Hate Crime Victims
In the United States, racist anti-black bias is the most frequently reported hate crime motivation. Of the 8,208 hate crimes reported to the FBI in 2010, 48.2% were race related - with 70.0% of those having an anti-black bias. Other frequently reported bias motivations were anti-Hispanic, anti-Jewish, anti-Islamic, anti-white, and against a person's sexual orientation.
High profile murders motivated by the victims' sexual orientation have prompted the passage of hate crimes legislation, notably the cases of Sean W. Kennedy and Matthew Shepard. Kennedy was mentioned by Senator Gordon Smith in a speech on the floor of the US Senate while advocating such legislation. The Matthew Shepard and James E. Byrd Jr. Hate crime Prevention Act was signed into law on October 28, 2009 by President Obama. It included sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, the disabled and military personnel and their family members. This is the first all-inclusive bill ever passed in the United States, taking 45 years to complete.
Read more about this topic: Hate Crime
Famous quotes containing the words hate, crime and/or victims:
“I am sorry to say we whites have a sad reputation among many of the Polynesians. The natives of these islands are naturally of a kindly and hospitable temper, but there has been implanted among them an almost instinctive hate of the white man. They esteem us, with rare exceptions, such as some of the missionaries, the most barbarous, treacherous, irreligious, and devilish creatures on the earth.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Crime and bad lives are the measure of a State’s failure, all crime in the end is the crime of the community.”
—H.G. (Herbert George)
“We fetch fire and water, run about all day among the shops and markets, and get our clothes and shoes made and mended, and are the victims of these details, and once in a fortnight we arrive perhaps at a rational moment.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)