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Sunday, November 22, 2015

What is the appropriate penalty for a hate crime hoax?

One sure hate crime hoax and one likely hate crime hoax have been in the news in the past few days. At Delta College in Michigan, a person who posted on YikYak that he was going to "shoot every black person I can on campus" turned out to be Emmanuel D. Bowden, a black student.

At Harvard, there was a big outcry this week after students found black tape defacing the photographs of all of the black Harvard Law School professors. It turned out that the black tape was identical to the tape used by a group of activist black students at Harvard Law who used it the very same day to cover up Harvard Law School's current seal, which incorporates the coat of arms of a slaveholding family involved with the school's founding. While it isn't yet certain, this appears to be yet another hoax.

I've always felt that if a false accusation of rape can result in a prison term of, say, five years for an innocent man, if it can be proven that it was a maliciously false charge, the accuser should get an equivalent sentence herself. After all, this is what the accuser was trying to get for her victim, so that seems only fair.

So it should be with a hate crime hoax. What would the penalty have been for the white student who covered the faces of the black professors in black tape? Getting expelled from school? The same should apply to the hoaxer. Unfortunately, once an affair like this turns out to be a hoax, the matter is usually just dropped.

UVA rape accuser Jackie Coackley was never prosecuted for her false accusations. The woman who falsely accused the Duke lacrosse players of rape was never prosecuted. And whenever there is a racially-motived "hate crime" which turns out to be a hoax, usually everybody just breathes a big sigh of relief that it wasn't "real," and that's the end of it.

It shouldn't be. A hate crime hoax is every bit as bad as a hate crime.

In fact, the case can be made that a hate crime hoaxer is in fact guilty of a worse crime. What if the person who had placed that black tape over the photos of black professors had been white? What would he have been trying to accomplish? He most likely would have been trying to vent some animosity. The result would have been exactly what happened, a mini-tempest of outrage by the black students. The white student certainly wouldn't have won any converts to his side.

What would a black student have been trying to accomplish with that hoax? He would have been trying to stir up hatred between the races, which is arguably worse than just venting one's own spleen.

And all of this brings up a larger question: why are there so many such hoaxes these days? Because people want to be thought of as victims. It gives you the right to complain, to ask for special privileges, to demand more black faculty be hired, and so on.

A hate crime hoax is a hate crime, and should be prosecuted as such.

32 comments:

jova said...

it seems the rise of the hate crime hoaxes are do to a lack of real hate crimes. To keep their protests going, and their claims of persecution believable , many resort to these hoaxes.

the hate crime statutes should be abolished...as they are just laws against thought crimes and freedom of speech. The blacks who target whites for violence are never prosecuted for hate crimes. Neither are the Islamists terrorists who target non-muslims.

John Craig said...

Jova --
I agree completely. The hate crimes statutes are just a mechanism to target whites, and heterosexuals. They are only applied in one direction, even though they should be far more often applied in the other. (I should have mentioned this in the post, I guess.)

Anonymous said...

I agree - I'll go you one further. They are a special category of crime designed to make the crime stats look more equal. But even this backfired! It's funny in a horrible way when you think of it.

John, I may sound reasonable but I've turned into a raving maniac, full of bitter bleak hatred. I have to exercise extreme control not to say certain things, even on the 'net, under a ludicrous pseudonym. But I hope you don't mind my saying that our society is run by monsters, beasts, and scum.

Ladybug
(Yes, I am a woman. Some of us are fed up too.)

Remnant said...

Regarding hoaxes, there are deterrence-based and equitable arguments in favor of the penalty being the same as those for the purported crime itself. Thus, false accusations of rape should carry up to the same sentence as that for actual rape: the accusation could have led to an innocent person being incarcerated for X years; why shouldn't the false accuser know that she would face the same sentence.

As for the hoaxes involving threatening symbols (nooses, "black tape" (lol), graffiti, etc.), the same principle should apply. There may be statutes such as intimidation and proximate threats of violence that would apply.

Generally speaking, I agree that "hate" does not need to enter the legal equation. Those statutes are applied with far too much discretion. All one has to do is look at the crime statistics to realize that blacks are committing (but not being charged with) most of the "hate" crimes.

John Craig said...

Ladybug --
I started this blog as a way to vent at all the hypocrisy and dishonesty I see, so please feel free to vent as much as you please; that's why this blog is here. Yes, monsters, beasts, and scum. Read back a little further and you'll see I've essentially been saying the same thing.

John Craig said...

Remnant --
The most egregious example I can think of of how the "hate crime" statute is not applied equitably is how during the entire rash of "polar bear hunting" that went on, with hundreds of young blacks going up elderly white people and punching them to see if they could fell them with one punch, Eric Holder's Department of Justice ignored it entirely. Then, the very first time a young white man did the same to an elderly black man, the DOJ brought federal hate crimes charges against him. That's the Obama administration in a nutshell.

I seem to remember a case years ago when a KKK leader was sentenced for some murder he had no direct connection with because he had used inciteful, inflammatory words. Shouldn't these hate crime hoaxers be subject to that same legal risk? After all, are they not committing these "false" crimes in order to keep their own community's hatred stoked to a fever pitch?

Remnant said...

Great minds, John: I swear I almost mentioned that Holder polar bear incident in my comment! That move by Holder was an egregious example, and almost intentionally provocative.

The other misleading statistic is to include Hispanic as a category for victims but to blend them into the White category as perps. That one is inexplicable (well, it is explicable as a piece of underhanded propaganda.

John Craig said...

Remnant --
I guess Eric Holder figured that when young blacks would try to knock out an old white with one punch, it wasn't a "hate crime" because they were doing it with love in their hearts.

Couldn't agree more about the way whites and Hispanics are blended together as perps, and I think your explanation is right. And actually, "Hispanic" as a racial category is misleading anyway, since why most of us think of someone of, say, Aztec descent, it also includes everyone from Ted Cruz to a Dominican of almost pure African descent.

Random said...

http://qz.com/556924/donald-trumps-latest-racism-controversy-involves-fake-homicide-statistics/
JC, any views on this? Correct or incorrect?

John Craig said...

Random --
My son showed Trump's statistics last night, and my immediate reaction was ugh, wrong. I've looked into this in the past and although the statistics for interracial rape, assault and battery, and armed robbery are skewed extremely towards black-on-white, most murders are intra-racial, i.e., white-on-white and black-on-black. So when we see a legitimate statistic like the one that when it comes to violent crimes, whites pick black victims 3.9% of the time, but blacks pick white victims 47.7% of the time, they're true, but they refer to the other categories of violent crime listed above but not to murder. The one statistic that Trump quoted that was obviously way off was that 81% of murdered whites are murdered by blacks; it's simply not true.

The shame of it is, had Trump used accurate statistic, it would have been a great answer to the BLM movement, because in fact blacks are far, far more likely to be murdered by another black than by a cop; and, roughly twice as many whites are killed by cops than there are blacks killed by cops. So I was dismayed to see that he used inaccurate statistics.

Lucian Lafayette said...

I wonder how many of the acts of racism are hoaxes. In the most crass sense, the "end of racism" would also mean the end of a very profitable industry. I heard on the news that the "reverend" Al Sharpton recently received a large raise in pay from the institute he founded and heads. I am sure he will use this to promptly pay off his outstanding tax debts.

The category false reporting could even be expanded to include the practice of "swatting" and calling the police on individuals who are legally carrying a firearm. In these latter cases, the charge should be attempted murder if the person making the police call can be discovered.

John Craig said...

Luke --
Yes, Sharpton evidently gave himself a 71% raise this year. He and Jackson and their ilk would be out a lot of money if their scam were ever to be dismantled.

Have there ever been cases where "Swatting" has resulted in an otherwise avoidable death?

Remnant said...

On the incorrect crime statistics Trump tweeted, I don't agree that it was a bad move.

Trump's MO is "go big" and hit in the general direction of the target. Enough will stick that no one will remember you were "wrong".

Example:

Trump: I'm worth $10 billion.

Media: No, you're not: You're only worth $8 billion! So there!

Common man: Holy sh*t, this guy is rich and successful!!
___

Latest crime stat "gaffe":

Trump: Blacks murder at 10x the white rate.

Media: No they don't! It's only 8x!!

Common man: Wow, Blacks are much more violent. Trump is on to something.
___

Takeaway: Trump plays the media for rubes and has them act as his personal megaphone.

John Craig said...

Remnant --
Wow, interesting theory. i agree with the impression the average voter is left with, but I wonder if Trump is actually so Machiavellian that he purposely errs on his figures wrong so that the media will then give them more publicity, even if of the negative variety. I tend to disagree with this. This tactic would leave him too open in the general election to charges of dishonesty, which are better avoided.

But you're right, the net effect is to get the larger point across via the media, and it does seem to work.

Anonymous said...

Regarding Trump & his stats, the 81% was wildly off. He should have got that right. But it doesn't matter - he demonstrates the capacity to learn, and next time he'll be more on target. I'm just amazed and happy he brought up the wild disparity in interracial crime.

Trump is saying so many things that were previously unsayable, and for that, he deserves credit.

What you brought up about Holder & the polar bear hunting - makes my blood boil. I actually think he got shitcanned because he went too far, and someone in the deep state squeezed Obama's nuts and told him to get rid of Holder.

Which brings up the latest, and is not so off topic. There's something in the NYTimes today about how Obama is ordering up proper, realistic intel about ISIS - the point of the article is that his calling ISIS the "jayvee" and they were "contained" was based on bad intel. The NYT is the house organ of the Democrat Party and that the editors there would get down on their knees and suck Obama's balls on the White House lawn if he told them too. In other words: Obama is blaming his remarks on his intel apparatus. This is a signal that they are in a panic, they know he's in political trouble - real trouble. Even the white hipster O-bots are pissed at him - I see this on and I hear this in my real life, because ISIS killed people in Paris, esp. white hipsters. Obama's base is blacks - stupid ones because they are stupid, and black, and smart ones, because they share the same hatred of whitey and want to Negrify white institutions. He's lost the white hipsters.

It's too bad that it took murderous thugs and dead bodies to wake up white people to what a POS Obama is.

Ladybug

John Craig said...

Ladybug --
Yes, Trump deserves credit for defying the PC police; no other Republican would have dared do what he does, and he does it unapologetically, and so far he's gotten away with it. In a way it's been brilliant marketing, there was a screaming desire on the part of a lot of people for a plainspoken guy, and Trump has been exactly that. He's said what a lot of people think but wouldn't dare say, and that's why he's ahead in the polls.

I'm not so sure about the deep state thing with Obama. I've heard Sailer talk about it, and I've heard the theories about how Obama's mysterious history and his family history might somehow be CIA-connected. I'm not saying it's possible, but it seems a little farfetched. One of the reasons for this is that I can't imagine his CIA handlers not having realized what a far left agenda he would push, or that they would allow him to do it if in fact they exist. So….I"m agnostic, but doubtful.

You're absolutely right about the NY Times. It seems fairly apparent to me that the people in charge of intelligence were being pressured by the Obama administration to minimize ISIS, and so they did. The fact that Obama is now turning around and blaming them for bad intel is pretty rich.

Do you hang out with a hipster crowd? My son has some contact with them, and for the most part can't stand them. I have zero contact, but I don't live in a big city.

Anonymous said...

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/23/texas-ahmed-mohamed-clock-lawsuit-apology
"The Mohamed family is asking for $10m from the city and $5m from the school district or they will file civil lawsuits within 60 days, the letter said.

“Understandably, Mr Mohamed was furious at the treatment of his son – and at the rancid, openly discriminatory intent that motivated it,” attorneys said in one of the letters.'"
Wow!?

John Craig said...

Anon --
Ugh….."Wow" is right. This is disgusting.

Anonymous said...

I don't hang out with the hipster crowd but where I live you can't get away from them. I don't like them much but they have some good qualities. They are young & smug but they really brought Brooklyn up from black slum slime.

I check twitter obsessively. I'm on it mostly to interact with others who are fans of my sports team. One of them is a hipster and he voiced disappointment with Obama's "containment" remarks. Look, young people....what ya gonna do? Life's a learning experience.

About the deep state, I don't agree w/Sailer either on that, I just used the phrase. I don't think it was particularly deep, just money guys saying, "dump him, he's bad for fund raising."

Ladybug

PS get clock boy in a drone strike.

John Craig said...

Ladybug --
I used to live in Brooklyn myself, from 1984 to 1986….OK, 'fess up, who's your sports team?

Holder HAS totally dropped off the radar since he left office, I guess that's by design.

Ha, yes, "get clock boy in a drone strike." Perfect.

Anonymous said...

Can't tell you anything that might give away my identity, sorry. I've become enraged, bitter and a real misanthrope.

About Obama, his blaming of his stupid remarks on bad intel enrages me. I should laugh. I really think he's feeling the heat, for the first time in his shitty administration, but instead, I take it out of myself and stew. That's a dumb thing to do.

I am watching PBS now, and they are hyping the Mark Twain awards being held at the Kennedy Center, and every person I saw on the screen was a Negro. I don't happen to believe whites are being replaced (I think that's an overhyped obsession of the racist right) but looking at peak Negro crap enrages me.

I'm just an angry Ladybug.

Ladybug.

Anonymous said...

PS, thought of this after I sent my previous message thru -

I hope the clock boy gets clocked by a drone. LULZ.

Ladybug

John Craig said...

Ladybug --
Obama's such a narcissistic personality that he can't accept blame for anything, hence the first four years of blaming Bush; that he would now blame his intelligence gathering operation for having bent to his wishes earlier, as hypocritical as it is, is not really that surprising.

Well, it's okay if you hate-watch PBS, as long as you're not hate-reading this blog.

"LULZ" -- I had to look that one up, proving myself not a hipster.

Anonymous said...

I'm nothing close to a hipster, but some of their internet lingo is very effective. I use LOL, LULZ, and even LULZy.

Cuck is a great word. I use it liberally. (Rimshot!)

Ladybug

Remnant said...

This Clock Boy thing really makes my blood boil. Talk about chutzpah: $10 million!? For what? Being momentarily importuned? It's a total catch-22: when there is a real shooting or bombing, the finger-pointing and recriminations start. NYC subways have ads to "if you see it, report it." Then, for any false alarm, it is completely forgotten that people were exhorted to "do something". No, now its "I can't believe how racist you are!" You literally cannot win.

And for Clock Boy, how many students have been sent home or to the principal's office for: the wrong t-shirt, point a finger and saying "pow!", bringing in a licorice gun to school, etc etc etc etc.

In this case, their provocation was so transparent and in such bad faith, that they can then continue to ask for money is infuriating. Unbelieveable. Excuse my french but: F*ck him and his entire family.

John Craig said...

Ladybug --
You want to stay anonymous, understood. But I'm curious: when you say "my sports team," are you referring to a team you compete for or a team you're a fan of?

Anonymous said...

All this does is legitimize the insanely dangerous concept of "hate crime". If a crime is a crime, it has nothing to do with a supposed emotion on the part of its perpetrator.

Murder, rape, assault, theft, and so forth are crimes despite whatever the person doing it thought at the time or against who he thought it. Hatred is not a crime. It cannot be. We cannot tolerate that kind of process or procedure. It must be ostracized, as it were. People who advocate it must be treated as one would someone advocating, say, molesting children or burning the eyes of kittens with soldering irons.

John Craig said...

Remnant --
I couldn't agree with you more. Clock Boy is, in microcosm, everything that's wrong with our society. His family should probably never have been let into the country in the first place. They have absolutely no loyalty to the country. His father was obviously trying to cause a fright with that contraption rigged up to look like a bomb. The boy was never a "scientific genius" and would never have been hailed as such had he been white. The media would have ignored the incident if he had been white. And for Obama to invite him to the White House afterward somehow highlights that Obama himself is really nothing but an older version of Clock Boy.

John Craig said...

Anon --
You're 100% correct. The state cannot be put in the position of mind-reader.

Anonymous said...

Fan of - and I don't mind saying that it's baseball. I loathe football, except for a bit of nostalgia.

Lady Bug

John Craig said...

Ladybug --
Thanks for the answer. There seem to be some very high IQ types who are big fans of baseball, for some reason.

Steven said...

Maybe because statistics are such a big thing in baseball.