Thus the enthusiasm for home schooling and rewriting textbooks to reflect conservative propaganda instead of historical fact.  The result of all that hard work of insulating kids from other points of view and making sure they grow up in a thick of conservative “values” is that these kinds of racist views get planted and grow without any outside interference to challenge them.

I hadn’t been able to figure out why conservatives were so hell-bent on “proving” that Sarah Palin’s film was a huge success. But that’s it, isn’t it?

For that matter, it probably goes a long way to explaining the Christianist insistence on running the country, when one of the few things I retain from my youthful church-going experience is the concept of turning your back on the day-to-day runnings of the world ...

The comments to the CNN article made me ill.

I agree with all of this, although I’d say this sort of vicious racism is more of a white-trash thing than a Southern thing. We see plenty of it in Ohio, but the worst is from people who grew up in poor small towns and rural areas. I could see this happening somewhere like Lancaster, Ohio.

@Ashley:  While I’m sure that there are racists all over the country, they don’t enjoy nearly as broad support in the community, or in the halls of power, of the North to the extent that they do in the South.

Also, somewhat OT observation inspired by #2, I’ve noticed that conservatives seem far more likely to invade liberal/progressive blogs to troll and argue, but it seems much less common the other way around.

Re: A Herzog @ 3

I guess what makes this murder particularly notable is that the murderer and other attackers appear to have been middle-class. The reporter in the video talks about a “middle-class enclave” and the teens were driving around in a (newish) pickup truck and SUV.

It really takes a lot of hate and dehumanization to kill another person like this.  Our instinct is to not kill other humans.  To run someone down with his car and then not feel any guilt or remorse and to actually brag about it, this boy’s racism must have been so incredibly deep that he didn’t even see his victim as a human.  It takes a racist society to produce something that hateful.  This wasn’t an isolated incident and is most definitely a reflection on the culture that this boy lives in.  It really takes a lot of indoctrination and constant reinforcement to make someone develop this kind of attitude.

The Right has a hate problem, and thank you for continuing to chronicle it. Of course, they don’t think it ‘s a problem because they’re counting on hate crimes to push back anti-racism, to keep poor blacks and poor whites separated, etc etc. Gabby Giffords, the Norwegian hater, etc, etc.

Of course everyone in comments over at CNN is bringing up the Wisconsin State Fair incident of last week.  The commonality between the two stories is teenaged boys.  And teenagers in this country have grown up in a culture in which we’ve always been at war and always been bombing the shit out of foreign countries.  I know I sound like some crazy hippie, but that’s the broader context I’m taking away from these two stories.  Our culture celebrates violence and bloodshed as a first response to any perceived slight.  And is it any wonder that our children absorb that message and act out on it?  But that’s just one more facet going along with this country’s longstanding history of racist and violent acts committed against people of color.

Just for people to be aware…

That black man had a good job in what is a very depressed area of the US.

I know a woman from Louisiana who stated, a propos of nothing, that African Americans are only “half human.”  So that tells me that bananacat is right.

PS - The statement was so shocking in its out of place bald-faceness that the response she got was stunned silence.  And then since she is the mother of a significant other in the family, the instinct to “smooth over” was given into.  So yeah, I’m pretty sure she felt justified.  I wasn’t there or I would have laid into her.

shah8 - How would the teenagers have known that?  (I’m just assuming you commented about the man’s job as some kind of excuse for anger directed at him.  Please correct me if I’m wrong.  PLEASE.)

Ashley, the kids were partying in a middle class community.

shah, that is 100% irrelevant. The kids picked the first black person they came across, deliberately so. They had no idea what kind of job he had, and I’m guessing from the niceness of their vehicles that their families are doing just fine, thank you very much.

One comment about the Confederate Flag prom dress case: the family deliberately set out to sue the school (and expect public sympathy) over the issue. It was a grift and it was effective because indeed they did receive a settlement—this in a state that was NOT CONFEDERATE during the Civil War (you know, the war fought over the right to own people?). The issue stands though, the expectation of the grifting family was that there would be enough public sympathy over their “heritage” claim (and that wearing such a dress would be deemed inappropriate by the college-educated faculty/staff/administration of the High School) that there is a cultural support for racism and racist assholery to in this case, make it profitable.

Bananacat: I think it’s not *just* racism. it’s teenage nihilism and entitlement (which are also in significant part, albeit not exclusively, white rightwing values) reinforced by racism and using racism for its outlet.

The teen, just 18 years old, has been charged with murder and now faces a possible double life sentence.

One wonders, if the roles and races had been reversed, if that would have been the sentence sought…

Thealogian - One of my ancestors was a brevet Major General in the Michigan Cavalry during the Civil War.  I wonder how this woman would have felt if I opted to “celebrate my family’s heritage” by keeping my boot on her neck (or some other completely inappropriate act for a prom) as a symbol of how my ancestor helped suppress rebellion and treason?

AnoNY2 - As horrific as that CNN footage is, the set of “rough lessons” probably awaiting that rather slight and pretty boy who will probably never leave prison is chilling in itself.

Just one more reason to be glad I left the south behind.

anoNY2: Prison torture is awesome!!!!!!!!!!~!!!!!!!111111111ONEONEONEONE

I like it when the men get raped. 

And I guarantee that the recriminations from the white community are going to reflect their embarrassment that these kids made the state look bad again far more than genuine horror and proper self-reflection.  It’ll (at least internally) be about the societal boundaries crossed, not the repulsive worldview that made those boundaries necessary.

Also, I’m from MS—skipping my HS reunion this fall, thankfully—and I should note that it doesn’t take that much accomplishment to be comfortably middle-class there, if you’re white and go to church.  It’s not a really solid status in many cases, but generally less education and less sophistication is needed to land a respectable-enough gig, although the bigger-ticket stuff like retirement and higher ed are still out of reach for many (bass boats aren’t, however).  There are reasons the culture is so highly conformist, after all; it’s a much more attainable path than mere educational/economic advancement.  This is also why so many people there assume that Mississippi’s low standing is entirely the fault of blacks and lower-class whites, while cheerfully ignoring that their own accomplishments aren’t impressive enough to bend the curve, or even to be competitive in most other places.  It’s no wonder they’re so invested in white privilege, if you think about it.

#9, no those kids could not have known about his job. Yes, historically if you look at the victims of lynching a great many of them were middle class or as close to it as a black man could get and were lynched for being “too uppity”. Though the real cause was always hidden under the racist guise of a black man possibly even looking the wrong way at a white woman. But that’s not what happened here. He was black. They are racist. And an unspeakable act of violence occurred simply because of those two facts.

Why are people so surprised that these kids are middle class? I will say it again—the difference between the Koch brothers and your average tea bagger is better shoes and better vocabularies. And the Koch’s wouldn’t be stupid enough to kill in this way. They can afford to hire someone else to do it.

/me cocks head…

I made the comment I did because the story, everything outside of the camera, rings fishy.  The class of the victim was merely the largest bulge in the rug.  I’ve also had some reason to believe that many of the “facts"are going to come out as false.

No contrarian thought was meant by comment 9.  It was just a warning that there is a good chance that as bad as this story is, there’s a decent chance that it’s a cover-up for a worse one.

The kids picked the first black person they came across, deliberately so.

This makes me think of those persistent urban legends about (primarily black) gangs killing/raping the first white girl they come across.  Those myths refuse to die, and I’ve even known women in safe, middle-class neighborhoods believing that they were actually thisclose to be captured by a roving gang, in and area where gangs have never even been.  Like a gang is drive 3 hours to her preferred gas station in the suburbs just to hassle white women.

But if you called this group of teenagers a gang, everyone would rush to their defense.  It’s another double standard.  Sort of like how only Muslims can be of officially terrorists, only black teens can be officially gang members.

hmmm, death threats on the blogs…

Hey, stick rule is back.

but jesus, you <b>are<b> dumb…  Didn’t drink enough milk as a kid?

Don’t you just love comment-thread tough guys? So manly! So intimidating! So personality disorder-y!

He’s gonna totally kick your ass. Nothing can save you. And then he’s going to totally open up a can on whoever it was that took the last bag of Cool Ranch Doritos out of the cupboard. Then he’s going to go to Friendly’s for a sundae. REPRESENT!

Stick Rule is not the troll I expected to see in this thread. Where’s Aaron, to explain to us that we’re unfairly maligning the noble South?

Don’t back down now, YMM. You’re such a tough guy! And impressive with your hate-mongery death threats.  Show us what a macho, macho man you are by telling us more ways in which homicidal bigots are going to “get” decent human beings. 

What “actions” are deserving of death threats, exactly?  Because we’re not bigots, like you? Because we’re not worthless and stupid, like you?  Because we aren’t riddled with seething hate and cowardice, like you?

@You Know Me - Others here do, in fact, seem to know you, but I’m afraid that I haven’t had the pleasure, so I don’t know what you’re referring to.  Please elaborate on just what we’ve done that made this man worthy of death?

Seraph, I’m going to assume it involved pointing and laughing.

It really takes a lot of hate and dehumanization to kill another person like this.  Our instinct is to not kill other humans.

The weight of the historical evidence is pretty strongly against this assertion.  It’s harmful too, because if you assume kids will just pick this up somewhere along the line, they might not.  If you assume they’re born with it, you won’t realise you have to teach it to them, and some will never get taught it.  Often they’ll get taught it implicitly, which probably obfuscates that it needs to be taught, but it’s not instinctive.

Do not feed the trolls.  Please email me as soon as trolls show up and they will be deleted and banned.

seraph @35: we had the audacity to elect a black president, and to think that black folks deserved to live middle-class lives.

shah, you’re really treading on banning grounds.  Keep your paranoid fantasies to yourself.

Yes, we are.

But hey, don’t let us stop you from persisting in the fantasy that some people “deserve” to be raped.

Just the other day I saw a “Heritage Not Hate” bumper sticker paired with an “Impeach Obama”. 
Note:  when it says “Heritage Not Hate”, it’s really the other way around.

instead of commenting on the heinous crime of hate i’m compelled to a wtf? moment from those advocating rape (are they using the often repeated meme of a a big black prisoner ready to rape noobs, especially white noobs?). smh. nevermind that some have no clue about the prison/jail system, there’s a significant aryan/white supremacist presence in the pen, which will be there from jump to protect him (not to say they won’t sexually abuse him and the others, if they get charged and indicted)

anoNY—if you want horrible shit to happen to criminals so that they can “pay” for their crimes, well, first of all, you might want to think about washing your Batman Underoos once in a while and maybe taking Running Man off your netflix queue and let someone else watch it for a change. Second—it’s a cowardly and evil thought to hope that convicts will appropriately punish an inmate. If we have any hope for our society, we need to get out of this wrong-headed “prisons for punishment” mindset and think about them as correctional facilities that incarcerate people who are too dangerous to be in society until they are people who are able to rejoin society.

Yeah, i don’t think these boy’s middle class status is all that surprising. This is as much about entitlement as it is racism. The truly poor whites may be racist but they usually have enough unpleasant exposure to authorities and social scorn not to feel that society has their back.

Man, I obviously stepped on a nerve.  I don’t happen to think I said anything that was paranoid.  I invite you to actually read what I said.  If you believe that I’m insinuating something, maybe spell that out so I can deny or assert what it is that you think I’m insinuating.  I didn’t even mean for the comment to be especially controversial—it was just a throwaway line intended to express my sentiment.  It was also meant to express what an economic and social tragedy by the people who depended on his salary and his help.

Now…

1)  News media has gotten some pretty basic facts wrong, like relationship between Brandon City and Rankin County.

2)  The vast majority of sheer, unmotivated hate crimes are committed *very* locally, or is by someone who is at least an immediate acquaintance of the victim as in James Byrd’s or Matthew Shephard’s cases.  Rankin County is almost 20% black.  Even in the dead of night, people are still out and about.  16 miles to West Jackson is a very long ways away, by drunk teenagers with not the highest of ability to follow through plans.  It’s not such a long ways by car, and when the idea is to traumatize the black side of town, it hangs as reasonable, but that is something of a stretch.

3)  It seems like there has been every attempt to slow and firewall the progression of the case, from the initial assertion that Craig died in a hit and run to the isolation of Daryl Dedmon as the key perpetrator in two vehicles full of participants.

There are more thoughts, relating to the Nissan plant, but yes, these are all thoughts that are somewhat influenced by paranoia.  I’m not sure, though, that it’s all that unreasonable for me to think in such terms, not just by the facts that we know here, but I’ve been in James Craig Anderson’s spot, walking in isolated parking lots by myself, near HWY 285, near dawn on a regular basis.  This sort of thing hits home, you know?  Makes me grateful how serious the IRS takes campus security.  I am already a good pattern matcher, and I immediately seek to fit the unworkable (at least unless other facts come out) puzzle together.  This event doesn’t even really match the pattern of “coon hunts” in MS.

I think by virtue of the event’s…uniqueness, I think we shouldn’t take too many facts as being rock solid until things are more settled.

As far as banning me goes, feel free to do so, this is your blog.  I’ll still read it.

anoNY—First of all, no progressive I know is satisfied with the current prison-for-profit system we have. It’s basically the new slavery in this country. So when we talk about “rehabilitation” we’re talking about the prison system we would LIKE, not the prison system we HAVE. And when we talk about prison policy, it is all completely founded on the fact that we want a correctional system that actually tries to correct and a society that will give meaningful second-chances to inmates based on meaningful correction.

Second: Based on that very important caveat, if you look at the “broken-ness” between, say, a junkie who beats someone up to get cash for smack, and a racist who beats someone up because he hates the color of his skin, then yes, the person who is racist is more fundamentally broken. The junkie needs drug treatment and counseling and maybe a trade, but the racist needs a complete re-wire. Furthermore, the Junkie could be said to be acting out of duress—that the need to get high overrode his ability to feel empathy for the fellow human being. The racist acted in a rational manner—his hatred long ago overrode his ability to feel empathy. You can’t reason with someone in duress, but you CAN cause a racist to pause before they act on their racism if they know the book is REALLY going to be thrown at them. It’s not going to cause them to not be racist, but you can hopefully reduce the likelihood of them hurting an innocent person.

How does increasing someone’s sentence due to their mental state equal “rehabilitation” and not “punishment?”  Will it really take X more years to “cure” someone who hates another race, and can prison actually provide that “cure”?
Comment #45: anoNY2 on 08/08 at 02:22 PM

We take mental state into consideration for many crimes.  Cookie-cutter sentencing is injustice.

If a particular murder is also a hate crime, then yes, it is reasonable to put the person in jail longer, maybe indefinitely, because racism has to be pretty serious and deep-rooted for someone to murder because of it.  The assumption would be that it takes a long time for a person to change such a motivation, if ever, compared to realizing the wrongness of “he stole my car so he should die” or “I got in a fight while I was drunk and got carried away.”

Why aren’t all of the kids facing murder or manslaughter charges?  They were all involved in a pre-meditated crime that resulted in a man’s death.  They should all face the charges for this.

Just for the record, shah8, I didn’t take what you wanted as denial of hate crimes, or whatever Amanda is apparently seeing. 

Wondering whether it’s wrong place wrong time or something more complex might be a little paranoid, but it wouldn’t be the first time someone targeted a specific individual but hid that in a larger act.  For example there’s the intentional Halloween poisoning of Ronald Clark O’Bryan’s own son via cyanide-laced Pixy Stix, which he gave out to others to make it seem like a random stranger attack instead of a targeted event.  And there have been copycat Tylenol murders with the same intent.

After all, even if this were some kind of premeditated individual murder passed off as a target of opportunity, it would still be necessary for the people involved to be virulently active racists.

Why aren’t all of the kids facing murder or manslaughter charges?  They were all involved in a pre-meditated crime that resulted in a man’s death.  They should all face the charges for this.
Comment #50: Eileen on 08/08 at 03:08 PM

I wondered about this too.  Usually when a group is involved in a crime which leads to a murder all the participants are charged with murder.  This appears to be murder in commission of a felony, so shouldn’t all the people involved be charged equally?

Yeah, agreed.  Seriously, not trying to swamp the boat or anything.  It’s just fishy is all.

take for example the motel where Anderson was killed.  Google that motel on ellis avenue, and you’ll find that it has a very troubled history.  You’ll also find that Dedmon and others have been to that motel before.  If you systematically follow the news from june 26 hence, you’ll find lots of comments swirling, and if you find comments from Anderson’s family or lawyers, they are insistent on about finding out the whole story, from the beginning.  The tape was going to come out, because it’s the key bit of evidence, and the tape coming out is how this got national attention.  However, video evidence always tend to overdirect people’s attention.  Photos or it didn’t happen mentality.

One small comment specifically about this thread.  Just because the perpetrators come from what passes as middle class in the Jackson area, doesn’t mean they actually *were* middle class.

That’s what you get for provoking us.  We’re going right after your pet demographics and we aren’t going to stop until the problem is solved.  Nothing can save you now.  You haven’t even begun to taste what is coming to you.

FYI, plenty of progressives have guns too.  Keep that in mind before shooting your mouth off in public.

I didn’t make a death threat.

The fuck you didn’t.  You implied (therefore, by definition, made) a death threat, & you did so by implication, thereby both making an implicit, but clear death threat while setting up just enough plausible deniability to give yourself an out if called on it directly yet still have the threat hanging in the air & over our heads.  It’s the typical chickenshit, spineless, jellyfish righttard manner of speaking in code & dogwhistles, & it was delivered in an atmosphere where progressives, abortion providers, civil servants, liberals & even centrists have been literally under fire.  You knew exactly what you were doing, & so do we.

Proposition anyone in an elevator @ 4am lately?

Why aren’t all of the kids facing murder or manslaughter charges?  They were all involved in a pre-meditated crime that resulted in a man’s death.  They should all face the charges for this.

I’d think that the color of their skin and their state of residence is more than enough to explain why they’re not being charged with murder.  They should all get to rot in jail for the rest of their lives, but we’d be lucky if the rest of them got off with only a stern talking to.

Because there isn’t a cultural legacy of XBox owners being persecuted that needs to be systematically re-worked.

And I’m not saying “punish away.” You’re the person advocating that people get raped in prison.

One wonders, if the roles and races had been reversed, if that would have been the sentence sought…

Somebody should be asking that question loudly and publicly, and preferably before the next black teen is sentenced to death for killing someone.

“Furthermore, why are we punishing people today for a “cultural legacy?”  Is it the teenagers fault (in the current case) that blacks have been oppressed historically?”

They are obviously not responsible for racism before they were born.  Neither are you, and neither am I.  So there is no fault to be found there.

But they are responsible for how they behave as adults, just as you are, and just as I am.

Perpetuate the hate while killing someone?  Throw the book at ‘em.

And to answer another commenter’s question above, if the races were swapped, you can be damned sure this would be a death penalty case…

It’s probably because they weren’t able to identify all the teens in the cars as being at the murder scene.  Also, I don’t know what the state statutes in MS are in relation to death in the commission of a felony; they might not be as atrocious as in California, where deaths (like say, a police officer crashes and dies or a guard shoots someone) only vaguely related to your presence or you did not have knowledge of the felony are included (there’s a kid from LA with a twenty-plus sentence because he went to a friend’s house, and that friend was killed by a drug-dealer; because he drove the guy who was buying the drugs, that was felony enough for the judge - even though it was never proven or even suggested he knew about anything other than hanging out, smoking weed, and playing video games.)

California’s not unusual in having a Felony Murder rule, and it’s also used if one of the perps kills a civilian or runs over someone when fleeing a crime.

First degree murder and negligence

On January 7, 2011, the California Court of Appeal held in People v. Wilkins that it was not a violation of due process to apply the felony murder rule where death resulted from a negligent act committed while actively engaged in a burglary. Wilkins committed a burglary. On the way from the burglary, unsecured items fell from his pickup truck, causing another driver to swerve and become involved in a fatal collision. Found guilty of first degree felony murder, he received a 25 year to life sentence, upheld by the Court of Appeal.[2]

Are you talking about the Jesse James Hollywood case, Crissa?  I’m a bit familiar with it but it was a very intricate case and I wouldn’t be surprised if someone got thrown in the slammer for life because of the Felony murder rule. 

What is certain is that cases in which the moral indignation of the judge is aroused frequently make bad law.

OTOH, this makes sense:

Second degree murder

In the case People v. Ford, 60 Cal.2d 772 (1964), the California Supreme Court held that homicide during the commission of a felony can constitute second degree murder if the felony is “inherently dangerous to human life.”[3]

In the case People v. Hansen, 9 Cal.4th 300 (1994), the California Supreme Court held that discharging a firearm at an inhabited dwelling is an inherently dangerous felony for the purposes of second degree felony murder.[4]

California courts have also found manufacturing methamphetamine,[5] maliciously burning a car,[6] and possessing a bomb in a residential area [7] to be inherently dangerous felonies.

NY has it, although not as expansive:

Affirmative defenses

The rule also provides a number of affirmative defenses.[2] The defendant has an affirmative defense if the crime was committed in a group and he or she:

  Did not actually commit, solicit, or aid the homicide
  Was not armed with a deadly weapon
  Had no reason to believe that another participant carried a deadly weapon
  Had no reason to believe that another participant intended to engage in conduct likely to cause death or serious bodily injury

Under that law, the perp you describe would’ve probably gotten off if they had a decent attorney.

As does TX:

Texas’ Law of Parties is a variation on the common law felony murder rule. Codified in Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 7.02, the law states that a person can be criminally responsible for the actions of another if he or she aids and abets, or conspires with the principal. However, all common law jurisdictions find that an accessory to murder will be criminally responsible. This liability can arise through solicitation, aiding and abetting, conspiracy, or any other doctrine of complicity.

Why not throw the book at them for killing regardless of what they were thinking at the time. These teens committed murder, which is harshly punished regardless of their motivation.  You haven’t said why there needs to be more punishment for crimes committed because of hate.

Because hate crimes have a dual effect. The first effect is the obvious one: the suffering and/or death of a human being. The second effect is less obvious (if you’re not the target, that is): it’s the fear instilled in other members of the group that the target of the hate crime belonged to.

When a black man is murdered just because he’s black, the message is clear: other black people should not feel safe on the streets, at least certain streets. They should worry about the risk of beatings and murder and rape should they step out of line in any way. “Stepping out of line” to be defined at will by some racist white dudes at a time of their choosing.

Why not throw the book at them for killing regardless of what they were thinking at the time

Because hate crimes are essentially terrorism - designed, planned and implemented to maximize fear, intimidation and pain to the target group. 

The state of mind can certainly be taken to account under the law according to the doctrine of the Mens rea:

Subjective and objective tests

The test for the existence of mens rea may be:

  (a) subjective, where the court must be satisfied that the accused actually had the requisite mental element present in his or her mind at the relevant time (for purposely, knowingly, recklessly etc) (see concurrence);
  (b) objective, where the requisite mens rea element is imputed to the accused, on the basis that a reasonable person would have had the mental element in the same circumstances (for negligence); or
  (c) hybrid, where the test is both subjective and objective.

The court will have little difficulty in establishing mens rea if there is actual evidence – for instance, if the accused made an admissible admission. This would satisfy a subjective test. But a significant proportion of those accused of crimes make no such admissions. Hence, some degree of objectivity must be brought to bear as the basis upon which to impute the necessary component(s). It is always reasonable to assume that people of ordinary intelligence are aware of their physical surroundings and of the ordinary laws of cause and effect (see causation). Thus, when a person plans what to do and what not to do, he will understand the range of likely outcomes from given behaviour on a sliding scale from “inevitable” to “probable” to “possible” to “improbable”. The more an outcome shades towards the “inevitable” end of the scale, the more likely it is that the accused both foresaw and desired it, and, therefore, the safer it is to impute intention. If there is clear subjective evidence that the accused did not have foresight, but a reasonable person would have, the hybrid test may find criminal negligence. In terms of the burden of proof, the requirement is that a jury must have a high degree of certainty before convicting, defined as “beyond a reasonable doubt” in the United States and “sure” in the United Kingdom.[18][19][20] It is this reasoning that justifies the defenses of infancy, and of lack of mental capacity under the M’Naghten Rules, an alternate common law rule (e.g., Durham test), and one of various statutes defining mental illness as an excuse. Moreover, if there is an irrebuttable presumption of doli incapax - that is, that the accused did not have sufficient understanding of the nature and quality of his actions – then the requisite mens rea is absent no matter what degree of probability might otherwise have been present.[21] For these purposes, therefore, where the relevant statutes are silent and it is for the common law to form the basis of potential liability, the reasonable person must be endowed with the same intellectual and physical qualities as the accused, and the test must be whether an accused with these specific attributes would have had the requisite foresight and desire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea

NYC has a “groper” working all over Manhattan, which puts all women of every race in fear if they live in the area.  A mugging adds to a neighborhood’s reputation regardless of the reason for the crime or the race of the target

Do you honestly not see the difference here or are you trolling? I genuinely can’t tell.

To touch on the Confederate flag thing… I don’t know anything about that specific case, but as someone who grew up in the South I am quite familiar with the use of the Confederate flag as a symbol of pride. It’s the same way Texans flaunt all that “Don’t Mess With Texas” stuff. It’s used as a way to show pride in the place you are from. Not that I don’t think that’s deeply problematic given the history, but it is true that it’s an obvious, cohesive symbol for a region that has always been somewhat apart from the rest of the country, and I think that’s the main reason why people evoke it. Especially since it has been used as a symbol of a sort of nationalistic pride so frequently, I would venture to say that most Southerners displaying a Confederate flag aren’t thinking about the Civil War at all. They are just trying to say “I’m Southern and proud.”

I’m trying to think of another symbol that immediately says “The South” to me and I can’t. Except for sweet tea, but that’s not very exciting. Anyway, I think people are being honest when they say it’s a heritage/pride thing. I think we should still point out to them the horrible, racist history that the Confederate flag ALSO clearly and immediately evokes, but I don’t think it’s useful to pretend they’re being disingenuous.

Southern Pride is a difficult concept for me. We all want to have pride in our roots, and I there are a lot of things I deeply love about the South, things that are a part of me. But I also hate how fucking backwards the place is and how ignorant so many of the people are. My relationship with the South is decidedly love-hate. I am so glad I left the region, and yet my heart yearns for it on a regular basis, for the open fields and the muggy summer nights and the laid-back speed of life and the down-to-earth attitudes.

But CAN you have Southern Pride without also evoking all the nastiness? It’s not like the US as a whole hasn’t done some horrible, atrocious things too, but we don’t balk at patriotism. The whole thing just reminds me how stupid nationalism is. And yet… somehow I am proud to be Southern. I love my family and my home… even with it’s terrible past and, as we see, it’s present.

I am reminded of a quote from a book I read called Out in the South. It said, “I moved to California so that I could be gay, but I found out that I was Southern.”

I’m trying to think of another symbol that immediately says “The South” to me and I can’t.

Antebellum mansions, women in hoop skirts, spanish moss on trees, Piggly-Wigglly. should I go on?

The Confederate flag is somewhat popular around here. In the Central Valley, being called an Okie used to be a for of prejudice, a way for those born and brought up here to look down at ‘interlopers’.

Nowadays, being an Okie is neither respectable nor a black mark, and many of those who are identify with the Confederate flag are indulging in a kind of false nostalgia given the circumstances of why their families moved here in the first place.

I could blindfold Amanda(don’t we all want to) and take her to a little place 10 miles from where I live and she’d be hard put to tell the difference between it and a place somewhere in small-town Texas.  She could pass as a native of Pixley, CA, without much effort, IMHO.

Dave Neiwart at Crooks and Liars has been documenting these sorts of assaults for years.

At least in this horrible case in MS, law enforcement has arrested these murderers.  If your an Indian in Reno NV, forget about getting help from the police: http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/07/waiting-for-justice-living-in-fear/

The Confederate flag is a symbol of white Southern pride.

To all you folks lamenting the lack of other symbols of Southern pride, keep in mind that by using the Confederate flag you are excluding minorities as part of “The South” which is fucked up in numerous ways.

Lets see. Stuff deemed worthy of mention on a post about a hate crime include “parental rights”, “home schooling”, “Sarah Palin’s film”, and first amendment protection for confederates. All this could be relevant.  The part about “rewriting textbooks to reflect conservative propaganda” seems worthy of exploration. But you know what would help?

It would help if liberals refused to put a Democratic Senator from Mississippi…one who knowingly prosecuted black men whose confessions were extracted from police torture…in the line of fucking succession. If Dems must vote for him over Haley Barbour, perhaps asking him to repent for that and one other small thing would’ve been a nice gesture.

I understand he was helpful in Borking Bork. But does he really deserve to have an aircraft carrier named after him? Surely this is as worthy of mention as home schooling. What was that about the textbooks?

Shorter Manju:

“Argle bargle. Look over there! Tu quoque! Argle bargle.”

Depending on the context, I’d be more sympathetic (though not entirely) to the “heritage not hate” line if these weren’t the same exact people who shit their pants at the sign of a Mexican, Pan-African, or Rainbow flag.

Er, “at the sight”.

Non-hate crimes also instill fear in those who live in the area.  NYC has a “groper” working all over Manhattan, which puts all women of every race in fear if they live in the area.

I agree, groping and street harassment should be considered hate crimes against women. Harassment and sexual violence create an atmosphere where women are intimidated out of using public spaces to the same extent that men do.

A mugging adds to a neighborhood’s reputation regardless of the reason for the crime or the race of the target.  Basically, all crimes include both the first and second effects you specify.

No, that’s not true at all. There are crimes where it’s clear the attacker was motivated by greed, passion, or things unrelated to the demographics of his or her victim. And there are crimes where it’s obvious that the victim was chosen solely because of his or her identity. Crimes in the latter category perform the cultural work of intimidating members of an oppressed minority. Crimes in the former category do not.

But it’s OK, NY2, I understand that the taste of denial is sweet. I don’t really understand what you gain from remaining in denial about these things, but I can see that that’s what is going on.

Why do opponents of hate crime laws think motive shouldn’t enter into how serious a crime is?

Surely they understand the difference between manslaughter and first degree murder? Or between the murder of an eight year old girl and the murder of one drug dealer by another?

But wouldn’t harassment of men also qualify, which would mean that ALL instances of harassment and “groping” would be “hate crimes,” which would make the “hate crime” designation meaningless, since there would be no “non-hate crimes” of that type?

Street harassment of men also qualifies, obviously. Gay men, for example, are often subject to harassment, as are trans women (who are biologically male).

Are straight men being harassed to the point where they don’t go out because they want to avoid being harassed? No? Let’s stick with reality then.

<blockquote>“Crimes in the latter category perform the cultural work of intimidating members of an oppressed minority. “

But hate crime legislation is supposed to cover “everyone,” not just minorities.  I know that’s what you meant though. </blockquote>

Not everyone is subject to being attacked because of their gender or ethnicity or skin color or perceived sexual orientation. But yes, hate crimes legislation do cover everyone. For example, if you are attacked because you are perceived to be gay, even though you’re straight, it’s still a hate crime. It’s still an attack that’s an attack on an entire group of people rather than just one person. During the aftermath of 9/11 there were a rash of hate crimes against people perceived to be Arabic and Muslim, even though in many cases the attackers (being ignorant as racists are prone to do) also singled out people who were Persian, Sikh, and even Christian.

Again, you’re trying to take us out of reality and into some sort of fantasy where hate crimes don’t happen, where certain types of people aren’t stigmatized due to intrinsic characteristics they possess and cannot change (nor should they have to). White men aren’t likely to be the victims of attacks motivated solely because of their race or gender, and if they are, they’ve certainly had few problems, historically, in getting law enforcement authorities to take their attacks seriously. That reminds me of another reason for the existence of hate crimes laws: they give jurisdiction to federal authorities in cases where the local authorities, being subject to the same prejudice that gave rise to the attack in the first place, are disinclined to prosecute the criminals.

I think the most persuasive argument so far is the equation of hate-crimes with terrorism.  It really does seem like the same thing.  Perhaps we should treat it as terrorism, and not use the term hate-crime at all?

What, the word “terrorism” isn’t already watered down and meaningless enough for you?

You really will do anything at all to avoid confronting the realities of prejudice, won’t you?

AnonNY2,

Hate crime is a bit of a misnomer.  When a crime takes place that means to target not only the victim, but a protected class of people, it’s called a “hate crime”.  It doesn’t necessarily have to do with an emotional state of mind.

These teens went out to kill a n***er.  Not just any person, but a black person.  Because being black means being subhuman, and this act was meant to teach all n***ers what their place is.

So, yeah, extended sentencing.  One for the murder and one for the terrorism implicit in the crime.

Remember anonNY2: not every minority is oppressed. Some minorities hold disproportionate amounts of political and economic power! The fact that these minorities do not benefit very much from hate crimes legislation is not an indication of inequalities embedded in hate crimes legislation. It is an indication of the inequalities embedded in our society.

The same person was arguing before that the murderer should get extra punishment, but just by the law turning a blind eye as people beat him up in prison.  Lawful punishment of actions terrorizing minorities: bad, violence against a person in a cage without any oversight or protection: good.

People, people!  Let’s not argue over whether Hate Crimes should be acknowledged and punished.

I’m sure if we put aside our differences and come together we can figure out some way to get the Invisible Hand of the Marketplace involved in these situations.  The all knowing, all seeing, all powerful Invisible Hand will somehow fix this problem for us.  No one knows how, for the actions of the Invisible Hand are beyond the ken of man.  But we can all rest assured that these problems will certainly be solved if we can bring sufficiently unrestrained Market Capitalism to bear.

It sure worked great when pounding a stake through the shriveled heart of Mr. Jim Crow…

The all knowing, all seeing, all powerful Invisible Hand will somehow fix this problem for us.

MikeEss, I’m sure you mean well, but doesn’t it seem like that might lead to those of ethnic, religious, or other majorities SOMEDAY dominating everyone else through brute force and terror?  I think if we’re going to go with your plan, we have to make some provision to safeguard against abuses like that.  I propose enforcing stiffer penalties against crimes when the motive is bias against a particular ethnic, religious, etc. group.

“I propose enforcing stiffer penalties against crimes when the motive is bias against a particular ethnic, religious, etc. group.”

But don’t you see?  If we do that, then anoNY2 will have a sad, and that would bring everyone down…

A compelling argument!  “Civilization makes libertarians sad.”  Case dismissed!

If we do that, then anoNY2 will have a sad, and that would bring everyone down…

What you mean “everyone”, white man?

The frustrated tears of libertarians are as sweet necter to my lips.

Non-hate crimes also instill fear in those who live in the area.  NYC has a “groper” working all over Manhattan, which puts all women of every race in fear if they live in the area.  A mugging adds to a neighborhood’s reputation regardless of the reason for the crime or the race of the target.  Basically, all crimes include both the first and second effects you specify.
Comment #68: anoNY2 on 08/08 at 06:33 PM

All women.  Do you not read what you wrote?

Also adding punishment at the sentencing for hate crimes is to make it clear to the judiciary even in a shithole that hate crimes are especially heinous.  Dude.

Comment #87: MikeEss on 08/08 at 10:14 PM

I’m sure if we put aside our differences and come together we can figure out some way to get the Invisible Hand of the Marketplace involved in these situations.  The all knowing, all seeing, all powerful Invisible Hand will somehow fix this problem for us.  No one knows how, for the actions of the Invisible Hand are beyond the ken of man.  But we can all rest assured that these problems will certainly be solved if we can bring sufficiently unrestrained Market Capitalism to bear.

It sure worked great when pounding a stake through the shriveled heart of Mr. Jim Crow…

That sort of situation cannot happen because if it did happen the market would immediately eventually correct it, and when the market doesn’t correct it then who are you to question the market’s Panglossian wisdom anyway.

Comment #87: MikeEss on 08/08 at 10:14 PM

I’m sure if we put aside our differences and come together we can figure out some way to get the Invisible Hand of the Marketplace involved in these situations.  The all knowing, all seeing, all powerful Invisible Hand will somehow fix this problem for us.  No one knows how, for the actions of the Invisible Hand are beyond the ken of man.  But we can all rest assured that these problems will certainly be solved if we can bring sufficiently unrestrained Market Capitalism to bear.

It sure worked great when pounding a stake through the shriveled heart of Mr. Jim Crow…

That sort of situation cannot happen because if it did happen the market would immediately eventually correct it, and when the market doesn’t correct it then who are you to question the market’s Panglossian wisdom anyway.

Manju reminds me of this Far Side Cartoon, just read Racism for Ginger.

The same person was arguing before that the murderer should get extra punishment, but just by the law turning a blind eye as people beat him up in prison.  Lawful punishment of actions terrorizing minorities: bad, violence against a person in a cage without any oversight or protection: good.

QFT

Southern Pride is a difficult concept for me. We all want to have pride in our roots, and I there are a lot of things I deeply love about the South, things that are a part of me.

I’m not a big fan of automatic pride of place, to be honest—it’s not like it’s something that’s earned, except for immigrants.  I’ve often been grateful to have been born in 20th-century America, and I’m proud of the country when it lives up to its ideals—both feelings have been fading with time, sadly—but neither directly results from my personal merit, after all.  And I consider myself somewhat unfortunate to have been born in Mississippi; the insight I’ve gained from picking apart & rejecting the culture probably isn’t as useful as having been born somewhere that would have allowed me to flourish more could have been.  In any case, feeling sentimental or happy about some of the traits of one’s home is fair enough, but defining those feelings as ‘pride’ and using them for relative positioning among other groups seems questionable at best.

RES @ 74 - This. Hell, yes.
Also, I agee with Ben D @77/78, and no, apparently not @80 (or pretending not anyway).