Hate Crimes 2 Essay, Research Paper
Racism & A ; Hate Crimes in America
Blacks were introduced to American dirt during the 17th and 18th centuries via the triangular trade path, and were welcomed by whips, ironss, bonds, and all the horrors of bondage. Slavery was legitimized by our authorities and continued for a few hundred old ages, taking a civil war and 16 presidents before it was abolished. To this twenty-four hours, there is still much hatred between inkinesss and Whites despite emancipation, integration, and integrating ; some would reason that the status of African Americans in the United States is still one of a subservient nature. Federal jurisprudence defines a hatred offense as whenever a victim is attacked on the footing of his or her race, ethnicity, faith, sexual orientation, or gender ; hatred discourtesies are directed against members of a peculiar group merely because of their rank in that group ( Levin 4 ) . Last twelvemonth, a black adult male was viciously murdered in east Texas by three immature white males. There are over a 100 homicides committed every twelvemonth, but the mode in which this life was taken and the evident motivation of his culprits leaves no uncertainty that this offense was one rooted in hatred. In this barbarous slaying, the motive is obvious and distinct, the dogmatism so blazing that it virtually hits you in the face. James Byrd Jr. s decease is America s shame: another adult male tortured for no reason- other than the colour of his tegument. This essay will utilize the Byrd slaying to research the cause and effects of hatred offenses, and effort to pull intending from it so that a calamity like this will non go on once more.
In the early forenoon of June 7, 1998, a black adult male was walking down a route in Jasper, Texas. James Byrd Jr. had merely left a niece s espousal shower at his parents house, and was seeking to catch a drive place. Three work forces drove by and the proprietor of the vehicle, Shawn Berry, offered Byrd a lift in the dorsum of the pickup. Byrd, handicapped in one leg, didn T hesitate to accept the seemingly sort gesture ; little did he surmise his destiny that was to follow. Angered, one of the riders by the name of John King grabbed the wheel and drove to a dark deserted route outside of town. What happened thenceforth doubtless has to be one of the most ghastly and dismaying offenses this state has seen since the twenty-four hours s bondage was legal. King and the concluding member of the three, Lawrence Brewer, got out of the truck and began crushing and kicking Byrd until he was about unconscious. Afterward, they chained him by his mortise joints to the dorsum of the truck and dragged him so violently down the twist asphalt route, rupturing off his caput and right arm from his organic structure. Police found Byrd s dental plates torn from his oral cavity, lying a few hundred paces down the route from the remainder of his organic structure. Blood smeared a trail over a stat mi long.
Research strongly suggests that hatred offenses reported to the constabularies have certain features that distinguish them from other types of discourtesies. First, hatred offenses tend to be overly barbarous ; the hatred in such offenses is expressed when force is exercised beyond what is necessary to repress victims or do them follow. Classifying the slaying of James Byrd as brutal is decidedly an understatement. A 2nd feature of hate offenses is that they are frequently mindless or irrational offenses perpetrated at random on aliens. Finding a random black adult male walking down the route tardily at dark and dragging him to decease is non a common circumstance. Another feature of hate offenses is that they are normally perpetrated by multiple wrongdoers ; it is a group offense often carried out by immature culprits runing together for the intent of assailing the members of another group ( Levin 16 ) . The slaying of James Byrd Jr. satisfies these features, and unmistakably qualifies as a hatred offense.
Byrd s hometown of Jasper is a racially assorted town of 8,000 people located in a rural subdivision of Texas ; a Southern town with built in prejudices, but non racist. Despite of the nature of Byrd s slaying, you can non pigeonhole a community because of the actions of a few. Harmonizing to the Mayor of Jasper, there had been no unusual racial jobs in the town in the yesteryear ( Cropper A16 ) . The sort of racial jobs we had here were the sorts of things where you wouldn t acquire the publicity or the right occupations, said Byrd s sister Mary Verrett. In all the clip I grew up, there was ne’er any straight-out dogmatism, and none of us were afraid to walk the street. In fact, you could state we were reasonably happy. Many people seemed to believe the offense did non reflect a deeper job.
On the other manus, Gary Bledsoe, president of the province chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said that the eastern portion of Texas environing Jasper has been considered a job country and a hotbed of Klan activity for old ages. Jasper lies 55 stat mis north of the town of Vidor, where a Klan group in 1993 tried to forestall the integrating of an all-white lodging development, endangering the first black occupants as teen-agers dressed in sheets confronted black fledglings ( Cropper A16 ) . Surely, the racialist environment that Byrd s culprits were forced to turn up in contributed greatly to their bigoted political orientation.
Reporters say Byrd s culprits were three troubled work forces siting and imbibing on a Saturday dark. John William King, 23, was the three s unofficial leader, a foul-spoken convicted burglar whose prison moniker was Possum. Shawn Allen Berry, besides 23, was King s former high school schoolmate and spouse in offense. Lawrence Russell Brewer, 31, had served seven old ages on a cocaine strong belief, released on status he be treated for an unrevealed mental unwellness. All three had tattoos or personal points with the particular markers of a white supremacist ( Pressley A1 ) . For all of his personal problems- alcohol addiction, junior-grade larceny, an inability to keep a job- James Byrd was good liked and had ne’er been involved in any sort of racial incident. What so set the three Jasper work forces off and led them to perpetrate a offense so violently flagitious? It may hold been a instance of unfortunate fortunes, excessively much to imbibe, nil to make, influence of Klan propaganda, a lone black adult male on a dark street giving form to all the ideas the work forces had absorbed in prison ( Pressley A9 ) . Without a uncertainty, these work forces were non transformed into racialists overnight.
In his book, Hate Crimes, Jack Levin proposes several factors that may do one to perpetrate a offense rooted in hatred. Levin writes, Learning to detest is about every bit ineluctable as external respiration. The hatred offense wrongdoer grows up in a civilization that distinguishes certain people as righteous, while denominating others as sleazy, immoral characters who deserve to be mistreated ( Levin 21 ) . One can non be disillusioned to believe that we live in a society free of stereotypes. The three work forces who murdered James Byrd grew up in an environment that stamped all inkinesss as being inferior subsidiaries. So when they saw James Byrd walking down the route on the dark of his decease, they weren t looking at James Byrd the person ; all they saw was a black adult male that gave form to the awful stereotyped images in their caputs. All that mattered to them was that the individual s tegument was black and different from theirs. Unfortunately, for James Byrd he was at the incorrect topographic point at the incorrect clip.
Historically, economic adversity has inspired racial tenseness and force, and may hold been a factor in the slaying of James Byrd ( Levin seven ) . The local economic system around Jasper is fighting, and immature white work forces there see minorities viing against them for occupations with what they perceive as unjust advantages, such as affirmatory action and other authorities plans. Harmonizing to Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center ( SPLC ) , an organisation which tracks the activities of hatred groups, the three work forces who murdered Byrd fit the stereotype of culprits of hate offenses. All three were traveling through tough times s
truggling to remain afloat: King, Brewer, and Berry were high school dropouts unable to keep a steady occupation, working diversely as yard workers and pound company employees, and they were about to be evicted from the flat they shared ( Pressley A9 ) . Harmonizing to the SPLC s Klanwatch Project, the figure of organized hatred groups has grown significantly during the last few old ages, possibly because of difficult economic times. The peculiarly down economic conditions in rural countries of the United States since the early 1980 s have provided a fertile genteelness land for organized hatred groups, playing on a subject that has particular entreaty to downtrodden husbandmans and little town occupants ( Levin 113 ) . Racist forces are appealing because they offer simplistic solutions for the jobs of our society by supplying obvious scapegoats- inkinesss, immigrants, and other minorities that threaten their well being. Dees points out, nevertheless, that possibly most important in their downward spiral were the racialist influences they encountered and embraced in prison.
Larry Fitzgerald, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said that while all three work forces were functioning clip, they were suspected of belonging to white domination groups, specifically the Confederate Knights of America, a prison pack aligned with the Ku Klux Klan ( Bragg 17 ) . Likewise, King was disciplined in 1995 while in prison for his engagement in a racial perturbation between Whites and Hispanics ( Pressley A9 ) . In his statement to patrol, Berry supplied a hint about the deepness of King s racialist beliefs. While dragging Byrd s organic structure behind the truck, King allegedly said, We re get downing the Turner Diaries early. The Turner Diaries are a fictional history of race war in America and antigovernment-conspiracy, and is seen as the Bible of hatred groups.
The slaying of James Byrd Jr. was non a random act of force. King, Berry, and Brewer were on a mission, a mission they were brainwashed with after old ages of exposure to white supremacist political orientation: to free the universe of evil by disposing of all inkinesss ( Levin 89 ) . For the past several old ages, white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the National Association for the Advancement of White Peoples have been claiming that they are non racialists. They say that they are non motivated by hatred, but are merely advocates of white rights, seeking to right what they claim is current favoritism against white people ( Novick 21 ) . Members of the KKK believe the impression that they are biologically superior, and warrant their violent behaviour toward guiltless people as defence. In a recent issue of a White Aryan Resistance newspaper, Tom Metzger asserts We have every right to utilize force in self-defence, in revenge, and in pre-emptive work stoppages against those who openly endanger our freedom. Many white supremacists believe that their force toward inkinesss is defensive, aimed at protecting their American manner of life or God-given Aryan advantage.
Hate offenses represent one extreme on the continuum of bias and dogmatism ( Levin 97 ) . Whether it is for economic or psychological grounds, there are infinite persons who feel resentful toward those of a certain group. They have suffered some loss in self-esteem or position ; instead than accepting duty for their hapless state of affairs, they are eager to put the incrimination elsewhere. Millions of people, nevertheless, have suffered a diminution in their quality of life or criterion of life, and would ne’er perpetrate a condemnable act against those who are different from them ( Novick 24 ) . Fortunately, non every member of society bargains into the civilization of hatred ; some have adequate self-denial to halt themselves from acting in a pervert or violent mode, no affair how great the entreaty. Still for some persons, as in the instance of John King, Shawn Berry, and Lawrence Brewer, the desire to perpetrate a hatred offense is overmastering. A recent survey indicated that the figure of white supremacists in America consist of merely under 50 thousand people ; when compared to the population of our state as a whole, that figure is a comparatively little per centum. In a state founded in life, autonomy, and equality, that is 50 thousand excessively many.
In her book Trauma and Recovery, Judith Herman writes the ordinary response to atrociousnesss is to ostracize them from consciousness ( Herman 1 ) . With a offense every bit horrifying as the James Byrd slaying, society can non afford to brush this issue underneath the carpet. Possibly it takes an event every bit traumatizing as the Byrd slaying to convey society s jobs to the head. James Byrd Jr s decease should be a wake-up call for America that sparks a introspection and contemplation. While some may reason that it is an stray incident, the Byrd slaying should function as a blunt reminder that racial hatred continues to be a national job. Those who track hate offenses say that while the incident here may be isolated, the evident thought behind it is non. Joe Roy, directory of the Southern Poverty Law Center s Intelligence Project, says Jasper is a reminder that no affair how good we think we re managing our jobs, there s ever something out at that place ( WSJ A8 ) . The slaying of James Byrd Jr. was an act of brutality, a offense that should be inexplicable. No 1 deserves to be treated that manner no affair what the colour of your tegument is. To kill a adult male for something he can non assist, such as the colour of his tegument, is worse a motivation that to kill him because he is rich, unsuccessful, or owes you money.
Our society must fall in together across racial lines to show that an act of evil such as this one is non what America is all approximately. We must non revenge with force, as the Black Muslims and Panthers urged in the aftermath of the slaying ( Bragg A17 ) . Surprising to many, the town of Jasper did non break out in racial struggle after the slaying ; alternatively inkinesss and Whites joined together in supplication vigils, mass meetings, and treatment groups, demoing the universe that what happened in Jasper injury and outraged all the town s people, non merely its inkinesss ( Bragg A8 ) . A community forced to see that sort of injury must non blow any clip adhering up the lesions caused by the offense. It is put offing to observe that the Ku Klux Klan used the Byrd slaying to speak about white pride and used the imperativeness attending as a phase to explicate their platform.
After about four centuries of force between Whites and inkinesss in America, race remains this state s most dissentious and intractable job. The battle against hatred offense demands the attending of every member of society. For legislators, it means polishing Torahs to turn to the serious menace of hatred offense. For pedagogues, it means developing ways to open channels of cultural apprehension among kids. For constabulary, it means increased attending to Acts of the Apostless of hatred force. For vicinities, it means beef uping the bonds of community to encompass diverseness and reject Acts of the Apostless of dogmatism ( Levin eight ) . Society as a whole must accept the fact that we are all a portion of the job, if we are non a portion of the solution.
Plants Cited
Bragg, Richard. For Jasper, Just What It Didn T Want. New York Times 27 June
1998: A8.
Bragg, Richard. In Wake of Texas Killing, Black Militants and Klan Trade Words.
New York Times 28 June 1998: A17.
Cropper, Carol Marie. Black Man Fatally Dragged In a Possible Racial Killing.
New York Times 10 June 1998: A16.
Levin, Jack, and Jack McDevitt. Hate Crimes: The Rising Tide of Bigotry and
Bloodshed. New York: Plenum, 1993.
Novick, Michael. White Lies, White Power: The Fight Against White Domination
and Reactionary Violence. Pine tree state: Common Courage Press, 1995.
Pressley, Sue Anne. Down a Dark Road to Murder. Washington Post 12 June
1998: A1.
Racist Murder Leads Texas Town to Probe Its Biass. Wall Street Journal 1
October 1998: A8.
