December 05, 2007
FBI Hate Crimes Report & DesisLaw
MAJOR KUDOS to our administrators (particularly Chaitan) for fixing this post, recovering the comments and making the universe just a bit more whole
; they fixed my screwup.
The FBI recently released its latest statistical roundup of hate crimes throughout the United States. These stats are maintained as a result of a congressional mandate and provide an interesting time series analysis of crime against specific races and / or religions - 
Statistics released today by the Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed that 7,722 criminal incidents involving 9,080 offenses were reported in 2006 as a result of bias against a particular race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity/national origin, or physical or mental disability. Published by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Hate Crime Statistics, 2006, includes data from hate crime reports submitted by law enforcement agencies throughout the nation.…Analysis of the 7,720 single-bias incidents by bias motivation showed that 51.8 percent were motivated by a racial bias, 18.9 percent were motivated by a religious bias, 15.5 percent were triggered by a sexual-orientation bias, and 12.7 percent of the incidents were motivated by an ethnicity/national origin bias.
Because racially- and religiously-motivated crimes are frequent topics on Sepia Mutiny, I thought it would be intersting to do some number crunching to make the stats available for future discourse….
Alas, it’s never quite that simple…
As with any attempt to gleam Truth from Stats, there are always methodological considerations. In an issue many of us first noticed when bubbling in our identities on SAT forms, when it comes to many stats, Desis aren’t a recognized category. For the FBI, racially we’re classified as “Asians” and religiously, while Islam is separately tallied, Hindus & Sikhs fall into the classic “other” (and Desi Christians? Desi Muslims? heh… ). The Hindu American Foundation has taken up this issue in a petition / recommendation to the FBI to amend it’s record keeping -
..the coalition recommended that the FBI include at a minimum, the “Anti-Other Ethnicity/National Origin” line to include a line that specifies “Anti-Arab,” the “Religion” section to include a line for “Anti-Sikh” and “Anti-Hindu,”
So, while anti-desi crime is obscured by bucketization, the broad trendlines are still pretty interesting to take a gander at. First, let’s look at the breakdown of hate crimes by race for the past 8 years -
Depending on how literally you want to read these stats, hate crimes against Desi’s actually go down marginally post 9/11. One interesting quirk here is that crimes against “Arab” origin folks are tallied not as “racially-motivated” but rather as “ethnic origin” motivated (along with anti-Hispanic crime) and thus in a different table altogether. So, perhaps instances of Desi-mistaken-for-Arab may have fallen into that bucket -
“Other” clearly had a bad year in 2001 although there’s reversion back to the pre-9/11 mean (perhaps the epitome of “cold comfort”)…. If you take a look at hate crimes sorted by religion, the “Post-9/11” effect on Muslims is even more dramatic -
Crimes against Muslims leap dramatically from 2000 to 2001 and remain several times the pre-9/11 average afterwards. Interestingly, these crimes are still a fraction of reported anti-Jewish crime - especially given roughly similar-sized Muslim and Jewish populations in the US. Crimes against “other religions” (which the FBI dutifully notes also includes Buddhists and Taoists) actually decrease from 2000 —> 2001 and remain within the pre-9/11 trendline.
What does it all mean? I’ll let you guys sort it out…
[for your reading pleasure, my Excel file is hatecrimes.xls (30 KB) and the FBI’s original numbers can be found here]
[Admin Note: This post has been recovered and comments from today’s post have been merged. A helpful hint for newcomers who may be confused. ;) ]vinod on December 5, 2007 01:37 PM in Law · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
"What does it all mean? I’ll let you guys sort it out…"
C'mon man... you the 'blogger'. Give us your perspective and we will argue about it.
I wonder if groups like ADL (Anti-Defamation League) would encourage hate crime reports from Jews. Without that, they're out of work. I mention this in the context of the consistently high number of hate crime reports from Jews and also with Indian groups looking up to Jewish groups as role models (this was related to lobbying) - perhaps we should take their successful models and better them?
The apostrophe is wrongly used in the post title. Please remove it.
The biggest problem with using FBI hate crime data to talk about "who's oppressed more" is that it counts offenses like vandalism and "intimidation". This data is therefore heavily reliant on people affirmatively choosing to report such incidents to the police.
As such, religious and ethnic groups that encourage their members to collect and report this information to authorities will be more represented in the stats. So a strong educational campaign, sympathetic public figures, and a well-funded informational (and potentially legal) infrastructure will significantly impact these numbers. I would argue that at least some portion of the high representation of hate crimes against Jewish people in these statistics is due to strong organizations like ADL.
Of course there's a chicken-and-egg thing going on here. You could make the argument that ADL is successful because it's directly responding to very serious, continuing discrimination. That view is borne out by the growth in Islamic organizations intended to combat discrimination after 9/11 -- CAIR has grown enormously, for example. Of course, there is virtually no such organization for Hindus, or even Desis as a group. I would argue that this group is heavily undercounted as a result (the fact that Desis are not even counted as a distinct group, and that Hindus are shoved into the general "Other" group along with Satanists, Wiccans, etc, etc... speaks powerfully to that).
Just think it through: if you wake up one day and find some offensive graffiti on your garage, what would you do? Who would you call? If you live in a large American city, there may be some anti-discrimination organizations that could help you, but that doesn't help many Desis. The organizations are also not widely known, and sectionalist impulses within the American Desi community may prevent people from reaching out to them. You could call the cops, but that would mean leaving it up for some time, and you know that investigating graffiti will not be a high police priority. Most likely, you would wash it off, stew for a while, and move on. And another "hate crime" goes unreported.
Having said all that, I freely admit it's possible that the sort of "hierarchy of American minority oppression" the stats suggest may be true. I can believe that the absolute number of crimes against Jewish people and Hispanic people absolutely overwhelms the number of crimes against Muslims/Hindus and/or Desis. But I think the FBI's data is fatally flawed as a tool to really get at that distribution. It's not nearly sophisticated enough.
The report has some very serious problems. It says that only 1 Hate crime was committed in Alabama and 0 in Missisippi compared to 739 in Michigan and 74 in Maine. We all know that Alabama and Missisippi have no minorities and no racial animus!
Jews v. Muslims: This stat is not all that surprising. Your local FBI office has to register a crime as a hate crime. The FBI agents dont register crimes as hate crimes usually unless the crime is very serious. In typical cases you need an organization to follow up with the FBI before it gets reported as such. Also Muslims (a lot them immigrants) might be unwilling to report such crimes anyway as is typical in immigrant communities.
Race of the offenders:
By Race
An analysis of available race data for the 7,330 known hate crime offenders revealed that:
58.6 percent were white.
20.6 percent were black.
5.7 percent were groups made up of individuals of various races (multiple races, group).
1.1 percent were Asian/Pacific Islander.
1.0 percent of known offenders were American Indian/Alaskan Native.
12.9 percent were unknown.
Vinod, I've commented on apostrophe use in your articles in the past as well; there is no reason why the plural of desi should be desi's.
Adding to the chorus of apostrophites.
?
Shodan, just be thankful that the Baha'i sect wasn't discussed on the thread.
Racism against South Asians is an interesting topic. I've lived in a couple countries due to my fathers job, US, UK, Germany, Malaysia and Saudi. I now live USA permanently. When I visit my relatives in India the topic racism often come up. Have you ever experienced racism, and so? Usually I try to argue that racism in India is allot more prevalent than in the west, but they can't see their own racism towards religious minorities etc. But that is really not very surprising, Indians are hardly alone when it comes to that. There was a very funny Sopranos episode about Cristopher Columbus, and thos mobster went on against defaming Italians while using harsh language against native Indians. It's just normal really.
No the interesting part as I see it, is why South Asians (or rather Indians) are so perceptive when it comes to racism in the west, even a comment to a Sikh cab driver in London make prime time news in India. This at the same time as Saudi Arabia executes 15 Indian nationals yearly, and Malaysia has apartheid laws for REAL. As we speak 26 ethnic Indians are being charged with murder only because they attended a demonstration against discriminatory laws against ethnic Indians in Malysia. To my surprise this news is not nearly as big as the Sikh cabdriver in London or the doctor that was held for terrorism charges in Australia. Not in Indian newspapers and not on this blog. I ask my self. How come?
If you want something done, ask a woman. Having said that, done, done and done.
Unless you find more. I'm kinda swamped right now with other things, so I didn't read his post/just scanned it. :)
For the seventy-fourth time--
a) we are not a newspaper. we are a blog. nothing more.
b) if we don't have time, we can't post about it.
The minute one of you bonus-rich I-bankers wants to pay me to sit at home and blog all day, I'll be your Sepia Monkey. Then the stories which EVERYONE feels are being slighted merely because they weren't posted on a blog (???) will be covered. Until then? If you can, please accept what's possible. We do our best.
We don't even have time to proofread! Look at Vinod's posting and running! ;)
Vinod, as was mentioned previously, there are huge institutional barriers to reporting. Hate crimes against religious minorities ("other") increased by nearly 300% between 2001-2002 and then began to scale down again. How much of this was because of a drop, and how much had to do with confounding (too many different groups categorized as "other"), and how much had to do with underreporting or language barriers? It gets tricky. Also, given the high level of correlation between perceived ethnicity and religion/race, it's hard to disambiguate in hate crimes stats. The other difficult aspect is that to be qualified as a hate crime there's actually a relatively narrow definition, so many "bias incidents" (which are not actually hate crimes) are not captured in the survey.
I also think that there is a problem with classification of people under different races/ethnicities. For example, I got a speeding ticket a few months back and the police man put down my race as white. I was looking up information on this Bangladeshi dude and his race on a speeding ticket is put down as 'black'. So here you have two desis who very well might have been victims of race bias and one would show up in the records as white and one as black. There is no standardization and a lot depends on the perception of the person who is writing down the report.
ANNA
It was just a reflection, not a complaint. Why are Indians more occupied with racism in the west and less with racism in the arab world and South East Asia. How come?
Not How come you do not write about it. It wouldn't have made any difference if you hade wrote about, I would still have asked the same question, although leaving Sepia Mutiny out of it.
are you in a special line of debauchery work? or is speeding ticket info open to the public?
Here's a Slate article on what information the police can access about anyone. (birth info, credit report, etc.)
are you in a special line of debauchery work? or is speeding ticket info open to the public?
Its open to the public. Go to the Clerk of Court's website for your County and look up this information under public access or case file or case status online.
Today five more Indians where charged with murder, wich makes a total of 31 persons. All of them participated in a demonstration to protest against reservation quotas on jobs for Malays, and that Tamil speaking schools get less funding than Malayspeaking school. The Malay governents asnwers to those protest are, that Indians in Malaysia are better off in Malaysia than in India, and charging 31 with murder because one policeman was injured during the riots. This is nothing less than South African apartheid.
Sanjay, maybe we are concerned with U.S. issues because this is a DESI-AMERICAN blog? I know that, as an American, while I am concerned about global issues my bias is certainly towards issues that threaten democracy at home.
Camille
Well there where a lot of coverage concerning Australia. Again, it was not a question concerning the priorities of this blog, but a comment about how desis percieve racism in general.
#4 Also Muslims (a lot them immigrants) might be unwilling to report such crimes anyway as is typical in immigrant communities.
Ditto for hate crimes against latinos. I can't wait to see the stats for 2007 when this year is over.
Sanjay, maybe this is because of the demographics of the commenters on the site. There are more commenters from the U.S./UK/Australia than from Malaysia, in my experience :) Not that that makes an alternate view unimportant, just less represented. I have a feeling people perceive racism similarly (although fundamentally differently since racism varies by its social context and history), but that there is not the same level of direct experience or exposure.
I am not so sure about this catagorizaition. I think it has more to do with time (as in bandwidth), knowledge and passion of the bloggers. There have been enough posts about things that have very little to do with US and absolutely nothing to do with democracy.
Sanjay, while you can harp about and request a post about your favourite topic, I don't think you can browbeat bloggers into posting about a particular topic.
It was just a reflection, not a complaint. Why are Indians more occupied with racism in the west and less with racism in the arab world and South East Asia. How come?
It easier to get mad if the person who did it was white. Last week a sikh cab driver was attacked in Seattle. The person who attacked him was hispanic. So the outrage for that attack is not the same if it was if the person was white who did it.
Things that go on in the arab and South East Asia are alot worse then anything in the west in the year 2007.
sulabh
Goddamit, I'm not trying to force anyone to do this or that. I am just asking why priorities is they way they are. Clueless gave an example of a relating phenomena. Why didn't the incident in Seattle get as much attention as the incident in London? I think that i interesting.
Camille
Yes of course, that might be the reason. But I'm not sure since it's a phenomena you see in India as well.
That view is definitely held by some people... recently Isiah Thomas, the Knicks coach said this:
The big story in the NFL is that during the end of the Ravens-Pats game, when the Refs were doing everything in there power to help the Pats win. One of the Ravens players Samari Rolle who is black stood up to the Refs, and one of the Refs called him "BOY". The ref who called him this was also black. Could you image if the ref who said this was white. Al Sharpten,Jesse Jackson and HMF would be on every channel and we would never hear the end of this.
when you say that the level of outrage was unequal in cases involving white and non-white assailants, are you referring to a particular metric measuring said outrage? Are you adding up hits on news.google for support? Or are you making a baseless, blanket assertion about the 'typical' reaction to hate crimes where a desi is the victim and the assailant is white?
Also there is no region on earth called "The Arab." I presume you are referring to the Arabian peninsula?
I am just asking why priorities is they way they are.
There's a saying in the insurance industry, "It is what it is."
Why does it bother you? Don't you understand the historical resonances of using that terminology? SO why does it itch you so much?
There was a topic last year here on this website about sikh being attacked by his neighbor in Califronia, and at 1st nobody the race of the person who attacked him. So people started making comments about the attacker being white. But when it came out the attacker was black, the comments changed.
What does that have to do with your comments about the different resonances of calling a black man 'boy'? Are you being deliberately obtuse?
Clueless,
Your comments probably grate on sensebilities on quite a few on this blog, but I quite enjoy this straight talk. :)
I hope you never get banned :)
Just
like
all
the
other
straight-talkers.
how charming.
Y'all act like it happens all the time. It doesn't. :)
As for Clueless, you're not the only one here who appreciates him.
Godwin's law by commnet #34. That was fast. ;)
comment. grr.
I generally don't agree with Clueless, but I don't think "progressive" narratives of hate crimes and their causes allow for the perp to also be a Person of Color (PoC).
You forgot this at the end of your list:
If people want to post about a particular story that's what the news tab is for. You can even comment there.
how does godwin's law make my comparisons invalid? People who say things, unvarnished by reason, logic and substantiation are often branded "straight-talkers" because their message is easy to understand i.e., "Immigrants are bad" or "Jews are evil and are wrecking our country." and it runs counter to what they perceive as the dominant narrative or accepted wisdom. Such 'straight-talkers' deserve neither credit or praise for the content of their message nor the manner in which it was delivered.
I'm sure the next time Hotair opens up commenter registration again, you'll have a chance to join in the 'straight-talking' over there.
I am not trying to bait, but Clueless, were you the person who said you favored Lou Dobbs' approach to immigration in the U.S.?
44 was in jest ;)
I'd have to say i'm fairly disappointed by your glib response. If you bother going through the links I provided (a broad spectrum of both current and past public figures/commentators who fancy themselves 'straight-talkers) you might find a quibble with his characterization of my comment as an example of Godwin's Law. Jared Taylor, Steve Sailer, Tom Tancredo and David Duke are not definitely not National Socialists but they are racists who feel the need to masquerade as 'reasonable folk' who 'speak the truth'.
if you wish me to get even more obscure references, I venture that your time is better spent in this fruitless enterprise than mine.
While I certainly do believe that discrimination from the majority (in US the white community) is very different from discrimination from other communities in aspects of harmfulness, it is in countries like Malaysia and Saudi Arabia a matter of the major ethnic group against a minority. Maybe this interests me more because I am an indian who moved to America rather than an Indian-American.
melbourne desi
The Indian doctor who was related to the british terrorists. I said, that story got a lot more coverage in Indian media than the current story about 31 Indians being held for murder charges in Kuala Lumpur because they attended a demonstration against discriminatory laws in Maysia such as quotas for Malays in job and less funds for schools with Indian kids. That goes for the reaction among most Indians, this blog as well. I asked the question why is that? I find it interesting.
Seems like an interesting debate about what constitutes 'hate' and whether such things can only exist between minority and majority.
Al_Chutiya @ 14 and 17, this happened to me too, and it seems like a pretty easy way to cheat the data. Once I actually asked an officer to change my ticket so it read 'Asian/Pac Islander' instead of 'white.' I'm not that light-skinned. He refused, arguing that "You're not black, are you?"
I was young and scared and ended up signing the ticket. Looking back, I can't help but wonder if it was a way of balancing the scales. Each desi pulled over (there were a few in my suburb) balances a DWB and makes the county cops look less biased. Has anyone else experienced this?
Seems like the reporting aspect of this data (and almost any statistics) come in question in cases like this. What if I reported a hate crime and they marked me down as Jewish? Going back to the inter-minority question, what if a group of homophobic russians attack a desi? Is that still race-based?
What about rape? Does that constitute a hate crime?
Sanjay -- Maybe because the "indians" in Malaysia migrated generations ago. In the case of the Chitty Tamils, they arrived prior to 1511. That's a long time ago. (It shows how bankrupt the Malaysian Bumiputra policy is. Chitty Tamils are consider not to be "sons of the soil", even after 500 years!)
Persecution and violence agaisnt "indian" communities in Guyana and Fiji also get less attention. The Australian doctor was a real Indian citizen -- Indians are going to get more upset about the mistreatment of a fellow citizen over the mistreatment of distant co-ethnics.
It bothers me too and I hope there is post on this soon, I just did not understand why you directed your outrage at this blog. Most of the posts on this blog are top notch with respect to content and language, this means bloggers have to spend time in composing a post, I have not seen a single half ar*e attempt yet. So give them a break, that's all.
And Clueless:
See. Some sensebilities grate easily. ;)
It's not a sensibility. It's a sensitivity to dubious truth-claims and the consequences of accepting them without question.
example: "Sulabh's apparent refusal to engage with MM's points means that he is responsible for the rampaging cancer devastating the Tasmanian Devil population."
Straight talk--out of the barrel and originating at the hip ;)
Ikram
There was also the case about the Sikh cabdriver to who'm om ethnic slurs was directed. The interesting thing about the Indian doctor in Australia though is that if a similar case in India had come up he would probably have spent a significantly longer time in custody.
Sulabh
As I told you, it wasn't anger, rather curiosity.
Muralimannered, why are you so quick to get outraged (and seems like a pattern with you recently - is everything OK?), when none is intended by the comment? I was making an observation. As for you being disappointed by my response, that's your prerogative - I have no control over other people's thoughts/emotions. *shrug*
Peace out.
I hadn't heard of the Sikh Cabdriver -- was it a big story in India? Elite Indians have an unusual attachment to London. Was it big in the US-Desi community? Americans identify more with the UK than Saudi.
Anyway -- Indians in Saudi are very different from persons of Indian ancestry in Guyana, T&T, Fiji, Malyasia or Indonesia. In the same vein, mistreatment of persons of Chinese-ancestry in Indonesia had no immediate reaction from the Gvt of China. Mistreatment of a few Chinese masseuses in Islamabad led to an international incident.
That's not outrage. Outrage is when i make throw-away comments like yours and then 'peace out' before I explain my glibness. If nothing was intended I don't see why you had to type it at all and it's not incumbent on me to divine what exactly your motivations were.
if someone leaves a comment along the lines of , "this prior comment is just another example of a ludicrous tendency to rope in the Nazis and make the author look bad"
and then a subsequent commenter says, "Oh, haha, it didn't take too long for aforementioned commenter to take part in this ludicrous trend. hahahah"
what am i supposed to assume?
I'm grateful for your attention to my general well-being but it has no bearing on this discussion nor any influence on the tone of my comments.
Hitler was glib.
muralimannered, just so that you know, Amitabh Bachchan's angry-young-man-with-a-chip-on-his-shoulder is passé.
I can make an observation, can't I? If it's not incumbent on you to divine my motivations, then you can give benefit-of-doubt instead of assuming. Go eat some mishti doi or a sweet - it'll cool you down. :)
I'm no fan of Big B and don't have any heroes I care to emulate that you've heard of, but i'll have to disabuse you of this notion that I'm angry and have a chip on my shoulder. I have very strong opinions about many issues--that doesn't mean that I'm angry but that I care to investigate issues below the surface and I care to articulate my views on said issues so that my line of reasoning can recognized easily. Can you point to these chips and anger? I never said that you can't make an observation, after all, that is what open commenting is all about--i did say, however, that if you appear to agree with Vikram can you please do us all the favor of explaining why. So what did you mean, exactly?
Apparently that doesn't apply to the wild leaps of logic in your own post... For your own sake I hope you aren't scheduled for any drug tests in the near future. ;-)
Wild leaps, eh? Sounds like another glib-and-run to me. Do try, Dikram dear, to avoid the inevitable x-ray when applying for your next job--it could reveal the unfortunate consequences of an obsession with glass bottles.
Muralimannered, Ikram, Amit: Settle this the honorable desi way.... mixed classical indian dance fighting.
muralimannered:
I mean no personal offense with this comment. Your posts as of late have been particularly and unnecessarily confrontational in tone, and this discourages posters like myself from joining the discussion for fear of being dragged into such an encounter, and general dislike for the atmosphere you create. Look at this:
"Or are you making a baseless, blanket assertion about the 'typical' reaction to hate crimes where a desi is the victim and the assailant is white?"
"I am just asking why priorities is they way they are." just)at the end of your post does not make it any less confrontational.
There's a saying in the insurance industry, "It is what it is."
You then go on, in post 34, to make a comparison between the poster and several other people you have designated "straight talkers", all of whom happen to be irrational extremists of one sort or another. I mean, come on, you are comparing the person's rhetoric to that of Hitler after reading only a few paragraphs of their writing, which is extreme in itself, but leaves out the fact that the poster was not deliberately deceiving anyone with rhetoric as Hitler (and some of the other "straight talkers") did, merely stating their opinion, unsupported as it may have been. You could easily have just called the person a "straight talker" and used less ridiculous examples, but you chose those specifically, which creates an inarguably implicit connection between that poster and those people. If that isn't blatant and baseless antagonism, I do not know what is.
I am not taking sides in the actual debate, and I don't really have anything against your opinions, but this is something that I feel needs to be brought to your attention.
muralimannered:
I mean no personal offense with this comment. Your posts as of late have been particularly and unnecessarily confrontational in tone, and this discourages posters like myself from joining the discussion for fear of being dragged into such an encounter, and general dislike for the atmosphere you create. Look at this:
"Or are you making a baseless, blanket assertion about the 'typical' reaction to hate crimes where a desi is the victim and the assailant is white?"
Reactionary, kneejerk assertion. You could easily have asked for evidence without making the claim seem invalid from the get go. Instead, you barge into the discussion in a crass manner, using hyperbolic adjectives (you don't provide evidence to the contrary, which means these adjectives are indeed extreme) and an antagonistic tone.
"I am just asking why priorities is they way they are."
Your question was clearly loaded, and carefully adding this neat little preemptive statement (I am just)at the end of your post does not make it any less confrontational.
There's a saying in the insurance industry, "It is what it is."
I certainly hope this is not the case for your recent posting style.
You then go on, in post 34, to make a comparison between the poster and several other people you have designated "straight talkers", all of whom happen to be irrational extremists of one sort or another. I mean, come on, you are comparing the person's rhetoric to that of Hitler after reading only a few paragraphs of their writing, which is extreme in itself, but leaves out the fact that the poster was not deliberately deceiving anyone with rhetoric as Hitler (and some of the other "straight talkers") did, merely stating their opinion, unsupported as it may have been. You could easily have just called the person a "straight talker" and used less ridiculous examples, but you chose those specifically, which creates an inarguably implicit connection between that poster and those people. If that isn't blatant and baseless antagonism, I do not know what is.
I am not taking sides in the actual debate, and I don't really have anything against your opinions, but this is something that I feel needs to be brought to your attention.
Like this?
Your comments probably grate on sensebilities on quite a few on this blog, but I quite enjoy this straight talk. :)
I hope you never get banned :)
I agree with you
Your comments probably grate on sensebilities on quite a few on this blog, but I quite enjoy this straight talk. :)
I hope you never get banned :)
Thanks Anna
As for Clueless, you're not the only one here who appreciates him.
Thanks Anna
I generally don't agree with Clueless, but I don't think "progressive" narratives of hate crimes and their causes allow for the perp to also be a Person of Color (PoC).
It's all right to disagree with me.
And c'mon folks, there's no need to pile on Sanjay. It was fairly clear to me from his first comment (#9) that his focus was not on this blog's coverage, but rather on the general stories that the media publicizes (I believe he clarified that in another comment too). And I think the reality is that the established story line of oppression tinged by racism catches more fire in the popular imagination than brown-on-brown cruelty.
Although there is no reason to use that a reason to lessen the severity of incidents in US/Europe (which some other commenters seem to desire, at least as the subtext), or not examine them, especially given the otherwise high standards of liberty and freedom that the west claims to aspire to.
I am not trying to bait, but Clueless, were you the person who said you favored Lou Dobbs' approach to immigration in the U.S.?
Yes I have said I agree with alot of what Lou Dobbs said about immigration.
Heat. Kitchen. Leave. *cue violins*
Now if you're simply concerned that your argument won't stand up to criticism, then you've simply not developed skin thick enough for discourse with other adults. That's very sad and I hope you develop the extreme fortitude required to argue/discuss issues with online representations of people you can neither see nor hear.
See the fence. Know the fence. Become one with the fence. The fence is your friend.
did you actually read what he wrote? If I wrote, "All xxx people engender a different response from the desi community when they do the same thing as YYY people" and didn't back up my statement with some sort of substantiation, then my statement would rightly be excoriated by other commenters. Why? Because it's wrong and no reasonable person could back up such an assertion. I'm terribly sorry that I can't be as eloquent as Rahul in my take-downs of obviously moronic comments but that's not a sign of fault in reasoning or style--that's the way I write and i could give fuck all if you or anybody else thinks it to be excessive.
but obviously (using the reasoning of Amit, Vikram etc.) the length of your comment and the feeling that 'inarguably' accompanied it (anger, jealousy..) suggest that you're carrying around a bag of Doritos on your shoulder, while browsing a family album filled with medical oddities and practicing your "Angry Big B" impression.
complete and utter tosh.
Guess what genius, I forgot to block-quote that question---but guess who actually wrote it????????
but i hear straw men and red herrings need confronting.
Umm...no. The intent is to settle a dispute, not to excite me (inspite of all the best efforts of the Indian Film Censor board).
Hey, all, let's have a time out and let the mutiny be mutinous again.
Sanjay, I misunderstood your first post, but was happy to read the subsequent clarifications and reflections.
murali, Amit, et al. -- you all are usually so kind/reasonable, is this really the place to pick a fight? Things have clearly become blown out of proportion.
Let's return to the topic at hand -- hate crime stats, reporting, and challenges.
How many South Asians move to Saudi Arabia with an expectation of liberal, fair standards of treatment regardless of race and religion? If you're going to talk the talk about being a pluralistic multicultural society that gives opportunities to anyone willing to work hard for them, you kind of have to walk the walk too...
Also it's a little sad how far afield this topic has gotten. Is "white people are, like, the REAL oppressed group because people assume that the racist idiots they read about are white" really relevant to this discussion. Does every discussion on race have to devolve into this?
That's what i was objecting to when i criticized Clueless' comment. It's not what's at issue here.
yes, i usually am. Until people start accusing me of being an unwell, raging drug-addict. That is where civil discourse ends and endless arguments begin, no?
And dance fighting.
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the hate crime discussion!
I am curious about the hate crime by religion - in this day and age, who is going around attacking Jewish people, in the US of all places, and that too in such large numbers? Is there a difference in the nature of the crimes between different religions? For instance, are Jewish victims of hate crimes being subjected to property defacement more than they are to violent crime? I guess I'm just surprised that there's still so much anti-Semitism.
Don't like Big B? No problem. I got another one (2:55 onwards). Mmmmm payasam!! :)
Camille, who's fighting? Not moi. :)
Addendum to #81 - I did read the FBI summary PDFs, but I could not find two-factor breakups in the time I read them. Both personal and property crimes are included, but not the relative distributions of each with race/religion etc. I'd be interested to know, for instance, whether I should expect to get beaten up or have my car vandalized (just an example, not that either is going to happen).
Whoever it is, I wouldn't ask Debbie Schlussel, Norman Podhoretz or Phyllis chesler for the answer. It does seem to me that your impression is correct--synagogues and community centers are much easier and more visible and available targets of anti-semitic rage than private citizens. A can of spray-paint requires little from the vandal except timing and the ability to spell crude antisemitic slurs.
resentment is a great motivating factor for bigots. The malay affirmative action program, bought into this thread by sanjay, also fits into this category. a state-sponsered hate-crime, if you will.
pingpong, I think Jewish community groups do a much better job of reporting hate violence, but in my own (anecdotal) experience saw a lot of vandalism against Jewish buildings, community centers, and synagogues. I remember a string of synagogue arsons around 2001-2002 in northern California, and while an undergrad the campus Hillel was vandalized twice, and neo-Nazi graffiti was sprayed all over one of our lecture halls. For those of us who live near large Jewish populations, I think we forget that it is not easy being Jewish in a lot of parts of the country.
But what is racial, religious or sexual bias, that is what we need to decide. Their have been many instances of people falsely claiming to be victims of bias.
Recently there was a news in Times of India about a professor of Indian origin based in UK who made millions by filing false litigations against universities. He would apply for a job with any university in UK, even though he was totally unqualified and when he was denied the job he would claim that it was due to racial bias.
So these days you can never be sure that the person who is claming a bias is speaking the truth. Most of them are fakes.
Yes, one case of egregious fraud proves that anyone who claims they experienced any sort of prejudice are lying. And the FBI just eats it all up.
ugh, poor grammar. re-do:
Jew v. Muslim hate crimes stats are very interesting.
The hate crime stats against Jews are not all that surprising. Manju is correct that resentment is a powerful motivator when it comes to Anti-semitism in the US. Also the bigotry against Jewish people is more organizational compared to the free lancing yahoos who commit hate crimes against Muslims in the US. Most hate crimes against Muslims in the US are actually not committed by white supremacists.
I think the FBI/local police departments are still formalizing and trying to understand the nature of hate crimes against Muslims. If someone fires at a mosque and does not get caught, it is not deemed a hate crime and maybe it should not be anyway but the categorization of such an incident differs from community to community.
As hate crimes against Blacks and Jews have a much longer history, there is a better understanding of when its a hate crime. For example, broken window plus a swakstika on the door at a synagogue is automatically and correctly deemed to be a hate crime because everybody understands the significance of a swastika.
So these days you can never be sure that the person who is claming a bias is speaking the truth. Most of them are fakes.
Any evidence to support your incredible assertion?
Just out of curiosity, are people concerned with hate crimes, as opposed to crimes in general, because (1) they're inherently "worse," in an individual sense (i.e., to the victims), (2) they're easier to deter (maybe in-group violence is harder to deter, when/if it occurs) or (3) it's more dangerous for the society, because it may, if unchecked, touch of communal violence.
I buy (3). One could buy more than one of these, of course.
"touch off," I meant, not touch of.
props to v-man for posting data.
I am a silly ass if I interpreted this wrong... indeed I am but based on Vinod's Excel file (hatecrimes.xls) what I read is that white people experience more hate crimes than any other racialized group with the exception of black people in America? Am I reading this right? Can someone clarify this please and if I misread then ridicule me to the point where I only live by facades as a result of really low self-esteem?
white people experiencing hate crimes in Amerikkka more than any other racialized group with the exception of black people? Ummm... I think I had too much to smoke....
OK, I looked at Vinod's Excel file, and I scaled the numbers for race-based hate crimes for 2000 by the actual proportion of each of the races in the population. And of course I ignored reporting bias as well as registering bias - there's no way to tackle that, but that must be noted.
I find that, if the total number of hate crimes were still the same, but occurred randomly, so that their distribution by race matched the percentage of that race in the population: then Whites would have experienced 3,257 instead of 875; blacks would have experienced 533 instead of 2,884; Native Americans would experience 39 instead of 57; and Asians (including desis) would have experienced 156 instead of 281; and 'Other's would have experienced 239 instead of 240. So the 'Other' category experience race-based hate crimes in proportion to their population weight, but Whites do so at about a quarter of the expected rate, Blacks do so nearly five-and-a-half times the expected rate, Native Americans at about one-and-half times, and Asians at about one-and-three-quarter times.
As I looked at how the figures changed with time, I find that the crimes on Native Americans first increased and then are back in 2006 to roughly what they were in 2000, the crimes on Whites and Blacks are stable in absolute numbers, but the crimes on Asians have decreased quite significantly, so that in 2006 they are closer to the population percentage (181 actual versus 174 expected in 2006, vs 281 actual and 156 expected in 2000). Note here that the proportion of Asians in the population grew from about 3.6% to about 4.3% between 2000 and 2006, with Asian Indians growing fastest within the category. Of course, the total number of reported crimes in 2006 is about 8% less than in 2000.
These are rough calculations, and the 2006 numbers are based on estimates, and of course we are ignoring biases, etc. And 2.6% of the population claimed more than one race in 2000, I ignored that.
Well Chachaji, why not employ the same methods of analysis you employed with the "Victim" stats to see who it is that actualy COMMITS the majority of "Hate Crimes". Using your methods we would see that Whites are really the least racist of all groups and that minorities are considerably more prone to "Hate". (Some more than others). Here in the UK, taking the ultimate in "Hate" crimes (Inter racial homicide) we find that whites are 90 times more likely to be killed by a black than they are to kill one theirselves, for "Asians" it is "Only" 30 TIMES nore likely. Why not grow up? Not everyone will like us but suffering unkindness in a shop or taxi is nowhere near as "Racist" as being murdered.
"white people experiencing hate crimes in Amerikkka more than any other racialized group with the exception of black people? Ummm... I think I had too much to smoke...."
You have obviously never been a white person in a large urban area (most of the east coast, upper mid-west and LA). And as you are brown, you probably have little insight into attitudes and dynamics of the past 50 years. Everybody here seems to think the United States is still Alabama, 1930. All due respect, and I do understand your priorities, but you really need to think out of your brown bags. Not only are the black on white crimes more numerous than the other way around, but they are nastier. They range from vile verbal harrassment to rape, assault, murder and attempted murder. I have countless stories personal and friends, and few incidents were reported or if reported, not necessarily as "hate crimes." Just crimes where the victim was white and perps just happened to black. Of course race had nothing to do with it.
yes, we browns constantly aspire to white skin but are cruelly blocked by the tyranny of melanin. Or did you mean "been with." It's kinda hard for browns to spontaneously change their genetic make-up.
And as you are brown, you probably have little insight into attitudes and dynamics of the past 50 years.
I knew it! my 24 years of living stateside really amount to 0 when it comes to 'understanding attitudes and dynamics.' Woe is me and my unchanging skin color which somehow precludes understanding of racial dynamics of the country in which i was raised.
I better run to the local desi grocery store and grab some Fair n' Lovely--it's better than a college degree and a quarter-century of experience!!
That should've been blockquoted (lest "edited" or "one off comment" returns to scold me for decreasing the collegiality of this non-academic forum)
Admin Note: Comments have been merged from this point forward, from today's post.
vinod,
i can't speak for the others but losing my comments was no great loss--i feel a greater sadness for the unfortunate disappearance of Camille's contributions.
Sorry that had to happen! I was typing a post when it crashed, so I will drop it here in case the discussion will continue from the last one.
Haley@ post 99 (of the previous version): "You have obviously never been a white person in a large urban area (most of the east coast, upper mid-west and LA). And as you are brown, you probably have little insight into attitudes and dynamics of the past 50 years. Everybody here seems to think the United States is still Alabama, 1930. All due respect, and I do understand your priorities, but you really need to think out of your brown bags. Not only are the black on white crimes more numerous than the other way around, but they are nastier. They range from vile verbal harrassment to rape, assault, murder and attempted murder. I have countless stories personal and friends, and few incidents were reported or if reported, not necessarily as "hate crimes." Just crimes where the victim was white and perps just happened to black. Of course race had nothing to do with it."
Are you white? I don't want to devalue your experiences, whatever they may be, but the conclusions you are drawing based on said experiences seem a tad off. Your experience is trapped inside your own skin, and is just as incomplete as anyone else's (albeit in a different way), so hopefully your accusation that certain others' thinking is restricted to a "brown bag" is tempered by an acknowledgment of your own shortcomings (mine is as well). My education, past and present, is specifically centered on American race-relations and history, so I am not entirely without textual knowledge of the topic, and my humble opinion, based on my experience and learning, is as follows:
In urban areas, you will generally find more impoverished black communities. To justify the violence against people you know would be ridiculous, but to pretend that there is any less violence against the black community by the larger system of white-privilege than there was 50 years ago is ridiculous. For example, the typical black family had 60 percent as much income as a white family in 1968, but only 58 percent as much in 2002 (obviously not because they are lazy and refuse to progess). While lynching and other directly violent acts are rare now, violence has taken a much more insidious form and is ingrained within the very institutions that make up society. It is the experiences and intimate understanding of these systemic inequalities that, if indeed you are white, will never be able to access. Despite that, it is reasonable to deduce that poverty, combined with systemic barriers that prevent those people from transcending their conditions naturally leads to high rates of crime.
What I am getting at here is that the crimes that have been committed against people you know are not necessarily hate crimes, and perhaps a deeper analysis of the situation is necessary. Race indeed has something to do with it, but to dismiss all of these cases as simple hate crimes ignores a larger and more relevant history. Even simple, deductive logic is applicable here: If I were a poor black person looking for cash, It would not be unreasonable to target a white person on the grounds that, on average, they would have more money. Also, note that there are many more white people in this country than black people, which, when combined with the statistics on poverty, make it relatively reasonable to assume that white people would be targeted, and that there are more targets to be reported. This is not to say that none of the attacks would be hate crimes, but that to dismiss them all this way is ignorant, and were they hate crimes, they are more often caused by the systemic equalities that breed ignorance, and so are very different from hate crimes where whites target blacks.
I would also like to see some statistics that quantify the "nastiness" of black on white crime as opposed to white on black.
Here is a scary (albeit stylized) thought about hate crimes--let's say that there are two groups in society, the A's and the Z's. Let's assume that each is equally predisposed to commit a hate crime against the other group. If the A's are 90% of the society, and the Z's are 10%, then simple statistics would seem to suggest that individual members of the Z's are way more likely to be victims of hate-crimes than are individual A's. This seems borne out by a rough eye-balling of the first chart above (far more black than white victims in absolute numbers, even though blacks are a minority of the population).
Did someone save a html copy of comments. I am sure our capable sysadmins can figure out a way to recover from it
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/004885.html#comments
pc out