PHOTO: Michael Pappas, SFIC ED and URI Global Council Trustee, gives a speech at the SFIC Winterfaith Shelter Walk
One of URI’s most active Cooperation Circles in the San Francisco Bay Area is the San Francisco Interfaith Council. Under the leadership of SFIC Executive Director and URI Global Trustee, Michael Pappas, and Rita Semel, SFIC Board Chair and former Chair of URI’s Global Council, the SFIC has a well-deserved reputation among civic and religious leaders for its ability to mobilize its 800-member congregations on local concerns like homelessness and disaster preparedness.
The SFIC’s many accomplishments include: organizing the annual San Francisco Interfaith Winter Shelter program; convening faith-based social service agencies to address issues faced by San Francisco’s most vulnerable communities; and serving as an interfaith partner in responding to a series of inflammatory anti-Muslim ads on SFMTA buses run by the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) in August 2012.
Their reputation and track record makes the SFIC an ideal partner for URI’s Talking Back to Hate campaign, launched earlier this month. SFIC joins an illustrious group of partners including the Christian-Muslim Forum, Euphrates Institute, Not in Our Town, Tony Blair Faith Foundation, and the World Sikh Organization of Canada. Talking Back To Hate promotes dialogue, education and storytelling to prevent and respond to the increasing incidents of hate speech, bullying, discrimination and xenophobia around the world.
“In 2010, the SFIC and URI stood in solidarity with our Muslim neighbors, partnering disseminate a toolkit for faith communities to speak out against the rising tide of Islamophobia,” said Michael Pappas.
Today, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, anti-immigrant bias and bullying have significantly increased. They are becoming institutionalized through aggressively hostile talk radio, bus ads, billboards, cyberbullying, and acts of violence. “SFIC is proud to support URI’s Talking Back to Hate campaign by distributing Positive Actions In Response To Hate Speech, a new toolkit designed to help schools, communities and religious groups respond to acts of prejudice, and prevent them from occurring,” notes Pappas.
Talking Back To Hate includes an online pledge, asking participants to take a stand against discrimination and hate speech. In the coming weeks, the campaign will announce the first in a series of webinars that will address these issues, as well as plans for a day of global action on Sept. 21, 2013, the International Day of Peace.
