Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee introduces bill to combat ‘white supremacy’

Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee has launched a invoice geared toward preventing “white supremacy” by attaching prison prices to sure types of hate speech.

The Democratic congresswoman launched the Main Towards White Supremacy Act of 2023, which goals “to stop and prosecute white supremacy impressed hate crime and conspiracy to commit white supremacy impressed hate crime.”

The conspiracy addition means individuals who use hate speech on-line might face prison prices beneath the laws even when they don’t act on their threats.

That features a one that publishes “materials advancing white supremacy, white supremacist ideology, antagonism based mostly on ‘alternative concept,’ or hate speech that vilifies or is in any other case directed in opposition to any non-white particular person or group.”

The textual content of the invoice particularly lists social media platforms as one space the place hate speech might lead to prison penalties — if that hate speech motivates one other particular person to exit and commit a racist crime in opposition to others.

“Mass shootings and different hate crimes motivated by white supremacy have been growing in frequency and depth,” the invoice states. “These heinous and virulent crimes are impressed by conspiracy theories, blatant bigotry and legendary falsehoods reminiscent of ‘alternative concept.’ All cases should be prevented and extreme prison penalties should be utilized to their perpetrators.”

In the latest hate-fueled mass taking pictures, a 19-year-old white supremacist gunned down 10 individuals inside a Buffalo grocery store in a predominantly black neighborhood which he focused for its demographics.

Earlier than the Could bloodbath, the teenager posted a racist manifesto on-line planning the assault as a result of he cared “for the way forward for the white race,” prosecutors stated.

He pleaded responsible to the murders in November.

It’s unlikely Jackson Lee’s laws will cross a Republican-controlled chamber.