Editor's Note: In his Oct. 26 column, "Hate crimes go both ways," David Horowitz states of the six African-Americans responsible for the deaths of three white Michigan youngsters: "Though they were all legally adults, ranging in age from 18 to 23, none of them received the death penalty." In fact, Michigan banned capital punishment in 1847.
_______________HATE CRIMES GO BOTH WAYS BY DAVID HOROWITZ (10/26/98)
	Well, I never thought it would happen! I hardly ever read David Horowitz's "Right On" column because of his tendency to spew right-wing propaganda. But this time I decided to give him a read, and I'm glad I did. While I still find parts of his column that I take exception to, I must concur with the overall point: that the concept of "hate crime" is too politically loaded to encode into our body of law. I would disagree with Horowitz as to the motive behind the desire for such laws. I personally see them as well-intentioned efforts. But I find any law or any thinking that deals in terms of Americans as groups of people to be inherently racist. And I wish to say this: I was mugged in 1991 by two young men who happened to be black. One of them cracked my skull with a club when I went for the pistol the other one was holding to my friend's temple. Stupid, yes. But what I saw in their eyes was the glaze of crack. These were two guys in need of drug money. It was not a hate crime. So I know whereof I speak. And if the situation were reversed, it still would not be a hate crime. Anyone who believes that white men don't mug for drugs or that black people don't get mugged is the racist one, clinging to a cherished stereotype of political correctness. As Horowitz puts it, "The vast majority of white people do not hate or oppress black people, just as the vast majority of heterosexuals do not hate or oppress gays. We need to single out the individuals who do for condemnation and social ostracism. And for the rest of us, it is time to go back to treating all Americans as individuals first, and as members of groups only secondarily, if at all." -- Andrew Wells Nashville, Tenn. David Horowitz is correct to insist that hate crime laws be applied without prejudice to all victims, regardless of which racial combination is involved. He even may be correct that the standard for distinguishing hate crimes from "normal" crimes is too low. But to not see that there is a definite difference is shortsighted. Hate crimes attack more than the direct victim, and serve as a terrorizing message to all members of a group that their rights and liberties are at risk. When German brownshirts rampaged through Jewish shops prior to and during World War II, that was a crime that deserved a punishment that acknowledges its special nature. When blacks in the South were killed for attempting to vote, that too was a special type of crime that transcends the level of the average murder. The American justice system has traditionally considered motive as part of the punishment equation, and so hate crimes too should be weighed as one more factor in our quest for justice. -- Robert Blair For the first time, I have to agree with David Horowitz. I, too, believe that our society has gone to far in political correctness and that "it is time to go back to treating all Americans as individuals first, and as members of groups only secondarily, if at all." This ongoing separation of us in the guise of PC and multiculturalism has only consisted of showing us how different we are, not how much we have in common. While it is perfectly acceptable and urged to be proud of being a Hispanic American or a African-American, calling oneself a white American or an Anglo-American must be said with shame, with guilt, definitely not with pride. White people have long seen themselves outside of race, as not having a race or ethnicity, while everyone else had to belong to an "other." And when ignorant white eyes were finally opened, identifying with whiteness implied a belief in a superiority, and at the same time, required an amount of guilt to balance that belief. What kind of game is our society playing? I believe that in order for our society to grow, white people need to learn that it is OK to be proud of their race. Other races need to see this acceptance not as a threat, but as an embrace of identity that has been forthcoming. In this way, when whites openly accept that they too belong to the group of "other" can we all come together and make some progress in this damaged society. -- Viviane Valvezan David Horowitz begins his discussion with Matthew Shepard and then goes off on a interminable rant about racial violence and political correctness, completely ignoring the very real problem of violence against homosexuals and the reality that these perpetrators are not being prosecuted and convicted for their crimes. If the system was working, and these criminals were being put in jail, then this groundswell of support for hate crimes legislation would not exist. Instead, we live in a country where sodomy laws criminalize homosexuality, fundamentalist "Christians" foster hate against gays and lesbians and national political leaders characterize gays and lesbians as "sick." I'd like to hear a right-winger for once speak out against sodomy laws as a violation of individual rights. But no, they're all too silent, and their silence is a complicit nod of the head toward the type of people who tortured and murdered Matthew Shepard. -- John Kirk St. Louis, Missouri David Horowitz's vile and journalistically shoddy polemic against hate crime legislation serves only to reinforce the widely held perception that the most vocal torchbearers of the right wing are bigoted blowhards. Most striking is Horowitz's implied belief that to liberals, anytime a white perpetrates a crime against a nonwhite, or a straight person against a gay one, it automatically qualifies as a "hate crime." Only the tiny, knuckleheaded ultraliberal fringe (or their equally knuckleheaded, but also hateful, ultraconservative counterparts) would dumb down the hate crime issue by defining it this way. -- Adam Kirszner When David Horowitz wrote his piece regarding hate crimes and how supposedly blacks are getting away with them, he forgot to mention that it was Wisconsin's hate crime law that was brought before the Supreme Court, and was found to be constitutional. And the defendant in the case that was brought before the Supreme Court was a black who had assaulted a white and had been given additional time in jail for committing a hate crime. In the future, Horowitz should do just a little more research before he runs off at the mouth. -- Ross Sauer The entire foundation of Horowitz's column on hate crime laws is based on falsehoods. To examine the motivation of a crime, says Horowitz, is to venture into dangerous legal territory. Untrue. Motivation has always been at the core of determining how justice will be dispensed. Horowitz paints another upside-down image when he says hate crime statutes make some victims more important than others. Again, a canard: Hate crime laws seek equal application of the law. A cross-burning is not always mere vandalism. Dragging a man to his death from the back of a pickup truck isn't always mischief-cum-manslaughter. In a Salon article just days before the Horowitz column, we learned there is already a body of criminal defense law in which those who attack gays are claiming a self-defense rage; they are obtaining acquittals and reduced charges by claiming they were threatened by the homosexuals they assaulted. Horowitz is at his most shameful when he portrays black-on-white crime as hate crime, and says that black-on-white crime is routinely ignored by our media and the judicial system. He cites a string of cases in which whites were murdered by black and minority attackers, but in NO case did he state the white victims were attacked because of their race. These crimes were heinous, but there was no evidence provided that they would be classified as hate crimes. I, too, have my problems with enacting such new legislation, although not for Horowitz's reasons. I lived in Florida when the state enacted a hate crime bill; later, the state published figures indicating that most people charged under the statute were blacks and minorities who made racial remarks during their arrest by police officers! Perhaps Horowitz should remain silent on hate crime legislation, knowing that eventually, the law will be used to subvert its intention, thus perpetuating the racial divisions these laws were meant to close. -- Chuck Meyer In his column lambasting proposed legislation to extend federal hate crime legislation to various uncovered groups, David Horowitz writes: "It is time to go back to the wisdom of the Founding Fathers who wrote a Constitution without reference to ethnic or gender groups." Could Horowitz at least do his readers the courtesy of reading the document in question before he writes such drivel? The appalling ignorance of our Constitution and our history that the above statement exhibits is simply inexcusable for someone in his position. -- Steven Robert Allen SALON | Oct. 29, 1998

R E C E N T L Y+| AN OPEN LETTER TO GORE VIDAL BY CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

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