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Date Smarter!Determining HateCrimesExposition: Determining Hate Crimes Essay?Hate based on race, religion and sexualorientation exist within any cultural rich societies. When this type ofhate fuels a person into taking violent actions upon those they hate, itis called a hate crime; a topic which the American public is seriouslyconcerned about. It has been a widely discussed subject on the media, andoften debates of whether or not a crime should be attributed with hateare the center for discussion. Does hate crime imply on any case whena person is convicted for inflicting damage on someone “different”? Itis often difficult to set a benchmark for measuring sufficiency of hateas a cause to label it in front of crime. The term can be convenientlystretched and squeezed by people with different ideas and biases.
The fourwhite policemen who brutally beat Rodney King Jr. , a black man, half todeath for merely speeding is determined by the court¡¦s judgment,as officers performing their duty. Hate, to those particular jurors andjudge, was not a valid concern. To them, the beating was not due to theofficers¡¦ resentment for a black man, but because they weresimply disciplining an offender of the law. To the minority groups, thecourt¡¦s ruling was outrageous. From their point of view,the savage beating was unnecessary and hate was obviously the factor whichinduce the four cops to perform such a nasty feat.
Because people havevarying views and opinions, application of the term “hate crime” is notalways relevant. Can we assume the murder of Nicole Simpson by OJ Simpsona hate crime since it involves a black man killing a white woman or arethere more in depth twist to the case? People who are willing to do a littlethinking, do not just look at the difference of the victim and the convictedand draw conclusions of whether or not the crime is hate related, theyexamine all the other psychological elements also. The most common wayof judgment is to ponder: if the victim was of a different race, religion,or sexual orientation, would the same injurious action still have takenplace? In order to picture the virtual scenario, we would need to thinkcritically and be able to delineate out hate, and to do that, we need tounderstand why people hate. No one is born to be prejudice.
It is thesociety people grow up in that teaches them to be that way. Even whilewatching a seemingly harmless cartoon, we are taught unconsciously to despisethose who are different. The good guys are always a group of the same kind,physically appealing and very American while the bad guys are always bizarreand resemble people from a distant culture we don¡¦t recognize. From very young, we develop stereotypes; a direct effect from the workingsof society. Popular generalizations such as Black people eating up socialsecurity money and Asians trying to buy America are passed around.
Yet,in reality, statistics show that much more Whites are on social securitythan are blacks and only the Japanese Corporations are doing the purchasing,not Asians, particularly Asian Americans who have nothing to do with thembesides being Asian. Ironically, society tries to undo our prejudice througheducation when we enter school. But the prejudice is brought back to uswhen we meet students who are prejudice, whether we become their friendsor their victims of discrimination. Being prejudice upon teaches a personto be prejudice. How a person views something related toracism and hatred, directly reflects on how society has raised them.
TheAmerican people do not see the bombing of Iraq and Yugoslavia as a hatecrime, because we are told what we want to believe, that we are good andthey are evil, and there would be no wrong in flexing our superior muscle. But to the Iraqis and Yugoslavians, who lost thousands of lives, the UnitedStates is but a racist nation who kills “non-American” people like killingants. For if the Iraqis and Yugoslavians were Americans, preferably white,would the U. S value their lives differently? It is ultimately in a person¡¦sperception, which concludes what is and what is not a hate crime. .
