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Originally Posted by Cynthetiq
I don't know that 100% and neither do the people who told me that it was such. They ASSUME it was that, but they weren't there to hear him say anythin OR know his intentions.
In fact, you don't know it either, and are equally guessing.
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Well, if the attacker didn't say anything to you involving slurs or other discriminatory language (in Icelandic or English), then you're right. It was just a random crime, and it would be reading into the situation to assign any more meaning to it than that (especially in downtown Reykjavik on a Fri or Sat night, around 4am when EVERYONE goes insane)... though knowing the history of xenophobia towards foreign-looking people here in Iceland, I still would not be surprised if you were picked out precisely because of your different appearance, as an easy target. I don't know whether that makes it a hate crime, or an "easy target" crime, but we can't say much more without further info from the attacker.
However, let's say for the sake of argument that something was said about you being of Asian descent. That most certainly gets said to the Thai immigrants here all the time, when people are sober even... moreso in the old days than now, but accusations of "How much did your husband pay for you?" or "Are you working tonight?" (the stereotype of all Asian women being prostitutes, basically) were commonplace. So let's assume something was said to you, something racially derogatory, as you were assaulted. If so, then no, I disagree with this:
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Originally Posted by Cynthetiq
Any assault affects others. Any crime makes people pause and think that it could happen to them. Insert race/sex/creed, and suddenly you've sliced the demographic so that only those people will be more scared.
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Yes, any assault affects others and scares the community. But when it happens to a particular demographic, especially a vulnerable one (and especially repeatedly--say, lynching of black people in the South), those people most definitely have a right to be more scared. That's the whole point of hate crimes--not to hit random targets, but to hit specific groups and make those groups feel unwelcome and unsafe, which changes the context of reception for those people drastically. And that has even greater consequences on the social fabric of a diverse society, in the long run.
When there was news of a "foreigner-hating crime" (direct translation from the Icelandic term here--they're specific about who they hate, lol) last year--an Arab man getting stabbed in the back by an Icelander downtown, hateful phrases included--you'd better believe we paid attention to that and watched ourselves a little more carefully, for obvious reasons.
I don't know about the formation of anti-hate crime legislation, but the Intercultural Center and other immigrant resource centers are working very hard to get educators talking at the youngest levels about tolerance and openness towards foreigners. I think that in the next generation of Icelanders, this will have an effect. But for now, there is still a lot of ignorance out there.