Sunday, September 13, 2009

Hate Crimes Protect White People Too

Commenting on a horrible Buffalo, NY attack where a White man was beaten by a crowd of Black men for dating a Black woman, the Black Snob asks whether the perpetrators (if caught) should be charged with a hate crime.

I think the answer is a pretty clear yes. This was a racialized crime of violence predicated on antediluvian notions of proper racial (and sexual) station. It is wrong -- always, in every case -- to attack someone because they are dating "your" women. For starters, the women aren't yours, they are their own, and it is their business who they do and do not find attractive. And second, the policing of racial purity and authenticity that reached its apex in this attack is always dangerous and needs to be put in check.

The purpose of hate crimes is to help achieve a racially egalitarian society, where we can live with, work with, and love each other inside and outside of racial lines without bias or fear. This is a dream that applies as much to White people as it does to people of color.

2 comments:

PG said...

But what do you think? Should the men involved with Milligan's beating me charged with a hate crime? Is the community response slow because of a double standard? Is that double standard warranted? Is there every a scenario where it is OK to react in violence to a situation like this? Was anyone less horrified or unaffected because the victim was a white man and why?

This was a hate crime. Yes. Yes. No. No. Yes, because some people's concept of racism can only run one way: from the historically empowered perpetrated against the historically disempowered.

The Gaucho Politico said...

yes hate crime.