Hate Crimes

So let's look at what a hate crime is. Hate crimes are crimes, typically involving violence, that is motivated by prejudice on the basis of race, religion, disability, or sexual orientation. Actions that are done to someone for the same reasons as hate crimes but aren't criminal in nature are just called "bias incidents." There are laws that try to help deter hate crimes, these laws also help bring justice in the cases. They began with the Civil Rights Act of 1871. September 21, 1993 the Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act was passed.

These crimes are on a rise and we can blame it on Trump all we want, but we need to look at it from a very logical stand point. For years there has been hate and the "us verses them" attitude that has been around since early man. We have to look at mental health and how people are raised. A lot of people have been exposed to degrading statements made about people who aren't like them. Things like being gay and being black in America were illegal for a while. This was because views on these groups were based on the prejudice of a few religious or racist people.

Some of the first hate crimes happened in the Roman Empire, which was known for persecuting various religious groups. At first, it seemed that Christianity was tolerated until fire destroyed a great portion of Rome and the Emperor shifted blame to Christians. This lead to years of hate crimes against Christians. One of the first hate incidents or hate crimes I remember in my life is the LA police riots in the early to mid 1990s, it is believed that this is part of the reason OJ was found not guilty.

One of the main ones that I remember that had to do with sexuality was Matthew Shepard. There were other theories, other than hate crime, when it came to the beating and torture of Matthew, but one of the attacker's girlfriends had said that homophobia played a role in the crime. Matthew was beaten, tortured, and left to die, but didn't die until six days later. Matthew's case lead to the conversation about LGBT rights and his parents championed those talks.

The most recent hate crime was the El Paso shooting, where a gun man entered a Walmart, saw there was a lot of Hispanics, and then went to get his gun only to enter the store again to shoot the Hispanics. A lot of people were quick to blame Trump, when in reality, the racist comments of one shouldn't been blamed for the actions of someone else unless the words are actual calls to hurt or kill people based on race.

The most famous hate crime is the holocaust. The holocaust is when Jews were sent to camps by Hitler who wanted to kill jews. Six million Jews were killed through the camps and other murders.

Jussie Somellet was even accused of faking a hate crime. Two other people were accused of helping him. So all three men were investigated. It's crazy that someone would fake this.

How can we stop hate crimes? Well, since there will always be hate in the world, all we can do is to try to protect each other; the old see something, say something rule comes into play here. Also, the hear something, say something rule comes into play. You can report things to tip lines without giving out your name. We can also try to show people that people that are different aren't that bad.

Please try to open your mind and stop judging people based on what makes us different. Let's try to stop the "us verses them" attitude in the world.