What is a hate crime?
Howard Witt, a Chicago Tribune senior correspondent has written another article involving the issue of race and hate crimes. This time he is covering the issue of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, a young Knoxville couple out on an ordinary Saturday night date, was undeniably brutal. He reports on how the pair were carjacked, kidnapped, raped and finally murdered during an ordeal of unimaginable terror last January. It’s another must read article regarding hate crimes, race, media and crime in America. Here is a link to the story. Photo of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom (below).
Defendants Cobbins, Coleman, Davidson and Thomas.
Special Report: Some are asking why there has been no media outcry over murders in which victims were white and accused killers are black. More HERE
African American Opinion asks the same question. Why no media outcry? Why no Black blogger outcry? See our previous post regarding the Channon Christian-Christopher Newsom Murders.
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12 comments:
Were they looking specifically for a White couple?
Or, were they just looking for someone to terrorize.
That's been my question all along with this case; I did know about it.
Unless you can tell me that they went out in search of a White couple...
Then this is just a bunch of Black Thugs preying upon the innocent, and quite frankly, we know all about Black Thugs.
To be honest, I AM surprised that this hasn't 'blown up' as a story, because I thought the temptation of the Black Bogeyman preying upon innocent White folk would be far too much for the press to resist.
As I look at it, these folks were just in the wrong place, wrong time for these criminals, and it easily could have been a Black couple, which means, we wouldn't be having this conversation AT ALL, because it would have turned into a 2 sentence story on the daily police blotter in that TN town, and that's all the traction it would have gotten.
Rikyrah, Great points as usual. It appears that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, should anyone be in the wrong place at the wrong time in any community in America? Crime in America is becoming more or less, crimes against the haves and the have nots. This may have been the case here. Race therefore may have played a factor in this case. Many times when black thugs see a white person they think, more money, more money.
There is a big difference between More money, more money, and rape and murder.
In this case it appears it is not only rape and murder, it's also a HATE Crime.
Considering that robbery is categorized as a violent crime, the statistic quoted that 90% of cross racial violent crime is committed by Blacks against whites is extremely deceiving in the context of this conversation. Without accessing the statistics myself, I would guess that of that 90%, 90% were property related crimes. You could also say that rapes don't fit the traditional mold for hate crimes, but are included in that violent crime stat.
If they picked the best target of opportunity and it started out as a robbery and then other crimes present themselves, like rape and then to cover it up murder, that still does not make it a hate crime. You are dealing with sociopaths who need no underlying rationale for preying on anyone weaker than them.
When you talk about hate crimes, you should be talking about crimes where someone is targeted primarily based on antipathy towards whatever particular racial, cultural or other specific. The simple fact of the matter is that Black people have been socialized and indoctrinated for hundreds of years in this country to show extreme deference to whites. The slightest Black aggression towards whites was met with the harshest of punishments, swiftly and often extra-judicially. So for anyone to postulate that somehow, all of a sudden, we have thrown off that particular mental shackle and are becoming Mau-Mau like towards whites in America is absurd.
Methinks Mr. Witt may have been pressured to advocate for the other side after the uproar influenced by his last to race related articles.
As to the lack of media coverage, do you really tink they need to ramp up the assault on the media image of Black men? It's on 24-7 already. Now if it was an election year and some white boy needed to get a push in the polls, then this would be front page forever and those would be four dead Black men walking. As to the lack of black blogger outcry, what exactly is it that we should be crying out about? Maybe the fact that four more of our young men made some messed up decisions and are now doomed? Perhaps we should be crying ut about the social conditions that are turning more and more of our Black male youth into predators? Are we actually expected to express special outrage that Blacks victimized whites? A crime was committed, the alleged criminals are in custody, their fate although tragic is justified. What more do you want?
Black on White crimes and White on Black crimes (and other inter-racial crimes) happen everyday, so this case is not particularly unusual at all. The hate crime legislation was not intended to deal with every such case. Technically...certain characteristics have to be evident in order for these events to be considered hate crimes... We don't know enough about this case to say one way or another.
But it essentially comes down to motive.
From a technical/legal point of view...this does not appear to be a hate crime (that the hate crime legislation was intended for). It appears that this couple was a victim of random street violence...
Based on this...the same question could be asked about Black on Black crime. A difference in race between the victim and suspect is not enough to trigger a hate crimes investigation. Understanding motive is the key to hate crimes cases.
But from a practical point of view...all violent crimes are hate crimes IMO. This was no less violent or brutal than our people being hung from bridges....or beaten and left for dead, etc.
Rikyrah made an excellent point...
This could have easily been a Black couple. Perhaps they chose a White couple because they assumed they might have more money...or because of the car they drove, etc...who knows. That would not meet the Feds definition of a hate crime.
In addition... showing that it was not a hate crime... Hate crime attacks typically only involve doing harm to the target... they typically don't involve stealing property...taking cars, cash, etc... not even as secondary crimes to the main crime. If this were a hate crime... the victims would have been attacked, but their personal items would have been left alone (at least that's the typical situation).
Motive is always the key in these cases... although, as I mentioned... all violent crime is a hate crime. IMO.
The hate crime law, was meant to be an extra weapon that the feds could use as a way to add extra punishment and deter hate incidents in the future. Black church burnings and the killing of James Byrd were the kinds of crimes that the feds were interested in stopping.
Have hate crime laws been effective in deterring such incidents? I don't know the answer... I don't have the data in front of me... but from what I see... I am not sure that it has. We still hear about Black or interracial families waking up to find crosses burning in their yards... and we are well into the 21st Century.
If i'm not mistaken, you could even have victims and suspects of the same race and it could be considered a hate crime (just pointing out that the race of victim/suspect is not as important in hate crime cases as people think). I point this out because people seem to be zeroing in on the fact that the suspects were Black and the victims were white. Again, motive is the key in hate crimes.... not necessarily race.
(I could explain this last part more later if you all are lost... but I have run out of time. Time for me to head to work...something I dread everyday).
Good topic AAPP.
"As to the lack of media coverage, do you really think they need to ramp up the assault on the media image of Black men? It's on 24-7 already."
Good point by EM that I forgot to mention in my rushed comments.
Yeah... this is already on TV 24 hours a day. They have no more time slots.
The war on the Black image is in full swing... from White America...and also from Black America... or at least with Black men being complicit in the whole thing...being enablers for it. Either way... the Black male image is taking a beating.
That could be said for Black women as well.
Certain white goups...or O'Reilly types are up in arms because this is not getting attention as a hate crime. But they have their own legacy of hate to blame.
The hate crime laws came with an historical context... they just didn't pop up.
The legacy left by terrorist groups like the KKK...and the activities of current terrorist organizations in this country made such laws necessary. The laws are designed to prevent or deter a new wave of terror based on race, religion, etc.
I guess their rationale is that... since Black on White crime is high...then their White on Black hate crimes should not be considered a big deal.
But although both crimes are brutal (as I mentioned)... the hate crimes are literally designed to terrorize and intimidate an entire group of people based on their race, national origin, religion, etc.
Now were these thugs intent on terrorizing an entire group of Americans for political or religious purposes? Did they meet in some smoke filled basement for several days to conspire to kill these folks? I don't think so...
Hell... I don't think they thought much about this before or after. They saw an opportunity.
So the argument by these angry White groups just doesn't cut it.
It may be different if the historical context were different...
If Black folks abused whites for hundreds of years... enslaved and raped whites (with a motive to terrorize & for economic exploitation), if we hung whites for decades...and there were no legal consequences for it, if we killed little white boys for looking at Black women, if we held whites from jobs and prevented them from going to good schools...If Black folks hooked a white man to the back of a truck and drug him until his body fell apart... If Black folks controlled the American economy and the legal system...
Then maybe they might have an inkling of a point. But of course this is not the historical context that exists.
Certain white goups...or O'Reilly types are up in arms because this is not getting attention as a hate crime. But they have their own legacy of hate to blame.
I know what you mean, but I don't see this as a hate crime.
Nobody has proven that they went hunting for White folk. I think that they went hunting for victims, and they just happened to be White.
They're Black; they killed White folk; this is TN...they're all headed for a lethal injection. Don't we all know that?
The conclusion was set in stone when this couple was killed.
Yes, the image of Black me is being battered, but these 4 don't help any.
I just see them as hard core Black criminals...unfortunately, nothing special about them, because they're all too common.
The only reason this is getting traction is because the victims are White. If they'd been Black, nobody would be writing about them.
Sorry,
Yes, the image of Black MEN is being battered
here's the thing...
when blacks commit crimes, all blacks are deemed suspect (okay not LeBron James and Oprah but everyone else).
when whites commit crimes, that white individual is deemed suspect.
have the feeling that the squawking about hate crime and liberal media bias is a smoke screen to once again remind racist white Americans that they don't only have to worry about someone who will crash planes into buildings.
and I'm looking at the pictures of the carjackers in Knoxville and I don't see black people -- I see sociopaths that are a threat to everyone.
I'm moving to Canada. The world just seems to be going to hell in a hand basket. I really don't care what you label this as. As long as they get the ultimate penalty, I don't care how you classify it.
The fact that we are having this conversation just demonstrates how racism in this country imposes a form of mental illness on all involved, the oppressed and the oppressor. We're sitting here debating how to label this and how much airtime the story got. I saw this story about two or three weeks ago and it actually kept me up at night and depressed me because I imagined what those people must have gone through during their last hours on earth.
I agree with the comment that said when I see these people, I see sociopaths that are threats to us all.
I also see this as the tip of a wave of crime that is going to be unleashed on this nation by a bunch of angry disaffected people with no regard for human life.
We can't keep operating in a gratuitously violent, morally relative society and think that there are not going to be consequences.
This is shocking because it happened to people that is wasn't supposed to happen to, but rest assured these types of human rights violations go on everyday in poor communities throughout this country and nobody cares.
I don't think this is a big story because it is too gory for television. You'd have to send the children out of the room just to air it. I saw a post on push vs. pull media. Paris Hilton vs. the Iraq War.
May God have mercy on their souls.
I don't think anyone was ignoring or downplaying the horrific nature of the crime... I certainly wasn't.
There is no question about how sick the crime was. But I hear/read about crimes just as disturbing at least once a year...right here in my own community. So these incidents, as sickening as they may be, are not exactly foreign to us...not with the world (especially American society) being as troubled as it is today.
But the question raised in the posting had to do with why this was not seen as a hate crime- hate crimes being a set of laws that require very specific attributes. Some commenters, including myself, tried to point out that despite all the hype... this incident didn't meet the criteria for a hate crime.
Interesting arguments. My gut says it was a crime that began as theft crime that went out of control. It first was a theft crime that turned into a crime of hate. Who knows what the victims said these thugs.
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