I Hate Crime
In case you didn’t happen to be looking for them, it’s my pleasure to report that the FBI has released its supplemental 2021 hate crime statistics. Whew! I was afraid they’d never be released. Here’s what you missed:
The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program released a 2021 hate crime statistics supplement about bias-motivated incidents throughout the nation … This supplement allows for a more complete representation of reported hate crimes in the US for 2021. Nationally, reported hate crime incidents increased 11.6% from 8,120 in 2020 to 9,065 in 2021.
How about that? Are you relieved? Me, too.
At the same time the FBI was releasing its statistics supplement, an association called Moderate American Dermatologist (MAD) released a study indicating the skin of the average American citizen got 32 percent thinner — from 1,977 micrometers to 1,344.36 micrometers — between 2020 and 2021. Some people interpret no correlation between the FBI and MAD reports. I’m not one of them.
On Further Review …
It’s extremely likely the number of hate crimes will continue to go up infinitely, given their history of multiplicity since the first federal hate crime legislation was passed in 1968 during the Johnson administration. And given the number we have now, I wondered why hate crimes had to be supplemented — and supplemented with what? — because we surely have more than enough to go around at this point. So, I looked for a definition of hate crime in the hope that it would resolve my confusion. Here’s what I found.
According to the Overview of Federal Hate Crime Laws, dated April 1, 2022:
Hate, in and of itself, cannot be criminalized. When hate motivates criminal conduct, however, such conduct may be classified as a hate crime—defined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.” According to the FBI, hate crimes are “traditional offenses like murder, arson, or vandalism with an added element of bias” … The 2021 supplemental release demonstrates the FBI’s commitment to provide meaningful data sets to the American public to reflect a national picture of the hate crime trend.
Meaningful data sets. Right. One man’s substance is another man’s bucket of steam.
Terms, Defined
Unsatisfied by the FBI’s linguistic semi-circular obtuseness, I applied my acute senses of empiricism, deduction, interpretation, and common sense to the problem. Aside from traditional offenses like murder, arson, or vandalism (one man’s tradition is another man’s psychopathy) — and aside from acts motivated by overt manifestations of criminal racial or religious bigotry or intolerance — here’s what I came up with:
If I’m walking down the sidewalk and I happen to pass some gas, that’s a relatively innocuous act (depending on how loud it is and what it smells like). If, on the other hand, I let one rip and say, “I fart in your general direction,” that’s a hate crime.
Facetious? Oh. Sorry. Let me try another example. And I’ll use it to explore the difference, if there is one, between hate, hate crimes, and ignorance:
If a man passes me on the street and calls me a jackass, is that a crime? No. He might be right. If that man passes me on the street and calls me a Shanty Irish Bogtrotter, is that a hate crime? No. It’s ignorance. If that same man burns my house down because he doesn’t want Micks or Harps living in his neighborhood, is that a crime? Yes. In fact, it’s a felony: arson. Is it a hate crime? No. It’s ignorance.
If we consider hate to be a manifestation of ignorance (it is), why do we need subcategories of hate?
It’s Not About Counting
I learned a long time ago, we become what we count. If we count hate and crime, we’ll hate more and commit more crimes. If we count hate crimes, we’ll create more hate crimes and commit all of them. Just ask the FBI. So, we might do well to remember this: If the only tool you have is a hate-crime counter, everything is a countable biased grievance.
To put it another way, creating more hate crimes won’t create less hate. We’ve been proving that since 1968, to say nothing of every year that preceded that one.
Come on, people. We can do better — and count better things — than this.
Originally Published on https://www.bizcatalyst360.com/category/lifecolumns/notes-to-self/
