Hate Crimes Against African-American
Tonja Charletta Cash
4/29/12

Hate Crimes Against African Americans

Two African-American, 16 year old girls were walking home from a school function. They were walking through a predominately white neighborhood. One was wearing her school cheerleading outfit and the other was wearing a hoodie, and it was covering her head. Which one will be racially profiled? Hate crimes happen in small towns and large cities. They happen in every state: north, south, east, and west. They involve everything from simple graffiti to brutal murders. They may be called hate crimes, bias crimes, civil rights crimes, or ethnic intimidation. Hate crimes are crimes committed because of the race, releigion, sexual orientation, or other group memebership of the victim. The precise groups that are included in the definition of hate crime vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. African-Americans have been targeted for generations. There have been many white against black crimes, and police against black crimes. Has there been any improvement in the last 50 years? Racially motivated attacks agaist African-Americans rose more than 8% in 2008. While crimes against blacks rose, attacks against whites declined during the same time period. Racially motivated attacks continued to account for about half of all bias crimes. Now that we have our first African-American president whose place of birth and presidential legitimacy are still being questioned by extremist, the number of hate crimes has undoubtedly increased in 2009. (Encyclopedia of African-American History) Statistically this phenomenum has been occuring for over 50 years. We will explore the Ku Klux Klan and it's involvement with hate crimes against African-Americans. Many of these crimes have happened all of the United States. South and North-it didn't matter. Many of the crimes were lynchings. These lynchings were often commited by an organization known as "The Ku Klux Klan". The sheer number of African-Americans lynched or legally executed was much higher than outside the south. "Some 4,921 in 10 southern states between 1882 and 1950 alone, compared to only 572 European-Americans"(The HangsMan Knot) Members of the original Ku Klux Klan were domestic terrorist with a focused objective: this was to intimidate freed former slaves and their white supporters. Burning down houses and businesses, whippings, shootings, and hangings. Klan terrorism succeeded in preventing African-Americans from using their mewly won rights. The Klan was investigated by congress, and Sothern conservatives as a national party seem to have disowned the klan by 1870. Unfortunately, this ending doesn't mean that Afrincan-Americn lynching stopped. Instead, lynchings came to be presented differently- a theatrical spectacle that said, "The community has come together in a spontaneous outpouring of outrage against an African-American who committed an atrocity". No longer were African-Americans recieving secret visits at night from the KKK, victims were being lynched in public by a mob. Often the victim was taken from jail were they were awaiting a fair trial. The Ku Klux Klan wasn't the only group that targeted African-Americans. Many hate crimes were committed by ordinary white citizens. Many of these citizens carried out the lynchings. No doubt the ordinary white citizens who carried out the killings, or simply showed up for the spectacle, did support the hangings or burnings of many African-Americans. But, close investigation of individual hate crimes have shown that the guiding hand was the community's local cotton planters, merchants and bankers. Both elite and lower-income. In 1955, an AfricanAmerican teenager from chicago was murdered while visiting family in Money, Mississippi, a town with a population of only 55. Emmett Till's "capital" offense: trying to flirt with a store owner's European-American wife. He had acted on a dare from his cousins and their friends, but four days later he was dead. A victim of a harmless prank. His beaten, unclothed body was found in the Tallahatchie River, two men were charged with his murder. Roy Bryant, husband of the store clerk, and Bryant's half brother. It was unusual that the men were even prosecuted in court, because in the 1950's the police often turned their heads. Their aquittal was a done deal. This leads to our next exploration, which involves police related hate crimes. The class description for the position of a Police Officer, as defined by the Municipal Fire & Police Civil Service Board( rev. 7-10-75) is hereby reproduced. " This is general and varied duty police work in the protection of life and property through the enforcement of laws and ordinances". This job description didn't seem to be the case for many African-Americans. Many hate related crimes were often committed and overlooked. Police brutality and misconduct have been present throughout history. From the days of slavery, through the Civil Right movement era, to the Rodney King beating which lead to the L.A. riots and up to the beating of Brnadon Johnson by a police officer, it still exist in the year 2012. Police brutality(hate crime) and misconduct are merely the major contemporary forms of state-sponsored racist violence. Police brutality is described as "instances of serious physical or psychological harm to civilians."(Municipal Fire & police civil Board rev. 7-10-75) Contemporary police can consist of deadly force, the use of excessive force, and it includes unjustified shootings, fatal choking, and physical assault by a law enforcement officer. During the civil rights movement, members of peaceful demostrations, sit-ins, freedom rides, and boycotts, were always faced with police violence and brutality. One demonstration in particular called "Project C", bought national attention to police violence. Dr. Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference also known as the SCLC, devised a plan to challenge the system of segregation in Birmingham, Ala. The "C" in the project stood for confrontation, the strategy of nonviolent direct action designed to confront segregation through peaceful demonstrations, rallies, and boycotts. This strategy actually hinged upon the anticipated reaction of Police Commisioner Bull Conner. leaders reasoned that the response of Conner and the police would be to suppress the demonstrators by any means necessary. The police at this time were violent toward the demonstrators. In the end, the leaders reasoned correctly. The response of Bull Conner was as expected. Police dogs and fire hoses were used to disperse the demonstrators. Some were beaten with batons. On March 3, 1991, Rodney King and two passengers were driving through a predominately white neighborhood Los Angeles. The California Highway Patrol attempted to initiate a traffic stop and a high-speed pursuit ensued with speeds estimated at 115 mph through freeways and residential neighborhoods. When Kingcame to a stop, officers ordered the occupants under arrest. After two passengers were placed in the patrol car, five L.A. Police Department officers attempted to subdue King, who came out of the car last. king was tackled, tasered, heavily beaten with Pr24 batons, and kicked in the head.
The 1992 Los Angeles riots, also known as the 1992 Los Angeles Civil Unrest and the Rodney King Uprising, were sparked on April 29, 1992, when despite numerous, video recordings of the incident, a jury acquitted four white LAPD officers accused in the videotaped beating of Rodney King. The footage of King being beaten by police while lying on the ground became a focus for media attention and an example of race-related hate crimes. As we draw to a close, the question originaly asked still needs an answer. Has hate crimes improved for African-Americans in the last 50 years? Despite the election of our nation's first African-American president, African-Americans remain by far the most frequent victims of hate crimes. Of the 7,624 hate crimes incidents reported nationwide in 2007, the most recent year for which data is available, 34% (2,659) were perpetrated against African-Americans, a number and percentage of incidents that has changed little over the past 10 years. (The Leadership Conference) From lynchings, to burning crosses and churches, to murdering a man by chaining him to a truck and dragging him down a road for three miles. Anti-Black violence has been and still remains the prototypical hate crime intended not only to injure and kill individuals but to terrorize an entire group of people. Examples, of recent hate crimes committed against African-Americans include:

-On election night 2008, Ralph Nicoletti and Michael Contrenas, both 18, and Brian Carranza, 21 of Staten Island, New york decided shortly after learning of Barack Obama's election victory "to find African-Americans to assault". Accordind to fedral indictments and other cort findings, they drove to a predominately black neighborhood in Staten Island, where they came upon a 17-year old boy walking home from a friends house. One of the defendents yelled "Obama"! Then, the men got out of the car and beat the youth with a metal pipe and a collapsible police baton, injuring his head and legs. The three men went on to commit additional assaults that night.

There seems to be an increase, in racially motivated hate crimes. These crimes have received national attention. Trayvon Martin and the recent Tulsa shooting come quickly to mind. It may even seem that there has been an increasing number of these within the past few years, and this observation is not an illusion. According to hate crime statistics published by the FBI, crimes based on an anti-black racial bias have increased as a proportion to the number to the number of racial hate crimes committed. (FBI Reports located from the AXIA library) From 1996-2007, the percentage of racial crimes committed due to anti-black sentiments was never above 70%. Since, 2008, this percentage has topped 70% every year, peaking at 72.9% in 2008. ( Policy Mic Newsletter)
This regrettable trend could possibly be attributed to several factors. The first of these factors, is the outcome of the 2008 presidentials election. The second, major factor is that coul influence the higher rate of crimes toward blacks is the increasing proportion of minorities in the U.S. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau, shows the percentage of the American population in the white racial category has been steadily decling since the 1930's, while the black and hispanic population have continued to significantly. (Policy Mic Newsletter) In recent decades, our society has witnessed a higher number of hate crimes against African-Americans. With these numbers, one would have to conclude there hasn't been a significant improvement. In conclusion, the decision we make to day about our basic freedoms will be ones we ive with for a very long time. We need to turn on the lights in the world of hate crimes, and expose the darkness and the lies.