[quote name='mykevermin']Andrew Sullivan wrote a lot of words, but didn't offer much insight. I typically expect more out of him.
The legacy of racism in our society, and sexism in damn near every society, is enough to help us understand that recognizing hate and hate crimes are in imperfect way of going about reducing their occurrence. Now, it's hard to change an attitude, but in this country, one can be as hateful as they want, so long as that hate remains dormant.
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it doesn't have to remain dormant-- they can express it however they please as long as it's within the law.
The imperfect nature of "hate" that Sullivan identifies is quite true, but, I think, to abandon all legislation based on that premise would be to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Sullivan cites a few "hate-ambiguous" cases; surely our justice system is flexible enough to wrong those scenarios.
I think our justice system works best with clear laws. A "hate crime" operates completely on emotional interpretation and inference of motives. Not every hate crime is going to involve guys in white hoods beating up a black guy. This is a big problem for the law. These hate-ambiguous cases are more believable.
More important is the question of why one group should get better protection than another? what criteria are used to draw the line? I would really like to know...if those questions could be answered, I wouldn't worry about the laws as much.
Even in cases where a crime is clearly fueled by hate or racism, what's the difference? Yes, hate and racism are bad and heavily stigmatized, even suppressed in our society, but people shouldn't be punished for their beliefs either. They should be punished for the crimes they commit.
I just think the law needs to be reconsidered. It brings up a very nuanced debate, which makes me wonder how well it's really being applied. The fact that both sides can argue strongly about whether it's even a legit concept is a problem to me.
His semantic refusal to admit the realities of institutional racism are absurd. So "an institution" can't feel racism. What's your
ing point? When you see data that show white male ex-felons have better job-chances than equally-skilled black males with no criminal history whatsoever, there's evidence of far more than just summed up and aggregated individual-level racism. To act as if the institutional body can not be sanctioned is naive and poorly thought out.
please, that was one sentence and he was setting up a different point altogether. The nature of the word and its uses. he wasn't refusing to admit anything.
His whole premise on the vagueness of how to best define hate is equally silly. So, it's an amorphous concept? Guess what? So are lots of things that we take for granted! Crime, race, sex, dinner...all ambiguous! There are lots more where that came from!!! So, let's no longer use any race/ethnicity or gender markers, either!
I'm taking the piss of Sullivan; it's a decent article overall, but the kinds of questions he rhetorically proposes are the stuff FOX News is made of, not the NY Times magazine.
I think you're missing the point completely. he has a fresh approach to the whole concept. The article isn't meant to be objective or solve anything. it's philosophical in nature and shows that the concept of hate isn't a one way street--which is rarely acknowledged by anyone, anywhere, much less in the media--and that fact calls into question the nature of a hate crime. Are we only going to punish "popular" hate crimes like a white guy beating up a black person and vice versa? how deep does it go-- if I throw meat at an animal rights demonstration, wouldn't that be a hate crime as well?
The point is that a line can't be drawn and that our views of the nature of hate are quite limited and really play into a "good vs. evil" narrative in the U.S.
