NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/co/politics/2558

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From: [e-mail] (Suzanne Morine)
Newsgroups: co.politics
Subject: Re: What is a "hate crime"?
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 22 Jan 93 00:52:50 GMT
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Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.
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My response to Gary Strand's post covers much of what Frank Crary talks
about here.  Here, I mostly expand on what I said in that first response.

[e-mail] (Frank Crary) writes:

>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Suzanne Morine) writes:
>>...I was commenting
>>on a case of: "a swastika is sprayed on someone's car."  Not only that,
>>it was in the context of my specifically focusing on defining clear-cut
>>instances of bias crimes in exploring my impressions about a useful
>>definition of the concept of "hate crimes."

>Panting a swastika on someone's car is, in my opinion, vandalism. If
>you distinguish between a swastika and, say, "Kilroy was here",
>you are now considering the message implied act. I think this falls
>into two catagories: It either is, or is not, an implied threat.
>If there is an applied threat, "Assault" (threatening violence) can
>be added to the charges. If it is not a threat, then I think the
>First Amendment protects the message (although not the way in which
>it was communicated: The charge of vandalism would still be valid.)
>In all cases, I don't see the need for a special "hate crime" law,
>to cover the act: This would only be applicable, if you wanted
>to press a charge stronger than vandalism, but couldn't prove
>any implied threat. That is, if the goal was to restrict the
>content message, no the (criminal) means of conveying it. As I
>said, I think such restrictions on non-threatening but objectionable
>messages are a violation of the First Amendment.

In my ideal world, it'd have to be shown in court that the perpetrator
knew what the swastika meant to the victim and used it in order to make
him/her feel marginalized and even to send a message to the larger
group s/he belonged to.  A young kid could probably get away with it,
saying he saw the cool swastika symbol as nothing but a vogue thing
(like Ninja Turtles), not associating it with the Holocaust, perhaps
not even knowing about the Holocaust.  Or someone could say they had no
way of knowing the victim was Jewish.  Shawn Slater caught doing
the same thing to a prominent rabbi's house would be a different story.
The "hate crime" distinction, in my ideal, would have to be proven
beyond a reasonable doubt.  That is, blatant acts aiming to marginalize
a group would be recognized and punished.

>However, making vandalism for political reason X a more serious crime
>than vandalism for political reason Y (i.e. spray patinting "Niggers
>go home" versus "Vote for Clinton") _would_ be a First Amendment
>violation, since it would be a government-sanctioned condemnation
>of one political statement. The means of communications, vandalism,
>is in itself a crime and can be prosecuted as such without reference
>to the content of the message.

But a threat is the content of a message, so there's certainly a gray
area here.  I think "Niggers go home" is threatening.  A Republican may
find "Vote for Clinton" threatening (they could wonder if there's an
unstated "or else" message in there).  I think that burning a cross in
a black family's yard is more than just unlawful burning and tresspass
(or whatever); I think the implied threat in the burning is much worse
than the physical act itself.

I've only been exploring ideas of what might be useful about a "hate crime"
distinction.  A kind of idealized view.  I get the impression you are talking
about actual laws in Colorado, though.

Some questions:
Do we have "hate crime" laws?  What do they look like?  Do they overlap the
"threat" and "intent" distinctions?  Do those distinctions, along with the
"fighting words" distinction, already cover everything in my ideal "hate
crime" idea?  These questions seem too complex to cover here.

Further complicating things here are the lists of "hate crimes" that groups
come up with.  Lists of crimes that have not yet been run through a the courts.
I think such lists exist mostly to try to quantify how marginalized different
groups are currently.

I think I covered the rest in my response to Gary Strand.  (We can learn
from history; I am definately against restriction of thinking and
speaking; I am only saying that actions [not speech] blatantly aimed
toward marginalizing a group should not go unnoticed and unpunished.)

Perhaps a bridge here could be to expand the idea of "implied threat" to
include an "implied threat to a group" - playing a part in marginalizing
groups.  Any group.

--
--Suzanne Morine          [e-mail]
--"It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil.  If
--they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men,
--the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui."     Helen Keller