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. 馃槈 ]
That should’ve been blockquoted (lest “edited” or “one off comment” returns to scold me for decreasing the collegiality of this non-academic forum)
Admin Note: Comments have been merged from this point forward, from today’s post.
vinod,
i can’t speak for the others but losing my comments was no great loss–i feel a greater sadness for the unfortunate disappearance of Camille’s contributions.
Sorry that had to happen! I was typing a post when it crashed, so I will drop it here in case the discussion will continue from the last one.
Haley@ post 99 (of the previous version): “You have obviously never been a white person in a large urban area (most of the east coast, upper mid-west and LA). And as you are brown, you probably have little insight into attitudes and dynamics of the past 50 years. Everybody here seems to think the United States is still Alabama, 1930. All due respect, and I do understand your priorities, but you really need to think out of your brown bags. Not only are the black on white crimes more numerous than the other way around, but they are nastier. They range from vile verbal harrassment to rape, assault, murder and attempted murder. I have countless stories personal and friends, and few incidents were reported or if reported, not necessarily as “hate crimes.” Just crimes where the victim was white and perps just happened to black. Of course race had nothing to do with it.”
Are you white? I don’t want to devalue your experiences, whatever they may be, but the conclusions you are drawing based on said experiences seem a tad off. Your experience is trapped inside your own skin, and is just as incomplete as anyone else’s (albeit in a different way), so hopefully your accusation that certain others’ thinking is restricted to a “brown bag” is tempered by an acknowledgment of your own shortcomings (mine is as well). My education, past and present, is specifically centered on American race-relations and history, so I am not entirely without textual knowledge of the topic, and my humble opinion, based on my experience and learning, is as follows:
In urban areas, you will generally find more impoverished black communities. To justify the violence against people you know would be ridiculous, but to pretend that there is any less violence against the black community by the larger system of white-privilege than there was 50 years ago is ridiculous. For example, the typical black family had 60 percent as much income as a white family in 1968, but only 58 percent as much in 2002 (obviously not because they are lazy and refuse to progess). While lynching and other directly violent acts are rare now, violence has taken a much more insidious form and is ingrained within the very institutions that make up society. It is the experiences and intimate understanding of these systemic inequalities that, if indeed you are white, will never be able to access. Despite that, it is reasonable to deduce that poverty, combined with systemic barriers that prevent those people from transcending their conditions naturally leads to high rates of crime.
What I am getting at here is that the crimes that have been committed against people you know are not necessarily hate crimes, and perhaps a deeper analysis of the situation is necessary. Race indeed has something to do with it, but to dismiss all of these cases as simple hate crimes ignores a larger and more relevant history. Even simple, deductive logic is applicable here: If I were a poor black person looking for cash, It would not be unreasonable to target a white person on the grounds that, on average, they would have more money. Also, note that there are many more white people in this country than black people, which, when combined with the statistics on poverty, make it relatively reasonable to assume that white people would be targeted, and that there are more targets to be reported. This is not to say that none of the attacks would be hate crimes, but that to dismiss them all this way is ignorant, and were they hate crimes, they are more often caused by the systemic equalities that breed ignorance, and so are very different from hate crimes where whites target blacks.
I would also like to see some statistics that quantify the “nastiness” of black on white crime as opposed to white on black.
Here is a scary (albeit stylized) thought about hate crimes–let’s say that there are two groups in society, the A’s and the Z’s. Let’s assume that each is equally predisposed to commit a hate crime against the other group. If the A’s are 90% of the society, and the Z’s are 10%, then simple statistics would seem to suggest that individual members of the Z’s are way more likely to be victims of hate-crimes than are individual A’s. This seems borne out by a rough eye-balling of the first chart above (far more black than white victims in absolute numbers, even though blacks are a minority of the population).
Did someone save a html copy of comments. I am sure our capable sysadmins can figure out a way to recover from it
Replace 7 by 5 in the url.
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/004885.html#comments
pc out
well, in case the comments are lost, here’s quick synopsis as of last night. The thread began looking like the oval office on the morning after the recent NIE report came out. People were upset over all the anti-jewish attacks, but not for the reasons we’d assume. Clueless posited a theory as to why, Adolf Hitler made an apperance, Camille said some smart stuff, and Puli asked for some dating advice…or maybe that was another time.
In any case, it felt was just like all the other threads. Good Times.
If there was a category of “racist thought crimes” Desis would occupy the top echelons. In the corridors of power in Desi homes & businesses some of the racist categories are:
Although we may not feature prominently in the report as victims or perpetrators, we’ve got plenty to work on.
VV Varaiya@ 8:
I think you are referring to other forms of prejudice, not racism (a more specific term). You can add sexism to the list as well.
I don’t think we would occupy any significantly different echelon than any other group, as most of these forms of prejudice can be found in any corner of the world.
Looks like all is not lost. Am working on restoring lost post / comments. Should be able to fix this over the next few hours.
Chaitan, there’s no hurry or anything. But just on the remote chance that you didn’t already know and this comment helps you any, let me say: the old post and all the comments are right here, as Amit pointed out. Maybe nothing is ‘lost’.
Having something classified as a hate crime is subjective and inconsistent as this recent story goes:
It does seem to fit the profile of a hate crime as most would understand it, but to the police it is apparently is not so. There seems to be no real yardstick for measuring.
It’s lovely that nothing is lost. Thanks Google Cache! http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/004885.html#comments I’m so glad ANNA’s Obama-Rama post hadn;t vanished.
Vinod, you did that on purpose, didn’t you?
I know a bunch of folks (desi grad students early 90s) who lived in run-down apartments in Jersey City and went to school in NYC. On a regular basis they would be targeted by the black kids as a source of easy money. Those kids even had a name for us – walking ATMs. Sometimes there was threat of violence. None of us went to the cops. None of us felt this was a hate crime, just easy money for the kids. We all did what any desi would, transfer to a mid-west/california university after the first semester. For the ABDs here, would you classify this as a hate crime if it happened to a bunch of you on a regular basis?
No, because the motivation is not racial animus. It is, as you yourself have described, driven by the fact that you were the only people in the neighborhood with $$$
There was some $ but definitely not $$$ 馃檪
In this case the targeting was based on race, the motivation may not be racial hatered. These guys were targeted not because black teens perceived them to be loaded, DBD students especially new ones do not give the impression that they have $$$. I think it is more because black-teens were confident that the consequence would be minimal if they robbed a foreigner.
I have heard similar stories from students who live(d) in Hyde Park area in Chicago. Most of students consider such experiences as a rite of passage; it prepares them for future – H1b, Immigration, USCIS etc. etc. 馃檪
Ashkay, I am aware of all you say, but alas, I woke up recently realizing that everything I, as a whitey, was being accused of doing (racist-wise), I not only had never done, but had had it done to me. What a freaking sucker, i thought. And now they’ve got the perfect label: white privilege. Can never exonerate yourself from that one, short of suicide. As long as any blacks don’t do well, we’re guilty with no control over the outcome. We get no credit for the good whites may done in the past, but forever stand accused of anything any white anywhere did ever. Don’t invest too much in the “white guilt.” Most are not buying it any more (if they ever did). Well some are, but they’re the type who like being whipped, handcuffed and strangled to death during orgasm while wearing black lace. And another thing, I, who grew up poor and worked her way through college riding public transport at night and working in a black area, resent being described as a walking white ATM machine, especially in a part of the country where the average black government employee makes 80,000 p.a., actually higher than whites of comparable educational level. John McWhorter (AA) has written on the rise of middle class blacks, but I’m sure he’s not to your taste. I also quite frequently see the “poor” driving new SUVs, toting 5 illegitimate children, getting free college education, child care and Section 8 housing in the same complex where I had to prove 40,000 p.a. income. One black county commisioner was appalled by the freeloading, especially after he saw the way they trashed the nice apartments. We present-day taxpayers are paying for the mistakes of certain long dead whites, and paying and paying. I guess it will never be enough. Nobody has any right to tell a person, white or of color, who has looked into the eyes of the attacker (it still gives me nightmares), that interracial crime had no extra element of hate, horror, etc. You sepiamutineers (great name, btw) feel more horror at the thought of being attacked by a white person. I feel more horror at the fact of having been attacked by a black person. And guess which one of us is more likely statistically to have that experience? Brown perps–never thought about it. I have heard of some browns being attacked, but it has hardly amount to any progroms. There just is no intense, pervasive dynamic of hate between south Asians and whites in this country, and I truly hope nobody tries to incite any. Ashkay, “I would also like to see some statistics that quantify the “nastiness” of black on white crime as opposed to white on black.” Ashkay, i have read of the crimes, they appear briefly on local news and then disappear from the radar. They run into the tens of thousands. It is well known in the media that black on white crime will not receive much play and whites accept this. We quietly talk among ourselves for news, or read the internet. It’s been this way for years. I’m sure you don’t know about this white underground confab because we don’t want to be know as racists. I just wish it would be admitted and discussed openly in the mainstream media without being considered ‘racist’, as are hate crimes against people of color, because the resentment is growing.
and finally, we have the rub from rob: “This seems borne out by a rough eye-balling of the first chart above (far more black than white victims in absolute numbers, even though blacks are a minority of the population).”
rob, considering what I have seen, and what the FBI tells me (not to mention the local police reports), I would like to know where all these black victims of race crime reside because virtually every one I’ve seen that is not domestic violence, is black perpetrated. I was attacked by blacks who came into my childhood neighborhood. Any white person who goes into a black neighborhood at night is likely to be attacked. I can’t imagine any whites so brave as to invade black neighborhoods these days, and any black who is given a problem by whites walking in a white neighborhood can take it to court–or report it as a hate crime.
.
Vikram, it may be that police are hesitant to charge this as a hate crime because they do not have sufficient evidence to prosecute under a hate crimes statute, not that they are avoiding the possibility that it’s a hate crime. This is often the case for non-white victims as well. I know it must seem redundant, but it is actually fairly difficult to invoke a hate crime charge to a crime. There are fairly narrow criteria that define what qualifies, and this is highly subjectively determined by prosecutors, etc. Sometimes it is actually not int he interest of the victim or the state to try a crime as a hate crime as the penalty is often less severe than if that same person were charged with a more heinous crime.
Haley, I don’t think anyone can help you grapple with what you bitterly describe as “white privilege” but yourself. There are excellent conversations on how “white folks” (for lack of a better term) can leverage their privilege to build communities of equality. No one on this thread has degraded the experience of others, particularly not with respect to incidences of racial hatred. That said, violence does not happen in a vacuum, and it does not happen on equal terms.
Chaitan, thanks for working hard to recover the previous comments 馃檪
Please, let’s not get into the “i have xx number of friends of this particular ethnicity…therefore I feel your pain” rut. It’s not a very good argument and not a good springboard for meaningful discussion. You assumed that because this is a desi-centric blog, most of us were immigrants and therefore not well-versed in American racial politics.
if you wish discussion of ‘white privilege’ to end, you must cease to use “we” in reference to a great white community stretching out over time and space into the hoary past. The idea of ‘white privilege’ rests on there being a monolithic group, within which a great many members share societal privileges.
this is also a terrible way to start a discourse–accusing your ideological counterparts of a fascination with bondage and autoerotic asphyxiation.
So you grew up in a majority-black, low-income neighborhood? And most of the crime you ‘saw’ was perpetrated by black people? Could that possibly have anything to do with the demographics of your immediate geographical area? I grew up in an ultra-rural, all-white environment. Every time my life or property was threatened, it was a white person doing the deed. It wouldn’t have made a difference, however, what the color of the perpetrator was. In every case, it would be attributed to ignorance and poverty–factors that cut across your racial divisions.
in my situation I served as a black surrogate, when the white kids at my middle school weren’t talking about ‘niggers’ and what they’d like to do with them, they talked about ‘sand-niggers’ and what they’d like to do to me. When i moved on to college, the same kids (a bit older) thought it was ok to continue the same ‘nigger’ conversation while I stood right next to them. I believe I am eminently qualified to talk about this black/white dynamic.
geez, you guys sure argue a lot. In response to all the posts, I have to say I’m glad that I live in Canada 馃檪 and am also saddened by all of the shit that goes on in “democracies” but it’s not like we all don’t know that every government and governmental institution in the world is corrupt to a small extent e.g. the police, etc… the information is interesting but scaring the hell out of me.
there’s a very interesting hate crime case going on at pace u. basically, a kid stole a koran and flushed it down the toilet. now the debate is whether this is the equivalent of burning an American flag or submerging a cruxifix in urine, on the one hand, or burning a cross on someones lawn on the other. is it constitutionally protected or a threat?
more problematically, the kid did commit a crime (theft, vandalism) but the crime in question is a mere misdemeanor. add the “hate crime” to the charge and it becomes a felony with significant jail time…raising the possibility that he’d only really serve time for hate, ie a thought crime.
Yes, that is a travesty. and I’m extremely embarrassed to have first read about this on MM’s blog.
That is certainly the unproductive end of hate-crime legislation–is there any productive, i.e. appropriately punitive, end to this category of crime?
Comments will be temporarily closed. Please check back soon.
Comments open. Let’s continue the party yaar …
In terms of traditional punishment theory, I think the best argument for hate crime punishment enhancement is deterrent, not punitive. See my reason (3) in comment #92, above. In other words, societies that pay particular attention to deterring inter-group violence may do better in the long run than those that hold to more traditional liberal notions of punishment.
52 脗路 Ikram on December 5, 2007 07:25 PM 脗路 Direct link Sanjay — Maybe because the “indians” in Malaysia migrated generations ago. In the case of the Chitty Tamils, they arrived prior to 1511. That’s a long time ago. (It shows how bankrupt the Malaysian Bumiputra policy is. Chitty Tamils are consider not to be “sons of the soil”, even after 500 years!)
Persecution and violence agaisnt “indian” communities in Guyana and Fiji also get less attention. The Australian doctor was a real Indian citizen — Indians are going to get more upset about the mistreatment of a fellow citizen over the mistreatment of distant co-ethnics.
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. 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 (an Ismaili, bi-racially Perian, and rich founder of Pakistan) as a Parsi.
Also, there is a community of “Anglo-Indians” who look very Indian. Some, of course, look bi-racial. Their mother tongue is English, and the girls only wear dresses. This is very much a community of people ashamed of their Indian identity, even though many look Indian.
Finally, those Tamils of Malaysia – do they speak Malay? I know some Malay Tamils and they are quite proud Malaysians. One even married a bi-racial Malay girl.
Man there are so many hate crimes in the US against Indians its ridiculous. The basic problem is that Indians in general are pvssies and don’t even report it. I don’t know in what century this happened, because I read about these dudes like Prithviraj Chauhan, Ranjit Singh and Shivaji and they were certainly the exact OPPOSITE of a pvssy, but the fact remains that if confronted a modern day Indian will mostly react meekly. I blame Gandhi.
I remember in high school once, these two black guys were getting all up in a Sikh guys face. I bring this up because in the UK, India or Europe you NEVER mess with a Sardar. But this guy just lowers his head, finally I got involved. Surprisingly once confronted in a public place the two idiots walked away in shame and realized their hypocrisy. I can name so many other incidents, and the funniest thing is no Indian ever came to my aid and there was no Indian organization to report it to. Either Indians spirits are so crushed by America that they just don’t lift finger or they just think thats how life should be here.
I’ve had my share of cuts and bruises from fights and thats good. Indians need to stop being all Gandhi. Stand up for yourself and if someone is being racist, tell the authorities or school staff. You can be sure the black dude will be the FIRST to complain if something like that happens to him. I remember I called a black girl “fat” once and she went on for hours and TOLD THE TEACHER I was being ‘racist’. Frickin’ land whale.
And finally relating to the Tamils in wherever or whatever land being abused. My family is from Delhi and Pune and sorry but to be honest they could care less what happens to Tamils or Sri Lankans. I’m sorry but they are so far away from traditional Indian culture its hard to see them as “Indian”.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. This like the cherry on top of the rest of your ridiculous comment.
Sigh!
Depends. Maybe we just need less Mahatma Gandhi, more Sanjay Gandhi.
Well, it’s racist, abusive and intolerant, but at least it’s focused on the issue, which is hate. And he didn’t ask for Shivaji’s contact info or ask us to name five battles fought by Prithviraj Chauhan.
I’m sorry how is it racist? I was just describing the race of the people involved. If anything the people I name were either being racist or oversensitive not me. I’m not saying blacks are the only ones being racist, those two instances were just appropriate to what I was saying.
If you think my statement about Tamils or Sri Lankans is racist well then… you are just a baby.
And man just look at your discussions above. Does even half of it have to do with the subject “hate crimes and desis”? These were personal experiences from me, an Indian its very appropriate.
You’re absolutely right, saying “it’s hard to see Tamils as Indian” is not intolerant and “the black dude will do X” is not racist. I humbly apologize. Thank you for shining light on the situation. The fact that it comes from the cross you set on fire is irrelevant.
I think Tamilians and the Delhi-Pune joint force should settle things one and for all with some dance fighting.
Rahul, re dance fighting, how about the Tiger himself?
Wow look at this hero.
I said black dude did X genius not all black dudes do X. Do you honestly not get the difference dude? Talk about hypersensitive I guess to please you I should have just said “dude” but I type similar to the way I speak so no.
As for the Tamil comment, does that really offend you so much? Like I said, I’m sorry but that is the truth.
Rahul, while that point is valid, I’m afraid its soundness may be undermined by the reluctance of us old Delhi-wallah’s to ally with the Maharashtrians. 馃槈
That would truly be an uneven battle. The man combines formidable verbal dexterity with his preternatural agility, and the Delhi bravehearts will seem as leadenfooted as if their feet were mired in bad wheat halwa while the Pune soldiers will be rolling around like so many bakharwadis.
C’mon man, your cultures are just a 2 hr plane flight away from each other. You need to join forces to rout Lemuria.
The “near abroad” (Lemuria) must be be-friended for the longer-term interest of routing the far-abroad. 馃檪
Didn’t John Nash get a Nobel for this sort of work? In “A Beautiful Mind”, he advocated befriending the nearer broad to the farther broad.
Pingpong, Heh–I was thinking more in terms of Russian foreign policy. “The non-Russian countries that were once part of the USSR have been termed the ‘Near abroad’ by Russians.”
Prithviraj:
You’ve violated SM’s commenting policy several times, on more than one thread (and via more than one handle). Take your ignorant, inflammatory declarations elsewhere.
Muralimannered (#123):
On April 5, 2007, you posted:
“I grew up in a community populated by majority reform-jew hippies who moved to rural Virginia, had kids and followed a brown guru. My childood friends all had sanksrit or Tamil names, prayed to Vishnu/Krishna/Siva/Brama (as well as Christ, Allah, G-D, Ahura Mazda and who knows else), believed in the common currency of all religions, devalued material possessions as a measure of social worth and, for the most part, did not partake in legal or illegal drugs.”
So were the majority reform-jew hippies also calling you sand nigger? That surprises me.
you have google skills. this is encouraging. however not knowing where I attended middle school is hampering your understanding. Why the sudden urge to start commenting?
Camille (#122):
The discussions about how “white folks” can “leverage their privilege to build communities of equality” is predicated on one or more of these assumptions: (1) such privilege exists (2) such privilege is unearned (3) such privilege is undeserved. Any of these axioms may be critiqued– I’ll start with (1). The evidence for (1) is normally in terms of group outcomes– e.g. group 1 makes more money on the average than group 2. The fallacy is that averages iron out local distributions and that trivial one-variable explanations oversimplify nuanced interactions of multiple factors like class (and yes, just as there are localities where whites are oppressed, there are contexts where the rich is the victim– for a fictional example, look at Bonfire of the vanities), sexual orientation, foreignness, etc. And I don’t think this oversimplification is mere oversight.
Are you getting your PhD from Dupont University where, I assume, citation of fiction is accepted academic practice?