13 Dec. 2010
FD5 (Final Exam)
Hate based on race, sexual orientation, and religion exist in any society. When this type of hatred fuels a people into taking violent action upon those that they hate, it is a hate crime. This is a type of crime that every society has to face, especially American society. With these kinds of crime still around, we definitely do not live in the “paradise” as some people so call America. Although there are laws that prohibit people from committing hate crimes, hate crimes still happen even now. So are laws really the best solution to hate crimes? I doubt it. Maybe hate crime laws help in some way, however law enforcement is not the best solution to eradicate hate crimes. [Thesis]From my experience, I think the best solution to eliminate hate crimes is through education[Thesis].
First of all, we need to examine the purpose of the Hate Crime bill. The bill’s purpose is to use the law to punish the perpetrators of hate crimes. However, can it really be used to prevent hate crimes in the first place? According to National Acrimony and a Rise in Hate Crimes, the number of active hate groups in the US has grown from 474 in 1997 to 762 in 2004, and in the past four years the number of hate websites has risen from 366 to 468. Also, the FBI reports more than 9000 hate crime victims in 2003 excluding the unreported crimes. The Hate Crime Prevention Act was established in 1998, and the occurrence of hate crimes appear to have increased over the years. Apparently, the bill has had little to no effect to rate of occurrence of hate crimes.
No one is born to be prejudice, and people were not born to hate; rather, we learn it from others in our early stages of life. The way people are raised is a main factor in how they view other people who are different from them. Do their parents view other races as inferior or equal? Children often pick up on their parent’s view of other people. Therefore, parents can easily teach their children to be prejudiced against others who they consider different. Another influence on someone’s views is one’s peer group. One might be a completely rational and accepting person, however when thrown into a situation where the social norm is discrimination, that person might simply conform to the view of others in the group. Taking this stand from experience, I once held hateful views of people who were different from myself. When I was younger, living in a Asian cultural community, I heard people described homosexual people as “weird” and “immoral”, and before I realized it, I began to think of these hateful views as normal in my own mind as well. I was not born to be prejudiced towards homosexuals, rather I learned it from those in my surrounding environment. I prejudged others even before interacting with them. Later on in life, when I had more interactions with homosexual people, I learned that they are just the same as any one of us and “it matters what you call people” (Pramila Jayapal). From my personal experience, I know that education is the best solution to completely eradicate hate crimes.
Education at an earlier age can prevent kids from developing prejudices toward others because of their differences. When they grow up, they will be less likely to commit hate crimes. For older kids, we can educate them to let go of whatever hate they may have against others. There are many ways we can make people realize why hatred against others is wrong through education. Early education for kids, or a workshop program for parents and teachers on how to teach their children to recognize and prevent the presence of prejudice and discrimination are just some of the methods. However, from my perspective, the most important thing to do is to teach all people the moral value of a human being, and how we are all similar in some way. When we pass that value on to our children, they are less likely to commit hate crimes against others. Beside, we have to teach them the value of our society, and demonstrate that we do not tolerate this type of crime, and that there are consequences for such actions.
At this moment, hate crimes are increasing in American society. We only focus on the laws against hate crimes and how to punish perpetrators. However, we failed to understand the root cause of this problem. How a person views something related to racism and hatred, directly reflects on how society has raised them. People were not born to hate. Rather they learn it from others. People commit hate crimes against other because they failed to understand the value of human beings. Those people only see others as different and make them outcasts in their own mind. The only solution to this problem is to use education to teach them the moral value of the fact that we are all human. And for our children, we need to pass that knowledge and our moral value on to them so that they learn from our mistakes and can pass it on to others. If we can do this, it will help our society to reduce hate crimes drastically in the future.
Works cited:
Chansanchai, Athima. “Bias Crimes Found in All Areas of City.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer. 4May2006. 13 Dec 2006 [http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/268997_bias04.html?source=mypi].
Knickerbocker, Brad. “National Acrimony and a Rise in Hate Crimes.” csmonitor.com. 3 Jun 2005. 13 Dec. 2005 [http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0603/p03s01-ussc.html].
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