Hate Crime or Not? -- Major Blog Post 3, by Sally Andarge

Growing up I watched a lot of Law and Order. Because I watched so much Law and Order, I thought I had a good understanding of what a hate crime was. It wasn’t until I attended a hate crimes community forum held by my university that I realized I actually had no idea what a hate crime was or what necessarily constituted one. According to the assistant district attorney of Denver there are a series of federally protected classes, those classes include race, sex, color, religion, national origin, age, and ability. Colorado is one of the few states that include sexual orientation as a protected class (and has done so since 2009), but there are many states that still don’t consider sexual orientation a protected class because it is not federally recognized as one. I believe that this has a direct impact on the way hate crimes against the LGBT community are handled and addressed. I was both shocked and appalled when I learned this and those feelings were only amplified when I read Michael Warner’s The Trouble with Normal to Queer (In)Justice.

         When discussing violence against LGBT people, Michael Warner explains that there is an inherent problem in what constitutes a hate crime. On page 218 of his book he says “the terms bias or hate crime suggest that such violence is motivated entirely by prejudice (presumably irrational) and not informed by historical patterns of dominance and subordination that produce tangible political, social, and economic benefits for majority groups.” By this definition, one could assume that hate crimes have a single cause. He explains that even though our terminology may be outdated or insufficient, we must recognize that a lot of these “hate crimes” can exist structurally and must be addressed in society.

But Michael Warner’s analysis spans beyond general problems and inconsistencies within hate crime law. The way we think about hate crimes disproportionately affects the LGBT community. He explains that gender and sexuality based violence are among the most under reported In the United States. Many members of the queer community are often discouraged from coming forward for fear of retaliation from their attackers or abusers and a fear of disclosing their sexual orientation or identity. Another factor that may dissuade victims from coming forward that I had never thought about was the possibility of incriminating one’s self, if they were engaged in traditionally criminalized sex acts like sodomy or sex work. These are just a few of the factors that may prevent members of the queer community from coming forward when they experience violence on the basis of their gender or sexual identity.

But because crimes against the queer community are so under reported, it creates less incentive for members of government and law enforcement to provide accurate information to the public and even when their information is accurate it only represents a small portion of the population that is not impacted by the variables listed above. Warner says, “In 2007, for example, only 2,025 out of nearly 17,000 law enforcement agencies reported hate crime data to the federal Uniform Crime Reporting Program.” This is just one example of the gross mischaracterization of crimes against the LGBT community Perpetuated by law-enforcement and their yearly reports.

So, if there are this many problems with our criminal justice, law-enforcement, and judicial systems, why hasn’t there been any form of serious reformation? All the problems that we’ve seen in the enforcement of hate crimes la are a result of the lack of recognition that hate crimes are not isolated events. Hate crimes are not a result of a single negative thought or discriminatory action against a person, but rather a history of supremacist ideology that leads one to otherize people of marginalized communities. Warner tells us, ““Hate or bias-related violence is portrayed as individualized, ignorant, and aberrant—a criminal departure by individuals and extremist groups from the norms of society, necessitating intensified policing to produce safety. The fact is many of the individuals who engage in such violence are encouraged to do so by mainstream society”.

From what Michael Warner has told us we can gather that one of the biggest problems in a hate crime enforcement is the social conditioning that teaches us to believe that he crimes are individual acts of terror. If that is the case, then why shouldn’t queer advocacy organization support other responses to violence against the LGBTQIA+ community? I think that one of the best responses would be a form of counter social conditioning whether that be through the form of education or awareness campaigns geared toward informing the public about this gross miscarriage of justice. In her book Feminist Theory, bell hooks suggests that the biggest problem with modern day social justice movements is that they seek to reform a current structure that should be completely transformed. She explains that by creating an informed and educated constituency we guarantee a future of progressive legislation and adequate enforcement of those policies. I believe that queer advocacy organizations ought to seek to educate the public and the generation of tomorrow. Let’s not allow the next generation to believe that Law and Order is an adequate representation of hate crime law enforcement today.