Royce Stubby
Dr. Graves
English Comp. 1
May 5, 2010
What Is A Hate Crime?
What is a hate crime? For many years this country has been trying to define the difference between hate crimes and just heinous crimes. The majority define it as committing an act of violence against someone because of their color, creed, or race. In this essay I will help define the difference between them.
George Curry writes about lynching and nooses and defines them as “the practice of punishing men for crimes by private unauthorized persons, without a legal trial… to inflict punishment without forms of law, as by a mob.” Hate crimes have been around since as early as 1845, but have just been recognized as a serious crime in the late 1900s. In the late 1800s and early 1900s the majority of hate crimes was committed against black men. Philip Dray notes in his book, At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America, lynching became “a systematized reign of terror that was used to maintain the power whites had over blacks, a way to keep blacks fearful and to forestall black progress and miscegenation.”
Ellis Cose writes in an age when lynching is no longer accepted, what is the meaning of a noose? When a twisted rope, evocative of such a hideous history, hangs so far away from the horrors that defined it, is it still worth getting worked up about? In late August of 2006, on the campus of Jena High School in the small town of Jena, Louisiana, nooses appeared hanging from a tree a day after a group of black students chose to sit under the tree, a spot generally claimed by white students. Between 1882 and 1951, more than 5,000 people were lynched in the United States, according to statistics kept by the Tuskegee Institute.
In conclusion Hate crimes are heinous crimes and should not be tolerated. To Cause harm to someone because of origin or race is unacceptable. To lynch someone unjustly is very immoral and should not be tolerated either.
