Earlier today, the FBI released a report that revealed an eight percent increase in hate crimes as a result of prejudice against race, religion, ethnicity or physical or mental disability as of 2006. In 2005, there were 7,163 reported criminal incidents and that increased to 7,722 last year. Only 12,600 of the 17,000 local, county, state and federal police agencies participated in this report and more than half of the incidents that occurred in Jena, Louisiana in late 2006 were not included.
However, this incomplete report did not stop civil rights protestors from demonstrating at the Justice Department in Washington. Also, in September, about 20,000 protesters marched through Jena and just on November 3rd, hundreds of protesters marched through downtown Charleston,WV to urge others to add to hate crime charges against six white people who beated, tortured and sexually assaulted a 20 year old black woman.
Although the number of hate crimes has increased, the percentage of those caused by racial prejudice has decreased to 51.8 percent in 2006 from 54.7 percent in 2005. In the 2006 report,18.9 percent of hate crimes is blamed on religious bias, 15.5 percent on sexual orientation, and 12.7 percent on ethnic or national origin.
While I feel that we are all lucky to be living in a time and place where there is so much tolerance, this also makes me realize that not everyone across the country is as fortunate as we are. When are people ever going to stop? And why is it so difficult for them to accept people whom they feel are different from them?
6 comments:
Wow. Racism totally sucks. I still can't believe that people cannot get over their differences and really learn to accept others for who they are. No one needs or wants to be judged by the color of their skin tone. I think that this issue, racism, should be addressed by the government because there has to be some way to stop it. Even though the government may not produce the most tangible outcome, it may help to raise awareness about the issue. I, personally, think that racism should be stopped because it is so pointless to judge people just because the color of their skin is different.
From the report: 59% of hate crimes were by whites (80% of the total population), but 21% were by blacks (12% of the population). Who hates who more?
I agree that we are fortunate to live in a place where racism is not such a big problem. I think that people will not be accustomed to others who are different than them when they first meet, but most people get over that quickly becuase they will understand each other better. For example, if immigrants have been coming to PLACE A for generations, and immigrants just started coming to PLACE B, people in A will be more accepting of the immigrants than people in B.
Truly, it's depressing that prejudice is still at such a high rate.. It's embarassing and dispicable. I am not quite sure how people can be raised to judge others so quickly.. Perhaps, the problem lies in where our younger generations learn their morals and ethics.. Possibly parenting? The media? Could our current predicament of prejudice be a result of too much freedom???
It is tragic that we still have so much racism. I think that our society is naturally judgmental, and some people have too much pride to think that they are equal to others.
Racism is so dangerous because it is such a touchy subject. People don't like to talk about it because people prefer to see the ideal. Many think "We're not racist today...that was 50 years ago. Our country has come such a long way from the turbulent 60's!". While our country has progressed, racism still exists. Although the area that we live in is very tolerant, if you stop and look around campus, you will see that students tend to hang out with other students that are the same race as them. And every day you hear in people in the hallways using racial stereotypes such as "He's such a white kid" or "What an Asian driver!". If we want to solve the problem of racism, we have to be more aware of it.
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