Determining Hate Crimes Essay, Research Paper

Exposition: Determining Hate Crimes?

Hate based on race, religion and sexual

orientation exist within any cultural rich societies. When this type of

hate fuels a person into taking violent actions upon those they hate, it

is called a hate crime; a topic which the American public is seriously

concerned about. It has been a widely discussed subject on the media, and

often debates of whether or not a crime should be attributed with hate

are the center for discussion.

Does hate crime imply on any case when

a person is convicted for inflicting damage on someone “different”? It

is often difficult to set a benchmark for measuring sufficiency of hate

as a cause to label it in front of crime. The term can be conveniently

stretched and squeezed by people with different ideas and biases. The four

white policemen who brutally beat Rodney King Jr., a black man, half to

death for merely speeding is determined by the court¡¦s judgment,

as officers performing their duty. Hate, to those particular jurors and

judge, was not a valid concern. To them, the beating was not due to the

officers¡¦ resentment for a black man, but because they were

simply disciplining an offender of the law. To the minority groups, the

court¡¦s ruling was outrageous. From their point of view,

the savage beating was unnecessary and hate was obviously the factor which

induce the four cops to perform such a nasty feat. Because people have

varying views and opinions, application of the term “hate crime” is not

always relevant. Can we assume the murder of Nicole Simpson by OJ Simpson

a hate crime since it involves a black man killing a white woman or are

there more in depth twist to the case? People who are willing to do a little

thinking, do not just look at the difference of the victim and the convicted

and draw conclusions of whether or not the crime is hate related, they

examine all the other psychological elements also. The most common way

of judgment is to ponder: if the victim was of a different race, religion,

or sexual orientation, would the same injurious action still have taken

place? In order to picture the virtual scenario, we would need to think

critically and be able to delineate out hate, and to do that, we need to

understand why people hate.

No one is born to be prejudice. It is the

society people grow up in that teaches them to be that way. Even while

watching a seemingly harmless cartoon, we are taught unconsciously to despise

those 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 bizarre

and resemble people from a distant culture we don¡¦t recognize.

From very young, we develop stereotypes; a direct effect from the workings

of society. Popular generalizations such as Black people eating up social

security money and Asians trying to buy America are passed around. Yet,

in reality, statistics show that much more Whites are on social security

than are blacks and only the Japanese Corporations are doing the purchasing,

not Asians, particularly Asian Americans who have nothing to do with them

besides being Asian. Ironically, society tries to undo our prejudice through

education when we enter school. But the prejudice is brought back to us

when we meet students who are prejudice, whether we become their friends

or their victims of discrimination. Being prejudice upon teaches a person

to be prejudice.

How a person views something related to

racism and hatred, directly reflects on how society has raised them. The

American people do not see the bombing of Iraq and Yugoslavia as a hate

crime, because we are told what we want to believe, that we are good and

they 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 United

States is but a racist nation who kills “non-American” people like killing

ants. For if the Iraqis and Yugoslavians were Americans, preferably white,

would the U.S value their lives differently? It is ultimately in a person¡¦s

perception, which concludes what is and what is not a hate crime.