http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/01/14/ny.hate.crime/index.html
While looking up hate crimes, I found this article about a gay man who was beaten nearly to death by two men who were against homosexuals. I have not found out if these men were convicted of their crime, but it sure looked like they were going to be in prison for about 25 years.
What really shocked me was that this man had done nothing wrong to these two men. All he did was go to a store to buy cigarettes and when he was leaving, they yelled profanities at him, called him vicious names, robbed him, and severely beat him. Another fact that I couldn't believe was that this man was almost 50 years old. The two men who beat him were in their 20s. Why would someone want to beat up a middle aged man that did nothing wrong? That really upsets me, because young people are always supposed to look up to the people that are older than us. I hope these young men do go to prison just so they can see and feel the torture that they did to an innocent man.
I also found a statement that was made from the victim himself. It tells about what he remembers and how he felt now that he has become a victim of a hate crime.
http://www.towleroad.com/2009/10/reminder-vigil-today-for-nyc-hate-crime-victim.html
I am really surprised that this happened to the man but then again I'm not. In a neighborhood like that where he recognized the two men,it is obvious that they must be apart of some gang or something and violence is pretty much all they know. Just like the KKK, they were pretty much a gang doing whole lot of hate crimes. Homosexuals will probably have this torment for another 10 years or so until that phase has passed and they are accepted by everyone; well almost everyone.
While news like this saddens me, it does not surprise me. Hate crimes have existed in society since the beginning of time. Whether it's persecution against Jews, Christians, scientists, blacks, Native Americans, Hispanics, homosexuals, there will always be something. Since we cannot predict what group will be the victim "next" it is impossible to completely eradicate it from our society. There will always be ignorant people, the only thing we can do is provide education and seek to effectively punish offenders, while making it be known that our society today will not stand for hate crimes.
While African-Americans enjoy much better treatment in 2010 than the 1960s, it would be foolish to say that they do not encounter hate crimes, especially in certain regions. Hate crimes are not phases, and never completely leave a society. We can only hope that between schools, the media, and other venues that children are exposed to diversity of ideas and nonviolence.
The FBI released the data for 2008 crimes:
– “An analysis of the 7,780 single-bias incidents revealed that 51.3 percent were motivated by a racial bias”
– Anti-Black Racial Hate 2,876, Anti-Jewish Hate 1,013, Anti-Homosexual 1,200, Anti-Hispanic 561
– Anti-Islam Incidents – 105
– Anti-Christian Incidents – 101
http://infidelsarecool.com/2010/01/22/fbi-releases-2008-hate-crime-statistics/
Clearly, more than just homosexuals are being targeted, even today.
Reading this article and the blog I too find this idea very disturbing. Why someone would beat a 50 year old man for no apparent reason. I think that these people do this hate crimes in order for them to feel better had show some sense of power. People thing that if they belittle someone then they in some way are better than them, they are more important and of higher value than some 50 year old man. I am sure those boy continued on and laughed about the whole situation. I am sure as they get older they will understand the type of behavior they displayed and how indignant it was of them. There are many other example of this display of power we see if our society. One example I have also used in another post is that of those Florida high school girls who beat their so called “friend” as a form of initiation into their “group”. These hate crimes come in all forms; beating 50 year old men, hazing in frats and sororities, and initiation into groups surrounded by high school students.
http://www.wcfcourier.com/news/national/article_1ee44ae0-8308-58a2-86b2-22aebc909c79.html
The above article is from the Waterloo-CF Courier. It talks about bullying in schools today. It gives several examples of kids being brutally tormented and harassed at schools around the country. One of the examples talks of a gay New York teenager who won $50,000 from his school because they failed to protect him from the taunting and bullying that occurred. It speaks of the role that the schools should play in this. One of the most interesting statements I encountered was a paragraph about teachers.
"In defense of teachers, very few of them have ever had training on bullying prevention, much less how to intervene without making the situation worse," she said. "Some people don't understand the dramatic and devastating effect that this kind of treatment can have on a child."
I will take this time to talk about the psychological effects that bullying might have on a child. As a teacher this person is an adult. If someone were to call them stupid, they would probably shrug it off and think little of it. But when you are a 15 year old struggling to get through school, this could be completely devastating to you on an emotional and psychological level. Self esteem levels in both girls and boys are said to be quite low at this time in life and we need to be aware that bullying can be impacting children's development more than we think. Teenage suicide is still a big problem in this country and many of the cases stem from bullying. Not only is bullying still occurring in schools but it is happening in more subtle ways. Instead of pushing a kid into a locker physically, someone could easily harass someone over facebook. Schools should start taking extra steps to control bullying.
http://www.kwwl.com/Global/story.asp?S=12229898
As I watching the news today I also caught this article that celebrates the one year anniversary of the passing of gay marriage in Iowa. I think the original post relates to this because even though things like gay marriage laws are passed, this by no means means that people are accepted for this. I feel like it will take a long time before gay marriage is accepted in our societies.
Hate crime is every where, that is why I was not shocked to read this story about an elderly man being beaten for being Gay. What really shocked me was the fact that it was two young latinos that did it. Usually when I read or find out in the media of a homosexual being beaten because he was gay it turns out to be a european-american descent person or a group of people. Unfortunately for being in Queens in New York, if they do go to prision I doubt the fact that they will get their butts handed to them since most likely they will be part of a gang, not just any gang but the Latin Kings, they are the dominant ones in New York, when it comes to latino individuals, and that type of gang does not encourage any homosexual acts, I am not saying they are anti-gay but for sure dislike gay acts. So if they do go to prison and they are part of that particular gang, they will just be recognized as a badass than dumbass. The thing that bothered me most about this article was the fact that it did not mention if there were any witnesses or a survaliance camera watching the whole thing, if there wasn't how did the elderly man get a hold of the police, did they find any kind of DNA sampling on the victim from the suspects? How does the victim know for sure that it's those individuals and not others? It's really bugging me because how the Lawyer of one of the suspects sounded so confident about how he doubts anyone can prove that his client did any anti-gay act against that man.
Even though people may not agree with a person's sexuality that's fine but people need to keep in mind that homosexuals are still people.