On October 28, 2009, President Obama signed into law the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. This legislation widened the scope of its landmark 1969 precursor, extending hate crimes to include those based on a person's sexual orientation, gender, gender identity and disability. Its passage was followed by praise and adulation from voices both from within and outside of mainstream LGBT groups. As expected, such a one−sided story fails to paint a complete picture about the issues surrounding hate crimes legislation (HCL). So I'd like to look at some other perspectives, particularly but not limited to that of queer peoples.
In April 2009, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP), an organization that strives to assure that people can freely decide their gender identity and expression, wrote a letter to the Gender Employment Non−Discrimination Act (GENDA) coalition, cosigned by the Peter Cicchino Youth Project, Audre Lorde Project, Queers for Economic Justice and FIERCE. The letter expressed a collective dismay and the groups' consequent non−support of GENDA for its inclusion of HCL.
HCL unintentionally allows for backlash against oppressed groups, according to the letter, which cites as an example the New Jersey 4, a case in which a straight man accused a group of queer women of color of "committing a ‘hate crime' against him." According to the 2009 FBI hate crimes statistics, 16.5 percent of the offenses were due to anti−white bias and 1.4 percent due to anti−heterosexual bias.
HCL also bolsters the power of a criminal legal system that is, as the letter states, "deeply flawed, transphobic, and racist," which puts various marginalized groups, who are already disproportionately imprisoned, at further risk. So why should these communities put their trust in such a system? SRLP further notes that the threat of longer sentencing has not been proven to either prevent or discourage hate crimes.
Carolina Cordero Dyer, associate executive director of the Osborne Association, a group advocating prison reform, provides the Rockefeller drug laws as an example. That legislation led to an influx of incarcerated people and did not stop increase in drug use and sales. SRLP also points out that HCL becomes a symbolic gesture that provides a facade of governmental support of marginalized communities, while the government continues to ignore institutional reproduction of oppressive prejudices. In sum, the letter suggests reframing the issue of hate violence to be a question of "how can we help the survivor(s) and the community heal from this violence."
Along the same lines, much earlier in 2001, Katherine Whitlock of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization dedicated "to social justice, peace and humanitarian service," wrote the paper "In a Time of Broken Bones" to challenge the notion of justice vis−a−vis hate crimes and offers a vision of healing justice rooted in community action and interaction with the government while also pointing to the drawbacks and detrimental consequences of HCL, some of which are echoed above.
Lastly, to wrap this up, I'll end with the thoughts of Yasmin Nair, a writer, academic, activist, and commentator. In an article written for the Bilerico Project, a LGBTQ group blog, she stresses that HCL has several problems: one is determining what type of hatred was in play during the crime (i.e. hate "against gays … against someone who has more money than you, has "stolen your spouse," etc."), two is deciding which prejudice trumps others, and three concerns deciding the length of the penalty enhancement based on the prejudice. It is then clear that HCL cannot be properly examined within the limited scope that unquestioningly considers it a step toward more security and protection for the LGBTQ community.
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