We have been discussing the national debate over hate crime laws and the standard for investigating particular cases but not others as in the recent case out of Cincinnati. A new controversy has erupted in Chicago where a woman, Susan Pedersen, says that she was attacked in her car with her children in a black neighborhood by a mob yelling that she did not belong in the neighborhood. She is white. However, two alleged attackers were charged only with misdemeanor criminal damage to property. While the case has received relatively little attention and more details would be helpful, critics have charged that a black driver surrounded by a white mob in such a circumstance would have resulted in both a state and federal hate crime investigation. There is also a question of how the police and prosecutors have charged this case generally as a property damage case even without the alleged racist motivation of the mob.
The attack occurred near the University of Chicago where I went to school. The mother had just dropped a friend off at the University of Chicago when she stopped at a red light and found her car surrounded by several dozen young people. She says that they were yelling racial slurs about her being white and smashing her windows with the children screaming inside. The group even reportedly used a bicycle to smash the window when their fists did not suffice.
As I have mentioned in prior blogs, I often heard accounts of white students and family members entering into some nearby neighborhoods and being surrounded and even roughed up due to their race. One of my sisters and a friend once went into such a neighborhood by accident and two African-American officer pulled them over to tell them that they could not stay in the neighborhood because they would likely be targeted due to their race. Likewise, when I was in college, I drove off campus and was similarly confronted at a red light by about five men who told me to get out of the neighborhood and tried to open my door while calling me racial names. For the record, this was one of only a couple times that I have faced such racial anger and I would not attribute that conduct to the vast majority of neighborhoods with predominantly African-American populations.
There are obviously countervailing stories of African-Americans facing the same response in some white neighborhoods. Some of those cases have received national attention and resulted in hate crime prosecutions or special enforcement efforts.
The question is when such crimes should be defined as hate crimes if they are motivated by race. It is not clear why some cases are immediately characterized as possible race cases and subject to federal intervention while others are not. Conversely, some have criticized the hate crime laws more generally because of what is perceived as undefined standards in enforcement as well as the ability to charge crimes directly linked to the conduct like assault. The laws also raise free speech issues in some cases.
My greatest concern is that an attack on a mother and children in a car is viewed by the police and prosecutors as simply a misdemeanor property offense and not assault or other crimes. Even if this is not to be investigated as a hate crime, it was clearly an assault on this family if the account is true. Thus far, the police and prosecutors appear to be undercharging this offense as a purely property offense in my view. Even removing the race element, there is still a car with broken windows and a terrified family who merely appear to have driven down the wrong street. Of course, if there are additional facts that have not been reported like some traffic dispute or altercation, we should be told about it. If this mother’s account is true, the handling of the case seems deeply troubling.
Source: ABC
http://youtu.be/yMhpN9zVfmk
Tell me, how are voter suppression laws not divisive? The black community knows exactly what is going on.
Ah, the new right wing talking point must be to push bipartisanship. I guess they don’t really want any of us to remember the divisivness that was Number One on the agenda after Obama was sworn in. I recall when Jonah Goldberg said bipartisanship was baaaaaaddddd. I recall a time that people didn’t even call Obama their President, as if he wasn’t elected by 53% of Americans voting, twice. Now we are to believe conservatives want the divisivness to end? LOL. Too funny.
I can’t believe we’ve sunk so low into Liberalism that now you’ve got to wait for a buyer to come along with the “right skin color.”
Karen
This IS the purpose and goal of Liberalism/Progressives: to divide people in order to control and keep power. The Liberals are obsessed with classifying people by race, ethnicity, beliefs, political classifications and all sorts of other labels like LBGT. They do not WANT people to have commonality with each other or to feel that they might actually be able to work together, understand each other or live in tolerance.
If the people decide to work together, not hate each other on the direction of the Liberals, then they might figure out that we don’t need the Liberals or a big government to control our every move or thoughts.
Indoctrinated hate and loathing of each other. Dividing groups into warring camps. This IS the goal of Liberalism/Progressives/Socialists. If there is peace and harmony, we don’t need them. So they create acrimony, hate and divisiveness.
“the despicable KKK ”
The KKK belongs to past eras of American history. I’m sure you can find websites for various self-styled “klans,” but you can also find a website for the Communist Party USA:
http://www.cpusa.org/
Shocking, we need a new Joe McCarthy. /sarc
Seriously, who benefits by keeping the ‘races’ at each others throat? The people clearly are not benefiting by the racial divide, so who is? Follow the money; follow the power and then destroy them. This is not about liberal or conservative because abuse of power happens throughout the political spectrum. It will take rational, critical-thinking people to set aside ideologies and expose these social monsters that could care less about those that ignorantly support them.
Whose fault is it when young black men grow up so depraved that they try to smash their way into a car with a mother and children screaming in terror inside, for no other reason than because they hate her because she’s white?
The mother’s who instill their own hatred of whites in their children from birth.
The Reverend White’s who preach racial hatred and bigotry from their position of authority.
The activists like Al Sharpton who brainwash them into thinking that every single time a black person gets hurt or shot by a white officer, it’s racism, without a single shred of evidence or conscious critical thought.
These young kids had so much potential at birth, but the people they trusted and respected around them raised them in an environment of hatred and lack of responsibility. It’s tragic for all involved.
This whole mess, which is escalating in our country is the fault of the politically correct liberals. Unfortunately, conservatives have shut their mouths, eyes, and ears, like a bunch of monkeys and nothing is getting done, because no one wants to be “accused” of being racial or prejudice.
Too h_ _ l with PC, do what is right and clean up this country.
All those who voted for this current president are to blame for what is happening in this country.
Easily the best part of the Glorious Obama Administration has been all the racial healing.
I believe it. As I’ve said earlier, my husband was attacked leaving a job in Compton. The nice lady told him he had to hurry up, finish the job, and leave right away because it wasn’t safe for white workmen in that neighborhood. Sure enough, young guys started throwing bottles at his truck before he made it to the freeway.
When was the last time that a black driver was surrounded, stopped at a red light, with a white mob smashing in his windows, screaming racial epithets? The 1960’s? How often does that happen now? Because it happens pretty often where a black mob targets whites. Then there is the Polar Bear game.
Any young men of any race, ethnicity, or creed who attack a car with a mother and children screaming inside are gutless cowards who should be ashamed of themselves.
As far as hate crimes go, either we treat all hate crimes the same under the law, or we abolish them. No more preferential treatment for hate crimes against African Americans while we hypocritically ignore others. It’s equal and just or not at all.
And I also agree that property damage is obscene undercharging when the mob was terrorizing this young family. Attempted murder sounds more like it.
DBQ – I can’t believe we’ve sunk so low into Liberalism that now you’ve got to wait for a buyer to come along with the “right skin color.” Since when should skin color become a requisite to buy a house or rent? It’s absurd. Conservatives keep cleaning up neighborhoods, like with proactive policing and Broken Window policies, and Liberals keep ruining them again. The loss of proactive policing caused an increase in homicides of 500% in Baltimore. Way to go, Liberals! Thanks for the “help!” Conservatives keep shaking their heads, saying, “We just cleaned up this mess!”
Plus we just had the thread yesterday how Liberal policies for the homeless have led to them peeing, defecating, tossing out used heroin needles, and literally having prostitutes having sex on the street. Thanks, Liberals! That’s really helpful. Now the homeless still don’t seek the shelter that’s offered, but they have become bold enough to climb into work trucks to sleep and leave needles around.
Inner city blacks, er thugs, er youths, are kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human beings I’ve ever known in my life.
This is clear evidence why reparations for slavery are needed.
And this lady’s whiteness while in a diverse neighborhood was no different than if she carried a confederate flag.
Because white = racism.
Hate begets hate leaving no end to where it might lead.
I wonder now if we may be getting the idea that creating a category called “hate crime”, when laws already existed to address what results from hate, was an over reaction and a mistake. As we may be seeing unfolding now, “hate” is a sentiment that afflicts everyone, and rather than making it into a law to deter racism we have instead only exacerbated it.
Can’t wait until Obama’s new HUD plan to relocate these poor put upon black people into high rises in wealthy white neighborhoods comes to fruition. Everyone wants to have these people in their community…..right?
Share the wealth…..lower the property values….raise the crime rates…..ruin the schools…..create instant slums in the middle of what used to be nice areas to live……. What could possibly go wrong.
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/072213-664703-hud-maps-suburbs-in-new-diversity-project.htm
Some bold Atticus Finches need to make a movie out of an event like this. Have some back up troops ready. Send a car with Whitey Women and faux kids into the same neighborhood and have the car stall. If the itShay hits the fan have the cameras rolling and send in the backups with cameras and rifles. Show it for free on the internet world wide. Call it “Welcome To Rahm’s World”.
Well, JT, sorry to say, but I call you out on this one. Not so much of a criticism, but more of an observation. As a highly respected and admired law professor, whose opinions are often sought by members of government on a variety of crucial societal issues, why is it that you have chosen to remain silent on this issue, especially given your personal family association with such an encounter? More of a rhetorical question than anything else. I know the answer. Were you to do so–speak out, in any real or significant way, about the failure to prosecute these crimes to the fullest extent–you would be labeled a bigot and a racist. Your career, most likely, if not over, would take a serious hit. Who wants to be branded a racist? Those speaking engagements– a thing of the past. Your job at the university, well, who knows? We can’t have a racist and a bigot teaching law, now can we? While I completely get and understand your reluctance to make a more pronounced and public stand on the issue, unfortunately, no organizations or high profile individuals–other than the despicable KKK or the demented David Duke–will speak out about what is clearly reverse discrimination. Since these sources are so widely detested and unworthy of respect, their tainted words hold no value. No white Al Sharptons or white Jesse Jacksons. As repugnant these characters may be, in many respects, they have no white counterparts speaking up regarding the blind eye turned toward this type of violence.
Chicago Magazine has done a two part expose on how this Democratic Machine, from the Mayor to the Police Chief to precinct captains have outright lied and called OBVIOUS homicides unknown deaths.
“Forget it, Jake, it’s Chicago.”
I suggest that the media would be boiling if the family had been black. It’s true. Stating that fact isn’t meant to demean or dismiss the issues minorities face but there is a nasty trend that grievances give Those with grievances the right to attack others to let out their “rage”. The perpetrators should be behind bars fir a very long time.
There are obviously countervailing stories of African-Americans facing the same response in some white neighborhoods.
Really?
My greatest concern is that an attack on a mother and children in a car is viewed by the police and prosecutors as simply a misdemeanor property offense and not assault or other crimes.
This sounds like the legal system’s version of race norming. In order to minimize the differences in statistics we have to downcharge this type of event and upcharge others. This is the inevitable result of policies that assume statistical differences prove racism.
Reblogged this on This Got My Attention and commented:
Shocking!
Shhhhh! Wrong color combo.