RACIALLY MOTIVATED HATE CRIMES

Racially Motivated Hate Crimes

Racially Motivated Hate Crimes

[Name of the Instructor]

Racially Motivated Hate Crimes

Introduction

Racism has been around for thousands of years. In today's society where differences between people are magnified and everyone is discussing diversity, tensions between different groups are remarkably high. The extreme of this tension is brought out in hate groups. Hate groups play off of the stereotypes of specific peoples. They use these generalities in their relentless and often violent persecution of those different from themselves. This paper is to explain the reasons hate groups are formed and the reasoning behind their acts.

Discussion

Racism is a certain kind of prejudice, based on faulty reasoning and inflexible generalizations toward a specific group. Sociologist believe that racial discrimination happens when two groups with different skin colors and unique physical features come into contact with each other and the two compete for the same thing (Reason over Hate). One person who is racist and wants to act upon it is not very powerful(Stewart 1994). This is why they seek to find power in groups, which forms these hate groups. Different hate groups have members who join for different reasons. But the basis for all hate groups is mostly the same in that all they want is to be superior by using force. The harms caused by racially motivated crimes often provide the political impetus for changes in the law. Proponents of hate crime laws in the United States emphasize the extra injuries caused as a major argument in their favor, and it seems likely that it is only due to ever-more revealing statistics concerning the frequency and consequences of racist violence and harassment, that the relevant provisions in the Crime and DisorderAct1998 were introduced(Ezekiel 2002). Perhaps the most obvious and concentrated injuries inflicted in a racially motivated attack are those suffered by the victims themselves. This is true of both physical and psychological harms, and it has been argued that racist crimes have this harsher punishment because race is an immutable characteristic, and therefore members of ethnic minorities cannot reduce their chances of victimization (Simplicio 2001). In terms of psychological damage, victims of racist crimes have been said from humiliation, isolation and self-hatred, leading to deterioration in inter-group dealings between victims and their ethnic groups, together with long-term emotional effects.

Racially motivated hate Groups: Ku Klux Klan (KKK), Christian Identity

Right now, there are many active hate groups in the United States such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), Neo-Nazi, Skinheads, Christian Identity, Black Separatists, etc. These hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan, which is one of America's oldest and more feared, use violence and move above the law to promote their different causes(www.infoseek.com). Another example is a group called Christian Identity, who describes a religion that is fundamentally racist and anti-Semitic; and other are the Black Separatist groups, who are organizations whose ideologies are of racially based hatred. Because of the information gathered by the Intelligence Project Publications, Citizen's Reports, Law Enforcement Agencies, Field sources and News Reports, many people know about these hate ...