BY MIKE CETERA
When I try to picture a hate crime, I think of pitch forks, burning crosses and racially-motivated beatings. I don't conjure up a domestic dispute between two kids who used to date.
But a 14-year-old high school student in St. Charles is facing a hate crime charge -- a felony -- for writing "disparaging comments" on his ex-girlfriend's locker, among other things.
If both of these teens were the same race, this fallout from the breakup would have been unremarkable. Kids are immature. Nasty comments happen. But he is white and she is black.
From the story:
According to the state's attorney's office, the boy also drew a stick figure of a person in a noose on his computer. At some point the girl saw it and became alarmed -- leading to the hate crime charge, the state's attorney's office said.
An incident with similar characteristics occurred last year in Crystal Lake. Two 16-year-old girls were charged with hate crimes after distributing a flyer that pictured a male student and another boy kissing; the flyer also included disparaging comments about homosexuals.
Crystal Lake South juniors Ryan Diamond and Crystal Erdman said the fliers stemmed from a recent dispute between one of the girls who was arrested and one of the boys who was pictured.
The pair used to be best friends but recently feuded, Erdman said, and one of the girls posted the picture on her MySpace page before police said she and another girl printed the fliers and distributed them in the school's parking lot.
So, if these are hate crimes, what else is covered?
The Governor's Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes says hate crimes "are defined under specific penal code sections as an act or an attempted act by any person against the person or property of another individual or group which in any way constitutes an expression of hostility toward the victim because of his or her race, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, gender, or ethnicity. This includes but is not limited to threatening phone calls, hate mail, physical assaults, vandalism, cross burnings, destruction of religious symbols, and fire bombings."
Find the state hate crime statute here.
The Chicago Lawyers' Committee defends the state's hate crime laws:
A hate crime is bigotry at its worst. It is hostile, dangerous, and can not be tolerated in a democratic society. Hate crime hurts everyone. If ignored, a hate crime can perpetuate fear and distrust and inflame tensions between the targeted group, the larger community, and law enforcement officials.
Perpetrators target victims not because of who they are as individuals, but because of unfair stereotypes. Hate crimes involve an infinite number of groups, situations, and places. Hate crime is not a high percentage of total crime, but is given priority by officials because of its profound negative impact on the victim and the community. Federal, state, and local governments have made fighting hate crime a priority by enacting and enforcing strong laws. (emphasis added)
But a spokesman for the state chapter of the ACLU, in commenting on the Crystal Lake case, said the organization has problems with the application of hate crime laws when it comes to speech.
Ed Yohnka, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, said the case illustrated a complex struggle between protecting targeted groups of people and protecting the First Amendment.
In fact, the issue is so divisive that the ACLU of Illinois differed from its national organization's support of a federal hate-crimes law that passed the U.S. House of Representatives and now is in the U.S. Senate. The law would include gender and sexual orientation as protected groups in hate-crime laws, as Illinois already does.
"We have a rather strong and historic strain of protecting free speech in this affiliate in a way that caused us to differentiate from the national organization," Yohnka said.
It seems pretty clear this St. Charles East High School boy, if guilty, targeted his ex-girlfriend because of who she is. Hate crime laws are important -- at the very least in their symbolism -- but when a teenager involved in a love spat gets charged, it diminishes the power of the law.
“Hate crime laws are important -- at the very least in their symbolism -- but when a teenager involved in a love spat gets charged, it diminishes the power of the law.”
That is so right on. The only thing not accurate in the following article is the part about the NAACP. They desperately want these young men to be charged with hate crimes, but the rest of the “Sharpton-Jackson’s” don’t. It also leaves out why this attack happened: because she complained to the apartment mgr about the noise and garbage. UNREAL. The NAACP is a decent and honorable organization, they are drowning in the sess pool of Jackson Jihads that are being raised to be angry and militant, thinking they have no chance and that the world will be against them no matter what. If they were taught what a lie that is, then Jackson may have to get a new job, see? When the NAACP shows up at these events, they are there to try to reel the kids back to the philosophy and beliefs of Martin Luther King Jr: education, family and peace. Any help they can get would be a real help.
http://www.wbir.com/news/national/story.aspx?storyid=51392
Hey Erin how can you call what the boy did a love spat? I have had ex-girl friends and never thought of doing away with them, what that boy done was not a love spat.My son was the one who wrote the letter on myspace about east high, if you were able to read what it said you would see it dosent come close to what that boy did to his ex-girl friend.He got charged with a felony and got to go home my son had to stay for 26 days and take a deal just to get out. The law is not fair the judge makes up and changes the laws as he or she sees fit.The judge we had was in left field most of the time he was compairing the wizard of oz to my sons case,I have yet to figure that one out.
A crime is a crime. If hate was involved let the judge and jury decide and punish the offender accordingly.
A love spat is one thing, but this boy's excessive overreaction to rejection crossed a line. We've all been rejected. You deal with it by moving on.
How does the girl not feel threatened by his actions?
I've posted the statute below. I believe the boy's actions fit the definition according to the statute. The graffiti on the locker constitutes criminal damage to property and the computer drawing constitutes disorderly conduct. There you have the basis for the charges.
(720 ILCS 5/12‑7.1) (from Ch. 38, par. 12‑7.1)
Sec. 12‑7.1. Hate crime.
(a) A person commits hate crime when, by reason of the actual or perceived race, color, creed, religion, ancestry, gender, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, or national origin of another individual or group of individuals, regardless of the existence of any other motivating factor or factors, he commits assault, battery, aggravated assault, misdemeanor theft, criminal trespass to residence, misdemeanor criminal damage to property, criminal trespass to vehicle, criminal trespass to real property, mob action or disorderly conduct as these crimes are defined in Sections 12‑1, 12‑2, 12‑3, 16‑1, 19‑4, 21‑1, 21‑2, 21‑3, 25‑1, and 26‑1 of this Code, respectively, or harassment by telephone as defined in Section 1‑1 of the Harassing and Obscene Communications Act, or harassment through electronic communications as defined in clauses (a)(2) and (a)(4) of Section 1‑2 of the Harassing and Obscene Communications Act.
More to think about:
Prosecutors have discretion.
Courts have upheld the Fighting Words Doctrine.
In some cases, there does seem to be a fine line - or slippery slope - with what the court has deemed a hate crime and what has not been a hate crime. Clearly there are 1st Amendment issues that will be argued for years. Those issues have merit.
Stereotypes as they are called are not really inaccurate. This greatly complicates matters and raises real moral issues. They are not unfair stereotypes. US Justice Department crime statistics alone are enough evidence to see this. Once you see the figures, "stereotypes" seem pretty mild, and quite rational defense mechanisms. For example, There are about 38,000 reported black-on-white rapes a year, while there are no (statistically insignificant) white-on-black rapes a year. Rapes are notoriously under-reported, some say as little as 50% are reported. Other than rapes, you can predict violent crimes in any city in the USA by the numbers of blacks and hispanics there better than by any other indicator. The correlation is approx .8. We need to be able to address these facts. It is not because of "unfair stereotypes" that whites flee to the suburbs or don't like to live near blacks. It appears to be survival. Nobel Prize winner James Watson was exactly right when he said that all the tests show real cognitive differences between blacks and whites. It happens to be the truth. Unless we have the freedom and courage to address these realities we will never really be able to come up with solutions.
Steve:
I'm surprised you neglected to quote David Duke as well in your commentary and observations above. I hear the NW corner of Idaho may have room available, say perhaps the area around Coeur D'Alene.
Rumor has it there were a number of 'your kinda folks' moving there and setting up communities where you'd blend right in and feel quite safe. Pity (for you) the good folks of Idaho and surrounding regions had the good sense to 'clean house'.
For more information and background re: the rise and decline of these 'white separatists movements' see:
FindArticles - RISE AND FALL OF ARYAN NATIONS: A RESOURCE MOBILIZATION PERSPECTIVE*, The Journal of Political and Military Sociology, Summer 2006, by Balch, Robert W
So, Steve, your post is relevant to a hate crime how?
Here's a Web site you might enjoy. It's called "Stuff White People Like: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/
While the rest of us see it as satire, you can employ your "not really inaccurate stereotype" philosophy and find how many things apply to you.
Based on you post, I can safely assume another not really innaccurate stereotype: Cracker.
Lets see, one sarcastic ad-hominem attack from a courageously anonymous "voter" and another person calling the facts I cite (which anyone can look up) my "not really inaccurate stereotype philosophy". People will do anything to avoid talking about facts when they are inconvenient or against the current social climate. Facts have everything to do with this topic.
Laws about equality and integration assume inaccurately that there is no basis for people thinking the races are different. They are. This has implications for lots of legislation. People who want to ban guns, for example, cite differing crime rates in Detroit and neighboring Windsor, Canada as evidence that guns cause crime because one has higher gun ownership than the other. If you widen your view of many cities across the country, the actual difference seems much more logically to be the difference in racial makeup of the two cities.
Legislation should be based on truth, not purposeful inaccuracies and prejudices of political interest groups. In "hate crime" legislation, a crime is supposed to be worse because of the thoughts involved relating to race in the crime -- evidenced by words or activities which highlight race. This part especially I was addressing:
The Chicago Lawyers' Committee defends the state's hate crime laws:
A hate crime is bigotry at its worst. It is hostile, dangerous, and can not be tolerated in a democratic society. Hate crime hurts everyone. If ignored, a hate crime can perpetuate fear and distrust and inflame tensions between the targeted group, the larger community, and law enforcement officials.
Perpetrators target victims not because of who they are as individuals, but because of unfair stereotypes. Hate crimes involve an infinite number of groups, situations, and places. Hate crime is not a high percentage of total crime, but is given priority by officials because of its profound negative impact on the victim and the community. Federal, state, and local governments have made fighting hate crime a priority by enacting and enforcing strong laws. (emphasis added)
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Where it says "unfair stereotypes" especially -- who is to judge that? Facts show that the stereotypes are fair. While I think it is wrong to belittle people about something they cannot help, and violence is wrong, speaking out that you think interracial marriage (for example) is wrong and bad for society should not be against the law. By making it a crime on its own to say or think these things we are going against the first amendment. These are legitimate factual issues that may be extremely important to the welfare of society and the future of humanity.
Punish the act itself, not the thought or emotion behind it.
In this case, charge the young man with vandalism and put an order of protection against him. Let the judge decide where the infraction fits between the minimun and maximum penalties allowed and based on his history. Additionally, the school certainly has the right to expel or suspend him for the threatening nature of what he wrote and where he wrote it. Keep in mind, there are extremely hateful words he could have used which would not have been covered by the hate crime law.
Having freedom of speech and freedom of expression means using civil means for handling views, words and opinions one does not agree with. That is a price we pay for freedom. Freedom benefits everyone. The alternatives to these freedoms are much worse.
When you try sidestepping around these freedoms, you end up with laws which are vague, extremely discretionary and highly vulnerable to abuse or misuse. If a law can be abused, it will be. This one has the capacity and is almost destined to backfire against the original intentions.
When J. Dennis Hastert proclaimed "freedom fries" instead of "french fries," that was definitely a stereotypical racist action. Shouldn't he be in jail?
Or, let's look at it another way. If we severely increase the punishment of an existing crime based on hate, shouldn't we also decrease the punishment of a crime based on love? A few years ago,
an Aurora man stabbed his girlfriend 30 times. Should we take time off of his sentence because it was a love crime?
We need to prosecute the criminal acts and enforce laws such as those against exclusionary employment and lending acts. Subduing speech will not solve social problems. That is why we need to leave free speech alone and keep it out in the open.
Gee Steve, sorry if you don't feel comfortable accepting your own 'stereotype' and the baggage that comes with it. Guess those only apply to 'other people' you may have discomforts being around or find to be outside your personal comfort zones.
Perhaps you might find this article enlightening or informative:
Intresting that now it is a HATE crime. Yeah, but apparently there was a whole lot of lovin' while they were enraptured with each other! And neither cared that the other was a different race until the nasty breakup, when the insult flinging ensued. Insults hurled in a break up are meant to be as hurtful as possible, true or not. This was no hate crime; it was a nasty breakup between emotional teens. Are we gonna waste taxpayer money on this??????????
Kathy, if the boy's actions violated written statute, then it's a crime. On a practical level you might be right. Maybe it is immaturity coming out of a boy who cannot handle rejection. But when you consider what he did and how he did it and that he made specific mention of her race in his actions, that qualifies as a hate crime. The statute is included in an earlier post in this thread.
Chris,
The larger problem here is not whether the young man violated the letter of the hate-crime law, it is whether such an unconstitutional, speech infringing law should be allowed on the books in the first place.
There are laws that govern threats and criminal damage to property.
The problem is when we have laws based on the perceived thought process or the emotion behind it. And the sliding-scale determination of offensiveness. And who said it.
Consider if the young man had chosen another forum such as a weblog instead of a school locker. Had he written extremely offensive remarks regarding the girls anatomy, her mother, her grandmother and private details of their relationship, as long he did not mention race, religion, sexual orientation etc., his speech would have been legal and protected as long as his comments were true and/or expressing a personal opinion. His remarks could have been far more hate-filled while exempting himself from the hate-crime law.
How do you plan on deciding what, where and who's words are illegaly offensive? Do we need to hire court-appointed mind-readers? If this year's hate words are acceptable next year, will there be retroactive immunity?
Will suppressing speech solve the problems caused by irrational thinking? Or, will it relegate these thoughts to the backrooms and boardrooms while extinguishing debate?
The only accomplishment I expect will come from this ill-conceived law is a retirement plan for constituional law professors and defense attorneys.