Just like writing is a reflection of our thinking, hate crime is a reflection of hate ideology that man carries. I would always think that there is a strong link between hate crime and hate speech since some sociologists believe that the latter is considered a symbolic violence that precedes any physical violence. To reduce hate crime, we should eliminate hate group and hate speech along with any other symbolic violence including fighting words, racial signs, and violence indications that our language fills of. This is difficult, but it’s not impossible.
Pierre Bourdieu, a French Sociologist, argues that cultural beliefs are more dominant than anything else in shaping our personalities. Those beliefs are usually expressed through language in a way that could provoke others’ beliefs. This is what he calls “Symbolic Violence”. For instance, believing in “God’s Chosen People”, as Jews do, or in “Perfect Nation”, as Muslims believe, is a form of symbolic violence because it implies what it might insult and exclude others’ beliefs. Symbolic violence is an invisible form of violence. It is a soft violence that people unconsciously carry in their language. It is actually a clear lingual manifestation of what the society already believes. Keith Topper, a professor of political science at University of California, beautifully summarizes that language is a mechanism of silencing, domination, and exclusion. The more symbolic violence we have in our language (culture), the more physical violence we commit against others. And this kind of violence is considered hate crime since it’s motivated by cultural malice or religious hatred.
In structuralism philosophy, Claude Levi Strauss (the godfather of structuralism in the world) simply identifies man as a structure because he is lead by a structure, which is a transcendent system of instructions that precedes the human and controls its existence. There is always a structure, whether it’s religious, cultural, or ideological structure that leads human’s thoughts and opinions. Religion, sect, ethics, culture, thoughts, ideology, gender, language, and philosophical doctrine are all pre-existing structures that man is fully buried in. We see things through them. We value things through them. We do everything through them. We cannot live without them. Language is one of those powerful structures that strongly push us to do things without even knowing why we do them. That’s why some philosophers describe humans as a lingual product. The human is produced by language. He is what his language decides. Imagine the impact of such words “Nigger”, “Faggot”, or “Bitch” on people. These words simply represent the sociological structure that shaped us personally. The American Sociologist Carrie Hull demonstrates that such “words act as a general reminder of the unequal society that fostered this language.” And thus, she says, “Hate speech always refers its target to the unequal society.” The unequal society that often persecutes subordinated groups or minorities, not only by such words, but also by signs, logos, or even facial expressions sometimes. These are symbolic violence that is derived from our pre-existing ideologies and it could lead to physical violence very obviously. It is unfortunately against the “be nice, think nice, and say nice” principle that we should all respect and believe in.
To me, it’s very obvious that social interaction among various races, ethnicities, genders, and religions is the most effective way to fight the so-called “hate crime”. Why? Simply because social interaction would let people get to know each other and shatter all fears or mythical walls that were built among various groups throughout the history. In 2002, research conducted under the name of “Where you Live and What you Watch” shows that white people that live in mixed neighborhoods with blacks use less negative stereotypes against them. They are “feeling closer to blacks as a group.” Conversely, whites who live in white homogeneous neighborhoods “expressed more negative stereotypic evaluations of blacks, and felt more distant from blacks as a group.” This is quite understandable. We are naturally scared from the “other” because we don’t know him, we don’t see him, and we don’t talk to him. This fear would probably change to a hate, and in turn, leads to bias-based crimes.
Logically, there is no hate crime, if there is no hate group. It wouldn’t be hate crime, if it didn’t occur based on hate race or hate group in general. It would be something else - any other name, but not hate crime, for sure. A group of German researchers concluded in their study “Preventing Hate Crimes” that the German Authorities deal with the symptoms of hate crime only. They punish the perpetrators without analyzing the deeper triggers of it. The study “points out that a background culture of racism can legitimize and encourage hate-motivated violence against ethnic minorities.” The researchers made a survey in two different German towns and found that the more democratic the town, the more tolerant. Hate groups grow in “closed culture” towns. They suggested “strengthening of democratic and humanistic norms and values” to face hate crimes, and this would not be achieved without encouraging social interaction to dissolve distinctions among various groups.
Similar to the German Research, International Review of Law and Economics in the United States had published in 2011 an interesting research called, “Hate Groups and Hate Crimes.” In this research, professors Matt Ryan and Peter Leeson demonstrated that “demographic variables are not significantly related to hate crime in the United States.” However, they don’t mention why they’re not significantly related to hate crime. I believe this is because the United States is the most democratic country compared to all other countries in the world. The United States of America is an “opened culture” country and has a diversity of races, ethnicities, and religions that are well integrated socially. However, that doesn’t mean that there is no hate crime in the states at all. We should maintain our democratic values, if we want to stay on top of countries that have the lowest rate of hate crime. Indeed, I’m one of those who believe that we just closed the case of racism when we elected a black president, Barack Obama, to rule the United States. It is a shiny moment in our history that we must all brag.
Hate crimes are only symptoms, but the real sickness behind these symptoms is hatred, racism, anti-homosexuality, supremacism, hate groups, hate speech, and symbolic violence in our language. Let’s not just treat the symptoms. Let’s get rid of the sickness once and for all. Have you ever heard of a doctor treats symptoms without dealing with the sickness itself?
Works Cited
Bourdeu, Pierre. “Language and Symbolic Power.” Trans. Gino Raymond & Matthew Adamson. Cambridge. Polity: 1991. Print.
Gilliam, Franklin D., Nicholas A. Valentino, and Matthew N. Beckmann. “Where You Live and What You Watch: The Impact of Racial Proximity and Local Television News on Attitudes about Race and Crime.” SAGE. Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 55, No. 4 (December 2002), pp. 755-780. Web. 14 June 2013.
Hull, Carrie. “Poststructuralism, Behaviorism, and the Problem of Hate Speech.” SAGE. Philosophy and Social Criticism, (2003), P 531. Web. 14 June 2013.
Ryan, Matt E. and Leeson, Peter T. “Hate Groups and Hate Crime.” International Review of Law and Economic, (2011), pp. 256-260. Web. 14 June 2013.
Strauss, Claude L. “Structural Anthropology.” Basic Books. New York: 1963. Print.
Strobl, Rainer., Jana Klemm, and Stefanie Würtz. “Preventing Hate Crimes: Experiences from Two East-German Towns.” The British Journal of Criminology, Volume 45, Number 5, (September 2005), pp. 634-646. Web. 14 June 2013.
Topper, Keith. “Arendt and Bourdieu between Word and Deed.” SAGE. Political Theory, (22 March 2011), p 352. Web. 14 June 2013.