The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

Volume 9 Number 1

LCEF IN COLLABORATION WITH LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE ON CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUES REPORT ON HATE CRIMES

The Leadership Conference Education Fund (LCEF) in collaboration with the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) has published Cause For Concern: Hate Crimes In America, a comprehensive assessment of the hate crime problem in the United States. T he report is the effort of a task force of concerned national groups working together under the auspices of LCEF and LCCR. The report includes the latest national statistics on hate crimes, reveals the human face of the persons targeted for hate violence through brief case studies, and shows how hate crimes divide Americans against one another and distort our entire society. The report was funded by the Levi Strauss Foundation.

CAUSE FOR CONCERN reports on and discusses the church burnings as illustrative of the hate problem of violent crimes against virtually every racial, ethnic, religious, and sexual minority, as well as women. The report also notes that the reaction of so me to recent controversies over immigration, welfare and the languages spoken in public places -- issues that go to the heart of America's identity as a caring, diverse and inclusive society -- has increased the incidence of hate crimes against Hispanics, Asian-Pacific Americans, and others who are stereotyped, often inaccurately, as newcomers to this country. Thus hate crimes should be seen as symptoms of a host of social ills. For all the progress our nation has made in civil and human rights, bigotry i n all its forms dies hard. And discrimination is a continuing reality in many areas of American life, including the workplace.

In the foreword to the report, Arnold Aronson, President of the Leadership Conference Education Fund, and Dorothy Height, Chair of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights state:

"Hate crimes are acts of violence directed against people because of their racial, religious, ethnic, gender or sexual identity. They are also acts of violence against the American ideal: that we can make one nation out of many different people.

"That simple but powerful idea is what makes our nation different from others where people persecute each other because of how they look, how they speak, or how they worship God. In our own time, in troubled places such as the former Yugoslavia, the M iddle East, Northern Ireland, Rwanda, and Burundi, we are witnessing once again the age-old tragedy of people committing horrific acts of violence against each other because they refuse to look beyond their differences to respect each other's inherent hum an dignity. "We are releasing this report in the hope that our own country will overcome the problem of hate crimes and become what we were always intended to be. Let us be the United States of America -- and, in the words that school children repeat each day, "One n ation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Examples of the hate crimes described in the report are:

St. John Baptist Church in Dixiana, South Carolina, founded in 1765, has been the target of attacks throughout its history -- a period that spans the eras of slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, segregation, and civil rights. In 1983, while Sunday serv ices were underway, a group of whites shot out the church's windows. Coming back later in the day they scrawled "KKK" on the door, destroyed the piano, smashed the crucifix, tore up the Bibles, scattered beer cans on the pews, and even defecated on the sa crament cloth. Over the next 12 years, more than 200 people were arrested for acts of vandalism against the church. Then, on August 15, 1995, the church was burned down. And, in May, 1996, three white teenagers were arrested and charged with burning down the church. Freddy's Fashion Mart was a Jewish-owned store in Harlem, New York, that rented space from a black church and sublet some of that space to a black-owned record store. The landlord and owner of Freddy's wanted the Fashion Mart to expand. The owner of the r ecord store didn't want to move and a protest of Freddy's was begun. Some people on the picket line, and their supporters, engaged in anti-Semitic rhetoric. On December 8, 1995, Roland Smith, one of the protesters, entered the store with a gun and lighter fluid. He doused the store and set it on fire. Eight people -- including Smith -- died. Although none were Jewish, anti-Semitism was an underlying factor.

In the summer of 1995, Allen Adams and Ted Page were sentenced to 88 and 70 months in prison, respectively, for their roles in the ethnically motivated shooting of four Latinos in Livermore, Maine. Three of the shooting victims were migrant laborers wo rking at an egg farm, while the fourth was visiting his ailing mother, a migrant worker. The incident began at a store, where the victims were trying to make a purchase. Adams and Page who were also at the store, taunted the victims with ethnic epithets, telling them: "Go back to Mexico or [we'll] send you there in a bodybag." After the victims drove away from the store, Adams and Page chased them by car, firing 11 rounds from a nine millimeter handgun at the victims' automobile. One victim was shot in th e arm, while another bullet hit the driver's headrest, just a few centimeters from the driver.

In Jackson Heights, New York, a 24-year-old gay man who was distributing HIV-related information was assaulted with a knife by a 17 year-old male. The victim suffered a severe cut on his elbow requiring medical attention. The perpetrator repeatedly ref erred to the victim as a "faggot." The case is being prosecuted by the District Attorney's office as a bias crime.

Finally, the report discusses what is currently being done on the federal, state and local levels as well as through private initiatives to promote respect for diversity and to combat crimes based on bias, and includes ten recommendations for additiona l action by every sector of society. The first recommendation calls on national leaders -- including government, business, labor, religion, and education -- to use their prestige and influence to encourage efforts to promote harmony and combat bigotry. An d it encourages the President to hold a White House Conference on racism, bigotry and intolerance to discuss and encourage ways that Americans of all backgrounds can live and work together in peace and partnership. There is historic precedent for a White House Conference. President Lyndon Johnson held a White House Conference -- To Fulfill These Rights -- on how to turn equality from a paper promise into a living reality. Thirty years later the theme of the conference might be simply, To Unite America.

Single complimentary copies of the report are available while supply allows, by writing to the Leadership Conference Education Fund, 1629 K Street, N.W., Suite 1010, Washington, D.C. 20006.