OPINION | Coronavirus: how to stop the hate pandemic

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Credit: JEFF KOWALSKY / AFP via Getty Images

Editor's Note: CNN presenter Van Jones is the executive president of the REFORM Alliance, a criminal justice organization. David Kamenetzky is President of JAB Investors and President of the Alfred Landecker Foundation, which seeks to educate about the Holocaust and advance a future based on shared values, respect for the individual and a free and democratic Europe. The opinions expressed in this comment are solely those of the authors. See more opinions on CNNe.com/opinion

(CNN) - At times like these, history lessons can provide vital resources, offering warnings for the present and hope for the future. We need both more than ever.

For example, this year marked the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. In 1948, following the Holocaust and in the context of the catastrophe of the Second World War, the main nations of the world re-committed themselves to the universal idea of ​​human rights; consequently, the United Nations adopted the General Declaration of Human Rights.

More than 50 years ago in the United States, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. inspired a nation caught up in the fight for civil rights with the concept of love as a cure for fear and hatred. As he put it in one of his sermons: "Hate is rooted in fear, and the only cure for fear and hate is love."

Today, fear is reigning again. The coronavirus pandemic has created the great challenge of this generation. It has put health systems and economies on the brink of collapse. These events have unleashed enormous insecurity and made people susceptible to conspiracy theories, stereotypes, and scapegoats. With a growing sense of powerlessness, both people and nations have become vulnerable to hatred. It is time for our leaders to resist this ancient fear and boldly defend the cause of human rights and human dignity once again.

The call to conscience is especially urgent to make now, in the era of the coronavirus.

Look for a past pandemic in history books, and you'll quickly find a nationality or minority group that some people blame for its spread. For the bubonic plague of the Middle Ages, it was the Jews. For typhoid fever, the Irish. During the influenza pandemic of 1918, the Spanish. More recently, HIV produced an ugly reaction to the LGBTQ community and American Haitians, swine flu to Mexicans, Ebola to Africans, and SARS to Asian communities.

As a business leader representing the Alfred Landecker Foundation (dedicated to educating future generations about the Holocaust and the tragic consequences of bigotry) and a civil rights leader who has worked to reform a criminal justice system that disproportionately incarcerates African Americans and other people of color in the name of being "tough on crime," we know very well what happens when a society decides to make small groups of scapegoats for big problems. Fear intolerance is anathema to both of you.

Today, we are concerned with the growing signs of a possible hate pandemic against a variety of vulnerable groups:

Asian / Asian-American: In March, a man in Midland, Texas stabbed several members of an Asian-American family, including two boys, ages 2 and 6, at a grocery store. According to news reports, the suspect said he "thought the family was Chinese and infected people with coronavirus." References to "Wuhan virus" and "China virus" only provide more fuel to hate-filled people who intimidate or attack people of Asian descent around the world.

Jewish people: Coronavirus-fueled intolerance and hatred are not unique to people of Chinese descent. Fed by conspiracy theories, anti-Semitic groups are stepping up their activity on social media. In France, former Health Minister Agnès Buzyn, a Jew, was the victim of a cruel online attack. In several European countries, as well as Iran and the United States, Jews have been falsely accused of creating and spreading the coronavirus. This comes in the context of a significant ongoing increase in anti-Semitic incidents worldwide and attacks on Jewish communities in the United States, specifically in recent years. In Germany, there were reports of protesters against the closure measures taking to the streets with the Jewish star and carrying anti-Semitic banners.

African Americans: Blacks are also under attack. It's not just about incidents of blatant bigotry, like Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance-Bottoms receiving an anonymous text message calling her the N-word. There's also a disturbing guilt game: an ugly tendency to blame some groups for getting sick, more than others. Of course, we all must take steps to safeguard and improve our own health, especially those in vulnerable communities. But the high case-fatality rates of covid-19 in blacks are not primarily due to poor individual decisions. The main culprit is a system of racial discrimination that disproportionately leaves black people with the worst options for employment, housing and health care. These factors have devastated black communities long before anyone had heard of this coronavirus.

These are just a few examples of hatred that is a systemic problem in the United States. We are witnessing a growing wave of hostility justified by the pandemic towards Asians, Jews and people of African descent. And we should see that phenomenon for what it is: hatred fueled by fear, which sows division. We need to conquer this disease of the body without poisoning our hearts or minds with fear and hatred. We must not succumb to the ugly emotions that will surely divide us, leaving wounds that will take generations to heal.

We can take action now.

First, everyone who cares about respecting everyone should speak up. Defending the stigmatized, as the mayors of Toronto, New York, Florence, Philadelphia and other cities have done, is a starting point. We all have an obligation to take Albert Einstein's maxim seriously: "If I were silent, I would be guilty of complicity."

Second, we need to document hatred when it occurs. Careful monitoring of increasing incidents of hate and abuse, especially online, is key. The new #StopAAPIHate (Stop Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Hate) campaign collects online coronavirus incidents of bullying, harassment, hate speech and online violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

The non-profit mission OCA - Asian Pacific American Advocates recently produced a toolkit to stop Asian-American xenophobia that tells people where they can report hate crimes and provides strategies for everyone to face racism when they see it. .

CNN's Lisa Ling and former Democratic presidential contender Andrew Yang deserve additional support in using their platforms to sound the alarm.

Third, we all need to be careful what we retweet or forward. Because social media can spread misinformation or hate at lightning speed, we face an unprecedented challenge. We have to work harder to reduce the destructive forces of social media and harness its ability to do good. Also, the engineers and designers who make these tools online need to be more careful, anticipate abuse, and build safeguards. The tsunami of fear-mongering and misinformation of fear is proving that Silicon Valley can no longer build tools and only later think about the destructive consequences. We must design technology from the beginning to take into account all dimensions of nature and human behavior.

Fourth, we must ensure that the facts are not drowned out by speculation and rumors. Conspiracy theories and false information hampered the global response to diseases like HIV. Today, social media is where the facts and insinuations fight for our understanding of this pandemic. Lies and hate speech travel online at fast speeds, thanks to a culture of discrediting legitimate experts. Facebook, Reddit, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, YouTube and Twitter have taken the first steps to counter misinformation and break potentially dangerous debates in echo chambers.

However, these efforts are not enough, given the scale of the problem and the ability and responsibility of the tech giants to prevent the disastrous spread of online hate. If technology companies want to live up to their expectations as facilitators of a more democratic world, they must do much more.

Fifth, we have to take advantage of today's advanced technology forever. In addition to investing in the medical side of coronavirus, we need to invest in how artificial intelligence and machine learning can detect and eliminate hate speech and bigotry on social media platforms. With proper protocols and ethical considerations, artificial intelligence and machine learning can help us to intervene quickly, before ugliness spreads. We welcome research and advocacy by universities, such as Harvard and others, on harmful online speeches, images, and memes, so we are better armed for this pandemic and the next.

Finally, it is time to teach the children. Educating young people (and older people as well) to be aware of possible scapegoats is key. It is important to connect the bias we see today with history. The Anti-Defamation League has online resources and lesson plans to teach about the coronavirus and the rise of racism and anti-Semitism. The National Association of School Psychologists, Facing History and Ourselves, and Teaching Tolerance, connected with the Southern Poverty Law Center, offer helpful resources for educators.

We have seen what happens when fear takes over the world, and we have witnessed the slippery slope from blame to violence. We cannot allow the new normality to be defined by the uncontrollable hatred of the intolerant, combined with the silent shame of the indifferent. We cannot repeat the mistakes of the past.

Someday we will find a vaccine for covid-19. But we will never find a quick cure for the bigotry, hatred, racism and division that the pandemic has helped spawn. Only unifying leadership, wise decisions, and a humble and noisy refusal to give in to conspiracy theories and scapegoats can heal these wounds. This is a time for leaders to articulate unity, not deepen fear and division.

History shows us that pandemics can bring out the worst in society. But people of conscience still have a chance to change how the history of this pandemic will be written. If vulnerable minorities unite in solidarity, and if the majority refuses to remain silent, this time can and will be different.