Free and Easy

Mary-jane Garasi
13 December 2011
FD5

Hate crimes are known as bias-motivated crimes which occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group often defined as racial, religion, sexual, disability, class, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, or even social status. People such as you and I cannot be changed. At times, hate crimes can be vicious and brutal since the crimes come from intense anger or rage. Our characteristics are what make everyone different and many may be motivated to hate a certain class. The magnitude of hate crimes are increasing every year in America. Hate crimes do tremendous damage and cause injury not only to the victim, but to the entire family and communities leaving them angry, intimidated, and fearful. [THESIS]To minimize hate crimes involving ethnicity, education and communication would be the key. With freedom of speech and education, our communities and elders have the duty to educate the next generation with their knowledge. [THESIS]

Hate crime statistics reported that 6,628 hate crime incidents were reported in 2010. In 2002 almost 49 percent of hate crimes were based on race and antoher 15 percent were based on ethnicity or national origin. In the New York Times post regarding the Cornell Student that was accused of Hate Crimes in stabbing, explained that alcohol was consumed at the time of racist slurs were being exchanged during this confrontation. (Foderaro, Lisa)It seems like hate crimes come out from even the nicest people sometimes. In this case, a little alcohol gave them some liquid courage to speak their mind. The offender may often times suffer from severe mental illness or sometimes do it to gather a sense of “thrill.”

Going to school in Hawaii is pretty diverse. We have a lot of Hawaiians and mostly Filipinos in Hawaii. I am one of them. Although I have Chinese, I was born and raised with the Ilocano dialect at home. I was born here on Kauai, but eventually learned English in elementary school. Today, you would have never known that English was my second language because with so much practice in school and among my peers I can easily turn my choice in language on or off. I always found it difficult when parent teacher conferences would come around the corner. With everyone’s parents coming to see what each student has done throughout the course of the year, my experience was a bit difficult. Instead of my teacher’s conversation with my parents, I would always have to be the middle man in translating. At 6 years old and having to do this in front of all my classmates led to kids teasing me and giving me a hard time. Even until today, I have seen many people con other people of different ethnicity just because they have a hard time understanding. If only the other students were educated about the differences in ethnicity and language at an earlier stage it would have been easier. This experience would have been avoided if other students would learn to accept the differences in ethnicity. I couldn’t help the fact that my parents could not speak fluent English. Although this experience was hurtful, it gained me the knowledge of being bilingual today.

Hate crimes are usually selected because of who they are, not something they have done. Attacks are generally based on personal characteristics of which victims have no control, such as skin color or gender. “When people are victimized as individuals or as a group, it creates a diminished sense of self, a view that the world is a more dangerous place.” (Ervin Staub, PhD). From this example, people classify each other belonging to a certain group which is the pure origin of the conflict. It is possible that deeper education about different social ethnic groups may prevent hate crimes against them. The more you are educated about the different classes of people decreases the crime of rage. People wouldn’t classify as being better in one ethic group than the other. When you know more about the different types of ethnicity, the less you will be angry of not knowing.

There may be a lot of objections with educating as the key to banishing hate crime. Not everyone will be able to afford to be schooled with the knowledge, have role models to teach them what they know, or most people wouldn’t even have the time in trying to understand the differences. This wouldn’t stop the huge advantage of underlying that this is possibly the best solution. Although there are many state laws that punish the crime offender, it could be stopped before it even happens. Education does not necessarily have to be done in school with instructors giving you long lectures about hate crimes and the different types. Knowledge is not limited to just school alone. It is able to spread like Ward Churchill’s speeches. Knowledge is free throughout communities, peers, experience, friends, or even reading resources. We always have to keep an open mind and accept the things we cannot change. Hate crimes can immediately be prevented from even becoming an issue if we just take the time to educate one another with something free and easy.


Works Cited

Foderaro, Lisa W. “Cornell Student Is Accused of Hate Crimes in Stabbing.” New York Times online. 5 May 2006. 5 May 2006 [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/05/nyregion/05cornell.html]

Race and Ethnicity-Hate Crimes. [http://law.jrank.org/pages/12135/Race-Ethnicity-Hate-Crimes.html]

DeAngelis, Tori. “Understanding and Preventing Hate Crimes.” Monitor on Psychology 32.10 10 Nov. 2001. 9 Dec. 2004 .