The US has a long history of hate crimes, but has seen a rise in recent years. The victims of these crimes should have a voice
Do the names Elijah Coverdale, Kathy Finley or Tywanza Sanders sound familiar? Probably not. And yet you are almost certain to know the names of the men who killed them. Elijah Coverdale and Kathy Finley were two of the 168 people killed in the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995, still the most deadly case of domestic terrorism in US history, whereas Tywanza Sanders was among 9 people killed in the church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015. As so often happens in the case of crimes, particularly those committed by the far right, the perpetrators are humanized in multiple news stories that follow the attack, while the victims are reduced to cold and impersonal statistics.
Last month the FBI released its latest hate crimes statistics, showing a nearly 23% increase in religion-based hate crimes and a 37% spike in anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2017. Almost 60% of victims were targeted because of their (perceived) ethnic or racial identity, some 20% because of their (perceived) religion, almost 16% because of the (perceived) sexuality, and 2% because of their disability or gender. In part because of their definition, hate crimes have a predominantly (far) rightwing motivation. However, even in the more neutrally defined case of political violence and terrorism, far-right ideology is the dominant motivation, and far-right terrorism is on the rise.
Continue reading...from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2EPVeSF
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