Hate crime
We are endlessly being misdirected in search of the crude “hate crime.” After centuries of racial oppression and violence, our society eventually became uncomfortable with the overtness of the racism of the past. Slavery is taken for granted as a horrific thing, something that couldn’t be assumed a few generations ago. For mainstream America, to be accused of being racist is to have been labeled something despicable. Few would willingly accept this charge upon themselves, defending themselves adamantly against such accusations. However, even worse than the racist label for those within the dominant culture, is for a person to be accused of a hate crime. Hate crimes have been created to isolate the most heinous of offenses that have been committed because of prejudice.
Hate crimes are things that terrible people do, or so that is the way we like to think of it. Hate crimes are believed to be done by the non-human. It is done by the coldhearted, malice, evil, apathetic, and sadistic monster. The hate crime is done by the KKK bogey man. That is, in hegemonic imaginations, hate crimes could never be committed by everyday regular white American Christians. This type of deed cannot be committed by oneself, by one’s close network of friends, or by one’s family members. Hate crimes are done by the super-evil. The one who commits such crimes are what evil villains are made of.
It is no wonder then that so many people within dominant culture question every application of hate crime. When statistics show that black people are being gunned down by police and vigilantes at disproportionate rates. In protest, racism is cried out by communities most affected by it. Very quickly, white people want to slow down “playing the race card,” and making unfair accusations. Strangely, many white people can admit that a police officer probably acted out of fear, but since dominant culture also has developed racialized fears of black people, to them it appears as a justified fear. No hate crime there. A white man can get out of his car, use racial epithets, and in the process he can strike a black man in the face. Our society says, nope, sorry, no hate crime there, it was just road rage. And we already know that a vigilante can stalk young black teens on their way home, killing them out of their own perverted and racialized view of humanity, and yet still, no hate crime. It seems like hate crimes as a label is useless because they are reserved only for actions that reflect common practices from the early 20th century Jim/Jane crow and lynching era. In fact, it seems that by constantly deciphering whether something is a hate crime or not, we have missed the more obvious reality. Something else appears in the horizon once we step back and view things historically from the origins of America to the present.
