SXSW Session Report #34: How to Live in an Age of Hatred and Bias

This is Hamamoto from TIMEWELL.

The following is a session report from SXSW. Angela Gomez, affiliated with the ACLU and Planned Parenthood, spoke about racial and gender injustice in the United States — their roots, their current expression, and what is required to address them.

Personal Stake: Her Daughter's Rights

Gomez opened with the personal grounding for her work: her daughter. She is troubled that her daughter lives with fewer rights than she had at the same age — that progress on gender equality has not only stalled but, in some dimensions, reversed.

This is not abstract for her. She has been active in protest movements, including around the George Floyd case. The work she does is connected to a specific, personal understanding of what it means when rights are denied or diminished.

The Structural Diagnosis: White Supremacy and Capitalism

The session's central analytical argument was that the problems of racial and gender injustice in American society are rooted in two interconnected structures: white supremacy and capitalism. Representative Frost was cited in the session as making the explicit connection between these two systems — arguing that much of what looks like racism is also about money, and that the two cannot be separated.

The implication of this analysis: addressing racism requires more than changing attitudes. It requires examining and changing the structural conditions that produce racial hierarchy as an economic outcome.

Recognizing the Individual Conditions for Bias

The session also addressed what is required at the individual level. Recognizing bias and intolerance in yourself and in your environment is a prerequisite for action. The speaker was direct: people who have not done this work are not equipped to respond effectively when those forces produce violence.

Her specific concern was about the conditions that produce mass shooters — people who absorb and act on ideologies of hatred. Reducing that risk requires recognizing racist and hateful thinking in its early forms, before it becomes action, and reporting it through anonymous channels that allow communities to respond.

Media and the Reporting of Violence

The session also addressed how media covers mass shootings. The speaker raised the concern that sensationalist coverage — in which shooters gain extensive publicity — can create incentives for future shooters who want the same attention. She called for more thoughtful approaches to reporting that do not inadvertently celebrate or publicize perpetrators.

The argument was not about restricting coverage but about how it is done: reporting that emphasizes the humanity of victims and the harm caused rather than the identity and ideology of perpetrators.

Key Points

• The roots of racial and gender injustice are structural — connected to both white supremacy ideology and capitalist systems that produce racial hierarchy as an economic outcome
• Individual recognition of bias and intolerance is a precondition for effective action — people who haven't done this work cannot respond appropriately when those forces produce harm
• Early recognition of hateful ideologies, and reporting through anonymous channels, is part of how communities can prevent mass violence
• Media coverage of mass shootings needs to be more thoughtful about not creating incentives for future perpetrators

This event report was produced by TIMEWELL.

Reference: https://one-x.jp/PMiwA1Mb/3xtJycv5

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