Last week, after delving into the realm of hate crimes (particularly those racially-motivated) in my post entitled “Repeating History: How Race Plays a Role in Crime,” I decided to explore the blogosphere to see how bloggers were responding to this issue in the 21st century. While the FBI releases stunning statistics indicating racial and religious differences between hate crime victims and offenders, some would argue that the issue is wrapped in more underlying psychological factors. Such perspective is reflected by Key Sun, Ph.D., a psychologist, social worker and law professor, in his recent post “Can Race Take the Responsibility for Racially-Motivated Crime?” in Psychology Today Blogs. He there argues that external attribution of violence and a misconception of "race" as a group leads people to believe that race is to blame for something which is actually individually based. The belief held in the blog is that although a person of a specific racial group may hold a particular opinion of another group, that opinion is not necessarily shared by the racial group in question. He identifies that the media often generalizes the offender as a reflection of the entire racial group and thus gives off an incorrect impression and places the blame of hate crimes on the wrong people. On a different level, Virginia Bergman, a former reporter and editor of a community newspaper, recently posted in her blog, Katalusis, her opinion of hate crimes. Her post "Lynching Sarah Palin in Effigy: Hate Crimes Against Women Are Legal,"addresses the issue of hate crimes and how they affect females, particularly in the form of an effigy of Sarah Palin as hung in West Hollywood (as seen to the right). She argues that although racial and political hate crimes are addressed directly and forcefully, such crimes against women are treated with much less regard. In addition to commenting on their respective blogsites, I have included my comments below.Comment:
Thank you for your very well-researched and thoroughly analyzed blog addressing these very complex and emotionally-charged issues. Being a student of social psychology myself, I have explored and am interested in the study of attribution error and I fully understand your argument, however, I must interject and respectfully question your study. I agree that in many individual cases, their actions are over-generalized by the media and made to display the particular racial or religious group in a negative light. At the same time, while the media should not categorize such groups incorrectly, it would be wrong to assume that they do not share the beliefs whatsoever. There are overwhelming statistics from the FBI to demonstrate that some racial groups are more likely to commit racial hate crimes than others or be victim to hate crimes above others. Granted not all of those occurrences are directly related to racism, however it is impractical to argue with dense statistics indicating that there is somewhat of a correlation between the two factors.
Additionally, as I understand, you have stated that the news media portrays the image of the offense committed by the group rather than the individual. While I somewhat agree with your statement, I feel as though the media presents the case and the faults of the individual, then generalizes the situation to support and supplement previous studies which have been conducted by organizations such as the FBI. Rather than over-generalizing, the news simply finds trends in the actions of the individual and does not transfer the blame away from the individual when relating it to the group.
Finally, in regards to your argument on race not being a group, I found that to be a very intriguing point. It is true that there are no clear leaders, followers and statuses in regards to race and that these individuals are widespread across different cities, states and countries. In spite of this, I cannot help but present the fact that regardless of this vast spread of different races, there are still large racially segregated communities (despite the fact that they are not forcefully segregated). These communities still have pseudo-leaders in the form of involved community members and local citizens who contribute to the actions and ideologies of community members. Thus, although they are not officially recognized groups, their interactions and sense of community in many different parts of the nation make them equally likely to be seen as a group.
Comment:
Thank you for your intriguing post on a highly significant issue, especially for women. Although hate crimes are seen to spread from the focus of race, religion, sexual orientation, and gender (to name a few), many of the focuses are shrouded by the main focus on racial hate crimes. I found you have made a strong
point in mentioning that although the Palin effigy was able to hang so long without forceful consequences, the presence of a Barack Obama effigy resulted in a swift removal and arrest. It seems particularly outrageous that there would be such a strong support for one presidential candidate while paying little regard to an equally significant vice-presidential (and female) candidate.Regardless of the fact that the effigy was claimed to be a joke for the sake of Halloween, the intent was negative and inappropriate and could even be construed as a threat to the life of the potential vice-president. To make the claim that this act was not in any way an act of a hate crime would be quite a generalization in the wrong direction. Hate crimes are identified to be acts with the intent of hurting, intimidating or instilling fear to individuals because of race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, political beliefs or disability. The act towards Palin reflects intimidation as a result of political beliefs and possibly gender. It seems ridiculous for multiple reasons that this person was able to display such an image for so long without a greater force stopping them. I agree with what you have said, and if not for the sake of women's rights, actions should have been taken for the sake of national security. This is a history-making moment for women, with a female vice-presidential candidate and it should not be treated with such little respect so as to intimidate other women from taking a stand as Palin has.
