'Are You Muslim?' Hate Crime

[Elephant Walk]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

Thank me later.....

First off, Elephant Walk, you tried to reduce "hate" in the sense that it is used for hate crimes to "anger" and negative emotionality. There is a huge difference between someone being murdered as a result of a bar fight (hint: most violent crimes have minimal planning and minimal targeting therefore the emotions and "hatred" are extremely shortlived and fleeting) as compared to someone who has a sense of group threat or rage that is directed at particular groups.

This is difficult because we're not speaking in specific terms. You're generalizing in every sense of the word. Yes, SOME violent actions are like that. But, SOME are not.

Thus anger does not necessarily accompany hate, but SOMETIMES it does.

If you can't see the racial and ethnic references, think of it in terms of sexual offenses. There are sexual predators who target children and women and there are perpetrators of crimes such as rape and sexual assault which are about power (and not sex). The laws are geared toward the fact that these tend not to be as random in terms of intent and target as some other crimes are. All crimes are generally based on the daily routine activities of the perpetrator and the victims (hence you're more likely to be victimized by family, friend, or level of acquaintance than you are a complete stranger). But, crimes that target on the bases of sex, age, gender, sexual orientation, race, etc. are even more non-random. The perpetrator goes into it with that intention.

Generalizing, yet again.

I hope you don't do this for all your examples. Yes, SOMETIMES those things occur. SOMETIMES they don't.

I would sure hate to sentence someone to life in prison for generalizations.

And, yes, we know all of this because of years of quantitative and qualitative research. I don't understand why people can't grasp that our social world is complex yet humans are generally profilable and predictable based on what we have studied about human behaviors.

I agree.

Social control is not a broad term.

It means exactly what it sounds like. It is a macro-level approach to a sense of threat. Harming someone who cheats on you because you hate cheaters (as many people do) is not a social control mechanism.

Obviously.

The point is that, you simply don't know. The intent of the person could be using it as a social control mechanism, whether or not you see it as one is irrelevent. The intent is there.