MAJOR KUDOS to our administrators (particularly Chaitan) for fixing this post, recovering the comments and making the universe just a bit more whole
; they fixed my screwup.
The FBI recently released its latest statistical roundup of hate crimes throughout the United States. These stats are maintained as a result of a congressional mandate and provide an interesting time series analysis of crime against specific races and / or religions – 
Statistics released today by the Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed that 7,722 criminal incidents involving 9,080 offenses were reported in 2006 as a result of bias against a particular race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity/national origin, or physical or mental disability. Published by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Hate Crime Statistics, 2006, includes data from hate crime reports submitted by law enforcement agencies throughout the nation.…Analysis of the 7,720 single-bias incidents by bias motivation showed that 51.8 percent were motivated by a racial bias, 18.9 percent were motivated by a religious bias, 15.5 percent were triggered by a sexual-orientation bias, and 12.7 percent of the incidents were motivated by an ethnicity/national origin bias.
Because racially- and religiously-motivated crimes are frequent topics on Sepia Mutiny, I thought it would be intersting to do some number crunching to make the stats available for future discourse….
Alas, it’s never quite that simple…
As with any attempt to gleam Truth from Stats, there are always methodological considerations. In an issue many of us first noticed when bubbling in our identities on SAT forms, when it comes to many stats, Desis aren’t a recognized category. For the FBI, racially we’re classified as “Asians” and religiously, while Islam is separately tallied, Hindus & Sikhs fall into the classic “other” (and Desi Christians? Desi Muslims? heh… ). The Hindu American Foundation has taken up this issue in a petition / recommendation to the FBI to amend it’s record keeping –
..the coalition recommended that the FBI include at a minimum, the “Anti-Other Ethnicity/National Origin” line to include a line that specifies “Anti-Arab,” the “Religion” section to include a line for “Anti-Sikh” and “Anti-Hindu,”
So, while anti-desi crime is obscured by bucketization, the broad trendlines are still pretty interesting to take a gander at. First, let’s look at the breakdown of hate crimes by race for the past 8 years –
Depending on how literally you want to read these stats, hate crimes against Desi’s actually go down marginally post 9/11. One interesting quirk here is that crimes against “Arab” origin folks are tallied not as “racially-motivated” but rather as “ethnic origin” motivated (along with anti-Hispanic crime) and thus in a different table altogether. So, perhaps instances of Desi-mistaken-for-Arab may have fallen into that bucket –
“Other” clearly had a bad year in 2001 although there’s reversion back to the pre-9/11 mean (perhaps the epitome of “cold comfort”)…. If you take a look at hate crimes sorted by religion, the “Post-9/11” effect on Muslims is even more dramatic –
Crimes against Muslims leap dramatically from 2000 to 2001 and remain several times the pre-9/11 average afterwards. Interestingly, these crimes are still a fraction of reported anti-Jewish crime – especially given roughly similar-sized Muslim and Jewish populations in the US. Crimes against “other religions” (which the FBI dutifully notes also includes Buddhists and Taoists) actually decrease from 2000 –> 2001 and remain within the pre-9/11 trendline.
What does it all mean? I’ll let you guys sort it out…
[for your reading pleasure, my Excel file is hatecrimes.xls (30 KB) and the FBI’s original numbers can be found here]
[Admin Note: This post has been recovered and comments from today’s post have been merged. A helpful hint for newcomers who may be confused. 😉 ]
Sisyphus, I’m not going to argue with you, nor with your underlying (and in my opinion, grossly inaccurate) point. This thread is about FBI hate crime statistics vis-a-vis the South Asian / South Asian American population in the U.S., and within that among the many religious groups represented in that calculation.
Rahul (#150):
I got my Ph.D. from a university not too different from DuPont, but in any case, I wasn’t citing but illustrating. I also realize that my post last night was incomplete. To continue, the other problem with inferring discrimination from outcomes is that we do not know what other factors were involved. Studies can examine how much discrimination groups suffer on the average or how having certain names can lower one’s chance of getting a job, not the complex ways in which they combine with other factors (“culture”? peer groups? families?) to affect performance. This issue is common in the social sciences, and it is not a problem so long as it remains an intellectual exercise. However, if you will use such analysis to institute policies (as in case of the Delaware diversity charade) that run counter to the intuitive notion of individual fair play or lecture folks with perceived privilege, you will face the same problems that the oh-so-dispassionate researchers of race and IQ run into– namely, their speculative nature will be challenged.
Does that mean Haley or anyone can say that white (or rich, or male) privilege does not exist? The only correct answer is that we do not know, and that we can only judge individual cases or small groups rather than pervasive intangible factors. In other words, to stand by the notion of individual fair play that is the backbone of the “Western” (I use the term loosely) law. Yes, “reverse” unfairness does not happen in a vacuum, but in order to apply that fact to concrete action, you need to show that the vacuum is truly absent AND that the absence matters in this particular instance, which you cannot unless it’s a concrete case of discrimination or violence based on race/class/caste etc.
This is not necessarily to say that the status quo is the best. Far from it. Instead, this is a call for a bottom-up, agent/network-driven understanding of social problems rather than a top-down one. But that is a different can of worms…
Boston Mahesh wrote: In India, we have the opposite problem as Malaysia. Indians are very relaxed on who can call themselves “Indian”. We have no problem accepting people as Indians.
I don’t see this as a problem.
But we have many groups of people who don’t regard themselves Indians even after 1,000 years! The Parsis feel ethnically distinct and racially superior, apparently. Why else don’t they accept Indian converts to their religion? OTOH, they had no problem of bending the rules to accomodate the son of Mohd. Ali Jinnah
Jinnah’s son! Call the Pakistani embassy! Turns out Dina Wadia was man! Hard to explain how she had children then.
You mean to say Jinnah’s daughter, herself a daughter of a (ethnic) Parsi, and who was married to Neville Wadia, a Parsi-born convert to Christianity. Their son Nusli Wadia “converted” back to the Parsi faith, although it was probably easier given he was three-quarters “ethnic” Parsi. Dina’s grandson Ness Wadia was dating Priety Zinta, last I heard.
To be clear, I think the implementation of Malaysia’s Bumiputra policy has been really bad, and that India’s general openness to people and ideas is both a good thing and a sign of a confident culture.
Camille (#151):
I am aware of what this thread started as, but a cursory examination shows that it diverged at least a bit since its beginning, as threads on blogs tend to do. So I ask you, what “underlying point” do you see as grossly inaccurate (if it is that I am crying a river over the fates of the oh-so-poor white/rich/upper-caste folks, I am not, and you will have to do better), and why?
We need to lose the wimp image. Someone threatens us, we f*** ’em up. Look at the Satendar Singh case and how slowly it is moving. Even more embarassing is how scared the Indian victim’s friends were. A bunch of wimps. We need more visibility for the likes of the Indian cook who got stabbed in NYC.
I seriously think that all Indian kids should enroll in martial arts classes. Indian parents seem more interested in piano lessons. Teach them those ancient Kerala martial arts. You get exercise and cultural lessons in one nice package.
is that a desi thing? do indian kids in india play the piano a lot, or is that just in the US?
oh yeah. You didnt know that? it’s very popular in india. There are roadside carts with pianos all over the cities. any time you want to play the piano, you say “Ae! pianowallah! Come here. how much for piano?”. And pianowallah says, “sure saaheb! for you and PuliBaba 40 Rupees only for 15 minutes”. It does not work in kerala because the elephants keep tripping on the piano’s. hence they took up kung fu.
Puliogre,
From as far as I know most of my Catholic friends in India learnt to play the piano. Some completed their training through the trinity program till grade 8.
It’s a stereotypical overachieving Asian-American nerd thing.
Didn’t we go through this on the Satender post? It’s certainly not pointless to develop some skill in self-defense but lashing out, while not mindful of the state-defined parameters of self-defense (how much force can be used, when it can be applied), is not a good idea.
Dr. Gottfredson? Good job blowing the whistle on that one!
Ninja please. Piano is integral part of Indian culture and a great way to destroy your enemies. When a wicked city woman breaks your heart, you get your Raj Kapoor on and bust out a sad song. The whole party turns black & white and WCW gets reduced to a quivering mass of regret. Kalaripayattu is no match for piano.
ouch!
too funny, khoofia. i’ve only seen this kind of thing with the harmonium-wale 😉
inspired!
And then she breaks out with: “killing me softly with his song…”
Jinnah’s son! Call the Pakistani embassy! Turns out Dina Wadia was man! Hard to explain how she had children then.
You mean to say Jinnah’s daughter, herself a daughter of a (ethnic) Parsi, and who was married to Neville Wadia, a Parsi-born convert to Christianity. Their son Nusli Wadia “converted” back to the Parsi faith, although it was probably easier given he was three-quarters “ethnic” Parsi. Dina’s grandson Ness Wadia was dating Priety Zinta, last I heard.
To be clear, I think the implementation of Malaysia’s Bumiputra policy has been really bad, and that India’s general openness to people and ideas is both a good thing and a sign of a confident culture.
OK, my friend, you are very astute! OK, you’ve made great points. Listen me up, buddy. This is from wikipedia: “Dina’s relationship with her father became strained when Dina expressed her desire to marry a Parsi-born Christian, Neville Wadia. Jinnah, a Muslim, tried to dissuade her, but failed. Mahommedali Currim Chagla, who was Jinnah’s assistant at the time, recalls: ” Jinnah, in his usual imperious manner, told her that there were millions of Muslim boys in India, and she could have anyone she chose. Reminding her father that his wife (Dina’s mother Rattanbai), had also been a non-Muslim, the young lady…replied: ‘Father, there were millions of Muslim girls in India. Why did you not marry one of them?’ And he replied that, “she became a Muslim “
It is known that when Dina married Neville, Jinnah said to her that she was not his daughter any more. The father-daughter relationship became extremely formal after she married. They did correspond, but he addressed her formally as ‘Mrs. Wadia’. Dina and Neville lived in Bombay and had two children, a boy and a girl. Dina’s son Nusli Wadia born a Christian, but converted back to Zoroastrianism and settled in the industrially wealthy Parsi community of Bombay. Dina did not travel to Pakistan until her father’s funeral in Karachi in September 1948.”
OK, so Dina, Jinnah’s only child who was his daughter, was not a Parsi! Technically, you’re only a Parsi if both of your parents (not one of your parents) are Parsis. Also, you can’t convert to Parsism. So when I die, no matter how much dedicated I am to promoting Zarathustra’s good thoughts, deeds, and words, I can never have my carcass devoured by vultures. Yummy.
So Dina’s mom was a Muslim convert. Her dad was a Muslims. She was a non-practicing Muslim, in my opinion. Her husband was a Christian convert. He, also, wasn’t a Zoroastrian. Now, just because a person converts to a religion, that doesn’t change a person’s race. Sammy Davis Jr. is still an African-American, even though he’s a Jew. Richard Gere is still a white-American, even though he’s a Buddhist.
Our man Nusli, because of his good looks and massive fortuntes and pedigree, he was allowed to come back to his religion. Also, he wants to be distinguish himself from the “Indian masses,” I’m sure.
Oh yeah, I’m sure that the Parsis would love for a Richard Gere to join their nice and ancient religion, but not a Sammy Davis Jr. (or a Jagdeesh Patel).
So the question becomes what is defined as a hate crime by the people who experience them and by the governing bodies who determine them. And I actually have nothing to say to Haley because amongst the many other fallacious comments this one really threw me off “I was very worried about my very nice, turbaned veterinarian who loved cats. I prayed he would not be victimized, but I noticed he stopped wearing a turban.” You are such a super star! Did your “Turbaned” veterinarian thank you for your compassion? Or did you both discuss in a therapeutic manner the pains of hate crimes and racism which you have “experienced” to such a great degree in which you found commonalities? Muralimannered did an excellent job explaining systemic and institutional forms of racism, what is also necessary is the explanation of cultural racism and the “war on Blacks.” And in attempting to intertextualize “The God of Small Things,” The big god’s (larger tragedies of racism i.e. systemic, institutional etcetera) trumps the smaller god’s (smaller perceived tragedies of “racism” by whites – i.e. what theorist refer to, not racism that whites think they may experience but individual discrimination). To state the obvious which I always do (Captain Obvious) the way that these crimes are reported need to be scrutinized i.e. if a white shop keeper is robbed by a disenfranchised person of colour it may be misconstrued as a hate crime and in reality it may have been simply just a crime whether if the shop keeper were brown, yellow, green with pink stripes. As well, how many people of colour actually report hate crimes without fear? Or are actually confident (if they are for instance immigrants, refugees or “illegal aliens’) in reporting hate crimes being a “minority” in a state majority? As oppose to a white, born and raised American “citizen?” And how does the discourse of denial and the ideas of “reverse racism” operate in this context? These stats have way too many variables and are quite messy to draw conclusions that white people experience hate crimes more so than any other person of colour (with the exception of black people). Next thing you know there will be stats on “reverse slavery.”
I doubt it – it’s an American thing, I think. I play the piano as well and even here in NL I was a bit of a novelty, some of the teachers were a bit curious. A lot of Chinese play the piano though.
brown bhang (#166): You keep carping about the “disenfranchised person of color”, but not all persons of color are disenfranchised (the majority of Asians/ South Asians are certainly not). All you can say with certainty is that indices of well-being, economics, etc are differently distributed across color lines, that certain social networks of privilege are overwhelmingly white, and that your name may be a hindrance in getting interview calls. Of these, the last is a case of individual discrimination; the first two are problems only at the group level, and a simplistic explanation for that is in terms of institutional racism. But what are the micro-effects that translate into that macro-effect? What are the other confounding factors? If you are going to have an intellectually honest conversation on the topic (as opposed to just waving your flag/ distributing your pamphlets), you need to consider all these questions (and they are indeed fascinating).
The second question is how this connects to morality/justice/activism. Are group differences in outcome problems from first principles? “Institutional” racism is a bigger problem than “individual discrimination” only assuming one of the following: (1) theories of justice can be applied to groups, (2) individual acts of the discrimination against minorities are more hurtful/damaging than the same against whites. The second assumption is presumptuous and arrogant– how would you know if you haven’t lived both experiences (I think people who have lived as part of the “privileged” majority in India and part of the “underprivileged” minority in the US may be better suited to answer the question, having seen both sides of the coin)? As for (1), I am more sympathetic to that argument, although if the last century taught us anything, it is that the liberal state should aim to protect the individual and that state-enforced social engineering based on abstractions imagined by theoreticians should be avoided to the extent possible, and that “do no harm” rather than “do good” should be the guiding principle. But I am okay with it so long as (a) such violations of individually oriented justice is limited in scope, (b) it is understood that the trade-off being made is real and unfortunate, (c) it is established through argumentation that the good is really good and there is no serious alternative. It also needs to be argued that it is this particular group division (race in the US) as opposed to other possible group divisions (class, for example) that is to be taken care of this way.
I personally think this is an intellectually barren path, given that it relies on abstractions that are about as solid as Freud’s theories of id, ego and superego. My feeling after traversing this space for a long enough time is that the only place where we can feel certain about our ability to do good is the space of the individual. The old-fashioned virtues of playing fair, loving your neighbor, and yes, protesting concrete injustices you see as individuals or groups.
As an aside, none of this is specific to whites/the West– if you replace whites with upper-caste Hindus and the West with India, the same arguments could be made.