The Ehrlich Report

Hate Crimes and Ethnoviolence

Social statisticians say that within the U.S. a cross is burned outside of someone’s house once a week. Even more alarming are the studies that estimate the frequency of ethnoviolent incidents at 20%, That is, during the course of a year, one out of five people are victims of violence motivated by prejudice

Although the FBI reports that the count of hate crimes decreased last year, my own professional experience and monitoring of events leads me to regard this decrease as an artifact of conventional–and politically motivated--methodology. Not only do I believe that there has been an increase, but I expect this year to show a still further and substantial increase in rates of ethnoviolence. In the attachment to this letter we provide a sampling of incidents and crimes. Sociologically, the impetus this growth are the “modelling” of violence through the war, the scandals of detention and torture, and the upswing in the general crime rate, especially violent crimes.
In addition, the Internet has facilitated the communication of rumor, false threats, stereotypes, vicious language, and racist depictions. Take for example, a song performed by the Angry Aryans, a white power rock group. The song, titled “Browntown Burning Down” includes the lyric of “Negroes in flames rolling on the ground.”

The research dealing with the victimization of sexual minorities has made it quite clear that ethnoviolent incidents directed at them are more violent than those against other victim groups except, possibly, African Americans.

Another, and unexpected, group in the panoply of targeted victims is the homeless. Obviously their population is much smaller than other victim groups, although it is growing . Not only have requests for food and shelter increased nationwide, but the institutional response has been to criminalize the homeless, for example, to make it illegal to sleep in a park or for generous citizens to feed the homeless in a public place. The result of the growth of this population, their visibility, and official disdain has led to truly horrific hate crimes including dousing a sleeping homeless people with gasoline and setting them on fire.

The newly proposed federal legislation, titled the Local Law Hate Crimes Prevention Act, will not cover the homeless but does expand existing coverage to include crimes committed against people because of their sexual orientation, gender, and gender identity. The bill, which has passed through the House is being strongly opposed by neoconservatives and evangelical Christians who claim, “We must stop it before they send your grandma...or you to jail for sharing your faith.” Despite this opposition, a Gallup Poll this May indicated that 68% of the people in a national survey supported the new hate crimes bill.

Hate Speech

A few weeks before this writing, the columnist George Will devoted his entire space to a denunciation of the idea of “hate speech.” The column was built upon substantially wrong claims both legal and sociological. Even such first-amendment purists as Nat Hentoff have denounced those of us who believe that hate speech is a serious form of ethnoviolence. I am frequently questioned about hate speech, and there is no question that the issue is highly complex so much so that the Supreme Court decisions have not moved very far from the “fighting words” doctrine. Worse yet, the Court has relied upon the 17th century “distinction” between speech and conduct—a distinction long ago rejected by the social sciences.

To distinguish hate speech from hateful speech is not simple. One needs, first, to have some sense of the motives of the actor. Secondly, we need to look at the social context in which the speech occurred .including who the target was. Finally, we need to understand that hate speech has virtually the same traumatic impact as a physical assault. Words do wound.

Enhanced Penalties

About 45 states have a statute dealing with hate crimes. Most of them provide for an enhanced penalty. Hate speech or other expressions of prejudice are protected by the First Amendment. However, criminal activity which is also accompanied by expressions of prejudice may be subject to an enhanced penalty. At issue is whether the perpetrator was motivated by prejudice and selected his victim because of the victim’s race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion. Some state statutes also include sexual orientation, gender, and physical or mental disability. So it may be the court can extend a sentence for a crime motivated by prejudice by a year or more.
Although there have been many objections to an enhanced penalty, such penalties are actually built in to American jurisprudence, Prosecutors are always engaged in the assessment of motives as they construct their cases. The difference between murder and manslaughter is just one dramatic example. A more prosaic form of enhancement can be seen in the warning on many highways where there are construction crews: Men Working Fines Doubled.

There are two major arguments supporting an enhanced penalty. The first is that persons victimized by ethnoviolence are generally more traumatized than those whose victimization was not accompanied by prejudice. There is a major difference between being assaulted because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time and being assaulted because of who you are. Finally, hate crimes warrant an enhanced penalty as a demonstration that the community does care.

Another argument, not frequently articulated is that hate crimes are destructive of democracy. As such, they warrant our special attention.