A response to Hate Crimes against white people, subtle bias, and statistics

Friday, September 14, 2007

In a recent post, Vietnamese fisherman’s death labeled a hate-crime by Asian-Americans, but not by authorities - a reader Larry commented:

An old friend of mine was a victim of a hate crime in Chicago too. He was beaten by gangbangers who kept calling him “whiteboy” and “cracker”. Now he has permanent brain damage. No hate crime charges were filed though, and last I heard all of the perpetrators did less than a year in jail. Go figure.

A few things about the comment

Notice the “Go Figure”?

Those two simple words slant the whole comment where it not just becomes a statement about hate crime law and an injustice that has taken place - but a comment as in - “See what those people can get away with?” where it seems as if all people of color are getting lumped into the “gangbanger” persona and by association are criminal - at the same time implying that hate crimes against white people don’t and won’t get prosecuted, trying to encourage sympathy - but doing so by trying to pit whites against people of color through negative stereotyping.

Such a seemingly simple statement - unless defused and analyzed - can easily be used as a springboard for much more direct and racist speech and doctrines (even if the statement wasn’t intended to be a springboard for more direct and racist speech - simply because it has racial bias built into it).

Some facts about Hate Crimes in the U.S.

Hate crimes against whites do exist and are prosecuted - as they should be.

According to the FBI’s Hate Crime statistics there were 828 incidents, 935 offenses, 975 victims and 963 known offenders for Hate Crimes that were committed because of anti-white sentiment (this does not include victims who were involved in a hate crime where the bias for the crime was something other than race, like gender or religion, and who were also white as well).

Go to the full statistics for the 2005 Hate Crimes at the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s site.