Hey, do you notice anything interesting about this article about nine hate crimes directed against people of color?
Let’s see here. Four young black men, black man, black man, shooting that included a black man and an Asian man, black man, black girl killed accidentally in attempt to apprehend a black man, black man, black man, Jewish man.
Huh. It’s almost as if racist violence, both from individuals and from the state, is disproportionately likely to be directed against men of color. As if, possibly, the racist ideas about men of color tend to present them as aggressive, thoughtless beasts whom it’s okay to beat up because they probably would have beaten you up first.
But that would require thinking that America is a systematically racist and sexist society, which is obviously silly.
About ozyfrantz
“As if, possibly, the racist ideas about men of color tend to present them as aggressive, thoughtless beasts whom it’s okay to beat up because they probably would have beaten you up first.”
Black or latino men certainly, but asian and jewish men?
@JE
I don’t know about Asian men, but the Jews killed Jesus and are now running the world and are therefore responsible for all the bad in it, so it’s okay to attack them. Or something like that. Racists don’t really make that much sense to me.
No I meant the part about them being more dangerous and aggressive. Doesn’t really fit Jewish or Asian stereotypes.
Oh, I thought the question was just why people would want to commit violence against Asians/Jews because of their race. My mistake. You’re right though, dangerous and agressive is kind of the exact opposite stereotype they have against them.
Huh? Considering “of color” seems to mean “black” when most people use the term, of course you’re going to end up with an article about black people. The only surprise here is that apparently that they threw in a jewish person for “balance”. Aren’t jews usually white? Even in the broader sense of the term, how is that “of color”?
There may also be some reporting bias too. Where I live, anti-black hate crimes get the big front-page news on the rare occasion when it happens, yet most of the actual hate crimes appear to be directed against Gays and Hispanics. Something like a reverse of the “missing rich white girl” effect maybe?
Huh. It’s almost as if racist violence, both from individuals and from the state, is disproportionately likely to be directed against men of color. As if, possibly, the racist ideas about men of color tend to present them as aggressive, thoughtless beasts whom it’s okay to beat up because they probably would have beaten you up first.
Surely you kid.
But I’ll bet the sexist ideas they have about men of color have something to do with that presumption of aggression.
@Danny: I think a lot of the terrible stereotypes about POC are just normal sexist ideas for their respective genders cranked up to 11.
I’m completely baffled as to why a white Jewish man is included in this article. Anti-Semitism is real and motivates hate crimes, yes, but it’s ludicrous to claim that white Jewish men are the targets of hate and violence in anywhere near the same way that black men are, even if white nationalists target both. AlterNet should be smart enough to get that, and shame on NSWATM for repeating their mistake without comment.
There may also be some reporting bias too. Where I live, anti-black hate crimes get the big front-page news on the rare occasion when it happens, yet most of the actual hate crimes appear to be directed against Gays and Hispanics. Something like a reverse of the “missing rich white girl” effect maybe?
Reporting bias could be an issue here — that’s why it’s important to look at actual statistics of reported crimes, instead of treating high-profile cases as representative. The FBI’s href=”http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2009/incidents.html”>Hate Crime Statistics report from 2009 (the most recent year I could find) indicates that 48.5% of single-bias incidents were motivated by race; of those, 71.4% (34.5% of all incidents) were motivated by anti-black bias specifically. (It’s also true that “victims of race-bias hate crimes are men more often than women by a factor of about two to one”: http://wcr.sonoma.edu/v2n2/umemoto.html)
For comparison, hate crimes against Latin@s were classified as ethnicity/national origin rather than race, and made up about 7.3% of all incidents; hate crimes based on sexual orientation were 18.5% of all incidents. So no, it’s not inaccurate at all to state that black men are the group most commonly targeted by hate crimes.*
* with the caveat that these data are from before the FBI started collecting data on crimes motivated by gender identity; since then I’ve seen news reports suggesting that a plurality of hate crimes are committed against transgender people, but can’t find the official stats right now.
Out of 9 incidents, one was a person defending themselves against a mugging, so doesn’t meet the “crime” criteria of a hate crime. Two others were more about the paramilitarization of police tactics than they were about race, and didn’t even mention race being a factor in the incidents.
That makes 1/3 of the incidents in a story about hate crimes, barely if at all hate crimes. Does the author really mean to say that people of color can’t safely walk the streets of America while mugging people?
All that said, the remaining 6 incidents are more than enough evidence of a serious problem in the US. I blame the US prison system, for the most part. With the largest prison population on the planet, life-or-death racist attitudes in our prisons have a noticeable effect on the general population.
@Not Me: The main point here is not that the men were mostly black, it’s that they were men
How can you be even remotely surprised that an article you chose about a topic does in fact reflect the topic you chose?
Not saying anything about racism here, simply good rational practice: you don’t draw any meaningful conclusions when you cherrypick your sources.