1. What can be defined as a hate crime?
2. If hate crimes are hate upon generalizations of a group, how is that worse than hate for a single person?
3. Could hate, something darker than "lazy prejudice", save our lives though?
I know it seems harsh to say that hate could save our lives, but hear me out. Andrew Sullivan, author of "What's So Bad About Hate?," discusses an incident where if a person hears footsteps behind them they start walking fast. Then looking back they see someone who isn't intimidating like a white woman. Put in this situation, I would react the same. Is it so wrong to judge a situation and people around when there could be imminent danger? Being a petite, young, white female myself, walking in the dark I can't say that I would walk down an alley where there were older, bigger males no matter their race. I think many people do the same. We kind of have to for our own safety and survival. "In some ways, some expression of prejudice serves a useful social purpose" (Sullivan, 10).
Could this even be considered hate either? Sullivan states, "we still have a remarkably vague idea of what it actually is"(2). There are so many kinds of hate; from fear, from contempt, from envy, revenge, from love, of others, etc. How can one define something as a hate crime? It seems to me that the hate crimes one hears of is against different races and people who are homosexual. Or maybe this is just because I don't actually watch the news. Why shouldn't, like Sullivan brings up, crimes against little kids or that incident where a man killed his fifteen year old girlfriend for not getting an abortion be considered hate? Sullivan states, "The boundaries between hate and prejudice and between prejudice and opinion and between opinion and truth are so complicated and blurred that any attempt to construct legal and political fire walls is a doomed and illiberal venture"(10). If it cannot be defined how can legal measures be taken against it.
When I first read the part in the article with the footsteps and a typical reaction to increase walking speed, the first thing I thought of was how normal of an occurrence it is. I don’t always turn around and see who is following me or coincidentally behind me, however when I do it is mostly out of curiosity to see who it is. I can be intimidating myself, so that isn’t what I look out for in that type of situation. I can understand if a woman who might have trouble adequately defending herself why she would look back and make sure that it isn’t someone too intimidating. I just don’t think it is right to assume it is always a muscular African American. I partially agree with you when you say that any older, larger male regardless of race could be intimidating. Let’s say someone such as Serena Williams was walking behind you, she isn’t a male, however she has more muscle than most men I know. I know some males who think she is intimidating. I brought that up because you didn’t mention intimidating females. Sure they might be few and far between, but they are still out there. I agree with you when you mention how someone can define something such as a hate crime. I think the current definitions on the internet are incredibly broad and can easily be taken out of context and/or misconstrued. The part that really bothers me about the broad definition of a hate crime is how individuals can be prosecuted over it.
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