Red Light Politics

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8 posts tagged hate crimes

Global Comment: Networks of racist hatred, the hidden side of the European Union

I wrote about the racist networks across the European Union that are almost always unveiled when a major hate crime is investigated. From the piece:

Back in July 2011, when Anders Behring Breivik went on a murderous rampage in Norway, leaving a trail of 77 dead and numerous injured he also left behind a manifest that hinted to his connection with like minded individuals and groups across Europe. He spoke extensively of his extreme right wing sympathies and mentioned his contacts with others across the continent. Authorities investigated the links and found that he had been in touch with groups in the US and the UK. The arrest in Zurich this week, in connection with the German NSU, though not related to Breivik, does indicate a certain pattern. These connections across borders point to a modus operandi that is replicated across hate groups who are united by a common goal and racist rhetoric.

“What we know about defendants in racist and religiously motivated crimes is that the majority are men (83.4%). Most defendants were White British (73.4%) and the majority were aged between 25-59 accounting for 51.3% and a further 28.8% were aged between 18-24. Of interest is the fact that the proportion of both 10-13 year olds and 14-17 year olds involved as defendants has declined from 2.6% and 20.2% respectively in 2007/08 to 1.7% and 14.9%. What we know about victims is that 58.3% were men and 26.2% were women. The number of victims with no identified gender at 15.5% represents a significant improvement since 2007/08 when it stood at 56.0%.”

I am going through the newly released hate crime report in the UK (link goes to PDF)

The number of women victims of racist attacks in the UK is at 26.2%. The people whose gender was not included in the report (that does not mean they purposefully prefer not to be identified by gender, it’s that the people collecting the data did not include the gender) is at 15.5%. Let’s say half of those were women? (cis or non cis, either trans* or gender queer or gender variant). 

And then I sometimes have to hear that racism should not be of utmost concern within feminism?

Right.

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German pensioner battles neo-Nazi ‘muck’ via AFP/ Yahoo News Wielding just nail-polish remover, a camera and an “Against Nazis” tote bag, Irmela Mensah-Schramm is a one-of-a-kind fighter against Germany’s increasingly threatening far-right scene. Walking the streets of the depressed east Berlin district of Lichtenberg on the hunt for racist and pro-fascist graffiti, 66-year-old Mensah-Schramm’s diminutive frame belies a crusader’s iron will. “I’m removing Nazi stickers!” the grey-haired, bespectacled pensioner calls almost playfully to a young skinhead sporting a black Thor Steinar sweatshirt, popular among neo-Nazis, and walking two menacing dogs on leashes.[…] Mensah-Schramm, a retired special needs teacher originally from Stuttgart, has spent the last 25 years eliminating an estimated 90,000 graffiti and stickers used by the far right to whip up support and intimidate minorities. More about this self described “loner activist” at the link above. It is worth noting that she has no support for what she does and she estimates that she spends 34 hours per week and about 300 euros ($390) a month on her “Hate Destroys” campaign without any government or NGO funds, just out of her own pension.

German pensioner battles neo-Nazi ‘muck’

via AFP/ Yahoo News

Wielding just nail-polish remover, a camera and an “Against Nazis” tote bag, Irmela Mensah-Schramm is a one-of-a-kind fighter against Germany’s increasingly threatening far-right scene.

Walking the streets of the depressed east Berlin district of Lichtenberg on the hunt for racist and pro-fascist graffiti, 66-year-old Mensah-Schramm’s diminutive frame belies a crusader’s iron will.

“I’m removing Nazi stickers!” the grey-haired, bespectacled pensioner calls almost playfully to a young skinhead sporting a black Thor Steinar sweatshirt, popular among neo-Nazis, and walking two menacing dogs on leashes.[…]

Mensah-Schramm, a retired special needs teacher originally from Stuttgart, has spent the last 25 years eliminating an estimated 90,000 graffiti and stickers used by the far right to whip up support and intimidate minorities.

More about this self described “loner activist” at the link above. It is worth noting that she has no support for what she does and she estimates that she spends 34 hours per week and about 300 euros ($390) a month on her “Hate Destroys” campaign without any government or NGO funds, just out of her own pension.

I am ambivalent about the use of the label “hate crimes”

I don’t know how pervasive this label is in other parts of the world but in Europe, it is used all over media. From Fears over “95 per cent” of unreported hate crime in Cambridge , UK:

Crimes against gender, race, faith, sexuality or disability are all categorised as hate crimes by the police.

And here’s when I am ambivalent about the overall use of “hate crime”. From the link above:

Of the 115 hate crimes, 100 were categorised as ‘race’, nine as ‘homophobic’, three as ‘faith’, two as ‘gender - transphobic’ and one as ‘other’ sexual orientation discrimination.

See those figures? That’s when we call “racism” by another name and fail to address it as a social ill. Under the umbrella of “hate crime”, we do not need to offer a historical context to dismantle the different institutionalized ways in which racism is not just expressed but openly endorsed through policy and public discourse. Additionally, this “hate crime” narrative enforces the idea of individual behavior instead of, again, presenting the issue in a social context.

“A machete-wielding dog owner screamed racist abuse at a Nigerian man who complained about being bitten by his Rottweiler - then later told police the animal had nipped the male nurse because it ‘didn’t like black people’.”

Racist dog owner claimed Rottweiler bit Nigerian nurse because it ‘doesn’t like black people’ | Manchester Evening News

The British court sentenced the dog owner to 18 months in jail, not because of his racist, hate crime but because he used a deadly weapon (the machete).

Meanwhile, this one Machete would like to have a word with the dog owner.

uncdan replied to your link: Another day, another violent racist in UK public transport

I get depressed enough already. Just reading what you write about it makes me moreso without having to watch it.

I am sorry that what I write depresses you. I am sincerely saying this (pointing out because I know I am sometimes snarky/caustic/sarcastic; but it’s not the case here).

It depresses me as well. I would say quite profoundly. Still, the reason I insist on writing about this is because I am convinced that the alternative (ignoring what is happening around me) would have much more serious consequences. As I keep pointing out, people are dying because of hatred, on a daily basis and across a continent that prides itself on being funded over the values of Enlightenment, tolerance and reason. I don’t think we are hopeless, I think that this can still be fixed before we have to lament even more assaults and eventual deaths. However, for this to be fixed, we need to collectively acknowledge that there is a big problem. The way I see it, the only way to identify this problem and address it is through awareness. And as small and insignificant as my contribution might be, that’s why I write about these subjects. In the hopes that the awareness might contribute to a possible solution.

“A Cork mother has claimed this week that she no longer feels safe in her Glanmire home and that her son now lives in fear, having been the victim of two racially motivated attacks in as many years.
The woman, who moved to Cork from Cameroon over ten years ago, told the Cork Independent this week that her son has been attacked twice in two years at the same Cork city school.
She says that in February 2009, he was the victim of an assault on his school grounds which left him with loose teeth and mild injuries after being punched in the mouth.
Just four weeks ago, on November 11, she received a phone call from her son who has special needs, telling her that he had been assaulted again.
He explained that while he was playing soccer, a group of young boys started calling him “n***er”.
“He told the teacher but the boys denied it,” she said. She claimed the youths then shouted more insults at him, such as, ‘Show off n***er, why don’t you go and bring more black people with you?’
According to her son, one of the three boys punched him repeatedly in the head leaving him with a fractured jaw which was later operated on at CUH.
The assault has left her son isolated and living in fear.”

Racist attacks on special needs boy - News - Cork Independent

(I have edited the N word because it is common for Irish media to publish it unedited).

I have written about racism in Ireland before and how some voices in the African Irish community are calling it “institutionalized” and have been alerting about the alarming raise of hate crimes. Sadly, this is one more incident, this time involving a boy with disabilities.

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Aryan Outfitters | Mother Jones Hate still lives–and is flourishing if the data from the Southern Poverty Law Center is to be believed. Speaking to that point, Mother Jones magazine has a great photo essay on Ms. Ruth, the seamstress of the KKK (accompanied by a troubling series of interviews well worth listening to). (Found via SpeakEasy).

Aryan Outfitters | Mother Jones

Hate still lives–and is flourishing if the data from the Southern Poverty Law Center is to be believed. Speaking to that point, Mother Jones magazine has a great photo essay on Ms. Ruth, the seamstress of the KKK (accompanied by a troubling series of interviews well worth listening to).

(Found via SpeakEasy).

Source Mother Jones

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