**Warning adult language ahead**

This is going to be short and a bit of a call to action, both specifically and generally.  There aren’t a lot of feels here, so you don’t need the tissue box.

Last week, a friend brought to my, and the larger community’s, attention that Jason’s name and image were being used in a hate site.  The hate site uses racial slurs, blames violence exclusively on race, and makes derogatory comments about people in mixed-race relationships.  Here’s the catch, they do all of this in images.  There are almost no searchable words on the site.  So, someone has learned enough about the capabilities and limits of computers to circumvent the anti-hate speech, anti-harassment policies on Facebook.  This is bullshit.  (If you know how to report the “about” section in an FB site, I’d like to do that.  For slander.)

If you ever met Jason, or for that matter know me, you know that Jason would never, ever stand for this kind of bullshit.  This is antithetical to the way he lived his life.  For someone to take his image and his name and his death and use it to further their shitty, fucked up cause is beyond words.  Truly, to take a deceased person’s image and name and use it to further your cause is shitty.  To do it in a general way which catches people who don’t share your beliefs is shitty.  To do it to further hate and bigotry, makes you the scum of the earth.  These people are as close to irredeemable as I believe people can be.

So, here’s the direct call to action.  Go on Facebook and report the ever living shit out of this site.  I’m not providing a link because I don’t want to go look at that bullshit again, but just search something like “Black on White murder” and report every one of their fucked up sites.  Report them today, and tomorrow, and the next day.  Report them until Facebook has to take notice and use real human eyeballs and take them down.

Thankfully, the loud actions of our community took the image off the site already.  Thank you to folks to reported that.  I appreciate it.

Here’s the wider call to action.  Don’t stand for hate.  Don’t let this bullshit go past you.  Don’t let someone else deal with it.  We don’t have time for that.  Stand up, even when it is scary.  Stand up, even when it is hard.

And here’s the other piece.  Don’t be a dick.  (Blatant racism, like this fucking site, is just that.  Go be a dick there and have fun.)  When you are talking to people, assume the best.  Assume that they don’t mean to be assholes, assume that they are also fighting for a better world.  Assume that we are all on the same team.  Talk to people like people, even on the internet.  Accept that inflection is hard via text and writing is not everyone’s forte.  Spend the time to ask questions and listen well before you jump to conclusions about someone’s views.  I know this is harder than just spouting off our own views and assuming we are right.  But it’s the only way to have a conversation.  Don’t listen to respond, listen to understand.  Then respond with compassion.  We’re all only human and spreading hurt and anger for a good cause is still spreading hurt and anger.

*Thank you to Nell.  Really, sincerely, thank you for finding this.  I would rather know and have it eradicated than leave it there and have it be a fucked up piece of Jason’s legacy.

**A second thank you to Rosemary who has been contacting the families of other people on that site and informing them that their loved one’s image is being used in this way.  Other images are already being reported and removed.