>> on domestic and international policy for the organized jewish community in north america. ms. rosenthal also served as midwest director of the u.s. director of health and public services during the clinton administration. we also have a special representative for the muslim community. her office is responsible for executing secretary clinton's vision for engagement with muslims around the world on a people to people and organizational level. prior to this appointment, she was senior advisor to the secretary secretary of state for european and eurasisn policies.

she worked on encountering violent islamic extremism. before joining the department of state, she served as the director for middle east regional initiatives for the national security council coordinating u.s. policy on muslim world outreach and the broader middle east initiative. representative pondi was chief of staff for the asia and for the near east agency for national development. welcom welcome. >> hi, everyone. it's very quiet in here. you guys are very attentive. we're not going to give you a lecture, okay? this is going to be a fun afternoon and we want to thank you very much taking time to share with us and we're very

interested in looking for the questions and answers. what we would do in a few minutes and tell you how we met and tell you how this campaign got started. hannah and i have very different jobs. you heard our long bios, thank you very much for that and you know we have different mandates and the secretary of state has asked us to work on important issues but in different ways so i had not met hannah when i received a phone call from her office saying that hannah really needed to speak to me urgently. and so i said please come up and she comes up and she gives me a hug and i have to say to you this is at the time when we had just heard about what happened in times square, the plot that was thankfully foiled and she came in and she gave me a hug and she said i want to be of help to you and he said the messenger matters, farah and i know what will happen in times square that means people will look at islam in a strange way.

she said how can i help. that's hannah rosenthal. >> so we went to a conference in kazakhstan. don't put it on your bucket list. it was a very long flight. we went to a conference that was put on for the organization of the security and cooperation in europe, one of the leading regional groups on the globe. and what's wonderful about the osce is that they have a focus on human dimension. and they actually care about human rights and tolerance. by the way, the word "tolerance" does not mean we'll put up with you. in the diplomatic world, tolerance means mutual respect and acceptance and pluralism and

so please understand we were at a tolerance conference and i wrote the official u.s. statement condemning anti-semitisim and farah wrote the official statement condemning islam faciala and during the conferences we decided to switch speeches and when it began with the focus of hatred on muslim i was sitting in the u.s. chair. and when they called on the united states, i introduced myself. my name is hannah rosenthal. i'm the special envoy on global anti-semitisim and i want to condemn in the strongest words possible all that's going on, that is increasing hatred of muslims. and then when the next session focused on the subject of anti-semitisim, the same thing

happened and farah spoke condemning in the strongest words anti-semitisim. the message was strong and at these conferences there are a lot of statements written and spoken. and so what you do something different, it may catch attention and it did, but there also was the message. that in addition to the profound message we were saying, it mattered by having and that by having unusual suspects speaking you have a greater impact. and that's how we've been operating ever since. so what we heard from people at that conference at that point was really powerful. that the united states delegation made such a bold move. for people in government it doesn't seem like a bold move but trust me in government we don't usually see this kind of thing. what civil society said to me and hannah in hers was you can't stop there.

this can't be a one-off conference in kazakhstan in which the united states makes such a bold statement and then does nothing with it. so what did we decide to do? we thought a lot about what we can do about think about an action-oriented campaign that the president and the secretary has talked a lot about, a generation that is under the age of 30 worldwide. that are people who want to be active, who people -- and people who want to think about their world in a new way, that want to build partnerships of mutual respect and to do something that really was going to take hold of an opportunity to use technology in new ways. and so we developed this idea of a campaign 2011, hours against hate and in your hands i see a lot of you have a package, a toolkit on that campaign. but we decided to launch it virtually so that anyone in the world could take hold of this campaign and make it theirs. so hannah and i went back to the

osce in february of this year and spoke to all of the bodies at the osce and said we did this in kazakhstan last year and this year, the year 2011, we're going to see this initiative so that the world can take hold of it and create a better place. >> and so we thought about having people do something instead of just talk about it. and that's really what the campaign is about. it's a global campaign. it's a virtual campaign. and it's a campaign that's totally accessible. if you go on the website, you'll see people speaking all different languages. you might even understand some of them. and it's people saying, i'm going to pledge a certain amount of hours. hi, i'm a muslim, and i'm going to pledge five hours to work in a jewish clinic. hi, i'm a roman catholic and i'm going to pledge three hours in a food pantry, et cetera. people have engaged -- we have

embassies that are taking this and running with it. we have nongovernmental organizations. you will note on the logo, nowhere on it does it say, united states department of state. it is just out there. so we want to encourage you to take it and make it your own. this is about deeds, not just words. and the theory of the campaign is to encourage people, young people, but we'll take the rest of yourself as well, myself included, and pledging hours to serve and to volunteer at an organization that serve people that don't look like you, that don't pray like you and don't live like you, and people, particularly young people get it, everywhere we've gone. >> and we've gone to three countries to launch this. we've been to asker bin, we've been to turkey and we've been to

spain and we picked those countries because they have histories of pluralism. they have histories of communities working side-by-side and what was remarkable to us was that while, of course, an older generation said it's about time that something like this happened, it was the young people that fled forward and moved their ideas and their interest online. and so when you go to the facebook page, you see young people taking it and making it their own, why? because these young people do not want to live a world in which there's no mutual respect. we have seen enough. the speech that we both -- each of our speeches in the osce ended with the same paragraph. hate is hate. and hate is hate. we do not want to look at a future in which we continue this momentum in which a new generation is picking up the baggage of the past. what we're hoping to do as we

look at the demographics worldwide is to anchor this in a generation that believes in themselves, believes in a future and underscores to live up to their god-given potential and to do more for themselves. we want to be helpful in that effort. >> and using the technology that young people know so well, and i'm just learning, has caught on. while we were traveling, sarah, who was traveling with us, taught me how to tweet. and we tweeted and then we did a program, and i came back and like 100 people, young people all over the world, were following me. i still don't know how they found me. [laughter] >> but of this is how the communication is happening and we need -- look no further than our television sets to see what that kind of communication has burst forward in the world.

and so we're very excited that this campaign provides people something to do. we recognize that young people, by that we have focused on 30 and younger, neither of us are that, are we? >> i wish. i do. >> my children aren't. that they don't have disposable incomes to write a check to an organization, which has been the model of philanthropy and activity in so many places. they don't yet have an expertise from their life experiences to help an organization perhaps organize. but they have time. and every hour matters. and so what we have learned here in the united states is it is part of our culture to volunteer time. it is not anywhere else that

we've been. pretty fundamental questions like well, how do you volunteer? and so when groups -- when an individual is trying to find a group of people that aren't part of their community, it takes some work. and in that work they're building a relationship. and isn't that what the goal of the state department is to wage relationships? so they have designated 2011 as the year of volunteerism because they recognize this is something missing in their culture and this is a campaign that is going to help them in showing people how to go about volunteering. >> so before we turn the podium back to you, we would like to just give us -- give you -- i see some of you tweeting out there so the hash tag is, hash tag 2011 against hate. we'll come back to the podium at the end but thank you very much for being here. >> thank you.

[applause] >> we'll now show a video from secretary hillary clinton about this campaign. >> since becoming secretary of state, i've traveled to nearly every corner of the globe. wherever i go, i make a point to meet not only with government officials but also with citizens, especially with young people, because i want to hear their ideas about how we can find new ways to come together, support new foundations of understanding and build hope for a better future. more and more, i see communities and people turning their backs on old boundaries and barriers and finding new ways to bridge all kinds of divides. that's the idea behind 2,011

hours against hate a campaign to promote respect lines of culture, race, class and agendaer. together we are asking people from around the world to volunteer 2,011 hours in the year 2011 on behalf of someone who doesn't look like you, live like you or pray like you. we think it can be important to learn about another religion, to volunteer in a different community or to reach out to people from another culture. and to find out how they live, so i urge all of you to join this campaign. stand up and speak out against hate. visit our facebook page. 2011, that's 2-0-1-1 hours against hate to learn more, because more dialog and conversation, it's time for action. so let's join together and seize this moment. let's chart a new course for the future. we can only do it if we do it

togethe together. >> i would now like to introduce tad, who is the director of policy and programs for human rights first. tad joined human rights first in january, 2008, as director of the fighting discrimination program and currently serves as director of policy and programs. prior to joining human rights first, tad worked at the u.s. commission on international religious freedom from 2000 to 2007 where he served as deputy executive director for policy as well as acting executive director in 2002 and 2007. tad led the commission's effort to strengthen u.s. foreign policy to advance the right to freedom of religion and belief. he participated in fact-finding missions in asia, the middle east, and europe and served on

official u.s. delegations to human rights conferences of the organization for security and cooperation in europe and the united states. welcome, tad. >> thank you. and thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak a little bit today. so i was asked to make a few comments what it means on a human rights and a civil society perspective and i came up with four points really to make. one is that combating hatred is an extremely important aspect of protecting human rights. this is the climate we find all too often acts of discrimination and violence occurring. an act of violence can terrorize a community and it can prevent its members from exercising their rights. in my work at human rights

first, i've met people, african students in st. petersburg who are afraid to leave their rooms. jews from belgium who are afraid to wear their yamikas out on the streets. gay and lesbian activists in uganda to fight for foyer rights of life knew that they were putting their life at risk by doing that. muslim women in austria who expected to be harassed out in the streets when they're wearing hijab and who knew they weren't going to get a job as a clerk in a store because it would be too public for somebody -- for somebody like that. christians in saudi arabia, hindus and pakistan, the list goes, unfortunately, on and on. which leads me to my second point which is that hatred and bigotry are not confined to any

particular country or region or any particular community. it's a global problem and it affects many communities. and when i describe what we do in our fighting discrimination program it's quite a mouthful, combating racism, xenophobia, anticemetery, homophobia, it goes -- there's more. and when you realize that every group is a minority somewhere, you understand that this implication all of us. there are differences among different types of hatred but what we find time and time again is that while there might be distinct problems, many times the solutions are shared. and that brings me to my third point, which is that the strategies that combat hatred need to be inclusive ones.

it needs to focus on governments because public officials and police, when they're part of the problem -- it makes the work of protecting human rights, protecting communities, protecting lives all that more -- all that more difficult. and it requires leadership, public officials to speak out against acts of intolerance and violence. it requires law enforcement to investigate and prosecute crimes of hatred and it requires leadership and political will to bring police and politicians and communities together, to work together, to address these problems. but how do you find that leadership and political will? well, part of it is diplomacy and part of it is what the state department does and what hannah and farah do and others at the

department to speak to other governments. and part of it are groups like us that continually providing recommendations and shall we say encouragement to the department to do more, to do something different or to do something better. but there's a key ingredient, a critical ingredient that also has to be part of the strategy, and that's really what we're talking about today, which is my final point is that you need to damage people everywhere on this problem. right? there's no one community can or should be left alone to deal with this sort of problem. as was mentioned before and i couldn't agree more when somebody speaks up -- when one community speaks up for another community, that gets attention. when a broad array of people speak up for a community, people whom you wouldn't expect to be seen, that gets attention.

that gets noticed. and people everywhere can both speak up and reach out. and the great thing about this campaign is that it combines both. you can speak up online. you can make your pledge known. and you can -- you can reach out. you're encouraged to reach out. and do something. and reach out to a community that's different than yourself. and this is another thing that we have had in our work, and that is that what happens online is increasingly more and more important. this also gets noticed. this also can help shape the department and shape actions by governments and by communities. but people also need to do things together. and again, when communities do things together -- and it doesn't have to be solved the middle east peace together or

solve differences between, you know, one religion or another, it can be cleaning up something in the neighborhood or practical things that just bring people together, different communities together, to actually -- to actually do something together and that helps builds the sorts of bridges that then can be communicated and hopefully build the political will for governments to address these problems. so thank you very much. [applause] >> hello again. let me introduce myself more formally. my name is irene and i'm director of the peace studies program here at the george washington university and also professor in the religion department. i've been asked to speak about why a peace studies program and academia generally would want to

support an initiative like 2,011 hours against hate. in my opinion one of the most important goals of a college education is to teach students so that they will become thoughtful citizens of our communities, our society, and the world. in order to do so, students must not only acquire the spaelectricual skills to comprehend and analyze our increasingly complex society but also acquire the leadership skills to initiate and to carry out the changes that will better our lives here and lives abroad. these two aspects of learning, the book learning, and the service learning, are best achieved when combined in such a way that students can relate what they've read and discussed and wrote about in the classroom to the world about them. and i have to admit that academia has been rightly criticized for not engaging in this interaction enough.

but i think that that is changing. students should not only be able to do the learning in the classroom but they can also take their experience from outside the classroom and use it to think critically about the text that they encounter in class. students in my ethics and rural religions course, for example, not only learn about islam from articles and documentaries they encounter in the classroom but they're also able to filter the constant news media about islam and muslims in a thoughtful and engaged way. initiatives such as these are critical for the cross-cultural relationships that are and will continue to be so necessary in our lives. working with and for people who are different from us towards shared goals is one of the best ways for us to end

discrimination that worsens unnecessary complicate the world. and i beseech you students to use their experience at the university not only to learn in the classrooms but to try to combine them to improve our society. there are two students who i would like to introduce who i think are doing this in an especially exemplary way and they are daniko brown and imor. daniko is a student body elect. and imor is the incoming black student of membership. i would like to have both of them come to the stage. [applause] >> good afternoon, everyone. ignorance is a state of mind

that divides. we claim to live in these united states then what perpetuates hate must be resisted. >> and my name is danika brown. we represent the black student union have the george washington university. the stop the hate campaign addresses an issue that has been persuasive throughout american history. based on the idea that we cannot coexist with what is different. essential tenet of the bsu has been and always will be to create an environment where differences can be embraced. in 2007, the bsu led a collaborative campaign entitled stop the hate. back then we faced the university campuses, the incarceration of the jena 6 and

rising anti-islamic sentiment in america. the bsu create a student voice to be heard through social media and traditional protest methods. >> today the bsu has continued in that spirit of unifications. when faced with an antiaffirmative bake sale we felt while the first amendment guarantees the freedom of speech, it does not guarantee that all voices in the conversation are heard. in addition to holding a nonviolent educational protest, we facilitate the opposing size. disagreement can no longer divide. but it must always call us our collective american heritage. the past and present have shown us that campaigns are seasonal but hate is not and thus the tools to resist hate should not be either. it is not about reacting but rather proactive engagement of all parties regardless of race, creed, gender or sexual

preference. >> the black student union of the george washington university pledges its commitment to the efforts of the stop the hate campaign. >> as the dr. martin luther king, jr., once said we are in an inescape web of destiny effects one affects all indirectly, thank you. >> i have been asked to moderate a question and answer session. so we have a microphone in the center and i would encourage all of you to fire away with your questions. but i'm very happy to ask to take my prerogative and ask the initial question to both farah

and hannah. we see here in the united states a number of acts of intolerance playing across the news, you know, on a fairly regional basis. and just tell me what that means for your work abroad and how what you see what's happening in the united states to what's happening around the world? >> i would say that while we're in the state department and we sit at the table of foreign policy we, of course, care a great deal about what's happening in our country and following it very carefully with pain, i think. i think that when we think about what it means to be an american, we have certain values and high ideals that we all worry may be getting frayed when we see acts of hatred and such intolerance happening. and it can be against a wide

variety of vulnerable groups. it can be as immediate as what happened in detroit or dearborn, michigan, last week, and it can be over the years as the examples of the students. it seems that hatred just has a life of its own. and i think that we need to be looking at our tolerance education and our messages to make sure we're changing as the world is changing. and that we're making sure that we're not just using communication tools that are different but i think people hear messages differently. and they hear so many messages that we can get confused. the good side of the technology is it can reach people and it's free. the bad side is hate speech can be used. and we don't want to in any way say people don't have a right to say things. people have a right to be stupid

and hateful but it isn't good enough to protect their right to speech if we don't condemn it. and so when you're on a listserv or you're on a tweet or whatever the technology is and you see bad messages coming through, you have to realize that part of dedicating your time and pledging your time to 2,011 hours against hate or whatever campaign you want to call it, you have to condemn that speech. there was a time that i can remember, i'm old enough, that if somebody at a dinner table or a comic on a stage told a joke at someone else's expense, that person would have been marginalized. they might have lost their jobs for intolerance as a comic and people confronted it. people was uncomfortable. it was unacceptable to tell the kind of jokes or make the kind of comments that we're seeing

made. on campuses we're seeing it made by government candidates and leaders and it's something that needs to be condemned. >> so, you know, the work that we do on the ground is overseas. and my mandate is to work on a people to people level. everything that i do is grassroots, so my work is community to community globally. so i engage with muslims and muslim majority countries and muslims that live as minorities in parts of the world. and as somebody who is an american and is a muslim and i understand there's no contradiction of each other and i understand clearly the values of the constitution and what our constitution has given us and the equal rights under the law. now, as americans we can understand that what's taking place -- we have the filter, we have the know how to understand that when a preacher that has 50 people in his church says something, it doesn't reflect

all of america. we get that. we're americans. but when you go overseas, it is very hard to frame the issues that are happening in our country because they don't have the experience of living in our nation. many people have not read our constitution. many people don't know that the man who did something bad in one part of the country or the woman that said something horrible doesn't represent all americans. it makes my job, to answer your question, extremely hard. the amount of time i spend representing our country -- i'm very proud to be an american and i have a lot of really wonderful things to say about our nation. i have to spend time, however, speaking about some of the challenges that our nation is going through right now. and you talked about in your speech it not just being about religion. it's not about what color skin you have, what color eyes you have, what color hair you have

or who you pray to or what's your gender. it's about what's happening inside and what we're bringing outside to corrupt communities in america that then reflect to the world what they believe america to be. we are better than that. our nation is stronger than that. we have gone through incredible hardships and the students that spoke today brought up one of the many changes our nation has gone through but it is unpolice chief -- unbelievably hard. yes, i happen to be a representative to the muslim communities but my colleagues at the department of state has have to deal with being able to try to explain how what one person is doing and say being carried by the media all day every day as if it's the only thing that's happening in our nation, it's extremely hard and it prevents us from doing the kind of work that we have been asked to do.

>> i want to add one thing and that is another thing that we do here in america so well is we know how to build coalitions in partnerships. so that if people are interested in fighting poverty, you have representatives of many, many religions and many community groups together. and where we travel, people don't do that by instinct. and so a lot of what we do -- if a community says, i'm very concerned. i mean, obviously, when i travel i'm dealing mainly with the jewish community. and if they say, people don't believe that anti-semitisim is current events. they think it's way back in history, how do we deal with this? and i say, well, have you don't together with the local church? and the answer isn't because people aren't smart. they go, what a good idea. it isn't how that culture thinks. i think it's the most important

export we have is our ability to built partnerships and built coalitions so people are speaking out on behalf of people who may be voiceless. i just wanted to add that. >> so i don't see a long line at the microphone yet. if you could just say who you are, please. >> okay. i'm cindy cobby and i'm with the state department in the u.s. agency which used to be part of public diplomacy. i've been doing this kind of thing for a while. i have a lot of issues i work on. one of the things i've noticed it's a pretty common trend through getting people to change their behavior is -- and this is going to sound crass and i'm sure it's an economic advantage. yeah, you can stop discrimination because it's the right thing to do and yes, it is

but it's also economically beneficial to do so. it's economically beneficial to stop using police or armies to fight wars. it's economically beneficial to use that municipal in other ways. it's economically beneficial to listen to the input of all kinds of brains. we've finally started listen to the women and other countries need to be told and it ought to be a message. not only should you do this because it's the right thing to do. part the reason america, even though we have our problems is strong is because we listen to input from all kinds of people, ugly people, pretty people, fat people, thin people, muslims, jewish. it doesn't matter, you know, that it makes economic sense to listen to everyone and i'm wondering if there's been a study that either george washington university has done or the peace institute has done or somebody has done that talks

about the economic benefits of not discriminate. has that been looked at at all? does that make sense? >> yes, it does. there has been some studies interestingly done at business schools which is appropriate to talk about how quickly teams, management teams, that consist of a diversity of perspectives can come up with more creative solutions to problems than groups that tend to be monolithic in their outlook. >> uh-huh. >> so, yes, there have been studies to back up the push to diversify. it's not just that, it's nice and we should all hold hands but, yes, there is kind of an economic incentive as well. >> yeah, i wish that was more publicized. i wish that that was more known than instead of this is the right thing to do and kind of a

lecture circuit. that it's, wow, you can take advantage of everything your society has to offer if you, you know -- if you are a little more peaceful, if you listen to people, you can take advantage of the ideas that people have which is more of a positive message rather than such a -- this is the right thing to do. it's more than the right thing to do. you can help your society agree. you can help your economy to grow. >> i think there's nothing wrong with making an argument out of enlightened self-interest. >> exactly. >> and i think often when we're taking arguments, it is the right thing to do. and we talk about whatever our background is, the morals and values that we've been given would fight for ending poverty or whatever the circumstance is. you're absolutely right. it helps build the political will but it's also an argument

that has merit. thanks for bringing that up. >> good afternoon. i'm with the www.islamic relief usa. first of all, i want to give an opportunity for your two youth leaders whoipg left the meeting. really inspiring words, the activities of the bsu here particularly myself as a former director for the bsu and my graduate and graduate organizations taking the lead especially offshore diverse group of opportunity and expand the notion of participation in our country. two questions super related. one, this is 2011 so we are approaching very much the 10th anniversary of 9/11 so i'm wondering how a lot of organizations are already planning out -- we have to kind of take the perspective of the lowest common denominator what

could happen and how is civil society, ngos who are working together to protect communities, the message to communities and to organize, which you're making the call. i think it's very much part of that process which i think is important. but how specifically does the 2011 against hours against hate are going to coordinate that. i know you're looking at civil society and ngos to really take hold and interact with each other but how will there be communication around that particular date and event and being a government staffer responsible for engagement. how can we be of assistance to you which in your context the state department and president obama with the right information, right stories that you need for that. >> thank you very much for that and for those who don't know him he's put a lot of work in building coalitions and doing a lot on capitol hill and working

with young people who are -- who are interested in issues of pluralism and democracy and i want to thank you for your work. let me say to you also a big thank you for your offer to be of help. we are looking for ideas. we don't know every group we ought to be communicating with. we have very robust relationships with our embassies and we have moved this campaign out overseas and so again if you go to the facebook page you will see many of our embassies that have taken it on and really brought it as hannah said there's no state department logo on here because we really wanted to make it a campaign for people by the people for their future and we're just sort of a catalyst to get it going. so if you have ideas here in the united states of groups that you think that we should connect with, that we should engage with to tell them more about this campaign. >> or you should engage with. >> yes, that's even better, that

would be -- that would be really terrific. vis-a-vis the comment about 9/11, now, look, i want to be very, very clear about something. the way in which our country has amazingly has been thinking about this anniversary to honor the victims of 9/11, to spend some time reflecting about the pain and suffering of those families, to think about ways that we could build coalitions worldwide, to talk about issues and mutual respect -- lots of things are happening organically. they're not happening because the u.s. government is telling people to do it and that, i think, is the strongest possible message that they're happening in every state of the nation. there are many ways in which we could hope to see orcompanionic organizations and individuals use this campaign as they think of issues of pluralism and mutual respect but to be absolutely clear with you, there

isn't some sort of goal-setting that we're putting out there to make sure that this is married in with 9/11 because it isn't just about the tenth anniversary. this is a very important year in many ways. but let's remember very clearly that while our country was attacked on 9/11, the ideology of al-qaeda has affected countries all over the world on different days, in different years. and that is very important. so it is not just about america being the victim of the a.q. ideology. it is bali, it is amman. it is the u.k. it is spain and that happened in different ways at different times times. >> hi, my name is danika, i spoke earlier. my question is, we understand that hatred amongst our generations exists but how do we counteract the hatred that is learned -- that is taught in homes of children -- to children across america?

they're so young and impressionable and we all grow up to be the people who are going to lead the conversation forward. how do we influence that generation? >> well, you influence it at home where children receive their first messages. you may attention to what the schools are teaching. i finally remember quizzing my girls when they were young for a history test and we got to a point on the history test on the inquisition in spain. and i'm looking at that time. i said this is all you learned on the inquisition? the word "jew" isn't even there. and since 1492, jews and muslims haven't been there because they were kicked out. excuse me, you know, i'm telling this to my kids like they're going to know the difference. [laughter]

>> so i marched into the school and i said this is unacceptable. of course, there are people on the other side who want to remove, you know, scientific lessons from school books but to show how important textbooks are and the training of teachers, we have to make it important. schools are run by local school boards. they're not run by the federal government. and it is a way of grassroots organizing that can make a difference but sometimes we become paralyzed because it seems so big and so bad. that's kind of what was behind also 2,011 hours against hate. don't be paralyzed. just give an hour. just spend a day at textbooks and how our universities are training the teachers. that becomes really important. it becomes fundamental. and never mind also how

educational television -- how that is sending messages to kids. is tolerance something that we value as important as learning the alphabet? or learning algebra in and i think it should be. i think it should come back to being fundamental lessons that kids are taught as children. the minute they hit school it is put out as a fundamental important value. >> i just want to see two quick things. i want to go back what tad said communities coming together or different other things. whether you're picking up trash in the neighborhood or you're working with different groups on a different project, making those connections on a multitude of ways helps on diversity anyway. so you're not approaching anybody to say, hey, we have a problem with pluralism or mutual respect but we're talking about other things that we as a community can do together. the other piece that i just want

to touch on is lexicon. how we speak about each other? what are the words that we're using? and what do we allow society to find acceptable? and i can't speak for every group out there but i have heard all kinds of interesting phraseology and descriptions being used of different ethnicities and different races and different religions that i think to myself, i don't think that would be a nice thing to be called if i were, you know -- you have to be bold. as the secretary just said, stand up and speak out. you can't let things like that slide. when somebody uses a term or says something negative, that's the time that you stand up and say in a nice way, listen, that doesn't work and this is why. >> i'd like to add to that. there have actually been studies that have shown that the most important thing that you can do to encounter racism and discrimination in young children -- because children

pick this up so early is that you as a parent or some other moral authority in this young person's life is to address it directly. and these studies are fascinating. you can have children in diverse school settings. you can have them watch sesame street episodes. but if no adult actually engages the child in conversation to talk about racism and discrimination, then the child continues to harbor these believes. so again, candid and frank conversations with young people from the earliest ages is vital. >> and children, of course, pick up a lot from their parents by osmosis or other people around them. and you can certainly engage them from activities very early. yes, please. >> we're actually taking questions live online so we have one question off of twitter which is from ruben.

the question is, should the u.s. have diplomatic relations with nations that support the killing of minority groups. >> can i just say something about the person who read off twitter. the logo is not up here but it's on your toolkit. and the person who came up with that logo is this wonderful young woman there so she's very talented in many ways. do you want to take that? well, i think it's great that twitter is following us. thank you, whoever you are and however you found us. [laughter] >> we have diplomatic relations with 194 countries who do a very good job of documenting that and making that public through our human rights report, through our international religious freedom report. and through statements that our government leaders make here and

abroad. there are times when it is more important to engage when countries are doing bad things than before. and there are times when breaking off a relationship is vital because it signals -- it's a sanction and it signals not only disapproval by the united states but by the international community. it is a case-by-case basis. so it can't be answered broad stroke. but i can tell you we work in a department where there are entire bureaus all day long are working in a given situation, in a given country. i work in the bureau of human rights and so it is what we do. and we sit at the public policy table and make the argument that human rights and, frankly, as

tad said, hatred is a fundamental abuse of human rights. and we sit at the table saying this should be the first thing we talk about and someone else says this is the first thing we should be talking about. and on a case-by-case basis it's raised on relationships and relationships are very complicated. >> i spoke earlier. i was just curious a lot of the conversation is around, i guess, most people a sense of responsibility to serve our communities to serve the world at large but i'm curious do you have any ideas how you first instill and create that sense of responsibility in people before they can go out and start to do things. >> well, you give them things to do. that's really what's behind 2,011 hours against hate. it's something really simple. since you guys are on twitter,

obviously, and facebook and your computers all the time anyway you're amazingly connected. that's what globalization really is. it's a way of saying you're going to use the things you do normally every day to do something to advance fighting intolerance. so motivation is making things easy, simple and doable. >> the other thing is, frankly -- i mean, in the work that i do -- i spend most of my time overseas. and i was in 40 countries around the world and no matter where i am, whether it's a rural place or it's an urban place, whether it's an affluent country or not, whether i'm speaking to an audience that's extremely well-educated or maybe not so much, whether it's men, no matter if it's women and i talk to the generation under the age of 30, i hear in their voices their commitment and their desire to do something bigger and bolder than what's happening

around them. they need to have their voices lifted up. they need to have platforms in which they can speak. and we as government must do as much as we can to be the convener and the facilitator with the intellectual partner with the ideas we hear on the ground. and when we hear people responding to president obama talking about mutual respect and when we hear people responding to secretary clinton, talking about her belief in her next generation, we must do all we can to actually activate their interest and their ideas to build a stronger world. i'm not being pollyanna here. i absolutely believe in this generation and i could not do my job if i didn't. and i can tell from you looking at the audience right now with people who are going like this and the response that we've gotten in our work, especially on this campaign, people are looking for ways to channel their interest in their future.

and this is one of many ways and so on the issue of responsibility, it's the issue of action. action forward. i think this is our last question. yeah? okay. >> i just want to add something, one of the great things about the internet it connects you immediately with all the things that are already going on. and there's no -- i mean, any number of things out there for people to connect to. >> hi, i represent south asian-americans leading together. we just started a campaign called america for all of us where we're actually dealing with some of the similar ideas. >> give us the website so that people know. >> it's saalt.org so please do enjoy the campaign. it's again for community engagement and things like that. but i think that one aspect that we're trying to address also and i feel like i should get your input on that is that i think a lot of the division in this culture of hatred that's been created in the u.s. has become

worse in the past few years and a big chunk is because of what we allowed our elected representatives to get away with. so, you know, peter king saying things there are too many mosques in this country and, you know, just these kind of statements have created a complete division, you know, within the country. and whereas getting the community and getting the youth to sort of talk about, you know, creating unity and, you know, harmony, i think there's a big needles to sort of get some accountability from our elected officials and tell them just stop, just stop this completely ridiculous thing that's going on where you're getting away of things that you have. if you have any input how your campaign can address some of those thing. >> well, i just want to see amen, if i may. [laughter] >> i totally agree with that. i think holding people accountable who spew hatred is

everybody's responsibility. elected officials really listen to their voters and they read their letters to the editor and they monitor the phone calls and emails they're getting. and so it takes a second to let an elected official know that that was unacceptable. and it takes a second to let be in in your class know that what they said is upacceptable. and it takes a second to stop yourself if all of a sudden you find yourself thinking a hateful thought. we were born not hating. and so somewhere along the line we were all taught to hate. and so we all battle this because people different than us are different than us but wealth to battle it. we need to take the time and say it's unacceptable.

>> and i just want to say this you're seeing this from the perspective of an american. but understand that publicly elected officials around the world are saying hateful things about other religions and races and i'm seeing the increase. you're absolutely correct, you know, if you look at the number of swastikas that are being spray painted, you know, on sides of streets, in cemeteries and whatnot across europe it's appalling. when you see the kind of vile things that are being said in other parts of the world on gender issues. i mean, it isn't -- it isn't a nice place on the planet on these issues. but it isn't just okay to see we're seeing the data points shift and there's an increase what hannah said is correct you have to call on. i want to just turn this just slightly. you are seeing organic responses to that kind of negativity by the kind of campaign that you started with others around the world who said that isn't enough and they are, in fact, calling

out on their elected officials because they don't think it's acceptable to do that. >> i just want to add that i have two grown daughters who often asked me, doesn't this depress you? you go around the world learning about hatred of jews, you know, like, don't you get depressed and i said i get to do something about it. i get to do something about it. and this campaign, this global campaign, when we travel to these countries and we meet with young people it's, frankly, inspirational. they get it. they want a different world. they are committed to doing something about it and in five minutes they're going to be the majority of the population on the globe. so as depressing as comments that go unanswered and events that go unanswered is there are actually some people who are pushing pack. an