Jacoby on Hate Crimes
Jeff Jacoby's piece in the Globe earlier this week reveals some of what is wrong with Conservative thinking on social policy issues. Let's deal with the obvious stuff first.
There are some factual inaccuracies.
1) Jacoby suggests that Leftist organizations simply ignore hate crime-like incidents when the victims are not members of minority groups.
But a quick Google search for hate crimes shows that the website civilrights.org which. among other things, reports on hate crimes, lists hate crimes against whites as comprising about half of all all race motivated hate crimes.
Of the 7,947 hate crime incidents reported to the FBI in 1995, sixty percent - 4,831- were motivated by race. Of these, 2,988 were anti-black, 1,226 were anti-white, 355 were directed against Asian-Americans or Pacific Islanders, 221 were directed against multi-racial groups, and 41 were directed against Native Americans or Alaskan Natives.
http://www.civilrights.org/publications/reports/cause_for_concern/p8.html
2) Jacoby dismissively quotes the director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Mark Potok, as saying that "anti-Christian hate crimes are rare" but Jacoby can only cite one instance of an anti-Christian hate crime (a Church burnings by a Satanist) and his objection is merely that the SPLC doesn't list that event as a hate crime on its website. But Satanists really are (thankfully) a pretty rare breed of wacko and it would be foolish to start tracking them for hate crimes. (Why you ask? For one thing it would probably encourage them. We have enough to track the hate group wackos who have established a following, let's not fuel any new ones by giving them notoriety).
Aside from Jacoby's misrepresentations of fact, there's the simple idea that our justice system serves to arrest and prosecute criminals and protect the public. By specially tracking and prosecuting crimes committed against people who've been victimized because of their race, creed, orientation, etc. we neutralize the fear that a member of a group might feel due to the fact that a member of their group had been singled out for attack.
Does that sound like special treatment? It's not. Try this thought experiment.
Imagine you're a white 30-something male who lives in Southie (South Boston). You turn on the evening news and learn that a 17 year old black male has been attacked by a gang of white men. You're a decent human being so this fact bothers you on several levels: morally, emotionally, etc. But it does not create in you an immediate fear for your own safety. After all, you're 30 and white and the person who was victimized was young and black.
But a young black man would be justified in fearing for his immediate safety after hearing about the attack. It's to counteract that focused sense of fear that we enact hate crime laws. We want to reassure people who are members of a group that has been attacked that the crime will be dealt with as much focus as possible.
This Country has a history of violence against Black Americans so any new instance of violence against them resurrects that history. Also, minorities are . . . well . . . a minority of the population. As such they are justifiably worried that they will be ignored when they are victimized and it makes sense for the government to reassure them that the government will take their concerns seriously. The extra attention also serves as a deterrent to those who might target certain groups--racial minorities, gay people--because they believe the government will be less enthusiastic about solving crimes against them.
This seems pretty simple to me. Why can't Jacoby and others see this?
There are some factual inaccuracies.
1) Jacoby suggests that Leftist organizations simply ignore hate crime-like incidents when the victims are not members of minority groups.
But a quick Google search for hate crimes shows that the website civilrights.org which. among other things, reports on hate crimes, lists hate crimes against whites as comprising about half of all all race motivated hate crimes.
Of the 7,947 hate crime incidents reported to the FBI in 1995, sixty percent - 4,831- were motivated by race. Of these, 2,988 were anti-black, 1,226 were anti-white, 355 were directed against Asian-Americans or Pacific Islanders, 221 were directed against multi-racial groups, and 41 were directed against Native Americans or Alaskan Natives.
http://www.civilrights.org/publications/reports/cause_for_concern/p8.html
2) Jacoby dismissively quotes the director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Mark Potok, as saying that "anti-Christian hate crimes are rare" but Jacoby can only cite one instance of an anti-Christian hate crime (a Church burnings by a Satanist) and his objection is merely that the SPLC doesn't list that event as a hate crime on its website. But Satanists really are (thankfully) a pretty rare breed of wacko and it would be foolish to start tracking them for hate crimes. (Why you ask? For one thing it would probably encourage them. We have enough to track the hate group wackos who have established a following, let's not fuel any new ones by giving them notoriety).
Aside from Jacoby's misrepresentations of fact, there's the simple idea that our justice system serves to arrest and prosecute criminals and protect the public. By specially tracking and prosecuting crimes committed against people who've been victimized because of their race, creed, orientation, etc. we neutralize the fear that a member of a group might feel due to the fact that a member of their group had been singled out for attack.
Does that sound like special treatment? It's not. Try this thought experiment.
Imagine you're a white 30-something male who lives in Southie (South Boston). You turn on the evening news and learn that a 17 year old black male has been attacked by a gang of white men. You're a decent human being so this fact bothers you on several levels: morally, emotionally, etc. But it does not create in you an immediate fear for your own safety. After all, you're 30 and white and the person who was victimized was young and black.
But a young black man would be justified in fearing for his immediate safety after hearing about the attack. It's to counteract that focused sense of fear that we enact hate crime laws. We want to reassure people who are members of a group that has been attacked that the crime will be dealt with as much focus as possible.
This Country has a history of violence against Black Americans so any new instance of violence against them resurrects that history. Also, minorities are . . . well . . . a minority of the population. As such they are justifiably worried that they will be ignored when they are victimized and it makes sense for the government to reassure them that the government will take their concerns seriously. The extra attention also serves as a deterrent to those who might target certain groups--racial minorities, gay people--because they believe the government will be less enthusiastic about solving crimes against them.
This seems pretty simple to me. Why can't Jacoby and others see this?
posted by Ralph at 10:22 AM
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