It’s a new semester, and invitations to speak at various University of Nebraska classes have begun. Last year, I blogged about a visit to ALEC 466: Agricultural Leadership and Communication, Leadership and Diversity. The instructor, PhD student Helen Fagan, gave me a couple of broad topics, racial profiling and hate crimes.
I’m hardly and expert, but it seemed to be a good discussion, like last year. Perhaps my years of experience in policing provide a certain viewpoint that contributes to the students’ learning process. I took along a few Incident Reports that are typical examples of hate crimes in Lincoln.
The reports (13 in all) are a depressing testament to, hate, racism, and just plain ugliness: an assault outside a McDonalds on a man who couldn’t restrain himself when he felt the customers ahead of him were moving too slow, and who couldn’t refrain from making his report to the police laced with disgusting, racist language; a gay couple’s window smashed out with a brick; a Latino couple accosted by an Asian man with an incredible barrage of hateful, racist language; a racially-charged fight at a high school: a car load of bigots looking for a victim to torment outside a gay bar. Remarkable, however, was the racial and ethnic diversity of both perpetrators and victims, proving that no one has a monopoly on hate.
As I reminded the students, this snapshot of a few police reports is just the tip of a much larger iceberg.
7 comments:
Mr. Casady,
I thank you for this post. It takes courage as an elected official to identify and present an undercurrent of ugliness that exists in our community. However, behavior like this needs to be exposed so that it can be addressed.
Sincerely,
Mike
So, not all violent crime involves an element of "hate"? Some crime victims are more equal than others, I assume.
I still struggle with the concept of hate crimes. I understand how they may be different, but are they also somehow worse than crimes committed for other motives? Not to the victims, I bet. Also, I think it would be difficult, at best, to truly determine that someone was motivated only by hate. I also find it odd that we seem to only consider something as a hate crime if it affects or is caused by someone in a minority. Can't an old white man like me hate another old white man and, perhaps, assault him, rob him, or vandalize his house? Is that not a hate crime? Just wondering.
I hate intolerance and I am not going to tolerate it anymore!
Tom-I used to hate pirates but my opinion has changed since reading posts from ARRRGH!!!! Apparently I'm more tolerant than I used to be.
256
Thank you for pointing out the diversity of those responsible as well as those unfortunate to be victims of hate crimes.
Well, whaddya know? Blind hate isn't exclusive to caucasians.
Has anyone notified Jackson or Sharpton of this revelation?
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