Is there still racism in America?

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

No one cares when that happens to black people so why should they care when it happens to white people?

I care…what happens to anyone!

 

[meltzerboy]

I just received this in an email. It has been around…maybe you have seen it.

My point in posting this is simple. The social and media attention given to Martin and Brown compared to little Antonio West shows that what is known as “racism” in America is a one way street. Since the killers of Antonio are not considered racist hate criminals…real racism does not exist in America.

I reject this notion that only a majority can be racist and all minorities are therefore innocent victims. Until it is admitted, and well understood, that minorities can harbor intense racial hatred…there is no point in discussing racism in the United States.

I was with you until the end. Of course there is a point in discussing racism in the United States, precisely because of what you have pointed out! The reason why minorities are not generally thought of as racist is that they have been oppressed and discriminated against for so long by those in power. Blacks, for example, were slaves in the US and were then subject to Jim Crow segregation laws in the South as well as racial discrimination in the North. But that does not condone killing Whites simply because they are White, and, yes, I would say the example you refer to is a hate crime and should be prosecuted as such. We should and must, as a nation, discuss incidents such as this and take action to change the law.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

I was with you until the end. Of course there is a point in discussing racism in the United States, precisely because of what you have pointed out! The reason why minorities are not generally thought of as racist is that they have been oppressed and discriminated against for so long by those in power. Blacks, for example, were slaves in the US and were then subject to Jim Crow segregation laws in the South as well as racial discrimination in the North. But that does not condone killing Whites simply because they are White, and, yes, I would say the example you refer to is a hate crime and should be prosecuted as such. We should and must, as a nation, discuss incidents such as this and take action to change the law.

Hmmmmm…ok, maybe I was a little blunt by saying there is no point in discussing racism in the United States. Allow me to re-evaluate…

You bring up an interesting point that has yet come up…Slavery.

The United States was the only nation to ever fight a war to abolish slavery. That war was fought by white men. 620,000 died. I think that was payback enough for the evil of slavery.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

Hmmmmm…ok, maybe I was a little blunt by saying there is no point in discussing racism in the United States. Allow me to re-evaluate…

You bring up an interesting point that has yet come up…Slavery.

The United States was the only nation to ever fight a war to abolish slavery. That war was fought by white men. 620,000 died. I think that was payback enough for the evil of slavery.

The American Civil War was not fought to abolish slavery, it was to crush a traitorous rebellion against a just government.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

The American Civil War was not fought to abolish slavery, it was to crush a traitorous rebellion against a just government.

…and what was the point of that traitorous rebellion?

If you say “States Rights” you must be from the South and exposed to revisionist history

 

[exnihilo]

I was with you until the end. Of course there is a point in discussing racism in the United States, precisely because of what you have pointed out!

I think it should be discussed but it is dangerous to discuss this topic both socially and legally. You aren’t going to have honest conversations if honesty can hurt you.

Blacks, for example, were slaves in the US and were then subject to Jim Crow segregation laws in the South as well as racial discrimination in the North.

If by Jim Crow laws you mean race laws then they existed in the North as well. Also, Boston schools had to be desegregated by court order the same as many schools in the South and the effort was met with protest and violence. Not that you are making this mistake, but for some reason (in my opinion an effort to denigrate the South) when it comes to school segregation the understanding is this was only a southern issue. Irronically I was just reading an article wherein Denzel Washington talks about the racism he experienced in Boston just 30 years ago, which is the 1980s. His experience in the North was apparently no different or worse than what he could experience in the South.

The American Civil War was not fought to abolish slavery, it was to crush a traitorous rebellion against a just government.

Interesting point of view and I don’t want to derail the thread. But I have a question. How was the US revolution any different? It seems to me Britain was a just government. It was certainly no less just than the government we have today. It tax burden was certainly far less onerous. It seems to me the war was not so much a rebellion but a group of states invoking the same principle presented in the Declaration of Independence to alter the bonds of government.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

…But that does not condone killing Whites simply because they are White, and, yes, I would say the example you refer to is a hate crime and should be prosecuted as such…

A factor that impacts whether or not some one is prosecuted for performing a hate crime is knowledge (or suspicion ) of their motivation. The phrase “hate crime” seems to be more of a legal idiom than a phrase whose meaning is obvious by the definition of the words that compose it. If Bob thinks Mary is a jerk, hates her, and commits a crime against her that’s not a hate crime pursuant to the legal definition. If Bob commits a crime against Mary because she is a member of then it’s a hate crime.

There are a number of attributes against which some one could select to target some one that would constitute a hate crime; race, religion, language, sex, sexual orientation, and others.

2012 FBI Hate Crime Statistics

According to FBI statics the distribution of hate crimes reported to them are as follows:
http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/201...show-slight-decease/image/hate-crimes-graphic

In 2012 race is the biggest attribute at 48% motivating hate crimes. Looking into the tables for the racial hate crimes the distribution is as follows.

66.2% from anti-black bias
22.0% from anti-white bias
4.4% from victims of multiple races
4.1% from anti-Asian/Pacific bias
3.3% from anti-Native American bias

2011 FBI Hate Crime Statistics

2011 looks a little different. 47.4% of hate crimes reported were from race hate crimes. The distribution in 2011 is as follows.

71.9% from anti-black bias
16.3% from anti-white bias
5.2% from victims of multiple races
4.8% from anti-Asian/Pacific bias
1.9% from anti-Native American bias

There’s no data available yet for the 2013 year.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

A factor that impacts whether or not some one is prosecuted for performing a hate crime is knowledge (or suspicion ) of their motivation. The phrase “hate crime” seems to be more of a legal idiom than a phrase whose meaning is obvious by the definition of the words that compose it. If Bob thinks Mary is a jerk, hates her, and commits a crime against her that’s not a hate crime pursuant to the legal definition. If Bob commits a crime against Mary because she is a member of

then it’s a hate crime.

There are a number of attributes against which some one could select to target some one that would constitute a hate crime; race, religion, language, sex, sexual orientation, and others.

2012 FBI Hate Crime Statistics

According to FBI statics the distribution of hate crimes reported to them are as follows:
http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/201...show-slight-decease/image/hate-crimes-graphic

In 2012 race is the biggest attribute at 48% motivating hate crimes. Looking into the tables for the racial hate crimes the distribution is as follows.

66.2% from anti-black bias
22.0% from anti-white bias
4.4% from victims of multiple races
4.1% from anti-Asian/Pacific bias
3.3% from anti-Native American bias

2011 FBI Hate Crime Statistics

2011 looks a little different. 47.4% of hate crimes reported were from race hate crimes. The distribution in 2011 is as follows.

71.9% from anti-black bias
16.3% from anti-white bias
5.2% from victims of multiple races
4.8% from anti-Asian/Pacific bias
1.9% from anti-Native American bias

There’s no data available yet for the 2013 year.

Until a prosecutor can retrieve human thoughts…a “hate Crime” cannot really be proven.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Until a prosecutor can retrieve human thoughts…a “hate Crime” cannot really be proven.

Skepticism can be healthy. From various epidemiological standpoints 100% confidence is not achievable. But I’d encourage checking other data collections to see how consistent they are. If you are interested let me know and I can refer you to some.

At the very least I think this information may contribute to help in addressing your questions on why there seems to be more emphasis put on addressing certain types of hate crimes than others.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

Skepticism can be healthy. From various epidemiological standpoints 100% confidence is not achievable. But I’d encourage checking other data collections to see how consistent they are. If you are interested let me know and I can refer you to some.

At the very least I think this information may contribute to help in addressing your questions on why there seems to be more emphasis put on addressing certain types of hate crimes than others.

Actually I have no problem with the statistics you have provided. FBI Crime Reports are accurate.

My problems is that the FBI now defines “Hate Crime” as not just an act against an individual, but “a business, an institution, or society as a whole.” Can you see where this is going?

I see it as a threat to freedom. The movement to define and convict “hate speech” as a reflection of “hate thought” is well underway. That interpretation will manifest itself in further constricting the First Amendment – particularly freedom of religion, speech and the press.

Fact is, the per-capita black-on-white assaults and murders nationwide grossly outnumbers that of white-on-black assaults and murders, but there has never been a national campaign to classify one of the former as a race-based “hate crime” – not even in horrendous cases such as the torture/rape/murders of a young white couple, Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom by five black thugs.

Our Attorney General has clearly stated that any “hate crime” laws signed by the President would not apply to white victims, but only protect those who have been subjected to “the unfortunate history of our nation.” According to Holder, “What we’re looking for here in terms of the expansion of the statute are instances where there is a historic basis to see groups of people who are singled out for violence perpetrated against them because of who they are.”

The key to “hate-crime” legislation is that certain groups of people are protected, while others are not. Sort of a socialist agenda, if you will. It should be no big surprise that class hatred does not fall within its categories of protection. Socialism, after all, is a direct repudiation of the Tenth Commandment - “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.” Instead, it stresses that the neighbor who owns more and better should not only be hated, but - in the best tradition of Stalin’s forced collectivization - eliminated.

Very soon “Hate Crimes” will morph into “Thought Crimes”.

 

[pnewton]

Until a prosecutor can retrieve human thoughts…a “hate Crime” cannot really be proven.

Sometimes it can, at least to the level beyond reasonable doubt. What I do not understand is why killing someone out of racial bigotry is worse than killing someone for greed, or pretty much any other reason for murdering an innocent.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Sometimes it can, at least to the level beyond reasonable doubt. What I do not understand is why killing someone out of racial bigotry is worse than killing someone for greed, or pretty much any other reason for murdering an innocent.

One’s apparent intent often plays a role in how an offense is prosecuted. So an accidental death by shooting may have a lower penalty than an intentional death by shooting.

Hate crimes are thought to have a higher impact of the community than “independent crimes” and are more likely to cause tension between groups in a community, shape attitudes, and possibly lead to more violence.
Sir William Blackstone:

it is but reasonable that among crimes of different natures those should be most severely punished, which are the most destructive of the public safety and happiness.

 

[Midwest88]

Okay …

Thank you for the reminder.

And yes, there is still racism in America, but not as much as the MSM leads you to believe. The US of A is country of 300+million people – it’s kind of expected to have a ‘few’ bad apples.

@ ThinkingSapien: Stop using infographs to purport that most crimes are “hate crimes” based on race. The freakin’ media ran with the Brown shooting as race related when in fact the guy robbed a couple of convenient stores and therefore was a criminal on the run.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

@ ThinkingSapien: Stop using infographs to purport that most crimes are “hate crimes” based on race.

I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand what your objection is. If it is that you think the data is bad or have corrected figures feel free to say so or share a data source.

The freakin’ media ran with the Brown shooting as race related when in fact the guy robbed a couple of convenient stores and therefore was a criminal on the run.

What impact does that have on the 2011-2012 FBI Crime Statistics?

 

[lerapt78]

Another legal bias or inconsistency is in the capture of crime statistics. FBI crime statistics, which are used for many purposes including showing alleged bias, in at least many cases if not all, include Hispanics with Whites together as a group when it comes to the race of the perpetrator of a crime. But these groups are separated when reporting the victim of a crime.

Yes. Unless the system has been reformulated recently, “Hispanic” is a victim category, but it is not a perpetrator category. So, (for those reading who might be unfamiliar with the FBI’s statistical classification system), it essentially means that if there is a violent crime in which a non-white Hispanic (let’s call him Pablo) is involved with a white/other Caucasian (let’s call him John), or a black (let’s call him Travone) it’s treated as following:

Travone attacks Pablo = black on hispanic crime

Travone attacks John = black on white crime

John attacks Pablo = white on hispanic crime

John attacks Travone - white on black crime

However. . .

Pablo attacks John = “white” or “unknown” on white crime

Pablo attacks Travone = “white” or “unknown” on black crime

What this does is artificially inflate the number of crimes committed by “white” people by including assaults committed by non-white Hispanics as “white”, making it look as though whites commit more violent crimes against non-whites than they actually do.

I have no idea what justification they offer for such an accounting principle.

I don’t know what their official reasoning is, but as far as I know, it may have something to do with self-identification. The Bureau of Justice will list offenders into categories based upon “perceived race”. Many Hispanics label or consider themselves as whites, which can of course skew statistics. (There *are *white Hispanics, as well as black/mulatto Hispanics of course, but the majority of Hispanics in this country are either fully indigenous Aztec or a mestizo mix)

I’m not sure how the FBI classifies black-Hispanic against African-American crime.

 

[lerapt78]

I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand what your objection is. If it is that you think the data is bad or have corrected figures feel free to say so or share a data source.

What impact does that have on the 2011-2012 FBI Crime Statistics?

The inaccurate reportage of race, combined with the obviously disproportionate amount of “hate crime” charges brought against whites in comparison to their levels of victimization by non-whites is the reason why the “hate crime” statistics the FBI puts out don’t mean jack as far as giving us an idea of who hates who more.

The only thing the hate crime statistics show is that the law is deliberately targeting Whitey.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

Okay …

Thank you for the reminder.

And yes, there is still racism in America, but not as much as the MSM leads you to believe. The US of A is country of 300+million people – it’s kind of expected to have a ‘few’ bad apples.

@ ThinkingSapien: Stop using infographs to purport that most crimes are “hate crimes” based on race. The freakin’ media ran with the Brown shooting as race related when in fact the guy robbed a couple of convenient stores and therefore was a criminal on the run.

Actually he was accused of robbing one convenience store by a customer at the store, not the store owner or the employee; if you actually pay attention to the video you can see him pay for the stuff. Furthermore in addition to not being a criminal on the run the police department did not have the video until after the shooting and the officer who shot him had no idea of the accusation leveled against Brown at the time.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

The only thing the hate crime statistics show is that the law is deliberately targeting Whitey.

That is an interesting perspective. Especially since the FBI is among the organizations that according to documents released by the freedom of Information Act used to target minority organizations. But I am curious as to what is down this pathway. What impact does the perception of this apparent bias have on one’s life (either you personally or the lives of those you know). Does it have any impact in how one interacts with officers of the law? Are there any situations in which the apparent bias raises concern?

Pardon my mistakes. Sent from my mobile device.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

That is an interesting perspective. Especially since the FBI is among the organizations that according to documents released by the freedom of Information Act used to target minority organizations. But I am curious as to what is down this pathway. What impact does the perception of this apparent bias have on one’s life (either you personally or the lives of those you know). Does it have any impact in how one interacts with officers of the law? Are there any situations in which the apparent bias raises concern?

Pardon my mistakes. Sent from my mobile device.

One thing to keep in mind about the FBI is that it is part of the Department of Justice. Therefore it becomes a tool for whatever administration currently occupies the White House.
One administration can use it to target minority organizations while another administration can send 50 agents to investigate a justifiable homicide and ignore a growing terrorist cell in another state. It is a matter of priorities.

 

[lerapt78]

That is an interesting perspective. Especially since the FBI is among the organizations that according to documents released by the freedom of Information Act used to target minority organizations.

To which minority organizations and released documents are you referring? Are you talking about minority organizations that engage in domestic terrorism? Governmental resistance? Peaceful assembly? Did the FBI deliberately target minority organizations while ignoring majority ones? When you say the FBI “used to” target, does that imply that they once did, but now no longer do? It’s an important distinction because the thread is dealing with the here and now, in which ethnic discrimination is actively occurring.

In any event, hate crime charges are most commonly brought against individuals - and not organizations - as far as I know.

But I am curious as to what is down this pathway. What impact does the perception of this apparent bias have on one’s life (either you personally or the lives of those you know). Does it have any impact in how one interacts with officers of the law? Are there any situations in which the apparent bias raises concern?

Pardon my mistakes. Sent from my mobile device.

The bias can impact people in such a way so that certain people who do not fall under a specially-designated victim group bear a greater burden of responsibility in moderating their interactions with others. The disparity not be that big a deal in certain areas, but here is an example of a situation in which the bias is especially concerning:

A white guy gets involved in a confrontation with a minority. The minority acts aggressively and the white guy’s instinct is to lash out verbally or fight back in the case that he is assaulted first. However, because it’s in the back of his mind that he could be charged with a hate crime in addition to any charges that would normally arise from a physical conflict, he either hesitates to act in self-defense or engages in action but uses less force than he might ordinarily use. It only takes a split second for a punch to be thrown, and in that moment, massive damage can occur. That hesitation – something the minority may not experience because the laws are not biased against him – gives the advantage to the minority. So the white guy is placed in an artificially-induced vulnerable position.

The white guy is thus “neutered” in a sense.

So the bias of hate crime laws changes the dynamics of conflict by removing the fairness of the fight. There’s no longer a level playing ground because one person is hampered by the knowledge his actions can bring about stricter consequences and as such he’s forced to handicap himself and be willing to bear the greater risk of harm. The hate crime law is a form of psychological control. A subtle one, perhaps, but one that exists nonetheless.