Joseph Ileto… He was the victim of a hate crime, and I would like to talk about him today. He did nothing wrong yet he was killed. This was a tragic event and we need to learn from it. We need to bring hate crimes to the front of our minds and talk about what's happening in our school and in the world. In addition to hate crimes I’m going to talk about microaggressions, which is the bigger concern in relation to this school. A hate crime is a crime committed because of race, background, national origin, religious belief, sex, age, disability, or sexual orientation. It can include harassment, violence, or threats, towards a person, family or their property. Joseph Ileto is an Asian-American who was murdered based solely on the fact that …show more content…
They are hurtful and or derogatory insults that are based on negative stereotypes. Examples of everyday microaggressions are; “That’s so gay.”, “you're black so you must be good at basket ball.”, “Stop being such a girl.”, and so many more. Microaggressions can be born of ignorance and be unintentional or they can be said intentionally to bring verbal harm to someone. Whichever is the case they both need to be exposed and be talked about.
Hate crime and microaggressions can no longer be ignored. We need to raise awareness about them much like the Ileto family did after Joseph died. The Iletos have made a great example of how hate crimes should be treated. They saw that if they sat back and did nothing they would be forgotten, Joseph would be forgotten by everyone but them. They didn't let that happen. They weren't going to sit back and let Joseph's death go unnoticed and unpunished. They organized vigils and rallies in major cities in america. They pushed for change and made hate crimes more visible.
Our school might not be subject to hate crimes but it is heavily subject to microaggressions. We need to take a page out of the Ileto family book and start raising awareness about this subject. With only one person fighting this we won’t get far, but if we all band together and work as one whole we can make a difference in not only the school but in our whole