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What Constitutes a Hate Crime?
What Constitutes a Hate Crime?
Groups Exacerbate Hate Crimes:
Groupthink: The practice of thinking or making decisions as a group in a way that discourages creativity or individual responsibility
Group polarization: The tendency for a group to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclination of its members
Examples: The Ku Klux Klan, white nationalists, Nazis, etc., all have a social aspect where groupthink and group polarization are very prevalent. This increases the likelihood of a hate crime to be committed.
Emotional Content of Stereotypes:
When people first meet a stranger, they assess the stranger’s intent to either harm or help them. They then judge on if the stranger is physically capable of acting on the perceived intention (competence).
Many people won't judge a stranger based on their character, but based on their sexuality and race and the stereotypes that come with those identities.
Lack of contact with a specific group of people with a certain identity can make it more likely for a person to commit a hate crime because they only have the stereotypes to go off of.
Link to interactive map displaying cases of hate crime in the United States
Info about data collection from the website
Info about data collection from the website
"All but five states (Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Wyoming) have laws addressing the scourge of hate crimes, but there is variation in the list of protected classes. The laws that address hate or bias crimes against LGBT people are as follows.
*Laws lacking LGBT inclusion: States that have a law that addresses hate or bias crimes based, but do not address sexual orientation or gender identity (15 states): Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Utah (no categories listed), Virginia and West Virginia.
**Data Collection Only: Indiana (sexual orientation), Michigan (sexual orientation) and Rhode Island (gender identity)."
What is the Contact Hypothesis?
What is the Contact Hypothesis?
Prejudice and conflict between groups can be reduced if members of the groups interact with each other.
Conditions for the Contact Hypothesis (What allows the contact hypothesis to work:
Equal Status
Common Goals
Intergroup cooperation
Support of authorities, laws, and customs
Personal interaction
How does the contact hypothesis reduce prejudice?
Reduces anxiety across difference
Builds empathy
Ideally, contact across difference would reduce prejudice between groups, thus lowering the likelihood for a hate crime to be committed against someone for their identifiers.
Two people at a fund-raiser for victims in Orlando
Examples of Hate Crimes
Examples of Hate Crimes
Coronavirus outbreak is prompting violent attacks against Asians
Orlando, Florida (2016): Omar Mateen shot and killed 49 people (and wounded at least 53) in Pulse nightclub (LGBTQ affiliated night club)
One of the deadliest mass shootings in US history
‘Always Agitated. Always Mad’: Omar Mateen, According to Those Who Knew Him
Killing of Transgender Homeless Woman Sparks Outrage in Puerto Rico
Connections to the Laramie Project
Connections to the Laramie Project
Mathew Shepard was lured in by two men that convinced him into thinking that they were both gay while he had a few drinks at his local bar. As Shepard figured when the 3 left together, he thought they were going to have a great time and get to know one another but Suspects Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson had something else in mind. Due to their hatred towards gay people, they tied Shepard to a fence, pistol-whipped him, continuously burned him with cigarette buds, and left him stranded to die. The 2 bicyclists that found him initially mistook him as a scarecrow due to the severity of his injuries.
More on Shepard's killers and their response to their actions
Where Matthew Shepard was left after being severely beaten
Russell Henderson, 21, and Aaron McKinney, 22
References
References
Barry, D. (2016, June 20). Realizing It's a Small, Terrifying World After All. Retrieved March 4, 2020, from The New York Times website: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/21/us/orlando-shooting-america.html
Barry, D., Kovaleski, S. F., Blinder, A., & Mashal, M. (2016, June 18). 'Always Agitated. Always Mad': Omar Mateen, According to Those Who Knew Him. Retrieved March 4, 2020, from The New York Times website: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/19/us/omar-mateen-gunman-orlando-shooting.html?auth=login-email&login=email
Gerrig, R. J. (2013). Psychology and Life (20th ed.). Pearson.
Gordon Allport's Contact Hypothesis Race in US History. (n.d.). Retrieved February 28, 2020, from Facing History and Ourselves website: https://www.facinghistory.org/sounds-change/gordon-allports-contact-hypothesis
Hate Crimes. (n.d.). Retrieved March 4, 2020, from Human Rights Campaign website: https://www.hrc.org/state-maps/hate-crimes
Hawkins, E. (2019, October 16). What Happened To Matthew Shepard's Killers? Retrieved March 4, 2020, from Oxygen website: https://www.oxygen.com/uncovered-killed-by-hate/crime-news/matthew-shepards-killers-russell-henderson-aaron-mckinney-hate-crime
Hopper, E. (2019, October 26). What Is the Contact Hypothesis in Psychology? Retrieved February 28, 2020, from ThoughtCo. website: https://www.thoughtco.com/contact-hypothesis-4772161
Learn About Hate Crimes. (n.d.). Retrieved February 28, 2020, from The United States Department of Justice website: https://www.justice.gov/hatecrimes/learn-about-hate-crimes
Rashke, R. (2017, July 11). America's Secret Government Program to Hire Nazi War Criminals. Retrieved February 28, 2020, from Daily Beast website: https://www.thedailybeast.com/americas-secret-government-program-to-hire-nazi-war-criminals
Yan, H., Chen, N., & Naresh, D. (2020, February 21). What's spreading faster than coronavirus in the US? Racist assaults and ignorant attacks against Asians. Retrieved March 4, 2020, from CNN website: https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/20/us/coronavirus-racist-attacks-against-asian-americans/index.html?fbclid=IwAR0p5X-dAti751vbtUG0hWxCy1Iy8HEJruq9cvL79BhPkhxjZ9u8RwVYud8
Robles, F. (2020, February 27). Killing of Transgender Homeless Woman Sparks
Outrage in Puerto Rico. Retrieved March 5, 2020, from The New York Times
website: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/us/
puerto-rico-alexa-transgender-killing.html
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