Comments on: A Compilation of Critiques on Hate Crimes Legislation

By: G.W. Simmons

G.W. Simmons — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 06:01:03 +0000

That’s Windham County VERMONT. The same state who told you all to come up and get married. Well let me tell you a little secret VT is not as tolerant as they want you to believe. I was assaulted AGAIN last Sunday IN MY OWN HOME by a member of “da white boy gang” and the police did fuck all out of sympathy for gallup.

In the meantime I have asked every GLBT advocacy/Ativis group in the state for some form of support/aid. and they just shrug their collective shoulders and say they can’t do anything…

By: G.W. Simmons

G.W. Simmons — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 05:50:51 +0000

I agree. I have been physically assaulted TWICE since I’ve moved here. te first time by a rown cop named Ian Nathaniel Gallup, and the second was just last week by a member of “da white boy gang”. Gallup attacks me out of the blue & calls me a nigger, does he get punished? NO. he gets reassigned to a town 40 miles away because of his connections in the Windham County Sherriff Dept.

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 07:19:39 +0000

Let’s see if my second attempt at replying to you will even be published. Been waiting quite a while for the first one to be.

Harsher sentencing doesn’t reduce crime? So if someone bashes a queer person, and is in prison for a longer time, that person isn’t off the street for a longer time which would probably indicate that queers would be safer from that person?

You’re defending hundreds of people that, presumably, bashed people. All so that you can stay in lock step with your anarchist politics of being anti-state, disregarding the damage that discrimination has done to people of your own community. Then again, from the sounds of it, you care more about the anarchist community than the “queer” community at large. As if you can’t fight against a law and order budget and at the same time support justice for people who get bashed. And as if being anti-state and being against a law and order budget is going to do a goddamn thing to stop conservative neonazi types that do bash people. You’re clueless.

By: Nora

Nora — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 01:24:48 +0000

I forgot to mention I am not part of the white, class privileged, gay and lesbian agenda. I am a bisexual woman of color. I am working class, low-income. I believe in women empowering ourselves and our communities to heal from colonization. I also work with prisoners human rights. I know the prison system needs to come to and end as it exists. Yet, I still believe that we cannot take away the right of rape victims to denounce the hate crime and file charges. I do not see how going against this legislation helps us to heal. It may only protect perpetrators who may already have the system on their side.

BP decision makers should also be convicted of hate crimes against humanity. They do deserve to do some long and much deserved prison time. More so than just a “regular” crime such as person who steals food from a rich corporation just to get by in this failing economy. To do anything less than take a stand against “real” hate crimes makes us implicit in the very structure we say we work against by silencing the vicims once again.

But I agree that our energy must also be focused on the victims healing. Resources must devoted for that. there are already so few and very little support. But resources must also be in correcting the behavior of the perpetrator who probably also needs counseling and will not seek it voluntarily. This must also be an alternative model but for now victims must be allowed to work with what is available to them.

By: Nora

Nora — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 01:04:31 +0000

I am a survivor of rape. I believe that in a patriarchy when a man rapes a woman that is also a hate crime against women. Rape victims have very little resources left to them and often even progressive communities turn on them when they report the rapist if he is a member of their community. In my case he was a friend and supposedly my comrade in the struggle for social justice. In my friends’ case (also a rape survivor) the rapist was also a friend and supposed “femenist”. Reporting her rape was also seen as going against the community and supporting the “state”. Or at least that was the manipulative language that was used to protect the rapists. When the man who raped me, raped again, I decided I needed to report him and file charges. We can’t be afraid to use the law to send a message to serial rapists who parade around in sheeps clothing that our community and survivors of these hate crimes will not go unpunished. Yes, I want believe that rapists are sick and need counseling and help but that did not happen by his own will. Too many women gave him too many chances and were not supported. There was not enough evidence to go through with the trial as is often the case. And he is free. But I hope that I sent him a clear message. Since the majority of the progressive community I was a part of chose to remain silent and not hold him accountable for his hate crimes towards women, or even find him help for his sickness. When we say rape is a hate crime it means it is institutionally sanctioned by patriachy in the dominant system and even in progessive communities. I found that most progressive communities do not have the capacity to deal with the rapists, sometimes inadvertantly supporting them by supposedly remaining “neutral” and often alienate the survivor (both men and women). If I could have I would have pressed charges against him and my rape as a hate crime. And I don’t think anyone should ever take that option away from a victim of a hate crime because it is just as traumatizing as the crime itself.

By: Jon

Jon — Sun, 23 May 2010 01:10:15 +0000

Hate crime laws are plain and simple, “thought crime” laws and un-American. PERIOD. They were created and lobbied into law by those ugly, modern-day Bolshevik monsters from the ADL.

Hate crime laws are totally anti-Western laws, and were designed to punish dissent and politically incorrect beliefs by those commissars of political correctness!

By: alysha

alysha — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 03:37:12 +0000

thanks for posting this, Jason. otherwise, I wouldn’t have known about this perspective!

By: josh

josh — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 22:00:09 +0000

To the jackass who did the point-by-point response: how about this for a reason to be against hate crimes legislation

HARSHER SENTENCING DOESN’T REDUCE CRIME.

we’re not cutting off the nose to spite the face. We’re simply demonstrating that increasing the sentencing of hundreds of people and thereby justifying increases to a law and order budget HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FACE.

By: The Murph Report » To be or not to be a supporter of Hate Crimes Laws.

The Murph Report » To be or not to be a supporter of Hate Crimes Laws. — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 05:02:08 +0000

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By: sarah

sarah — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 04:55:35 +0000

thanks you really helped me get to know the other side of hate crimes