Date: Wed, 8 Feb 1995 11:58:08 -0500 From: Chris Hagin To: Multiple recipients of list GLB-NEWS Subject: Public-transit riders in Bay area to see anti-hate advertisi FROM NEWS WIRE SERVICE DISPATCHES Date: Wed, 8 Feb 1995 Public-transit riders in Bay area to see anti-hate advertising An advertising campaign to remind people that hate, racism and anti-Semitism continue to thrive in even the best neighborhoods will soon grace transit systems in Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties and in cities across the country. The $1.2 million program is sponsored by the Simon Wiesenthal Center of New York with funds from the Transit Display Inc. advertising agency, the country's largest provider of transit system advertising space. TDI is placing the posters in transit systems with which it has advertising contracts. ``In many states, hate crimes have doubled, even tripled, since 1990,'' said Rhonda Barad, eastern director of the center. Trouble spots, she said, include the Midwest and the Southwest, particularly Arizona. And the bigots have gone high tech, she noted. ``The Internet,'' she said, ``is now being used as a method of sending hate literature and material denying the existence of the Holocaust.'' The Wiesenthal center is an international human rights organization dedicated to preserving the memory of the Holocaust and fostering tolerance and understanding. The advertising signs will appear on buses and trains and in transit stations. Bearing the center's logo, they say, ``Hate, Racism, Antisemitism. They survive when good people look the other way.'' The signs include an invitation to visit the Wiesenthal center's Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. While a noticeable surge in hate activities hasn't occurred in the Bay Area, said Anastasia Steinberg, director of the regional office of the Anti-Defamation League in San Francisco, enough incidents have occurred to indicate it's never far below the surface. ``Mostly we see vandalism and leafletting,'' Steinberg said. ``The Jewish community continues to get grotesque pieces of hate mail. An ad denying the Holocaust occurred was submitted to colleges around the country.'' Recent crimes in the region included the mutilation murder of a gay man in Reno and nearly simultaneous attacks in Sacramento on the office of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a minority city council member and a synagogue, said Ira Kaufman, assistant director of the ADL. ``For us, that is a real good indication that bigots don't discriminate against one minority,'' he said. ``They're out to get everyone.'' Other areas involved in the two-month anti-hate campaign include Oakland, San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Chicago, Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York. Others are Washington, D.C.; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; and Providence, R.I. At the Wiesenthal center, Clara Feldman, a Holocaust survivor and lecturer to schoolchildren about that event, quoted a poem that says enemies and friends are not to be feared because they can only kill or betray: ``Fear only the indifferent, who permit the killers and betrayers to walk safely on Earth.'' Mercury News wire services contributed to this report. Mercury Center INSTRUCTIONS ON PAGE 2A --What do you think of the public service ad campaign? Use keyword: MC Talk, select Browse Boards, then Current Affairs, then Discrimination folder. Or, choose Letters for Publication in the scrolling window.