A panel of area residents, including Leo Baker, Julie Walker and Dr. Jose Morales Collazo, answered questions from audience members during a discussion about hatred and bias Tuesday evening. A total of more than 100 people attended sessions of “Healthy Connections: Dismantling Hate and Restoring Community” in Marshall.

MARSHALL — Hatred and bias have an impact on southwest Minnesota communities today. But speakers at a pair of events Tuesday said area residents can also take active steps to break down that bias.

“We have the power to begin conversations to dismantle hate – within our homes, within our neighborhoods, within our communities,” Matt Lewellyn-Otten said. It starts with having conversations with the people we know, he said.

Lewellyn-Otten was the keynote speaker at “Healthy Connections: Dismantling Hate and Restoring Community.” The educational event included discussions with area community members, and speakers from LGBTQ advocacy organization OutFront Minnesota.

Organizers said a total of more than 100 people attended two sessions held Tuesday at Southwest Minnesota State University and the Marshall Area YMCA.

“We were really excited about the level of turnout,” said Sue Morton, of PFLAG Marshall-Buffalo Ridge.

Tuesday’s events were sponsored by organizations including PFLAG Marshall-Buffalo Ridge, OutFront Minnesota, Marshall Area Peace Seekers, and the MORE (Marshall/Mustangs Overcoming Racism through Education) Network.

Morton said the idea to have an educational workshop about divisions in local communities originally came from members of the Marshall Area Peace Seekers, and grew from there.

“The whole objective is as simple as trying to bring everyone together and have a conversation,” Morton said. In the long term, the goal would be to continue with educational events in the community, she said. “We want to extend that even more.”

While a lot of Lewellyn-Otten’s talk was focused on the impact of bias and hate directed at LGBTQ people, community panelists said hate was a problem faced by a variety of groups in the area. Leo Baker, a member of the Upper Sioux Community, talked about incidents of racism and bullying against Native American youth in the area, as well as hateful graffiti.

“It’s pretty amazing that in this general area, there’s a lot of swastikas popping up all over. Just so many,” Baker said.

In another example, panelist Dr. Jose Morales Collazo also spoke about his experiences as a science teacher in Worthington. Morales Collazo found himself in the center of a controversy, over an LGBTQ pride flag and a Puerto Rican flag in his classroom. Morales Collazo grew up in Puerto Rico.

In January, the Worthington School Board voted to remove the flags from Morales Collazo’s classroom.

Morales Collazo said as a teacher, he wanted to be there to support students, including LGBTQ students, Hispanic students and students of color. “That’s what I always tried to offer for my students – that level of security, that level of home, that level of space where they can be their true selves,” he said.

Lewellyn-Otten encouraged audience members to think about their biases, and where those biases might come from. In his talk, he also discussed the difference between bias-based incidents and hate crimes.

A bias-based incident is any hostile expression that may be motivated by another person’s race, disability, religion, national origin, orientation, or gender identity, Lewellyn-Otten said. Those expressions can include examples like name-calling or using slurs, making racist or derogatory drawings, or imitating or mocking someone’s disability or cultural practices, he said.

A hate crime is a crime based on a bias, Lewellyn-Otten said.

“We see that the rise of bias-based incidents leads to a rise in hate crimes in our communities. The rise in this rhetoric that threatens the safety of community members inevitably escalates to violence,” he said.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has identified 19 different anti-government or hate groups in the state of Minnesota, Lewellyn-Otten said. But at the same time, there have been positive steps taken to fight hate in Minnesota. An omnibus bill passed in the 2023 legislative session provided funding for the Minnesota Department of Human Rights to help track and follow up on bias-based incidents, he said.

“This piece of legislation is really important for all of us, as we begin to think about the ways that we want to uproot and dismantle hate within our communities,” he said.

Lewellyn-Otten also shared some strategies for having conversations to help break down hate in our communities.

“When you’re having these conversations, there’s a few things to remember,” he said. “You won’t change anyone’s mind in one conversation . . . It takes time. It takes many conversations. But conversation plants seeds.”

Connecting with people’s shared values during those conversations is a way to help chip away at biases, Lewellyn-Otten said. “What people have found is that there’s these four deeply held core values that drive opinions across racial, economic and political beliefs,” he said. Those values include rights, trust, freedom, and autonomy and agency. “If we can have a conversation that connects to one of these four core values, we’re able to have a good conversation with somebody, helping them to see the way that we understand these four core values.”

Panelists also answered questions about ways to combat hate in local communities. Julie Walker said she didn’t think as often about people like speakers who come from out of town to say hateful things.

“I more often think of the people who are from here who say hateful things loudly,” Walker said. “And there’s fewer of them in this area than their voice volume would suggest. We know that nationally, 70% of people support the LGBTQ+ community, for example. But it doesn’t always sound like that . . . There’s a fear sometimes, for us to speak up.”

Walker said community members need to extend affirming messages and support marginalized people.

Panelist Joyce Tofte of the MORE Network said it’s harder to have conversations fighting hate and bias with people we know and love.

“That’s what allows the hate to continue to persist,” Tofte said. It was important to have those difficult conversations, she said. “If we can take care of each other in our little communities, in our little family units, and have those hard conversations, that’s what’s going to help our future generations.”