Listed below are the Hate Crime statistics for 2009 collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation under the Uniform Crime Reporting Program. Let me mention that this is the program through which statistics are collected from police forces from all over the country. It is from these reports that we get our national crime statistics for murders, robberies, etc., etc.
After looking at these statistics, I have decided that Jewish black homosexual Hispanics must have a very short life expectancy! Meanwhile, agnostic Alaskan-native heterosexual folk seem to be the safest from hate crimes. All joke aside, it is interesting to look at crime statistics. Why? Because they reflect our cultural tendencies. Wait, you mean hate-crime criminals reflect our cultural dark side? Yes they do. With just about all other crimes, the people involved are not fully representative of the culture. But, hate crimes most reflect those in the culture who are most in tune with a culture’s dark side. You see, people who commit hate crimes target those least likely to receive active support from the culture, those whom other people already look down upon. This does not mean that everyone looks down upon them, but that culturally there is a strong tendency to be negative towards them. If you want to be more educated about legal counseling continue reading this article on their site.
So, look at the statistics. Sadly, they are a dark mirror on our society. Again, not on every individual person. But, these are tendencies that affect all of us. We feel more free to make jokes about the people at the top of the list. We have more trouble in thinking of some of them as our friends. We tend to believe the more negative stereotypes about these people.
So who is at the top of the list? Blacks are still far and away number one on the list. For those who do not believe that racism is still a problem, hate crime statistics do not reflect that. But, you can also see a backlash from non-white folk towards white. Nevertheless, they are likely to suffer a little less than 1/4 of the hate crime incidents as blacks. Jews are still far and away the top religious hate-crime target, but Muslims are going up on the list, which is not surprising given the rhetoric by many. Nevertheless, us Latinos are still ahead of Muslims on hated people (going by number of incidents), which is also not surprising given the anti-Latino rhetoric making the rounds. And, given the current debates on homosexuality, it is not surprising that homosexuals are third on the hate-crime list. In fact, they are in second place behind Jews.
But, look also at the list and remember some of our history. Guess what? Our top hate crime people are still those who were on the top hate list for both the John Birch Society and the Ku Klux Klan. And, if you wonder why your view is that some blacks have an attitude, look at the statistics again. It is not an attitude, it is reality. They suffer over double the number of reported hate crimes of the next nearest group. We have not advanced as much as we thought.
The problem with such statistics is that REPORTED crimes depend on authorities. If pro-life abortion clinic protesters, perhaps praying silently, are taunted and even spat upon by women chanting “Get your rosaries off my ovaries.”, there is a better-than-likely chance that this will NOT be reported as an anti-Catholic hate crime. But if one of the pray-ers has a less-than-charitable moment and calls one of the spitters a __itch, THAT will make the statistics.
You do realize that every group listed on there will make the same claim about their group? Blacks claim hate crimes are under-reported. So do Jews, Latinos, etc., etc. If all the groups are accurate, then the FBI report is simply the least possible number of hate crimes, which is a rather horrendous thought.
Having said that, I do think that crimes against pro-lifers do have a tendency to be classified as something else. But, uhm, as a Latino I do think that some crimes against Latinos are also classified as something else. The reason I use the FBI statistics is that they tend to be the most neutral, as best I can tell.