Another Fake Hate Crime (via Romesko's Obscure Store)

October 2, 2001 11:28 PM

Another Fake Hate Crime (via Romesko's Obscure Store) Tragedies bring out the worst in folks, too. Interesting that that this doesn't seem to have been picked up anywhere else.
posted by nobody_knose (17 comments total)

There's a similar story here in Nashville.
posted by tpoh.org at 11:34 PM on October 2, 2001

The increased police presence on campus will remain in place, the police chief added, especially since a student of Indian descent was attacked Tuesday by three men who punched and kicked him while making anti-Muslim remarks.
(from the linked article)


I dunno, I kind of sympathize with this lie. I know it's wrong but, in these strange times, anything that may lead to a less negative attitude to less-than-white Americans, who are being made to feel suspicious and dirty, seems not only forgivable but encourageable.

The guy seems OK - he probably thought he could have been attacked and pre-empted it. Might have been fear. In any case - and I know I'm on truly dubious territory - I wish him well. I like the idea that the police are still there. It may stop the three bigots who attacked the Indian student from doing it again.

A footnote: People who attack others on the base of race, religion or politics are usually described as "mistaking" someone for someone else. Bullshit. They just like hitting people and take any opportunity to do it.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:48 PM on October 2, 2001

Interesting , couldn't find a mention of either of those or the earlier hate crime insurance scam incident in Queens in the NYTimes or the Washington Post.

Makes me wonder how many other incidents are just being added to the "hate crime" tally w/o any followup.
posted by nobody_knose at 11:52 PM on October 2, 2001

Crime is crime. Until someone can explain exactly what a "love crime" is, I will take the term "hate crime" about as seriously as I'd take tax advice from Pavarotti.
posted by RavinDave at 12:14 AM on October 3, 2001

Hate crime is worse. I wonder why the klan hasn't exploded now with more crimes from them? it seems weird that they haven't jumped on this.
posted by Katy Action at 12:31 AM on October 3, 2001

I know it's wrong but, in these strange times, anything that may lead to a less negative attitude to less-than-white Americans, who are being made to feel suspicious and dirty, seems not only forgivable but encourageable.

So, the truth doesn't matter as long as it suits your preconceived notions? The end justifies the means? Innocent people should suffer just so long as your own biased political viewpoints can be propagated? You'll have to excuse me if I disagree with you vehemently, Miguel.
posted by MrBaliHai at 12:40 AM on October 3, 2001

Hate crime is worse

Love crimes are rife in Europe, much, much more frequent and bloody than hate crimes in the U.S. Even love crimes in the U.S. - you know, violent "crimes de passion", arising from jealousy or unrequited love - are more frequent.

But hate crimes are specially noxious because their effect goes beyond their immediate victims. Lynching someone who's gay, or a Muslim, or a member of another minority, just because they belong to on, negates their very individuality. It's not person A or B that's being killed or tortured - it's some vague characteristic he or she was born with.

Also, hate crimes instill fear. You read Joe Smith was murdered, you regret it and pass on. But if you read that someone from your ethnic, sexual, religious(or whatever) group has been singled out and killed you quite rightly fear for your life. Because it could have been you.

Hate crimes create multiple victims. They deny the basic fact of identity. In a love crime, say, a woman kills her husband because he betrayed her. But at least it's him, that particular person and agent, she's killing. You could arguably say if he'd acted differently, he might have been spared.

But in a hate crime, if you're murdered for being black or white or gay, it's something you had no power over - I didn't want to say "can't help it" because it implies there's something wrong. You're a victim without identity or humanity.

That is not human. Killing someone for what he or she did, unfortunately, is. But for what he is, since the day he was born?

Sorry I went on a bit. RavinDave: you're quite right about Pavarotti. But wouldn't you take singing lessons from him?
That is surely more apposite as an analogy(er, I think...)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 1:07 AM on October 3, 2001

So, the truth doesn't matter as long as it suits your preconceived notions?

Of course it does, MrBaliHai. I said I knew it was wrong. But sometimes we fall off the edge of reason. It has nothing to do with my own biased political viewpoints . But everybody has to have them. We're not gods.
But the truth is better, as far as it can be ascertained. And we shouldn't defend liars. Touché. But at least agree there is a weakness in the human soul which sometimes strays.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 1:29 AM on October 3, 2001

Shades of Tawana Brawley; I wonder if this is a variation on Munchhausen syndrome?
posted by Steven Den Beste at 3:46 AM on October 3, 2001

Thanks, Steven. I'd never heard of the Munchhausen syndrome - nothing to do with the Baron's boot strap, apparently - but your link was very elucidating. All of a sudden I understand a lot of my own friends.
And I thought I could get by with the Stockholm one...

*Off to library and Google for a victimology search*
posted by MiguelCardoso at 3:59 AM on October 3, 2001

I thought it said "Another Fake Hat Crime," which would have been much more interesting.

Did anyone ever read a children's book about a man wearing a very tall stack of hats. I think a lot of monkeys took them when he fell asleep under a tree. Maybe. The memory is foggy. I'm older than half of the elements on the periodic table.
posted by pracowity at 4:36 AM on October 3, 2001

What, exactly, would a real hat crime involve? Robbing a bank to pay for your derby habit? A drive-by sombrero fitting? Embezzling company fezzes?

And do we really think a hate crime hoax would "lead to a less negative attitude to less-than-white Americans"? Wouldn't education as to why those attitudes are ill-informed and unwelcome be better?
posted by UnReality at 5:23 AM on October 3, 2001

I know it's wrong but, in these strange times, anything that may lead to a less negative attitude to less-than-white Americans, who are being made to feel suspicious and dirty, seems not only forgivable but encourageable.

It contributes to the perception among some people that America is a nation of hateful anti-Muslim bigots. Personally, I don't think I'll be encouraging people to fake hate crimes -- someone should set up a Morton Downey Jr. Foundation to show what happened to the boy who cried race.
posted by rcade at 5:42 AM on October 3, 2001

> What, exactly, would a real hat crime involve?

I thought a fake hat crime might be a crime in which a fake hat features. Hair that seems to be a hat? A hat-shaped head? Imaginative treachery and the treachery of images? Or a misheard midnight whisper about a fey cat?
posted by pracowity at 6:33 AM on October 3, 2001

Positive attitudes towards a group aren't given, stolen, or attained by lies. They're earned. End of story.

Better ways to *earn* these attitudes would be to show people who fit in the category who have done good things, and made the country a better place.

Hoaxers only deserve the fullest extent of prosecution that the law can provide... just as a white American that lied about being attacked by a non-white should be prosecuted as far as the law allows. If the law is flexible by race, in favor of non-whites... or whites... it is a sorry excuse at a pretense of *justice*.
posted by dissent at 8:29 AM on October 3, 2001

>The guy seems OK - he probably thought he could have
>been attacked and pre-empted it.

your argument is "it was probably gonna happen anyway!"

weak.
posted by double+good at 8:56 AM on October 3, 2001

A friend of mine who is hispanic was once yelled at and verbally harassed by 3 white men. They threatened her but did not take any physical action... apparently she wanted to 'get them back' so in her report to police she said they knocked her down and stomped her. Later she confessed that she made that part up (none of us knew she was lying) because otherwise no one would take her seriously.
posted by cell divide at 8:56 AM on October 3, 2001