Hate Crime or not? Obama Effigy on noose racist - Palin Effigy on not even sexist.
 

You may not like her, but why is even perceived violence against a woman okay and versus a black man not? Women have been oppressed, not to the degree of blacks, but still oppression and equal rights have been fought by women.

This is one of the reasons why I don't agree with any sort of hate or bias crime legislation. First, the officer is the one who is determining if it is a hate crime. He's not supposed to determine any thing, that's the judge's job.

Why is one an acceptable hate crime and the other gets a pass?

Sarah Palin was not effigied because she's a woman, she was effigied because of her stance on homosexual marriage.

The two most public instances of Obama being effigied, the persons doing it admitted it was because he's black.

Also, up to the early '70's thousands of black men were hung because they were black. It was a hobby for many white southerners.

Not shot.

Not stabbed.

Hung.

They did it so as to leave a message that the noose was the best way out of this world for blacks in America. It was genocide.

Palin's effigy was similar to my high school hanging a hornet because of our belief that the Forst Hill Hornets suck at football.

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i don't think we're dealing with rocket scientists in any of these situations.
given the speed and intensity of the streams of bullshit pseudo-information that characterizes the sorry state of affairs that is this campaign at this point, anyone deciding to undertake such an action has to be a fucking idiot.
so now we have a great little fake issue, the pseudo-equivalence of effigies hanging from a rope in the days immediate prior to halloween.
obviously, if you're conservative and have been alarmed by the nature and intensity of the populist rage being manipulated and stoked by the increasingly desperate mc-cain campaign machinery as it feels itself sliding into the ant-heap and you want to make this bothersome turn of events seem less bothersome without going so far as to deny anything is happening outright, the best move is to generate a false equivalence.
and since anyone who is awake at this point would know that something like this is possible--again--you'd have to be a fucking idiot to make a palin effigy.

do they mean the same thing? no.
are they the same thing? in a way. but if you want to play this game, you'd also have to find outrageous the hanging man in a deck of tarot cards.
i think the superficiality of the equivalence is obvious: you have two body-shaped objects hanging from rope. therefore these situations are the same.
but in the united states, the symbolic resonances are not at all the same, now are they? lynching is a very particular tradition in petit bourgeois resentment land, now isn't it?
is there really any need to go through this?
the op is shallow, the equivalence is shallow, it's all a function of the noxious character of the presidential election charade 2008 style.

It doesn't matter what the "reason" you're posting is. If someone is offended, they are offended.

If someone was to put up Obama in the same position and say it's not because he's black, but because of his stance or position on a topic people would still say, "No, it's because of institutional memory of blacks being suppressed."

i don't buy that argument, cyn.
you based the op on it and now you're restating it.
the whole of my post above was directed against that argument, so it hardly makes sense to simply repeat it as if that's a response.

so let me put it this way---the comparison that the op is based on is, i think, false, except at the most superficial possible level.

The photoshopped picture of her in a bikini holding a gun is sexist, but if they photoshopped Obama in a speedo would that be considered sexist?

They should've had Palin being shot by a moose or eaten by a bear. ;)

my response was directed at poppinjay not your response.

ah. mea culpa then.
{doffing my hat, bowing out stage center}

RB's response still stands, though. You're trying to re-state your op and add a theory that is based on a hypothetical situation.

What has happened, one effigy of Palin, and two of Obama. The one of Palin was done because of her stance on homosexual marriage. The two of Obama, because he's black.

Either find us the non-racist effigy of Obama, or don't assume what people will think.

Really? How? Because she actually has done swimsuit modeling and she likes to hunt.

I think that whoever put up those effigies is lacking intelligence and also probably an asshole. Sexist, I don't know--he included McCain, too--does that make him ageist??? But I find the whole thing reprehensible, and the excuse that it's "just part of a Halloween display" to be weak sauce and not funny or condonable in any form, given the tenor of this election so far.

That doesn't change the fact that if it were Obama being hanged and Biden in the chimney, then it would be even MORE offensive, and would certainly classify as being a hate crime--hands down.

And that's what the problem is. You CANNOT nor WOULD NOT find a non racist effigy of Obama, because ANY hanging effigy of Obama will be instantly classified as racist, all because he's black and the baggage that entails.
-----Added 28/10/2008 at 12 : 23 : 36-----

and that's where there is disconnect for me. WHY? why is it MORE offensive?

When you think of lynching in American history, do you think of a black man or a white woman?

If it was an actual photo of her from a swimsuit contest then it wouldn't be "it is what it is". I got that photo in an e-mail under the title "VPILF", so yeah I thought it was funny but also it was sexist. Am I all torn up about it? No I have a sense of humor...

I was just making an example.

It may be as offensive, it's just not sexist-offensive. It's kind of odd, one is effigied because she opposes certain civil rights, another because he represents the success of certain civil rights.

Which kind of person has America had a history of rebelling against? Both. But always against oppressors.

Let me reframe the OP a bit better clarified.

I am not a support of hate/bias crime legislation. A crime is a crime.

Why is a hate crime worse than another crime?

If a person is murdered versus a person murdered because he's black?
If a person is assualted versus a person who is assualted because of sexual orientation, race, creed?

Why is a HATE/BIAS crime worse than a regular crime? What makes it worse? Why?

I just watched the South Park episode dealing with that precise issue, and it said it far better than I could. Now I just need to find the youtube of it.

you can't escape history: you can't escape that glorious tradition of lynching---one of the ironies is that many lynchings were carried out to "protect the honor" of white women...because you can't escape history, you cannot control the resonances that it generates.
that's one problem.

the other is that you are presupposing that the palin effigy is in fact a "hate crime"---on that, i am not sure at all.
i think it's stupid, like i said above, and i think the folk who put it up were and probably still are stupid for having done it.

is any effigy hung by the neck from a rope a hate crime?
why would that be true?
isn't what's at issue here really a question of resonances, and so a question of differential echoes with the past?
because unless i am mistaken, hanging a dummy is not in itself a crime--i mean, dummies aren't alive, right?

I wonder how this would play out if these were gallery pieces in an art show rather than public Halloween adornments. Freedom of speech is of course respected in either setting but I can't help but to wonder what exactly pushes people beyond causing controversy and being offended to the pressing charges.

I find all of these effigies, despite their connotations to be rather ineffectual.

Growing up and the whole Maplethorpe NEA controversy is something that I have a hard time digesting as well, for the same reasons.

and yes, rb, I agree with your first statement.

A hate crime is a systematic crime based on a belief that others who are different should not exist. That leads to genocide, should the right person get into power.

I think it's good legislation. Certainly a lot smarter than 3 strikes you're out, or harsh drug penalties.

Just shooting somebody for fun or to take their stuff only oppresses the victim.

So you're saying that if someone assaults you it's not as bad as if someone assaults you because you're a dumb zebra (example from your avatar), and should carry a stiffer penalty than if it was just a simple assault. Am I understanding that correctly?

Three strikes is addressing a different thing completely.

I'm sorry the genocide is a stretch in that vein of what someone else is thinking as you put it earlier.

I'm also of the mindset that a crime is a crime.. as far as hate crime vs regular crime.

I think the reason the Palin effigy isn't so offensive is because of the historical nature of the noose. It's really become a symbol much like the swastika. It was once a peaceful symbol then the Nazi's turned it into a hate mongering symbol.. the same could, in a way, be said for the noose.

take a noose to a predominately black area and see what happens. it won't be pretty.

Wait, so the thread is about why hate crimes exist as a different classification? That's simple.

Motive, whether you want to admit it or not, absolutely plays a part in the measure of wrongdoing. It's the difference between involuntary manslaughter and murder 1. Hate crimes, or crimes motivated by bigotry, do more damage to society because of their intent.

No, I'm saying it's worse if someone assaults you due to your skin color or other qualities about your life that were not chosen. Not exactly worse for you, but for people like you who feel they can't enjoy the same rights and freedoms because there are people in the area who would kill you because of your ethnicity.

will..

if I kill someone.. no matter the motive.. greed, jealousy, hatred, just because they were brown, just because they looked better than me, just because it was a hooker.. the person is still dead.. a murder still occured..

why would a hate crime make the murder worse? Bigotry?? Is bigotry in a racial sense any worse than a murder committed for fun? Is it any worse than a murder committed for some sexist reason?

you compare involuntary manslaughter to murder 1. dude..they aren't even close. Involuntary is an act out of negligence or blindness. Me walking up to you and shooting you because I just don't like you is not negligence or blindness.. it's murder.. so is murder for skin color.

By this train of logic, there should be no difference between involuntary manslaughter and murder 1. Should I get the death penalty because I left my store floor wet and someone slipped and died? Is that the same as me repeatedly stabbing someone?
...in which the perpitrator had no intent. So, again, it boils down to intent.

Edit: I'll get even more specific. Let's say that I want to hurt someone and accidentally kill them. Should that be treated the same as intent to kill?

will you're a smart guy think about it.

if you accidentally kill someone it was not your intent to do so, which is why the manslaughter charge exists. However, if you kill someone because they have blonde hair or they are black or just because you are a sick fucker.. then the intent was there to commit harm in the form of murder. That is a huge difference between the 2 laws. To associate a hate crime as a worse form of murder simply because of skin only leaves racism on the table.

So you can put out the slipping on floor/stabbing argument but that's obvious don't you think?? A murder can only be a murder if the intent was to murder. If the intent was to murder than no matter how the murder occurred or who the victim was, it was still an intent to murder and in fact a so called hate crime. If you kill a white man.. isn't there a case to say it is a hate crime even if you are white under this law? Does that make sense. Of course it doesn't. You murder someone and you are using some form of hatred.

Essentially I think the problem boils down to how much do you believe society benefits by making examples of racially/sexually/religiously-based crime versus how much you believe that highlighting differences only serves to reinforce them and encourages people to capitalize on them.

At this point, I share gucci's opinions on the matter. Murder (or rape or theft or whatever) shouldn't be based on the victim, but on the perpetrator's actions. I don't think it's a major deterrent to have an additional layer of punishment or liability for something that is a "hate crime" and, instead, only serves to make the issue racial rather than simply criminal.

I think, too, that the distinction between intent to commit a crime versus no intent and hate crimes is pretty meaningless in this case. We separate those because we feel as a society that the perpetrator can have varying levels of fault and, rightly, believe that someone who does not intend to harm should not be punished for his actions in the same way as someone who intended to harm.

Finally, if you intend to hurt someone, and kill them instead, it is murder, though it is not 1st degree murder. At common law, murder is a killing with malice aforethought which includes: intent to kill, intent to cause severe bodily injury, reckless disregard for the value of human life and a death which occurs during the commission of a dangerous felony.

This is what I'm talking about, though. You're willing to allow intent to determine degrees of punishment in one case but not another. Manslaughter and first degree murder both end up with the exact same result: someone is dead. Killing someone because he slept with your wife or because he has sexual relations with another man both end up with the exact same result, too.

In order to address the main issue, let me apply my logic to the manslaughter/murder comparison. Why do we have lesser charges for instances where there wasn't intent and the death was an accident? We want people to know that making a mistake isn't as bad as doing it intentionally. We make it clear that, despite the same outcome, we value intent and are willing to take it into account as a part of the justice system. Moreover, if you accidentally kill someone, you're probably not a risk to do it again. You're not a danger to yourself or those around you. If you actively seek to murder someone, then you may very well do it again.

Now let's transfer that over to the difference between a crime of passion and a hate crime against a homosexual (just as examples). A man walks in on his wife having sex with another man, goes into a rage and murders the man. Elsewhere, a man sees two men walking down the street holding hands and locking lips, follows them home, and beats their heads in with a tire iron. Which is more likely to happen again, and how does motive and intent factor into that? It seems simple. The man who was cheated on could possibly get a temporary insanity verdict because of the extenuating circumstances and extreme emotional distress. In addition, he's not likely to be in that situation again. The man who hates gay people may very well be exposed to more gay people because they theoretically take up something like 8% of the US population (though not evenly distributed). Moreover, the fact that his motive was "I hate them" means that he could also hate women, black people, etc. If hatred is a motive, then he's more likely to strike again.

I hope this has clarified my point.

The law doesn't function with the purpose of eliminating the perceived differences between people. In fact, in these cases, action by the law would be entirely unnecessary if those same perceived differences weren't already well established.

If a crime is committed on the basis of race then the matter is already racial. Having laws in place to address these issues ensures that the law itself remains directly applicable to the real world.

Should we not have laws in place that protect children especially? How do the laws that protect the handicapped, the elderly, or women serve to exacerbate the issues between the aforementioned groups and those that would exploit them?

Your point about recidivism (if you want to call it that) isn't a bad one, will. I'd buy that, but to me that speaks more to the failure of our justice system to address the causes of crime and rehabilitating criminals than it does to the need to have specifically designated hate crimes. And/or the problem that we have with letting violent criminals walk to make room for people who were hanging on to too much weed on their way to a party. :rolleyes:

As to your point, manic, we have laws in place which specifically protect children, women, the elderly and the disabled because of the perception that they need more protection because they cannot protect themselves. With the possible exception of women (because that might step on some gender equality toes), I don't think anyone would argue much about the importance of the law in protecting those groups of people. Personally, I don't feel that race or sexual orientation or creed is in quite the same category as people who physically are less able to protect themselves from crimes, so that it is not a necessary classification.

I'd argue that's one of the biggest failures as a whole society, really. Rehabilitation isn't a part of our prison system.

Recidivism is at the core of intent in the legal system, by my layman's understanding. Accidents happen but are unlikely to be repeated. If an intent to murder is ongoing, the individual poses a potential long-term danger to society.

I think everyone is missing the point except you. It seems to me the whole hate crime debate should revolve around this question.

This isn't downtown Tehran. Any effigy burned or hung shouldn't be allowed. It doesn't matter what side you are on or what your political views are. I would classify it the same as making a threat against their life. After a few hours of 'interrogation' by the secret service, they probably will take it down and not do anything like that again.

If Palin saw a picture of a manequin dressed as her being hung from someone's roof, she would probably laugh about it. You're talking about a woman with a sense of humor - someone who laughed when Saturday Night Live did a skit making fun of her. She would take it all in stride and would not consider the move sexist. Most of her supporters would likely do the same.

If Obama saw a manequin dressed as him hanging by the neck from someone's roof, he would not laugh. His supporters would not laugh. No one would laugh. Lynching is serious business.

If we had a period in America's history where women were frequently and publically lynched, for trivial crimes, we might not laugh any longer.

This is not hypocrisy, and this is not an issue.

Women have not been lynched for decades at a time as a form of political suppression.

"Now let's transfer that over to the difference between a crime of passion and a hate crime against a homosexual (just as examples). A man walks in on his wife having sex with another man, goes into a rage and murders the man. Elsewhere, a man sees two men walking down the street holding hands and locking lips, follows them home, and beats their heads in with a tire iron. Which is more likely to happen again, and how does motive and intent factor into that? It seems simple. The man who was cheated on could possibly get a temporary insanity verdict because of the extenuating circumstances and extreme emotional distress. In addition, he's not likely to be in that situation again. The man who hates gay people may very well be exposed to more gay people because they theoretically take up something like 8% of the US population (though not evenly distributed). Moreover, the fact that his motive was "I hate them" means that he could also hate women, black people, etc. If hatred is a motive, then he's more likely to strike again.

I don't think the comparison is valid. You're comparing two different crimes which laws without a "hate" clause distinguished between anyway. Do you think the punishment would be different if your example of a hate crime were instead two heterosexuals walking down the street and someone follows them home and bashes their head in with a hammer? I don't see how labeling it a hate crime accomplishes anything legally. Matthew Shepard as a real world example, if he was straight and someone did that same thing to him how is one worse than the other, and why should one of those criminals be seen as any different than the other. There's a markedly different mentality between both of those examples and someone killing in a crime of passion.

Not to mention that in my opinion if you have proven you have it in you to kill another human being in a given circumstance, you have it in you to do it again in another not necessarily identical circumstance, and no innocent person should be subject to that possibility ever again.

Genuingirly, no way Palin is laughing about this. At the very least, those who are so sensitive to an effigy of Obama hanging outside someone's house, should at the very least it acknowledge that hanging an effigy of anyone, encourages those who would be inclined to do so. Fuck the rest of the worlds reaction if Obama was hung like this, what would these hollywood homeowners reaction be if their next door neighbor hung an effigy of Obama outside their own in reaction. Couldn't they see that it would have never happened if they hadn't done it in the first place. They'd have no business being offended, becuase they encouraged it.

It shouldn't be. A hate crime is a hate crime.
You may have that opinion, but I don't see any reason to think so. We all have the potential for murder. You, me, even Barack Obama. Whether or not you act on it, that potential is there.

As for innocent people being subject to the possibility of murder, we're all in that to one degree of another.

Will, I've probably wanted to kill 10 people a day for the last 20 years. Whether or not we act on it makes all the difference. You act on it once, you can act on it twice and once someone has crossed that very clear line, why are you willing to put other people at risk because "all of us have the potential". It makes no sense.

What do you mean by "it shouldn't be" with regard to hate crimes. You're the one supporting the hate crime which distinguishes between the two.

Prove it.

You're the one that said it to make a point. You prove it.

How does that make you feel?
If the intent is a one time thing, there's no way to determine if that person is more likely to kill again. A man kills his wife's lover in a fit of rage, he's not necessarily likely to kill again, and anyone that says otherwise is simply guessing. Guessing plays no part in our justice system.
I'm explaining the existence of hate crimes. If a gay man hates straight people because of their lifestyle choice and kills one of them for that reason, it's just as hateful as the opposite.

BTW, there's no burden of proof in the Palin laughing thing, so it's not on either of you to prove it. It's also incredibly moot.

really? then why is it that sex offenders have to continue to register and pay after serving their time? Because EVERY sex offender is a repeat offender? Or because they GUESS that some offenders are repeat offenders?

If EVERY offender is a repeat offender, then they shouldn't have been released in the first place.

Do you think there should be specific charges for, say, putting a burning cross in a person's yard beyond trespassing and arson?

I'll agree with you completely on this one.

The reason people are going to say they aren't guessing is because of the stats of recidivism rates.. well.. it's kind of hard to have a recidivism rate for murder when the people are locked up for 25+ years.

people will guess at what a person's intent was, and whether or not he intends to do so. it's called psycho analysis.. but in the end it's still a guess.

I'm not aware of what crimes that are tried as.

But yes, the simplest answer is yes. that's it those crimes are sufficient. If the judge wishes to add penalty because he interprets it as requiring more punishment, I'm fine with that. I'm not fine with creating SPECIAL laws to protect certain classes.

If we're all equal, we're all equal.

uh wait...just to go back to the op---with the palin effigy, it seems to me the worst fault here is stupidity. there's no crime.

how did we get around to the question of recidivism?
i am confused and i don't have time to go back through the thread at the moment---plus i think it'd be useful at this point to do a quick recap of the logic behind where this is presently. thanks.

recidivism came up from posts #45 and #46.

I threw it out there to bolster what I thought was a good argument as this thread is not just about Palin effigies, it's about classing crimes as hate or not.

Please read the whole conversation between Matt and I. It will give my statement the proper context.

Sex offenders are likely to repeat. Crimes of passion are not.

and you've stated it right there... LIKELY.

which is not guarnateed, but LIKELY, likely is equal to a guess.

You guess that they are going to commit the crime again.

and for the record, sex offenders are not all likely to commit the crime again, especially when sex offenders can be anything from exposing themselves to urinating in public.

i was confused by the leap from making an effigy to a debate about hate crimes that actually take place.
this seems a screwy way to have the second debate, given that a stuffed dummy hangs over the whole thing.

this despite the fact that the question was implicit in cyn's op---it seems the base of it---why is x a hate crime-like action and y not one...but i thought this was already more or less settled. then context got stripped out and things went to this other place anyway. it's most strange. it seems like this conservative post-bakke inverto-discrimination logic only obtains in the abstract, and might as well have a stuffed dummy hanging over it.

can you explain that in something very simple?

this idea that there's something discrimitory in the application of the notion of hate crime is like blaming affirmative action for racism. same kind of logic.
that's all i meant.

I find affirmative action to be racist, in the very definition of the word since it's giving preference to those by race. Anytime you classify anything by race, it's racist. I don't blame it for it, but I see it as not solving the racism issue.

As someone who was assaulted in Iceland for being a different race, I was not aware of the fact that was the reason for my assault. I had many people telling me how much more horrible it was that there was a hate crime committed. As far as I was concerned, it was a drunk asshole that assaulted me, not a drunk bigoted asshole.

I was assaulted. Nothing else.

People prompting me to to feel differently was absurd. Assault. Not made worse because I'm a different ethnicity.

You know who was more horrified by the hate crime? The other people were who were embarrassed and who felt bad by the actions of the drunk bastard.

Which is why it was a hate crime, it affected you - and others.

The drunk guy assaulted you because of your ethnicity. Like it or not, he is a bigoted asshole.

sorry I don't buy that.

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.

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.

i'm sorry that happened to you, cyn.

i don't buy in any way, at any level, the idea that affirmative action is racist. you cannot arbitrarily detach present from past--you cannot wish away history---and the only way your argument holds is if you wish away history. go for it if you like--to each his own fantasy---but i don't buy it. the argument from this point is not interesting to me, mostly because the gist of it already happened early in the thread and you agreed with the statement there. so i assume this is a separate matter, and one that runs across the experience you outline. so we just disagree about this.

also, the hate crime law in the united states would not have obtained in iceland in any event, so i'm not sure i see the connection between that unfortunate incident and the context that shaped such laws in the states.

and we're having this discussion underneath an image of a stuffed effigy hanging from ropes, so it's all a bit surreal.

rb, I'm not detaching from history but that's a different subject completely. I'm pendantic about language and it's definitions.

Iceland is/was considering forming laws based on hate/bias because of the influx of immigrants. From the articles I've read they are looking deeper than creation of laws, but more discussion as to where the bias originates from especially in their youth.

Maybe abaya can comment more about that since she's there and interfaces with ethnic groups directly.

I can only based on my experience, which was a belief that I was just assaulted by a drunk man. Other people, after contacting the police (no police report was filed even the police didn't label it as such) discussed it as a hate/bias crime.

cyn---actually i am a bit pedantic about this kind of definitional thing as well, and the fact is that racism is an ambient condition, a lovely aspect of american history, and is in no way condensed onto either affirmative action or hate crime legislation. racism is what both were set up to address--it is out there in this glorious land, and it's still out there.

but again, we're talking about effigies, so i think we're in a bit of a hysterical context, particularly given the total desperation of the mc-cain campaign, and much of the conservative media apparatus, in the last 6 days before an election that could spell disaster for both. so anything goes, anything at all from the right, it seems. they're willing to generate such little theatrical pieces in the hope that something, anything will change what they think is coming on the 4th.

outside of that context, this is lint, the effigy matter. it's stupid, done by stupid thoughtless people.

P.J.,

First, I don't know what the difference is between a "quick reply" and the standard "reply" options. Since I chose "quick reply" I am typing rapidly. I would click on the "go advanced" button but I have an old computer. Second, I don't know how anyone can determine whose reply is directed at whom.

Anyway, blacks have a history of being lynched. Thus the difference between a Palin effigy and an Obama effigy. We elect judges to determine if such differences are valid since it is a judgement call. But regardless of who is being effigized, to determine intent requires that one reads the mind of the accused. I remember back in my football playing days I was about to get clobbered when I threw a pass to where my receiver was suppose to be. But he had run the wrong pass route and was nowhere near where the pass landed. I was flagged for "intentional grounding". Like an elected judge in a courtroom, the referee had to guess my motive in order to throw the flag. He guessed incorrectly, but the team was still penalized.

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: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.

I think you're positing this in a light which explains it better for me. I don't agree with it either...

But this is about acceptance to the group... via politics and policy. Set legislation to promote or force acceptance via legislation, as opposed to acceptance via assimilation.

I don't have more time to expound on it but will try to again later tonight.
-----Added 29/10/2008 at 05 : 47 : 27-----

I think that sentence explains exactly why I think having "hate crimes" is one of the dumbest ideas we've ever come up with as a society.

I don't see it as promoting or forcing acceptance. I see it as protecting the vulnerable, in order to safekeep their efforts to integrate and make all things as equal as possible. Obviously, people can still choose not to integrate--and natives can still choose to dislike foreigners--no legislation is going to change the attitudes of those types of people. But at least in that sense, there is no violent threat to not integrating--people are free to live as they wish, within the rule of the law, regardless of what group they belong to.

If the context of reception is at least neutral (at best, welcoming), and not hostile/violent to the minority... then the burden truly remains on the minority members themselves to integrate. But that never happens--the context of reception for immigrants/outsiders is initially almost never positive or even neutral, and yes, that does have an effect on their attitude/willingness towards integration.

Native residents very rarely consider that consequence of their behavior towards outsiders, but I believe that is the point of anti-hate-crime legislation and why it must take a different tack than regular crime legislation. It is meant to put a stop to (or at least lessen the effect of) perpetuating historical wrongs, and to protect the rights of a minority from a sometimes hostile majority. In a utopia, such legislation will no longer be necessary--but we're not there yet, by far.

right. where does it end.

I'm not sure I agree with that.

In the two major metropolitans I lived in for almost 20 years in each, the history doesn't show that.

Italians, Irish, Germans, Polish, all seemed to "get along" and integrate to some degree without hate crime legislation in NYC. In fact the neighborhoods that were predominately German or Italian are now giving way to other ethnicities.

I started reading some information about the NY Hate Crimes Act of 2000 and this write up solidifies for me why I'm against hate crime legislation.

New York's Hate Crimes Act of 2000: problematic and redundant legislation aimed at subjective motivation | Albany Law Review | Find Articles at BNET

These quotes are taken from the first 4 pages of this article.

I believe it all boils down to these very sentences for me. There isn't enought to say that bias/hate is limited to black/white, brown/white, asian/white, but that is what it has become to me.
For example, a black-on-white crime might be classified as a bias crime, but a Tutsi-on-Hutu, Pakistani-on-Indian, or Japanese-on-Chinese motivated act may not.

Society should not consider it more reprehensible to shoot someone because he or she is African American rather than because he or she is a Republican.

An asshole is an asshole, no matter what. Just like a criminal is a criminal. They aren't more of a criminal becuase they are a bigoted one.
Again, I think like rb, it's dumb and stupid, I don't find it racist. I find it stupid.

Contrary to present-day popular conception, lynching was not a crime committed exclusively against Black people. During the nineteenth century a significant minority of the lynching victims were white. Between the 1830s and the 1850s the majority of those lynched in the United States were whites. Although a substantial number of white people were victims of this crime, the vast majority of those lynched, by the 1890s and after the turn of the century, were Black people. Actually, the pattern of almost exclusive lynching of Negroes was set during the Reconstruction period. According to the Tuskegee Institute statistics for the period covered in this study, the total number of Black lynching victims was more than two and one-half times as many as the number of whites put to death by lynching.

Lynchings occurred throughout the United States; it was not a sectional crime. However, the great majority of lynchings in the United States took place in the Southern and border states. According to social economist Gunnar Myrdal: “The Southern states account for nine-tenths of the lynchings. More than two-thirds of the remaining one-tenth occurred in the six states which immediately border the South: Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Kansas.”4 Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, and Alabama were the leading lynching states. These five states furnished nearly half the total victims. Mississippi had the highest incidence of lynchings in the South as well as the highest for the nation, with Georgia and Texas taking second and third places, respectively. However, there were lynchings in the North and West. In fact, every state in the continental United States with the exception of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Vermont has had lynching casualties.

I got this info from 79.02.04: The Negro Holocaust: Lynching and Race Riots in the United States,1880-1950. I find it humorous that people think only blacks were lynched and that it only happened in the south. Check the stats from 1830 - 1850 and check the history for Ohio and Illinois.