by Gloria Partida and Madhavi Sunder
In 1983, an Asian American Davis Senior High School student, Thong H. Huynh, was stabbed to death in the science quad in a racially motivated attack. In 1992, 14-year-old Holmes Junior High Student Andrew Mockus was beaten, robbed, and pushed into a moving train by three high school students from Davis. The perpetrators had a history of bullying and violence at school. Last year, late one evening, Mikey Partida’s 32nd birthday celebration began as a joyful affair but turned into a nightmare. An intoxicated neighbor began shouting homophobic insults at Partida. Partida was severely beaten because of his sexual orientation by a youth described by many as having a long history of bullying.
This weekend the Davis Phoenix Coalition launched the “Hate Is Not a Davis Value” campaign to support programs in our community and schools aimed at preventing such hate crimes from ever again occurring in our community. Community leaders from County Supervisor Don Saylor to Mayor Dan Wolk attended the launch. Community member Dan Brunn spoke of his own memories of bullying, which were the impetus for his documentary “Davisville 2013” about the hate crime perpetrated on Mikey Partida.
Among other community-wide programs, the “Hate Is Not a Davis Value” campaign seeks to foster “identity-safe classrooms” in our district schools. One of us — Gloria Partida — is the mother of Mikey Partida and co-chair of the Davis Phoenix Coalition. The other — Madhavi Sunder — is a candidate for the Davis School Board. In this column, we share some strategies for nurturing empathy, respect and understanding in our district schools and for supporting a pro-social environment.
School climate broadly refers to major spheres of school life: safety, relationships, teaching and learning, and the external environment. Educational literature shows that how we feel in school affects our ability to engage and learn. Positive school environments are associated with academic achievement and social and emotional well-being, minimizing risky behavior and improving self-esteem. The ultimate goal of creating positive school climates is to create youth who are confident, secure, and able to live satisfying and productive lives. This cannot be done without teaching not only science and reading, but also about diversity, respect and kindness.
To that end, in 2005 when Madhavi led the campaign to name what is now Korematsu Elementary after the civil rights hero, we imagined that Fred Korematsu’s life would empower children to stand up to bullying. Korematsu, an ordinary man who challenged the Japanese Internment as unconstitutional, would offer the following lesson from his own life: “If you have the feeling something is wrong, don’t be afraid to speak up.” That simple statement, now a motto of the Korematsu Elementary, is designed to help give children the courage to speak up for justice. Today Korematsu Elementary proudly calls itself a “social justice school.” Principal Mary Ponce explains, “We’re trying to live a democratic school that wants people to be socially just and inclusive.” In the multiethnic environment of California, Korematsu reminds us that the American ideal of equality of opportunity includes all children. President Barack Obama offered that being American is not about the color of your skin or having a “funny name” as Barack Obama describes himself, or your choice of whom to love. We need to make sure that our children grow up recognizing and respecting our diversity.
In our experience, Davis principals and parent leaders endeavor to makeschool climate a high priority. A school’s climate can begin to be assessed in the first few minutes of entering any school. Are there displays of student work? Are all kinds of students represented in photos and posters?Or are the walls devoid of student work, displaying instead posters with 15 rules of conduct? Does the poster begin each rule with the word “Don’t”? How you are greeted (or not) by students and adults in the hallway impacts how you feel. Are adults and peers helpful and interested in whom you are and how to help you get where you want?Or do they walk by trying not to make eye contact?
In this column, we want to highlight some strategies and programs that our own schools are using to promote a healthy climate. We do not highlight these programs as better than any others, but merely to give examples of the kinds of ways parents, teachers, students, and administrators are working together to reduce bullying and promote inclusion and respect.
- “Safe Schools Ambassadors” at Holmes Junior High. At Holmes Junior High, Principal Derek Brothers believes the “feel” of the school is conveyed the moment a student or family enters the campus. “I hear many, many times how comfortable people feel when they walk up to the front desk,” says Brothers, praising the staff — Judy Stafford, Louisa Nye and Georgie Chambers, and Jan Chandler. Teachers intervene in student conversations to help promote inclusive language. “When did you learn to cuss,” asks Brothers? “In Junior High,” he answers. Teachers intervene when students use phrases like “that’s so gay.” Teachers are closely listening to and interacting with kids. Brothers emphasizes that having school counselors is extremely important. The school has a “Safe School Ambassadors” programs in which some 60 kids from diverse communities are identified as leaders among their peers. The program gives these kids skills on how to diffuse a situation safely. “Fighting has gone down dramatically,” says Brothers. “They report things to us. They’ll give us suggestions. It’s allowed us to have more ears and eyes out there.” The program was a response to a suicide by a Holmes student several years earlier. Principal Brothers reports, “When we found out how many kids knew he was depressed, it became alarming. If you care, you speak up.”
- Leadership Classes at Emerson Junior High. At Emerson Junior High, teacher Jennifer Terra teaches Leadership classes that help empower students to stand up to bullying and coach peers through conflicts. Terra has also organized “diversity training” workshops for junior high students, inviting members and leaders from diverse communities to speak to young people and help them understand their experiences of bullying and discrimination. Students have met with LGBT parents of their peers, and African American classmates. The trainings, which Terra has been organizing for nearly 20 years, bring together junior high students and representatives of various groups that have historically suffered from discrimination, stereotyping, bullying and worse. Students become more aware of their own biases, and how what they say and do affects others.
- “Lunchapalooza!” at Pioneer Elementary. Pioneer’s physical education teacher, Lisa Bell, has been working hard in partnership with the PTA and school administration to keep kids engaged on the school playground during lunchtime with fun new games like “Pigball” (basketball with a football!) and “Nine Square in the Air.” Organized, fun, and adult-supervised activities are already proving successful at Pioneer and other schools in our district in minimizing lunchtime drama, conflict, and feelings of exclusion and isolation. Pioneer PTA President Sally McGowan and Principal Matt Duffy have also spoken with us about the important roles played by counselors in our elementary schools. The Davis Schools Foundation and individual elementary school PTAs help fund counseling in elementary schools. Elementary principals identify counselors as a key need.
- Developing Physical Education and Leadership Skills Through “Playworks” at Chavez Elementary. The “Playworks” program at Chavez Elementary teaches children organized games that develop age-appropriate physical education skills, and offers inclusive and fun activities for lunchtime recess. Playworks is an international non-profit organization. Studies have shown the program helps to reduce bullying, enhances feelings of safety at school, increases vigorous physical activity during recess, and provides more time for classroom teaching. Two years before implementing Playworks, the Chavez Climate Survey found that 76% of students reported bullying on the playground. Although it is only a suggestive correlation, that number dropped to 28% in recent years after the school began implementing Playworks. Anecdotal data from teachers, parents, and staff suggests kids are better focused when they get back to class; the office receives fewer referrals due to injuries and conflicts when Playworks is on the playground. Many parents report their kids are enjoying recess more. At Chavez, where the program has been available for three years, older children (grades 5 and 6) apply to serve as “Playworks Peers.” Peers (a few of whom are pictured here) develop leadership skills by teaching younger children a “Game of the Week.” Rising 7th grader Holly McGuinness, bottom right, says Playworks Peers and Student Council gave her the confidence to apply for a seat in the Leadership class at Emerson Junior High.
This is just a sampling of the kinds of innovative programs in our district to reduce bullying and to promote more inclusive and respectful communities. There are other important efforts, as well, including the Gay Straight Alliance at the high schools and junior high schools, a student run organization that supports and raises awareness around the LGBT community. The “Race and Social Justice” program at Davis Senior High School is putting on a 10th anniversary program in the Brunelle Performance Center at DHS on August 30 from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Today a memorial in Huynh’s name stands in the science quad and the city gives an annual award in his name. A memorial to Mockus greets visitors at the Davis Little League fields and the city has given Golden Heart Awards in his honor. The sad lesson of the violence against Huynh, Mockus, and Partida is that even with our community’s best intentions, unless we stand vigilant against complacency in our own homes and look out for the needs of every student we will continue to ask “how did this happen?” when our children commit unthinkable acts of violence. Let us keep struggling to demonstrate and inculcate respect for each other. Let us all stand together to ensure that Hate is Not a Davis Value.
Gloria Partida is co-chair of the Davis Phoenix Coalition and a member of the City of Davis Human Relations Commission. Madhavi Sunder has been a professor of law at UC Davis since 1999 and is a candidate for the Davis School Board in November 2014. To learn more about her campaign please visit www.sunderforschools.org or follow (and perhaps “like”) her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/sunderforschoolboard.
There are also climate committees at many school sites that run many of the climate programs, a district climate coordinator, and a student climate survey that is given regularly districtwide.
This strikes a cord with me. Based on a college sociology course and my own observations, by the time a person reaches junior high, their values are established. It’s great that the junior highs are teaching politically correct language, but if the work hasn’t been done in the primary levels to teach inclusion and celebrate differences, it’s only an external trapping. The systemic insensitivity to my introverted children was a shock to me. I find the relegation of “race and social justice” to a high school course outrageous. We do not live in a post-racial society. Race and social justice discussions should start in primary school. The children should not be left on their own to interpret the AIM and non-AIM classroom split.
“…if the work hasn’t been done in the primary levels to teach inclusion and celebrate differences, it’s only an external trapping. The systemic insensitivity to my introverted children was a shock to me.”
Mrs. W,
Hear,hear. Well written. My children attended Discovery Preschool, where an anti-bullying mission was already in place, even in the early 1990’s. Toddlers were taught respect for every living thing. I remember a teacher there who carried spiders outside to release them; she taught my kids that every living thing has value ,to be treated with kindness and dignity. Our childrens’ values are indeed established at a very young age.
That’s good news about the school teaching respect for life.
When there’s a large spider in the house; I too have always carefully removed it and release it outside unharmed (I like to leave a few small spiders around the house to clean up other insects that make their way inside).
MrsW wrote:
> Based on a college sociology course and my own observations, by the
> time a person reaches junior high, their values are established.
I’ve seen quite a few kids change a lot in college…
I find it sad that these values have to be teached at school.. It should be up to us as parents to make sure our kids are not hate mongers! But I do know that a lot of todays hatred starts at home!
I would like to share an incident that happened about 7 years ago while I was still delivering babies.
I was called to see a hospitalized pregnant woman who had refused a needed blood draw. She was in her early twenties. The reason that she had refused the draw was because the phlebotomist was black. The patient said that she did not allow black people to touch her and requested that I write an order in her chart that only whites were to participate in her care. I politely refused her request and she and I amicably agreed that our philosophic points of view were too divergent for me to effectively care for her and I found her another physician.
Shortly after, she signed out AMA since I guess she didn’t appreciate that the only other physician available was an
Asian woman.
I post this to stress three points:
1) Racism is not confined to those over 60 as one poster has maintained
2) Racism is rarely this overt, but it is not rare.
3) This is the kind of mind set that is still being passed on to the completely innocent ( for now) children of these people and is what teacher’s are up against in the classroom.
One other thought. While I completely agree with MrsW that the best time to start addressing these issues of
the “other” when students are very young, it is never too late. I was raised with the idea that anyone of “dark skin” was inferior. I first read “To Kill a Mocking Bird” in the summer between elementary and junior high and it entirely changed my view of the world. By the time I had reached high school, I had completely rejected the
racism, and most of the other “isms” of my parents. Don’t ever give up. Even adults can change their points of view.
A friend of mine who is Hispanic has a son who is very light skinned. His son was playing with a little girl (8 or so years old) in the local swimming pool. The mother of the little girl asks my friends son where his mom is. The boy points to his dad and the mother immediately pulled her daughter out of the pool and told her that she was not allowed to play with him anymore and left… Breaks my heart that someone would judge him like that considering he is a single dad (who does one hell of job at it) and has a heart of gold!
justme–how can you be sure this was a racist response? Perhaps some other concern of the mothers that you are not aware of? Beware of hasty inferences and filling in the blanks on partial information, then positing a firm conclusion (from what you have written above, the reader can infer racism might be a motivation or part of the motivation, but its not 100% clear to the reader).
I was dating a Mexican guy when I was eating breakfast in a hotel lobby in Santa Cruz. The lady next to me started telling me how the town of Woodland had been ruined by the Mexicans. She assumed I’d agree with her. I chuckled, and she thought I was agreeing. I chuckled because my boyfriend had just walked into the line behind her. She left, with a very embarrassed look on her face. He started laughing because we were on vacation and he wasn’t going to allow her comments to ruin his day. Besides that, he had a very wonderful, dark sense of humor. He chose to let her hatred just wash away, rather than be consumed by it. Glass half full that morning, for sure.
I would like to share an incident that happened about 4 years ago while I was shopping at a Dollar Store in a minority community.
I was bending down, tying my shoe lace, when I heard someone say “cracker”. As I started to look towards a man approaching my direction, I again, louder, heard the same term. Then when he was finally near me, when my back was turned, he again called out “CRACKER”, and as I turned and looked him directly in the eyes, he then said “Cracker Jacks, anyone know where the Cracker Jacks are?” I was the only non-minority in that section of the store, he was in his 30s, and his racist language was clearly directed at me.
I do have three points:
1) Racism is rarely this overt, but it happens on occasion
2) For every racist, awkward, or silly statement, there are hundreds of kind or non-racist statements every day of the week in our own lives. Please note that an awkward or silly comment isn’t racist/.
3) There is no Nirvana, but from what I can tell, America is one of the most accepting, open, integrated countries on the face of the earth.
Our Attorney General is black, our President is multi-racial, we have tens of thousands of African American doctors, lawyers, and dentists; not only do we have hundreds of African American Millionaires, we have African American Billionaires! A potential GOP Presidential candidate and world-renowned pediatric surgeon is African American.
Please tell me who is more evolved.
TBD
Please tell me that you do not believe that there is room for improvement.
In reality, I think it is not even a top-5 concern for so-called “minority” communities.
But you never answered my question.
TBD,
Why do your shoe laces become untied so often? Have you seen those cool laces that stay tied all day? I used to buy those for my son. Seriously.
Hello Tia,
One of the most interesting workers comp claims I handled was a white supremist who developed dillusions of para sitosis (not sure of the spelling) after he wore a black man’s hard hat on a construction site. He did not want to wear it but his supervisor insisted. Psychologists confirmed it was an exacerbated mental condition that lit up after the hard hat incident. Fascinating how his racism actually caused such a serious medical condition.
(Wish I could have redirected the claim, like you were able to refer your patient to another physician!)
hmmm…this is reminiscent of the childhood malady of ‘cooties’ that many little boys thought they were in danger of getting if they played with little girls (are cooties still around?)
Maybe the construction worker thought the black man had lice; or some kind of super-anti-whiteman-lice?
The first word in this campaign is “Hate”.
So let me get this straight… we all live and work together in the progressive medium-sized city located in the most racially-diverse successful large and highly populated free country in the history of the world, and yet this constant drumbeat from activists over “hate” and “racism” perpetually justifies its noise over a few unfortunate but rare human-to-human encounters that span decades or more?
This is not even a glass half empty problem. This a clear sign of some collective dysfunction that is in need of counseling.
including the Gay Straight Alliance at the high schools and junior high schools, a student run organization that supports and raises awareness around the LGBT community. The “Race and Social Justice” program
Sure, let’s fund this type of thing while we eliminate all the industrial arts classes. Then scratch our heads and wonder why we have a perpetual problem.
Statistically, most true hate crimes happen within the lower socioeconomic community.
A growing economy combined with a stronger population of qualified workers will solve many more of the hate problems than will this repetitive standard drumbeat.
But in the end, group-ism utopia is not obtainable, so the drumbeat needs to shift from advocating ineffective top-down speech-code enforcement and punishment to teaching bottom-up coping skills.
Student run. It’s a volunteer club kind of thing. No coherent relationship to funding for industrial arts classes, which I believe are still offered anyway.
I read an article recently that said most hate crimes victims were white.
Well, then, gosh, it must be true.
You might find Google useful for things like that. http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2012/topic-pages/victims/victims_final
TBD: I read an article recently that said most hate crimes victims were white.
Source?
Snapshot: Hate Crime in America, by the Numbers, as reported by the FBI, 2012.
Please see the article “A Meaningless “Hate Crimes” Report”, below.
Why do you think the “American Renaissance” is a credible source?
TBD
“I read an article recently that said most hate crimes victims were white.”
If true, then it is an illustration of why we should be teaching all of our children that racism is not acceptable.
“I read an article recently that said most hate crimes victims were white.”
Impossible since you cannot have a hate crime against a white person . . . or something.
Frankly: But in the end, group-ism utopia is not obtainable, so the drumbeat needs to shift from advocating ineffective top-down speech-code enforcement and punishment to teaching bottom-up coping skills.
What does “top-down” and “bottom-up” mean to you in this instance? From what I understand, things like the Race and Social Justice class at DHS and the mentioned Phoenix Coalition in this article were community initiatives. Are community initiatives “top-down”?
I also don’t know why this false dichotomy is being put forward. When inappropriate and harmful speech, bullying, and racist or homophobic or sexually harassing behavior occur, it’s important that the institutions and their leadership speak firmly and with a unified voice of disapproval. It’s important that those who behave in those ways understand that it won’t be tolerated. It’s also very useful when community groups and student groups develop to give support to those who have been marginalized by the speech and actions. Certainly teaching ‘coping skills’ would be useful as well — but certainly one of the most valuable coping skills comes from learning that you are not alone.
The subtext of these criticisms, which seem rather jarring when commenting on an article that was basically positive in outlook, seems to be that race and hate speech shouldn’t be discussed at all, that somehow it is harmful to try to act to stop them. When you say ‘teach coping skills’ you are essentially saying the victims of hate actions need to deal with it. Sure. But the perpetrators need to know it’s unacceptable.
I was in downtown Sacramento during the Gay Pride weekend, attending a wedding.
As we walked back to our car, I bent over to tie my shoes. At the same time, an inebriated male Gay Pride celebrant grabbed by backside as he passed by. My liberal sweetie made a joke of it at first, but then seeing the contradiction, an hour later did state that I had been “sexually assaulted”, and could file a police report if I so desired.
I chose not to make a big deal about it; though I was then unsure if the three Latino males who shortly thereafter cat-called my sweetie out the window of their truck were guilty of a hate crime / harassment.
Seems to be a pattern to your stories. I wonder, though, if it helps you understand what women and minorities deal with fairly regularly.
As to your article, it does nothing to refute the FBI statistics.
“Seems to be a pattern to your stories.”
Subtle, well researched, and blowing my Cheerios all over the room.
It took me less than 3 minutes to find that source, and this wasn’t even the recent article I referenced.
These flimsy stats, therefore, seem to be driven by an Agenda.
Frankly, you honestly cannot see the need for the gay straight alliance in a community where so many young people have embraced the phrase, “that’s so gay”, meaning, “that’s so stupid”?
You may have been trying to push readers’ emotional buttons when you wrote that?
If the gay/straight alliance is not necessary, why was Mikey brutally beaten?
Why do we have to choose between this group and industrial arts? Why were so many parents able to rally around a new track for young athletes, but not for other forms of stress-reduction exercise classes and anger management classes? We need to teach assertiveness training in day care and elementary school, so students will feel more empowered to stand up to bullies off campus, and during lunch. We need more of these alliances (Christian/Muslim alliance, perhaps? ) Not less.
Frankly
“But in the end, group-ism utopia is not obtainable,”
And “group-ism utopia” is not the goal. The goal is for every individual to be treated equally regardless of race, gender, age, religion, or any other arbitrarily characteristic designed to divide. This I firmly believe is obtainable.
We have examples where this has been achieved.
There was a time when blacks could not vote in this country. Likewise women. There was a time when neither group could own real estate.
These discriminatory practices have been overcome. I see no reason that others cannot be as well.
So why aren’t whites treated equally in the so-called “hate crime” laws? Please see below.
Given horrendous examples like this, I don’t think the goal is to be treated “equally”, but to have another political tool for gamesmanship.
“The goal is for every individual to be treated equally.”
The examples you give are wonderful. I agree with you as to what the goal is.
But how can all individuals be treated equal when we have business-“type” quotas and affirmative action? They may have, at least idealistically if not in implementation, had a place in time. Should they go on forever? When should they stop?
Dang it Allen, I hate to admit it but this cockroach agrees with you.
Dang it Palin I’d like to see just one purely positive uplifting optimistic comment from you. Just one.
I agreed with Alan. Isn’t that a positive comment? Am I not allowed to agree with a poster or have an opinion? If my opinion doesn’t fit your world views is my opinion then not to be considered as positive?
Alan
“when we have business-”type” quotas and affirmative action?”
I am not sure that they ever should have existed. I have posted before, and will repeat that I would favor a blinded system in which applications have identifiers removed and decisions are made on the basis of the applicants qualifications without their names, genders, races, etc being known to the people making the selection just as has been done for some orchestras with the auditioners playing behind a screen.
But just saying that maybe something should not exist, without proposing an alternative is probably not optimal.
Colorblind would be best, but if we still feel compelled to give affirmative action a role, it should be economic affirmative action. Barack Obama’s children don’t need AA, and neither do Bill Gates kids. This removes race as an issue, and truly targets the “disadvantaged”.
But it also ignores that race is still a factor. Case in point, DJUSD shows that African Americans are disadvantaged even controlling for parents level of education. A child of an African American college professor under-performs the child of an Anglo college professor.
David, but have we controlled for 20 or 30 other factors? Is there a similar marriage rate / 2-parent household for black as for white households?
I think you may also find insight in the research of former professor John Ogbu of Berkeley, a Nigerian-American professor, who studied the under-performance of middle class African American students in Shaker Heights, Ohio.
Dr. Ogbu was a trained anthropologist if I recall correctly, had no axe to grind, and was called in to study this under-performance by the black parents themselves. At first he declined. After repeated attempts, he agreed to do the study, and when he came out with his data, analysis, and conclusions, he faced criticism.
FWIW, Dr. Ogbu popularized the phrase “acting white” as a coping device.
“But it also ignores that race is still a factor.”
I agree race is still a factor. Less of one as time has gone on, and I see it as even less a factor in the younger generations.
I believe most government programs designed to “fix” a problem actually create far more problems than they solve, and become designed by people who take advantage of such programs for their own monetary game and largely become used by those best at gaming the system, not necessarily the “disadantaged”.
Racism can only be overcome by the evolution of each human heart, and together, over time, a better society . . . . . . . . . . hopefully.
“A child of an African American college professor under-performs the child of an Anglo college professor.”
No. On average, yes. As an individual, no. And no government program can “fix” that.
Quotas have largely been outlawed since 1979’s Bakke decision. There are some affirmative action programs left in the state after 1996’s Prop 209, but not much.
There are lots of programs to give advanatage to “Disadvantaged-Group-X” owned businesses. I can tell you from experience that entire system is a scam and fraud of apalliing proportions.
If quotas were outlawed in 1979, why did we need Prop 209? See, we still in practice had all kinds of quota systems / preferences in place.
We outlawed “bilingual” education, yet we still seem to have it.
because quotas and affirmative action are not the exact same thing
a quota means you have to hire a set number of minorities, the way affirmative action worked pre-1994 was that race/ other traits were one factor among many to consider.
Are the leaders of “hate crime laws” this stupid, or biased?
Article: A Meaningless “Hate Crimes” Report
“DOJ report for 2012 is utterly unreliable.
“The Department of Justice has just released its “hate crimes” report for 2012. As usual, it is a mix of the inexcusable, the unreliable, and the incomprehensible. To begin with the inexcusable, it still lists Hispanics as a victim category but not as a perpetrator category. Offenders can only be white, black, Indian/Eskimo, or Asian, so despite the fact that Hispanics are the second largest group in the country, as offenders they are lumped in with whites.
“The report lists 42 different categories for where hate crimes took place—105 at bars or nightclubs, 72 in convenience stores, for example—but it would have us believe that not one of 53 million Hispanics committed a “hate crime.”
“It is bad enough that the Justice Department treats Hispanics as whites for its reports on index crimes, thereby inflating the “white” crime rate. To fail to account for Hispanic perpetrators in what is supposed to be a report on discrimination is beyond inexcusable.
“Hispanics are only the largest perpetrator category that is omitted. Homosexuals, the handicapped, Jews, Muslims, etc. are carefully classified as victims, but never as perpetrators.
“As we will see, local reporting to the DOJ on “hate crimes” is so wildly inconsistent that it is not possible to take any of this information seriously, but what does this report claim to tell us? …
“Who are the offenders? No fewer than 30 percent are unknown, and most of those cases were anonymous graffiti and property damage. Of the known offenders, 60 percent are said to be “white,” which includes Hispanics, and 21 percent were black. There is reason to question whether the police look as hard for “hate” when whites are victims as they do when whites are perpetrators, but blacks are still considerably overrepresented as hate criminals. They are 13 percent of the population, and when the Census Bureau calls Hispanics white, it counts the white population as 78 percent. On a per capita basis, therefore, blacks were 2.1 times more likely than “whites” to be counted as hate-crime perpetrators. The Justice Department does not point this out.”
…
“As for inter-racial crime, the best source of general information is the large-scale FBI survey called Criminal Victimization in the United States. In 2008, the most recent year racial data were collected, the American public reported 571,117 cases of violent crime and attempted violence by blacks against “whites” (as usual, the FBI lumps Hispanics in with “whites”) and only 90,717 such crimes by “whites” against blacks. (This means that any given black was 38 times more likely to attack a “white” than the other way around—a good subject for a different article.) These acts of inter-racial violence included single- and multiple- offender crimes, and not all of them were reported to the police, but they add up to 661,888 attempted and successful crimes of interracial violence.”
http://www.amren.com/features/2013/11/a-meaningless-hate-crime-report/
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2012/topic-pages/victims/victims_final
Just to remind you, what you said was: “I read an article recently that said most hate crimes victims were white.”
So, what you read was wrong.
Please see the article immediately above your post. Thanks.
Sadly, it seems that we continue to be deeply in need of the strategies and thoughts that Sunder and Partida offer, right here in Davis in 2014.
American Renaissance, the group behind the site mentioned above by TBD, is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/hate-map#s=VA
Here is the first paragraph that appears on the American Renaissance site under “Our Issues > About Us”. The section is titled “The Philosophy of Race Realism.”
“What we call race realism is what was considered common sense until perhaps the 1950s. It is a body of views that was so taken for granted it had no name, but it can be summarized as follows: That race is an important aspect of individual and group identity, that different races build different societies that reflect their natures, and that it is entirely normal for whites (or for people of any other race) to want to be the majority race in their own homeland. If whites permit themselves to become a minority population, they will lose their civilization, their heritage, and even their existence as a distinct people.”
Sorry, should have been “About Us > Our Issues,” not the other way around. http://www.amren.com/about/issues/
This reference was the first time for this site, but they pointed out what many others have also highlighted, serious flaws in these statistics that are supposedly unbiased.
On occasion (rare occasion), Al Sharpton, Eric Holder, or Bill Ayers make a good point, even though they are a charlatan, a man obsessed with race, and an attempted murderer.
But this is an old trick; attack the messenger, not the message.
OK, sounds like you don’t actually follow American Renaissance. If so, that’s a good thing. I’d suggest citing other sources.
I have no affiliation with them, they sound a bit like La Raza, scary.
re: TBD–“Department of Justice… still lists Hispanics as a victim category but not as a perpetrator category”
TBD does point out an peculiar and possibly significant anomaly in the DOJ reporting. Does anyone know a good reason why the DOJ would lump Hispanics together with whites in the perp statistics and label this category “white”; but separate Hispanics and whites in the victim statistics?
Given the source, I’d like to see verification that the assertion is accurate before conducting further analysis.
To make white folks look bad?
All government has a liberal tilt (except for the Military… which explains why Obama is gutting it) and so you will find many government “studies” to manipulate the data in ways that better support the left political worldview.
And which institutions would find and demand correction of these data manipulations?
The press and media?
Academia?
Right.
Frankly: All government has a liberal tilt (except for the Military…
Including law enforcement? You have some interesting contradictions in your views.
Academia?
If you allow for tenured faculty, then you will find someone in academia willing to tackle that, especially if there is something solid and credible.
Yup… forgot to include law enforcement.
The point is that most of the studies coming from government should be held suspect of containing left-bias. And reports from the media and academia that qualify the studies from government should also be held suspect to containing left-bias.
Hence the reason to demand smaller government except for defense and law enforcement.
I would think the Department of No Energy would be the first Federal department that could be eliminated. What have they accomplished?
Frankly: Yup… forgot to include law enforcement.
Okay. I understand that the FBI is law enforcement.
The point is that most of the studies coming from government should be held suspect of containing left-bias.
And what is in question is a report from the FBI. So am I to understand that this report from the FBI (Don Shor provided the specific link), a “non-liberal” government entity in your book, is now questionable because it doesn’t have results that necessarily support TBD’s original assertion?
I doubt that the FBI has a “liberal tilt.”
If a DOJ study of hate crimes actually has serious methodological errors, I’d expect to be able to find evidence of that somewhere other than a white supremacist (sorry, “racial realist”) website. If anyone is actually serious about critiquing the DOJ report, s/he can find it, link to it, check to see if Am Ren’s assertion is accurate, and provide cites.
Here’s what I could find on DOJ website:
——
* In 2011, violent hate crime victimization rates were
similar among white non-Hispanics, black non-Hispanics, and
Hispanics. However, in 2012, Hispanics experienced a higher
rate of violent hate crime victimization (2.0 victimizations
per 1,000 residents) than whites (0.8 per 1,000) and a
slightly higher rate than blacks (1.1 per 1,000).
* The rate of violent hate crime victimization against
Hispanics more than tripled from 0.6 per 1,000 persons age 12
or older in 2011 to 2.0 per 1,000 in 2012.
* The percentage of violent hate crime victims who perceived
the offender to be white decreased from 58% in 2011 to 34% in
2012. However, the percentage of white offenders was similar
in 2004 and 2012.
Source: http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/ascii/hcv0412st.txt
—-
In this particular report I could not find a summary on offenders perceived to be black or Hispanic; only whites were listed. It seems in the offender category that whites and white-Hispanics are lumped together as whites (presumably since victims can readily perceive skin color but not ethnicity).
Would be interesting to get stats on convictions; then could separate offender category ‘whites’ into whites and white-Hispanics.
we can still hate on the mentally ill right? they are of course a constant dangerous threat and they can’t stay on their medications. or at least that is what i gather from reading the local paper, which isn’t hate its about safety compassion and common sense and faking sincerity since honestly we’d rather not bring it up or spend money helping worthless hopeless individuals or recognize how easy it is to take ones own health for granted when one is in good health. they are easy to keep marginalized too which is convenient. dependent.
We should help the truly mentally ill.
As far as the slackers, that is their choice, but I think we should consider testing welfare recipients for illegal drug usage.
but they are beyond help
“…testing welfare recipients for illegal drug usage.”
Why?
Prescription drugs and alcohol can also cause violent problems. Maybe all unhealthy behaviors should be screened: overeaters, sedentary, child abusers, tobacco users, etc.
Is it the unhealthy behavior that upsets you, or illegal behavior? Should we screen every applicant to make sure they never ever cheated on their income taxes, before they were laid off and in need of assistance? Or Would you stop at “blue collar ” crime?
If you screened every applicant for every unhealthy or illegal behavior, there will be zero participants.
“welfare recipients” – what does that phrase mean? What benefits? Medicaire, unemployment, WIC, Social Security, AFDC, Uninsured, Back to Work ,?
Define “welfare”, please.
We should test them and deny benefits to help provide a disincentive for them to milk the system to support their habit.
Welfare has a tendency to exacerbate social problems because it eliminates the need to work, and hence provides free time for people to slack and participate in detrimental behavior. Drug use is one we can test, so we should.
London, I don’t think we should give slackers a free ride to sit home, get high, and watch Jerry Springer. Pretty simple.
Welfare is welfare, and I’d also clamp down on fraudulent SSI benefactors and applicants. Welfare can include food stamps, welfare, cash “transfer payments”, “disability”, and possibly unemployment benefits.
P.S. If you want, we can also test Congress and union leaders.
when my cousin’s gf killed herself my first reaction to the news of it was being proud for her having accomplished it as strange as that sounds
I’m reading an August 21, 1983 New York Times article in the Lexis database about the 1983 murder (“Rising Immigration Tide Strains Nation’s Schools” by Gene I. Maeroff, section 12, p. 1) and it appears that it wasn’t only an issue of race, but also probably of xenophobia. The victim, Thong Hy Huynh, had just immigrated from Viet Nam three years earlier. Very sad.
Quote:
“Immigrant students have usually been absorbed without incident, but sometimes animosity toward the newcomers has stirred tensions. Thong Hy Huynh, who emigrated from Vietnam three years ago, was stabbed to death during a fight with white students at Davis High School in Davis, Calif., on May 4. He was one of six students from Vietnam in the school, and the friction, which first took the form of name-calling by a small group of whites, increased.
A few days after the 17-year-old Mr. Huynh was killed, 1,200 students crowded into the gymnasium at Davis High School, where David Murphy, the principal, quietly asked them to imagine wait it would be like to live in a country with a different language and a different culture. “This might have been a conflict between human beings without the immigrant aspect being a factor,” Mr. Murphy said. “But I don’t want to downplay the possibility of conflict between the mainstream and new people.”
Unquote
(The typo: “wait is would be like” appears that way in the Lexis-Nexis version of the article. That could be a scanning error.)
Here’s more info:
http://tinyurl.com/2003-ucd-article-re-1983
Correction: The link is to a Davis Enterprise article that was posted on ucdavis.edu. Also, the assailant was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, not murder.
Unfortunately, today remarks by Democratic leader Harry Reid were published that were very inappropriate.
“Harry Reid’s Joke to Asians: You’re Not Smarter Than Everyone Else”
“”One problem that I’ve had today is keeping my Wongs straight”
http://time.com/3159750/harry-reid-asian-jokes/
Even after reading about a Nevada senator’s gaffe in Las Vegas, I still agree with the concluding paragraph of the article:
“The sad lesson of the violence against Huynh, Mockus, and Partida is that even with our community’s best intentions, unless we stand vigilant against complacency in our own homes and look out for the needs of every student we will continue to ask “how did this happen?” when our children commit unthinkable acts of violence. Let us keep struggling to demonstrate and inculcate respect for each other. Let us all stand together to ensure that Hate is Not a Davis Value.”
Did you guys have anything to say about school climate in Davis?
[moderator] I’ve pulled some responses to this post. Please stick to the topic. Don
This is so typical, why isn’t DavisVoter’s above post also pulled then. We were talking about how the Asian community is now a new receptor of hate, which totally ties into the subject matter of this article. But it didn’t fit the liberal mode so the posts get taken down. What TBD and I were discussing is totally in line with this article. So unfair.
[moderator] I know. Life is unfair.
I don’t feel like explaining why I took down your post.
If you have a complaint about any moderation practices on the Vanguard, you can contact me at donshor@gmail.com. Or you can contact David. But you can’t argue about it here. So in the future, comments about posts that get taken down will just also be taken down.
Don
This is an example of how the media and police departments can decide not to cover hate crimes against whites, and how the police departments don’t label them as hate crimes.
Article: Iraq War Vet Was Warned Waffle House Wasn’t ‘Safe For Whites,’ Gets Beaten, Needs Brain Surgery
“…The 20 or so people who came for [Ralph] Weems attacked him. He ended up on the ground, getting brutally kicked….”
Knighten added: “I do remember racial slurs being yelled from the crowd.”
“Police failed to arrive on the scene until the crowd had dispersed.
“This does not appear to be a hate crime,” local police chief Tim Brinkley said, according to The Times-Picayune. “It’s very early in this investigation but thus far the evidence and statements suggest that a verbal altercation turned physical and somebody got hurt.”
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/08/26/iraq-war-vet-was-warned-waffle-house-wasnt-safe-for-whites-gets-beaten-needs-brain-surgery/#ixzz3BX8sFY5F
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/08/26/iraq-war-vet-was-warned-waffle-house-wasnt-safe-for-whites-gets-beaten-needs-brain-surgery/#ixzz3BX7m2hyW
“This does not appear to be a hate crime,” local police chief Tim Brinkley said, according to The Times-Picayune. “It’s very early in this investigation but thus far the evidence and statements suggest that a verbal altercation turned physical and somebody got hurt.”
what i find odd is you take the word of the police when it serves your purpose and ignore it when it doesn’t
What I find familiar is that you deflect from the obvious hypocrisy and fail to own the obvious flaws in your view.
Either you are against hate, or you are for race-based justice (i.e., racism).
or maybe i’m in favor of neither hate nor race-based justice
Well then please show equitable outrage when hate is displayed in any form from or against any race.
for instance?
Your last opportunity presented itself about six posts above this one.
perhaps you recall the case the vanguard covered where the guys got in a barfight and the da charged one of them with a hate crime when the other guy’s turban got knocked off. if you find that article you can see my posts there – i think i’ve been very equitable on the issue.
Ok… then you just missed this opportunity to consistently demonstrate your equitable-ness. This guy is an Iraq war vet… another reason to come to his defense in consideration of demonstrated hate.
What is worse than a gang beating of a veteran mixed with racial hate?
so i’ll ask you the same question – why aren’t you taking the police’s word on it?