Love Vs Hate Crimes
Nelson Mandela once said, “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” What is it that we show the whole world when we accept a crime so vicious in nature that they are seen as hate crimes? The United States is only 5% of the world’s population, but we have 25% of the world’s prisoners. This is very unfortunate for us all, and a very true reality. It’s a very clear picture that the symbol we show the world, is that we do not tolerate crime. When it comes to hate crimes though, they are not always so black and white and things
…show more content…
are not always set in stone. With any law, no two sides are always easy to please. The laws for hate crime to be established took a very long time to be accepted and voted on. Some family’s waited decades to see that these laws where put into action and really followed threw.
In my case with hate crimes when it all began not every state was on board and I was really surprised to find out the Idaho was in fact one of the first States to actually follow along with the law on hate crimes, with a few errors that are still present today. What can we do, how can we help? What measures did some of these family’s go threw to get the laws to help everyone? Here in our own communities too. Idaho had a bad reputation with holding one of the biggest White supremacist movements in the United States. Some of this groups actions whine down to hate and even shown acts of hate crimes. Per the hate crime museum website, “in the United States the majority of hate crimes are racially motivated.”
My Position
During my research, I came to see how the law came into place and how for many victims and their families, they felt that the law was too late. I wanted to see how we as a nation can really stop having hate crimes but with just crime in general there really is no way and just as Mr. Mandell said we can be taught to love but where does it begin and where does it stop. It’s scary that even today, decades and decades after the first movement’s we have laws against such terrible acts of violence, but because of our own new presidents, hate crimes are being over looked but hate continues to grow. I am not saying they have been caused by him but if we accept hateful speeches and action from our commander in chief we accept hate, and maybe it is going too far, in saying those speeches turns into hate crimes but it does stare somewhere. It feels as if it is beginning to be more accepted to have hate and be hateful.
When the Ku Klux Klan began, it was a group of people that felt their race was the most superior to any other race and they felt that by giving freedom and rights to those beneath them, they were losing control of what was theirs and theirs only. So they in forced the Klan to make very powerful statements in how they wanted and how they believed their society should be. I feel that we are going backwards in all the good, and changes we have made over many decades. The good that we have in our country we are allowing terrible things to again begin to happen. My worry is that if we continue to go back in time and begin to segregate any minority’s that we will again begin to see those horrible acts rise even more so.
I am only one person but if I can plant a seed of education and pass on my research to even one of my readers I feel that we can make a better symbol, a symbol that we can be taught to love and not have hate.
I just want to share my findings because really, I am just a mother that like any other parent worries about the world she brought her children into. I feel that we do learn to hate, and I am not for having the highest prisoner rate in the world and believe in rehabilitation but I want to keep us aware of our laws on hate crimes. In any learning strategies, research has shown that having education earlier on in life, it will stick better and longer. We are responsible for how we raise our children in this world. This country would be way less scary place to raise our children if we continue to not accept hate and the crimes that happen when a group or a person goes too far with their bias believes. I want to not only share my research but give some history. When we do not understand, what is going on around our own communities we fail as a whole. Bringing a little more awareness on hate crimes nationally and locally keeps us informed and better educated on things we might be able to help with, hate crimes continue to happen and often over looked we must not allow hate to be so easily accepted to the point where they over power what is right, for everyone. Hate crimes history has so many back grounds, I don’t feel I will be able to cover it all, like The Japanese …show more content…
Americans that were taken from their homes after Pearl Harbor, or all the Muslims and Jews that suffer so many unjust and many mentally disable people that are over looked and mistreated for just not having understandings of the world and so many others that have hate crimes committed against them, but I know I will hit a little on each major motive and give facts about our laws. Hate crimes are becoming an example of modern day ethnocentrism, where someone feels that their views and theirs only are the centered as the right way to live.
Brief History
In1968, the first federal hate crime statute was introduced.
Per the Unitized States Department of Justice web site, it describes the first hate crime statute as, “The 1968 statute made it a crime to use, or threaten to use, force to willfully interfere with any person because of race, color, religion, or national origin and because the person is participating in a federally protected activity, such as public education, employment, jury service, travel, or the enjoyment of public accommodations, or helping another person to do so.” Back then there was nothing about sexuality or sexual orientation. Between 1989 to 1990 the U.S. Senate passes the Hate Crimes Statistics act. It would require the Department of Justice to collect and publish data about crimes motivated by hatred based on race, religion, ethnicity and sexual orientation. Even though there had been so many other crimes against minorities only in 1990 did the United States decide and begin to keep track of these hateful crimes. Although these crimes where, as it seemed being kept track of there was no real movement. In 1993, the Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act is added as an amendment to the Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. It is later enacted, this law would allow judges to enforce greater punishments on those that were convicted of a hate crime, including hate crimes based on gender, disability and sexual orientation that occur in national parks and on other federal property. (The Human
Rights Campaign) Unfortunately between these times many hate crime continued to rise and there was funding for states and city’s law enforcement agencies to get proper training on these types of crimes but hate crimes where over looked and pleaded down. Over 40 years would pass until the first statue was revised. In 2009, President Obama announced that hate crime laws would be updated and changed. “This law removed then existing jurisdictional obstacles to prosecutions of certain race- and religion-motivated violence.,, and added new federal protections against crimes based on gender, disability, gender identity, or sexual orientation.”(United States Department of Justice web site) Like so many human right laws that come up, they came too late and for two family’s they would change our nations histories losing their loved ones made a huge difference on our laws and made many people aware of the differences so many where facing and still facing to this day.
Great Loss In June of 1998, James Byrd Jr., 49, of Jasper, Texas and African American, is tortured and decapitated by three men know to be members of a White supremacies group. In that same year, November of 1998 Mathew Shepard a Wyoming State student was tortured and left to die by two men because he was gay. Six days later he died at a Colorado hospital. These two men that where just working and living their own lives would have never known but by their deaths more and more people became aware. Their family’s stood and fought and came together to make sure that their loved ones death would never be forgotten. They changed our laws and by their accounts people where saved. It terrible what they endured but just as President Clinton once said, "The Hate Crimes Prevention Act would be important substantively and symbolically to send a message to ourselves and to the world that we are going into the 21st century determined to preach and to practice what is right.”
Genocide
Our nation fought a war against evil, but our past is full of hate so deep that some could say it had evil, too. Way before any hate crime laws where pieced together there was, Tulsa Oklahoma. In 1921 years before World War II, our own country bombed what was then one of the wealthiest Black communities of its time. A segregated, but working community that was building their own foundation, was once again reminded that they must not forget they were not welcomed in their own country. While looking through all our hate crime history Tulsa was not listed as a hate crime but it seemed as it was one of the biggest hate crimes in our history on so many levels. The United States would not acknowledge that it in fact happened until, 1996 and only then would the truth be told that there were around 300 deaths of innocent African Americans killed. A huge embarrassment in our nation history and yet it did happen. People where isolated from their family’s and no one wanted to except any fault.
Disagree..
When I was working on my research I had fellow employees ask what I was reading. I would let them know. I was baffled to hear that some people felt that we as a country did not need laws on hate crimes. One nurse even went as far to tell me that if their daughter was killed because she was gay it would not matter to him, the only thing that matter was that she was gone. He said it was a burden on our economy to have those laws continue to be changed and modified because we should be more worried about real laws that need to be passed. He was un able to tell me how exactly that was and even when I asked him, “well if it was your daughter and she was killed for just being gay would he not want her death to help others and make people aware of such a crime that could have been prevented?” He said no he would be sad and hurt and not care about how his daughter’s death affected others.
When I interviewed an officer here in Caldwell, to see if he ever investigated any hate crimes or had any, he too felt that it was pointless that there was hate crimes. He told me about a College student that was being harassed six years ago, she was Black and one of her fellow students that was White did not want her at the College of Idaho so he taunted her, stocked her so bad to the point that she eventually went back to her home State. Before leaving the male student was charged with a hate crime for harassing the other student. The officer was glad that she had gone back because she was safe. The charges where dropped and he no longer had to investigate everything that the male student had done to the other student. He felt that it was more that the male student wanted attention and it was kids being young. He felt that if the male student had been charged, it would have ruined his future. When I asked if he knew if that student was ever arrested again he would not answer. What about the girl what about her future what if she just stopped her college career, or worse.
Idaho then and now Idaho was the ninth State to go along with what later would be the hate crime act, but it still has not added sexual orientation. Last summer in my own community of Nampa, Idaho a 49-year-old man, was tortured and robbed he later passed way. After his death detectives were able to put together that he was in fact set up by a group of people and ultimately attacked because he was gay. According to, the Associated Press news, “Schneider pleaded guilty Monday in state court to first degree murder. But Idaho’s state hate crime law doesn’t extend protections to people who are gay or lesbian, and so Schneider was transferred to federal custody to face the hate crime charge.” Kelly Schneider was charged with the murder of Steven Nelson, along with three other individuals. Currently there has been two other case here in Idaho that have gotten attention nationwide. One of them being a group of teen age boys. Was it hazing gone too far or does the victims race play a big part of it. In a small rural town in Dietrich, Idaho three teenage boys allegedly forced an object into a mentally disabled team mate of theirs. The three White teens are expelled from high school while the African American teen is left mentally distraught according to his family. Earl Ofari Hutchinson an author and political analyst wrote in the Huffinton Post, “The rape of the disabled black student in Idaho screams for a prosecution as a racially motivated hate crime. Anything less sends the wrong message about hate.” The judge that prosecuted the White teens did not believe it was a crime motivated by race.
Conclusion
I wanted to see what people of different back grounds had to say of being aware on hate crimes so I asked my siblings only a few responded threw text but we all are in different stages in our lives the first is one of my younger brothers who just got home from Syria. He is an Army Air Born Ranger, SRGT. Diego F. Castellanoz said, “I feel like we need to be aware of hate crimes because as a first-time father and when my daughter is at an appropriate age, I want to not only teach her, but raise her awareness of hate crimes. I know that she will face much adversity when she gets older and I want her to expect the possible racism and sexism situations she may face, in life. In my opinion, it is a must to show our children of all the possible controversies they will face.” My sister who works from home and has two bi-rational sons stated, “I feel like we need to be aware of hate crimes because we need to know how to heal our world. We can’t be oblivious to it.” My youngest brother who is a sophomore here at TVCC his major is psychology, he has no children and lives at home with our parents wanted to share, “We need to be aware of these types of crimes so that in the future we can teach our children of equality and humanity. We also need to teach our children so that in their future if they are ever discriminated against they can cope in an appropriate manner. So, they learn to not retaliate verbally or physically towards others.” I felt I was a little at a disadvantage for not asking other groups of people but I feel that my siblings all had great reasons for being wanting to be aware.
It has been said, that if we do not know about our history, it will be repeated. The hate crime laws are a reminder of our history and what can happen when we accept hate in ourselves and in others. In the book The Science of Evil, the author has questions and says “How can humans treat other people as objects? How do humans come to switch off their natural feelings of sympathy for another human being who is suffering?” I have those questions too, why do many terrible acts of violence continue to happen that we need laws in place, it seems as though we have the penalties in place before we have the crimes. There has to be a better way, what can we do? Can we begin to have education in place before the hate becomes evil. Perhaps if we could implement mandatory courses of how to deal with differences before they become hateful and turn into crimes. If we can take decades to create laws, would it not be better to have schools, starting at elementary to high school teaching our youth and their family’s on how we can be united and accept that we will always have different people and accept our difference but we can all live without violence and crime. During the end of my research I seen a really great story in the news regarding the small Idaho town that is in the spot light right now after suffering from a possible national hate crime. A town hall meeting is in place for the town of Dietrich in April. Many organizations are coming together to see how they can help start a better way of dealing with what they say was an “assault case” they are wanting their community to heal and to prevent. I thought after all I had read and seen I believe this was a very promising start to many fears others are having.
are not always set in stone. With any law, no two sides are always easy to please. The laws for hate crime to be established took a very long time to be accepted and voted on. Some family’s waited decades to see that these laws where put into action and really followed threw.
In my case with hate crimes when it all began not every state was on board and I was really surprised to find out the Idaho was in fact one of the first States to actually follow along with the law on hate crimes, with a few errors that are still present today. What can we do, how can we help? What measures did some of these family’s go threw to get the laws to help everyone? Here in our own communities too. Idaho had a bad reputation with holding one of the biggest White supremacist movements in the United States. Some of this groups actions whine down to hate and even shown acts of hate crimes. Per the hate crime museum website, “in the United States the majority of hate crimes are racially motivated.”
My Position
During my research, I came to see how the law came into place and how for many victims and their families, they felt that the law was too late. I wanted to see how we as a nation can really stop having hate crimes but with just crime in general there really is no way and just as Mr. Mandell said we can be taught to love but where does it begin and where does it stop. It’s scary that even today, decades and decades after the first movement’s we have laws against such terrible acts of violence, but because of our own new presidents, hate crimes are being over looked but hate continues to grow. I am not saying they have been caused by him but if we accept hateful speeches and action from our commander in chief we accept hate, and maybe it is going too far, in saying those speeches turns into hate crimes but it does stare somewhere. It feels as if it is beginning to be more accepted to have hate and be hateful.
When the Ku Klux Klan began, it was a group of people that felt their race was the most superior to any other race and they felt that by giving freedom and rights to those beneath them, they were losing control of what was theirs and theirs only. So they in forced the Klan to make very powerful statements in how they wanted and how they believed their society should be. I feel that we are going backwards in all the good, and changes we have made over many decades. The good that we have in our country we are allowing terrible things to again begin to happen. My worry is that if we continue to go back in time and begin to segregate any minority’s that we will again begin to see those horrible acts rise even more so.
I am only one person but if I can plant a seed of education and pass on my research to even one of my readers I feel that we can make a better symbol, a symbol that we can be taught to love and not have hate.
I just want to share my findings because really, I am just a mother that like any other parent worries about the world she brought her children into. I feel that we do learn to hate, and I am not for having the highest prisoner rate in the world and believe in rehabilitation but I want to keep us aware of our laws on hate crimes. In any learning strategies, research has shown that having education earlier on in life, it will stick better and longer. We are responsible for how we raise our children in this world. This country would be way less scary place to raise our children if we continue to not accept hate and the crimes that happen when a group or a person goes too far with their bias believes. I want to not only share my research but give some history. When we do not understand, what is going on around our own communities we fail as a whole. Bringing a little more awareness on hate crimes nationally and locally keeps us informed and better educated on things we might be able to help with, hate crimes continue to happen and often over looked we must not allow hate to be so easily accepted to the point where they over power what is right, for everyone. Hate crimes history has so many back grounds, I don’t feel I will be able to cover it all, like The Japanese …show more content…
Americans that were taken from their homes after Pearl Harbor, or all the Muslims and Jews that suffer so many unjust and many mentally disable people that are over looked and mistreated for just not having understandings of the world and so many others that have hate crimes committed against them, but I know I will hit a little on each major motive and give facts about our laws. Hate crimes are becoming an example of modern day ethnocentrism, where someone feels that their views and theirs only are the centered as the right way to live.
Brief History
In1968, the first federal hate crime statute was introduced.
Per the Unitized States Department of Justice web site, it describes the first hate crime statute as, “The 1968 statute made it a crime to use, or threaten to use, force to willfully interfere with any person because of race, color, religion, or national origin and because the person is participating in a federally protected activity, such as public education, employment, jury service, travel, or the enjoyment of public accommodations, or helping another person to do so.” Back then there was nothing about sexuality or sexual orientation. Between 1989 to 1990 the U.S. Senate passes the Hate Crimes Statistics act. It would require the Department of Justice to collect and publish data about crimes motivated by hatred based on race, religion, ethnicity and sexual orientation. Even though there had been so many other crimes against minorities only in 1990 did the United States decide and begin to keep track of these hateful crimes. Although these crimes where, as it seemed being kept track of there was no real movement. In 1993, the Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act is added as an amendment to the Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. It is later enacted, this law would allow judges to enforce greater punishments on those that were convicted of a hate crime, including hate crimes based on gender, disability and sexual orientation that occur in national parks and on other federal property. (The Human
Rights Campaign) Unfortunately between these times many hate crime continued to rise and there was funding for states and city’s law enforcement agencies to get proper training on these types of crimes but hate crimes where over looked and pleaded down. Over 40 years would pass until the first statue was revised. In 2009, President Obama announced that hate crime laws would be updated and changed. “This law removed then existing jurisdictional obstacles to prosecutions of certain race- and religion-motivated violence.,, and added new federal protections against crimes based on gender, disability, gender identity, or sexual orientation.”(United States Department of Justice web site) Like so many human right laws that come up, they came too late and for two family’s they would change our nations histories losing their loved ones made a huge difference on our laws and made many people aware of the differences so many where facing and still facing to this day.
Great Loss In June of 1998, James Byrd Jr., 49, of Jasper, Texas and African American, is tortured and decapitated by three men know to be members of a White supremacies group. In that same year, November of 1998 Mathew Shepard a Wyoming State student was tortured and left to die by two men because he was gay. Six days later he died at a Colorado hospital. These two men that where just working and living their own lives would have never known but by their deaths more and more people became aware. Their family’s stood and fought and came together to make sure that their loved ones death would never be forgotten. They changed our laws and by their accounts people where saved. It terrible what they endured but just as President Clinton once said, "The Hate Crimes Prevention Act would be important substantively and symbolically to send a message to ourselves and to the world that we are going into the 21st century determined to preach and to practice what is right.”
Genocide
Our nation fought a war against evil, but our past is full of hate so deep that some could say it had evil, too. Way before any hate crime laws where pieced together there was, Tulsa Oklahoma. In 1921 years before World War II, our own country bombed what was then one of the wealthiest Black communities of its time. A segregated, but working community that was building their own foundation, was once again reminded that they must not forget they were not welcomed in their own country. While looking through all our hate crime history Tulsa was not listed as a hate crime but it seemed as it was one of the biggest hate crimes in our history on so many levels. The United States would not acknowledge that it in fact happened until, 1996 and only then would the truth be told that there were around 300 deaths of innocent African Americans killed. A huge embarrassment in our nation history and yet it did happen. People where isolated from their family’s and no one wanted to except any fault.
Disagree..
When I was working on my research I had fellow employees ask what I was reading. I would let them know. I was baffled to hear that some people felt that we as a country did not need laws on hate crimes. One nurse even went as far to tell me that if their daughter was killed because she was gay it would not matter to him, the only thing that matter was that she was gone. He said it was a burden on our economy to have those laws continue to be changed and modified because we should be more worried about real laws that need to be passed. He was un able to tell me how exactly that was and even when I asked him, “well if it was your daughter and she was killed for just being gay would he not want her death to help others and make people aware of such a crime that could have been prevented?” He said no he would be sad and hurt and not care about how his daughter’s death affected others.
When I interviewed an officer here in Caldwell, to see if he ever investigated any hate crimes or had any, he too felt that it was pointless that there was hate crimes. He told me about a College student that was being harassed six years ago, she was Black and one of her fellow students that was White did not want her at the College of Idaho so he taunted her, stocked her so bad to the point that she eventually went back to her home State. Before leaving the male student was charged with a hate crime for harassing the other student. The officer was glad that she had gone back because she was safe. The charges where dropped and he no longer had to investigate everything that the male student had done to the other student. He felt that it was more that the male student wanted attention and it was kids being young. He felt that if the male student had been charged, it would have ruined his future. When I asked if he knew if that student was ever arrested again he would not answer. What about the girl what about her future what if she just stopped her college career, or worse.
Idaho then and now Idaho was the ninth State to go along with what later would be the hate crime act, but it still has not added sexual orientation. Last summer in my own community of Nampa, Idaho a 49-year-old man, was tortured and robbed he later passed way. After his death detectives were able to put together that he was in fact set up by a group of people and ultimately attacked because he was gay. According to, the Associated Press news, “Schneider pleaded guilty Monday in state court to first degree murder. But Idaho’s state hate crime law doesn’t extend protections to people who are gay or lesbian, and so Schneider was transferred to federal custody to face the hate crime charge.” Kelly Schneider was charged with the murder of Steven Nelson, along with three other individuals. Currently there has been two other case here in Idaho that have gotten attention nationwide. One of them being a group of teen age boys. Was it hazing gone too far or does the victims race play a big part of it. In a small rural town in Dietrich, Idaho three teenage boys allegedly forced an object into a mentally disabled team mate of theirs. The three White teens are expelled from high school while the African American teen is left mentally distraught according to his family. Earl Ofari Hutchinson an author and political analyst wrote in the Huffinton Post, “The rape of the disabled black student in Idaho screams for a prosecution as a racially motivated hate crime. Anything less sends the wrong message about hate.” The judge that prosecuted the White teens did not believe it was a crime motivated by race.
Conclusion
I wanted to see what people of different back grounds had to say of being aware on hate crimes so I asked my siblings only a few responded threw text but we all are in different stages in our lives the first is one of my younger brothers who just got home from Syria. He is an Army Air Born Ranger, SRGT. Diego F. Castellanoz said, “I feel like we need to be aware of hate crimes because as a first-time father and when my daughter is at an appropriate age, I want to not only teach her, but raise her awareness of hate crimes. I know that she will face much adversity when she gets older and I want her to expect the possible racism and sexism situations she may face, in life. In my opinion, it is a must to show our children of all the possible controversies they will face.” My sister who works from home and has two bi-rational sons stated, “I feel like we need to be aware of hate crimes because we need to know how to heal our world. We can’t be oblivious to it.” My youngest brother who is a sophomore here at TVCC his major is psychology, he has no children and lives at home with our parents wanted to share, “We need to be aware of these types of crimes so that in the future we can teach our children of equality and humanity. We also need to teach our children so that in their future if they are ever discriminated against they can cope in an appropriate manner. So, they learn to not retaliate verbally or physically towards others.” I felt I was a little at a disadvantage for not asking other groups of people but I feel that my siblings all had great reasons for being wanting to be aware.
It has been said, that if we do not know about our history, it will be repeated. The hate crime laws are a reminder of our history and what can happen when we accept hate in ourselves and in others. In the book The Science of Evil, the author has questions and says “How can humans treat other people as objects? How do humans come to switch off their natural feelings of sympathy for another human being who is suffering?” I have those questions too, why do many terrible acts of violence continue to happen that we need laws in place, it seems as though we have the penalties in place before we have the crimes. There has to be a better way, what can we do? Can we begin to have education in place before the hate becomes evil. Perhaps if we could implement mandatory courses of how to deal with differences before they become hateful and turn into crimes. If we can take decades to create laws, would it not be better to have schools, starting at elementary to high school teaching our youth and their family’s on how we can be united and accept that we will always have different people and accept our difference but we can all live without violence and crime. During the end of my research I seen a really great story in the news regarding the small Idaho town that is in the spot light right now after suffering from a possible national hate crime. A town hall meeting is in place for the town of Dietrich in April. Many organizations are coming together to see how they can help start a better way of dealing with what they say was an “assault case” they are wanting their community to heal and to prevent. I thought after all I had read and seen I believe this was a very promising start to many fears others are having.