertory Theatre. A friend of hers, Dinwiddie, had been invited along. She says that this was where it all began.
“We were both so inspired by what the experience did to us that we determined we would make plays and each went home to write one,” she says.
Ervin says that an important part of the story is how she and Dinwiddie were supported.
Read the complete article at “San Bernardino theater professor says early support was key to success.”
CSUSB hate crime study cited in article about UK barring Holocaust denier’s entryNewsweekJan. 16, 2018
An article that reported that a California-based Holocaust denier has been barred from entering the United Kingdom also noted that anti-Semitism remains a major problem in the U.S.: Jews are more likely than any other religious group to be targeted for hate crimes, according to FBI data, which showed roughly 54 percent of victims of anti-religious hate crimes in 2016 (the latest year for available data) were targeted due to anti-Jewish bias.
And Jews were the top target for hate crimes in New York City in 2017, according to Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.
Read the complete article at “Holocaust denier Mark Weber banned from entering U.K. for 'unacceptable' behavior.”
CSUSB professor comments on legal tactic in lawsuit against neo-NaziThe Huffington PostJan. 9, 2018
Last Friday, Andrew Anglin, who publishes The Daily Stormer, the world’s biggest neo-Nazi website, told a federal court that he should not be held responsible for the anti-Semitic threats his followers hurled at a Jewish woman in Montana because he doesn’t believe the Holocaust happened.
The latest legal maneuver by Anglin’s lawyer Marc Randazza, which might be illegal in the 16 European countries where Holocaust denial is outlawed, is seemingly without precedent in the United States, according to Brian Levin, a criminologist and civil rights attorney who runs the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.
It is also seemingly without merit.
As Levin explained, Anglin’s subjective intent to threaten or cause harm is what matters when assessing a true threat, not his prejudiced refusal to believe in the Holocaust (which happens to be the best-documented genocide in history). What’s more, even fictional material can be construed as a threat, especially in a threatening context. “Let’s say someone sends a picture of Al Pacino in ‘Scarface’ killing somebody,” Levin said. “That might very well cause someone harm.”
In 2000, Levin represented Bonnie Jouhari, a Pennsylvania fair housing advocate, in a landmark case with similarities to the Gersh litigation. Jouhari was harassed and threatened by white supremacists after a neo-Nazi posted her picture, along with an image of her office being blown up and a message about how people like Jouhari should “beware, for in our day, they will be hung from the neck from the nearest tree or lamp post,” to his organization’s website. A court ordered the neo-Nazi to pay $1.1 million in damages.
Context mattered then, as it will now for Anglin, who has used his site to terrorize numerous people other than Gersh and routinely advocates for violence against various groups. He has written, for example, about “rounding up the entire Negro population of the United States, putting bullets in the backs of their heads and dumping them into an incinerator.” He has written about executing gay people by throwing them off rooftops. He has written about his desire “to see pieces of journalist brains splattered across walls.”
“It’s not the argument that Floyd Abrams would have made,” Levin said, referring to the legendary First Amendment attorney. “This brief is not necessarily written for legal scholars as much as for Anglin’s extremist followers. ... He appears to be using this litigation as a soapbox for his bankrupt racist ideology as much as he is making a legal defense.”
Read the complete article at “American neo-Nazi is using holocaust denial as a legal defense.”
CSUSB professor interviewed for article on Perris torture case of 13 siblingsThe Press-EnterpriseJan. 16, 2018
The plight of 13 siblings who investigators say were held captive and starved by their parents in a dark, foul-smelling Riverside County home raises questions that experts can’t yet answer about what could cause such rare, extreme torture.
Three days after authorities rescued the children following the escape of a 17-year-old girl, several experts said the case involving Perris residents David Allen Turpin, 57, and Louise Anna Turpin, 49, likely involves complex issues that could range from mental illness and emotional dysfunction to moral and religious beliefs or a desire for power and control.
Some fundamentalist religious groups such as Branch Davidians focus on complete dominion and control over family members by a patriarch, said Cal State San Bernardino Professor Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.
Religion, morals, personal experiences and mental health can all play a role in torture cases. People who cling to rigid, authoritative ideologies usually apply that to personal relationships, said Levin.
People without authority in the world can use the trappings of religion or another subculture to make themselves a leader in a world they create, Levin added.
Read the complete article at “Perris family torture case: Experts weigh in on why parents may have done it.”
CSUSB professor comments on ADL’s hate crime studyBustle.comJan. 16, 2018
Brian Levin, the director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University San Bernardino, was interviewed for an article about the Anti-Defamation League’s report that showed violent right-wing extremism skyrocketed in the first year of Donald Trump's presidency.
The ADL report, released Jan. 16, 'dovetails with our analogous data from earlier this month where we found an increase in 'hate crime' homicides recently.' Levin also said that white supremacists often attack a wider variety of targets than other violent extremist groups.
'[T]he violence perpetrated by white supremacist and related domestic extremists goes beyond targeted ideological acts to ones that often involve confrontations with law enforcement, family members and even fellow travelers,' Levin told Bustle. 'Within the hardened segments of racist, neo-Nazi, and anti-government extremism is a subculture that glorifies violence itself, not just as a means to a specific ideological goal, but as a way of enhancing stature, resolving interpersonal disputes or handling disputes with authority as well.'
White supremacists murdering twice as many people in 2017 as they did the year before, according to the ADL, and were responsible for more murders in the U.S. than any other extremist group that year. This is a dramatic increase from the year before, when only 20 percent of extremist murders were committed by far-right groups.
Read the complete article at “White supremacist murders in 2017 spiked by a seriously disturbing amount.”
These news clips and others may be found at “In the Headlines” on the Inside CSUSB website.