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In 1984, the Museum of Modern Art in New York dedicated a set of galleries to Philip Johnson, who had served asthe institutions founding architecture department head during the 30s. He staged some of the museums most memorable architecture shows, among them 1932s influential International Style show, which helped pinpoint a mode of modernist design that was cropping up around Europe. He also transformed the institution that housed such pioneering exhibitions, designing its famed sculpture garden in 1953. He even gifted MoMA several masterpieces, including Jasper Johnss Flag (195455). His genius helped define the Museum in its formative years, William S. Paley, chair of MoMAs board, said upon the gallerys dedication.

For more than 30 years, a sign bearing Johnsons name has been visible on a wall on the museums second floor. All that changed, however, earlier this month, when the Black Reconstruction Collective, a group of 10 architects, temporarily covered it. They were participating in the museums current Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America exhibition, and they were responding to recent protests over Johnsons name at the museum. For the run of Reconstructions, the Philip Johnson Galleriess sign will be hidden beneath a denim textile bearing out the groups manifesto, which reads, in part, We take up the question of what architecture can benot a tool for imperialism and subjugation, not a means for aggrandizing the self, but a vehicle for liberation and joy.

Protests over Johnsons name have been brewing since November, when a group of Black architects and artists signed a letter demanding that MoMA remove it from its walls. The letter, circulated by the Johnson Study Group, claimed that Johnson relied on his MoMA connections as a pretense to collaborate with the German Nazi party and that he effectively segregated the architectural collection at MoMA by not hiring Black curators and by not acquiring work by Black architects. While it is unclear when MoMA acquired its first work by a Black architect, scholar and Reconstructions curator Mabel O. Wilson has argued that the museum was maintaining the logics of racism during its early decades by focusing on white European and American designers, even when their work related to affordable housing for Black communities.

For some, Johnson can be can be considered an architect whose output, while variable in quality, helped define a sensibility, with his Glass House ranking as one of the most celebrated modernist structures in the U.S. For others, his legacy cant be separated from his explicitly fascist and anti-Semitic views. Protests over Johnsons politics are not newhis fascist leanings are well-documented, most recently in a 2018 biography by Mark Lamster, and even during his lifetime, various individuals, both within MoMA and outside it, attempted to bring attention to them.

But with the Johnson Study Group letter, new questions are arising: How can MoMA effectively right Johnsons wrongs? What would a MoMA without recognition of Johnson look like? Those who oppose the removal of Johnsons name counter with another question: Should MoMA have to contend with the political views of a figure who has been dead for almost two decades?

V. Mitch McEwen, an architect included in Reconstructions, said that she signed the Johnson Study Groups letter partly in an effort to address concerns that the architecture department at MoMA was vested in fascism and white supremacy, she told ARTnews. As far as we could tell, no one had investigated that beside concerns about anti-Semitism. To be exhibiting work in a gallery with the name of a white supremacist doesnt sit well with me.

According to McEwen, she and others met with MoMA director Glenn Lowry in January to discuss how the museum could begin to reconcile with Johnsons history. His response, McEwen told Hyperallergic, was that MoMA didnt create the problem.

Lamster, the Johnson biographer, said that, because of Johnsons outsized influence at the museum, it would be nearly impossible for MoMA to scrub him from its history. To cancel Philip Johnson is to cancel MoMA, Lamster said. That does not mean that the moment isnt ripe for reflection, Lamster continued. There is no canceling Philip Johnson. Hes already deadthats as canceled as you can get. The question is how you understand his legacy. If canceling means we dont grapple with that history, thats a big mistake. If canceling means removing his name, thats a different story.

A MoMA spokesperson did not respond to a list of fact-checking queries about Johnsons time at the museum and the institutions response to the signatories of the Johnson Study Group letter. In a prior statement made when the Black Reconstruction Collective covered Johnsons name, a spokesperson said that the Museum currently has underway a rigorous research initiative to explore in full the allegations against Johnson and gather all available information. This work is ongoing.

Johnson began working in MoMAs architecture department in 1930, when the museum, founded a year earlier, was still in its infancy. His first stint at the museum ended in 1934, and there were extended periods where he was not formally employed by the museum. During the late 1930s, in a period while he was disconnected from the department, Johnson began to push anti-Semitic and fascist political views in a series of essays. In one written for the fascist journal the Examiner, he claimed that the U.S. was committing race suicide and advocated for a restoration of national values. In another, written for Social Practice, for which he served as a European correspondent, he addressed the Jewish question in France, writing, Lack of leadership and direction in the State has let the one group get control who always gain power in a nations time of weaknessthe Jews.

During the late 30s, Johnson spent extended periods in Germany, where he found himself carried away by Adolf Hitlers politics, as he once wrote, and he started consorting with Nazi leaders. Prior to this, Johnson had briefly been involved with the U.S.s Young Nationalist movement, which Lamster characterized in his 2018 Johnson biography as an alt-right avant la lettre, with pro-Nazi German-American Bundists, Klansmen, and members of the Black Legion, an Ohio-based secret society that took the Klan as its model, among its supporters. As the Young Nationalist campaign began to fizzle out, and as the spotlight turned to his collaborator, Alan Blackburn, Johnson departed the movement. Meanwhile, the Nazi party continued to rise in Europe.

As the war raged abroad the FBI investigated Johnsons activities in 1940 on the suspicion that he was acting as a Nazi spy. The architect admitted to the Bureau that he attended Nazi party rallies in New York, including the most infamous one in 1939 at Madison Square Garden. (He later denied this.) Although it found evidence that Johnson could be linked to members of the Nazi party, the FBI never charged him with espionage. After the war, in 1947, Johnson rejoined the architecture department at MoMA. For the rest of his career, he was still intimately connected to the museum, even when he was not formally on staff.

Johnsons activities during the 1930s would continue to haunt him throughout his career, and he was later forced to address them during the 90s, after the BBC produced a documentary that focused largely on his foregone fascist politics. Johnson, who at one point called himself a philo-Semite, defended himself, citing his friendships with Jewish architects like Louis Kahn and Frank Gehry, as well as with Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, as proof that he had changed. He told the TV host Charlie Rose, If youd indulged every one of your whims that you had when you were a kid, you wouldnt be here with a job either. It was the stupidest thing I ever did, and I can never forgive myself and I never can atone for it. Theres nothing I can do.

Johnson died in 2003, but for some, institutions with connections to him should redress his legacy. Two have already responded to Johnsons unsavory history. In 2020, amid Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, the Glass Housea boxy glassed-in structure in Connecticut that ranks as one of Johnsons most famous buildingsupdated its website with a statement referencing Johnsons own history and a need to confront the difficult histories of places where art, architecture, and racial justice intersectas part of our dedicated effort to tell the full American story. And in November, after the Johnson Study Groups letter, the Harvard Graduate School of Design renamed a structure Johnson designed while he was a graduate student there in recognition of the entrenched, paradigmatic racism and white supremacy of architecture, its dean, Sarah M. Whiting, wrote. (That structure was informally called the Philip Johnson Thesis House, and will now be referred to as 9 Ash Street.)

Over the past several months, multiple essays have taken Johnsons legacy to taskwith people on both sides. In an essay called Why We Should Cancel Philip Johnson, Aaron Betsky, director of Virginia Techs architecture school, wrote, Philip Johnson wasnt just a racist and fascist: He was a cultured, rich cad who made us forget our own failings as a country and as a profession. Others have pushed back against that logic. In a Guardian op-ed, Michael Henry Adams, an architecture historian with connections to Johnsons family, wrote, None of us only amounts to our worst mistake. Today, we all need what Philip Johnson died imagining hed found: the opportunity to evolvea chance to become better people.

Xaviera Simmons, an artist who signed the Johnson Study Group letter, said her intention was not to cancel Johnson, but rather to force MoMA to contend with its history. While some may consider removing Johnsons name a symbolic gesture, its resonance could be far-reaching. You can be subtractive in some ways and additive in others, Simmons said in an interview.

MoMA has to absorb the knowledge that has already been provided and work in concert with the Johnson letter signatories, she continued. Theyve already done the labor. The museum doesnt have to do the labor, actually, and the museum should step back. Youve got to make way for the new, and you have to make way for Black thinkers, Jewish thinkers, queer thinkers, and all the other thinkers.

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MoMAs Philip Johnson Problem: How to Address the Architects Legacy? - ARTnews

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Proud Boy Christopher Worrell will be taken to Washington, D.C., and remain in custody until his trial, a judge ruledin response to charges against himlinked to the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.

Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said that the evidence against Worrell, 49, of East Naples,met the government criteria for denying bond. She said her decision included Worrelldispersing pepper spray gel on officers, his level of preparation, his history of intimidating and threatening behavior and his refusal to comply with FBI orders.

"The weight of evidence is strong here and favors detention," she said.

More: New attorney retained for East Naples man arrested in connection to Capitol riots

More: East Naples man arrested for involvement in Capitol riot believed to be 'Proud Boy'

Christopher Worrell of East Naples at the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, a photo included in an FBI statement of facts a federal magistrate signed March 10, 2021.(Photo: Photo courtesy of the FBI)

Howell ordered Worrell transferred from Tampa to a Washington, D.C., holding facility until trial. His next court appointment is at 10 a.m. April 8, unless he is indicted before that, she said.

John Pierce, former attorney for Kyle Rittenhouse, is representing Worrell. Rittenhouse was charged after he fatally shot two men with an AR-15-style rifle on Aug. 25, the third night of protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Pierce cited riots around the country, including the one in Wisconsin,as reason why Worrell was wearing a tactical vest, carried pepper spray gel and had an ear piece to communicate with people the government identified as other Proud Boys.

The prosecution had said the evidence shows that Worell and other Proud Boys listened to the president before walking to the Capitol.

The judge didn't buy Worrell's reasoning for his preparation.

"We have marches all the time in Washington, D.C.," she said. "This is not a march. This is a mob of assault on the Capitol,not following directions of police and breaking police lines. This was not a protest march. And if the defendant thoughtthat 's what he was doing and not understanding why hes sitting there, that gives me pause."

FBI agents arrested Worrell on March 12, at the home he shares with his girlfriend, Trish Priller, an executive assistant for the Naples Daily News. Worrell was taken to Tampa, where he's spent the last week, held without bond.

Prosecutors revealed Friday that Worrell was not at his home during the raid, saying he was 3 hours away camping. He was immediately contacted and instructed to turn himself in at the nearest FBI office.

They said Worrell instead told them that he would meet them at his home. The lawyers said he was emotional, they didn't know what he planned or where he was specifically and he had access to a cell phone for at least two hours past what an arrested person would normally have.

"He had three hours to think on his drive," prosecutors said.

Howell later cited the exchange and a 2009 arrest for impersonating an officer as a reason to deny Worrell bail. Court documents indicate he saw a woman drive through a yellow light, flashed a badge at her, and yelled at her. She called police, who found a badge, guns, handcuffs and a heavy duty flashlight in his front seat. He is not an officer.

Howell said that history, coupled with the FBI arrest, is a significant "backdrop" to imposing his own authority to the point of breaking the law."

She also questioned both attorneys about the significance of Worrell, pictured with Proud Boys, flashing an "OK" sign,which has gained ground as a White Power symbol. Two photos show Worrell with his thumb and index finger making the shape of an "O" or a "P" and three fingers forming a "W", standing for White Power.

As of Feb. 3, at least a half dozen people charged for their involvement in the Capitol riots were linked to the Proud Boys,an extremist group with ties to white nationalism.

White Boys adamantly deny any connection to the racist 'alt-right.'

Worrell's statement to the FBI in late January, included "the Proud Boys were not a racist white supremacist group like the media tries to portray."

Howell said because Worrell used the hand sign, she wasn't convinced of his statement.

Authorities investigating the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol say two extremist groups that traveled to Washington along with thousands of other Trump supporters weren't whipped into an impulsive frenzy by President Donald Trump. (March 10) AP Domestic

Previously: Prosecution: East Naples man sprayed pepper spray toward law enforcement officers at Capitol riot

More: Naples man among those arrested in Washington D.C. after violent Capitol siege

Howell questioned the government lawyers extensively on whether the pepper spray gel could be considered a dangerous weapon.

The prosecuting attorney explained the gel is "67 times more powerful than hot sauce," that the brand used was "double the average strength of other pepper sprays" and had better stopping power.

While Pierce told Howell that Worrell didn't intentionally spray officers, telling him that he was spraying another person in the mob who attacked older women, she pointed out that photos of the incident that Capitol police offers were in the line of the spray; and the defense did not provide anything different.She questioned why he wouldn't let police handle the incident and said it appeared that the police were his target.

By spraying the gel, a half-dozen officers broke the line to seek water to wash their eyes. That police line was joining another line closer to the building, where the mob broke through and into the Capitol.

The FBI received a tip that Worrellparticipated in the riots on Jan. 6 from someone who knows him, according to the prosecution.

While he was being arrested, Worrell told law enforcement that he knew the tipster, and he also said he knew the Twitter user who posted pictures of him at the capital.

Howell said that when Worrell told agents that when he caught up to the Twitter user,the FBI would be coming for him again."

"That's bold intimations of threats and thatraises a witness intimidation concern," Howell said, adding it figured into her decision to not grant bond..

As far as the government is aware, Worrell did not enter the U.S. Capitol building.

"Yes, he was definitely on the grounds, he felt that was his right," Pierce said. "But he loves his country, he was absolutely adamant that neither him norany of the friends that he was with enter any federal building."

The judge wasnot swayed.

"He understands my skepticism about him saying he was emphatically not going into Capitol building because he went into a restricted area, he was not following police commands and, as part of this crowd, mob, he was trying to stopthewhole reason they were there was to stop the count of electoral college votes. Why was he even there then?"

Worrell faces fivecharges connected to the Jan. 6 riot, according to the latest document filed by the prosecution:

Knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority while carrying a dangerous weapon

Knowingly engaging in disorderly or disruptive conduct in any restricted building or grounds while a dangerous weapon

Knowingly engaging in an act of physical violence in any restricted building or grounds while a dangerous weapon

Violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol Grounds

Obstruction of Justice/Congress

Naples Daily News reporter Jake Allen contributed to this report.

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D.C. Judge orders East Naples man with Proud Boys ties to remain jailed through trial - Naples Daily News

For decades, Jewish leaders have said the main fight against anti-Semitism should be a fight against unfair criticism of Israel. The Anti-Defamation League, which was started after the lynching of a Jewish man in Georgia in 1913, spends increasing amounts of time on dubious projects to defend the Israel state. Other Jewish organizations use their political capital trying to ban Americans from boycotting Israeli institutions that are assisting in Israeli government repression.

All the while anti-Jewish racists in this country are coming out of their holes and striking, They started using triple parenthesis to mean Jew on Twitter and their messages were retweeted literally billions of times. They marched in Charlottesville screaming, Jews will not replace us. An immigrant-hating man massacred 11 Jews at a temple in Pittsburgh. Anti-Jew hate appeared in QAnon and from the Proud Boys. Trump flirted with them, retweeting their venom, and at the same time pretending not to know them.

Yet whats the burning issue for our Jewish establishment leaders? Its a campaign to force a definition of anti-Semitism onto world governments to protect Israels government from criticism. It came from an organization representing governments and Holocaust scholars called the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, or IHRA. The group was created to expose those who would disguise their hatred of Jews by doubting the reality or the extent of the Holocaust. That effort is undoubtedly worthwhile.

But in 2016 the group came out with a Working Definition of anti-Semitism complete with examples, and many of the examples had to do with Israel. Supposedly anti-Semitism included targeting the state of Israel, saying that Israel was a racist endeavor, applying double standards to Israel, and comparing things the Israeli state has done with things German Nazis had done. Human rights supporters including organizations like the (120-year-old Jewish group) the Workmens Circle, and Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now took exception. Nevertheless, the definition/examples were adopted by the British government and it became the subject of one of Trumps executive orders.

All the while the far right was organizing. On Jan. 6, its followers exploded in attempted insurrection. That one of the rioters wore a Camp Auschwitz shirt seemed to bother none of them.

Something is really wrong with the conventional wisdom on how to oppose anti-Semitism. Even some establishment figures are realizing it. The Israeli paper Haaretz on Feb. 21 interviewed leading Holocaust scholar Professor Deborah Lipstadt who said if you look at the IHRA definition, You wont find right-wing anti-Semitism there; you wont find Pittsburgh there; you wont find Poway there; you wont find Halle, Germany, there; you wont find what we saw from some of the groups on January 6 at the Capitol there.

Yet the establishment continues on as if nothing was happening. There is a post in the State Department called Special Envoy to Combat and Monitor Anti-Semitism. The media is speculating that the Biden administration will give it to Abraham Foxman, who led the ADL for decades. What a mistake!

In 1993 it came out that the ADL had run for years a vast spying operation on Arab-Americans, African-Americans, Native Americans and left-wing groups. Foxman defended the program vehemently. Ten years ago Foxman had the ADL oppose the building of the Park-51 Islamic Center in Manhattan because it supposedly was too close to the site where al-Qaeda destroyed the World Trade Center. Worse than all this is the ongoing ADL-sponsored police exchange programs with Israel. Through it police, ICE, border patrol and FBI from the U.S. mix with soldiers, police, border agents, etc. from Israel. Jewish Voice for Peace which opposes the program, says worst practices are shared to promote and extend discriminatory and repressive policing in both countries. The police exchange is another Foxman program.

A new approach is needed, one that realizes what our grandparents knew, that hatred of Jews mostly comes from the far right, from fascists, white nationalists, alt-right or whatever they call themselves. We need leaders who realize that the fight against anti-Semitism is a fight against all racism and not an effort to advance Jewish nationalism. We need a special envoy, a Jew or non-Jew, whose record reflects that understanding.

Stanley Heller is executive director of the Middle East Crisis Committee and a member of Jewish Voice for Peace. He can be reached at mail@thestruggle.org.

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Opinion: We're fighting anti-Semitism the wrong way - The Wilton Bulletin

Gianluca Stringhini practically saw this coming. His lab had been studying hate speech and other malicious activity on social media platforms for several years, when they detected a spike last March in the use of words like Chinese and virus.

Stringhini, a BU College of Engineering assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, Chen Ling (ENG24), a PhD candidate in his lab who came to BU from her native Shanghai in 2019, and an international team of researchers from the United States, China, Italy, Germany, Cyprus, and Iran, sifted large-scale data sets from Twitter and the alt-right fringe network 4chans Politically Incorrect board, called /pol/, from November 1, 2019, through March 22, 2020. They reported an explosion of Sinophobiaanti-Chinese slurs, threats, and conspiracy theoriesas the pandemic spread from China to other countries.

Researchers tracked a shift on Twitter to posts blaming China for the pandemic, while on /pol/, known for polarizing hate speech and where people can post anonymously, the shift was toward the use of more and new Sinophobic slurs.

In April 2020, Stringhini and the other researchers issued their findings in a preliminary e-preprint as a call to action, warning that the online anti-Asian rhetoric evolving around the pandemic could possibly lead to hate attacks in the real world and most certainly harm international relations.

Its now a year later, and with the Asian community grieving and fearful over the March 16 shooting deaths of six Asian women in Atlanta, Stringhinis and Lings study appears prescient. They are preparing to present their teams findings at Aprils annual Web Conference, the top academic conference for web-related research.

Hate crimes increased 149 percent for people in the US Asian community from 2019 to 2020, according to preliminary data gathered from 16 major cities by the California State University Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, in a study released this month. The first spike occurred in March and April 2020 amid a rise in COVID cases and negative stereotyping of Asians. The number of Anti-Asian hate crimes reported in Boston went from 6 in 2019 to 14 last year. Hate crimes in the United States decreased 7 percent overall, a decline that could likely be attributed to the pandemic-imposed drop in social interaction in public spaces, according to the study.

BU Today talked in separate conversations with Stringhini and Ling, who brings a background in psychology to her research, about the rise of Sinophobia online.

Q&AWith Gianluca Stringhini and Chen Ling

Gianluca Stringhini: Our results indicate that the explosion of the pandemic corresponded to a rise in Sinophobia on social media. We not only observe an increase in the use of anti-Asian slurs on Twitter and /pol/, but we also see the emergence of new, COVID-inspired slurs. We also find that the word Chinese started being used in similar contexts to the word virus as lockdowns started.

We focused on Twitter and /pol/ to be able to draw comparisons between a general purpose social network and a more polarized and hateful one. We find a clear increase in the occurrence of Sinophobic slurs on /pol/ after the beginning of the pandemic, when the lockdown was announced in Wuhan on January 23, 2020, and it kept increasing as the pandemic started hitting homefor example, when Lombardy started their lockdown in March. We also observe spikes in the use of certain Sinophobic slurs both on /pol/ and Twitter right after notable events, like President Trump referring to COVID-19 as the China virus. Although we didnt measure this, I expect similar trends to hold for other social media services.

Trumps actions definitely had an impact on anti-Asian rhetoric online. Anecdotally, we saw something similar after the Muslim ban. The issue with Trumps account was kind of unique, because Twitter hesitated to enforce its code of conduct on that account until after the Capitol insurrection, and this allowed some of Trumps behaviors that would have not been tolerated in the accounts of other Twitter users to go uncensored.

Generally speaking, the trends on the two platforms show similarities: at first they were considering COVID as a Chinese problem that did not affect the Western world and later shifted to blaming China for the pandemic. However, /pol/ is quite a different community than Twitter, and it is not surprising that they started creating new slurs as time went by.

Stringhini: Online hate emerges in various contexts. One project we are working on is related to COVID misinformation, and as part of that project we are observing several misinformation narratives that we may consider racist, blaming Chinese people for the pandemic and speculating that the virus is an actual bioweapon designed to attack the Western world.I think the online racism that we observe is a symptom of broader problems in our society which manifest with physical violence. The online and offline world are linked. Although it might look like online racism is more widespread because we are more likely to stumble upon it when reading the comment section of news articles, for example, it is actually a problem affecting people in their in-person interactions.

Stringhini: My biggest concern is the rise in physical violence against Asian people. It is unclear how much online hate results in physical violence, but racist rhetoric online for sure helps set the climate for escalations. The killings in Atlanta are a sad example of this escalation.

Stringhini: The two kinds of hate go together: while our study focused on measuring Sinophobic rhetoric in general, it is reasonable to expect that many individuals have been targeted by anti-Asian racism as well. The racist activity that we observed is filled with stereotypes, and while focused on China, it ended up affecting Asian people in general.

Stringhini: I think its a mixture; /pol/ is generally a racist place and casual slurs are commonplace. At the same time, this emergence of Sinophobic rhetoric can be explained by the theory of defensive denial, in which the virus was seen as a problem of China at first, and did not affect the United States. Later, the emerging pandemic was blamed on China, which fueled more racist rhetoric.

I think that conspiracy theories on the fact that the virus was engineered in China go hand in hand with blaming Chinese people for the pandemic.

Chen Ling: When people are anonymous online, theyll say things more emotionally. They use it to express their anger, the fear of the pandemic. In psychology, its called scapegoating. People need to find a scapegoat. They did this to the Chinese even before the pandemic. But COVID-19 was like a trigger. It allows people to express their fear and anger in wordslike a swordand put them online. I think deep down they feel quite vulnerable.

We want to know why people are doing thistheir motivations. People have different coping methods when they are under pressure. There is content moderation on some mainstream platforms, like Twitter, to lead people to a healthier coping method. But on the fringe communities, especially 4chan, people say whatever they want. I believe there are a lot of people who are having a hard time in their lives because of the pandemic, and they transfer it into hate speech, to scapegoating Asians for losing their jobs, maybe, or for not being able to see their families because of social distancing. They find people online to share their fears and anger with.

Stringhini: I think that the administration having a clear anti-racist stance is good, but I doubt that this will have a positive effect on communities that are already hateful and polarized. Online moderation could help.

Stringhini: I think it is important for institutions to take a clear stance against Sinophobia and show support to their members of Asian descent. The goal of our work is mainly to raise awareness about the problem, but more effective online moderation could help curb the problem.I think that each and every one of us must work towards making every member of the BU community welcome. Local support by peers can help in putting casual hate received online into context, and help people deal with it. We also must denounce any sign of racism that we may spot in our community.

Stringhini: My research has always been focused on protecting people online. After witnessing a rise of hate speech in the past years, I decided to focus on ways we can make the Web a safer place for everyone.

I think there is a serious risk for researchers in this space to feel overwhelmed and fall into rabbit holes, and this can have serious effects on their mental health. I think that people working on these kinds of projects should constantly check on each other and talk about particularly disturbing content that they might encounter. Taking breaks is also very important. With my collaborators, we joke that we should take a break every couple of hours to go watch videos of kittens on YouTube, but thats actually very good advice.

I am always concerned about the mental well-being of students working on these topics. We are trying to develop best practices about thisbeing open about problems and talking about it and taking breaks.

Ling: Professor Stringhini makes sure we feel comfortable. I am prepared for this because this is the research I do. I want to know how people think this way instead of that way and what makes them think this way or that way.

There is a social psychology book, The Nature of Prejudice [published in 1954 by Harvard psychologist Gordon Allport, translated by Ling into Mandarin], which was developed from the fact of the victimization of Jews during World War II. It emphasizes the importance of such hate speech research. If we pay no attention to such behavior online, the situation will get worse quickly. And there will be physical attacks in real life.

If we do not prevent this kind of hate speech, things will escalate.

When I was reading those posts on 4chan and Twitter, it was like PTSD. I was in Manhattan in December, 2019, before the pandemic and I was walking to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was cold and windy. There were not many people on the street. This young boy shouted something at me. I dont remember what he said, it was something about I should go back to my country. I was so afraid. I kept walking to the museum.

I still remember that feeling. I never think I will be unwelcome by any people. In Shanghai, I can go anywhere I want. In America, people are always so nice to me. I heard about racism in America, but this was the first time I was confronted by this thing.

Nothing like that has happened to me since then, or in Boston. I dont go out much because of the pandemic. Im afraid of the cold. My parents tell me not to go outside around the time of the presidential election. It was chaotic. And I know these days there are attacks against Asian people. I see it on the news. I know that other minorities in the U.S. have more or less experienced this feeling that I do.

I feel sad about the attacks in Atlanta. I read President Browns letter about it. It is inspiring. Things will get better if we keep working to make our world a better place.

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BU Researchers Warned of Online Surge of Anti-Asian Attacks a Year Ago - BU Today

From 2019 to 2020, the Anti-Defamation League tracked 193 incidents of hate, extremism and anti-Semitism in Connecticut, ranging from a July 2020 murder in Hartford in which the accused, Jerry David Thompson, claimed to belong toan extremist movement thatbelieves the government has no authority, to putting up fliers and disseminating propaganda.

Last year, ADL reported the highest level of white supremacist propagandacirculated in the U.S. in at least a decade, and reader Gary Trahan asked ifthere are active white supremacist or domestic extremist groups in the region and Connecticut. That question received the most votes in the latest round ofThe Day's CuriousCT feature.

The "biggest perpetrator" of propaganda distribution in Connecticut is the alt-right group Patriot Front,said Steve Ginsburg, director of the ADL's Connecticut office. In one incident reported by ADL on Dec. 31, 2020, Patriot Front distributed propaganda in Jewett City that read: "One nation against invasion," "America is not for sale," "Not stolen conquered" and "Life of our nation. Liberty of our people. Victory of the American spirit."

Ginsburg said the ADL also has reported activities by Connecticut members of the Three Percenters and Oath Keepers, both anti-government extremist groups thatare part of the militia movement.

Earlier this year, a group that identified itself as the far-right, male-only extremist group the Proud Boys attempted to donate more than 500 pounds of food to the nonprofit Hands On Hartford.

Related story: Sub base hits pause to talk about extremism in the ranks

ADL determines someone as "actively" involved in a hate group if they spread the group's ideology or help recruit new members, among other actions. While historically these groups convened in person, "now we are at a point where they can be sitting in basements and identifying themselves as part of these groups," Ginsburg said.

That makes it difficult"to know real total numbers," he said.

The actions taken by these groups and their members are not always violent, Ginsburg said, though those are the incidents ADL is most concerned about. Being active could mean planning a "banner drop" over a highway or a peaceful protest, he said.

"Our main point of concern is violence across the spectrum," Ginsburg said. "Most of the violence comes from white supremacist and what is called right-wing ideology."

Hate crimes in the U.S. rose to the highest level in more than a decade, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported last year.

The FBI also has seen a rise in domestic extremism nationwide in recent years, said Supervisory Special Agent Marcus Clark with the agency's New Haven division.

"On the domestic terrorism side, there's been anevolution away from the large group conspiracies that people often think of toward more of a lone offender attack without any clear affiliation to a group," Clark said."That makes it more difficult for us toidentifyand disrupt."

The agency relies on its partners, including state and local law enforcement agencies, and even nongovernment organizations and community groups, to help share information about suspected domestic extremists.

The internet and social media have helped to radicalize domestic terrorists, Clark said, given the speed and reach with which their messages and ideology can be disseminated online.

In Connecticut, Senate Democrats are seeking to create a new department within the state police focused on combating hate crimes and violent right-wing extremism.

Some of the perpetrators, but not all,involved in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol are accused of having ties to or expressing support for hate groups and antigovernment militias.

Ginsburg contrasted those involved in the Jan. 6 attack with participants in the "Unite the Right" rally that occurred in August 2017 in Charlottesville, Va., which was "almost purely a convening of extremists."

"That's what it was marketed as. That's who it appealed to," he said. "Even before they started marching, ADL shared with law enforcement half the people who were coming because we knew them because we follow these extremist groups."

ADL's investigators knew only a "small portion" of those involved in the Capitol attack, he said.

"A lot of them are not extremists. The question is: Did January 6 start a new type of extremist ideology called 'I'm just going to believe in Donald Trump'?" Ginsburg said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

j.bergman@theday.com

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