Term Paper on "Hate Crimes Historical Origins"

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Although anyone is potentially a victim of crime, some groups are particularly susceptible to victimization because of their vulnerability, social marginality, or invisibility. Some criminals use a victim's minority group membership as a means of gauging the victim's level of guardianship and the degree to which society cares about what happens to the victim.

(Grattet & Jenness, 2001, p. 653)

One particularly destructive human example of this type of situation is African Slavery in the U.S. And other colonized locals. The issue at hand for those in charge was a desire for available labor and the answer became an elaborate system of discrimination that was answered by the incarceration and forced relocation of millions of black Africans. Similarly, not only where these particular people less "valuable" to the global community and therefore vulnerable to exploitation (often as a result of regional conflict and internal strife) but they were even less valuable in their Diasporic state and therefore victimized to more or less degree by their captors, almost universally without sanction. One example of this is the historical evidence of the occurrence of extreme physical violence and even lynching, which was for a period in U.S. history an allowable practice, when perpetrated against a slave, as a slave was inhuman property to be treated as its owner wished. Some experts also point out that such public events were often symbolic crimes or crimes that warned others of the danger of resistance:

Accordingly, symbolic crimes are best envisioned as social crimes because the victims are selected precisely because of what they symbolize. The crime is committed for expressive reasons. The most vivid historical example of this is perhaps the lynching of blacks where the corpses were then displayed in communities to send a message to other blacks and whites who sympathized with the plight of the blacks. (111) a more recent example is the incident that occurred in Laramie, Wyoming, where Matthew Shepard, a young gay man, was robbed, pistol-whipped, tied to a fence, and left to die by two young men who were offended by his homosexuality. (112) in each case, the individual had been victimized in order to convey a message to the larger community. As Representative Conyers explained when trying to convince his fellow legislators of the importance of hate crime legislation, (Grattet & Jenness, 2001, p. 653)

The civil rights movement to a large degree attempted to challenge the defacto reality of black, former slaves, who were still to a large degree, even after abolition vulnerable to hate crime mentality and actions on the part of the broader community.

The civil rights movement was in many ways the demonstrative reaction or effect of the many creative ways that the broader society continued to subjugate and precipitate violence against blacks even after laws had been passed to allow them the basic rights of citizens. During the civil rights movement hate crimes in fact increased because the broader community became afraid that the subjugated and segregated masses would gain more power than they intended by their creative laws to keep them down. (Markovitz, 2004, p. 69) it wasn't until late in the movement that perpetrators of such violence even felt the need to obscure their own identities, as the practice was subtly and overtly sanctioned by many around them and blacks were still held to be of less value than whites. Race motivated violence in fact still occurs today, to some degree and it is often perpetrated by resurgent movement such as the neo-Nazi youth who through the demonstration of old ideologies of hatred continue to demonstrate and precipitate violence against anyone who is not white. (Hamm, 1994, p. 3) for many the special designation of some crimes, as hate crimes to be treated in a different venue and in a more extreme fashion is acceptable in the sense that the crime was committed in the same fashion as the millions upon millions of crimes associated with the holocaust.

Hate Speech, Hate Crimes and the Constitution:

Many challenges of white supremacy are also propagated and protected by constitutional rights to free speech. This has been an area where legislation of hate crimes has been difficult, because the first amendment protects the right to free speech even when such speech demoralizes another. Hate speech, including racially motivated derogatory names for people of difference as well as even speech that serves as an impetus for even the most heinous and dogmatic of social violence is protected, as is the right to assembly. (Walker, 1996, p. 1) in one example the regional protection of the Arian Nation's (a Neo-Nazi Organization) annual parade to celebrate Hitler's birthday in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho brings members of the Neo-Nazi and the broader communities together, and the locality has little to defend itself, as if the proper permits are applied for they must be granted the right to demonstrate. (Hamm, 1994, p. 70) Though many of such events go off without violence the ideas they propagate are fundamentally damaging to racial tolerance and diversity, a core principle of the broader community, at least in name.

The symbolism of hatred, including the brandishing of swastikas and the burning of crosses as a testament to the belief in the supremacy of one race over another also fall into acts that are protected by constitutional rights. Individuals in the past have not been prosecuted for such demonstrations unless they have somehow broken another law, such as trespassing in the case of cross burning. The difficulty being that the dogma espoused precipitates other unprotected acts of violence against blacks and other undesirable peoples, including Jews. The dogmatic speech associated with white supremacy, is protected by the constitution, and many people become ensconced by the ideas to perpetrate further violence and publicly demonstrate their opinions about superiority and more specifically the inferiority of others. Verbal and non-verbal symbolism culminates to an alarming degree to create a situation where constitutional protections are in conflict with the broader societies desire to live in a racism free environment. (Hamm, 1994, p. 70) This is in many ways the impetus for hate crime laws and legislation, as those crimes committed in the name of hate can then be treated more harshly than if they were simply acts of mischief, as trespassing usually is.

Hate crime legislation is clearly constitutional, as long as such legislation is not inappropriately applied. As there is not likely to be an extreme broadening of application of hate crime legislation it is likely that many things in a legal sense will continue in the path they have taken for centuries and people who commit crimes will be treated as they have always been. The need for hate crime legislation and the upholding of its existence is to demonstrate the need for a special class of crime that deserves, by virtue of its reflection of random hatred for social diversity to be treated more harshly and more publicly by society and the legal system. There is a clear sense that some crimes are worse than others, based upon intention and most people would likely agree that if an individual is doing something as simple as handing out documents that contain hate speech, unsolicited they should be treated more harshly than a store owner whose employees were unaware of legal restrictions of placing advertisements on vehicles in a mall parking lot or on doorknobs. The content… READ MORE