GLBT X-post Hate Crimes Against LGBT-Americans and Jews Rose In California in 2008

[Behind the Aegis]

11/14/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
In 2008, in the lead up to the Prop 8 ballot fight, hate crimes against gays and lesbians rose significantly. While hate crimes against two specific groups rose significantly, biased motivated crimes over all dropped. Hate crimes rose by two percent in California in 2008 over 2007. Of the increase, the largest was against LGBT-Americans and Jews. Hate crimes against LGBT-Americans rose by twenty-eight percent, and accounted for almost a third of all the crimes.

As a note of caution, hate crimes are not simple categories. A person may fit into multiple categories and the hate crimes may fall into several categories. For instance it is possible for someone to be African-American, gay, and Jewish. Thus, adding up all the numbers from the different categories might result in a number far in excess of the 1,397 reported crimes.

More than half the crimes were committed based upon a person’s race or ethnicity, with the majority of those being against African-Americans.

Of the two categories which saw the biggest rise, hate crimes against Jews rose the most. In 2008, there were 184 threats and assaults against Jews in California, a rise of thirty-seven percent. Crimes against LGBT-Americans rose to 440 crimes.

The rise in hate crimes against these two groups likely has different origins. The rise in crimes against Jews likely has its roots in the economic uncertainty of the last year. While the stereotypes of the wealthy Jewish business mogul are inaccurate, many people tend to believe them. Thus, they tend to blame Jews for the economic problems that they, themselves, are facing.

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In General Discussion

[FreeState]

1. Thanks for the cross post:)

Hopefully one day we will see the decline in Hate Crimes of every kind.

[Behind the Aegis]

2. NP. I hope the same.

There are usually indicators as to increased attacks on certain groups based on recent events. Anti-Semitism seems to rise in times of financial crisis (Madoff, etc.) and a few other instances. I would predict an immigration bill which "threatened" the right would result in attacks on Hispanics/Latinos (or anyone resembling a Latino/Hispanic). It is possible there would be an increase on other "immigrant" groups, such as Asians. It seems whenever a bill is passed for or against GLBT, attacks rise against our group. I wonder if any type of study has been done on the correlation between hate crimes and political/recent events?

[NMMNG]

3. Yay Proposition 8

Studies have shown the passage of anti-gay legislation leads to increases in anti-gay hate violence. We saw that trend play out last year when Proposition 8 was passed in CA. Anti-gay legislation gives the bigots and bullies validation for their hatred for LGBT people, and excuses their violence toward us.

[Behind the Aegis]

4. Well thank you very much!

I was just 'wondering' if such a study had been done! Thanks!

[David Zephyr]

5. That's all Palm Springs is: Jews and GLBT.

Which is why I have a home there. My two favorite peeps, by the way.

[JoeyT]

6. I'm not really shocked when I hear this.

I'm disgusted, but I'm not shocked.
It's hard to be shocked when you learn dehumanizing groups of people causes the violence used against them to increase.
The goal of the hatemongers was to dehumanize people that are different to the point people felt good about depriving them of rights. It's not much more of a leap from that to attacking them physically as well.

[joeybee12]

7. So I just finsihed reading The Fixer by Bernard Malamud, and

there's that mentality throughout that the jews are responsible for all the world's ills because they control everything...geesh, nice how nothing ever changes.