January 12, 2005
Hey Justice, Take Off That Blindfold—it's Hate Crime Time!
By Bryanna Bevens
After I
wrote recently about the
Wisconsin hunters murdered by a
Hmong immigrant, I received the following
[uncorrected] email from Jeffrey and Tina Wiltsee of
Indiana:
"You
nazi die nazi pig!!!!!!!! Go back to Europe
bitch!!!!!!!!!!!!! Long live the hmong
people!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ha ha die white
scum!!!!!!!!!!!!!! To the gas chambers and then the
ovens!!!!!!!!!! Ha
ha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
sincerely, from a true white gentile."
(And
this was the polite part of the letter!)
I
forwarded the email to
James Fulford, VDARE.COM editor extraordinaire, and
he researched the address for me.
As fate
would have it,
Tina Wiltsee [email
her] showed up as a botany student at
Purdue University.
So I
thought I would pass the email on to the Dean of
Students of this public a.k.a
Government university.
The
next day (remarkably fast for an academic
bureaucracy) I received an email response from the
assistant dean of students Kathleen B. Peters informing
me that Ms. Wiltsee was no longer a student at Purdue.
However, according to Ms. Peters:
"I can
assure you that had the individual been enrolled as a
student this type of communication would be handled
under Purdue's Anti-harassment Policy. I encourage you
to contact your local authorities regarding this
harassing electronic communication to investigate
possible criminal charges."
Purdue University's
"Anti-harassment Policy" covers all forms of
harassment. Punishments range from verbal warnings to
expulsion.
Surprise!
Bias motivated behavior is special.
Section VIII. Sanctions
for Bias Motivated Behavior
"…discrimination
or harassment motivated by bias based on a person's
race, gender, religion, color, age, national origin,
ancestry, or disability, the sanctions for such conduct
are subject to enhancement in accordance with these
Procedures."
But should a public university (or private for that
matter) be able to censor the opinions and free speech
of their students?
Bryanna's forbearing opinion: Absolutely NOT!!!
Incidentally, what would happen if I did contact my
local authorities?
Believe it or not, in some states these kids committed a
crime by simply telling me what they thought
of me.
It's called a "hate crime"…you know, as
opposed to crimes motivated by love.
There are two currently hot issues with hate crime
legislation:
1. Sentencing enhancements for existing criminal
statutes.
2. The federalizing of hate crime—the
creation of a new federal crime statute where one does
not now exist.
For the most part, hate as a motive exists only
to augment the punishment for the corollary crime
(Point 1).
That may be changing. The Local Law Enforcement Hate
Crimes Prevention Act (HR4204)
is lurking around the Senate as we speak.
It was introduced
on April 22, 2004 by Congressman John Conyers (D-MI). In
the Congressional findings—the summary provided by the
bill sponsor for House consideration, there is a
reference (sec 10) to generations of institutional
slavery—followed by this conclusion:
"Accordingly,
eliminating racially motivated violence is an important
means of eliminating, to the extent possible, the
badges, incidents, and relics of slavery and involuntary
servitude."
Good luck with
that! But what about the other special categories the
legislation aims to cover:
homosexuals,
religious groups and the
handicapped?
Indeed, the poster
child for HR4204 seems to be Matthew Shepard.
In 1998, Shepard was brutally murdered in Laramie,
Wyoming
supposedly because he was gay. The two men found
guilty of his murder were sentenced to double life terms
in prison.
His assailants were not charged with a hate crime.
Their punishment was determined by the egregious nature
of the crime by itself.
But the case
incited rage throughout the
gay community, which was quick to label it a hate
crime. The gay lobby cited the unique brutality of the
crime as an
example for why hate crimes should include sexual
orientation.
But now it appears
that the crime may not have been motivated by hate at
all. The two men responsible for the murder say they
were just robbing Matthew Shepard, for money to buy
drugs.
And, according to
CNN, the
Wyoming prosecutor tends to agree. [Matthew
Shepard's killers deny murder was hate crime, Friday, November 26, 2004]
"Prosecutor
Cal Rerucha also said the case was too complex to simply
be labeled a
hate crime. He said many people overlooked the drug
and robbery aspects of the case at the time of the
attack."
Why would anyone
want to overlook drugs and robbery in a murder case?
Rerucha told CNN:
"People
want an easy answer to this case and I don't think we
would be here five years later if there was an easy
answer."
There is an easy answer.
The
issue of motive can be important in establishing guilt.
But it should be irrelevant to the process of
determining punishment.
The
mother of a slain heterosexual man does not mourn any
less or differently than Mathew Shepard's mother.
Proponents of hate crime legislation argue these laws do
not anoint a special privilege class of victims—that
they punish a certain category of criminals.
Yeah, not so much.
For example, in Redlands, California three Latinos were
attacked by a gaggle of alleged skinheads. The assault
is being investigated as a "hate crime."
The police chief of Redlands, Jim Bueermann, explained
why the hate crime angle is being pursued. [Assault
probed as hate crime by Stephen Wall,
San Bernardino News 1/04/05]
"I find all crime to
be offensive,” Bueermann said. “Those crimes those
are
[sic] committed against people because of who they are as
human beings are especially offensive.
[BB
emphasis] We pull out all the stops if we
believe the crime is motivated by hate."
Especially offensive?
Pull out all the stops?
That blows the whole does not anoint
a special
privileged class of people
theory out
of the water.
The real story was buried deeper in the article.
The real story: Chief Bueermann was responding to a
demand made by Gil Navarro, associate president of the
local chapter of the Mexican American Political
Association [MAPA].
"We want reassurances
that a hate crime will be sought against these hate
mongers and these criminals," said Gil Navarro
[Send
him
mail].
"This should not be treated as a normal assault because
of the
racial slurs that were directed at these
individuals."
According to the
Department of Justice, a hate crime is defined as
"the
violence of intolerance and bigotry, intended to hurt
and intimidate someone because of their race, ethnicity,
national origin, religion, sexual orientation, or
disability."
So how do advocates define hate crime?
Our friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center [SPLC],
as I have
mentioned before, produce an Intelligence Report
that among other things, tracks hate activity. They
consider them crimes.
Here are
examples from its website
