BlogHer - Who decides what is a hate crime? - Comments

Another issue to take into

Umm Zaid — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 12:27:25 -0600

Another issue to take into consideration is that many people from the community tend not to report incidents to the police, for a variety of reasons: they can't "prove" the incident took place, they feel it isn't "important enough" to warrant a report, they mistrust or fear the police, they think nothing's going to happen to remedy it anyway. That's on top of the media ignoring incidents -- ranging from minor to major (for example, the firebombing of a group of Muslim owned stores in NYC was never reported in the local media several years ago).

And that's also on top of the authorities who want to deny that something might be racially or religiously motivated. When you're one of these "Others" you face an attitude of incedulousness -- "It didn't happen that way." "Are you *sure* he said that?" How can you "prove" the look of hate in someone's eyes?

This is an alarming trend

stacyb — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 12:06:22 -0600

This is an alarming trend and polls now show that in N. America and Europe, muslim bigotry is increasing.

I don't know about Canadian law, but even in this country, bringing a charge under hate crime legislation, let alone prevailing, is becoming increasingly difficult. People opposed to hate crime legislation argue (erroneously in my view) that there should be no distinction between a "hate" crime and any other crime because they say that all crimes are motivated by some sort of hate. This in my view demonstrates a total lack of understanding of what a hate crime is, why they are perpetrated and why it's important to send a message that the government will not tolerate such crimes.

Generally, crimes motivated primarily by a characteristic such as race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation not only victimize the person targeted, but also sends a threatening message to all those who are part of that group (for lack of a better word). This is not the case with many other crimes. If I am at a bank machine and robbed and then murdered, it is likely for financial gain and a result of a total lack of respect for human life. But it does not serve to send a threatening message against any particular group, nor is the crime necessarily motivated by a insidious hatred of something about me personally. That said, by recognizing "hate crimes" that doesn't mean that other crimes are less serious, including my example above, it simply says that they are different and of great concern in a civilized, just society.

In addition, another key aspect of hate crime legislation is it tends to try to provide a layer of legal protection or legal redress for groups that have tended to be denied such protection- it is not too long ago that many groups that are protected under such legislation, had to deal with not only the inherent bigotry of their attackers/rapists/murderers, but also the total indifference of our criminal justice system. Hate crime laws provide an incentive for the State to take such crimes seriously.

But back to the issue of crimes against Muslims or those perceived to be Muslim- unfortunately the current political climate will likely only make this worse and as Elana said above, the media should really cover this issue a bit more, since it is in fact, "news." I am afraid the media are hesitant to report on these attacks out of the misguided fear that they (the media) will be seen as sympathetic to fundamentalist islam- that is of course ridiculous because conflating islamic terrorists with average citizens who happen to be muslim is ignorant, bigoted and stupid (in my view) but unfortunately, it seems to be the mindset of many people these days.

One thing people can do is get email campaigns and send letters to the media for their failure to cover these crimes or for their shoddy or one-sided reporting of Islam. In other words, call them out on what they are doing. Every little bit helps.

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Contributing Editor, Law Blogs
Cafe Politico

Thank you for this post. I

Elana Centor — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 10:46:42 -0600

Thank you for this post. I wish the mainstream media =--especially cable tv programs -- would spend a little more time talking about these kinds of issues and less time talking about the latest theory of where Natalie Holloway is buried.

Given that they don't...I hope you will continue "reporting" on this.

elana
Blogher Contributing Editor,Business&CareersFunnyBusiness

Who decides what is a hate crime?

lainad — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 10:31:53 -0600

Shortly after 9/11, a friend of mine told me a story about a Muslim woman who was physically attacked at her workplace. She worked at a museum, and when she went to a security guard to try and get the offender - an older white male - kicked out of the building, the security guards ignored her and refused to call the police. The offender was not even asked to leave.

Call me naive, but it shocked the shit out of me when I heard of this attack and that Canadian Mosques and Muslim-owned stores were vandalized. It shocked me that Canadians, even though the horrendous attacks took place in another country, used the devastation of others to lash out at people who had nothing to do with what happened in the States. How ignorant can you be?

Recently, there have been a number of racial incidents on the University of Toronto downtown campus. A female Muslim student was physically attacked in a bathroom by another female student who had been demonstrating in front of the Danish Consulate in regards to the comics that were published by a Danish newspaper. Later, a group of U of T students threw eggs at a group of female Muslim students who were making their way across campus.

Last weekend, four Somali men - who were also Muslim, departing from a Muslim theology seminar on the campus, were approached by a drunk white man, who then started yelling racial slurs at them. One of the students approached the man, and an argument ensued, and one of the men kicked the guy's car. As the men walked away, the drunk got into his car and swerved onto the sidewalk. as the men tried to cross the street, the driver sped up and tried to run them over, yelling racial slurs at them. One of the men was hit, fell to the ground and was sent to the hosptial with minor injuries.

So what happened? well the drunk eventually turned himself in at a police station but the detective in charge of the case said that the police are not treating the incident as a hate crime. The president of the university's Students' Administrative Council also said that he didn't think that the incident was religously motivated. The univeristy's administration has refused to issue a public statement about the recent incidents, preferring to 'reach out to Muslim students in other ways. "We have a lot of programming around buliding communities and dialogue on campus," David Farrar, the university's Vice-Provost said the the Toronto Star.

So I ask, what construes as a hate crime, and why is it that the persons that are in positions to decide what is and what is not, are never people of colour? Why do we need the stamp of white approval as to whether we have been victimized or not? And what qualifications do these people have? Certainly not from personal experience. This is nothing new, however. All we have to do is see all the police brutality by the cops on black people and see how it is just dismissed as being the fault of the victim. They do not know their place. A cop can shoot a 13 year-old kid in LA and get away with it. they can shoot a mentally disabled brother and say he was a threat to a bunch of cops with guns and tasers.

There was a demonstration on the U of T campus this week about the recent attacks, organized by the Muslim Students Organization, that was barely mentioned in the press. What I fear - but what would not surprise me is a more unruly demonstration ahead. If I were a student on that campus, I would ask for a portion of my tuition money back. U of T, and every other Ontario Univeristy are not cheap schools to attend, and all students have the right not to be bullied by ignorant students who feel they have the right to physically or verbally attack others for no reasons. Again, call me naive, but why the hell are these abuser thinking? Why would physically attacking a Muslim person make a statment? about what? Over a war (which shouldn't have started in the first place, Bush) that is happening across the world? And what gives these white students the arrogance that they can assert their ignorance onto others? Do they feel that their current actions are worthy enough to tell their future grandkids? What have these students done to them?

Okay, Laina. Breathe. I refuse and reject a society where a person who has never personally experienced discrimination (sexual orientation, age, disability, race) has the power to decide what construes as a hate crime or a racial incident. But part of the problem is that we, as mere mortals, allow such incidents to be swept under the rug because we do not stand up to it. If it doesn't happen to us, why should we care? But the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations have asked the Toronto Police to treat the latest incident with the Somali men as a hate crime and lay criminal charges. So are you saying that they were not going to lay criminal charges against the man who tried to run over the four men?

But as I have complained (rightly so) before that when one black person commits a crime, the rest of us are treated like we did it, it is pretty obvious that the Muslim community is having the same problems. People of colour -or people who have a different religous affiliation than the majority in Canada are not in this society to be ignorant people's punching bags. Your faith is your personal preference. I just wish people would take the time to judge people as individuals, instead of lumping people into monolitic groups.