On behalf of our nonprofit team at OC Human Relations, we’d like to introduce to our #HateFreeOC initiative. #HateFreeOC is a public education and awareness campaign aiming to cultivate a hate-free environment in Orange County, bring diverse communities together, and promote a safe, respectful, and inclusive community.
Hate in the OC
Over the last year we have witnessed increased prejudice and hate expressed across the U.S., particularly against Mexicans, Muslims, immigrants, and women. As some people began to feel more and more emboldened to act on their hate-filled views, we saw a spike in local hate crimes and hate incidents in Orange County since November 2016. To date, OC Human Relations has documented 51 Hate Incidents and 16 Hate Crimes in the County of Orange.
We believe everyone should live free of violence and discrimination.
Watching hate activity escalate around us, we were inspired to develop the #HateFreeOC campaign to create a community standard that discourages hate and bigotry and supports OC Human Relations’ mission to build understanding and eliminate prejudice, intolerance and discrimination in order to make Orange County a better place for ALL of us to live, work, go to school and do business.
We hope you will stand with us as we promote the values of #HateFreeOC.
Please visit www.splash.ochumanrelations.org/hatefreeoc to download and share our #HateFreeOC Community Kit, including:
- Hate Crime flier with information about how to report hate crime and hate incidents. We track this data every year for our annual Hate Crime Report. You can find them online at www.splash.ochumanrelations.org/hatecrime.
- #HateFreeOC Pledge to make a commitment to stand together to combat hate and prejudice.
- Articles about recent local hate activity.
- HATE FREE ZONE posters to hang in your workplace, community space, place of worship, favorite coffee shop, anywhere you think it can make an impact.
Please contact us if you have ideas of ways we could partner together via #HateFreeOC. We are available to deliver workshops or trainings for your organization or community group about hate crime education, collection, and awareness. We also invite you to send us related event information that we can share on our web site and/or social media. Lastly, if you are interested in joining our Hate Crime Network to learn more about hate activity in the OC and efforts to address it, please contact us. As a first step, you can quickly join our e-list right now by texting: HATEFREEOC to: 22828.
Sincerely,
Alison Edwards Melissa Morgan
Deputy Director Director of Partnerships
Alison@splash.ochumanrelations.org Melissa@splash.ochumanrelations.org
