Posted on 01/23/2002 3:40:38 AM PST by vannrox
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What About Hate Crimes By Blacks?
By Walter Williams
Creators Syndicate | August 22, 1999
URL: http://www.frontpagemag.com/guestcolumnists/williams08-30-01.htm
IF THERE’S TO BE RACIAL GOODWILL and harmony, at the minimum we must be willing to confront sometimes ugly truths. One of those truths has to do with interracial crime.
We all readily condemn highly publicized racial violence, and rightly so, such as last year's brutal murder of James Byrd by white supremacists in Jasper, Texas. However, there's little notice and condemnation of interracial crimes when whites are the victims.
Last June, Jared Taylor, president of New Century Foundation, in Oakton, Va., held a press conference at Washington's National Press Club to report on the foundation's recently released study, " The Color of Crime." Some of the study's findings about interracial crime were surprising, so much so that I did an independent verification of the numbers.
Since 1972, the U.S. Department of Justice has conducted a National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) to determine the frequency of certain crimes. One category is interracial crimes. Its most recent publication (1997), "Criminal Victimization in the U.S.," reports on data collected in 1994. In that year, there were about 1,700,000 interracial crimes, of which 1,276,030 involved whites and blacks. In 90 percent of the cases, a white was the victim and a black was the perpetrator, while in 10 percent of the cases it was the reverse.
Another finding of the NCVS report is that of the 2,025,464 violent crimes committed by blacks in 1994, 1,140,670 were against whites - that's slightly over 56 percent. Whites committed 5,114,692 violent crimes; 135,360, or 2.6 percent were against blacks.
In 1997, there were 2,336 whites charged with anti-black crimes and 718 blacks charged with anti-white crimes, so-called hate crimes. Although the absolute number of white offenders was larger, the black rate per 100,000 of the population was greater, making blacks twice as likely to commit hate crimes.
Regardless of race, criminal violence is despicable and deserving of condemnation. But far more destructive are the official and unofficial attempts to mislead and conceal. Roughly 400 members of the major print and electronic media were invited to the press conference on "The Color of Crime." According to Mr. Taylor, several asked for advanced copies before they'd consider sending anyone. Only 14 people stayed for the briefing and only a couple reported on the study, most notably The Washington Times and C-Span. One reporter said that he'd like to write a story but he doubted he could get it by his editor.
If the facts were the other way around, everybody from The New York Times and President Clinton to the NAACP, Jesse Jackson and the Congressional Black Caucus would be shouting about it and demanding that something be done. Some might want to keep silent about the facts for fear that publicizing the true nature and magnitude of interracial crime might give, as I've been told, "aid and comfort to America's white racists."
To the contrary, silence is perhaps one of the most effective recruitment tools for racists. They can use our silence for proselytizing disaffected whites with demagoguery about how hate crimes are not important unless a black is the victim, and how no one cares about blacks raping white women and assaulting white men.
Interracial crime has other devastating effects on racial relations. Whites are apprehensive of blacks, and blacks are offended at being the subjects of that apprehension. Whites are less willing to live in black neighborhoods. For the unthinking among us, these and other responses to racial disparities in crime translate into simple racism.
Multi-ethnic societies are inherently unstable, and how we handle matters of interracial crime is just one of the ways that we're contributing to that instability.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University, Fairfax, Va., and a syndicated columnist.
@ Copyright 1999 Creators Syndicate
(Posted to FrontPageMagazine.com 8/30/01)
</sarcasm>
A motorist in Jasper, Texas, is accused of running over and killing a hitchhiker of another race. Sound like the nationally publicized car-dragging death of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper?
If you wonder why you haven't heard any outcry about the new murder, or even heard about the case at all, here's why: This time the suspect is black and the victim is white.
According to authorities:
The victim, Ken Bimbo Tillery, visited a Jasper trailer park Friday night and asked around for a ride home. Blake Little and three others offered him a lift in Little's pickup truck after agreeing on a price of $5 for gasoline. The price increased to $50 by the time they arrived in Pineland. Tillery tried to escape and was chased.
"A couple of the guys jump him and beat up on him, then the driver of the car runs over the guy," said Jasper County Sheriff Billy Rowles. All were suspected of drinking and smoking crack.
Little, who is black, was arrested Sunday on murder charges, the Associated Press reported Monday.
Rowles, who investigated the 1998 murder of Byrd, was quick to claim that race did not appear to be a factor in Tillery's murder. There apparently has been no outcry yet that this case is a "hate crime."
Question 1: If this isn't a "hate crime," is it a "love crime" when someone is beaten and run over?
Question 2: Would it be a "hate crime" if Little were white and Tillery nonwhite? Just as in Orwell's "Animal Farm," under "hate crimes" everyone is equal but some are more equal than others.
Question 3: Why are supporters of "hate crime" legislation so obsessed with the criminal's motive? Tillery is just as dead as Byrd was.
Question 4: Why do most media consider this case not newsworthy? We scan the news wires nightly and saw no mention of this murder until a Texas reader of NewsMax pointed out the case today. The murder of Byrd sparked national outrage, and during the 2000 presidential campaign the pro-Democrat pressure group National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ran a vile ad trying somehow to blame Byrd's killing on George W. Bush, who as Texas governor had opposed bogus "hate crime" legislation.
Question 5: What added punishment would leftists like to give those who commit "hate crimes"? Two of Byrd's killers await execution, something liberals are always crying about, and the third is spending life in prison on the taxpayers' dime.
As the reader who sent us this news tip wrote: "I guess we won't be reading about that in any newspapers or watching it on TV news, huh?" You got that right
www.newsmax.com
This is in the same town as the famous dragging case, but roles are reversed. Why no coverage by ABCNNBCBS?
Granted, some might argue that, when a crime is committed against a person of the majority by a minority, it's not statistically significant. It happens all the time, partly because of the law of averages; if anyone -- black or otherwise -- chooses a victim at random, chances are the victim will be a white person, simply because there are more white people.
But, when a white person commits a crime against a black person, that can't be quite as easily dismissed.
As for me, a crime is a crime, no matter what the races are. We can choose to ignore race -- and judge each individual by the content of his character rather than the color of his skin -- or, we choose to perpetuate racism. There is no middle ground.
I do believe in equal protection of the laws. I wish the law did.
Jerry Pounelle, from his web page day book from this last Monday.
That says it for me.
Who's going to be the politically correct bad guy then?
Any crime by whites is a 'Hate Crime'- any crimes by blacks against whites are 'Hush Crimes'
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