What actually makes someone HATE someone else enough to kill or harm another human being? Hate crime is a special type of crime. “Hate” is not a crime by itself but some people have landed in jail a few times a year for it. Hate crime, which is also referred to a bias-motivated crime, is when someone or a person, is pounce with certain gender identity, nationality, physical appearance, social, religious organization or nationality, sexual orientation or even handicap. Hate crimes do not necessarily include physical violence, it may also include when someone uses offensive language towards another person or even harassing that particular person because of who they are or even who they think they are can be considered as a crime. It is also considered a crime when one posts abusive or even offensive messages about another person online. Most of the people have been killed by other people in the name of race, religion, and ethnicity. In addition to this, ethnicity is a concept that is similar to race, but most races have been often acclaimed on the physical characteristics especially the skin color. In addition to this, ethnic distinction mostly focusses on the cultural characteristics, religion, history, and language. (Montague, 1942). Racial bias is the largest cause of hate crimes and has not only been committed against the African Americans in America and the Jews in the United Kingdom but also to the Chinese in Australia.
African Americans can make up 12.9 percent of the population in the US and the second largest are the group of Latinos which numbers to 38.8 million. Once called Negroes are now called the black American who are the “people of color”. The black Americans are mainly the descendants of the slaves that were brought from Africa between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries. (“African Americans”, 2009). The African Americans were unequally de-cultured and dehumanized. Although Africans Americans were granted basic civil rights through the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the United States Of America Constitution, the struggles to secure the federal protection of these right were continued during the next century. The African Americans were people that suffered from an unemployment rate compared to the whites and also received less aid then the whites (Lynch, “African Americans”, 2018). In fact, the black population has always been at higher risk of becoming the victims of ethnicity violent hate crimes compared to the “Whites”. Hate crimes that included Blacks tended to be more violent compared to the other races and ethnic groups. To illustrate, on the 28th of August in 1995, a 14- year-old African American boy, Emmett Till was murdered in a racist attack that had shocked the nation and had to provide a catalyst for emerging civil rights movement. Till who was a Chicago native was visiting his relative in Money, Mississippi when Till was accused of harassing local white women. A few days later, relatives of the white women had abducted Till and Till was brutally beaten and killed before his body was disposed of in a nearby river. Till’s devastated mother, demanded on a public, open-casket funeral for Till to shed the light on the violence that has been inflicted on the blacks in the South. Till’s death motivated civil rights activists nationwide. (Editors, “Emmett Till”, 2009). Another hate crime case took place on the 9th of August in 2014, an18-year-old boy African American man was shot by a 28- year- old police officer Darren Wilson in the city of Ferguson, Missouri. It was a scene that had been played out repeatedly across America as a white cop stops a black teen. Wilson was on patrol as he spotted Brown and his friend, Dorian Johnson, walking down the street. Wilson made eye contact with Brown and told him not to walk in the middle of the road and Wilson immediately realized that Brown was a robbery suspect who stole cigarillos from a store, Then Wilson had attempted to stop Brown which led both men to have a physical altercation at the officers SUV. Wilson tried to open fire from his vehicle but Brown started running and a few shots were fired at him. Brown then died about 150 feet away from Wilson’s vehicle. Brown was shot six times. The case in Ferguson between Michael Brown and Darren Wilson ended in death and of national soul searching about race. (Lopez, “Why was Michael Brown shot?”, 2016). Hate crimes towards the black are still continued until this very day.
References
- Hate Crime
- Juvenile Justice
- Identity Theft
- BJS Hate Crime Victimization
- Witness – Countering Hate Crimes
- GVSU Hate Crimes
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