Is there a racial double standard for hate crimes?

Research in the Netherlands, recently, showed that judges punish people with a North-African complexion harsher (than they do white Dutch people).
How this is in the USA I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be overly surprised if it was the same.
Injustice is injustice against all people who live under the law of a country, I believe (although the one group that is punished more severe will think (rightly so, I think) that the injustice is bigger on them.

@Charles So you are saying that white people are arguing black criminals are not being punished harshly enough? Did I understand correctly? I think it has been shown over and over that black people are more likely to be given harsher prison terms. I would think when they harm white people it is even worse than when they harm black people, but I’m not sure.

@rebbel By North African do they mean Middle Eastern/Arab? Or, black/negro?

If there was no double standard, there would be no reason to create the special category called hate crime.

It is a fact that racists come in all colors. But generally speaking, only one color has the power to legally exercise their racism. The other colors do it in different ways.

I’ll give you a GQ vote, because this is a good question. It is completely irrelevant bringing up prison sentences and a few other things that do not directly address the question you’ve asked, black on white hate crimes. Yes, this is extremely commonplace, I know this from personal experience.

There is a double standard here, and according to some of the comments above that I disagree with, two wrongs don’t make a right. Unfortunately in the age of political correctness, affirmative action laws and hate crime laws, minority on white hate crimes do not exist. When these types of hate crimes occur they’re just deemed as typical nonsensical violence, not reverse racism.

I think there is. I have even heard people of color say that it would be impossible for there to be a black against white hate crime, that that could not exist.

@Paradox25 So you are saying, black people purposely go after whites, committing violent crimes, because they hate white people? Am I understanding correctly? I’m not sure why you thik prison sentences don’t matter, isn’t that part of the point of hate crime legislation? That the punishment is harsher for a hate crime, than the same crime that is supposedly not driven by hate?

@JLeslie I think @Paradox25 is talking about what happens before the sentencing.
That the crime in question is often not even called a hate crime when a white person is the victim and the person accused is black. That is what I thought that @Charles was asking, and where I see the double standard.

@wilma I think this goes back to what I have always wondered out loud, should we even have a designation of “hate” crimes? Assault is assault, murder is murder.

White people in America don’t get to have the label of hate crime for themselves, because they are not an oppressed group. Maybe in 30 years the tables will have turned enough that they can fight for it.

@JLeslie I agree that assault is assault and the designation of hate crime is redundant.
I do not agree that the tables have not yet turned enough.

@wilma White people are still in power for the most part, that means they don’t get to cry oppression in a general sense. There might be instances of hatred against whites, or even discrimination, but it isn’t systemic.

All I can say is what I have seen on news channels and such, which is: there is always a bigger stink over a white person harming a black person, than there is a black harming a white. And there is a bigger stink when black people are harmed in general. The whole George Zimmerman thing? It wouldn’t have been all over the news like it was, if Trayvon Martin had been white.

@WillWorkForChocolate Huh? You think if a white kid had been killed Zimmerman would not have been arrested right away? The stink was because he was not arrested. Because the police force was not giving a shit that a black kid was killed. Are you worried about the media coverage or the justice?

@JLeslie I agree with you about people turning the Zimmerman case into a race issue, despite the grave injustice here. I was trying to directly address the question that was asked, minority on white hate crimes, which are commonplace despite the alleged systematic racist agenda against minorities, minorities receiving longer prison sentences, etc. I do know one thing, not addressing this issue (reverse racism) along with consistently turning every issue into a race issue will not prevent racial discrimination. In fact this type of thinking actually breeds it. As a result many whites will continue to be hostile towards minorities because of these things.

@JLeslie No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying it wouldn’t have been as highly publicized and screamed about if the victim was white.

@WillWorkForChocolate Because screaming would not have been needed, the justice system would have been working in the beginning.

@Paradox25 I think there is hostility, sometimes way overblown, I would guess sometimes leading to violence, with regards to black people towards white people, many times referred to as reverse racism. That should be discussed. But, attempting that discussion inside of a conversation about injustice regarding hate crimes isn’t a good way to do it in my opinion. Black people have been at the short end of the stick regarding convictions and sentencing for a long time now. It of course does not mean that now black people should get a free pass on violent crimes, that is not what I am saying. Actually the more I think about it, maybe a black person can be prosecuted under hate crime if it is proven the act was racially motivated. I think hate crime legislation protects race, religion, etc. I don’t think it specifies what race? As far as the media, well that’s the media, they cover what they think will bring in the dollars at this point.

Again, I actually am not keen on hate crime laws, so I am probably hard to sway on this topic. Everyone can be hated or targeted.

I think the good doctor’s premise may sell books, but it’s baloney. Black on White violence may not be prosecuted under a special hate-crimes law, but it definitely is prosecuted. Where is this place where Blacks are free to beat or kill Whites without fear of any consequences?

Law enforcement in the US is heavily tilted against blacks. But I do recognize that it is just as possible for a black person or group to attack and beat or kill a white person due to racial hatred as it is for the reverse to occur. The question is do whites really need minority protection? We are 73% of the US Population. In household income 87.93% of the households in the top 5% in income are White exclusively and 4.17% are Black or African American. In US prisons, there are 693,800 white men and 841,000 blacks. The median household net worth (including real estate) for Whites is $143,600 and for Blacks it is $9,300. For financial wealth exclusive of home value, it is even worse. The median for Whites is $43,600 and for Blacks it is $500. It’s awfully hard to make the case that Whites are the victims of racial discrimination and are getting a raw deal in America.

I know it’s argued by the right all the time. There are tons of websites out there advancing thefantasy. But to the current American far right, facts are not a concern. Any lie is fine so long as it serves to divide and conquer.

@JLeslie No. Screaming would not have happened, because no one would have been attention whoring, crying, “He was only killed because he was white!”

I’ll tell you something true right now, that many other people won’t say, simply because they are afraid of being labeled a racist. Most whites don’t dislike blacks because they’re black; they dislike them because many black people play the race card far too often and scream about injustice when there is none present. Many whites dislike blacks, because by their actions and their words many in the black community will bring racism upon themselves, then bitch about it and blame it on everyone else.

I don’t dislike blacks. I dislike thugs, be they white, black, hispanic or fucking elvish. Nothing pisses me off more than seeing a big stink in the news over a murdered drug dealin’, gang bangin’ thug who happens to be black, and you see his mama sobbing, “My sweet boy was targeted because he was black.” No, you’re in fucking denial, he was killed because he wasn’t “sweet” and he made really shitty choices. Get your facts straight before you cry about why he’s dead.

Do I sympathize with any mother who loses a child, regardless of whether or not said child was a drug dealer/rapist/thug etc…? Yes I do. But I want those mothers to open their damn eyes and quit claiming that their kid was innocent and quit claiming that it was because of racism. Do you see a lot of Hispanics or Indians on the news, crying racism when one of their own has been killed because of their idiotic lifestyle? No, you really don’t. You see that sort of thing coming from some morons in the black community who will use their skin color as a trump card, every damn chance they get.

Blacks and whites share the fault in about a 50/50 split these days, and until the blacks at fault for it stop perpetuating it themselves, by their own actions and words, the whites at fault never will.

So, is there a racial double standard for “hate crimes”? You bet your ass there is, because we, the whites of America, are still the evil oppressors and we always will be.

@WillWorkForChocolate When I see a black woman cryng on TV about her boy who was just shot dead, it almost always is a black on black crime, not white kids killing black kids. Was her child maybe mixed up with some bad kids or in a place that put him in harms way, sure maybe. Are black people more likely to be in a dangerous circumstance because of the poverty they live in, yes. Our poor neighborhoods in America tend to be unsafe. Fixing it is a difficult task. There are many many black people who are good, who want to do the right thing, who want to work hard and get ahead, and right now in this country getting ahead if you are poor is very tough, and progressively being made tougher. Look at the stats @ETpro provided. That is not all the fault of the black person, sorry. As we pay blue color jobs less and less, it means our poor are getting poorer and poorer. Poverty not only affects the individual but society at large.

I have said many times people around me are not racists because of skin color, but it winds up all sounding racist because what they don’t like is the attitudes they come across among many black people here. I have never been afraid to say what I observe even if it might be interpreted as racist or xenophobic.

But, sometimes it is race. You can’t sit back and say it never is. Do I hate the race card being played, yes I do. But, sometimes it truly is valid. It is valid in the reverse too, white people being discriminated against, I agree with that also.

But, I still don’t see why anyone would be annoyed that the Trayvon case made it into the media. When my mom first told me about it she did not even mention anything about race, she said, “did you hear about the kid who was shot in FL?” I didn’t know it was a black kid and Hispanic security guy until a day later when I saw the report on TV. And, my mom quickly is annoyed by bullshit protections she saw at her place of work for minorities, and probably sounds bigoted if you catch a sentence here and there of what she says. But, if you know her, you know she isn’t, not by a long shot. Anyway, it makes me wonder if the intitial reports even were about race regarding the Trayvon case, or if it turned into a race issue?

@ETpro Black on White violence may not be prosecuted under a special hate-crimes law, but it definitely is prosecuted I actually agree with the reasons why you support hate crime legislation, I just don’t feel that hate crime laws are the way to fight racial intolerance. People who are racist are going to be whether forced racial compliance laws are made or not. Perhaps a more effective way to fight racial discrimination in the justice system is to clean house and fully prosecute officials for not doing their jobs.

I can feel your anger actually here, considering that a case occured near me a few years ago where a hispanic (illegal alien) was beaten to death by a group of white teens (whom happened to be the schools star football players), but all of them pretty much got acquitted. I was extremely angered by this, considering that most of those around me (who tend to call themselves conservative Christians) said that he (the beaten immigrant) either deserved it or they simply downplayed it by bringing up nonrelated issues. I actually got into yelling matches against my ‘peers’ over this, and maybe you’re right on this one.

Perhaps a more effective way to fight racial discrimination in the justice system is to clean house and fully prosecute officials for not doing their jobs, in the end this is not likely feasable though. I have fears because anti-discrimination laws are enforced by the same potentially fallible people that are expected to uphold the laws that were meant to protect all people to begin with.

@JLeslie You’re not getting what I’m saying. I’m not “annoyed that the Trayvon case made it in to the media.” I’m annoyed at how it was done and the coverage it received, simply because the race card was played yet again.

@WillWorkForChocolate I don’t know if race is why it got into the media, if so, I don’t care. Again, white people get stories into the media because their missing children are blue eyed and blond, and black children don’t get national attention. It happens all the time. It’s not fair either way. If playing the race card worked for those parents when nothing else was, more power to them. Their child was killed and no one was seriously investigating it. Or, so it seemed anyway, we can’t know for sure I guess.

@Paradox25 The fact so many white hooligans were getting acquitted or could at least count on a hung jury over and over is why Federal laws against hate crimes were enacted, and it sure appears they are still needed.

@WillWorkForChocolate You don’t think a White race card was played when a Web site was set up for Aimmerman and has raked in well North of a quarter of a million dollars for him. Could a White race card be at work in a series of witnesses now recanting their original testimony and telling a different story. How about the company profiting on selling these. Are all race cards really Black?

No, not all race cards are black. But to perfectly blunt, black race cards are played far more often than others, and until that stops, racism will never die.

As I said previously, we white Americans are still the evil oppressors. And the “reverse racists” don’t care if you’re an Irish, German, or Elvish immigrant… if you look “white”, that means your family probably used to have slaves and you’re a fucking privileged asshole who probably hates black people. That’s just the way it is. I doubt that will ever change, unless everyone starts having biracial children and there is no more black and white anymore.

@WillWorkForChocolate Actually no, and you and all the Whites that look at the statistics I noted here and yet complain Blacks get unfair breaks are playing the White race card every time you say such things. The GOP is playing the White race card every time they resort to dog whistle politics. Maybe individually, Blacks play the race card more often than Whites. They use what they can in a society that still treats them unfairly. But Whites are still 72% of the population and Blacks are 13%. So Blacks would have to be using their race to their advantage at least 550% as much as Whites for your statement to be true.

All I can say is if they really are using the race card all that much, and they still are 13% of the total population but the largest single block of the prison population and control almost none of the nation’s financial wealth, it ain’t working very well.

I guess we’ll just have to respectfully disagree with each other. =0)

@WillWorkForChocolate I can live with that. I love ya, even though you’re wrong. :-Þ

Did you just stick your tongue out at me? Don’t make me get the shovel… I’ve been reading a dirty book about dominants and submissives, and with this shovel I could bleep bleep bleep [Removed by Fluther dominatrix] bleep bleep bleep bleepity bleep [REDACTED]

@WillWorkForChocolate Umm… Oh my!