tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/hate-crimes-16203/articlesHate crimes – The Conversation2024-03-01T02:56:27Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2246332024-03-01T02:56:27Z2024-03-01T02:56:27ZThe policing of LGBTQ+ people casts a long, dark shadow. Marching at Mardi Gras must be backed up with real change<p>Public trust and confidence in NSW Police has been sorely tested in the past two weeks. The charging of a police officer with the murders of a Sydney gay couple, Jesse Baird and Luke Davies, has seen shock turn to grief <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/feb/27/a-lot-of-hurt-and-anger-how-the-queer-community-feels-let-down-by-nsw-police">and then anger</a>. </p>
<p>NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb’s framing of the case as a “crime of passion” downplayed the alleged culpability of the accused, and overlooked the murders as possible <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/police-face-backlash-for-using-the-term-crime-of-passion-heres-why-its-irresponsible/b81xl9k0g">domestic violence</a>. The commissioner’s gratitude to the accused for leading police to the location of the remains of the deceased drew further ire. </p>
<p>Yet the most heated debate has been about the appropriateness of the police force’s presence in the 2024 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade. This focus has brought to the surface a spectrum of viewpoints on diversity and inclusion. Much of this focus has ignored the reasons why there is growing dissatisfaction with NSW police among many LGBTQ+ people. This is amid <a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/ongoing/report-on-government-services/2024/justice/rogs-2024-partc-overview-and-sections.pdf">ten-year lows</a> of public perceptions of police integrity nationally. Emotions have been running high. </p>
<p>But these recent events are part of a long and complicated history of the policing of LGBTQ+ people, and of Mardi Gras in particular.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/lgbtq-people-are-facing-increasing-persecution-globally-but-refugee-status-is-still-extremely-hard-to-get-207119">LGBTQ+ people are facing increasing persecution globally, but refugee status is still extremely hard to get</a>
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<h2>The ongoing stigma of criminalisation</h2>
<p>The first Mardi Gras in 1978 was a protest that <a href="https://www.mardigras.org.au/history-of-sydney-mardi-gras/">ended with violence</a> between the police and protesters, and the beating of many of the 53 arrestees while in police custody. The damage was exacerbated by the publication in The Sydney Morning Herald of the names, addresses and professions of those arrested. </p>
<p>The first Mardi Gras was held six years before the decriminalisation of homosexuality in NSW in 1984. That was a time when public attitudes were becoming more accepting of homosexuality. But coming out could still lead to you losing your job, and <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/karen-says-she-was-fired-by-a-christian-school-due-to-her-sexuality-shes-not-alone/155fd7f8v">still can</a>. Acting on your same-sex desire could also get you <a href="https://www.nsw.gov.au/departments-and-agencies/the-cabinet-office/resources/special-commissions-of-inquiry/lgbtiq-hate-crimes">killed</a>. </p>
<p>The deeper background to the policing of homosexuality in the 1970s was the expansion of laws and penalties against homosexuality amid increased vilification and discrimination against gays and lesbians after the second world war. The legacy of criminalisation continues through stigma that targets gay men, drag queens and <a href="https://theconversation.com/our-hybrid-media-system-has-emboldened-anti-lgbtq-hate-what-can-we-do-about-it-205028">transgender women</a> as “child groomers”. </p>
<p>It continues through so-called “conversion” therapies that seek to “correct” same-sex desire, often with <a href="https://ilga.org/Conversion-therapy-report-ILGA-World-Curbing-Deception">catastrophic consequences</a>. </p>
<h2>Community responses to the policing of Mardi Gras</h2>
<p>A viral video of police’s excessive force at the 2013 Mardi Gras parade resulted in <a href="https://www.acon.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Policing-Advocacy-document.pdf">LGBTQ+ community action</a>, and a 2014 <a href="https://www.starobserver.com.au/news/mardi-gras-police-premier-sign-new-mardi-gras-festival-accord/118358">memorandum of understanding</a> between Mardi Gras and NSW Police. </p>
<p>Central to that agreement was that Mardi Gras should be policed in a way that is safe and welcoming for all participants and spectators. </p>
<p>The issues with drug detection dogs were documented <a href="https://www.ombo.nsw.gov.au/Find-a-publication/publications/reports-to-parliament/police/review-of-the-police-powers-drug-detection-dogs-act-2001">comprehensively</a> by the NSW Ombudsman in 2006, yet NSW Police continues to use them at Mardi Gras and other festivals. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/theres-a-growing-gap-between-countries-advancing-lgbtq-rights-and-those-going-backwards-203329">There's a growing gap between countries advancing LGBTQ+ rights, and those going backwards</a>
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<p>This is despite the NSW coroner in 2019 recommending <a href="https://coroners.nsw.gov.au/documents/findings/2019/Music_Festival_Redacted_findings_in_the_joint_inquest_into_deaths_arising_at_music_festivals_.pdf">stopping the use</a> of drug detection dogs at music festivals in NSW. This is because, among other things, the presence of the dogs can cause panic ingestion of drugs by party-goers. </p>
<p>NSW Law Enforcement Conduct Commission investigations into strip searches conducted by NSW police officers found that many of the searches <a href="https://www.lecc.nsw.gov.au/news-and-publications/publications/final-report-an-inquiry-into-nsw-police-force-strip-search-practices-15-december-2020.pdf">were unlawful</a>. </p>
<h2>Apologies only go so far</h2>
<p>There have been apologies to the LGBTQ+ community over the years from politicians, police and the media, mainly about the treatment of the “78ers” who marched in the first Mardi Gras. </p>
<p>The most recent apology has come from the NSW police commissioner. The commissioner has apologised to the families of gay hate crime victims whose deaths were not properly investigated by NSW police over four decades from 1970 to 2010. </p>
<p>That apology was foregrounded by Justice John Sackar, who led the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ+ hate crimes in NSW. It handed down its findings in late 2023. </p>
<p>The police commissioner has come under fire for the time and placement of the apology, which was issued as an exclusive to The Sunday Telegraph as the search for Baird and Davies continued. Further, NSW police has <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/police-yet-to-accept-gay-hate-crime-inquiry-recommendations-despite-apology-20240225-p5f7n1.html">not officially responded</a> to the special commission’s recommendations. </p>
<p>Justice Sackar’s <a href="https://www.nsw.gov.au/departments-and-agencies/the-cabinet-office/resources/special-commissions-of-inquiry/lgbtiq-hate-crimes">overall impression</a> was that “in significant respects”, NSW Police’s engagement with the inquiry was “adversarial or unnecessarily defensive”. The judge noted that police strike forces Macnamir (2013), Parrabell (2015) and Neiwand (2015) failed in their assessment of hate as a motivator in historical homicides of gay men.</p>
<p>Two of these inquiries occurred after the Mardi Gras and NSW Police Force memorandum was established. In 2023, about two-thirds of the Mardi Gras membership voted to withdraw from it.</p>
<h2>Community taking back ownership</h2>
<p>Mardi Gras is a member-based organisation that champions LGBTQ+ social issues through leveraging the power of arts, culture, partnerships and celebration. </p>
<p>NSW police-branded pride paraphernalia at the festival sits in stark contrast with its invasive and harmful drug detection dog operations, aggressive policing, and ambivalence about addressing historic wrongs. </p>
<p>For many viewers of the Mardi Gras parade, the presence of the police in uniform may suggest the relationship between the LGBTQ+ community and NSW Police is a positive one. This is partly true.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/lgbtiq-people-are-being-ignored-in-the-census-again-not-only-is-this-discriminatory-its-bad-public-policy-165800">LGBTIQ+ people are being ignored in the census again. Not only is this discriminatory, it's bad public policy</a>
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<p>The force’s negative reaction to Mardi Gras’ request not to march in the 2024 parade illustrates the symbolic significance to police of marching in the parade, and its public relations value. </p>
<p>Mardi Gras members, and the Mardi Gras board, have decided that police force participation in the event is <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-26/sydney-mardi-gras-request-nsw-police-not-march-parade/103514440">conditional</a>. Police will now march, but out of uniform. </p>
<p>It remains to be seen whether NSW Police will deliver on greater transparency and accountability. If it decides to do so, the benefits will be realised well beyond LGBTQ+ communities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224633/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole L. Asquith is the Convener of the Australian Hate Crime Network, and in that role was contracted by the Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ Hate Crimes to provide paid, expert testimony.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin Ellis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s easy to assume the latest opposition to NSW police taking part in the annual festival is a response to recent events. Really, it’s the result of a long, painful history.Justin Ellis, Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Newcastle, University of NewcastleNicole L. Asquith, Director, Tasmanian Institute of Law Enforcement Studies, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2196992024-01-04T13:44:51Z2024-01-04T13:44:51ZStories about war, violence and hate crime can cause anxiety, anger and depression in kids – here’s how to discuss bad news with your children<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565047/original/file-20231212-27-4c2nj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C7348%2C4912&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">For younger children in particular, checking in on what they're seeing on social media is critical.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/looking-for-some-entertainment-online-royalty-free-image/1049816596?phrase=kids+watching+violent+images+on+social+media&searchscope=image%2Cfilm&adppopup=true">Tassii/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Violent photos and videos – whether from conflicts abroad or shootings near home – are commonplace, even ubiquitous, on television and social media today. The impact on children can be debilitating.</em></p>
<p><em>SciLine interviewed <a href="https://psychiatry.duke.edu/profile/robin-gurwitch">Dr. Robin Gurwitch</a>, a psychologist and professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University Medical Center, who discussed how these images and stories affect a child’s mental and emotional health; how the conversation about war and violence differs with young children, tweens and teens; and how to recognize signs that children are struggling with recent events.</em></p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Robin Gurwitch discusses how children react to scenes and stories of war, violence and hate.</span></figcaption>
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<p><em>Below are some highlights from the discussion. Answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.</em></p>
<p><strong>How do images and stories about war and violence affect children’s mental and emotional health?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Robin Gurwitch:</strong> The very short answer is, it’s not good. These events take a toll on our youth. We know from much academic <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fped.2016.00026">work in this area</a> that we see an increase in anxiety, in worries, in fears, in depression and, sometimes, an increase in anger. We see an increased sense of hopelessness, and then, at the extreme, an increase in risk for suicide. </p>
<p><strong>How should parents prepare for a conversation with their children about hate and hate crimes, war and violence?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Robin Gurwitch:</strong> Before we even begin to talk to our children, as adults we have to put in place our thoughts and feelings. What are the values and beliefs that we hold in the face of these types of events? Talk to friends and other trusted relatives to make sure that you have a handle on your emotions. </p>
<p><strong>What specific advice do you have for talking to very young children – and to older children?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Robin Gurwitch:</strong> With really young children, under preschool age and younger, they probably don’t know and won’t understand what’s going on. Yet they <a href="https://www.pbs.org/parents/thrive/helping-children-with-tragic-events-in-the-news">can sense your distress</a>. So making sure you keep their routines as consistent as possible will be helpful. </p>
<p>When we start talking about school-age children – assume they know. They’ve heard about it on the school bus. They’ve heard about it from friends. They’ve <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/parenting/kids-current-events.html">seen it on TV</a> when they’ve walked through the living room. </p>
<p>With them, I think you start the conversation saying, “There’s been …” And then fill in the event you’re going to talk about. “There’s been a shooting in Maine.” “There’s been a hurricane in Mexico.” “There’s been a terrorist attack in Israel and now there’s a war, and that’s really hard, but I want to talk to you about it. Tell me what you’ve heard about it.” </p>
<p>Allow them to have that ability to tell you what they’ve heard. Listen for and gently correct misinformation, rumors and misinterpretations. And then follow that up with, “How is that making you feel?” As they share their feelings with you, accept those rather than try to talk them out of them. It doesn’t work for adults, and it won’t work for children.</p>
<p><strong>What specific advice do you have for talking to tweens and teens?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Robin Gurwitch:</strong> Sometimes when we talk or try to talk to our tweens and teens, they give us the shoulder shrug, or they say, “I’m fine,” or nothing, or “Why do I need to tell you what I think?” So sometimes we may <a href="https://parentandteen.com/tragic-events/">take a different approach with them</a>. </p>
<p>Instead of saying, “Tell me what you know about the war happening between Israel and Hamas,” you may phrase it a little differently and say, “You know, the war between Israel and Hamas has been going on for several weeks. Tell me what your friends are saying about that,” or “What are you seeing on social media about the war?” </p>
<p>This approach gives them a little bit of distance from you. That is, they may be more willing to share about their friends and social media. And it gives you some insight on what they understand, what they believe, and gives you an opportunity to check in about any misperceptions or misinformation that they may have.</p>
<p><strong>What specific advice do you have for talking to college students?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Robin Gurwitch:</strong> There’s still a tether that binds the two of you as they’re continuing to grow into their own person. So, it is important to reach out. “Tell me what’s happening on campus related to the war in Israel and Gaza. What are professors saying? What are your classmates saying?” Check in to make sure that they feel safe and supported. And to let them know that you are there if they have any concerns, or any worries about anything, to give you a call and you’ll talk it through with them. </p>
<p><strong>How can parents monitor their children’s media diet and social media use while respecting their privacy?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Robin Gurwitch:</strong> When we’re talking about school-age children, parents and caregivers truly need to know what their social media is all about. They need to look at it. They need to make sure that it’s appropriate. </p>
<p>As children get older, they do <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2016/01/07/how-parents-monitor-their-teens-digital-behavior/">expect a little bit more privacy</a>. But I think it’s important for parents to say, “You know, I’ve heard from other parents” – you can throw other parents under the bus – “I’ve heard from other parents that there’s a lot of things on social media about the war in Israel,” or whatever the topic is. And let them know that oftentimes there are things on social media that just aren’t true. And to come to you if they have any questions about what they’re seeing or hearing, and you’ll tell them what you know to be true. </p>
<p>Also tell them that sometimes there are images that no one should see. If they see them, tell them to come to you so you can talk it through with them. Acknowledge that while their friends are seeing it, and they may be drawn to it, this can interfere with their sleep and their focus, because those images are hard to get out of our minds. </p>
<p><strong>What are some signs and symptoms that children or teens may be struggling with recent events?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Robin Gurwitch:</strong> We may see <a href="https://www.healthday.com/mental-health-information-25/behavior-health-news-56/violent-tv-shows-keep-young-kids-awake-study-667375.html">sleep problems</a>. Either problems falling asleep or staying asleep, so they may be more tired. Because of that and because of <a href="https://theconversation.com/disaster-news-on-tv-and-social-media-can-trigger-post-traumatic-stress-in-kids-thousands-of-miles-away-heres-why-some-are-more-vulnerable-173627">other reactions to stress</a>, children may be more irritable. </p>
<p>Younger children may have more meltdowns and temper tantrums, and even our tweens and teens – where we expect some of it – it’ll be above and beyond. We may see more conflict between you and your children, but also between your children and their peers. </p>
<p>We may see a lack of enjoyment with the things that they used to really look forward to or want to do. Sometimes we see problems with attention and focus and concentration. That can lead to difficulties with schoolwork. It’s not that they’re not studying hard. It’s not that they’re not trying their best. But being able to process and retain new information becomes really hard. </p>
<p>So a little bit of extra patience, maybe a little bit more help, attention and love really will go a long way these days.</p>
<p><em>Watch the <a href="https://vimeo.com/881835248">full interview</a> to hear more.</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.sciline.org/">SciLine</a> is a free service based at the nonprofit American Association for the Advancement of Science that helps journalists include scientific evidence and experts in their news stories.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219699/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robin Gurwitch receives funding from SAMHSA. Some of my efforts are funded as part of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, which is funded by SAMHSA. All work is non-profit. All funds for salary support go through my employer, not directly to me. </span></em></p>Talking about violence with teens and tweens is very different from the conversation you’ll have with younger children.Robin Gurwitch, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2195622023-12-19T22:01:29Z2023-12-19T22:01:29ZCanada must recognize anti-homeless attacks as hate crimes<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/canada-must-recognize-anti-homeless-attacks-as-hate-crimes" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Hate crime is a <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3510006601">growing concern in Canada</a>. These are crimes motivated by animosity, bias or hate toward some aspect of a victim’s identity.</p>
<p>Canada, and several other countries, have reported <a href="https://www.chrc-ccdp.gc.ca/en/resources/ending-violence-against-people-experiencing-homelessness-starts-upholding-their-human">recent increases in hate-motivated violence against unhoused people</a>. However, in Canada, people experiencing homelessness are not considered a protected class, nor does the law recognize them as people belonging to an “identifiable group.” </p>
<p>In Canada, hate-motivated crimes are those that target people from “<a href="https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/cj-jp/victim/rd16-rr16/p1.html">identifiable groups</a>” based on the “<a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/h-6/page-1.html#h-256795">prohibited grounds</a>” of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexuality, language, age and disability.</p>
<p>Unhoused people don’t necessarily fit neatly into one or more of these groups, and that means the hate directed toward them because they are unhoused is often ignored.</p>
<h2>Homelessness in Lethbridge</h2>
<p>In spring 2022, we interviewed and spent time with 50 unhoused people in Lethbridge, Atla., 34 of whom were Indigenous. Estimates suggest approximately <a href="https://www.homelesshub.ca/community-profile/lethbridge">450 people are unhoused in Lethbridge</a>, most of whom are Indigenous due to <a href="https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/indians-wear-red">historical and ongoing colonial oppression</a>. We asked participants about many things, including how they experienced street life and safety.</p>
<p>Approximately five per cent of Canadians have <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2022001/article/00002-eng.htm">experienced unsheltered homelessness</a>. This refers to people living in shelters, parks, tent cities or makeshift shelters. In the United States, data shows homelessness has risen to its <a href="https://apnews.com/article/homelessness-increase-rent-hud-covid-60bd88687e1aef1b02d25425798bd3b1">highest ever reported level</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azad065">Our research</a> in Lethbridge shows how poverty — and homelessness in particular — can dramatically increase a person’s risk of being a victim of a hate crime. </p>
<p>Put another way, being homeless compounds the risk factors that make people more vulnerable to hate-motivated attacks. We call this the “cumulative risk of hate crime victimization.”</p>
<h2>Anti-homeless hate crime</h2>
<p>Nearly all participants expressed feeling unsafe in downtown Lethbridge, fearing they may be attacked by a group they called the “White Gorillas.” Participants described them as a “white hate group” that predominantly targets unhoused Indigenous persons, especially Indigenous women. They also shared that White Gorilla violence was motivated by anti-homeless hatred, meaning the group could attack anyone living on the streets. </p>
<p>According to interviewees, the White Gorillas travelled in vehicles looking for vulnerable persons to attack. Some reported being victimized by the group themselves. Many others knew someone who had been verbally, physically or sexually abused by the group. As one participant stated: </p>
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<p>“They come into town. They beat the shit out of people. They take girls in their vehicles, and you know […] they lure them into that truck and take off out of town. Beat the shit out of them, rape them.”</p>
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<p>Experts describe hate crimes as “message crimes” because of how these attacks <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0269758011422475">instill fear in communities that share the victim’s identity</a>. Sociologists call this experience <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764201045004010">vicarious victimization</a>. </p>
<p>The routine attacks against our participants caused immense stress in Lethbridge’s unhoused community. Interviewees explained how they developed strategies to protect themselves. This included hiding, travelling in groups and avoiding the downtown core, especially at night. However, most saw these safety measures as futile due to the challenges of living outdoors and being visibly unhoused. </p>
<p>Some participants also shared that they reported these hate crimes to local police. The officers, they claim, were not interested in protecting victims nor investigating these attacks. </p>
<p>It is unclear whether these horrific acts were perpetrated by a singular, organized group. It is possible that they were committed by various persons who are unconnected to each other. However, the consequences of this victimization for people experiencing homelessness remain the same. </p>
<p>Anti-homeless violence and vicarious victimization introduce further challenges for unhoused people, as they limit their movement and access to social services out of fear of being victimized. </p>
<h2>What can we do?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.chrc-ccdp.gc.ca/en/resources/ending-violence-against-people-experiencing-homelessness-starts-upholding-their-human">The Canadian Human Rights Commission</a> has called for recognizing unhoused people’s human rights by acknowledging anti-homeless violence as a hate crime. </p>
<p>Current hate crime legislation does not list unhoused people as a protected class because homelessness is not an “<a href="https://www.canlii.org/en/commentary/doc/2019CanLIIDocs2012#!fragment//BQCwhgziBcwMYgK4DsDWszIQewE4BUBTADwBdoByCgSgBpltTCIBFRQ3AT0otokLC4EbDtyp8BQkAGU8pAELcASgFEAMioBqAQQByAYRW1SYAEbRS2ONWpA">immutable characteristic</a>.” This is despite the fact that some protected classes are also not static. For example, people can change their religion. Experiences with disability can also change over time. Thus, focusing on immutable characteristics is arguably based upon flawed logic. </p>
<p>Many unhoused people are an identifiable group vulnerable to attack precisely because of their unhoused status. Being unhoused makes Indigenous people more vulnerable to hate-motivated violence, especially Indigenous women. </p>
<p>This is a textbook example of what sociologists call <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/5/20/18542843/intersectionality-conservatism-law-race-gender-discrimination">intersectionality,</a> referring to how discrimination increases when a person is a member of multiple oppressed groups.</p>
<p>Governments can address the intersectional oppression of this violence by implementing the recommendations of the <a href="https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/final-report/">National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls</a> and the <a href="https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1450124405592/1529106060525">Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada</a>.</p>
<p>Anti-homeless violence should be designated a hate crime and people experiencing homelessness must be considered and treated as a protected class under Canadian law. Protected status may pressure cities to address housing insecurity and encourage law enforcement to track and investigate anti-homeless violence. However, improving public safety will not protect unhoused people from victimization. </p>
<p>The best way to protect unhoused people from the violence they face is to provide them with safe and permanent housing. The government priority must be to provide safe housing and services to reduce vulnerability. Governments must also work to decrease biases against people experiencing homelessness that increase their risk of hate crime victimization and make it easier to ignore their suffering.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219562/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katharina Maier receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carolyn Greene receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin Tetrault receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marta-Marika Urbanik receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Killam Trusts Foundation. </span></em></p>Being homeless compounds the risk factors that make people more vulnerable to hate-motivated attacks.Katharina Maier, Associate professor, Criminal Justice, University of WinnipegCarolyn Greene, Associate Professor, Criminology, Athabasca UniversityJustin Tetrault, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminology, University of AlbertaMarta-Marika Urbanik, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of AlbertaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2196822023-12-14T23:53:02Z2023-12-14T23:53:02ZThe Israeli-Palestinian conflict is putting Canadian multiculturalism to the test<p>In popular thinking, and according to its general image, Canada is considered to be open and welcoming to ethnocultural and religious diversity. </p>
<p>Immigration is perceived as an <a href="https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/af/index.php/af/article/view/29376">asset for Canada</a>, and over the decades, multiculturalism has come to be considered a value to be protected and cherished. This can be seen in <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/221026/dq221026b-eng.htm">the 2020 General Social Survey</a>, where 92 per cent of the population endorsed multiculturalism. <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-18.7/page-1.html">The Canadian Multiculturalism Act</a> states that multiculturalism is a “fundamental characteristic of the Canadian heritage and identity and that it provides an invaluable resource in the shaping of Canada’s future.” </p>
<p>However, since the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7 and the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, the demonstrations that have followed — both in favour of, and against Israel or in support of Palestine — have revealed many tensions linked to immigration. Hate crimes are also on the rise; in Toronto alone, there are reports of a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/hate-crime-rise-israel-gaza-1.7001288">132 per cent increase since the start of the conflict</a>.</p>
<p>So it is imperative to consider the potential for conflict within Canada’s various communities. The issue is particularly concerning for those who are simultaneously facing racism and the repercussions of ongoing conflicts in their countries of origin. For example, the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/sikh-separtist-movement-punjab-1.6981041">historical conflict between Hindus and Sikhs</a> is raising concern among Sikhs in Canada, particularly since one of their leaders was murdered in British Columbia.</p>
<p>As a sociologist who specializes in inclusive education, I quickly observed that racism and discrimination are significant issues in our society. I recently wrote an article entitled <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/trema/6042#:%7E:text=L'%C3%A9ducation%20inclusive%20englobe%20et,n%C3%A9gliger%20for%20all%20the%20worst">“Thinking about inclusive education in a context of discrimination and diversity in Canada,”</a> which explains, among other things, the limits of Canadian multiculturalism in the fight against discrimination. In line with the perspective <a href="https://www.ehess.fr/fr/personne/serge-paugam">of French sociologist Serge Paugam</a>, who maintains that the sociologist’s role includes speaking out <a href="https://www.puf.com/content/La_pratique_de_la_sociologie">“against all forms of domination,”</a> I will analyze how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is undermining this multiculturalism.</p>
<h2>Increase in hate crimes</h2>
<p>Statistics on hate crimes show that tensions do exist, in spite of the results of the 2020 survey. For example, from <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230322/cg-a004-eng.htm">2019 to 2021</a>, the Jewish community was the group most frequently targeted by hate crimes, and there was a significant increase in reports made to the police. In 2019, 306 antisemitic crimes were reported nationally. A year later this figure rose to 331 and by 2021, it had risen significantly to 492. <a href="https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/cj-jp/victim/rd16-rr16/p1.html">A further rise was recorded in 2022, with 502 incidents reported</a>. </p>
<p>Muslim communities have also been heavily affected by hate crime: in 2019, 182 incidents were reported. In 2020, this number fell to 84, but increased to 144 in 2021. Finally, Catholics have also been the target of hate crimes, with a significant increase in reports: in 2019, 51 cases were recorded compared with 43 in 2020 and 155 in 2021.</p>
<p>Ontario, the province with the highest number of immigrants in Canada, seems to have the highest percentage of hate crimes per capita. According to Statistics Canada data for 2021, Ottawa is the city with the highest rate of hate crime. <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3510019101">Among the top 10 Canadian cities most affected by the phenomenon, there are more than eight Ontario cities</a>.</p>
<h2>A switch in public opinion</h2>
<p>To put it bluntly, not all Canadians see multiculturalism as an asset, and this change is exacerbated by the ongoing conflict between two of the country’s most discriminated communities. All this is taking place in a context where Canada’s capacity to welcome immigrant populations is being questioned.</p>
<p>According to an <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/there-s-going-to-be-friction-two-thirds-of-canadians-say-immigration-target-is-too/article_7740ecbd-0aed-5d36-b5da-b67bda4a13c5.html">Abacus poll published on Nov. 29</a>, more than 67 per cent of the population believes that there will be tensions between communities, principally because of the federal government’s immigration threshold, which is considered excessive. The government is still aiming to welcome <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-immigration-500000-2025-1.6636661">more than 500,000 immigrants a year over the next few years</a>. On the other hand, Ottawa rejected the Century Initiative, led by a former McKinsey executive, which aimed to <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-canada-immigration-public-opinion/">increase Canada’s population to 100 million by 2100</a>. </p>
<p>According to <a href="https://nationalpost.com/opinion/canada-diversity-poll">another poll</a>, by Leger-Postmedia, more than 78 per cent of Canadians express concern about the impact of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the country. With respect to pro-Palestine demonstrations, more than three-quarters of those polled believe that the government should expel non-citizens who are guilty of hate speech or who have demonstrated support for Hamas from the country. </p>
<p>These figures show a major shift in public opinion about the value of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is no longer seen simply as making citizens aware of the richness of the country’s ethnocultural and religious diversity. It is also seen as supporting the various communities that live in, or want to immigrate to Canada. <a href="https://nationalpost.com/opinion/canada-diversity-poll">According to the same survey</a>, more than half say that the Canadian government should do more to ensure that newcomers accept Canadian values, and more than 55 per cent think that Canada’s immigration policy should encourage newcomers to adopt these values, in particular by abandoning any beliefs that are incompatible with Canada.</p>
<h2>An increasingly complex world</h2>
<p>The Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems to have shaken the foundations of multiculturalism. </p>
<p>It is striking to note how a value once considered fundamental — one that in 2020 was supported by more than 92 per cent of the population — can be questioned to this extent just three years later. On the other hand, it is important to remember that hate crimes existed before this conflict and that indicated multiculturalism was not as much of a “Canadian value” as it was believed to be. </p>
<p>Sociologist Edgar Morin maintains that <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095715589700802401?download=true&journalCode=frca">“diversity creates complexity and complexity creates richness</a>.” Of course, Canadian multiculturalism rightly relies upon the richness of diversity, but it’s now being called upon to renew itself in an increasingly complex society and world. </p>
<p>At times, Canadian multiculturalism gives the impression that communities are living side by side, tolerant of ‘the Other,’ without actually co-constructing a society in which everyone belongs. The social situation must not be allowed to deteriorate, because we do not want to live in a state of confrontation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219682/count.gif" alt="La Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christian J. Y. Bergeron ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>The recent conflict between Israel and Hamas has exacerbated hate crimes in Canada and put Canadian multiculturalism to the test.Christian J. Y. Bergeron, Professeur en sociologie de l’éducation, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of OttawaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2188942023-12-05T13:18:52Z2023-12-05T13:18:52ZHate crimes are on the rise − but the narrow legal definition makes it hard to charge and convict<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562802/original/file-20231130-25-4v25lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Hasidic man walks past a police patrol car in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/yorkan-hasidic-man-walks-past-a-patrol-car-on-december-12-news-photo/1193572212?adppopup=true">Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With hate crimes, context is everything, and events outside of the United States – like the war between Israel and Hamas – can have far-reaching and potentially tragic consequences. </p>
<p>Vermont police arrested a man in Burlington on Nov. 27, 2023, for allegedly shooting three 20-year-old Palestinian American men, seriously wounding them. Two of the men <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/29/us/hate-crime-explained-vermont-palestinian-shooting-reaj/index.html">wore Palestinian keffiyehs</a>, a traditional scarf that has come to symbolize Palestinian identity. </p>
<p><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/jason-james-eaton-vermont-shooting-232538664.html">Jason James Eaton</a>, the New York resident charged with the crime, has pleaded not guilty. Authorities are still investigating whether Eaton should be <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/suspect-pleads-guilty-vermont-shooting-3-college-students/story?id=105178995">charged with a hate crime</a>.</p>
<p>People often think an incident is a hate crime right away because of key characteristics of the people involved, but police tend to be reluctant to make such a quick declaration.</p>
<p>Hate crimes and hate murders are rising across the U.S., but long-term polling data suggests that most Americans are <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/27613/public-favors-expansion-hate-crime-law-include-sexual-orientation.aspx">horrified by bias-motivated violence</a>. They also support hate crime legislation, an effort to deter such attacks.</p>
<p>Yet officials often resist the quick classification of incidents as a hate crime. </p>
<p>For instance, the shooting of the three Palestinian Americans in Vermont has yet to be classified as a hate crime. Several days later, authorities are still conducting an investigation into what prompted the shooting. Investigations like this are required because hate crimes have precise qualities, which must be met in order to satisfy legal requirements. And even when police and prosecutors believe the elements of a hate crime are present, such crimes can be difficult to prove in court. </p>
<h2>A rise in hate since October</h2>
<p>The Vermont shooting <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/16/us/chicago-muslim-boy-stabbing-investigation/index.html">followed a landlord in Chicago</a> allegedly fatally stabbing a 6-year-old Palestinian American tenant 26 times in October 2023, following a brief discussion with the child’s mother about the war in the Middle East. The <a href="https://apnews.com/article/muslim-boy-killed-chicago-landlord-will-county-5135dea218326d6e639a996564d9369e">assailant, who has pleaded not guilty, was charged</a> with a hate crime. </p>
<p>There has been a <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/anti-muslim-anti-jewish-incidents-rise/story?id=104760450">sharp spike in attacks</a> on both Jews and Palestinians since Hamas’ attack on Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel’s subsequent ground invasion of Gaza.</p>
<p>The Anti-Defamation League, an advocacy group that tracks antisemitism, reported at the end of October 2023 that <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/29/us/hate-crimes-antisemitism-anti-muslim-dg/index.html">antisemitic incidents increased</a> 388% in the week after Oct 7. These include physical assaults and violent online messages.</p>
<p>In New York City, for example, <a href="https://abc7ny.com/nyc-crime-woman-punched-in-subway-station-hate-nypd/13937169/">a man punched a 29-year-old woman</a> in the face before he told her, “You are Jewish.” </p>
<p>The advocacy group Council on American-Islamic Relations has also documented a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/09/us/cair-unprecedented-surge-anti-muslim-bias-reaj/index.html">216% increase in requests for help</a> and bias incidents compared with 2022 figures. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562799/original/file-20231130-15-i98g5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three people stand and kneel next to a large pile of flowers, balloons and signs perched on grass, off of a sidewalk." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562799/original/file-20231130-15-i98g5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562799/original/file-20231130-15-i98g5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562799/original/file-20231130-15-i98g5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562799/original/file-20231130-15-i98g5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562799/original/file-20231130-15-i98g5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562799/original/file-20231130-15-i98g5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562799/original/file-20231130-15-i98g5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People visit a memorial for 6-year-old Palestinian American Wadea Al-Fayoume. The landlord of the building where the boy’s family lived pleaded not guilty in October 2023 to hate crime and murder charges.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-visit-a-memorial-in-front-of-the-home-where-6-year-news-photo/1741929000?adppopup=true">Scott Olson/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What is a hate crime?</h2>
<p>I have studied <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NW3t09QAAAAJ&hl=en">hate crime and police for over 20 years</a>.</p>
<p>Hate crimes are crimes motivated by bias on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity. In some states, gender, age and gender identity are also included. Hate crime laws have been passed by 47 states and the federal government since the 1980s, when activists first began to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1389346?seq=1">press state legislatures to recognize the role of bias in violence against minority groups</a>. Today, only Indiana, Mississippi, New Hampshire and South Carolina <a href="https://www.fau.edu/newsdesk/articles/hate-crime-legislation.php">do not have any hate crime laws</a>. </p>
<p>Both Illinois and Vermont have laws that impose more severe penalties if an alleged offender’s crime is motivated by someone’s race, religion or ethnicity. </p>
<p>In order to be charged as a hate crime, attacks – whether assault, killings or vandalism – must be directed at individuals because of the prohibited biases. Hate crimes, in other words, punish motive; the prosecutor must convince the judge or jury that the victim was targeted because of their race, religion, sexual orientation or other protected characteristic. </p>
<p>If the defendant is found to have acted with bias motivation, hate crimes often add an additional penalty to the underlying charge. Charging people with a hate crime, then, <a href="https://jhs.press.gonzaga.edu/articles/abstract/10.33972/jhs.34/">presents additional layers of complexity</a> to what may otherwise be a straightforward case for prosecutors. Bias motivation can be hard to prove, and prosecutors can be reluctant to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-433720210000085003">take cases that they may not win</a> in court.</p>
<p>It can and does happen, though. In June 2020, Shepard Hoehn placed a burning cross and a sign with racial slurs and epithets facing the construction site where his new neighbor, who is Black, was building a house. Hoehn was charged with and later pleaded guilty to <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/indiana-man-pleads-guilty-hate-crime-making-racially-charged-motivated-threats-toward-black">federal hate crime charges</a> in Indiana. </p>
<p>A few months later, Maurice Diggins was convicted by a federal jury of a 2018 hate crime for breaking the jaw of a Sudanese man in Maine <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/maine-man-sentenced-federal-hate-crime-convictions">while shouting racial epithets</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390660/original/file-20210319-23-4bba6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Video still of young blond man in prison jumpsuit surrounded by armed guards" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390660/original/file-20210319-23-4bba6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390660/original/file-20210319-23-4bba6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390660/original/file-20210319-23-4bba6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390660/original/file-20210319-23-4bba6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390660/original/file-20210319-23-4bba6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390660/original/file-20210319-23-4bba6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390660/original/file-20210319-23-4bba6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dylann Roof, who killed nine worshippers at a Black church in South Carolina in 2015, was convicted of 33 charges, including hate crimes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-this-image-from-the-video-uplink-from-the-detention-news-photo/477782304?adppopup=true">Grace Beahm-Pool/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How to charge a hate crime</h2>
<p>The first use of the term “hate crime” in federal legislation was the <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/101/hr1048">Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990</a>. This was not a criminal statute but rather a data-gathering requirement that mandated that the U.S. attorney general collect data on crimes that “evidenced prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.” </p>
<p>Soon, states began passing their own laws recognizing bias crimes. But hate crime legislation has not led to as many charges and convictions as activists may have hoped.</p>
<p>Law enforcement struggles to identify hate crime and prosecute the offenders. Even though 47 states have hate crime laws, 86.1% of law enforcement agencies reported to the FBI that not a single hate crime <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2019/topic-pages/jurisdiction">had occurred in their jurisdiction in 2019</a>, according to FBI data.</p>
<p>In many cases, police have received <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/hate-endures-in-america-and-with-it-our-effort-to-document-the-damage">inadequate training</a> in making hate crime classification. </p>
<p>“What weights do you give to race, dope, territory? These things are 90% gray – there are no black-and-white incidents,” said <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3054119?seq=1">one 20-year veteran police officer in a 1996 study of hate crime</a>.</p>
<p>But I’ve also found that police departments are rarely organized in a way that allows them to develop the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764207306054">expertise necessary to effectively investigate hate crimes</a>. When police departments have specialized police units and prosecutors who are <a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814798973/policing-hatred/">committed to taking on hate crime</a>, they can develop the routines that allow them to investigate hate crime in a manner that supports victims.</p>
<p>Even law enforcement officers specifically trained in bias crime identification still may not name incidents as hate crime that, <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/hate-endures-in-america-and-with-it-our-effort-to-document-the-damage">to the general public, seem obviously bias-driven</a>. This may be the result of police bias.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390661/original/file-20210319-19-319ekc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Fire inspector walks through ruins of a charred building, looking at the ground" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390661/original/file-20210319-19-319ekc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390661/original/file-20210319-19-319ekc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390661/original/file-20210319-19-319ekc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390661/original/file-20210319-19-319ekc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390661/original/file-20210319-19-319ekc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390661/original/file-20210319-19-319ekc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390661/original/file-20210319-19-319ekc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When arson targets a temple, mosque or cultural center, it may be investigated as a hate crime.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/houston-fire-department-arson-investigator-inspects-the-news-photo/463382360?adppopup=true">Aaron M. Sprecher/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Limits of the law</h2>
<p>Advocates for hate crime victims maintain that <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/hate-crime-training-for-police-is-often-inadequate-sometimes-nonexistent">police and prosecutors can do much more</a> to identify and punish hate crimes. </p>
<p>Empirical evidence supports their claims. </p>
<p>The FBI’s latest report on hate crimes, from 2022, found that <a href="https://www.justice.gov/crs/highlights/2022-hate-crime-statistics">hate crime incidents rose from 10,840 in 2021 to 11,634 in 2022</a>. But past National Crime Victimization Surveys, in which <a href="https://bjs.ojp.gov/data-collection/ncvs">victims self-report</a> hate crimes, <a href="https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/hcs1317pp.pdf">tend to include more incidents than the government documents</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/kids-perceptions-of-police-fall-as-they-age-for-black-children-the-decline-starts-earlier-and-is-constant-145511">Distrust of police</a>, especially in Black communities, may dissuade minorities from even calling the police when they are victimized by hate crime for fear they could also become <a href="https://theconversation.com/police-shootings-and-race-in-america-five-essential-reads-65847">victims of police violence</a>. </p>
<p>All this means that perpetrators of hate crimes may not be caught and can re-offend, further victimizing communities that are meant to be protected by hate crime laws.</p>
<p>Hate crime laws reflect American ideals of fairness, justice and equity. But if crimes motivated by bias aren’t reported, well investigated, charged or brought to trial, it matters little what state law says.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated from a Conversation story <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-a-hate-crime-the-narrow-legal-definition-makes-it-hard-to-charge-and-convict-157488">originally published on March 19,</a> 2021.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218894/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeannine Bell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There has been a sharp uptick in crimes specifically targeting Muslim and Jewish people since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out in October 2023.Jeannine Bell, Professor of Law, Loyola University ChicagoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2175372023-11-14T03:16:30Z2023-11-14T03:16:30ZShining a light on injustice: how an inquiry fought for LGBTIQ recognition<p>The New South Wales Special <a href="https://lgbtiq.specialcommission.nsw.gov.au/">Commission of Inquiry</a> into LGBTIQ hate crimes has held its final public sitting in Sydney today. </p>
<p>The special commission investigated unsolved suspected hate crime deaths of LGBTIQ people (or people who were presumed to be LGBTIQ) in NSW between 1970 and 2010. </p>
<p>In his closing remarks, Justice John Sackar reiterated that the objective was “to provide some recognition of the truth” for LGBTIQ victims in cases where “the response of the community, of society, [and] of its institutions to these deaths was sadly lacking”.</p>
<p>The inquiry has revealed new leads in decades-old cold cases, and importantly, been dogged in its pursuit of justice for victims and their families.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gender-sexual-orientation-and-ethnic-identity-australians-could-be-asked-new-questions-in-the-2026-census-210543">Gender, sexual orientation and ethnic identity: Australians could be asked new questions in the 2026 Census</a>
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<h2>Months of hearings, piles of evidence</h2>
<p>Launched by the NSW government in April 2022, the special commission had extensive powers to compel witnesses to give evidence and to compel the production of more than 150,000 documents. </p>
<p>The deaths of 32 people have been examined in 17 public, and 48 private hearings.</p>
<p>The special commission was driven by a need to clarify aspects of previous investigations by the NSW Police Force, including Strike Forces <a href="https://www.police.nsw.gov.au/safety_and_prevention/your_community/working_with_lgbtqia/lgbtqia_accordian/strike_force_parrabell">Parrabell</a>, Macnamir, and Neiwand.</p>
<p>This was recommended by a NSW <a href="https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/committees/inquiries/Pages/inquiry-details.aspx?pk=2562#tab-reportsandgovernmentresponses">parliamentary inquiry</a> into gay and transgender hate crimes between 1970 and 2010. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.aconhealth.org.au/report_into_historic_gay_hate_murders_calls_for_justice_and_healing">Research</a> published by ACON, a community health organisation, was integral in the inquiry.</p>
<h2>Breakthroughs in decades-old cases</h2>
<p>The special commission has uncovered a range of issues with some of the initial investigations. These included <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-28/gay-hate-inquiry-nsw-police-refused-investigate-bondi-homicides/102537192">lack of investigation</a>, forensic testing issues, and problems with the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-21/nsw-gay-hate-crime-inquiry-police-reverse-findings-in-murders/102003372">Strike Force inquiries</a> undertaken by NSW Police Force.</p>
<p>But it has also made several breakthroughs. Justice Sackar noted two of these in his closing remarks. </p>
<p>One is in relation to the death of Crispin Dye, who died on Christmas Day in 1993 after being assaulted two days earlier. </p>
<p>In the 30 years since 1993, almost none of the exhibits collected by the NSW Police Force at that time had been subjected to forensic testing. This included his <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-22/nsw-gay-hate-inquiry-crispin-dye-new-person-of-interest/102758744">bloodstained clothing</a>.</p>
<p>The special commission arranged for such testing to occur, and which led to two major developments. </p>
<p>It unearthed a match to a DNA profile taken from a 2002 crime scene. This resulted in the identification of an unknown (but now deceased) man and revealed possible avenues of inquiry into him and his associates. </p>
<p>The second case mentioned was that of Ernest Head, who was murdered in his home in Summer Hill in 1976. His body was found naked, having been stabbed 35 times. </p>
<p>The Special Commission arranged for re-analysis of palmprints and certain other exhibits in relation to Head’s case, which resulted in the identification of a known (but now deceased) man, thought to be involved in Head’s death. </p>
<p>The man in question had never previously been identified as a possible person of interest in relation to this unsolved homicide. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-chinese-government-claims-lgbtq-people-are-protected-from-discrimination-our-interviews-with-26-activists-tell-another-story-215158">The Chinese government claims LGBTQ+ people are protected from discrimination. Our interviews with 26 activists tell another story</a>
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<h2>Victims front and centre</h2>
<p>The special commission received and reviewed information provided by more than 130 members of the public and has clarified ambiguities over unsolved suspected hate crime deaths of LGBTIQ people in NSW. </p>
<p>In addition to the cases noted above, it has generated new leads in cold cases that may provide comfort to family and friends who continue to seek answers about what happened to their loved ones. </p>
<p>In shining a light on everything that is known or could be found out about what happened in these cases, Justice Sackar stated in his closing remarks:</p>
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<p>Many voiceless people have been given a voice. Recommendations will be made. Improvements in processes and procedures should follow. There is scope for people of goodwill – of whom there are many in this arena – to come together, if they so choose, and work towards a better future.</p>
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<p>As such, the special commission has emphasised the importance of the pursuit of justice, even decades after crimes have been committed.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dont-say-anything-about-it-why-so-many-lgbtqia-buddhists-feel-pressure-to-hide-their-identities-212253">'Don't say anything about it': why so many LGBTQIA+ Buddhists feel pressure to hide their identities</a>
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<h2>State commission, national significance</h2>
<p>At a time when LGBTIQ individuals and communities in Australia and globally are experiencing <a href="https://theconversation.com/our-hybrid-media-system-has-emboldened-anti-lgbtq-hate-what-can-we-do-about-it-205028">a resurgence</a> of online and in-person hate, the Commission’s findings are likely to have national ramifications. </p>
<p>Given the indifference towards violence and hostility directed at LGBTIQ people in NSW over the 40 year period examined by the special commission, it is timely that other Australian jurisdictions consider whether they also need to address these issues. </p>
<p>The special commission is a timely reminder of the necessity for LGBTIQ individuals and communities to remain vigilant, for police to better respond and listen to victims’ and witnesses’ experiences, and for governments to actively prioritise inclusion. </p>
<p>The final report from the special commission will be handed to the NSW Governor by 15 December 2023.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217537/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole L. Asquith was contracted by and received funding from the Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ Hate Crimes to provide expert testimony. Nicole is the Convenor of the Australian Hate Crime Network.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin Ellis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The New South Wales Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ hate crimes has held its final public sitting in Sydney today. It’s been dogged in its pursuit of justice for victims and their families.Justin Ellis, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Newcastle, University of NewcastleNicole L. Asquith, Director, Tasmanian Institute of Law Enforcement Studies, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2164162023-10-30T21:34:56Z2023-10-30T21:34:56ZIsrael-Hamas war: Canada must act to prevent hate crimes against Muslim and Jewish communities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556728/original/file-20231030-29-z9qjr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4496%2C3000&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People marching from Manhattan to Brooklyn against the rise in antisemitism in New York in 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/israel-hamas-war-canada-must-act-to-prevent-hate-crimes-against-muslim-and-jewish-communities" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The violence in Israel and Palestine has <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-israel-gaza-conflict-is-so-hard-to-talk-about-216149">reached brutal and devastating levels</a> in recent weeks. Thousands have been killed and injured. Witnessing the extreme violence against civilians has been polarizing for many around the world. </p>
<p>In such a climate, potential hate crimes and the spillover effects of the ongoing conflict need to be addressed and governments need to take action to prevent grave consequences. <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2023/10/9/israeli-defence-minister-orders-complete-siege-on-gaza">Dehumanizing rhetoric</a> is further inflaming the situation and risks leading to even more extreme violence. </p>
<p>Already, we have witnessed tragic consequences of the violence unfold in different communities. A Chicago-area man was recently arrested and charged with murder and hate crimes after police alleged <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/15/us/chicago-landlord-attack-muslim-boy-mother/index.html">he stabbed a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy to death</a>. </p>
<p>Police in <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/hate-crime-rise-israel-gaza-1.7001288">Toronto</a> and <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/10040666/montreal-police-hate-crimes-israel-hamas-jewish-muslim-arab-community/">Montreal</a> have reported an increase in hate crime calls since the beginning of the conflict on Oct. 7. </p>
<h2>Hate on the rise</h2>
<p><a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230322/dq230322a-eng.htm">Recent statistics</a> indicate that religiously motivated hate crimes are on the rise in Canada. There has been a 67 per cent increase in police-reported hate crimes from 2020 to 2021, with a specific rise in hate crimes against Muslim (71 per cent) and Jewish (47 per cent) Canadians. </p>
<p>Canada has the <a href="https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/about/communities/ca">fourth-largest Jewish community in the world</a>, with a population of over 390,000, and a Muslim population of around two million people. In recent years, there have been violent attacks against Muslim Canadians such as the killing of the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/london-muslim-family-attack-what-we-know-1.6057745">Afzaal family</a> in London, Ont., the <a href="https://globalnews.ca/tag/quebec-city-mosque-shooting/">mosque attack</a> that killed six Muslims during prayers in Québec, and violent attacks against hijab-wearing Muslim women in <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-police-muslim-women-hijabs-assaulted-1.5903427">Alberta</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-islamophobia-and-anti-palestinian-racism-are-manufactured-through-disinformation-216119">How Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism are manufactured through disinformation</a>
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<p>Jewish Canadians have been attacked through a variety of <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/corporate/transparency/open-government/standing-committee/ahmed-hussen-pch-contract-cmac/antisemitism-canada.html">hate crimes</a> including vandalism and graffiti, online and offline racist propaganda and bomb threats to Jewish schools and community centres.</p>
<h2>Conflicts trigger hate crimes</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://gupea.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/68492">2021 study</a> from the United States explored whether the Israeli-Palestinian conflict leads to acts of hatred towards Jews and Muslims. The study discovered that instances of conflict trigger hate crimes, displaying a retaliatory trend: occurrences of hate crimes against Jews escalate following Israeli assaults, whereas incidents of hate crimes against Muslims increase after Palestinian attacks.</p>
<p>The threat against Muslim and Jewish communities has become more concerning given the rising violence in the region and its potential spillover. </p>
<p>These effects on diaspora groups have been observed across different countries. <a href="https://theconversation.com/turkish-kurdish-conflict-spills-over-into-europe-47610">Turkish and Kurdish diasporas in Europe</a> have been affected by the decades-long conflict between the Turkish government and the <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/content/turkiyes-pkk-conflict-visual-explainer">Kurdistan Workers’ Party</a>. </p>
<p>Occasional tensions and violence break out between diaspora communities, especially when the political situation back home becomes fraught or violent. Similar tensions have been seen between <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17449057.2023.2199601">Turkish and Armenian diasporas</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17449057.2023.2199598">Hindu and Muslim</a> diasporas. </p>
<p>Rising hate crimes can negatively affect the psychological and physical well-being of diaspora communities. Even if they are not directly targeted, people can experience fear and insecurity in their daily lives. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://doi.org/10.5204/ijcjsd.v9i4.1514">recent research study</a> on the impacts of hate crimes, colleagues and I found that victims significantly changed their lifestyles to avoid conflict; as a result, they became alienated from their own community and society. These changes might include moving to another neighbourhood or city, changing daily routines and avoiding being in certain places and attending group activities.</p>
<h2>Canada’s role</h2>
<p>To prevent the spillover effects of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, the Canadian government should take a proactive role. This includes fostering a sincere dialogue and understanding among diverse communities through genuine campaigns and listening to the concerns of each affected community. Community leaders must also be involved in these efforts. </p>
<p>Establishing <a href="https://cacp.ca/index.html?asst_id=2131">hate crime investigation units</a> within Canadian police forces is a more professional approach to preventing and investigating hate crimes. Communities should be informed about the existence of these units, and invited to come forward when they feel intimidated or witness any hate crimes. Police officers should also be trained about the unique aspects of international conflicts and how best to intervene in conflicts among diaspora groups.</p>
<p>In a broader sense, the Canadian government should actively engage in diplomatic efforts through international organizations and bilateral relationships to reduce the violence we are now seeing. </p>
<p>Canada has committed to <a href="https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/readouts/2023/10/13/prime-minister-justin-trudeau-speaks-president-palestinian-authority">provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza</a> and called for “<a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/canada-calling-for-humanitarian-pauses-to-be-considered-amid-israel-hamas-war-1.6615146">humanitarian pauses on hostilities</a>,” but much more must be done to ensure a fair and peaceful resolution. Much of the world has called for an immediate ceasefire, however, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/27/unga-calls-for-humanitarian-truce-in-israel-hamas-war-how-countries-voted">Canada remains among a minority of countries to not do so</a>. </p>
<p>Canada must join calls for an urgent ceasefire to end the violence in Israel and Palestine, and avoid violence at home.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216416/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Davut Akca does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>International conflicts can often trigger hate crimes against diasporas and other connected communities. Canadian governments should take action to prevent a rise in hate crimes.Davut Akca, Assistant Professor, Criminology, Lakehead UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2060622023-05-23T12:25:54Z2023-05-23T12:25:54ZWhite House plan to combat antisemitism takes on centuries of hatred, discrimination and even lynching in America<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527578/original/file-20230522-21-ntbmq9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C13%2C2986%2C2285&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bess Myerson, center, was crowned Miss America in 1945, but was turned away from hotels that did not admit Jews when she went on tour. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BessMyerson/974fb5c9447947cfab3bb849c9625d78/photo?Query=Bess%20Myerson%20Miss%20America&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=40&currentItemNo=6">AP photo/Sam Myers</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/report/audit-antisemitic-incidents-2022">reported antisemitic incidents</a> in the U.S. in 2022 soared to an all-time high, the White House began developing plans to combat this hate, proclaiming in an official statement, “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/12/12/statement-from-white-house-press-secretary-karine-jean-pierre-on-inter-agency-group-to-counter-antisemitism/">antisemitism has no place in America</a>.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/U.S.-National-Strategy-to-Counter-Antisemitism.pdf">The U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism</a>, released on May 25, 2023, was based on conversations with more than a thousand stakeholders, including me, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=EPN4PGAAAAAJ&hl=en">a scholar of American Jewish history</a>. The plan outlines over 100 steps for federal agencies to take in the coming year and calls upon Congress, state and local governments and the private sector to join them. Understanding that history matters, those steps include raising awareness of antisemitism in the present and the past, and expanding knowledge of Jewish heritage in the U.S.</p>
<p>That heritage has two sides. Its bright side honors the achievements of America’s Jews and their many contributions to this nation. Its darker side contains a long history of antisemitism from Colonial days to today.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527583/original/file-20230522-23-4hsrtn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Writing is seen on the glass doors of a tire merchant's storefront." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527583/original/file-20230522-23-4hsrtn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527583/original/file-20230522-23-4hsrtn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527583/original/file-20230522-23-4hsrtn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527583/original/file-20230522-23-4hsrtn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527583/original/file-20230522-23-4hsrtn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527583/original/file-20230522-23-4hsrtn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527583/original/file-20230522-23-4hsrtn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Antisemitic graffiti reading ‘Kill all Jews’ is scrawled on a storefront in the Bronx, New York City, during the U.S. presidential campaign of 1944.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/anti-semitic-graffiti-on-the-h-jaffess-tire-company-shop-in-news-photo/1243626506?adppopup=true">FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Governors, generals and members of Congress</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0Ec8M6CoRM">During the recent celebration</a> marking <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2023/04/28/a-proclamation-on-jewish-american-heritage-month-2023/">Jewish American Heritage Month</a> at the White House, Jewish accomplishments were spotlighted. Michaela Diamond and Ben Platt, stars of the Broadway revival of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/16/theater/parade-review-leo-frank.html">the musical “Parade</a>,” performed. That these actors, the show’s book writer, <a href="https://www.georgiawritershalloffame.org/honorees/alfred-uhry">Alfred Uhry</a>, and its composer, <a href="https://jasonrobertbrown.com/">Jason Robert Brown</a>, are all Jewish attests to Jews’ presence and contributions to American theater, the arts and beyond.</p>
<p>Yet “Parade” tells the story of one terrible episode in the history of American antisemitism. </p>
<p>In 1913, <a href="https://guides.loc.gov/chronicling-america-leo-frank">Leo Frank</a>, the manager of an Atlanta pencil factory and a Jew, was accused of having murdered one of his teenage workers. Frank maintained his innocence, and the trial became a national media circus. </p>
<p>Mobs gathered outside the courtroom. Frank’s attorney told the court, <a href="https://www.leofrank.org/trial-and-evidence/defense/reuben-rose-arnold/">had Frank not been a Jew</a>, he never would have been prosecuted. </p>
<p>Even as the <a href="https://www.famous-trials.com/leo-frank/35-clemencydecision">trial judge questioned Frank’s guilt</a>, the jury convicted him, and Frank was sentenced to hang. Two years later, after Georgia’s governor commuted that sentence to life imprisonment, a gang of vigilantes, without firing a shot, <a href="https://guides.loc.gov/chronicling-america-leo-frank">kidnapped Frank from jail and lynched him</a>.</p>
<p>Antisemitism had arrived in America 250 years before Leo Frank’s murder. In September 1654, after 23 Jewish refugees fleeing the persecution in colonial Brazil landed in Manhattan, the colony’s governor, Peter Stuyvesant, tried to eject this <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43057824">“deceitful race” of “blasphemers” and “enemies</a>.” </p>
<p>He failed. </p>
<p>Yet during the Civil War, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant did <a href="https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/ulysses-s-grant-and-general-orders-no-11.htm">expel Jews</a> from his military district, the District of the Tennessee, which spanned from the southern tip of Illinois to the Gulf of Mexico, an order President Abraham Lincoln countermanded. </p>
<p>In the 1940s, <a href="https://history.house.gov/People/Detail/20149">Rep. John Rankin</a>, a Democrat from Mississippi, <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bound-congressional-record/1949/02/09/house-section">railed against the Jews</a> from the House floor, claiming that Jews “have been for 1,900 years trying to destroy Christianity, and everything that is based on Christian principles.” They had already “virtually destroyed Europe,” ranted Rankin, and were now doing the same to America.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527584/original/file-20230522-27-47lpen.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A rectangular historic marker on a pole outside, with the heading 'Leo Frank lynching,' describing the circumstances of Frank's death." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527584/original/file-20230522-27-47lpen.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527584/original/file-20230522-27-47lpen.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527584/original/file-20230522-27-47lpen.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527584/original/file-20230522-27-47lpen.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527584/original/file-20230522-27-47lpen.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527584/original/file-20230522-27-47lpen.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527584/original/file-20230522-27-47lpen.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Georgia Historical Society’s marker of the site where Leo Frank was lynched.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Resited_Leo_Frank_Marker.jpg#/media/File:Resited_Leo_Frank_Marker.jpg">Wikipedia By Jrryjude</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<h2>‘Misfortune’ to be a Jew</h2>
<p>Powerful voices from the private sector joined governors, generals and members of Congress in spouting antisemitism. </p>
<p>In May 1920, the newspaper The Dearborn Independent, owned by the automobile tycoon <a href="https://corporate.ford.com/articles/history/henry-ford-biography.html">Henry Ford</a>, ran the headline “<a href="https://www.associationforjewishstudies.org/publications-research/adventures-in-jewish-studies-podcast/the-protocols-henry-ford-and-the-international-jew-transcript">The International Jew: The World’s Problem</a>.” For the next 91 weeks, the weekly ran a series of articles decrying Jewish power and Jews’ dangerous influence on American life.</p>
<p>The paper’s <a href="https://www.americanjewisharchives.org/snapshots/henry-ford-and-antisemitism-the-notorious-dearborn-independent">circulation soared</a> as copies were distributed in every Ford dealership and sent to every member of Congress.</p>
<p>News of Ford’s antisemitism even reached Adolf Hitler, who, in March 1923, in the early days of the Nazi Party, told a Chicago reporter how much he admired Ford’s anti-Jewish policies. If he could, Hitler said, he would send some of his so-called “<a href="https://chicagotribune.newspapers.com/image/354941273/?terms=%22Heinrich&match=1">shock troops</a>” to America to support Ford.</p>
<p>Encounters with antisemitism, and not only those from public figures, linger in the memories of American Jews. My book “<a href="https://pamelanadell.com/">America’s Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to Today</a>” highlighted some of them. In the 1880s, a Philadelphia writer ruefully recalled a teacher saying: “It is your misfortune, not your fault, <a href="https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/monographs/gh93h1824?locale=en">that you are a Jew</a>.”</p>
<p>In 1945, just days after World War II ended, <a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/myerson-bess">Bess Myerson</a>, a Jewish woman from the Bronx, was crowned Miss America. Heading out on tour after the pageant, this Miss America <a href="https://forward.com/culture/212132/bess-myerson-the-bronx-beauty-who-refused-to-chang/">was turned away</a> from what were called “restricted” hotels, which did not admit Jews. Three of the pageant’s sponsors refused to feature a Jewish Miss America in their ads. Myerson spent part of her year wearing her crown speaking out against antisemitism. Meanwhile, returning American GIs who had <a href="https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/american-forces-enter-buchenwald-1945">liberated the concentration camps</a> had seen with their own eyes just where antisemitism could lead.</p>
<p>The antisemitism the White House hopes to combat today rests on this history and much more. </p>
<p>The White House plan comes just as the trial of the man accused of the deadliest hate crime against American Jews, the murder of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/tree-of-life-shooting-trial.html">11 worshippers in a Pittsburgh synagogue</a> in October 2018, gets underway.</p>
<p><em>This story has been updated to reflect that the White House issued the plan on May 25, 2023.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206062/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pamela S. Nadell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Incidents of antisemitism in the US have risen to historic levels, and the White House has vowed to fight them.Pamela S. Nadell, Professor and Patrick Clendenen Chair in Women's & Gender History and Director of the Jewish Studies Program, American UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2037672023-04-18T12:19:39Z2023-04-18T12:19:39ZKenya should decriminalise homosexuality: 4 compelling reasons why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520830/original/file-20230413-14-r1pv5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Activists agitate for equal rights for all in Nairobi, Kenya, in January 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tony Karumba/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Kenya has recently seen the <a href="https://kohljournal.press/health-and-freedom">increasing visibility</a> of sexual and gender minorities. However, this has been met with <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/3/15/how-an-lgbtq-court-ruling-sent-kenya-into-a-moral-panic">a growing backlash</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4uGzjZIzM8">Religious</a> and <a href="https://ntvkenya.co.ke/news/gachagua-on-lgbtq-those-are-satanic-beliefs/">political leaders</a> have been spreading homophobic and transphobic rhetoric. This has happened with the <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/09/28/issue-violence/attacks-lgbt-people-kenyas-coast">tacit approval</a> of a law enforcement apparatus that’s supposed to guarantee the right to equal protection. </p>
<p>The continued criminalisation of same-sex sexual relations among consenting adults in Kenya worsens social disparities and inequalities. It fuels socioeconomic and health vulnerabilities. </p>
<p>It <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308163037_Freedom_Corner_Redefining_HIV_and_AIDS_care_and_support_among_men_who_have_sex_with_men_in_Nairobi_Kenya">deprives members of these minority groups</a> access to education, a livelihood, and basic services like housing and healthcare. Criminalisation pushes <a href="https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/18012125/Thesis.pdf">sexual and gender minorities to the margins of society</a>. Research has shown that sexual and gender minorities are <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308163037_Freedom_Corner_Redefining_HIV_and_AIDS_care_and_support_among_men_who_have_sex_with_men_in_Nairobi_Kenya">consistently targeted</a> for unfair dismissal from jobs or business opportunities. </p>
<p>The decriminalisation of same-sex relations among adults would lead to four positive outcomes: inclusive development for economic growth, improved health outcomes, the safety and security of sexual minorities, and an acceptance of diversity and equality. This view is based on our <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Emmy-Kageha">research on social exclusion</a>, with a focus on <a href="https://kohljournal.press/health-and-freedom">sexual and gender minorities</a>.</p>
<h2>Inclusive development for economic growth</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/afr/brief/social-inclusion-in-africa">Social inclusion</a> is the process of improving the conditions for individuals and groups to participate in society. Social exclusion based on sexual orientation leads to lower societal standing. </p>
<p>This often leads to poorer outcomes in terms of income, human capital endowments and access to employment. People who are discriminated against tend to lack a voice in national and local decision making. </p>
<p>Decriminalisation of same-sex sexual relations would help address institutionalised stigma and discrimination. It would enhance access to equal opportunities by eliminating barriers to employment and other livelihood opportunities.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/lgbti-refugees-seeking-protection-in-kenya-struggle-to-survive-in-a-hostile-environment-182810">LGBTI refugees seeking protection in Kenya struggle to survive in a hostile environment</a>
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<p><a href="https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/18012125/Thesis.pdf">Research</a> shows that sexual and gender minorities with access to income opportunities support their families financially. This is true even in cases where families aren’t accepting. People who are educated can also compete effectively in the job market. The exclusion of minorities, therefore, means <a href="https://open-for-business.org/kenya-economic-case">the loss of a workforce and their contribution to economic development</a>. </p>
<h2>Better health outcomes</h2>
<p>Social exclusion contributes to poor health among sexual and gender minorities. In 2020, <a href="https://www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/media_asset/2021-global-aids-update_en.pdf#page=6">1.5 million people</a> were newly infected with HIV. Those <a href="https://www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/media_asset/2021-global-aids-update_en.pdf#page=23">most vulnerable</a> to infection include people who inject drugs, transgender women, sex workers, men who have sex with men, and their sexual partners. </p>
<p>These key populations accounted for <a href="https://www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/media_asset/2021-global-aids-update_en.pdf#page=23">65% of HIV infections</a> globally. In sub-Saharan Africa, they accounted for <a href="https://www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/media_asset/2021-global-aids-update_en.pdf#page=24">39% of new infections</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://open-for-business.org/about">Open for Business</a> is a global research coalition that seeks to address the backlash against the LGBTIQ+ community. In a <a href="https://open-for-business.org/kenya-economic-case">2020 report</a>, the group estimated that discrimination against sexual minorities costs Kenya up to Sh105 billion (US$782 million) annually in poor health outcomes. </p>
<p>Decriminalisation enhances access to healthcare. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17441692.2018.1462841">Our</a> <a href="https://kohljournal.press/health-and-freedom">research</a> shows, for example, better health such as decreased new HIV infections in societies that adopt laws that advance non-discrimination and decriminalise same-sex relationships. </p>
<h2>Enhancing safety and security</h2>
<p>In 2014, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights adopted <a href="https://achpr.au.int/en/adopted-resolutions/275-resolution-protection-against-violence-and-other-human-rights-violations">Resolution 275</a>. The resolution expresses grave concerns about increasing violence and other human rights violations – including murder, rape and assault – of individuals based on sexual orientation or gender identity. </p>
<p>Safety and security are some of the <a href="https://www.article19.org/resources/kenya-murder-lgbtq-activist-urgent-reform/">biggest challenges</a> facing sexual and gender minorities in Kenya. The country has seen an escalation of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/3/15/how-an-lgbtq-court-ruling-sent-kenya-into-a-moral-panic">negative rhetoric and violence</a> targeting sexual and gender minorities, and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-64491276">related organisations</a>. Hate speech, verbal and physical abuse, sexual violence and police harassment <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uganda-lgbt-hatecrime-idUSL4N3584J1">have increased</a>. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/justiceforsheila-highlights-the-precarious-lives-of-queer-people-in-kenya-183102">#JusticeForSheila highlights the precarious lives of queer people in Kenya</a>
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<p>In Kenya’s coastal city of Mombasa, for instance, sexual minorities <a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2023-03-16-gay-people-fear-for-their-lives-escape-mombasa-over-planned-demos/">fled</a> recent <a href="https://twitter.com/citizentvkenya/status/1636702221743079425?s=20">homophobic street protests</a>. A <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334681176_Are_we_doing_alright_Realities_of_violence_mental_health_and_access_to_healthcare_related_to_sexual_orientation_and_gender_identity_and_expression_in_East_and_Southern_Africa_Research_report_based_on_">2019 report</a> on the experiences of the <a href="https://ccprcentre.org/files/documents/INT_CCPR_CSS_KEN_44420_E.pdf#page=6">LGBTIQ+ community in Kenya</a> found that 53% have been physically assaulted and 44% sexually assaulted. </p>
<p>The criminalisation of same-sex sexual relations among adults contributes to a climate of violence and discrimination. Moreover, criminalisation supports the perpetrators of violence who take the law into their own hands. </p>
<h2>Acceptance of diversity</h2>
<p>Sexual and gender minorities are socially excluded because of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/homosexuality-remains-illegal-in-kenya-as-court-rejects-lgbt-petition-112149">criminal label</a> the law imposes on them. This affects their self-acceptance and mental health. </p>
<p>Homophobic acts are widespread even in countries where <a href="https://theconversation.com/sam-smith-how-queerphobia-and-fatphobia-intersect-in-the-backlash-to-the-im-not-here-to-make-friends-video-199437">same-sex relations are legal</a>. However, decriminalisation helps facilitate some level of acceptance among minority groups and within wider society. </p>
<p><a href="https://ualr.edu/socialchange/2013/01/13/impact-of-the-decriminalization-of-homosexuality-in-delhi-an-empirical-study">Studies</a> <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9293432/">have found</a> that decriminalisation reduces societal violence. </p>
<h2>The way forward</h2>
<p>Same-sex relations, or sexual and gender minorities, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43904926">aren’t new</a> <a href="https://www.arcados.ch/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/MURRAY-ROSCOE-BOY-WIVES-FEMALE-HUSBANDS-98.pdf">in Africa</a>. They aren’t a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332192031_An_Exploratory_Journey_of_Cultural_Visual_Literacy_of_Non-Conforming_Gender_Representations_from_Pre-Colonial_Sub-_Saharan_Africa">foreign ideology</a>. </p>
<p>Social exclusion constitutes perhaps the most serious challenge towards attaining sustainable and inclusive development. The criminalisation of same-sex relations among consenting adults in Kenya’s penal code exposes the weaknesses of the constitution in ensuring inclusivity. The law must, therefore, be changed. </p>
<p>Repealing criminalisation clauses is an important step toward reducing stigma, violence and discrimination. It would certainly open a new chapter in the lives of sexual and gender minorities.</p>
<p>There’s also an urgent need to make sexual and gender minorities visible. Awareness campaigns can help debunk perceptions that they are “anti-religious” or “un-African”. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-the-bible-say-about-homosexuality-for-starters-jesus-wasnt-a-homophobe-199424">What does the Bible say about homosexuality? For starters, Jesus wasn't a homophobe</a>
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<p>There’s an equally urgent need to identify all forms of discrimination against sexual and gender minorities under domestic and international laws. This will help address the root causes of inequalities.</p>
<p>Decriminalisation of same-sex relations is imperative. It will help address widening disparities, inequalities in society and the gaps in social integration.</p>
<p><em>Nicholas Etyang, a senior policy advocacy officer at the African Population and Health Research Center, is a co-author of this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203767/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lucy Wanjiku Mung’ala is affiliated with Hivos, where she works as the strategy and impact lead - gender equality, diversity and inclusion. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emmy Kageha Igonya does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The criminalisation of same-sex sexual relations among consenting adults in Kenya worsens social disparities and inequalities.Emmy Kageha Igonya, Associate research scientist, African Population and Health Research CenterLucy Wanjiku Mung’ala, PhD Researcher, University of AmsterdamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2006572023-02-27T17:15:16Z2023-02-27T17:15:16ZBrianna Ghey: how vigils help LGBTQ+ communities grieve<p>Have you ever felt so connected to a stranger that their death hurts you as if you did? You will probably find other people who experience this if you attend a vigil. In a way, you did know that stranger. They probably shared some of the pain, fear and trauma that you also carry.</p>
<p>I attended a local vigil for Brianna Ghey, a 16-year-old trans girl who died on February 11 2023. Two 15-year-olds have been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/feb/15/brianna-ghey-two-teenagers-charged-murder">charged with her murder</a>. I didn’t know Brianna and yet I grieved for her alongside many others. As a community, we stood in solidarity. We cried, grieved and shared in one another’s collective pain.</p>
<p>Gatherers were invited to speak and bear witness to each other’s grief. A mother spoke painfully of losing her trans daughter who, in her words, felt she did not belong in the world. A young activist lamented that 16-year-olds should be worried about their GCSE results, not their safety. </p>
<p>Another young person, who had <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/tiktok-brianna-ghey-teenage-trans-death-b2281229.html">followed Brianna on TikTok</a> before she died, shed tears over their feelings of loss and made calls to resist anti-trans hostility and hatred. And so, we lit our candles and began to grieve over these stories of loss and pain.</p>
<p>Stories of violence towards LGBTQ+ people – from the HIV/AIDS epidemic, to police brutality, <a href="https://theconversation.com/lets-not-get-confused-about-this-orlando-was-a-queerphobic-attack-60957">to mass shootings</a> and everyday hate crimes – plague our collective conscience and memory. Arguably, it is in these times of violence and pain that LGBTQ+ communities are bound together, in the shared violence that is targeted towards us.</p>
<p>Rituals like candlelit vigils have long been a social practice in marking trauma, tragedy and pain. LGBTQ+ communities have observed vigils for decades as a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.5172/hesr.2009.18.3.260">rite of belonging, memorial and social action</a>. </p>
<p>Annual candlelit vigils for those lost to HIV/AIDS serve as a reminder of the historic legacy of LGBTQ+ death. They challenge the stigma and shame surrounding HIV/AIDS by turning outdoor spaces into public sites of mourning.</p>
<p>Memorialising such trauma provides attendees from within the community with a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17448689.2020.1794508">language to protest</a> and mourn the cause of the vigil: anti-queer violence.</p>
<h2>How violent crimes affect LGBTQ+ communities</h2>
<p><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0269758020971060">My own research</a>, conducted at the time of the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-36511778">Pulse Nightclub shooting</a> in Orlando, Florida (2016), found that British LGBTQ+ people were indirectly victimised by such a large scale murder.</p>
<p>The shooting took place in the early hours of June 12, 2016. It left 49 people dead and more than 50 wounded. At the time, it was the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/12/us/orlando-nightclub-shooting/index.html">deadliest mass shooting</a> in US history. Despite not knowing the victims directly, British LGBTQ+ people shared in the pain of those lost and traumatised by the event.</p>
<p>Through social media, vigils were organised across the country, where local people were able to stand in solidarity with their Floridian contemporaries and grieve for those who were killed because of their LGBTQ+ identities. </p>
<p><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0269758020971060">Many participants</a> who attended the vigils expressed their anger, shock and devastation at such a targeted attack towards Orlando’s LGBTQ+ community, who they had never met but felt kinship with.</p>
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<img alt="A man and woman sit arm in arm as others light candles on the ground at a vigil." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512180/original/file-20230224-883-7jtilj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512180/original/file-20230224-883-7jtilj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512180/original/file-20230224-883-7jtilj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512180/original/file-20230224-883-7jtilj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512180/original/file-20230224-883-7jtilj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512180/original/file-20230224-883-7jtilj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512180/original/file-20230224-883-7jtilj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Londoners attend the vigil for victims of Orlando shooting in 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://epaimages.com/search.pp?flush=1&multikeyword=orlando%20shooting&startdate=&enddate=&autocomplete_Country=United%20Kingdom&metadatafield44=54388383&autocomplete_City=&metadatafield5=">Will Oliver/EPA</a></span>
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<p>In hate crimes such as the Orlando shooting (sometimes also described as “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0269758011422475">message crimes</a>”), an individual, group, or place is targeted for who they are and what they represent. Hate crimes are designed to send a direct message to everyone else who shares the victim’s identity, that they are also a potential target.</p>
<p>The pain and trauma instilled by the hate event <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0002764201045004006">ripple through to neighbouring communities</a>, who are indirectly victimised through their shared identity. Many participants that <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0269758020971060">I interviewed</a> in the aftermath of the Orlando shooting said it served as a reminder that queerphobia was alive and present in day to day life.</p>
<h2>Unite to resist hate</h2>
<p>Vigils serve three purposes for LGBTQ+ communities. They allow us to express our feelings of love, loss and grief with the direct victim(s). They enable us to come together as a community, whether it be local, national, or global. And they establish a physical place of resistance to anti-queer violence.</p>
<p>There is always a fear that LGBTQ+ rights will be rolled back and taken away, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/13634607221107827">particularly with the rise of anti-trans rhetoric</a> in the political, social and online sphere over the past five years. Almost all attendees I heard from at the vigil for Brianna spoke of her death as a direct consequence of what they saw as a growing hostility towards trans people and the wider LGBTQ+ community.</p>
<p>Both vigils for Brianna and the Pulse victims provided a space of grief and a rally of resistance, to protest and mobilise against anti-queer hostility and hatred. Vigils for LGBTQ+ people turn public places into a collective space of unity, in a world where we often don’t belong.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200657/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Pickles does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Vigils for LGBTQ+ people turn public spaces into a collective space of belonging with one anotherJames Pickles, Senior Lecturer, University of BrightonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1981432023-01-20T00:56:04Z2023-01-20T00:56:04ZWould a law banning the Nazi salute be effective – or enforceable?<p>Amid the <a href="https://theconversation.com/does-australia-need-new-laws-to-combat-right-wing-extremism-196219">growing threat of far-right extremism</a> in Australia, Victoria recently became the first state to ban the Nazi swastika, (known as the Hakenkreuz). Publicly displaying the symbol is now a <a href="https://www.vic.gov.au/fact-sheet-nazi-symbol-prohibition">criminal offence</a> and carries a penalty of up to $22,000, or 12 months of imprisonment.</p>
<p>Other states and territories, including <a href="https://www.nsw.gov.au/media-releases/public-display-of-nazi-symbols-banned-nsw">NSW</a>, <a href="https://statements.qld.gov.au/statements/95214">Queensland</a>, <a href="https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7992767/act-to-outlaw-the-public-display-of-nazi-symbols/">the ACT</a>, <a href="https://www.premier.tas.gov.au/site_resources_2015/additional_releases/prohibiting-the-display-of-nazi-symbols">Tasmania</a> and most recently, <a href="https://www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au/Pages/McGowan/2023/01/Government-to-ban-display-and-possession-of-Nazi-symbols.aspx">Western Australia</a>, are now taking similar steps.</p>
<p>These moves have been praised as a critical step toward depriving far-right extremists the use of a potent symbol associated with hatred, racism and the horrors of the Holocaust to intimidate and spread fear. </p>
<p>Far-right groups in Australia have also sought to leverage the swastika as a recruitment tool, pulling in young men (in particular) who are attracted to its association with hatred and violence. </p>
<p>But these laws banning Nazi symbols do not (yet) cover the other way far-right extremists espouse their hateful ideology in public spaces and online: the Nazi or “fascist” salute. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/does-australia-need-new-laws-to-combat-right-wing-extremism-196219">Does Australia need new laws to combat right-wing extremism?</a>
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<h2>The Nazi salute as a symbol and recruitment tool</h2>
<p>The act of raising an arm in salute dates to the Roman Empire where it was used to display respect or allegiance. This was altered in artwork and culture over time in different contexts, including in France and the United States. </p>
<p>More recently, it was appropriated and altered by propagandists among the National Socialists in Germany and fascists in Italy in the early 20th century as a way to both demonstrate commitment to these groups and unity of purpose.</p>
<p>Today, the salute is used to identify oneself as a white nationalist or “Nazi”. It’s also used in public spaces to intimidate and spread fear. There are many instances of this in Australia, <a href="https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/news/neonazi-group-performs-hitler-salute-in-disturbing-photo-at-melbourne-lookout/news-story/8dc5e8a50e4e40c5d4a45cde362a7a4e">most recently </a> by a group of men in the Melbourne suburb of Elwood (a suburb with a high proportion of Jewish residents) and by <a href="https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/courts-law/neonazi-thomas-sewells-vile-act-outside-court-after-sentence-for-assault-on-nine-network-security-guard/news-story/ca6ea5e575a9a4c05623468af77d1fc2">a far-right extremist leader</a> after his conviction for assault against a Black security officer.</p>
<p>Importantly, the use of the gesture functions as a recruitment device in the same way the swastika is used. </p>
<p>To the often alienated and angry young men attracted to far-right ideologies, photos of groups of men making the Nazi salute offer a sense of a collective and belonging. Far-right extremists groups know this and their online materials feature many photos of members making salutes. </p>
<h2>International efforts to ban the Nazi salute</h2>
<p>Some countries have <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/queen-nazi-salute-countries-where-gesture-is-illegal-10401630.html">specifically banned the salute</a>, such as Germany and others occupied by the Nazi regime during the second world war (Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland). </p>
<p>Others, such as Switzerland and Sweden, have broader statutes that capture the salute. Authorities in the United Kingdom have more recently <a href="https://www.cps.gov.uk/north-east/news/newcastle-fan-pleads-guilty-nazi-salute">used provisions</a> related to causing racially aggravated harassment, harm and distress to prosecute offenders. </p>
<p>Penalties in these jurisdictions range from up to three years imprisonment in Germany to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60092306">low-level fines</a>. Arguably as important as the punishment is the recording of a conviction, building a track record of participation in far-right extremist movements. </p>
<h2>Challenges of enforcement</h2>
<p>The Nazi salute is instantly recognisable and the <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/hate-symbol/hitler-salute-hand-sign">most common far-right extremist hand sign globally</a>. We know it when we see it and debates about interpretation are arguably moot. </p>
<p>However, a successful prosecution depends on a number of factors, including the wording of the particular laws and the evidence available. If a statute is not precise, or is not able to be readily applied by law enforcement, it can allow offenders to escape conviction. This happened <a href="https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/nazi-gestures_it-s-the-law--hitler-salute-is-not-always-a-crime/38682072">in Switzerland in 2014</a>.</p>
<p>It is also important to consider the way far-right extremists respond to these laws. They can change their tactics to evade prosecution, including <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/this-australian-state-could-ban-the-nazi-salute-experts-say-it-wont-be-easy/nr4ttcbf6">using the OK symbol</a> instead of a Nazi salute. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/09/18/ok-sign-white-power-symbol-or-just-right-wing-troll">This gesture</a>, made by connecting the thumb and index finger to create a circle and spreading the other three fingers apart, can be interpreted as the letters “W” and “P”, standing for white power. But because it’s a common hand gesture, it also offers some form of deniability to those using it.</p>
<p>There’s been a similar debate in <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/1/14/7548289/quenelle-dieudonne-antisemitism-france">France</a> and <a href="https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/society/anti-semitic-actions_court-judges-quenelle-gesture-to-be-racist/43386002">Switzerland</a> over the use of the “quenelle” hand gesture, which resembles the Nazi salute but has been used in attempts to circumvent hate laws.</p>
<p>And crucially, a successful prosecution requires evidence, such a video or photograph, that a suspected offender actually made the salute. This is why many far-right extremists making the salute cover their faces in online posts. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-dieudonnes-quenelle-gesture-poses-challenges-for-britain-and-france-22731">Why Dieudonné's quenelle gesture poses challenges for Britain and France</a>
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<h2>What would a ban in Australia look like?</h2>
<p>Any laws targeting the Nazi salute are likely to focus on the public use of the salute to intimidate and threaten members of the community, falling under existing or new legislation combating hate or “<a href="https://www.police.vic.gov.au/prejudice-motivated-crime">prejudice motived</a>” crimes. </p>
<p>Such legislation would likely take a similar approach to the new Victorian law banning Nazi symbols, which requires that a symbol is both intentionally used in a public space and that the person ought to have reasonably known making the salute is aligned with Nazi ideology. </p>
<p>In fact, the Victorian government is now <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/this-australian-state-could-ban-the-nazi-salute-experts-say-it-wont-be-easy/nr4ttcbf6">reportedly exploring the possibility</a> of expanding its law to include the salute. </p>
<p>Any new law banning the salute would also likely allow for limited exceptions, for example, in the case of artistic parody. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/far-right-groups-have-used-covid-to-expand-their-footprint-in-australia-here-are-the-ones-you-need-to-know-about-151203">Far-right groups have used COVID to expand their footprint in Australia. Here are the ones you need to know about</a>
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<h2>A logical next step</h2>
<p>The Nazi salute, as with the swastika, is inextricably linked with the horrors of the Holocaust and grounded in extreme hatred and violence. It is a symbol that has maintained its power over many decades and is currently weaponised by far-right extremists in our streets (and online) to both inspire fear and recruit.</p>
<p>Enacting new laws to ban the salute would be both logical and an important step in protecting the Australian community, particularly those specifically targeted by far-right extremist ideologies. There would certainly be challenges to overcome, however, requiring such laws to be written carefully and, critically, the will to enforce them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198143/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Josh Roose receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Australian states and territories are moving to ban Nazi symbols. But can such laws cover a Nazi salute? Here are the difficulties in drafting and enforcing such legislation.Josh Roose, Associate Professor of Politics, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1963692023-01-18T13:38:22Z2023-01-18T13:38:22ZFlorida Gov. DeSantis leads the GOP’s national charge against public education that includes lessons on race and sexual orientation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504060/original/file-20230111-20-2gml9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=712%2C93%2C3457%2C2675&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Florida Governor Ron DeSantis campaigns for re-election during a rally on November 7, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/florida-governor-ron-desantis-campaigns-for-re-election-news-photo/1244594045?phrase=desantis%20governor%20election&adppopup=true"> Eva Marie Uzcategui/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ disdain for “woke ideology” is on full display. </p>
<p>At a January 2023 inaugural event, the governor <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/03/desantis-2024-second-term-00076160">boasted</a> that “Florida is where woke goes to die.” </p>
<p>This is more than political bluster.</p>
<p>In just the past month, DeSantis has stacked the board of the <a href="https://www.tampabay.com/news/education/2023/01/14/with-new-college-gambit-desantis-aims-recapture-higher-education/">New College of Florida</a>, a well-known liberal arts college, with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/01/07/new-college-florida-desantis-rufo/">right-wing ideologues</a> and has directed universities to report their <a href="https://floridapolitics.com/archives/579062-gov-desantis-administration-surveying-for-crt-dei-in-florida-higher-education/">diversity efforts and critical race theory classes </a> to his office. </p>
<p>So what, precisely, does Desantis – <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/12/14/1142680625/will-desantis-run-2024-president-campaign-trump">a potential 2024 presidential nominee</a> – oppose? </p>
<p>That became clear in December 2022 when multiple DeSantis officials appeared before <a href="https://floridapolitics.com/archives/574045-in-andrew-warren-suspension-trial-gov-desantis-officials-answer-what-does-woke-mean/">a federal judge</a> to defend the governor’s decision to suspend a local prosecutor whom DeSantis had termed a “woke ideologue.” The judge asked Ryan Newman, DeSantis’ general counsel, to define “woke.” </p>
<p>Newman answered that “woke” is “the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.” </p>
<p>Newman added that DeSantis does not believe systemic injustices exist in the United States. </p>
<p>DeSantis, for his part, has explicitly denied that systemic racism exists – characterizing the notion as “<a href="https://www.thewrap.com/ron-desantis-racism-fox-news/">a bunch of horse manure</a>.” </p>
<p>In my view as a <a href="https://www.bu.edu/law/profile/jonathan-feingold/">legal scholar on race and law</a>, Newman’s explanation was a stark admission. </p>
<p>By his own account, Newman placed DeSantis on the side of injustice. We might call DeSantis an “injustice denier.” Akin to climate change, there is no legitimate academic debate about the reality of systemic racism. </p>
<p>It’s <a href="https://www.stkate.edu/academics/healthcare-degrees/racism-in-healthcare">real</a>. It’s <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-systemic-racism-in-charts-graphs-data-2020-6#the-unemployment-rate-also-spiked-for-all-racial-groups-in-the-us-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic-and-remains-relatively-higher-for-black-americans-2">pervasive</a>. It’s unjust. No amount of denial can change that – even if it scores political points. </p>
<h2>Political campaign against ‘woke’</h2>
<p>When <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/07/13/1110842453/florida-gov-desantis-is-doing-battle-against-woke-public-schools">DeSantis</a> and <a href="https://www.manhattan-institute.org/woke-schooling-toolkit-for-concerned-parents">others bemoan “woke indoctrination</a>,” their claim is not that schools should be value-free zones. </p>
<p>Their claim is that schools<a href="https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/politics/2023/01/06/gov-ron-desantis-wants-conservative-overhaul-at-new-college-of-florida/69784941007/"> teach the wrong values</a>.</p>
<p>This should surprise no one. </p>
<p>In the wake of 2020’s <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/george-floyd-black-lives-matter-impact/">global uprising</a> for racial justice, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2022/04/08/the-guy-brought-us-crt-panic-offers-a-new-far-right-agenda-destroy-public-education/">right-wing think tanks, foundations and officials</a> launched an open <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/how-a-conservative-activist-invented-the-conflict-over-critical-race-theory">smear campaign</a> to stigmatize modest efforts to make American classrooms more inclusive and curriculum more comprehensive.</p>
<p>As early as March 2021, one of the campaign’s chief architects, Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, publicly <a href="https://www.salon.com/2022/04/08/the-guy-brought-us-crt-panic-offers-a-new-far-right-agenda-destroy-public-education/">bragged</a> about weaponizing critical race theory to <a href="https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1479512380400803843">further that agenda</a>.</p>
<p>Rufo further explained that maligning critical race theory through calculated caricature and distortion was an “obvious” element of a “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/06/19/critical-race-theory-rufo-republicans/">public persuasion campaign</a>” to erode faith in public schools. </p>
<p>Rufo, one of DeSantis’ recent board appointees, has outlined the end goal: “<a href="https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/laying-siege-to-the-institutions/">lay seige to the institutions</a>” and return Americans to a pre-civil rights social order that lacked affirmative commitments to racial inclusion.</p>
<h2>A long history of white resistance</h2>
<p>Proponents often claim that laws and policies designed to restrict classroom conversations about race are <a href="https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/keep-racist-critical-race-theory-ideology-out-k-12-classrooms">necessary to protect</a> mostly white students from <a href="https://kansasreflector.com/2021/11/18/kansas-child-death-report-looks-beyond-reps-claim-that-critical-race-theory-shames-white-girls/">emotional discomfort</a>.</p>
<p>Yet over two years into an open disinformation campaign and hundreds of laws designed to suppress “woke” viewpoints, many in the mainstream media still frame anti-racism and anti-anti-racism as competing sides in an educational culture war. </p>
<p>In my view, the culture war framing is odd. </p>
<p>It exaggerates disagreement among typical Americans – most of whom <a href="https://www.historyperceptiongap.us/#points_of_convergence">believe students should learn about racism</a> and <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/book-bans-opinion-poll-2022-02-22/">reject book bans</a>. It <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4094443">falsely recasts</a> a top-down political project as a grassroots uprising. And it minimizes the <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/desantis-critical-race-theory-florida-college-professors">rising toll</a> on students, parents and educators. </p>
<p>The “culture war” frame also implies Americans are fighting over values, yet rarely makes explicit those competing values. </p>
<p>One thing is clear. </p>
<p>There is little new about this culture war.</p>
<p>It is hard to miss the parallels in rhetoric and tactics between 21st-century anti-anti-racism and 20th-century <a href="https://www.masterclass.com/articles/massive-resistance">massive resistance</a>, when segregationists openly defied federal court orders to integrate public schools.</p>
<p>Past generations have invoked “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/12/05/discriminating-in-the-name-of-religion-segregationists-and-slaveholders-did-it-too/">religious liberty</a>,” “<a href="https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/know-your-enemy-school-wars-jennifer-berkshire">school choice</a>” and “<a href="https://apnews.com/article/religion-education-gender-identity-0e2ca2cf0ef7d7bc6ef5b125f1ee0969">parents’ rights</a>” to defend the prevailing social order, defund public schools and discredit efforts to redistribute racial power. </p>
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<img alt="A group of parents and children are holding up posters during a demonstration against teaching race in schools." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504072/original/file-20230111-26-dvn2n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504072/original/file-20230111-26-dvn2n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504072/original/file-20230111-26-dvn2n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504072/original/file-20230111-26-dvn2n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504072/original/file-20230111-26-dvn2n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504072/original/file-20230111-26-dvn2n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504072/original/file-20230111-26-dvn2n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">People hold up signs during a rally against critical race theory in Leesburg, Va., on June 12, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-hold-up-signs-during-a-rally-against-critical-race-news-photo/1233449643?phrase=anti%20CRT%20protests&adppopup=true">Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>In my view, many of today’s anti-anti-racists rehearse the same old rhetoric for similar ends.</p>
<p>Past generations harnessed state power to penalize educators who dared to teach about injustice.</p>
<p>Historian <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/history-of-education-quarterly/article/hell-is-popping-here-in-south-carolina-orangeburg-county-black-teachers-and-their-community-in-the-immediate-postbrown-era/5440EE784E237EDF8BDD2F2DC59D7C2D">Candace Cunningham recounts</a> one example from 1956 South Carolina.</p>
<p>Two years after <a href="https://www.naacpldf.org/brown-vs-board/">Brown v. Board of Education</a>, South Carolina’s <a href="https://www.nps.gov/articles/separate-but-equal-south-carolina-s-fight-over-school-segregation-teaching-with-historic-places.htm">white Legislature</a> enacted 14 laws designed to stymie civil rights. </p>
<p>This included a law that required all teachers to swear an anti-NAACP oath – a law designed to target Black educators and “destabilize the civil rights movement,” as Cunningham explains. </p>
<h2>Impact on cultural literacy</h2>
<p>A revival of such measures has occurred since 2020. </p>
<p>In at least 15 states, GOP officials have passed “<a href="https://pen.org/report/americas-censored-classrooms/">educational gag orders</a>” to chill classroom conversations about race, racism and related topics. This includes Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act,” a portion of which <a href="https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/judge-blocks-floridas-stop-woke-censorship-bill-taking-effect-higher-education#:%7E:text=The%20court%20order%20found%20the,expression%20of%20the%20opposite%20viewpoints.">was enjoined</a> in November 2022. </p>
<p>Given the laws’ design and effect, University of Florida Law Professor Kathryn Russell-Brown has likened this legislation to <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4219891">19th-century anti-literacy laws</a>. </p>
<p>According to free speech advocacy group PEN America, 2022 saw a 250% jump in such <a href="https://pen.org/report/americas-censored-classrooms/">laws</a>, which became more punitive and more likely to target higher education and LGBTQ identities. </p>
<p>Similar policies have accelerated at the local level across the country. </p>
<p>As of December 2022, UCLA’s CRT Forward Tracking Project <a href="https://crtforward.law.ucla.edu/">had identified</a> over 130 school district policies that target anti-racist pedagogy and curriculum.</p>
<p>A related study from <a href="https://idea.gseis.ucla.edu/publications/files/the-conflict-campaign-report">January 2022</a> found that state and local anti-literacy laws affected over 900 districts, accounting for 35% of America’s K-12 students. </p>
<p>Given that 2022 saw <a href="https://crtforward.law.ucla.edu/">more educational gag orders than the prior two years combined</a>, that number is no doubt higher now.</p>
<h2>Academic freedom under state review</h2>
<p>Many of the same GOP officials pushing anti-literacy laws are also actively eroding key safeguards that shield public universities and professors from political interference. </p>
<p>Not surprisingly, DeSantis is a <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/06/06/draft-legislation-shows-desantis-plan-control-higher-ed">leading proponent</a> of such efforts to curb university independence. </p>
<p>In Texas, the lieutenant governor <a href="https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/in-depth/2022/03/28/421924/patricks-plan-to-eliminate-tenure-at-texas-state-universities-could-have-dire-consequences-experts-warn/">threatened to terminate tenure</a> after the University of Texas’ faculty leadership reaffirmed the value of academic freedom and the right to teach about race and gender justice.</p>
<p>Right-wing groups also have fueled <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rare-move-school-librarian-fights-back-court-conservative-activists-rcna42800">defamatory campaigns</a> against school leaders, teachers and librarians.</p>
<p>Many of the same groups have spearheaded an unprecedented wave of book bans. </p>
<p><a href="https://pen.org/report/banned-usa-growing-movement-to-censor-books-in-schools/">PEN America</a> tallied over 2,500 individual bans from July 2021 to June 2022. </p>
<p>This includes books like “When Wilma Rudolph Played Basketball,” which explores how an <a href="https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1605188994203062274?s=20&t=ZbKFuYxKLVGBtOh7KgUDXg">African American athlete overcame physical limitations and racial prejudice</a> to win medals in the 1956 and 1960 Olympics. </p>
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<img alt="Under the words Awake and Not Woke, workers prepare a stage for a conference with conservative Republicans." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504058/original/file-20230111-34767-sj0fal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504058/original/file-20230111-34767-sj0fal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504058/original/file-20230111-34767-sj0fal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504058/original/file-20230111-34767-sj0fal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504058/original/file-20230111-34767-sj0fal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504058/original/file-20230111-34767-sj0fal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504058/original/file-20230111-34767-sj0fal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Workers prepare the stage for the 2022 meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/workers-prepare-the-stage-for-the-2022-meeting-of-the-news-photo/1238715739?phrase=desantis%20woke%20florida&adppopup=true">Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Experts have attributed the extreme rhetoric accompanying book bans and anti-literacy laws to a rise in <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?524793-1/survivors-club-shooting-activists-testify-anti-lgbtq-violence">threats and acts of physical violence</a>. This includes nearly <a href="https://acleddata.com/2022/11/23/update-fact-sheet-anti-lgbt-mobilization-in-the-united-states/">200 documented anti-LGBTQ+ events in 2022</a> – a twelvefold increase over 2020 – and bomb threats <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/16/us/hbcu-bomb-threats-suspect-reaj/index.html#:%7E:text=Threats%20against%20HBCUs%20peaked%20in,posts%2C%20according%20to%20the%20FBI.">targeting historically Black colleges and universities</a> and other entities <a href="https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2022/12/20/unnerving-what-the-tufts-president-said-about-the-schools-3-bomb-threats-before-a-fourth-on-tuesday/">serving communities of color</a>. </p>
<p>Against this backdrop, it is notable that the midterm elections revealed the <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3789333-midterms-indicate-cracking-down-on-critical-race-theory-in-public-schools-wont-win-republicans-many-new-voters/">limitations of anti-CRT and anti-wokeness rhetoric</a>. </p>
<p>But those limitations seem unlikely to alter GOP talking points or the broader assault on public education. </p>
<p>The incoming GOP House leadership has already renewed its pledge to purge schools of critical race theory and “woke ideology.”</p>
<p>To borrow a phrase from the late Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, one might conclude that anti-anti-racism embodies a “<a href="https://www.aclu.org/news/smart-justice/fighting-too-much-justice">fear of too much justice</a>.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196369/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Feingold attended UCLA School of Law, where he graduated with a specialization in Critical Race Studies.</span></em></p>The GOP leadership renewed its pledge to resist public education that includes painful discussions on race and racism in America.Jonathan Feingold, Associate Professor of Law, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1967172022-12-21T19:59:27Z2022-12-21T19:59:27ZLGBTQ Americans are 9 times more likely to be victimized by a hate crime<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501790/original/file-20221219-22510-6k8ql8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=60%2C13%2C3035%2C2046&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Only about 1 in 3 LGBTQ victims of violent hate crimes seek professional help for mental health issues that emerge after an attack.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/participant-seen-holding-a-rainbow-umbrella-at-the-protest-news-photo/1241559504?phrase=transgender protest USA&adppopup=true">Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502464/original/file-20221221-24-nxjio5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502464/original/file-20221221-24-nxjio5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502464/original/file-20221221-24-nxjio5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502464/original/file-20221221-24-nxjio5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502464/original/file-20221221-24-nxjio5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502464/original/file-20221221-24-nxjio5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502464/original/file-20221221-24-nxjio5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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<p>In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279363">our recent analysis</a> of the <a href="https://bjs.ojp.gov/programs/ncvs">National Crime Victimization Survey</a>, we found that the odds of being a violent hate crime victim for LGBTQ people was nine times greater than it was for cisgender and straight people from 2017 to 2019. </p>
<p>There were an average annual 6.6 violent hate crime victimizations per 1,000 LGBTQ people during this three year period.</p>
<p>In contrast, there were 0.6 violent hate crime victimizations per 1,000 cisgender and straight people. </p>
<p><a href="https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/hate-crime-victimization-2005-2019">A hate crime</a> is an attack or threat of an attack that’s motivated by the victim’s perceived race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender or religion. Or it could include someone’s association with any of the previous categories, such as an anti-Muslim hate crime committed against <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/this-is-in-our-dna-how-sikh-americans-advocate-for-solidarity-while-campaigning-against-hate-crimes-prejudices">someone who is Sikh</a>.</p>
<p>The National Crime Victimization Survey is a nationally representative survey that asks over 200,000 people about non-fatal crimes that happened to them in the past year. Since 1999, it has asked victims if they suspected their victimization was motivated by certain biases, and if so, the reason for the bias. We use the National Crime Victimization Survey classification of hate crimes, which is consistent with <a href="https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/hate-crime-victimization-2005-2019">the Bureau of Justice Statistics classification</a>: victimizations that involve hate language, hate symbols, or were confirmed by police to be a hate crime.</p>
<p>Since 2017, the National Crime Victimization Survey has been documenting <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aba6910">sexual orientation and gender identity of respondents</a>. This has allowed us to estimate the rate of hate crimes against LGBTQ people for the first time.</p>
<h2>Physical and psychological repercussions</h2>
<p>Another notable finding from our study suggested that violent hate crimes involving LGBTQ victims have unique characteristics .</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764202046001003">Prior research has</a> suggested that LGBTQ victims of hate crime frequently did <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-4560.00263">not know the offender</a>. In our analyses, 49% of violent hate crimes with LGBTQ victims involved an attacker who was a close friend, family member, partner or former partner.</p>
<p>We also found that LGBTQ victims of violent hate crimes were more likely to have physical and psychological symptoms as a result of the attack when compared with LGBTQ victims of violent crimes that were not hate crimes. </p>
<p>For example, LGBTQ victims of violent hate crimes were four times more likely to feel worried or anxious as a result of the incident than LGBTQ victims of non-hate violence. Despite this, we found that only about 1 in 3 LGBTQ victims of violent hate crimes sought professional help for their symptoms. </p>
<h2>Hate crimes don’t just affect the victims</h2>
<p>Our findings complement a series of studies relying on the National Crime Victimization Survey that showed that LGBTQ people are generally victims of crimes <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aba6910">at higher rates than cisgender and straight people</a>, with bisexual women having <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2020.306017">markedly higher victimization rates than lesbians</a>, and transgender people having <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2020.306099">higher victimization rates than cisgender people</a>.</p>
<p>Hate crimes do not just affect an individual – <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/legislation/hearings/the-rise-of-anti-lgbtqi-extremism-and-violence-in-the-united-states">whole communities can be affected by hate</a>. In what’s known as “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-020-09710-y">collective trauma</a>,” LGBTQ people often internalize the violence inflicted on other members of the community.</p>
<p>LGTBQ people are still recovering from the November 2022 <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/watch/club-q-mass-shooting-survivors-testify-on-capitol-hill-in-hearing-on-anti-lgbtq-violence-157661253825">mass shooting at Club Q</a>, an LGBTQ bar in Colorado Springs. The accused shooter has been charged with <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/club-q-shooting-colorado-springs-anderson-lee-aldrich-charged/">48 counts of hate-motivated violence</a>. </p>
<p>Our findings allow us to more fully characterize the stories of LGBT victims – and the heightened danger they face across the country.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.rti.org/expert/lynn-langton">Lynn Langton</a> contributed to this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196717/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Ryan Flores receives funding from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law as a Visiting Scholar and the Public Religion Research Institute as a Public Fellow. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ilan Meyer and Rebecca Stotzer do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For the first time, researchers have been able to produce estimates of the rate of hate crimes against LGBTQ people.Andrew Ryan Flores, Visiting Scholar at the Williams Institute and Assistant Professor of Government, American UniversityIlan Meyer, Distinguished Senior Scholar of Public Policy, University of California, Los AngelesRebecca Stotzer, Professor of Social Work, University of HawaiiLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1950852022-11-23T13:18:50Z2022-11-23T13:18:50ZSuspect in the Colorado LGBTQ shootings faces hate crimes charges – what exactly are they?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496850/original/file-20221122-26-o8xg8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Club Q co-owners Nic Grzecka, left, and Matthew Haynes listen during a police news conference on Nov. 21, 2022, in Colorado Springs, Colo. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/club-q-co-owners-nic-grzecka-and-matthew-haynes-listen-to-news-photo/1443386018?phrase=club%20q&adppopup=true">Scott Olson/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 22-year-old suspected shooter at a gay night club in Colorado Springs, Colorado, who allegedly killed five and injured dozens <a href="https://apnews.com/article/shootings-colorado-gun-politics-springs-7f079c7feebc32cc8ad46f2724844c18">faces five counts of murder and hate crimes</a> charges.</p>
<p>Hate crimes are known as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/21/us/hate-crime-laws-colorado-shooting.html?partner=slack&smid=sl-share">“bias-motivated” crimes in Colorado</a>. The charges against the shooter are still preliminary, although <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/11/21/colorado-springs-nightclub-shooting-lgbtq-community/10745611002/">Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers said</a> the attack “has all the trappings of a hate crime.”</p>
<p>The mass shooting rekindled memories of the 2016 massacre at <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2022-11-20/factbox-mass-shootings-in-the-u-s-from-club-q-to-pulse-nightclub">Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida</a>, that killed 49 people.</p>
<p>Hate crimes are <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/us-hate-crimes-rise-during-first-half-of-2022-/6713791.html">rising across the U.S.</a>, but officials often resist the quick classification of incidents as a hate crime. Hate crimes have unique legal requirements. And even when police and prosecutors believe the elements of a hate crime are present, such crimes can be difficult to prove in court. </p>
<h2>What is a hate crime?</h2>
<p>I have studied <a href="https://www.luc.edu/law/faculty/facultyandadministrationprofiles/bell-jeannine.shtml">hate crime and police for over 20 years</a>.</p>
<p>Hate crimes are crimes motivated by bias on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity. In some states, gender, age and gender identity are also included. Hate crime laws have been passed by 48 states and the federal government since the 1980s, when activists first began to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1389346?seq=1">press state legislatures to recognize the role of bias in violence against minority groups</a>.</p>
<p>In order to be charged as a hate crime, attacks – whether assault, killings or vandalism – must be directed at individuals because of the prohibited biases. Hate crime laws, in other words, punish motive. </p>
<p>The prosecutor must convince the judge or jury that the victim was targeted because of their race, religion, sexual orientation or other protected characteristic. </p>
<p>If the defendant is found to have acted with bias motivation, hate crime charges often add an additional penalty to the underlying charge. Charging people with a hate crime, then, <a href="https://jhs.press.gonzaga.edu/articles/abstract/10.33972/jhs.34/">presents additional layers of complexity</a> to what may otherwise be a straightforward case for prosecutors. Bias motivation can be hard to prove, and prosecutors can be reluctant to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-433720210000085003">take cases that that they may not win</a> in court.</p>
<p>It can and does happen, though. In June 2020, Indiana resident <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdin/pr/indianapolis-man-sentenced-making-racially-motivated-threats-toward-neighbor">Shepherd Hoehn</a> placed a burning cross and a sign with racial slurs and epithets facing the construction site where his new neighbor, who is Black, was building a house. </p>
<p>Hoehn was charged with and later pleaded guilty to <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/indiana-man-pleads-guilty-hate-crime-making-racially-charged-motivated-threats-toward-black">federal hate crime charges</a> in Indiana. A few months later, Maurice Diggins was convicted by a federal jury of a 2018 hate crime for breaking the jaw of a Sudanese man in Maine <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/maine-man-sentenced-federal-hate-crime-convictions">while shouting racial epithets</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390660/original/file-20210319-23-4bba6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Video still of young blond man in prison jumpsuit surrounded by armed guards" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390660/original/file-20210319-23-4bba6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390660/original/file-20210319-23-4bba6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390660/original/file-20210319-23-4bba6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390660/original/file-20210319-23-4bba6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390660/original/file-20210319-23-4bba6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390660/original/file-20210319-23-4bba6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390660/original/file-20210319-23-4bba6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Dylann Roof, who killed nine worshippers at a Black church in South Carolina in 2015, was convicted of 33 charges, including hate crimes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-this-image-from-the-video-uplink-from-the-detention-news-photo/477782304?adppopup=true">Grace Beahm-Pool/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>How to charge a hate crime</h2>
<p>The first use of the term “hate crime” in federal legislation was the <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/101/hr1048">Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990</a>. This was not a criminal statute but rather a data-gathering requirement that mandated that the U.S. attorney general collect information on crimes that “evidenced prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.” </p>
<p>Soon, states began passing their own laws recognizing bias crimes. But hate crime legislation has not led to many charges and convictions.</p>
<p>Law enforcement officers struggle to identify hate crime and prosecute offenders. Even though 48 states have hate crime laws, 88% of law enforcement agencies, including local and state police departments, reported to the FBI that not a single hate crime <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/03/19/doj-police-departments-decline-report-hate-crimes">had occurred in their jurisdiction</a>in 2020. </p>
<p>I’ve found that police departments are rarely organized in a way that allows them to develop the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764207306054">expertise necessary to effectively investigate hate crimes</a>. When police departments have specialized police units and prosecutors who are <a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814798973/policing-hatred/">committed to taking on hate crime</a>, they can develop the routines that allow them to investigate hate crime in a manner that supports victims. </p>
<p>In the late 1990s, I studied a specialized police hate crime unit in a city I called, for the purposes of anonymity, “Center City.” My <a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814798973/policing-hatred/">book revealed that those detectives</a> could distinguish non-hate crimes – for instance, when the perpetrator angrily used the n-word in a fight – from cases that are truly hate crimes, as when the perpetrator used it during a targeted attack on a Black person. </p>
<p>Without the right training and organizational structure, officers are unclear about common markers of bias motivation, and tend to assume that they must go to extraordinary lengths to figure out why suspects committed the crime. </p>
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<span class="caption">When arson targets a temple, mosque or cultural center, it may be investigated as a hate crime.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/houston-fire-department-arson-investigator-inspects-the-news-photo/463382360?adppopup=true">Aaron M. Sprecher/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Limits of the law</h2>
<p>Advocates for hate crime victims maintain that <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/hate-crime-training-for-police-is-often-inadequate-sometimes-nonexistent">police and prosecutors can do much more</a> to identify and punish hate crimes. </p>
<p>Empirical evidence supports their claims. The FBI’s 2019 report contains <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2019/resource-pages/hate-crime-summary#:%7E:text=Of%20the%205,512%20hate%20crime%20offenses%20classified%20as,commercial%20sex%20acts%20were%20reported%20as%20hate%20crimes.">8,559 bias crimes reported by law enforcement agencies</a>. But in the National Crime Victimization Survey, victims say that they experienced, on average, <a href="https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/hcs1317pp.pdf">more than 200,000 hate crimes each year</a>. This suggests that police are missing many hate crimes that have occurred. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/kids-perceptions-of-police-fall-as-they-age-for-black-children-the-decline-starts-earlier-and-is-constant-145511">Distrust of police</a>, especially in Black communities, may dissuade minorities from even calling the police when they are victimized by a hate crime for fear they could also become <a href="https://theconversation.com/police-shootings-and-race-in-america-five-essential-reads-65847">victims of police violence</a>. </p>
<p>All this means that perpetrators of hate crimes may not be caught and can re-offend, further victimizing communities that are meant to be protected by hate crime laws.</p>
<p>Hate crime laws reflect American ideals of fairness, justice and equity. But if crimes motivated by bias aren’t reported, well investigated, charged or brought to trial, it matters little what state law says.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This story incorporates material from an earlier story <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-a-hate-crime-the-narrow-legal-definition-makes-it-hard-to-charge-and-convict-157488">published on March 19, 2021</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195085/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeannine Bell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Bias-motivated attacks became a distinct crime in the 1980s. But police investigate only a fraction of the roughly 200,000 hate crimes reported each year – and even fewer ever make it to court.Jeannine Bell, Professor of Law, Loyola University ChicagoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1951912022-11-23T05:27:13Z2022-11-23T05:27:13ZUS LGBT nightclub shooting shows why Australia must reform hate crime laws<p>News of yet <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/21/us/anderson-lee-aldrich-colorado-springs-shooting-suspect/index.html">another deadly shooting at a United States LGBTIQ+ nightclub</a> has again brought hate crime to the forefront of public conversation. </p>
<p>This shocking incident coincides with <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-02/inquiry-into-sydney-lgbt-deaths-begins/101605590">an inquiry currently underway in Sydney</a> examining some 88 suspected murders of LGBTIQ+ people in New South Wales between 1976 and 2010.</p>
<p>The stark difference between the NSW murders and the Colorado Springs attack is the suspect in Colorado can be charged and prosecuted under the state’s bias-motivated crime law <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/21/us/hate-crime-laws-colorado-shooting.html">amended last year</a>. These crimes are defined as intimidation, harassment or physical harm that’s motivated at least partly by bias against a person’s race, religion, nationality, age, disability or sexual orientation. </p>
<p>As a result, the Colorado Springs suspect is facing <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/21/us/colorado-springs-club-q-shooting-monday/index.html">five counts of bias-motivated crime</a> causing bodily injury, in addition to murder charges. </p>
<p>But in Australia, the victims and their families would have little such recourse. This is because the legislative framework for a substantive hate crime offence doesn’t exist, and this hinders our ability to tackle hate crimes effectively.</p>
<p>Although Australia doesn’t experience mass shootings at the same horrific rate as the US, we must not believe we’re immune to hate crime. </p>
<p>The lonely, violent deaths of innocent people <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/their-deaths-matter-lgbtiq-hate-crime-inquiry-begins-in-sydney-20221101-p5burg.html">detailed in the Sydney inquiry</a> – as well as the uncountable incidents of daily discrimination, vilifications, micro-aggressions and abuse that it’s uncovering – are a common fate among people living with a disability, women, racial and religious minorities, the homeless and other groups. </p>
<p>Law enforcement investigations into these matters in Australia <a href="https://www.proquest.com/docview/2268346730/D0C2EB61F6634827PQ/1?accountid=56207">are often inadequate</a>.</p>
<h2>Assessing the motivation of a ‘hate crime’</h2>
<p>Most people would view the Colorado Springs attack as a senseless crime. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/21/colorado-gay-bar-shooting-suspect-facing-murder-hate-crime-charges.html?__source=google%7Ceditorspicks%7C&par=google">As a survivor said</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We were just enjoying ourselves. We weren’t out harming anyone. We were in our space, our community, our home, enjoying ourselves like everybody else does.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, as often happens in terrorism and hate crime incidents, the targets are selected because of what they represent in the minds of the offenders.</p>
<p>The question of “why” an offender does what they do is one of the most obvious immediate questions in the aftermath of a hate crime. Yet understanding the motives that drive all forms of human behaviour represents a particularly difficult philosophical and practical task. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-orlando-shooting-exploring-the-link-between-hate-crimes-and-terrorism-60992">The Orlando shooting: exploring the link between hate crimes and terrorism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://www.crisconsortium.org/news/bias-indicators">Our new research</a>, published by the Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies in October, aims to help Australian government and non-government organisations identify the motive behind hate crimes. </p>
<p>We present 14 lists of “bias indicators” and set out five key characteristics across these lists that could help stakeholders identify hate crime motives. </p>
<p>Broadly, these five categories of bias indicators are: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>The offender’s use of biased language (whether what’s said during, before or after the incident displays elements of prejudice against the target group)</p></li>
<li><p>The offender’s background and history of offending (whether the offender has a history of similar incidents or if they’re affiliated with a hate group)</p></li>
<li><p>The target’s background and appearance (whether, for example, the target was wearing a visible religious garment)</p></li>
<li><p>The nature and context of the incident itself (whether the act was conducted in a building that’s symbolic of the target group’s identity)</p></li>
<li><p>The existence of a pattern of victimisation (such as whether a person from the LGBTIQ+ community is repeatedly harassed and abused over time). </p></li>
</ol>
<p>The adoption of these bias indicators can help agencies collect better data on prejudice-motivated acts. </p>
<p>This can then constitute evidence that could be used by prosecutors and others in the criminal justice system, improving support for victims and increasing awareness of what hate crimes are, and how and why they should be reported. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/red-flag-laws-and-the-colorado-lgbtq-club-shooting-questions-over-whether-states-protection-order-could-have-prevented-tragedy-195062">Red flag laws and the Colorado LGBTQ club shooting – questions over whether state's protection order could have prevented tragedy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Where to from here?</h2>
<p>Australia urgently needs to develop a new culture on how to address hate crime with an evidence-based, holistic and whole-of-society approach.</p>
<p><strong>1. Evidence-based</strong></p>
<p>We say evidence-based because in Australia, there’s no clear and consistent definition of hate crime across the different states. There’s also no systematic data collection about the incidence and trends in this phenomenon.</p>
<p>While the US passed its Hate Crime Statistics Act over 30 years ago – which requires the FBI to collect hate crime data at a federal level – Australia doesn’t have any similar requirements in place for its various police forces. </p>
<p>In practical terms, this means we have no idea about trends and the prevalence of hate crimes in our community because we don’t count them.</p>
<p><strong>2. Holistic</strong></p>
<p>It’s also important we adopt a holistic approach to tackling hate crime. This is because in Australian state and federal legislations, activities to combat bias-motivated acts are piecemeal at best – tending to protect some groups but not others.</p>
<p>The few laws protecting Australians from different forms of hatred – mostly threats and incitement to violence – differ substantially across states. Most of them are civil laws, and the few criminal laws set a threshold of harm that’s too high and therefore are barely used. With few exceptions, these laws typically protect members of racial and religious groups, leaving out LGBTIQ+ people, people living with a disability and others. </p>
<p>Although Australia has sentencing laws allowing courts to aggravate a sentence if a crime is motivated by hatred, they’re not enough to protect Australians from hate crime. In this regard, Australia is lagging behind most countries in Europe and North America.</p>
<p>Australia needs to address different forms of hate holistically, including racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, and ableism among others.</p>
<p><strong>3. Whole-of-society</strong></p>
<p>We need a national hate crime strategy that promotes collaboration across civil society organisations, government agencies, researchers and the private sector. </p>
<p><a href="https://qnews.com.au/humiliation-gay-man-recalls-police-response-to-1970-sydney-assault/">As confirmed by the Sydney LGBTIQ+ inquiry</a>, there’s still low trust in law enforcement among some communities. Therefore civil society organisations must play a key role in tackling hate. </p>
<p>What’s more, we need to step up the ability of Australian law enforcement to address hate crime. This includes improving law enforcement training and education around hate crimes in Australia, which for example we provide via the <a href="https://tacklinghate.org/">Tackling Hate project</a>. The adoption of <a href="https://www.crisconsortium.org/news/bias-indicators">bias indicator manuals like ours</a> would also assist their training programs.</p>
<p>It’s clear we urgently need a systemic change in the Australian approach to tackle hate crime.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195191/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matteo Vergani receives funding from the Canadian Government, the Australian Government, the Australian Research Council. Matteo is a member of the Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies and the Australian Hate Crime Network. He is affiliated with the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation.</span></em></p>The suspect is facing five counts of bias-motivated crime causing bodily injury, in addition to murder charges. But in Australia, the victims and their families would have no such recourse.Matteo Vergani, Senior lecturer, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1879592022-08-10T12:27:41Z2022-08-10T12:27:41ZAmerican Sikhs are targets of bigotry, often due to cultural ignorance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478344/original/file-20220809-15464-qsfa3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C5499%2C3536&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A candlelight vigil in Oak Creek for the victims of a mass shooting at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in August 2012.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SikhTemple-Shooting/7cb40719da8c4c9bb2219192e64a18b7/photo?Query=sikhs%20united%20states&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=735&currentItemNo=61">AP Photo/Tom Lynn, File</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ten years ago, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/08/05/1115931555/remembering-the-oak-creek-killings-a-harbinger-of-white-supremacist-violence">a white supremacist opened fire</a> on a Sikh congregation in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, killing six people and injuring several others before taking his own life. An eighth person, <a href="https://www.wpr.org/priest-paralyzed-2012-sikh-temple-shooting-dies">Baba Punjab Singh, was left partially paralyzed and died from his wounds</a> a few years later.</p>
<p>At the time, it was among the deadliest mass shootings in a place of worship since the <a href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/education/teachers/curricular-resources/high-school-curricular-resources/the-sixteenth-street-baptist-church-the-response-from-the-white-house">16th Street Baptist Church bombing</a> by the Ku Klux Klan in 1963. It was also the most lethal assault on Sikh Americans since they began migrating to the U.S. more than a century ago.</p>
<p>I recall journalists covering the massacre not knowing much about the Sikh community. One anchor referred to the gurdwara as a mosque and referred to the murdered as Muslims. Another reporter described the gurdwara as a Hindu temple. A third described the Sikh religion as a sect of Islam, using the term “sheikhs” rather than “Sikhs.” </p>
<p>Scholars and government officials estimate the Sikh American population to <a href="http://pluralism.org/religions/sikhism/sikhism-in-america/the-sikh-community-today/">number around 500,000</a>. Cultural ignorance has often made them targets of bigotry. </p>
<p>As the author of “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/623324/the-light-we-give-by-simran-jeet-singh/">The Light We Give: How Sikh Wisdom Can Transform Your Life</a>” and as a practicing Sikh myself, I have studied the prejudices and barriers that many Sikhs in America face. I also experienced racial slurs from a young age.</p>
<p>The bottom line is there is little understanding in the U.S. of who exactly the Sikhs are and what they believe. So here’s a primer. </p>
<h2>Founder of Sikhism</h2>
<p>To start at the beginning, the founder of the Sikh tradition, Guru Nanak, was born in 1469 in the Punjab region of South Asia, which is currently split between Pakistan and the northwestern area of India. A majority of the global Sikh population <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203982600">still resides in Punjab on the Indian side of the border</a>.</p>
<p>From a young age, Guru Nanak was disillusioned by the social inequities and religious hypocrisies he observed around him. He believed that <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315014449">a single divine force</a> created the entire world and resided within it. In his belief, God was not separate from the world and watching from a distance, but fully present in every aspect of creation. </p>
<p>He therefore asserted that all people <a href="http://www.iuscanada.com/journal/archives/2011/j1312p42.pdf">are equally divine</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfj002">deserve to be treated</a> as such.</p>
<p>To promote this vision of divine oneness and social equality, <a href="https://www.bl.uk/sacred-texts/articles/origins-and-development-of-sikh-faith-the-gurus">Guru Nanak created institutions and religious practices</a>. He established community centers and places of worship, wrote his own scriptural compositions and appointed successors, known as gurus, who would carry forward his vision. </p>
<p>The Sikh view thus rejects all social distinctions that produce inequities, including gender, race, religion and caste, the predominant structure for social hierarchy in South Asia. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478348/original/file-20220809-16002-mtzcdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Men and women seated on the floor in two rows, being served food." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478348/original/file-20220809-16002-mtzcdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478348/original/file-20220809-16002-mtzcdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478348/original/file-20220809-16002-mtzcdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478348/original/file-20220809-16002-mtzcdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478348/original/file-20220809-16002-mtzcdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478348/original/file-20220809-16002-mtzcdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478348/original/file-20220809-16002-mtzcdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A community kitchen run by the Sikhs to provide free meals irrespective of caste, faith or religion, in the Golden Temple in Punjab, India.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/shankaronline/38938496121">shankar s.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Serving the world is a natural expression of Sikh prayer and worship. <a href="https://therevealer.org/why-sikhs-serve/">Sikhs call this prayerful service “seva</a>,” and it is a core part of their practice.</p>
<h2>The Sikh identity</h2>
<p>In the Sikh tradition, a truly religious person is one who cultivates the spiritual self while also serving the communities around them – or a <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2005/06/03/june-3-2005-sikh-saint-soldier/12270/">saint-soldier</a>. The saint-soldier ideal applies to women and men alike.</p>
<p>In this spirit, Sikh women and men maintain <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=TJb_i97CG70C&pg=PT149&dq=sikh+identity+articles+of+faith&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiXx4TZtszcAhWm44MKHU-ICfQQ6AEIQTAE#v=onepage&q=sikh%20identity%20articles%20of%20faith&f=false">five articles of faith, popularly known as the five Ks</a>. Those are: kes (long, uncut hair), kara (steel bracelet), kanga (wooden comb), kirpan (small sword) and kachera (soldier-shorts). Sikh philosophy teaches that all Sikhs are responsible for standing up against injustice, and that doing so is an act of service and love.</p>
<p>Although little historical evidence exists to explain why these particular articles were chosen, the five Ks continue to provide the community with a collective identity, binding together individuals on the basis of a shared belief and practice. As I understand, Sikhs cherish these articles of faith as gifts from their gurus.</p>
<p>Turbans are an important part of the Sikh identity. Both women and men may wear turbans. Like the articles of faith, Sikhs regard their turban as a gift given by their beloved guru, and its meaning is deeply personal. In South Asian culture, wearing a turban typically indicated one’s social status – kings and rulers once wore turbans. The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17448720500132557">Sikh gurus adopted the turban</a>, in part, to remind Sikhs that all humans are sovereign, royal and ultimately equal.</p>
<h2>Sikhs in America</h2>
<p>Today, there are <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=7QEjPVyd9YMC&pg=PA275&lpg=PA275&dq=sikhs+30+million&source=bl&ots=urtHXKjCPx&sig=nyZTGrreOK6owh5EmmPA16YVD8A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj_8Lbk9M7cAhXis1kKHWCPB-UQ6AEwFXoECAIQAQ#v=onepage&q=sikhs%2030%20million&f=false">approximately 30 million Sikhs worldwide</a>, making Sikhism the world’s fifth-largest religion. </p>
<p>After British colonizers in India seized power in Punjab in 1849, where a majority of the Sikh community was based, <a href="http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/books/9789004257238">Sikhs began migrating to various regions controlled by the British Empire</a>, including Southeast Asia, East Africa and the United Kingdom itself. Based on what was available to them, Sikhs played various roles in these communities, including military service, agricultural work and railway construction.</p>
<p><a href="https://pioneeringpunjabis.ucdavis.edu/eras/1899-1922/">The first Sikh community entered the United States</a> via the West Coast during the 1890s. They began experiencing discrimination immediately upon their arrival. For instance, <a href="http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/bham_intro.htm">the first race riot in the U.S. targeting Sikhs</a> took place in Bellingham, Washington, in 1907. Angry mobs of white men <a href="http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/bham_history.htm">rounded up Sikh laborers</a>, beat them up and forced them to leave town.</p>
<p>The discrimination continued over the years. For instance, after my father moved from Punjab to the United States, around the time of the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/middle-east/iran-hostage-crisis">Iran hostage crisis in 1979</a>, racial slurs like “Ayatollah” and “raghead” were hurled at him. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/15/world/meast/iran-hostage-crisis-fast-facts/index.html">Fifty-two American diplomats and citizens had been taken captive in Iran</a>, and tension between the two countries was high. Sikhs had nothing to do with it, but they faced a racist backlash as their appearance corresponded with how Americans viewed their new enemies in Iran. Our family faced a similar racist backlash when the U.S. engaged in the Gulf War during the early 1990s. </p>
<p>The racist attacks spiked again after 9/11, particularly because Americans did not know about the Sikh religion and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17448727.2013.822138">conflated the unique Sikh appearance with popular stereotypes</a> of what terrorists look like.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-trump-sikhs-20170509-htmlstory.html">rates of violence against Sikhs surged</a> after the election of President Donald Trump. The Sikh Coalition estimated in 2018 that Americans Sikhs were being targeted in hate crimes <a href="https://www.sikhcoalition.org/blog/2018/new-wave-hate-crimes-demands-vigilance/">about once a week</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478350/original/file-20220809-16002-u88r0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A colorful tableau with a horse and men and women in bright attire standing on it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478350/original/file-20220809-16002-u88r0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478350/original/file-20220809-16002-u88r0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478350/original/file-20220809-16002-u88r0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478350/original/file-20220809-16002-u88r0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478350/original/file-20220809-16002-u88r0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478350/original/file-20220809-16002-u88r0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478350/original/file-20220809-16002-u88r0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Sikh American parade in Pasadena, California.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/RoseParade/3dbb167c0ea74c9ba4f269f4b8aeaa0b/photo?Query=A%20Sikh%20American%20Journey%20parade%20in%20Pasadena,%20Calif&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=4&currentItemNo=2">AP Photo/Michael Owen Baker</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a practicing Sikh, I can affirm that Sikhs’ <a href="http://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1296&context=law_facultyscholarship">commitment to the tenets of their faith</a>, including love, service and justice, keeps them resilient in the face of violence. For these reasons, many Sikh Americans, including those affected by the massacre in Wisconsin, I believe, will continue to proudly maintain their unique Sikh identity. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-are-the-sikhs-and-what-are-their-beliefs-97237">first published</a> on Aug. 9, 2018.</em></p>
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</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187959/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simran Jeet Singh is affiliated with the Aspen Institute</span></em></p>On the 10th anniversary of the Oak Creek massacre, a Sikh scholar writes that there is little understanding of the Sikh faith in the U.S.Simran Jeet Singh, Visiting Lecturer, Union Theological SeminaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1831022022-05-16T14:56:12Z2022-05-16T14:56:12Z#JusticeForSheila highlights the precarious lives of queer people in Kenya<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463279/original/file-20220516-20-wxlu4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Nairobi protest against homophobic statements made by a government minister.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">JOHN OCHIENG/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Kenya is one of <a href="https://ilga.org/ilga-world-releases-state-sponsored-homophobia-December-2020-update">32 countries</a> in Africa that criminalise homosexuality. People who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) are frequently stigmatised, shamed and assaulted. The hashtags calling for action against the murder of queer people – like the most recent <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-61192594">#JusticeForSheila</a> – continue to trend on social media. We asked gender studies professor Awino Okech to tell us about the state of homophobic violence against queer Kenyans – and what needs to be done about it.</em></p>
<h2>Who is Sheila Lumumba and what is #JusticeForSheila?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.advocate.com/crime/2022/4/25/nonbinary-lesbian-reportedly-raped-and-killed-group-men">Sheila Lumumba</a> was a 25-year-old non-binary lesbian (they did not identify as either a woman or a man) who was found dead in Karatina, north of Nairobi, on 17 April 2022. Lumumba was reportedly raped and murdered in the most <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/justice-for-sheila-lumumba-kenya-lesbian-murder-nonbinary/">gruesome manner</a>. <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23JusticeForSheila&src=typed_query">#JusticeForSheila</a> is a hashtag that mobilises public engagement on the murder of queer people in Kenya generally and calls for public accountability for Sheila’s murder. </p>
<p>This hashtag is part of a <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-46343-4">history</a> of social media organising in Kenya around the death of women, sex workers and queer people such as <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23JusticeforSharon&src=typed_query&f=top">#JusticeforSharon</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23JusticeforJoash&src=typed_query">#JusticeforJoash</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Justiceforericachandra&src=typed_query">#Justiceforericachandra</a>. Social media and Twitter in particular have become an important space for pursuing societal accountability in an environment where some lives are deemed disposable and receive limited attention in the justice system.</p>
<h2>How prevalent are such attacks in Kenya?</h2>
<p>In a hostile environment for queer people, documentation from civil society organisations only captures part of the story. The Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya <a href="https://www.galck.org/galcks-statement-regarding-the-tragic-death-of-joash-mosoti/">reports</a> that “in Kenya, 53% of LGBTQ+ people are physically assaulted – that’s every second person.” Anecdotal evidence from media reports points to a pattern of attacks that range from murder and sexual assault to other forms of physical attacks and threats. In 2021, at least three reports were captured in mainstream media that involved either murder or suspicious deaths.</p>
<p>Last year a <a href="https://q4queer.wordpress.com/2021/09/01/jinsiangu-releases-statement-addressing-the-unfortunate-demise-of-erica/">transgender woman</a> was murdered, and their body dumped on the streets in Nairobi. In the same year, a <a href="https://pridesource.com/article/gay-man-burned-in-kenya-refugee-camp-dies/">Ugandan refugee</a> died from burn injuries associated with an attack on a group of queer refugees at Kakuma refugee camp and a <a href="https://www.galck.org/galcks-statement-regarding-the-tragic-death-of-joash-mosoti/">peer educator</a> with a queer organisation in Mombasa was found dead in his apartment. In 2020, <a href="https://outnewsglobal.com/mysterious-death-of-lgbtq-activist-in-kenya/">a queer activist</a> was found dead in her apartment under what were deemed suspicious circumstances. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/book-review-kenyan-christian-queer-is-a-powerful-departure-from-despair-130901">Book review: Kenyan Christian Queer is a powerful departure from despair</a>
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<p>Another key feature of homophobia <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/09/28/issue-violence/attacks-lgbt-people-kenyas-coast">against queer people</a> in Kenya involves the persistent threat of homelessness if their sexual orientation is “discovered” by family or owners of rental property. It is important, that in reading about queer death and violence we recognise the class disaparities that shape how people experience homophobia and transphobia.</p>
<h2>Do Kenya’s anti-LGBTI laws enable the attacks?</h2>
<p>What are described as “anti-homophobic laws” are in fact relics from the colonial era in the Kenyan penal code. Indeed, the 2019 <a href="https://www.galck.org/repeal162/">Repeal162</a> case in Kenya was a direct effort by queer organisations to <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-whats-at-stake-in-kenyan-court-case-on-gay-rights-112317">challenge</a> these provisions in the penal code. Section 162 and 165 of the Kenyan penal code criminalise what is referred to as “carnal knowledge against the order of nature”, which is often assumed to target same sex partners. The penalties range from 14 to 5 years imprisonment respectively. </p>
<p>These laws have since independence been used by the government to define African-ness and African culture in heterosexual and patriarchal terms thus justifying and cushioning violence. </p>
<h2>What social forces drive the attacks?</h2>
<p>The basis for attacks springs from two things. The first are ideas about how gender is governed in society. This is anchored in patriarchy, a system that distributes power between women and men, girls and boys unequally by privileging men and prescribing accompanying roles, behaviour and expected norms. </p>
<p>The second is the assumption that heterosexuality is the only way we can understand or experience sexuality. People who deviate from these societal prescriptions become targets of violence. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-kenyan-film-director-taking-on-the-world-with-positive-stories-of-black-life-149689">The Kenyan film director taking on the world -- with positive stories of black life</a>
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<p>To understand transphobia and homophobia, we must return to how societies think about (or refuse to think about) gender and sexuality and the structures of power that benefit from this refusal. The logic that informs homophobia and transphobia is the same one that <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/713299">underpins femicide</a> and violence against women.</p>
<p>For example, the murder of <a href="https://www.citizen.digital/news/sharon-otieno-murder-case-police-officer-narrates-failed-abduction-of-crucial-witness-n292247">Sharon Otieno</a>, a young university student, animated conversations about death and violence as justifiable actions against young women who go against the norm by engaging in sexual relationships with older men. The same logic was present in the 2013 case of <a href="https://femnet.org/2013/09/where-kenyan-women-stand-assault-on-hon-rachel-shebesh/">Rachel Shebesh</a>, a member of parliament, who was slapped in public by the then Nairobi governor for daring to pursue the rights of unpaid city council workers. </p>
<h2>What can be done about the problem?</h2>
<p>There are three possible ways to answer this. First, if you believe in the justice system as an effective mechanism to address injustice in societies, then strengthening the response of the legal and policing system to these attacks and deaths is one way to deal with the problem. </p>
<p>Two, for those who see legal and policing systems as fundamentally flawed because they punish rather than restore relations, the answer is to build movements that keep targeted communities safe.</p>
<p>Third, the long term, often difficult work of conscientising communities remains an important route to societal transformation and informs action one and two above.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183102/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Awino Okech does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Kenya’s LGBTI community continues to face the deadly consequences of homophobia, transphobia and biphobia.Awino Okech, Associate professor in political sociology, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1790932022-04-12T20:00:49Z2022-04-12T20:00:49Z‘Cold case’ gay murders: two books illuminate Australia’s dark history of police and military violence<p>In 1972, Dr George Duncan was a newly employed law lecturer at the University of Adelaide. Late one night, he visited a well-known beat on the banks of the River Torrens where men would meet for sex. There, Duncan and another man, Roger James, were attacked and thrown into the water. James’s ankle was broken, but he managed to pull himself out to safety. Duncan drowned. </p>
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<p><em>Review: The Death of Dr Duncan – Tim Reeves (Wakefield Press) and The Boy in the Dress – Jonathan Butler (Affirm Press)</em></p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457303/original/file-20220411-11-i520qy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457303/original/file-20220411-11-i520qy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=907&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457303/original/file-20220411-11-i520qy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=907&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457303/original/file-20220411-11-i520qy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=907&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457303/original/file-20220411-11-i520qy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457303/original/file-20220411-11-i520qy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457303/original/file-20220411-11-i520qy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>According to <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/topics/feature/out-sight-untold-story-adelaides-gay-hate-murders">rumours</a> within the gay community, police patrolling the beat would often throw men into the Torrens. Although members of the South Australian Vice Squad were put on trial for Duncan’s murder, they were acquitted. No one else has ever been charged.</p>
<p>Duncan’s case, as revealed in Tim Reeves’ detailed and valuable account of the crime and its impacts, <a href="https://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/product.php?productid=1762">The Death of Dr Duncan</a>, was both typical and rare. Violence against homosexual and bisexual men, at beats and elsewhere, is a shameful part of Australia’s history. </p>
<p>In the years when male homosexuality was considered a criminal act, many men lived in fear of police, not only because of the threat of arrest, but the beatings and verbal abuse that regularly went with it. </p>
<p>Entrapment was common, with police sending young, handsome officers to loiter at beats as a form of bait. Homosexuality’s criminal status prevented victims of homophobic violence from reporting attacks, for fear they would be outing themselves in the process.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457311/original/file-20220411-14-jglebd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A memorial plaque by a river." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457311/original/file-20220411-14-jglebd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457311/original/file-20220411-14-jglebd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457311/original/file-20220411-14-jglebd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457311/original/file-20220411-14-jglebd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457311/original/file-20220411-14-jglebd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457311/original/file-20220411-14-jglebd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457311/original/file-20220411-14-jglebd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A memorial to Dr George Duncan near the site of his death in the River Torrens. Photo: Adelaide Law School Facebook page.</span>
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<p>Duncan’s murder may well have disappeared as another largely ignored death of a “pervert” – seen as sad, perhaps, but hardly worth investigating. Unusually, however, the crime led to <a href="https://indaily.com.au/opinion/2022/03/04/duncan-drowning-files-a-disturbing-reminder-of-past-attitudes/">multiple inquiries</a>, had <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-41964671">significant political impacts</a>, and is still commemorated today. </p>
<p>As Reeves points out, Duncan was a well-regarded legal academic with prominent colleagues able to push for his murder to be investigated. His death also occurred at a moment when lesbian and gay <a href="https://theconversation.com/queer-wars-the-best-place-to-start-promoting-gay-rights-is-at-home-55747">activism</a> was emerging as a political force. Activists condemned police harassment of men at beats and argued that Duncan’s murder was evidence of the desperate need for homosexual law reform.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-hidden-in-plain-sight-australian-queer-men-and-women-before-gay-liberation-155964">Friday essay: hidden in plain sight — Australian queer men and women before gay liberation</a>
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<p>The Death of Dr Duncan is divided into two sections, the first exploring the various investigations into Duncan’s murder and the second the process of law reform that saw SA become <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-24/sa-marks-40-years-decriminalisation-homosexuality/6715308">the first Australian state to decriminalise sex between men</a>. </p>
<p>Given that inquiries into the crime continued well beyond decriminalisation in 1975, this creates a slightly disjointed narrative that might have been avoided if the two threads had been interwoven. Nonetheless, Reeves’ exhaustive research and deep knowledge of the case, gained over many years, forms the basis of an important work investigating a pivotal historical moment.</p>
<h2>True crime and queer joy</h2>
<p>The Death of Dr Duncan joins a growing list of recent popular histories examining historical violence against gay and bisexual men in Australia. Indeed, its publication is aligned with the first performances of <a href="https://theconversation.com/an-extraordinary-collaboration-watershed-the-death-of-dr-duncan-is-a-sensational-and-important-work-175330">Watershed: The Death of Dr Duncan</a>, an oratorio by composer Joe Twist and co-lyricists Alana Valentine and Christos Tsiolkas, based on Reeves’ research. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457302/original/file-20220411-6515-z8jc37.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457302/original/file-20220411-6515-z8jc37.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457302/original/file-20220411-6515-z8jc37.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457302/original/file-20220411-6515-z8jc37.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457302/original/file-20220411-6515-z8jc37.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457302/original/file-20220411-6515-z8jc37.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457302/original/file-20220411-6515-z8jc37.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457302/original/file-20220411-6515-z8jc37.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Watershed: The Death of Dr Duncan, performed at Adelaide Festival, March 2022.</span>
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<p>Former police officer Duncan McNab’s 2017 book <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33222216-getting-away-with-murder">Getting Away with Murder</a> was a damning account of New South Wales policing in the 1980s and 1990s, when at least 80 gay and bisexual men and transgender women were murdered in Sydney. Their deaths were often met with a lack of interest by police, who seemed happy to assume suicide even when the evidence suggested otherwise. </p>
<p>Podcast <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/bondi-badlands/id1585916975">Bondi Badlands</a> (investigating murders and disappearances of gay men on the southern headland at Bondi Beach in the late 1980s) and television series <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/video/770448963646/deep-water-s1-ep1">Deep Water</a> similarly tell the stories of these Sydney cases. The TV movie <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7328908/">Riot</a> contained a moving portrayal of the first Sydney Mardi Gras, when a street party was violently shut down by police. The recently released podcast <a href="https://www.audible.com.au/pd/The-Greatest-Menace-Audiobook/B09S169W9J">The Greatest Menace</a> examines the dark history of Cooma Gaol, where men charged with homosexual acts were imprisoned in the 1950s.</p>
<p>This focus on violence represents, in part, the recent surge in the popularity of true crime. It also represents a truth of the archives. Male homosexuality was decriminalised state by state in Australia, with Tasmania last, in 1997. Although things began to change in the 1960s, for much of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/saying-sorry-for-governments-intruding-in-your-bedroom-21954">criminalisation era</a>, homosexual people had little or no opportunity for the kinds of open social or cultural participation that would leave a written record. </p>
<p>In fact, the consequences of exposure meant that many worked very hard not to leave evidence of their sexual and romantic lives. To find queer histories in the archive, it is often necessary to rely on records of trials and police investigations. </p>
<p>We know very little about George Duncan’s social and sexual life because its discovery would have cost him his career as a legal academic – and possibly his freedom. The main reason evidence of his sexuality survives is that he was the victim of a violent crime.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457304/original/file-20220411-13-b6pa30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457304/original/file-20220411-13-b6pa30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457304/original/file-20220411-13-b6pa30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457304/original/file-20220411-13-b6pa30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457304/original/file-20220411-13-b6pa30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457304/original/file-20220411-13-b6pa30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457304/original/file-20220411-13-b6pa30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457304/original/file-20220411-13-b6pa30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Cooma Correctional Centre, Australia’s only ‘gay jail’.</span>
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<p>As a result, stories of gay tragedy are often better known than stories of happiness and pleasure. Yet, <a href="https://www.pridehistory.org.au/oral-histories">oral history interviews</a> and surviving letters or diaries tell us that, even in the highly oppressive days of the 1950s, well before Duncan visited the River Torrens beat, there was immense joy to be had in a queer life. </p>
<p>The activism emerging at the time of Duncan’s murder was angry and determined, certainly, but also centred humour, sex and joy in ways that were both politically effective and enormously fun. Activists specifically rejected the idea that they should keep themselves hidden from view, creating newsletters, <a href="https://theconversation.com/love-violence-and-class-wounds-in-thatcher-era-glasgow-what-booker-winner-douglas-stuart-did-next-179095">books</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/with-moonlights-oscar-win-hollywood-begins-to-right-old-wrongs-73843">movies</a> and other stories that celebrated queer lives by making them visible.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/pages-and-prejudice-how-queer-texts-could-fight-homophobia-in-australian-schools-111437">Pages and prejudice: how queer texts could fight homophobia in Australian schools</a>
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<h2>The Boy in the Dress</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://affirmpress.com.au/publishing/the-boy-in-the-dress/">The Boy in the Dress</a>, a combination of memoir, true crime, and deeply researched history, Jonathan Butler describes the broader ramifications when homosexual lives are understood as inherently tragic. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457305/original/file-20220411-22-1n40b5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457305/original/file-20220411-22-1n40b5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457305/original/file-20220411-22-1n40b5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457305/original/file-20220411-22-1n40b5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457305/original/file-20220411-22-1n40b5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457305/original/file-20220411-22-1n40b5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457305/original/file-20220411-22-1n40b5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457305/original/file-20220411-22-1n40b5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a teenager in 2007, Butler came out as gay to his parents, and both responded negatively. Their reaction was based, in part, on fears that his “sexuality would put [him] directly in harm’s way” and “there were just too many ways to die or be hurt as a gay man.” </p>
<p>Butler’s parents each had their own stories of homosexuality’s tragic outcomes. A gay schoolfriend of his father had died by suicide. And his mother’s family would tell, in whispered tones, the story of a murdered relative, Warwick Meale. That latter story forms the basis of Butler’s book.</p>
<p>As a young child more interested in the clothes and toys of his sisters than proper “boy” things, Butler was fascinated by a photograph of his grandmother and her cousin Warwick playing dress-ups as kids. In the photo, his grandmother was dressed as a boy, while young Warwick was looking joyful wearing a dress. </p>
<p>Like many LGBTQ+ people in their childhoods, Butler faced bullying and ridicule for his inability to <a href="https://theconversation.com/strapped-packed-and-taking-the-stage-australias-new-drag-kings-79747">perform gender</a> “correctly”. He had little information about gay lives through which he might understand (let alone celebrate) his feelings of difference and begin to build an identity.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457308/original/file-20220411-14-5ga2p5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457308/original/file-20220411-14-5ga2p5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457308/original/file-20220411-14-5ga2p5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457308/original/file-20220411-14-5ga2p5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457308/original/file-20220411-14-5ga2p5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457308/original/file-20220411-14-5ga2p5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457308/original/file-20220411-14-5ga2p5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Warwick (right) and the author’s grandmother, Winifred, playing dress ups, 1928.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The photo of young Warwick resonated with Butler because it suggested comradeship; here was someone else who understood the joy of being a boy wearing the clothes everyone said were for girls. The image was evidence that people like him existed – and perhaps always had.</p>
<p>As he grew older, Jonathan heard stories of this intriguing figure from the past, including shame-filled suspicions among the family that Warwick had been homosexual. Tragically, Warwick was murdered in Townsville in 1942 while serving in the Australian army. </p>
<p>As with George Duncan’s, his murder was never solved. Butler dives into the archives in the hopes of learning more about Warwick’s life and death, interweaving the evidence he finds with stories of his own coming out. </p>
<p>In the process, Butler describes the brutal homophobic <a href="https://twistedhistory.net.au/tag/lance-corporal-jack-lloyd/">murder</a> of another Australian soldier, Jack Lloyd, whose killer was acquitted on the basis that his victim had made a sexual advance and the killing was therefore justified.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/witch-hunts-and-surveillance-the-hidden-lives-of-queer-people-in-the-military-76156">Witch-hunts and surveillance: the hidden lives of queer people in the military</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The value of the past in the present</h2>
<p>Throughout The Boy in the Dress, Butler articulates the need, like many other LGBTQ+ people, to find his experience of sexual identity reflected in history. Although sometimes too keen to apply his experience to that of his forebears, he explores the value of history to queer individuals in the present –particularly the dual search for validation and justice – with grace and insight.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457309/original/file-20220411-6515-am14x3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457309/original/file-20220411-6515-am14x3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457309/original/file-20220411-6515-am14x3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457309/original/file-20220411-6515-am14x3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457309/original/file-20220411-6515-am14x3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457309/original/file-20220411-6515-am14x3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457309/original/file-20220411-6515-am14x3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457309/original/file-20220411-6515-am14x3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Warwick (right) in his summer uniform with his parents, Irene and Sidney, at their family home in Earlwood. They saw him for the first time on home leave in 1944.</span>
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</figure>
<p>The kind of history Butler explores is rarely, if ever, taught in schools. Indeed, Australia’s obsession with our military history leaves little place for the fact that <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-137-36514-9">some soldiers</a> <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/serving-silence/">were queer</a>. </p>
<p>Butler’s clear passion for his research stems, at least in part, from its revelation that people like him have a place in Australia’s most treasured historical narratives. Once isolated and bullied for his difference, Butler is reassured to now know that we were there, too. Some of the nation’s war heroes, generally imagined as archetypes of masculine heterosexuality, were once little boys who loved to wear dresses. </p>
<h2>Police history of violence towards queer people</h2>
<p>These books, and other recent historical true crime stories, hope that shining a light on historical injustice will lead to positive change in the present. Discussion of these crimes might prompt some form of reckoning.</p>
<p>It is unlikely the murderers of Dr Duncan will ever be punished. The only form of justice now available is to keep his story alive and use it as a basis for change.</p>
<p>The government has just announced a new <a href="https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7670285/canberra-to-get-new-crime-funded-australian-museum-of-policing/">Museum of Australian Policing</a>, to be opened in Canberra. The announcement included a list of likely exhibits, providing evidence of police successfully fighting crime and protecting the nation’s citizens. This raises the question of whether the museum will be an honest account of policing histories, or an expensive marketing tool for present-day police forces. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457314/original/file-20220411-12-mynlit.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="policemen in uniform, standing by a police car" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457314/original/file-20220411-12-mynlit.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457314/original/file-20220411-12-mynlit.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457314/original/file-20220411-12-mynlit.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457314/original/file-20220411-12-mynlit.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457314/original/file-20220411-12-mynlit.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457314/original/file-20220411-12-mynlit.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457314/original/file-20220411-12-mynlit.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">South Australia Police Traffic Division Courtesy Patrol, 1959.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library of South Australia/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Stories of homophobic, biphobic and transphobic (not to mention <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-black-lives-matter-protests-must-continue-an-urgent-appeal-by-marcia-langton-143914">racist</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/carceral-feminism-and-coercive-control-when-indigenous-women-arent-seen-as-ideal-victims-witnesses-or-women-161091">and</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/report-reveals-entrenched-nature-of-sexual-harassment-in-victoria-police-51810">misogynist</a>) violence – whether committed, deliberately ignored, or inadequately investigated by police – are an alternate narrative. </p>
<p>Reeves’ book, in particular, would make an excellent starting point for an exhibition exploring the history of police either failing to protect queer people from violence or deploying violence to oppress otherwise joyful queer lives. </p>
<p>There could be space, certainly, for the valiant efforts of some police to reshape their organisations towards greater inclusivity. But at its core, the exhibition would reflect on one element of Australian policing’s darker histories.</p>
<p>Reeves concludes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>That a state-funded apparatus operated – with the potential for imprisonment – to entrap and brutalise homosexuals is a powerful commentary on the irrational fear that then existed around a sexual minority.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As these books reveal, the history of that fear shouldn’t be understood as prompted by or inherent in LGBTQ+ lives – but as instigated, perpetuated and acted upon by violent criminals, often operating in a system that explicitly supported their crimes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179093/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott McKinnon is affiliated with the Pride History Group.</span></em></p>Two books on historical gay hate crimes – the murder of George Duncan in Adelaide, 1972, and army officer Warwick Meale in Townsville, 1942 – aim to create positive change by revealing past injustice.Scott McKinnon, PERL Research Fellow, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1791622022-03-25T12:16:21Z2022-03-25T12:16:21ZAsian American mothers confront multiple crises of pandemic, anti-Asian hate and caregiving<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454441/original/file-20220325-21-2rq5i0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=143%2C197%2C2851%2C1796&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">On March 16, 2022, more than a hundred people attended the Justice for Asian Women Rally in New York City. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/more-than-a-hundred-people-attended-justice-for-asian-women-news-photo/1239259206?adppopup=true">Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In memory of the <a href="https://www.axios.com/asians-atlanta-shootings-anniversary-4d90b144-ab67-4be8-9521-93e94ec719fb.html">Atlanta massage spas</a> shootings on March 16, 2021, that killed eight people, including six Asian women, communities around the country gathered a year later to mourn and demand responses to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/16/us/atlanta-spa-shootings-anniversary/index.html">violence against Asian Americans</a>, especially women who work in service industries.</p>
<p>In addition to being exposed to risks at their workplaces, Asian American women who care for children and elders are especially vulnerable to anti-Asian violence. As <a href="https://www.umass.edu/wgss/member/miliann-kang">sociologists</a> and scholars of gender, race, immigration and <a href="https://people.umass.edu/cnle/">Asian American studies</a>, we focus on the particular challenges facing Asian American mothers. </p>
<p>Though they face challenges similar to those faced by other mothers confronting the COVID-19 pandemic, Asian American women have the added burden of being seen as the <a href="https://news.osu.edu/study-reveals-why-some-blame-asian-americans-for-covid-19/">cause of the virus</a> and being disproportionately targeted by hostility and violence that such misconceptions bring on. </p>
<h2>Spike in assaults</h2>
<p>From March 2020 to December 2021, <a href="https://stopaapihate.org/">StopAAPIHate</a>, a joint project between the Asian American Studies Department of San Francisco State University and two Asian American community organizations, collected reports of almost 11,000 incidents in the U.S. of anti-Asian hate, ranging from spitting to verbal abuse to physical attacks. Women reported <a href="https://stopaapihate.org/national-report-through-december-31-2021/">62%</a> of these incidents. </p>
<p>In a separate survey of 2,414 female Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders conducted in January and February 2022 by the <a href="https://www.napawf.org/">National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum</a>, a national organization founded in 1998 to advocate for women and girls in that community, results show that 74% of respondents reported personally experiencing racism, discrimination or both in the prior 12 months. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man holds up a sign that says 'Asian is not a virus.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453910/original/file-20220323-13-1hj9bqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453910/original/file-20220323-13-1hj9bqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453910/original/file-20220323-13-1hj9bqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453910/original/file-20220323-13-1hj9bqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453910/original/file-20220323-13-1hj9bqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453910/original/file-20220323-13-1hj9bqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453910/original/file-20220323-13-1hj9bqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A protester in Oakland, Calif., holding a placard against Asian hate on May 15, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/protester-holding-a-placard-against-asian-hate-in-the-news-photo/1232919262?adppopup=true">Pat Mazzera/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The spike in violence has been reflected in news headlines that have appeared since the World Health Organization declared the pandemic on March 11, 2020. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/02/20/1082012448/theres-been-an-alarming-spike-in-violence-against-women-of-asian-descent-in-the-">National Public Radio proclaimed</a>, “There’s been an alarming spike in violence against women of Asian descent in the U.S.” <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/nowhere-safe-asian-women-reflect-brutal-new-york-city-killings-rcna16173">NBC also reported</a>, “‘Nowhere is safe’: Asian women reflect on brutal New York City killings.”</p>
<p>Over the same time period, other news headlines reflected the toll the pandemic took on mothers. A <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/parenting/working-moms-mental-health-coronavirus.html">New York Times headline</a>, for instance, read “The Primal Scream: America’s Mothers Are in Crisis.” Another in <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2021/04/07/sacrificed-working-moms-economy-burden-unemployment-column/7104145002/">USA Today</a> read “We sacrificed working moms to survive the pandemic.”</p>
<p>For Asian American mothers, what appear to be distinct headlines are inextricably connected in daily decisions on whether to send children to school, accompany parents on the subway, go to work or simply leave the house. </p>
<h2>Heightened risks</h2>
<p>“There’s just a real sense of fear,” said Jeanie Tung, director of business development and workforce partnerships at <a href="https://www.henrystreet.org/about/">Henry Street Settlement</a>. The organization, located near New York City’s Chinatown, serves Manhattan’s Lower East Side residents and other New Yorkers through social services, arts and health care programs.</p>
<p>During an interview, Tung said she has heard from Asian American mothers that their concerns go beyond the lack of child care. “It’s more like, ‘I don’t want to work because I don’t want to risk my life,’” said Tung.</p>
<p>The shootings in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/17/us/shooting-atlanta-acworth">Atlanta-area massage spas</a> exposed the heightened vulnerabilities of Asian American women who work in high-contact service industries, such as nail salons, restaurants, delivery, health care, caregiving, hospitality and, especially, massage and sex work.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Dozens of white bags are placed on red stairs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453915/original/file-20220323-27-1g4b2fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453915/original/file-20220323-27-1g4b2fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453915/original/file-20220323-27-1g4b2fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453915/original/file-20220323-27-1g4b2fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453915/original/file-20220323-27-1g4b2fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453915/original/file-20220323-27-1g4b2fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453915/original/file-20220323-27-1g4b2fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">During the Justice for Asian Women Rally in New York City on March 16, 2022, dozens of white bags are placed on red steps to honor victims of hate crimes against Asian Americans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/white-bags-set-on-red-steps-to-honor-victims-of-hate-crimes-news-photo/1239258840?adppopup=true">Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yin Q is an organizer for <a href="https://www.redcanarysong.net/">Red Canary Song</a>, a coalition of Asian massage and sex workers in the U.S., with programs also in Toronto, Paris and Hong Kong. “If you look at the rise in violence across the board,” she said in an interview, “then it’s magnified for massage and sex workers. And then you add to that, being a mother and a caregiver.” </p>
<p>She explained that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/26/opinion/politics/atlanta-shooting-massage-workers-protection.html">social stigma and criminalization</a> of their work increase their risks of violence. Their work also prevents them from being seen as devoted mothers and responsible caregivers.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.hunterurban.org/faculty/john-chin">John Chin</a>,
professor of urban planning at Hunter College, co-authored an National Institutes of Health-funded study that interviewed over 100 <a href="https://grantome.com/grant/NIH/R21-HD074446-01A1">Korean and Chinese women</a> working in illicit massage parlors.</p>
<p>“Can we as a community accept that a person might be both a sex worker and a loving mother dedicated to raising her children?” <a href="https://aaari.info/assets/2022/03/CFV9-Chin.pdf?ct=t(EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_7_2018_12_57_COPY_01)">he asked</a>.</p>
<p>Various initiatives have been proposed to address how motherhood negatively impacts earnings, known as the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0730888415615385">motherhood penalty</a>, and how this penalty has been <a href="https://tcf.org/content/report/build-back-better-plan-reduce-motherhood-penalty/">exacerbated during the pandemic</a>. </p>
<p>Measures such as flexibility to work from home, child care subsidies, paid family leave and other programs in the Biden administration’s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/28/fact-sheet-the-american-families-plan/">American Families Plan</a> are important. </p>
<h2>Unique challenges</h2>
<p>On top of negotiating vaccines, mask mandates, online and in-person learning while trying to sustain their own careers and mental health, Asian American mothers are in a state of hypervigilance against racist attacks. </p>
<p>Immediate needs include increased personal safety. Measures such as providing alarms, rides and hotlines, as well as offering classes in self-defense and <a href="https://www.advancingjustice-aajc.org/events">bystander</a> training,
have proved effective. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.napawf.org/">A report</a> by the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum goes even further. “The State of Safety for Asian American and Pacific Islander Women in the U.S” <a href="https://www.napawf.org/our-work/march-2022/state-of-safety">urged elected officials</a> to spend more money on community-based organizations that offer language-accessible services to help Asian Americans find employment, housing and health care. </p>
<p><a href="https://caaav.org/">CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities</a> has been working since 1986 to address various forms of anti-Asian violence – from street assaults to police brutality to landlord harassment and housing displacement. Its main approach is developing leadership within Asian immigrant communities, including among tenants, workers and youths. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.kqed.org/arts/13522854/making-queer-and-trans-asian-american-identities-visible">Queer and trans Asian American mothers</a>, and those raising children who identify as queer and trans, are demanding visibility and responses to the particular challenges they face, including higher risk for <a href="https://www.api-gbv.org/resources/with-you-queer-and-trans-koreans-surviving-violence-2018/">intimate partner and family violence</a>.</p>
<p>[<em><a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=politics&source=inline-politics-important">Get The Conversation’s most important politics headlines, in our Politics Weekly newsletter</a>.</em>]</p>
<p>Asian Americans are a diverse group, as are Asian American mothers. While some Asian American groups have called for more policing, others disagree and call for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/03/16/anti-asian-violence-is-serious-problem-policing-isnt-solution/">community-based approaches</a> to increase safety.</p>
<p><a href="https://council.nyc.gov/district-26/">Julie Won</a>, one of the first Korean Americans to serve on the New York City Council, told <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/06/nyregion/asian-woman-attacks.html">The New York Times</a> in March 2022 that tougher policing is not the answer and more attention needs to be paid to “prevention and long-term solutions to what leads to these violent crimes.” </p>
<h2>Education remains key</h2>
<p><a href="https://aaastudies.org/">Asian American studies</a> scholars have sought to teach the <a href="https://theconversation.com/racism-is-behind-anti-asian-american-violence-even-when-its-not-a-hate-crime-157487">history of anti-Asian racism</a> and specifically the roots of <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/17/opinions/to-be-an-asian-woman-in-america-ho/index.html">racialized sexualization of Asian American women</a>. </p>
<p>But backlash against teaching <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2021/09/10/crt-schools-education-racism-slavery-poll/5772418001/">critical race theory</a> underscores the need to expand curriculum on <a href="https://www.si.edu/unit/asian-pacific-american-center">Asian American history</a> and <a href="https://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/journal-asian-american-studies">contemporary issues facing Asian Americans</a> beyond the university to K-12 public education. Such <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/18/opinions/asian-american-history-education-aapi-hate-crimes-murphy-pritzker/index.html">initiatives</a> have been proposed in several U.S. states and have become law in Illinois and New Jersey. </p>
<p>Efforts to support and protect Asian Americans, particularly mothers, require approaches that both respond to the rise in anti-Asian violence at this very troubling moment and recognize the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00447471.2020.1840319">long gendered and racial histories</a> of anti-Asian exclusion.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179162/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors are a married couple in addition to being colleagues at UMass Amherst. John Chin and Jeanie Tung are colleagues we have known since graduate school who have specific expertise to contribute to this article. We invited Yin Q to speak on a panel at UMass Amherst last fall. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>When C.N. Le worked for the Asian Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS as the Director of Education in New York City from 1999 to 2002, John Chin was his former supervisor and Jeannie Tung was under his supervision in her position as Volunteer Coordinator.</span></em></p>Asian American mothers face a caregiving crisis, fueled by the pandemic but rooted in histories of anti-Asian discrimination and violence.Miliann Kang, Professor of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies, UMass AmherstC.N. Le, Director Asian & Asian American Studies Certificate, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1590272021-04-27T12:12:40Z2021-04-27T12:12:40ZFBI reaches out to Hasidic Jews to fight antisemitism – but bureau has fraught history with Judaism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396608/original/file-20210422-19-1ntgiqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4468%2C2969&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">FBI announcements in Yiddish encourage Hasidic or "ultra-Orthodox" Jews to report incidents of anti-Semitism.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/hasidic-man-walks-by-the-maimonides-medical-center-on-news-photo/1287323694?adppopup=true">Spencer Platt/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The FBI wants to hear from Hasidim, or “ultra-Orthodox” Jews. The Hate Crimes Unit said as much when it issued announcements – in both <a href="https://www.jns.org/fbi-releases-ads-in-yiddish-and-hebrew-to-encourage-reporting-of-hate-crimes/">Yiddish and Hebrew</a> – asking Jews to report antisemitic incidents in an outreach campaign launched in April 2021. </p>
<p>The campaign follows <a href="https://www.justice.gov/crs/highlights/FY-2019-Hate-Crimes">highly visible antisemitic incidents</a> in the U.S. in recent years, including the 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, which left <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/27/us/active-shooter-pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting.html">11 people dead</a>.</p>
<p>Hasidic Jews make up the overwhelming majority of Yiddish speakers in the U.S. They number about 320,000 adults, according to Matt Williams, director of the <a href="https://research.ou.org/">Orthodox Union for Communal Research</a>. Outreach to this community poses distinctive challenges because <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46122-9_5">Hasidic communities can be insular</a>, often seeking to address issues from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/18/nyregion/yeshivas-education-report-new-york.html">education</a> to <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/bjwd8w/the-ultra-orthodox-jewish-communitys-sex-abuse-crisis-has-finally-reached-a-tipping-point">sexual assault</a> without involving outsiders. </p>
<p>As someone who has written about <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N6C7WNI/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1">Jews and the FBI</a>, I am not surprised that the FBI now wants to address antisemitism. But the FBI has a complicated <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N6C7WNI/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1">history with Jews</a>. It is a past that suggests the FBI has loved the idea of Judaism as a religion, but not necessarily American Jews themselves.</p>
<h2>Cold War embrace</h2>
<p>Officially founded in 1935, the FBI was designed to take on domestic crime and surveillance. By the late 1940s, driven by Cold War ideals, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover bolstered an image of the U.S. as <a href="https://oxfordre.com/religion/religion/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.001.0001/acrefore-9780199340378-e-398">religious and moral</a> as opposed to its enemy – an atheistic, immoral Soviet Union. Embracing Judaism as good, lawful and American was strategic.</p>
<p>During his prepared remarks at a 1947 House Un-American Activities Committee hearing, Hoover called communism an “<a href="https://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/hoover-speech-before-the-house-committee-speech-text/">evil work</a>” and “a cause that is alien to the religion of Christ and Judaism.” He believed that the U.S. had a superior moral foundation – a religious one – and that communism was built on nothing but human iniquity. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396612/original/file-20210422-17-2ffhq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover is presented an award in 1953" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396612/original/file-20210422-17-2ffhq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396612/original/file-20210422-17-2ffhq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396612/original/file-20210422-17-2ffhq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396612/original/file-20210422-17-2ffhq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396612/original/file-20210422-17-2ffhq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396612/original/file-20210422-17-2ffhq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396612/original/file-20210422-17-2ffhq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (right) is presented a medal in 1953 for his efforts to fight communism in the U.S.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/HooverGetsAward/2f904967c3fb4d3db7923f87fb781eeb">William J. Smith/AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Claiming for the U.S. a <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo43987703.html">“Judeo-Christian” heritage</a>, as became <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/2712839">popular in the 1950s</a>, supported the Cold War cause in another way too. It subtly referred to both God and democracy, and implied that both were on the side of Americans.</p>
<p>Instead of merely emphasizing Christianity, the phrase also allowed <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-spiritual-industrial-complex-9780195393460?cc=us&lang=en&">Hoover and others</a> to tout what they perceived as the U.S.’s religious tolerance and inclusiveness. Since many Christians imagined Judaism as a precursor to Christianity, Judaism could signal diversity and democracy without seeming foreign. In practice, this meant that references to Judaism were not about anything distinctively Jewish but rather about what people thought it shared with Christianity, like the <a href="https://jwa.org/media/ten-commandments">Ten Commandments</a>.</p>
<h2>Anti-Jewish prejudice</h2>
<p>But there was a complication to the FBI’s embrace of Judaism. By the 1950s, U.S. Jews had a <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674032439">long history with the political left</a>, including support of the Socialist and Communist parties, which the FBI saw as threats. </p>
<p>“Communists have been, still are, and always will be a menace to freedom, to democratic ideals, to the worship of God and to the American way of life,” <a href="https://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/hoover-speech-before-the-house-committee-speech-text/">Hoover told</a> the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947. </p>
<p>FBI officials and records associated Jews with communism. An American Jewish Committee document from this period reported that the <a href="https://www.hmhbooks.com/shop/books/the-holocaust-in-american-life/9780618082322">FBI estimated</a> that 50% to 60% of U.S. communists were Jews. </p>
<p>These accusations and investigations had sometimes devastating effects. The Jewish actor Philip Loeb died by suicide after he was blacklisted from Hollywood and investigated by the FBI and could no longer work to support his disabled son. He overdosed on barbiturates in a New York hotel room. Days later, the <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1525/9780520962422-010/html">FBI cleared him</a> of being a member of the Communist Party.</p>
<p>Internal FBI workings also demonstrated assumptions about Jews and communism as well as strategic sympathy to anti-Jewish prejudice. When an informant told agent Jack Levine that all Jews were communists, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Great-Fear-Anti-Communist-Truman-Eisenhower/dp/0671248480">Levine was instructed</a> to keep it out of his written report so that the bias could not discredit the informant. It did not appear to concern the FBI that the bias meant the informant might not be truthful. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396609/original/file-20210422-21-ltul4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Visitors mark one-year anniversary of mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396609/original/file-20210422-21-ltul4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396609/original/file-20210422-21-ltul4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396609/original/file-20210422-21-ltul4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396609/original/file-20210422-21-ltul4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396609/original/file-20210422-21-ltul4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396609/original/file-20210422-21-ltul4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396609/original/file-20210422-21-ltul4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Visitors mark the one-year anniversary of the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/visitors-look-at-inspired-artworks-along-the-fence-at-the-news-photo/1178629458?adppopup=true">Jeff Swensen/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The FBI today is hardly the same organization that it was during the Cold War, but its sympathies for Judaism do have historical resonance. In 1958, bombers <a href="http://americanjewisharchives.org/publications/journal/PDF/1971_23_02_00_shankman.pdf">dynamited The Temple</a>, the synagogue of the oldest Jewish congregation in Atlanta. The blast killed no one but caused at least US$100,000 in damage. President Eisenhower told Hoover to send the FBI to investigate, and Hoover quickly complied, even though it may not have been under the FBI’s jurisdiction. <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1525/9780520962422-010/html">Hoover saw the bombing</a> as an attack on religion, and so it was an attack on the country. </p>
<p>With this history in mind, Yiddish and Hebrew announcements soliciting information from Jewish religious communities should come as no surprise – especially because some antisemitic attacks in the U.S. have taken place in religious spaces. For many, the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh looks like an attack on America because it is an attack on Judaism, even on religion. Outreach to Hasidim – the American Jews who look the most religious – has become one way the FBI wants to stop those attacks.</p>
<p>[<em>Explore the intersection of faith, politics, arts and culture.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/this-week-in-religion-76/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=religion-explore">Sign up for This Week in Religion.</a>]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159027/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Imhoff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>During the Cold War, the FBI boasted a ‘Judeo-Christian’ heritage in the US but also demonstrated anti-Jewish prejudice.Sarah Imhoff, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1547282021-04-01T19:04:28Z2021-04-01T19:04:28ZWe tracked antisemitic incidents in Australia over four years. This is when they are most likely to occur<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391620/original/file-20210325-23-1w8ubq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=91%2C447%2C2782%2C1675&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Antisemitism — hatred towards Jews — can be expressed in many forms. It often takes the form of a hate crime, such as violence against people (including murder or assault) and damage to property (vandalism). </p>
<p>It can also take the form of an incident regulated by civil law or not regulated at all. For example, antisemitism can be expressed in verbal and non-verbal displays of aggression, threatening posters, stickers, leaflets or other displays of hate.</p>
<p>Recently, for example, a Jewish woman in her 60s was <a href="https://ajn.timesofisrael.com/spat-at-called-jewish-scum-on-way-home-from-shule/">spat at and called “Jewish scum”</a> on the eve of Passover in a Melbourne street. </p>
<p>What if we could predict when antisemitic incidents are most likely to occur? Is it possible to identify patterns linking these incidents to particular dates or events — and therefore be better prepared to counter them?</p>
<h2>How we researched antisemitic incidents</h2>
<p>In new research <a href="https://tacklinghate.org/upcoming-research/">under peer review at a scientific journal</a>, we set out to discover more about what triggers these specific acts of hate in Australia.</p>
<p>Our team of researchers analysed 673 incidents of antisemitism across Australia from 2013–17 to determine if they were more likely to occur — or if they were more serious in nature — during specific events. </p>
<p>Among the events we looked at were:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33223365">2014 Israel–Gaza conflict</a></p></li>
<li><p>during and after the establishment of the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/religion/antipodean-resistance-the-rise-and-goals-of-australias-new-nazis/10094794">neo-Nazi group Antipodean Resistance</a> in October 2016</p></li>
<li><p>during weeks when there are Jewish religious celebrations (such as Passover this week).</p></li>
</ul>
<p>We used data collected by the <a href="https://www.ecaj.org.au/">Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ)</a>, which include incidents reported to the group or other Jewish state-based organisations across Australia, and published in ECAJ’s annual <a href="https://www.ecaj.org.au/antisemitism-report/">Report on Antisemitism in Australia</a>. </p>
<p>Data collected by community organisations like ECAJ are usually more detailed and complete than police statistics, due to the <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d48cb4d61091100011eded9/t/5f5ab2bad55ac978cdd858f9/1599779524716/Barriers+to+reporting+hate+crimes_final.pdf">under-reporting</a> of antisemitic and other hate crimes to the authorities. </p>
<p>Our data included a wide spectrum of both criminal and non-criminal hate incidents, including physical assault, verbal abuse, graffiti and vandalism, as well as various types of communication like mail, emails, stickers, posters, leaflets and telephone calls.</p>
<p>We then re-coded all the incidents, placed them on a timeline and divided them into categories based on the severity of the incident.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1199513815467069440"}"></div></p>
<h2>What events were likely to trigger hate?</h2>
<p>Our results showed that weeks with Jewish celebrations were more likely to coincide with incidents of hate speech, such as verbal abuse and offensive gestures.</p>
<p>This could be explained by the fact that during the holidays, Jewish people are more identifiable on the street, as many tend to wear religious garments or congregate outside synagogues. </p>
<p>Overseas, Jewish holidays have also been chosen for targeted attacks at synagogues, for example, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55395682">the 2019 attack in Halle, Germany, on Yom Kippur</a>. In our Australian data set, incidents during Jewish celebrations were less likely to involve physical violence, and more likely to involve hate speech. </p>
<p>The antisemitic incidents we tracked during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, however, were <a href="https://www.ecaj.org.au/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/2014_antisemitism_report.pdf">significantly more likely</a> to involve violence towards people (such as throwing objects).</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/antisemitism-how-the-origins-of-historys-oldest-hatred-still-hold-sway-today-87878">Antisemitism: how the origins of history’s oldest hatred still hold sway today</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>And the incidents that occurred after the establishment of Antipodean Resistance were more likely to involve indirect forms of hate speech (such as the <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/australian-neo-nazis-deface-elderly-care-facility-housing-holocaust-survivors/">neo-Nazi stickers defacing</a> an aged care facility in Melbourne housing Holocaust survivors), and be claimed by the hate group.</p>
<p>Our research builds on what previous studies have found. <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/abs/explaining-ethnoreligious-minority-targeting-variation-in-us-antisemitic-incidents/27C579F510013E8158D9952101AD2D00">A study in the US</a> last year, for instance, found that Israeli military operations, as well as the presence of hate groups in certain geographical areas, were associated with an increase in antisemitic incidents.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0031322X.2011.605845">And a study in Belgium</a> found similar links between waves of antisemitic attacks in that country in 2008–09 and Israel’s <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/R40101.pdf">offensive</a> against Hamas in Gaza.</p>
<h2>A sharp increase in incidents in recent years</h2>
<p>We believe the same patterns we identified from 2014–17 would also apply to the present day. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.ecaj.org.au/media-release-ecaj-annual-report-on-antisemitism-in-australia-2020/">ECAJ Antisemitism Report</a> noted increases in hate incidents during Jewish religious festivals up to 2019. </p>
<p>In 2020, there were fewer opportunities for antisemitic abuse because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of Jewish facilities and synagogues. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, from 2019–20, there was a <a href="https://www.ecaj.org.au/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/ECAJ-Antisemitism-Report-2020.pdf">marked increase</a> in the number of serious incidents in Australia, including physical assaults and verbal abuse. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/anti-semitic-anti-zionism-on-campus-how-should-universities-respond-56981">Anti-Semitic anti-Zionism on campus – how should universities respond?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Antipodean Resistance has disbanded in recent years, but some of its members <a href="https://theconversation.com/far-right-groups-have-used-covid-to-expand-their-footprint-in-australia-here-are-the-ones-you-need-to-know-about-151203">have reportedly joined</a> a new group called the National Socialist Network.</p>
<p>The group gained attention for a weekend camping trip in the Grampians earlier this year, during which they <a href="https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/national-socialist-network-melbourne-neonazi-group-seen-in-grampians-uncovered/news-story/d6cee39c9d2b0d6e565cf7e339491a5a">burned crosses and chanted racist slogans</a>. This incident coincided with the 76th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp.</p>
<p>A major report <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-28/banned-neo-nazi-groups-set-sights-on-australia/100030072">released</a> recently also noted several neo-Nazi groups banned in Europe and the US were now operating in Australia. Since 2019, they have become more explicitly antisemitic, aggressively racist and white supremacist.</p>
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<h2>Why this data is important</h2>
<p>Our research can be used by both policymakers and community organisations to gain a more nuanced understanding of antisemitism and what drives it. </p>
<p>Studying the relationships between the types of hate incidents and specific trigger events can help improve preparedness and focus critical security resources at times when the Jewish community is at greatest risk.</p>
<p>Currently, hate crime reports are collected by <a href="https://www.police.vic.gov.au/prejudice-and-racial-and-religious-vilification#prejudice-motivated-crime">some</a> <a href="https://www.police.nsw.gov.au/crime/hate_crimes">police forces</a>, <a href="https://www.humanrights.vic.gov.au/get-help/community-reporting-tool/">human right commissions</a> and <a href="https://vic.thecsg.org.au/report-an-incident/">civil society</a> <a href="http://iamnotavirusaustralia.org.au/report-your-incident/">organisations</a>. </p>
<p>However, they all use different definitions and criteria, and they usually do not share data with each other. This means that each organisation has a piece of the puzzle, but no one can see the whole picture.</p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-shut-down-far-right-extremism-in-australia-we-must-confront-the-ecosystem-of-hate-154269">To shut down far-right extremism in Australia, we must confront the ecosystem of hate</a>
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<p>Our research highlights the need for a more comprehensive register of hate crimes and incidents combining data from all of these sources, as well as Facebook and Twitter. </p>
<p>One of the main reasons we don’t have a centralised database is Australia doesn’t have a federal hate crime law similar to the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/hatecrimes/laws-and-policies">US</a> and <a href="https://www.cps.gov.uk/crime-info/hate-crime">UK</a>. </p>
<p>We need to develop a “whole of society” approach that involves civil society organisations, government agencies, law enforcement and scholars. </p>
<p>With this in mind, we developed (together with colleagues from Sydney University, City University of New York and Michigan State University) a website called <a href="https://tacklinghate.org/">Tackling Hate</a>. It offers free training modules, videos and resources to help these sectors build the skills to identify and address all forms of hate.</p>
<p>Only then will we be able to develop more targeted, evidence-based policies and practices to better predict when antisemitic incidents are likely to occur and be prepared to counter them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154728/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Our research tried to identify patterns linking antisemitic incidents to particular dates, local trends or global events. The aim was to be better prepared to counter them.Matteo Vergani, Senior research fellow, Deakin UniversityDan Goodhardt, Casual Research, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1575332021-03-22T12:27:25Z2021-03-22T12:27:25ZUS has a long history of violence against Asian women<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390677/original/file-20210319-19-vvpmwl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C2995%2C2142&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Esther Song tears up as she attends a community rally to raise awareness of anti-Asian violence and racist attitudes, in Los Angeles in February 2021.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Anti-AsianViolenceAwareness/d2cc54aa88814a569e2773530c27cc0d/photo">AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Asian American women understand that the alleged murderer of eight people in Atlanta was acting in keeping with a culture filled with racialized and sexualized views of Asian women. Of the people murdered, four women were of Korean descent and two of Chinese heritage.</p>
<p>The shooter himself, Robert Long, has said he was <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/suspect-denies-race-was-motivation-in-atlanta-spa-attacks/ar-BB1eEQwx">motivated to act violently</a> because of his self-proclaimed “sex addiction.” He allegedly told investigators that the businesses he attacked represented “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03/17/atlanta-spa-shootings-live-updates/">a temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate</a>.” </p>
<p>Long sought to eliminate the objects of his sexual temptations, Asian women. In doing so, he drew on the U.S.’s long history of sexualizing Asian American women. </p>
<h2>A long history of stereotypes</h2>
<p><a href="https://asiasociety.org/education/understanding-our-perceptions-asian-americans">Harmful stereotypes of Asian women in American popular culture</a> date back to at least the 19th century. Back then, American missionaries and military personnel in Asia <a href="https://www.apa.org/pubs/highlights/spotlight/issue-119">viewed the women they met there as exotic and submissive</a>. </p>
<p>These stereotypes influenced the first U.S. immigration law based on race, the 1875 <a href="https://immigrationhistory.org/item/page-act/">Page Act</a>, which prevented Chinese women from entering the United States. The official assumption was that, unless proven otherwise, Chinese women seeking to enter the United States <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27500484">lacked moral character and were prostitutes</a>. In fact, <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/85tcb3hp9780252024696.html">many were wives</a> seeking to reunite with their husbands who had already come to the U.S. </p>
<p>Around the same time, <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520226296/contagious-divides">Chinese women in San Francisco also were scapegoated</a> by local public health officials who feared they would spread sexually transmitted diseases to white men, who would then spread it to their wives. </p>
<p>In the mid-20th century, U.S. wars and military bases in China, Japan, the Philippines, Korea and Vietnam resulted in increased interracial contact between American soldiers and Asian women. The GIs’ restricted interactions with the larger Asian population meant that they met Asian women that worked on or near the military bases: <a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/10/08/womens-labor-sex-work-and-u-s-military-bases-abroad/">on-base service workers who cleaned or cooked</a>, or <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/my-body-was-not-mine-but-the-u-s-militarys/">sex workers in the surrounding communities</a>.</p>
<p>Some soldiers married Asian women and brought them home <a href="https://www.warbrideproject.com/">as war brides</a>, while others primarily viewed Asian women as sexual objects. Both approaches perpetuated <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780742560604/Asian-American-Women-and-Men-Labor-Laws-and-Love-Second-Edition">stereotypes of Asian women</a> as sexually submissive, either as ideal wives or sexually exotic prostitutes. </p>
<p>These stereotypes are evident throughout U.S. popular culture in the form of novels and movies, including “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049830/">The Teahouse of the August Moon</a>” and James Michener’s “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046806/">The Bridges at Toko-Ri</a>,” which feature romances between GIs and Asian women. Vietnam War-era films like “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093058/">Full Metal Jacket</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091763/">Platoon</a>” depict graphic sexual violence committed by American GIs against Vietnamese women.</p>
<h2>Violence against Asian American women</h2>
<p>In online digital pornography, Asian women are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0964663912443919">disproportionately presented as victims of rape</a>, compared to white women or women of other racial backgrounds. Asian American feminist and activist <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/reconstructing-gender-a-multicultural-anthology/oclc/917433013?referer=br&ht=edition">Helen Zia</a> has argued that there is a connection between the portrayals of Asian women in pornography and violence against Asian American women. </p>
<p><a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442209244/Asian-American-Sexual-Politics-The-Construction-of-Race-Gender-and-Sexuality">Rosalind Chou</a>, a sociologist, describes how in 2000, <a href="https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=20010531&slug=mukogawa31m">a group of white men kidnapped five Japanese female exchange students</a> in Spokane, Washington, to fulfill their sexual fantasies of Asian female bondage, a subgenre of pornography.</p>
<p>Sexual attacks targeting Asian American women are more likely to come from non-Asians. Though most attacks on white or Black women come from men of the same ethnic background, Asian American women – and Native American women – are more likely to be sexually assaulted by <a href="https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/crsj/vol14/iss2/5">males of a different ethnicity</a>. </p>
<p>The most recent high-profile example of this dynamic is the 2015 rape of a woman by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/02/stanford-swimmer-sexual-assault-brock-allen-turner-palo-alto">white Stanford student Brock Turner</a>. Not until 2019 did the woman, Chanel Miller, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/24/opinion/chanel-miller-know-my-name.html">reveal her name and identity as an Asian American woman</a>. At that point many Asian American women understood another element of what had already been a troubling case of white male sexual aggression: Turner likely felt entitled to use and abuse Miller’s unconscious body not just because she is a woman, but because of her Asian heritage.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390678/original/file-20210319-15-1t06u29.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Police in a park in Seattle's Chinatown" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390678/original/file-20210319-15-1t06u29.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390678/original/file-20210319-15-1t06u29.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390678/original/file-20210319-15-1t06u29.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390678/original/file-20210319-15-1t06u29.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390678/original/file-20210319-15-1t06u29.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390678/original/file-20210319-15-1t06u29.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390678/original/file-20210319-15-1t06u29.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Police across the nation, like these Seattle officers, have stepped up their presence in Chinatowns and other Asian neighborhoods.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/RacialInjusticeGeorgiaShootingsReaction/61b22fb407d44d189a952b0a8a8ed307/photo">AP Photo/Ted S. Warren</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Targeted attacks</h2>
<p>In March 2020, Asian American and Pacific Islander community organizations joined with San Francisco State University’s Asian American Studies Program to document incidents of anti-Asian racism occurring across the country during the COVID-19 pandemic. </p>
<p>The group they formed, called <a href="https://stopaapihate.org/">StopAAPIHate</a>, has recorded an <a href="https://secureservercdn.net/104.238.69.231/a1w.90d.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/210312-Stop-AAPI-Hate-National-Report-.pdf">average of 11 anti-Asian hate incidents in the U.S. each day</a> since its creation, including in-person and online verbal harassment, civil rights violations and physical assaults. </p>
<p>The group has found that Asian women report hate incidents <a href="https://secureservercdn.net/104.238.69.231/a1w.90d.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/210312-Stop-AAPI-Hate-National-Report-.pdf">2.3 times as often</a> as Asian men. The data doesn’t distinguish between sexual assaults or harassment and other types of physical attacks and harassment, but it nevertheless emphasizes the vulnerability of being Asian and being female.</p>
<h2>Oppression of women of color</h2>
<p>Asian women are not the only targets of racial and sexual violence. Any <a href="https://incite-national.org/dangerous-intersections/">non-white woman has a greater risk</a> of these perils than white women do.</p>
<p>One day after the white male shooter in Georgia killed six Asian women, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/17/politics/kamala-harris-residence-arrest/index.html">an armed white man was detained</a> outside Vice President Kamala Harris’ official residence in Washington, D.C. As a mixed-race South Asian and Black woman, Harris is not exempt from this culture that racializes and sexualizes Asian women and all women of color. None of us is.</p>
<p>[<em>The Conversation’s Politics + Society editors pick need-to-know stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-need-to-know">Sign up for Politics Weekly</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157533/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>US culture has long represented Asian American women as sexually seductive – showing how victims’ gender and race cannot be separated when attacked by white male violence.Karen Leong, Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies, and Asian Pacific American Studies, Arizona State UniversityKaren Kuo, Associate Professor of Asian Pacific American Studies, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1574882021-03-19T20:28:05Z2021-03-19T20:28:05ZWhat is a hate crime? The narrow legal definition makes it hard to charge and convict<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390656/original/file-20210319-13-wklc3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C8%2C5982%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A memorial to the Asian American women gunned down at Gold Spa, in Atlanta, Ga., on March 18, 2021. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/flowers-adorn-gold-spa-during-a-demonstration-against-news-photo/1231796509?adppopup=true">Megan Varner/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A white man travels to one business and kills several workers. He then kills more people at a similar business. </p>
<p>Six of the eight people he killed are Asian women, leading many people to call for him to be charged under the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/georgia-hate-crime-law-atlanta-shooting/2021/03/18/d9389578-8824-11eb-8a67-f314e5fcf88d_story.html">new state hate crime law</a>. Authorities resist, saying they aren’t sure that racial bias motivated the man’s crimes.</p>
<p>That’s the situation <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/17/us/shooting-atlanta-acworth">unfolding in the Atlanta area in Georgia, right now</a>. But there is often a gap between public opinion and law enforcement when people believe a hate crime has been committed, whether against LGBTQ people, racial minorities or Jewish people.</p>
<p>Hate crimes and hate murders are rising across the U.S., but long-term polling data suggests that most Americans are <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/27613/public-favors-expansion-hate-crime-law-include-sexual-orientation.aspx">horrified by bias-motivated violence</a>. They also support hate crime legislation, an effort to deter such attacks.</p>
<p>Yet officials often resist the quick classification of incidents as a hate crime. Hate crimes have precise qualities, which must be met in order to satisfy legal requirements. And even when police and prosecutors believe the elements of a hate crime are present, such crimes can be difficult to prove in court. </p>
<h2>What is a hate crime?</h2>
<p>I have studied <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NW3t09QAAAAJ&hl=en">hate crime and police for over 20 years</a>.</p>
<p>Hate crimes are crimes motivated by bias on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity. In some states, gender, age and gender identity are also included. Hate crime laws have been passed by 47 states and the federal government since the 1980s, when activists first began to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1389346?seq=1">press state legislatures to recognize the role of bias in violence against minority groups</a>. Today, only Arkansas, South Carolina and Wyoming do not have hate crime laws.</p>
<p>In order to be charged as a hate crime, attacks – whether assault, killings or vandalism – must be directed at individuals because of the prohibited biases. Hate crimes, in other words, punish motive; the prosecutor must convince the judge or jury that the victim was targeted because of their race, religion, sexual orientation or other protected characteristic. </p>
<p>If the defendant is found to have acted with bias motivation, hate crimes often add an additional penalty to the underlying charge. Charging people with a hate crime, then, <a href="https://jhs.press.gonzaga.edu/articles/abstract/10.33972/jhs.34/">presents additional layers of complexity</a> to what may otherwise be a straightforward case for prosecutors. Bias motivation can be hard to prove, and prosecutors can be reluctant to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-433720210000085003">take cases that that they may not win</a> in court.</p>
<p>It can and does happen, though. In June 2020, Shepard Hoehn placed a burning cross and a sign with racial slurs and epithets facing the construction site where his new neighbor, who is Black, was building a house. </p>
<p>Hoehn was charged with and later pleaded guilty to <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/indiana-man-pleads-guilty-hate-crime-making-racially-charged-motivated-threats-toward-black">federal hate crime charges</a> in Indiana. A few months later, Maurice Diggins was convicted by a federal jury of a 2018 hate crime for breaking the jaw of a Sudanese man in Maine <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/maine-man-sentenced-federal-hate-crime-convictions">while shouting racial epithets</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390660/original/file-20210319-23-4bba6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Video still of young blond man in prison jumpsuit surrounded by armed guards" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390660/original/file-20210319-23-4bba6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390660/original/file-20210319-23-4bba6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390660/original/file-20210319-23-4bba6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390660/original/file-20210319-23-4bba6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390660/original/file-20210319-23-4bba6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390660/original/file-20210319-23-4bba6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390660/original/file-20210319-23-4bba6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dylann Roof, who killed nine worshipers at a Black church in South Carolina in 2015, was convicted of 33 charges, including hate crimes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-this-image-from-the-video-uplink-from-the-detention-news-photo/477782304?adppopup=true">Grace Beahm-Pool/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How to charge a hate crime</h2>
<p>The first use of the term “hate crime” in federal legislation was the <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/101/hr1048">Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990</a>. This was not a criminal statute but rather a data-gathering requirement that mandated that the U.S. attorney general collect data on crimes that “evidenced prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.” </p>
<p>Soon, states began passing their own laws recognizing bias crimes. But hate crime legislation has not led to as many charges and convictions as activists may have hoped.</p>
<p>Law enforcement struggle to identify hate crime and prosecute the offenders. Even though 47 states have hate crime laws, 86.1% of law enforcement agencies reported to the FBI that not a single hate crime <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2019/topic-pages/jurisdiction">had occurred in their jurisdiction in 2019</a>, according to the latest FBI data collected.</p>
<p>In many cases, police have received <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/hate-endures-in-america-and-with-it-our-effort-to-document-the-damage">inadequate training</a> in making hate crime classification. </p>
<p>“What weights do you give to race, dope, territory? These things are 90% gray – there are no black-and-white incidents,” said <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3054119?seq=1">one 20-year veteran police officer in a 1996 study of hate crime</a>.</p>
<p>But I’ve also found that police departments are rarely organized in a way that allows them to develop the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764207306054">expertise necessary to effectively investigate hate crimes</a>. When police departments have specialized police units and prosecutors who are <a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814798973/policing-hatred/">committed to taking on hate crime</a>, they can develop the routines that allow them to investigate hate crime in a manner that supports victims. </p>
<p>In the late 1990s I studied a specialized police hate crime unit in a city I called, for the purposes of anonymity, “Center City.” My study revealed that those detectives could distinguish non-hate crimes – for instance, when the perpetrator angrily used the n-word in a fight – from cases that are truly hate crimes, as when the perpetrator used it during a targeted attack on a Black person. </p>
<p>Without the right training and organizational structure, officers are unclear about common markers of bias motivation, and tend to assume that they must go to extraordinary lengths to figure out why suspects committed the crime. </p>
<p>“We don’t have time to psychoanalyze people,” said the same veteran police officer in 1996.</p>
<p>Even law enforcement officers specifically trained in bias crime identification still may not name incidents as hate crime that, <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/hate-endures-in-america-and-with-it-our-effort-to-document-the-damage">to the general public, seem obviously bias-driven</a>. This may be the result of police bias.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390661/original/file-20210319-19-319ekc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Fire inspector walks through ruins of a charred building, looking at the ground" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390661/original/file-20210319-19-319ekc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390661/original/file-20210319-19-319ekc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390661/original/file-20210319-19-319ekc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390661/original/file-20210319-19-319ekc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390661/original/file-20210319-19-319ekc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390661/original/file-20210319-19-319ekc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390661/original/file-20210319-19-319ekc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When arson targets a temple, mosque or cultural center, it may be investigated as a hate crime.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/houston-fire-department-arson-investigator-inspects-the-news-photo/463382360?adppopup=true">Aaron M. Sprecher/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Limits of the law</h2>
<p>Advocates for hate crime victims maintain that <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/hate-crime-training-for-police-is-often-inadequate-sometimes-nonexistent">police and prosecutors can do much more</a> to identify and punish hate crimes. </p>
<p>Empirical evidence supports their claims. The FBI’s 2019 report contains <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2019/resource-pages/hate-crime-summary#:%7E:text=Of%20the%205,512%20hate%20crime%20offenses%20classified%20as,commercial%20sex%20acts%20were%20reported%20as%20hate%20crimes.">8,559 bias crimes reported by law enforcement agencies</a>. But in the National Crime Victimization Survey, victims say that they experienced, on average, <a href="https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/hcs1317pp.pdf">more than 200,000 hate crimes each year</a>. This suggests that police are missing many hate crimes that have occurred. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/kids-perceptions-of-police-fall-as-they-age-for-black-children-the-decline-starts-earlier-and-is-constant-145511">Distrust of police</a>, especially in Black communities, may dissuade minorities from even calling the police when they are victimized by hate crime for fear they could also become <a href="https://theconversation.com/police-shootings-and-race-in-america-five-essential-reads-65847">victims of police violence</a>. </p>
<p>All this means that perpetrators of hate crimes may not be caught and can reoffend, further victimizing communities that are meant to be protected by hate crime laws.</p>
<p>Hate crime laws reflect American ideals of fairness, justice and equity. But if crimes motivated by bias aren’t reported, well investigated, charged or brought to trial, it matters little what state law says.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157488/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeannine Bell is affiliated with the Law and Society Association, American Law Institute and American Bar Foundation.</span></em></p>Bias-motivated attacks became a distinct crime in the 1980s. But police investigate only a fraction of the roughly 200,000 hate crimes reported each year – and even fewer ever make it to court.Jeannine Bell, Professor of Law, Maurer School of Law, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1574872021-03-19T11:33:41Z2021-03-19T11:33:41ZRacism is behind anti-Asian American violence, even when it’s not a hate crime<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390495/original/file-20210318-19-1cjz44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C26%2C4391%2C2883&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Children attend a March 17 vigil at Clemente Park in Lowell, Massachusetts, for the victims of the shooting spree in Atlanta. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/children-carry-stop-the-hate-and-asian-lives-matter-as-they-news-photo/1231790569?adppopup=true">Erin Clark/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the past year, attacks on Asian Americans have <a href="https://www.voanews.com/usa/race-america/hate-crimes-targeting-asian-americans-spiked-150-major-us-cities">increased more than 150%</a> over the previous year, including the March 16 <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/3-dead-shooting-georgia-massage-parlor-suspect-loose-n1261262">murders of eight people, including six Asian American women</a>, in Atlanta. </p>
<p>Some of these attacks may be classified as hate crimes. But whether they meet that legal definition or not, they all fit a long history of viewing Asian Americans in particular ways that make discrimination and violence against them more likely.</p>
<p><a href="https://pawanhdhingra.com/">I</a> have <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2Y0_sPsAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">researched</a> and taught on Asian America for 20 years, including on the pernicious <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479831142/hyper-education/">effects of stereotypes</a> and attacks <a href="https://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9780745647036">on individuals</a>. Race can play a role in violence and prejudice, even if the offender does not clearly express a racist intent.</p>
<p>Much remains unknown about the attacks in Atlanta, but the man charged with the murders has said he <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2021/mar/17/atlanta-spa-shootings-live-updates-asian-women-suspect-arrested-latest?page=with:block-605219848f0832395ae584fe#block-605219848f0832395ae584fe">did not have a racial prejudice</a> against people of Asian descent. Rather, he has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03/17/atlanta-spa-shootings-live-updates/">claimed he has a sexual addiction</a>. But that statement indicates that he assumed these women were prostitutes, <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjpymp/atlanta-georgia-shooting-shows-how-police-are-failing-asian-women">whether that’s true</a> or not.</p>
<p>This assumption, and the resulting violence, is just one of many that Asian Americans have suffered through the years.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390497/original/file-20210318-17-z3mrbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A detective in New York's Chinatown neighborhood handing out leaflets." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390497/original/file-20210318-17-z3mrbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390497/original/file-20210318-17-z3mrbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390497/original/file-20210318-17-z3mrbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390497/original/file-20210318-17-z3mrbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390497/original/file-20210318-17-z3mrbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390497/original/file-20210318-17-z3mrbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390497/original/file-20210318-17-z3mrbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anti-Asian violence has increased in the U.S. in the past year. After the Atlanta shootings, Detective Suk H. Too, second from right, with the New York Police Department Community Affairs Rapid Response Unit hands out flyers to residents in the Chinatown neighborhood of New York with information on how to report hate crimes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/RacialInjusticeGeorgiaShootingsReaction/aa1adbd2499f4afb852b9a528be9ecda/photo?Query=Atlanta%20AND%20asian&mediaType=photo,graphic&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=180&currentItemNo=24">Mary Altaffer/AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A long history of prejudice</h2>
<p>The presupposed connection between Asian women and sex dates back almost 150 years: In 1875, Congress passed <a href="https://immigrationhistory.org/item/page-act/">the Page Act</a>, which effectively <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27500484">barred Chinese women from immigrating</a>, because it was impossible to tell if they were traveling “for lewd and immoral purposes,” including “<a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-112sres201is/html/BILLS-112sres201is.htm">for purposes of prostitution</a>.” The assumption that all Chinese women were of questionable moral character placed the burden on the women themselves to somehow prove they were not prostitutes before being allowed to immigrate.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/crsj/vol14/iss2/5">U.S. military contributed</a> to this conception of Asian women as hypersexualized. During the wars in <a href="https://apjjf.org/2011/9/30/Paul-A.-Kramer/3574/article.html">the Philippines</a> at the start of the 19th century, and during the mid-20th-century wars in Korea and Vietnam, servicemen took advantage of <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=isbn%3A9780789012036">women who had turned to sex work</a> in response to their lives being wrecked by war.</p>
<p>In the 1960s, the U.S. government brokered a deal with Thailand to be a <a href="https://escholarship.org/content/qt4115c8f8/qt4115c8f8.pdf">“rest and relaxation”</a> center for military personnel fighting in Vietnam. That bolstered what became the foundations of <a href="https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/the-dark-side-of-tourism-in-thailand/news-story/6dce761c19b802179f1c1218a1e6e836">Thailand’s modern-day sex tourism industry</a>, which attracts men from the United States and Europe.</p>
<p>This association of Asian women with men’s sexual fantasies <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-hypersexuality-of-race/">has permeated</a> <a href="https://variety.com/2021/tv/opinion/hollywood-complicit-violence-against-asians-in-america-1234932858/">popular culture</a>, such as a scene in the 1987 Stanley Kubrick movie “Full Metal Jacket” in which a Vietnamese woman entices two servicemen by saying, “Me love you long time,” and regular themes in the animated comedy “<a href="http://doi.org/10.15133/j.os.2014.003">Family Guy</a>.” This makes Asian women more desirable to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/us/massage-parlors-human-trafficking.html">sex traffickers</a>, brought over to serve male desires in spas and massage parlors <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2021/03/17/atlanta-spa-shootings-illicit-reviews-massage-parlors/4737755001/">such as the ones</a> attacked in Atlanta. </p>
<p>This history of sexualization of Asian women, shaped by the U.S. military and patriarchy, creates the backdrop to the Atlanta shootings. It helped create the conditions for the Asian spas and massage parlors to be there in the first place. It presents Asian American women as submissive, responsive agents of sexual temptation. </p>
<p>Race and gender inform what happened, and the public response to it, whether the alleged shooter articulates racist motives or not.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390498/original/file-20210318-15-38j0vw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman holding a sign that says " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390498/original/file-20210318-15-38j0vw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390498/original/file-20210318-15-38j0vw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390498/original/file-20210318-15-38j0vw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390498/original/file-20210318-15-38j0vw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390498/original/file-20210318-15-38j0vw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390498/original/file-20210318-15-38j0vw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390498/original/file-20210318-15-38j0vw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tracy Wong, wearing a face mask and holding a sign, takes part in a rally to raise awareness of anti-Asian violence, near Chinatown in Los Angeles on Feb. 20.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/tracy-wong-wearing-a-face-mask-and-holding-a-sign-takes-news-photo/1231291607?adppopup=true">Ringo Chiu/AFP/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Stereotypes and perceptions matter</h2>
<p>Other crimes against Asian Americans may also lack clear evidence of racial bias, but still echo anti-Asian American stereotypes.</p>
<p>For instance, many <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/08/us/asian-american-attacks-bay-area/index.html">elderly Asian Americans</a> have been shoved to the ground in recent weeks, and Vicha Ratanapakdee, an 84-year-old man, died in one such incident in February in San Francisco. </p>
<p>The public defender representing the accused perpetrator in Ratanapakdee’s death <a href="https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/teen-facing-murder-pleads-not-guilty-in-death-of-elder/">denies that race</a> motivated the crime. But that is different from saying race was not a factor at all. </p>
<p>Practically all Asian Americans, but elderly men in particular, are often <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0030100">viewed as nonaggressive</a>, meek and unable or unwilling to fight back, in contrast to men of other races. They are easy targets.</p>
<h2>It’s not always a crime</h2>
<p>Other anti-Asian American racism isn’t criminal at all, but still fits with the nation’s racist history. As COVID-19 spread across the U.S., Asian-owned restaurants and stores were the <a href="https://www.vox.com/21536943/asian-american-restuarant-racism-coronavirus">first to experience declining revenue</a>, even though most of the earliest cases in the U.S. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/science/new-york-coronavirus-cases-europe-genomes.html">came from Europe</a>.</p>
<p>There is a long history of suspecting Asian Americans of <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520226296/contagious-divides">carrying disease</a> into the U.S., which made it seem natural for people to avoid Asian American-owned businesses. President Donald Trump’s repeated public declarations that the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/with-kung-flu-trump-sparks-backlash-over-racist-language--and-a-rallying-cry-for-supporters/2020/06/24/485d151e-b620-11ea-aca5-ebb63d27e1ff_story.html">“Kung Flu”</a> virus came from China reinforced those feelings. </p>
<p>This race-based and erroneous assumption has resulted in Asian Americans having among the highest <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/10/01/918834644/overlooked-asian-american-jobless-rate-surges-but-few-take-notice">unemployment rates</a> in the nation, though they had among the lowest before the pandemic.</p>
<p>It defies logic to claim that race isn’t relevant in attacks on Asian Americans unless the perpetrator actively references it. Research has found that most Americans <a href="http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.89.5.717">assume a person of Asian descent is foreign-born</a>, unless there is some aspect of their appearance that clearly marks them as American – such as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0956797617720912">being overweight</a>. </p>
<p>Asian Americans of all types experience this perception of being “<a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/forever-foreigners-or-honorary-whites/9780813526249/#!">forever foreigners</a>” in a wide range of ways. Regardless of whether some or all – or none – of these latest assaults on Asian Americans are proved to be hate crimes or not, race plays a historic role.</p>
<p>[_<a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-important">The Conversation’s most important election and politics headlines, in our Politics Weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157487/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pawan Dhingra does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some racism isn’t criminal at all but still is the result of deep-seated and long-standing racial prejudices.Pawan Dhingra, Professor of Sociology and American Studies, Amherst CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1568502021-03-14T22:04:03Z2021-03-14T22:04:03ZTwo years on from the Christchurch terror attack, how much has really changed?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389150/original/file-20210311-20-6qcnz7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6709%2C4466&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GettyImages</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>March 15 2019 is a day we must never forget, a defining point in the history of New Zealand. The premeditated attack on the Christchurch Muslim community took the lives of 51 of our fellow citizens and damaged many more. It was also a direct assault on our cherished ideals of multiculturalism.</p>
<p>The question, therefore, is what has changed two years on? There are three responses to that question — not all of them positive or reassuring.</p>
<p>The better news is that the reaction to the attack itself has been impressive. From the prime minister’s <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47630129">empathetic engagement</a>, to the court system ensuring the terrorist was handed an <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-life-means-life-why-the-court-had-to-deliver-an-unprecedented-sentence-for-the-christchurch-terrorist-145091">unprecedented life sentence</a> without parole, New Zealand did well.</p>
<p>The royal commission <a href="https://christchurchattack.royalcommission.nz/the-report/">into the attack</a> was also excellent. It was supplemented by an extensive <a href="https://dpmc.govt.nz/our-programmes/national-security/royal-commission-inquiry-terrorist-attack-christchurch-masjidain-0">consultation and outreach</a> process, leading to better <a href="https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/03/govt-vows-to-provide-more-trauma-support-for-victims-of-christchurch-mosque-shootings.html">trauma support</a> for the victims.</p>
<p>Changes to firearms laws have now largely <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2019/0012/latest/whole.html#LMS181205">prohibited</a> ownership of the types of semi-automatic weapons used in the attacks. Would-be gun owners who show “patterns of behaviour demonstrating a tendency to exhibit, encourage, or promote violence, hatred or extremism” are <a href="http://www.nzlii.org/nz/legis/consol_act/ala2020180/">no longer considered</a> fit and proper.</p>
<p>The government’s “<a href="https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/peace-rights-and-security/international-security/christchurch-call/">Christchurch Call</a>” aimed to co-ordinate the fight against violent online extremism internationally. At home, the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (<a href="https://www.nzsis.govt.nz/">NZSIS</a>) and police have collaborated on a <a href="https://www.nzsis.govt.nz/news/protecting-our-crowded-places/">new strategy</a> to “increase the safety, protection and resilience of crowded places”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="documents with title showing" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389147/original/file-20210311-19-1pj4k0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389147/original/file-20210311-19-1pj4k0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389147/original/file-20210311-19-1pj4k0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389147/original/file-20210311-19-1pj4k0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389147/original/file-20210311-19-1pj4k0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389147/original/file-20210311-19-1pj4k0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389147/original/file-20210311-19-1pj4k0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The royal commission of inquiry into the terror attack heard harrowing testimony from survivors.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">GettyImages</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The threat has increased</h2>
<p>So far, so positive. But, despite these various initiatives, the terrorism threat level in New Zealand has not decreased, but has moved from “low” to “<a href="https://www.nzsis.govt.nz/our-work/counter-terrorism/national-terrorism-threat-level/">medium</a>” since March 15 2019. That means a terrorist attack is seen as “feasible and could well occur”.</p>
<p>How feasible, and how close we have already come to other attacks, is difficult to gauge. While the failures of security agencies are public, their successes are not. The secrecy around what they do runs deep.</p>
<p>But recent publicly reported incidents suggest a higher-than-desirable level of risk, including:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>a white nationalist serving in the military <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300167448/linton-soldier-is-the-first-new-zealander-to-be-charged-with-espionage">charged with espionage</a></p></li>
<li><p>a well-armed teenager who posted <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/terrorist-attack-how-police-thwarted-heavily-armed-teens-plan-to-shoot-teachers-classmates-in-south-island-school/UIBDQEDPD5OCWPJLYN34DSI53U/">inflammatory and extreme views</a> and appears to have planned to attack his school</p></li>
<li><p>an arrest in Christchurch following a <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/437666/man-charged-with-threatening-to-kill-after-arrest-over-threat-to-christchurch-mosques">threat to attack</a> the same mosques targeted in 2019.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>This suggests security agencies need to be exceptionally vigilant — more so than they have appeared to be recently.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/christchurchs-legacy-of-fighting-violent-extremism-online-must-go-further-deep-into-the-dark-web-133159">Christchurch's legacy of fighting violent extremism online must go further – deep into the dark web</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Confronted with the fact that a member of the public, not the police or security agencies, spotted the latest threat on the 4chan website, the NZSIS <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/124448689/security-intelligence-service-defend-terror-threat-miss">claimed it cannot monitor</a> “millions of pages of posts made online every day”.</p>
<p>That is not acceptable. The public knows New Zealand is part of the powerful <a href="https://www.gcsb.govt.nz/about-us/ukusa-allies/">Five Eyes</a> global intelligence network. Expecting a few obvious keyword searches within known extremist online hotspots is hardly unreasonable.</p>
<p>While the police and NZSIS may have largely escaped blame for the original March 15 attack, their defence of difficulty in identifying an attacker in advance cannot be used twice.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern unveiling a commemorative plaque with people looking on" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389148/original/file-20210311-21-njiuat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389148/original/file-20210311-21-njiuat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389148/original/file-20210311-21-njiuat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389148/original/file-20210311-21-njiuat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389148/original/file-20210311-21-njiuat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389148/original/file-20210311-21-njiuat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389148/original/file-20210311-21-njiuat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern unveiling a commemorative plaque at Al Noor Mosque in 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">GettyImages</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Racism and intolerance hard to measure</h2>
<p>Finally, and despite initiatives such as the <a href="https://www.hrc.co.nz/our-work/race-relations-and-diversity/give-nothing-racism/">Give Nothing to Racism</a> campaign (launched two years before the Christchurch attack), it is debatable whether racism and intolerance in general have declined at all.</p>
<p>The Christchurch royal commission found “most affected whānau, survivors and witnesses” <a href="https://christchurchattack.royalcommission.nz/publications/what-we-heard-from-the-whanau-of-the-51-shuhada-survivors-and-witnesses-of-the-christchurch-terrorist-attack/life-in-new-zealand-as-a-muslim/">generally viewed</a> New Zealand and New Zealanders positively before the attacks. At the same time, “nearly everyone we met with had personally suffered racist incidents or discrimination”.</p>
<p>Evidence does suggest we have a real problem. <a href="https://www.hrc.co.nz/files/1515/6047/9685/It_Happened_Here_Reports_of_race_and_religious_hate_crime_in_New_Zealand_2004-2012.pdf">From 2004 to 2012</a> alone, there were about 100 race-related incidents, ranging from murder and kidnapping to serious assault, threatening and disorderly behaviour, abuse, deliberate damage to property and desecration of sacred sites.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/no-rehab-and-little-chance-of-appeal-for-the-christchurch-terrorist-jailed-for-life-without-parole-145242">No rehab and little chance of appeal for the Christchurch terrorist jailed for life without parole</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But trying to gauge the real levels of racism and intolerance is difficult. Even the police are unsure of how bad it is: almost half of probable hate crimes are <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/431996/hate-crimes-almost-half-complaints-to-police-wrongly-downgraded">wrongfully downgraded</a> because “the majority of staff do not know how to code them”.</p>
<p>Although racially motivated hostility can be an <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2002/0009/latest/DLM135545.html?search=sw_096be8ed81a88b19_race_25_se&p=1&sr=0">aggravating factor</a> in sentencing, there is no specific crime of race hatred. Those incidents are commonly mixed in with general <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1981/0113/latest/whole.html#DLM4038123">public order offences</a>, and the government has <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/432361/no-legislative-changes-planned-for-hate-crime-in-new-zealand">no plans</a> to amend this.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/far-right-extremists-still-threaten-new-zealand-a-year-on-from-the-christchurch-attacks-133050">Far-right extremists still threaten New Zealand, a year on from the Christchurch attacks</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Not enough has changed</h2>
<p>The Human Rights Commission <a href="https://www.hrc.co.nz/files/8116/0850/9706/HRC_Annual_Report_19-20_FINAL.pdf">reports</a> race-related prejudice remains the commonest complaint. While the trend has improved, the numbers remain high: 426 complaints in 2017-18, 369 in 2018-19 and 383 in 2019-20.</p>
<p>Even these small advances may have been washed away by the <a href="https://www.hrc.co.nz/files/2916/1344/5450/COVID_Discrimination_Report_FINAL_16_Feb_2021.pdf">anti-Chinese and Asian racism</a> reported during the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>
<p>As for levels of general intolerance, it speaks volumes that the Broadcasting Standards Authority was forced to announce it would <a href="https://www.bsa.govt.nz/news/bsa-news/bsa-draws-a-line-under-complaints-about-te-reo/">no longer hear complaints</a> about everyday use of te reo Māori.</p>
<p>Two years on from the Christchurch terror attack, then, has New Zealand changed? Yes and no. The government dealt with the actual atrocity well. But the risk of further attacks remains — perhaps greater than before. And racism and intolerance remain stubbornly persistent. </p>
<p>If we really want to ensure the horrors of March 15 2019 do not ever recur, we must do better in spotting extremists in advance, and draining out the racist and intolerant ecosystems they emerge from.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156850/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Gillespie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As New Zealand marks the second anniversary of the March 15 atrocity, the general terror threat has increased and doubts persist about police and security agency preparedness.Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of WaikatoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.