They Burn Horses, Don't They?

Morgan County, Ohio farmer Brent Whitehouse is quoted as saying the following about one of his pregnant quarterhorses and the tragedy that followed:

"I knew the way she was acting Saturday and Sunday that she was ready [to give birth]. My one dog was acting funny, and I looked out the window and saw this orange glow coming from the barn. I ran out there, but the doors of the barn wouldn't open and suddenly, flames were shooting up through the roof. That barn was gone in five minutes."

All eight of his horses—Elvis, Barney, Floyd, Ethel, Love, Bella, Princess, and a one-week old guy named Buddy who was Princess' new foal—perished in the blaze that began around 11:30PM EST on April 24, 2011, a blaze that was so hot a tractor inside the barn melted; but, this was no brushfire gone astray. The state's Fire Marshal classified it as an arson, and a reward is being offered for information leading to the perpetrator(s). It should also be classified as a hate crime, and the Morgan County Sheriff's Department is weighing that possibility as they investigate. Spray-painted on the charred remains of Mr. Whitehouse's barn in McConnelsville were homophobic remarks according to various news sources. From what I can tell by examining a photograph of the barn taken by Chris Crook of the Times Recorder it appears the perpetrator(s) wrote something like "Burn in Hell" and the beginning of a word that begins with the letter "F." Another published photograph of the side of the barn showed this anti-gay phrase: "FAGS ARE FREAKS."

Said Mr. Whitehouse, "Whoever did this had to walk right by all those horses, including the baby, and didn't care that they were killing a gentle, loving animal." That's the take-away message about hate crime perpetrators—whether they prey on someone because of their race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, gender identity, or sexual orientation—they don't care about anyone's life but their own. Arrogant and callous, hate crime perps don't even care about the lives of animals, just their twisted worldview where they are first-class citizens.

It's doubtful that few, if any, arsons that lead to the deaths of horses are classified as hate crimes. However, when arson investigators find themselves at a loss for why such fires are started, perhaps—given the tragedy that Mr. Whitehouse is enduring— fire investigators should consider the sociodemographics of the human victim and the possibility that such arsons are hate crimes. Whoever killed Mr. Whitehouse's horses, one thing is certain, and that is the motive: the perpetrator had animus for the horse-breeder's perceived sexual orientation. Had the barn's walls been completely destroyed and the spray-painted homophobic messages gone unread, we may never have known the motive behind such a cruel and life-destroying act.

This was previously published at DailyKos.

Racism denial in hate crime convictions

Within the past nine days, two hate crime cases in two different parts of the United States—both involving white defendants—came to a close. After juries rendered their guilty findings in both cases, absent were words of remorse or even regret from the convicted perpetrators. There was no lesson learned, no sense of self-reflection. Instead, both men uttered statements of complete denial about just who they are. It's not believable when a man convicted of sexual assault asserts, "I'm not a rapist," or when a convicted murderer says, “I’m no killer.” Equally unbelievable are the racism denials from Michael F. Jacques and Zachrey D. Harris.

Let’s start with the Massachusetts man, Michael Jacques, 26, who with two others torched a largely African-American church to the ground hours after America elected its first black president. The Macedonia Church of God in Christ, which was located in Springfield, Massachusetts, burned to the ground, on November 5, 2008, just hours after election polls had closed in the Bay State. Quickly, authorities launched an investigation as to whether the Tinkham Road church fire was a hate-related arson set in retaliation for the election of President Barack Obama. They concluded it was, and on January 16, 2009, authorities arrested three white men—Benjamin F. Haskell, 22, Michael F. Jacques, 24, and Thomas A. Gleason Jr., 21—all of Springfield, Massachusetts. Fast-forward past the guilty pleas of Haskell and Gleason: this afternoon (April 14, 2011) after almost three days of jury deliberation, Jacques was found guilty in a federal courtroom in Springfield of conspiracy to violate civil rights, destroying religious property, and using fire to commit a felony. Several minutes after the verdicts were announced Jacques said to reporters, "The jury got it all wrong; I’m innocent. I’m not a racist." Not “I’m sorry for the pain I caused the church members and the greater Springfield community.” No guilt-ridden apologies, no acceptance of responsibility for a race-based criminal act. No. Jacques’ short proclamation was all about race denial.

Then there is the case of Zachrey Harris, 23, from Colorado ski resort country. On April 6, 2011, a jury convicted Harris of misdemeanor bias-motivated harassment for hurling racial slurs at a black University of Colorado student, Mr.Olubiyi Ogundipe, a native of Nigeria, and his friend from Saudi Arabia, Mr. Ahmad Abdulkareem. Mr. Ogundipe was physically assaulted during the September 18, 2010, incident, but not by Zachrey Harris. However, a Boulder County prosecutor told Harris’ jury that Harris said to the two men of color, "We bought your parents, and we'll buy you." The men were also called "monkeys." News reports of the verdict indicated that Harris cried upon hearing the verdict. One might hope that his tears signaled regret for his actions. They did not. Instead, Harris’ racism denial kicked in, and he was reported to have said softly while still in the courtroom just moments after his race-based hate crime conviction, "I'm not a racist.”

Follow hate crime cases for any length of time and you will learn that such self-denials are not uncommon. Which is too bad because if there was ever a teachable moment for those prone to hurl words or fists at another simply because of the color of the other person's skin, then a hate crime conviction would certainly seem to be that wake-up call.

London Calling: 2nd International Day Against Hate Crime

An important rally will take place in London, England on Saturday night on October 23, 2010. The second International Day Against Hate Crime is scheduled at 7:00pm GMT until 9:00pm with a two minute period of silence to occur at 8:00pm to remember and reflect on those killed by hate crime pertpetrators. The anti-hate crime event will take place at Trafalgar Square.

Trafalgar Square was the location of the September 25, 2009 gay hate-crime homicide of Ian Baynham, 62, of Beckenham, Kent—a crime that spurred the launching of the International Day Against Hate Crime. Mr. Baynham was walking through the historic square with his partner, Phillip Brown, 30, on a busy Friday evening when the unprovoked homophobic attack on him occurred. The civil servant was knocked unconscious by a single blow to the head allegedly Joel Alexander after another person, Ruby Thomas, is said to have shouted anti-slurs at Mr. Baynham and Mr. Brown. After falling to the ground and suffering a severe brain injury, Mr. Baynham was then stomped on allegedly by two intoxicated teenaged females. They are said to have stomped on his chest and head repeatedly and then left him for dead. Subsequently, Mr. Baynham was pronounced brain dead and 18 days after the attack on him, on Tuesday October 13, 2009, doctors turned off his life-support machines. Joel Alexander, 19, of Thornton Heath in South London, Rachel Burke, 18, of Three Oaks in East Sussex, and Ruby Thomas, 18, of Lichfield in Staffordshire, were charged with manslaughter. The trial for the three began in April, 2010, and no verdict in the case has been revealed.

Whether because of a person's sexuality, homelessness status, disability status, race, religion, ethnicity, national origin or gender, a hate crime is an attack on the entire community. Therefore, it is up to the community to speak out against hate crimes. So, if you are in London on Occtober 23, 2010, please spend two hours standing with others against hate crime.

A Movie Review for National Bullying Prevention Month

Bullying is pervasive in schools and it has horrible consequences [pdf], some of them life-ending. October is National Bullying Prevention Month. Timed to coincide with it, the Southern Poverty Law Center has released its seventh educational film, available free to schools. Bullied: A Student, a School and a Case that Made History, the documentary film by the Montgomery, Alabama-based nonprofit civil rights organization—which is known for its successful lawsuits against the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups—has many lessons for many people.

The movie tells the story of Jamie Nabozny who was bullied relentlessly by classmates when he attended junior high and high school in Ashland, Wisconsin, a "probable" Sundown town that sits on the shores of Lake Superior.

In the film Jamie’s ordeal is recounted by his mother, by eyewitnesses and by Mr. Nabozny himself (as an adult) as he speaks to a group of teenagers in a school gymnasium. Narrated by Emmy Award-winning actress Jane Lynch, the 38-minute film is a must-see for middle and high school students. Bullied is also required viewing for teachers, for school counselors and for school administrators. Moving back and forth from interviews to re-enactments of actual events, Bullied tells the horrifying "education" of verbal and physical abuse Jamie endured, survived, and ultimately conquered.

If you are an American school student and you're gay or lesbian or transgendered (or perceived to be), or if you're comparatively very short or tall, or comparatively overweight; or, if you’re black in a nearly all-white school in a nearly all-white town; or, if you speak with an accent because you are the only foreign-born student at your school; or, if you're artistically or academically gifted in a school that worships its athletics program; or, if you choose to wear your clothes and your hair differently than most of your peers at school, or if you are in some way disabled, then chances are you know all too well about the endless, psychologically tortuous days at school that Jamie Nabozny had. You’re not alone. And I beg you: don't give up. In addition to teaching that bullying is the opposite of tolerance, not giving up is one of the messages to students Bullied provides (the film is in memory of 11-year-old Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover who, God bless him, could no longer live in the same world as his tormentors). If you are a parent of a school aged child, now is the time to have a disucssion with her or him about bullying; and, now is the time to learn what you can do to make sure your child's school is a place for education, and not a place for her or his victimization.

The first half of Bullied is a heart-wrenching downward spiral account of a young midwestern kid with lots of psychological resiliance who is stripped of much of his fortitude by his classmates: those who bullied him with homophobic slurs and repeated assaults, for sure, but also those who bore witness to his suffering and did nothing. In his attempt to deal with the hell that was his public school education—complete with invalidating, and willfully impotent school administrators—Jamie goes from isolating himself (at school and at his loving home) to taking more drastic measures after school officials failed to stop the escalating attacks on him, and after desperate pleas from Jamie and his parents were callously ignored.

The second half of the film deals with the federal lawsuit that Jamie Nabozny filed against his schools and their administrators, after he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Going on the offensive—and winning his civil suit against the school administrators—must have been empowering and healing for Mr. Nabozny, because the film showing him as an adult reveals an empathic, seemingly well-functioning, psychologically mature and happily-out-of-the-closet man. He won $900,000 in the lawsuit, and the jury took just minutes to decide the case. That is the sobering lesson the film gives to teachers, school counselors, and school administrators who might be tempted to—as Mr. Nabozny's school administrators did—blame the victim and allow known bullying to continue on their watch.

As an aside, it doesn't take much delving to discover that those who are opposed to hate crime statutes also fight vigorously to stop anti-bullying measures in schools. That's probably because these people want to pass their hatred on to future generations. Bullying, you see, when committed by young adults and adults is often considered a hate crime. But even when tormenting someone to death because of their sexuality—or for some other reason—might not be considered a hate crime by the legal system, as in the criminal case against Rutgers University students Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei, the "sport" of tormenting someone because of some physical or sociopolitical characteristic that they possess, seems to me, is a form of bullying and must be stopped. As the lyrics to a song by Everything But The Girl go, "Little Hitlers, Little Hitlers grow up into big Hitlers, look what they do."

If you are a junior high school teacher or high school teacher, or a school administrator, and if you are serious about preventing bullying, then please get your school a free copy of Bullied and make sure it is shown throughout your school. The film is the perfect primer for a classroom discussion about not only bullying, but also about diveristy and tolerance and the benefits of both. If you are an elementary school teacher, and you are serious about preventing bullying, then please visit this site and also this site for useful online tools to help teach your class this important message: bullying is never OK.

Cross-posted at: DailyKos

The Summer of Hating Latinos

Tweaking a recently coined phrase by Tim Wise, this diary's title describes an American phenomenon that few, if any, in the national mainstream media are saying much about this summer, even though it's a problem that seems to be spreading: hate crimes targeting Hispanics, most often immigrants, that are rarely called race-based attacks by the powers that be. Although I could have chosen any of a number of communities in the United States to describe the phenomenon, I've chosen Summit, New Jersey.


If you've never been there, Summit, New Jersey, seems at first blush like a pretty nice place, and I suppose for most of its residents it is. According to its Wikipedia page, the Union County city is an affluent Big Apple burb ("affluent" as in a good percentage of its approximately 20,000 residents are Wall Street stockbrokers). With a median family income of $141,659, a family poverty rate of only 2.5%, Summit, New Jersey boasted of a median home price of $655,500 as of October 2009, a point in time well after the national and international economic meltdown and after the onset of America's subprime mortgage housing collapse. Not bad considering. Nope, not bad at all considering that just before the beginning of the bottom falling out of financial industry's greed-fest, Business Week magazine ranked Summit, New Jersey #6 on its list of "American communities likely to be pummeled by the economic crisis," a September 2008 prediction that did not come to fruition. While Main Street U.S.A.'s financial status went down the proverbial toilet, no doubt thanks to some of the free-wheeling Wall Street investment bankers who call Summit home, Summit itself was spared (in no small part because of the government's white-collar welfare program, er, because of the Wall Street bailout). Three thousand dollar per month condo rentals aside, no place on earth is perfect (again from its wiki page):

A New York Times reporter and Summit resident criticized the city for being an "economically, racially and ideologically homogenized populace" with "a growing divide between Summit's haves and have-nots." He elaborated in 2006: "there's an ever-diminishing corner of the city akin to the so-called slums of Beverly Hills, where middle-income homeowners like me can take advantage of the schools and services of Summit without the million-dollar price tags so ubiquitous on the other side of the Midtown Direct tracks."

By my standards a city that defines its "slum" as the spot where its middle-income homeowners live is fairing pretty well, economically-speaking. That's Summit: the 16th wealthiest place in New Jersey, a state teeming with millionaires. In addition to being pretty rich, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, Summit is also pretty White. As of the 2000 census, Summit was 87.77% White which is significantly less racially diverse when compared to the nation (75.1% White) or to the rest of the Garden State (72.6% White), including Union County (65.51% White). Is Summit, New Jersey this white on purpose? Well, it's not a Sundown Town, but measures have been taken to make certain Summit residents are of a certain type, nudge-nudge-wink-wink (again from the Summit wikipage with the emphases being mine):

Summit...adopted a policy of zoning ordinances requiring a single family house on a large lot and could thereby "exclude any undesirable influences that might erode property values." The requirement excluded apartment buildings and multi-family dwellings, and tended to raise the price of houses. One study found that since 1945, the single family house on a large lot zoning mechanism "has been increasingly used in suburban and rural areas to safeguard particular vested interests."

But that's not coded language for anything, I'm sure.

Unlike most of the rest of the nation, in the fall of 2008 when local Democrats fared much better at the polls than their GOP opponents because the country yearned for political change, Summit elected a Republican town councilmember in its second ward which I think says something about the place. But, like most of the rest of the nation, Summit, New Jersey has seen a rise in its Hispanic population over the past decade; and, in a place that reeks of wealthy white privilege those changing sociodemographics can be fatal.

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By all accounts Mr. Abelino Mazariego-Torres, a 47-year-old married Salvadoran immigrant and father of two sons and two daughters, was a hard-working man. A good man who came to the United States from a poor country—a country with its share of war wounds—he immigrated to America 13 years ago for the same reason most of our white, Asian, Caribbean, and Hispanic family members/ancestors immigrated to the United States: for a better life. A dishwasher and occasional assistant cook at an Indian restaurant in downtown Summit, New Jersey, for the past several years, Mr. Mazariego set out on foot on July 17, 2010, from the Dabbawalla Restaurant after completing his day's work and after filling his pockets with his earnings: $640 in cash. It was while he was relaxing on a park bench in the Summit Promenade shortly before 9:30PM, possibly tipsy from alcohol he had purchased, that he would be taken from his wife and his four children, taken from a country he had fled to in order to avoid violence in his war-torn country of birth, in order to create a happier life for himself and his family. Taken in a most gruesome and callous manner.

Mr. Mazariego's funeral was touchingly described by columnist Mark Di Ionno, but let me not get ahead of myself.

These are the undisputed facts surrounding Mr. Mazariego's death. While sitting alone on a park bench in downtown Summit after he left work on July 17th, Mr. Mazariego was approached by a group of teenagers. Most of their identities have not been revealed by the police, so it cannot be verified whether the teenagers were primarily from Summit or from various towns. The police have reported that some of the teens were Summit residents, and that some were not. Five were females and nine were males. Only the identities of two teenagers have thus far been released. R&B singer Robby Guarantee, 19, of Morristown, New Jersey, whose real name is Nigel Dumas, and Khayri Williams-Clark, 18, of Summit, both African-Americans, were each charged with felony murder on July 21st, as was an unidentified 17-year-old male. (He is to be tried as an adult prosecutors said, so it is a matter of time before the public learns his identity). Then on July 30th two more unidentified Summit teenagers, one 15 years old and the other 17 years old, were charged with conspiracy, aggravated assault, and robbery. At first it was thought that no crime had occurred until evidence surfaced days later that pointed to a violent, unprovoked attack.

The allegations go like this: Nigel Dumas, Khayri Williams-Clark, and the other three teenagers charged with Mr. Mazariego's attack, along with nine other teenagers, approached Mr. Mazariego as he sat on a park bench. One of them is said to have sat down next to him, while the other is said to have covered Mr. Mazariego's head with his own t-shirt (one ABC television affiliate said his head was covered with a sheet). Then the police said Mr. Mazariego was punched several times about the head and body by Dumas, Williams-Clark, and the unnamed teens. The mob of teens then immediately fled. A 17-year-old video-taped the entire pre-meditated beating on a video-phone. The video then circulated among Summit teenagers for days just like old lynching postcards used to circulate among white townsfolk in the 19th and 20th centuries.

While the video of Mr. Mazariego's attack was making the rounds in Summit, Mr. Mazariego, who was found unconscious at the scene of the crime immediately after the attack, lay in a coma at Overlook Hospital in Summit. He died there on July 20, 2010, without ever regaining consciousness.
Understanding the current anti-Latino sociopolitical climate in the United States these days, one commenter at the website of the Southern Poverty Law Center made these insightful remarks about Mr. Mazariego's slaying:

Blame the hatred spewed out on Fox and Rush for terrible things like this. To think this guy escaped the madness in El Salvador only to be painfully killed by children here. Is there a chance to get this more publicity? Maybe a statue of this guy in a city park? Not that these kids listened to Rush and Beck but they’re smart enough to pick up the idea that this guy doesn’t matter so they can do snything [sic] to him.

This last statement—that the alleged perpetrators are smart enough to absorb the anti-Latino sentiment swirling around this country, perceptive enough to grasp the repeated notion that the lives of Latinos in the United States are somehow worth less (or worthless)—has deep historical roots in this country: racism.

For example, this quote by Brent Staples summarizing the lynching of blacks in America and the response by the larger community has eerie similarity, I think, to the attack on Mr. Mazariego:

Black American lives were viewed as expendable in the pre-civil rights South. The murderers who hanged, dismembered or burned black victims alive — before crowds of cheering onlookers — knew well that the law would not act against them. These savage rituals were meant to keep the black community on its knees.

Ironic how we keep repeating our past. Today's racism is, to quote David Bowie, the same old thing in brand new drag. Oh sure, African-Americans continue to be the victims of race-based hate crimes more than any other group; however, it should be clear that in communities across America, from Summit, New Jersey, to Staten Island to Phoenix and Los Angeles, Latinos are increasingly the people who are lashed to today's whipping posts. This despite the findings that the higher Latino immigration is, the lower the crime rate is.

It's racism, and just like the days of old, you can't always count on law enforcement to do the right thing. As Peggy MacIntosh began her essay on white privilege: "I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group." Or, the flip side, conferring submission on another group.

Illuminated here is the "invisible system" that seems to be working hard to confer submission onto Latinos with respect to Mr. Mazariego's death. On July 30th came these bold-faced lies from Union County Prosecutor Theodore J. Romankow who seems almost Lady MacBeth-like in his compulsive attempt to deny that Mr. Mazariego's death was a race-based public spectacle slaying:

It was a crime of opportunity. The defendants saw he [Abelino Mazariego] had $640 in on cash on him and intended to rob him.

At the same news conference, attorney Romankow goes on to repeat (because when you want people to believe your lie, you have to say it over and over again):

It was a crime of opportunity, they saw he was intoxicated, that he had money and a watch and decided they were going to take it.

And Romankow said this too at the press conference which is, of course, a permutation on the we're-not-racist-in-our-racially-skewed-town meme heard so often in covered-up race-based hate crimes, and now heard in everyday civic affairs:

This isn’t about him [Mr. Mazariego] being Latino.

Oh yes it was Mr. Romankow which is why you doth protest too much. The beating death of Mr. Mazariego was an anti-Latino sport-slaying; like the lynching of blacks, it was a spectator-attended, race-based hate-crime homicide. Period. Like many black lynchings, Mr. Mazareigo's lynching was recorded by the crowd who came to watch. Like the lynching of so many blacks in America, Mr. Mazreigo's lynching took place in the center of town with plenty of people around. Yes, the victim had hundreds of dollars on him at the time he was attacked. However, not one of the persons who beat Abelino Mazariego robbed him, not one of the persons who watched his beating robbed him (there were a total of 14 teenagers present), and the teenager who filmed the beating on a mobile phone also did not rob Mr. Mazariego. In nearby Suffolk County, New York on Long Island, the racist youth have an accurately racist term for this kind of targeted hate-crime attack. They call it beaner jumping. (Other targeted groups have long-known terms for hate crime attacks aimed at them; for gay men it's known as gay-bashing, and then, of course, there is the term lynching which was coined to describe the oodles of hate-crime slayings of blacks long before the term hate-crime was created).

Romankow—the prosecutor in this case—has chosen to take the public lead in white-washing this hate crime homicide by saying that those arrested had intended to rob their victim, but then (nudge-nudge-wink-wink) forgot to! Seriously, think about how mind-screwingly absurd that statement is. This is what Romankow wants the world to believe: that a bunch of upper-middle class/rich kids were so hard up for cash and a wristwatch that they selected, not one of the city's rich stockbrokers coming out of any of the nearby posh eateries wearing Rolex watches, but a Latino dishwasher, and that, oooops, they actually forgot to rob their so-called robbery victim while beating him up (and outnumbering their victim 14 to 1, you have to ask, couldn't they have robbed almost anyone without laying a finger on them?).

What about the videographer? Well, at his press conference Romankow likened the teenager who recorded the attack on Mr. Mazareigo to a—stay seated for this—photojournalist! Romankow said that this individual would not be charged with any crime.

Let me add this: Mr. Mazareigo was robbed. When he was brought via ambulance to the Overlook Hospital shortly after the attack on him, unconscious and clinging to life, someone stole the $640 he had in his pockets. Charged with third-degree theft was emergency room nurse Stephan Randolph, 39, of Flemington, New Jersey. Rolling a comatose patient: that, Mr. Romankow, is a crime of opportunity.

Mr. Mazariego's anti-Latino beating death on a downtown Summit park bench, the prosecutor's public, pre-trial denial of the obvious motive of those charged with Mr. Mazariego's death, along with the economy-maiming default-swaps and other investment bank schenanigans masterminded by Summit's financial barons makes you wonder if there isn't something in the drinking water in Summit, New Jersey that makes the powerful people there lie and deceive and cause harm to others. Ohio-born artist Jenny Holzer's phrase comes to mind: The Abuse of Power Should Come as No Surprise. But, sadly, anti-Latino sentiment and violence are not unique to Summit, New Jersey; and, as the hateful rhetoric against the largest growing ethnic group in America continues, as it has this summer, expect to see more hate crimes directed at Latinos...and expect to hear denial that that is what they are.

This blog was posted originally at DailyKos on August 5, 2010.

University of North Carolina Issues Pathetic Hate Crime Conduct Code

Having staunchly protected a group of its racist students at North Carolina State University in Raleigh in late 2008, the UNC educational system is back at it: protecting the status quo while making itself seem like it's taking progressive, thoughtful measures. Specifically, on February 12, 2010, The University of North Carolina Board of Governors approved a uniform code of conduct to address hate crimes on the 16 campuses in the UNC school system. It's a pathetic, meaningless code of conduct, and it comes as no surprise to us. In our February, 2009, blog we predicted a white-wash job by the UNC administration, and earlier this month, they delivered. No, we're not psychic; we just saw the writing on the wall.

On election night in 2008 four North Carolina State University students spray-painted violent, racist messages about Barack Obama in the campus' Free Expression Tunnel. Although these messages would not be considered constitutionally protected free speech by anyone other than dyed-in-the-wool racists because they called for the assassination of an elected president—one statement read, "Let's shoot that N----r in the head" and another said, "Hang Obama by a noose"—the NC State's administration refused to classify the grafitti as a hate crime, refused to expel those responsible for writing the death-threat directives aimed at President Obama, and refused to release the names of the students. The message from the school was clear; threatening, racist language by its students is acceptable at North Carolina State University.

Phase One of UNC's political white-wash of the graffiti incident came when UNC President Erskine Bowles created a "panel" of people to look at campus hate crimes and the issue of what constitutes free speech. Phase Two came on February 12th when the UNC Board of Governors approved a uniform code of conduct that (clutch your pearls ladies) prohibits on-campus actions defined by federal and state laws as hate crimes while expressing support for free speech on campus. Wow, it took a panel of higher education experts and a large public school system's board of directors to lower itself to state it will now recognize state and federal hate crime laws. They threw in support for the First Amendment as a patriotic bonus. What next from Erskine Bowles and the UNC Board of Governors? A position statement about the Declaration of Independence? Pathetic.

We're still left wondering who those four racist NC State students are who spray-painted the threats on President Obama's life in 2008 and who these students are connected to. Either white privilege hit a new low in the state of North Carolina or the four NC State students who got a free-pass to threaten the president without being charged with a hate crime and without being expelled from school are somehow well-connected. Since white privilege and well-connectedness often go hand-in-hand, perhaps both were at work.

Huffington Post goes Right Wing Nutty in Hate Crime Analysis. Yes, HuffPo.

It's irritating as hell when the neo-cons blather about being against hate crime laws. Stupid garbage typically falls out of their mouths (oh, and this is no small point: the people are almost always persons of privilege, people who are demographically not likely to be victims of a hate crime). They'll toss out the tired, incorrect chirping points of those who hate and those who want to stay in power (they're very often the same people). Without regard for America's hateful history, they'll spout phrases like "all crimes are hate crimes" and "you can't tell what a person's motivation is let alone prosecute it" and "hate crime laws are thought crime laws." If you follow the loony hate crime dialogue of The Right in the United States, you know this. But, it's enraging when the Huffington Post gives credence to this crap as it did when it published Diane Dimond's article on July 21st titled, "Hate is the Name of the Game in Crime."

Partly because reducing racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia and other forms of prejudice is so close to my heart. Partly because I had just read this awesome diary by fellow Kossack Maimonides. Partly because according to wikipedia (boldface mine):

The Huffington Post is an American liberal news website and aggregated blog founded by Arianna Huffington and Kenneth Lerer, featuring various news sources and columnists.

For these reasons, my blood pressure rose while reading a staunchly right wing opinion piece on the current debate regarding hate crime legislation posted on a supposed liberal website. Let me tell you this: The HuffPo's Diane Dimond's opinion about hate crime legislation is not a liberal position, it is a solidly conservative one. Claiming to be liberal but being against including sexual orientation and gender to the federal hate crime statute is akin to saying you are liberal and are also for racially segregated schools. Dimond's avowedly anti-civil rights position is the opposite of being a liberal. Let me count the ways.

Dimond first stupidly asks why we should label as hate crimes the murders of abortion provider Dr. Steven Tiller and the murder of Holocaust Museum security guard Stephen T. Johns when we already have strict laws against murder. It's a ridiculous set-up for the rest of her article. To begin with, doctors who perform abortions are not part of a protected class of persons in any pending hate crime legislation or any American hate crime law. The murder of Dr. Tiller, while fueled by anti-abortion hatred, does not meet the definition of a hate crime, and no person knowledgeable about hate crimes would state otherwise. (Had Dr. Tiller, who was murdered in his church during a worship service, been killed because of anti-Christian hatred, then the perpetrator could have been charged with a hate crime). Current hate crime laws vary from state to state (as outlined in this pdf), but they typically protect persons based on race, color, religion, national origin, and ethnicity. Some state laws include sexual orientation, gender, and disability. None include "abortion doctor" status as a protected class of citizens. You'd expect Arianna Huffington, the Editor-in-Chief at HuffPo, to know this basic fact about hate crime laws before allowing Dimond to publish what she did.

Wingnuts always focus on hate crime murders as a reason to oppose hate crime laws--laws that permit enhanced punishment. So does Dimond and she uses the same wingnutty logic. She asks what difference would it make if the term "hate crime" is attached to a killer's deadly actions. It's a strawman question that requires no critical thinking whatsoever; lack of critical thinking is another common feature of opponents of hate crime laws (which is probably why Democrats vote in bloc [pdf] in support of expanding the federal hate crime law to help aid oppressed minority persons while the GOP overwhelmingly vote against it). The answer to Dimond's rhetorical question is this. Finding someone guilty of a hate crime murder couldn't lead to increased punishment, because life in prison is, well, life in prison. In states with the death penalty, there is no enhanced punishment greater than death. Yawn. OK, but moving beyond the rhetorical question, one must ask: but what about the 99.9% of all hate crimes that aren't homicides? In those cases an enhanced punishment could be handed down to the hate crime convict. Thus, there is no reason to toss aside hate crime laws because enhanced punishment could only be used in 99.9% of cases.

Then Dimond tosses this wingnut doozy:

The first hate crimes legislation in America was passed forty years ago. Yet according to the Southern Poverty Law Center hate groups continue to flourish. The SPLC displays a map of their locations on its web site. There are 84 in California, 66 in Texas, 56 in Florida, 45 in South Carolina, 40 organized hate groups in New Jersey and Georgia, nearly that many in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Alabama and Missouri. Does anyone truly believe the label "Hate Crime" and the additional jail time it tacks on to a sentence deters criminals?

First of all, connecting the SPLC's hate group data to hate crimes creates a false correlation between hate crimes and hate groups. Very few hate crime defendants belong to an organized hate group; some hate crime defendants went to college, happily trying to obtain yet another level of privilege (the privilege that comes with higher education). You don't have to belong to the Westboro Baptist Church to gay-bash, Diane, and you don't have to be a member of a neo-Nazi group to attack a Jew. Second, like it or not, in America there is this right called the freedom to associate. People have the right to belong to a hate group. Third, because hate crimes continue to happen long after hate crime laws went into effect is no reason to repeal them. This from the Q & A section of the Trends In Hate website:

...laws can only reduce, but not eliminate, crime. For example, there are strong laws in the United States prohibiting rape and murder. Despite these laws, rapes and murders continue to occur in America daily. From 1996 through 2005, for instance, there was an average of over 45 homicides in the United States daily. Prohibiting murder has not eliminated it. Yet, people unwaveringly understand the continued need for laws criminalizing such society-destroying behavior. As is the case for all criminal codes, one reason for having hate crime laws is deterrence. Hate crime laws serve the purpose of reducing the frequency of bias-motivated crimes, even though the laws can’t eliminate them. Generally speaking a so-called hate crime enhancement allows for the possibility for greater punishment of a perpetrator than would normally occur had the crime not been motivated by hatred. Added punishment serves as a means of deterring to some extent bias-motivated crimes from taking place in America. This benefits society because, as we’ve described, hate crimes terrorize communities. Additionally, because hate crime perpetrators premeditatively select their victims, increasing the punishment for a hate crime perpetrator makes sense. Why? Because hate crime laws by their definition take into account the motive for the crime; and, perpetrator motivation (or lack thereof) has long played a role in American law for establishing culpability and exacting appropriate punishment. For instance, killing someone is agreed to be more heinous when premeditation occurred as compared to the negligent, unplanned killing of another. This is why planned (first-degree) murders carry harsher punishments than unintentional killings of persons by, say, drunk drivers.

Another reason for hate crime laws to exist is to provide an added measure of protection to groups of people who are made more vulnerable in society because of the prejudices of others. In examining the history of the United States, African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans have all been targeted—because of their race or ethnicity—for unfair treatment, discrimination, and worse: violence. This does not mean that only persons of color are made more vulnerable by the prejudice-based criminal acts of others. Anyone can harbor anti-ethnic or racist beliefs and act them out criminally, not just whites. This is why hate crime laws include protected categories (e.g., race) that include everyone, not just one particular group of persons (e.g., people of color). So, for example, hate crime laws in the United States provide protection to Protestants and Muslims, and not merely to those who historically have been discriminated against or otherwise have been targeted in the United States because of their religious affiliation, such as Jews or Catholics. Which groups within a protected category are more vulnerable than others in our society have changed in some respects over time; and, they will likely continue to change as society changes. So hate crime laws which protect everyone are defensible on practical as well as constitutional grounds.

That pretty much rebuts this neo-con talking point that Diane spat out in her article:

Declaring there is hate in a person's heart when they act in a criminal fashion seems to be a shaky proposition to me. We should stick to punishing people for what they do -- not what we believe they were thinking at the time of the crime.

So, Diane, you're saying the premeditated murderer should receive the same punishment as the person who, through recklessness, killed someone in a motor vehicle accident? The logic in your argument means that James Byrd's killers should receive the same punishment as the over-stressed parent who kills his or her infant by inadvertently leaving said infant in a hot minivan after a trip to the grocery store.

Dimond's and Huffington's lack of fact-checking aside (hey, they have deadlines to meet and it's only journalism so it's no big deal), what about the fundamental question: why should a murder, or any crime, ever be labeled and prosecuted as a hate crime? A Black man gets hooked up to a Texas pickup truck and dragged to his death by a clan of white guys simply because the victim was black, why should that motive matter? A gay man gets lashed to a fencepost in Wyoming and is murdered because of his sexual orientation; again, why would the hate motive matter? Dimond actually provides the answer in her own article, but is too dense to see it. She concluded her anti-hate crime legislation screed by stating:

Hate is the name of the game when it comes to crime. We don't need a fancy label on it. We need to figure out how to make it socially unacceptable.

Yes, Diane and Arianna, America does need to figure out how to make hatred socially unacceptable. Thanks for that insightful, "progressive" tidbit. And thanks for the non-progressive obfuscation of the real issues here: race-based, ethnicity-based, religion-based, sexual-orientation based, and gender-based violence and intimidation, all of which are rooted in America's history, are community-destroying acts of domestic terrorism. Set a person of color's home on fire and lace your arson with spray-painted racial slurs, you are letting the entire community know that any person of color could be the next target. You're making all person's of color in that community anxious. You're terrorizing them. You're also letting the whites know they're safe. You do get that Diane, right? You do get that there is white privilege in white-on-color race-based hate crimes (and those types of hate crimes account for a high percentage of all hate crimes according to FBI statistics). You do know that in 2007 84% of all hate crimes were committed by white people, right?

Speaking of white privilege, it is unsurprising that Diane Dimond, who is white, fails to let her readers know that her anti-hate crime legislation stance would have the impact of cementing her white privilege in society. By not maximally stigmatizing (i.e., making socially unacceptable) hate crimes--which is done by labeling them "hate crimes" in code of law, in the media, and in the courtroom, and via enhanced punishment to the convicted hate crime perpetrator--as a white person Diane gets to continue to enjoy her significantly lower-than-you'd-expect risk for being a hate crime victim. Just how low is her risk? According to the graphs shown here, it's pretty much in the gutter. If Diane Dimond is heterosexual (me thinks she is), her risk of being a victim of a sexual-orientation hate crime is also in the gutter. But, you didn't read about that heterosexual privilege in her HuffPost article. You also didn't hear Dimond say that by eliminating hate crime laws, there would be no need to tabulate hate crimes as is now federal law. This is what the wingnuts want--the repeal of the federal act that shows hate crimes actually exist. Without that law, the neo-cons could continue to set Black churches and synagogues on fire, continue to beat Hispanics, Blacks, Asians, and Native Americans, and continue to bash the shit out of GLBT people while denying that America has a race, anti-Semitism or homophobia problem. Nice job HuffPo. The Right will play you like a fiddle (to quote Keith Olbermann).

Thanks too Dimond for repeating the right wing and completely false claim that all crimes are hate crimes ("hate is the name of the game when it comes to crime").

Here, I think, is a sufficient response to the all-crimes-are-hate-crimes lie. Again from Trends In Hate:

The notion that all crimes are hate crimes is a preposterous, indefensible claim made by some who oppose hate crime laws and pending hate crime legislation.

We’ve even seen it said that if hate crimes exist, then crimes not deemed to be hate crimes must be ‘love crimes.’ It’s difficult to fathom that people can be so simplistic and illogical. It is patently false that all crimes are hate crimes. In fact, it is not even true that all violent crimes are hate crimes. The vast majority are not. Where greed or financial desperation are the motives for crimes—as is the case of almost all burglaries, armed robberies, and muggings—there is no hatred toward the victims. Criminals just want their victims’ money. Even when a strong emotion drives a crime—such as a so-called crime of passion—that emotion is generally not hatred. It’s typically something shorter-lived like jealousy or rage. Additionally, when someone kills someone—because of some strong negative emotional state such as rage—generally it is not because they hate some socio-demographic feature of the victim, such as the victim’s race or ethnicity. Typically, it is because the killer became enraged at the victim based on some aspect of their relationship. This is why from 1996 through 2006, the FBI tallied 184,604 homicides in the United States, but only 118 hate crime homicides. Even considering that some hate crime murders were not tallied as such, it is clear the nation’s crime data shows us that very few crimes are hate crimes.

As you can see when perusing through this calendar of recent American history, hate crimes happen every day (except, it appears, on Christmas day). Yet, only a miniscule percentage of all reported crimes are hate crimes. Transforming the quoted figures above, only .06% of all American homicides were hate crime homicides during an eleven-year timeframe. OK, so much for the all-crimes-are-hate-crimes rationale for wanting to keep excluding gender, sexual orientation, and disability from the current federal hate crime amendment.

I was unsurprised to learn someone with an affinity for a white racist website like VDARE would take such interest in Dimond's anti-hate crime legislation viewpoint as to send her a link to the VDARE hate site after praising her for her article. That's exactly what happened. She cross-posted her HuffPo screed on her own website and received this "progressive" comment:

Thanks for this. I discussed in [link to the VDARE hate site removed]

Do you stand by your assertion that Vigilant Eagle is monitoring web sites. Has this appeared anywhere in the MSM? Pretty big story, if documentable.

VDARE is a white racist hate site, by the way, and Dimond apparently has made a fan there.

When you hold the exact same position on expanding the federal hate crime law to include gender, sexual orientation and disability that Senator Jim DeMint holds, you lose a lot of progressive cred. In fact, you come off like a white, heterosexual privileged jackass, just like DeMint who recently said this during the recent hate crime amendment debate in the Senate (one the GOP lost):

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said it was "patently offensive" that violence against one class of victims would be considered worse than violence against others.

Channeling DeMint, Dimond asks this in her article, which is the oft-asked question by many dyed-in-the-wool conservatives:

why should an attack on a homosexual or a minority be worth more punishment than a similar attack on a regular Joe?

The answer: to even the playing field. That is, to reduce the huge gap in the risk for becoming a hate crime victim in the first place. Or put more bluntly, to reduce white, Protestant, heterosexual privilege. That is, to reduce hate by reducing hate-based crimes.

But, of course, these people don't want to lose their societal privilege (or they are too damn dumb to see that they have it).

Diane Dimond offers this beauty of a solution (bracketed material mine):

If someone attacks a gay person let's prosecute them for assault [but not as a hate crime] and demand the judge give the harshest sentence possible.

My God this is embarrassing. OK, so she doesn't get that most judges are, demographically speaking, at a really low risk for being a hate crime victim (sexual-orientation based or otherwise) and therefore might be just as cluelessly privileged as she is. Some judges, like Boston Municipal Court Judge Thomas C. Horgan, actually reduce the sentences of hate crime perpetrators (how's that for progressive social justice?!). Is Dimond even aware of this gay-bashing case or any other gay-based hate crime other than the Matthew Shepard murder? Does she even give a shit? Also, Dimond fails to realize that judges are often appointed not elected, so the public can't just oust someone from the bench because of lenient sentences given to hate criminals. "Demands" would fall on deaf ears. Having a more diverse judiciary would help insure that more hate crime victims get the justice they deserve, a justice that in the long-run benefits all. I'm just thankful Dimond doesn't go on to argue that a white person charged with a race-based hate crime assault should be judged by a jury of his peers--other white racists.

Here's an idea for Diane Dimond to chew on: how about making racism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, etc., socially unacceptable by having comprehensive state and federal laws that add extra penalties for hate crimes. There's nothing that says "socially unacceptable" better than attaching a nice, harsh punishment to a hate crime, and to providing local law enforcement with the means to investigate hate crimes. That is, of course, the rationale for having hate crime statutes, not an argument against them. We could even go a step further in our efforts to reduce hatred and have states enact so-called hate crime registry boards. Like a convicted pedophile, the convicted hate criminal would have to register with the state board and notify them of his/her housing location which would be passed along to those in the neighborhood. As a society we've decided that people have a right to know if a convicted sex offender moves into their neighborhood (I received a letter last week, in fact, from my local police department notifying my household of a sex offender who moved into my neighborhood). Don't people also have the right to know if a hate crime convict moves into their neighborhood? Or would that upset the status quo too much? Would people lose too much of their societal privilege?

Arianna Huffington you pay Diane Dimond. You hired her and you sign her checks. As Editor-in-Chief of HuffPo you also signed off on her neo-con words to appear on your site. For this, you also bear responsibility for her words. If, after reading this diary, you conclude you don't owe progressives who tirelessly fight historical oppression an apology for publishing Dimond's right wing article on your website, then as I sit and wonder if you will send Diane Dimond off on assignment to cover the next Council of Conservative Citizens convention, at least edit your wiki page to reflect that The Huffington Post is no longer liberal, because we all know that Dimond's opinions mirror those found at WorldNetDaily.

PS Diane, it's 2009, and the proper word is "gay" not "homosexual" (unless you're posting your screeds on internet hate sites, then you can use the antiquated "H" word, though you may find your homophobia so well received at those hate sites that you might choose to use more colorful words to describe GLBT folks).

This blog was originally posted at DailyKos.