Hate Crime On Tape

[Stand Your Ground]

Last Thursday, 49-year-old Jack Price, an openly gay man, was attacked right outside of his home by two individuals yelling anti-gay slurs. Price suffered a broken jaw, fractured ribs, collapsed lungs, a lacerated spleen, and had to be placed in a medically induced coma. This brutal hate crime, caught on a surveillance video, comes just as the Senate prepares to cast the final vote on the inclusive hate crimes bill. We can't afford to wait a single day more for this law.

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/video?id=7062457

[Dóchas]

holy shit thats brutal. my thoughts are with him and his family. i hope some day his attackers are put through the same thing or worse

[Stranger Than Paradise]

That is a truly sickening ordeal these bigots have put this men through. We can only hope he makes a full recovery and these men are brought to justice.

[Stand Your Ground]

I heard they caught both the men and to my surprise, I guess (according to the propaganda news) both of them were Hispanic...?

[proudcomrade]

both of them were Hispanic

So? Matthew Shepard's murderers were Anglos.

[Il Medico]

I heard they caught both the men and to my surprise, I guess (according to the propaganda news) both of them were Hispanic...?
Why would this surprise you? Do you think there are no minority homophobes?:confused:

[Mujer Libre]

Unfortunately being the victim of one kind of discrimination doesn't necessarily make people more progressive/accepting.

[ellipsis]

LGBTQ equality is a must for any revolutionary platform.

[Il Medico]

LGBTQ equality is a must for any revolutionary platform.
It's a must period.

[bcbm]

This brutal hate crime, caught on a surveillance video, comes just as the Senate prepares to cast the final vote on the inclusive hate crimes bill. We can't afford to wait a single day more for this law.

what would the bill have done to stop this gay bashing?

[Il Medico]

what would the bill have done to stop this gay bashing?
Nothing. The only thing this will do is increase the jail time of the assailants if they are caught by upping the Charge from Battery/Assault to a hate crime.

[bcbm]

Nothing.

that was my point.


The only thing this will do is increase the jail time of the assailants if they are caught by upping the Charge from Battery/Assault to a hate crime.why is sending people to prison for longer a good thing?

[Il Medico]

why is sending people to prison for longer a good thing?
Never said it was necessarily a good thing, but personally I wouldn't mind seeing gay bashers behind bars a bit longer.

[bcbm]

as communists i don't think we should be supporting state measures to strengthen the prison industrial complex and make more money at the expense of human lives, however vile those lives may be.

[The Accomplice]

These attackers are filth! What the hell would make a person so insane that they would brutally beat an individual over something as petty as sexual preference? What a bunch of scum.

I hope Mr. Price has a full recovery and I wish him the best.

[Jazzratt]

We can't afford to wait a single day more for this law.

Au contraire we can wait for this law. It's one thing we can definately wait for. I'd still happily be waiting for it until the stars burn their last and all laws mean nothing. What we can't wait for is the end of conditions that cause this kind of attitude to arraise, therefore we can't wait for an end to heteronormative patriarchal structure which breeds people like those who commited this crime as a logical extension. Hate crime laws aren't going to do any of this they will simply prop up the prison industry, as bcbm pointed out.

Also throwing more bigots in prison isn't going to do anything to reduce their bigotry. It's not going to do anything about their proclivaty for crime (if anything it will do the opposite). If anything I imagine that groups like the Aryan Brotherhood will be able to spread their influence even further - their sales pitch probably proving quite popular to someone serving an even longer sentence for a "hate crime".

[The Red Next Door]

Welcome to the real world of bastards, fascist and sickos

[TC]

The bourgeois state protects private capital, but it also sometimes fulfills legitimate and publicly useful functions in the same manner that a socialist state does. Jailing people for hate crimes, (like jailing people for murder, rape, torture, serious assaults, providing a fire department, in many cases providing health care and education, and so on) is one of these cases where the state is doing exactly what we want it to do, exactly what we would have it do if we controlled it. Its an instance where bourgeois interests actually converge with the public good, which happens sometimes. We shouldn't discourage it because it just means that people under the existing social structure will suffer more.

[Forward Union]

The bourgeois state protects private capital, but it also sometimes fulfills legitimate and publicly useful functions in the same manner that a socialist state does. Jailing people for hate crimes, (like jailing people for murder, rape, torture, serious assaults, providing a fire department, in many cases providing health care and education, and so on) is one of these cases where the state is doing exactly what we want it to do, exactly what we would have it do if we controlled it. Its an instance where bourgeois interests actually converge with the public good, which happens sometimes. We shouldn't discourage it because it just means that people under the existing social structure will suffer more.

My only objection here is that National health for example is not an instance of the ruling class' interests overlapping with the general public's, but rather a concession they made in order to ensure greater stability. They would remove this service if they could. Same with the fire department etc.

Murder is illegal because if it wasn't, people would look elsewhere to respond to it, their own courts etc, which would de-legitimise the state. In other words, they uphold that law in order to prevent a power vacuum. not because they care about people getting killed.

[bcbm]

Jailing people for hate crimes, (like jailing people for murder, rape, torture, serious assaults, providing a fire department, in many cases providing health care and education, and so on) is one of these cases where the state is doing exactly what we want it to do, exactly what we would have it do if we controlled it.i don't see how sending people to horrible, repressive institutions that promote more bigotry, violence and anti-social behavior and generally destroy prospects for any sort of successful reintegration to society is an example of the bourgeois state doing what we want, and i find it troubling if that is what you would do if the working class were in power.

[ls]

Is it just me, or is homophobic crime especially becoming more common as of late? Just my two cents, I'm not sure what is inspiring it particularly at the moment either.

[Glenn Beck]

i don't see how sending people to horrible, repressive institutions that promote more bigotry, violence and anti-social behavior and generally destroy prospects for any sort of successful reintegration to society is an example of the bourgeois state doing what we want, and i find it troubling if that is what you would do if the working class were in power.

It is a lesser evil than impunity. But let's be realistic, it does not matter what we root for, as long as capitalism is in place the bourgeois state will do whatever it wants to with regards to crime. There is no point wringing our hands about it as if we could prevent criminals from being punished or give them an appropriate and just rehabilitation/punishment (pick your poison). Rooting for the pigs is just as lame. In the real world, sometimes assholes go to jails (good) which enable and exacerbate their fucked up behavior (bad). I'm pretty ambivalent towards the whole thing.

As to your last point, the same actions mean different things in different contexts. A bourgeois state employs repression in a manner that furthers bourgeois interests, a worker's state employs repression in a manner that furthers worker's interests. This applies even if the means of repression are superficially similar.

[bcbm]

It is a lesser evil than impunity. But let's be realistic, it does not matter what we root for, as long as capitalism is in place the bourgeois state will do whatever it wants to with regards to crime. There is no point wringing our hands about it as if we could prevent criminals from being punished or give them an appropriate and just rehabilitation/punishment (pick your poison). Rooting for the pigs is just as lame. In the real world, sometimes assholes go to jails (good) which enable and exacerbate their fucked up behavior (bad). I'm pretty ambivalent towards the whole thing.

i think we'd be much better off spending some time and resources on pushing for prison reform, insomuch as this can exist under bourgeois rule. certainly not all prisons are equal and so long as prisons are going to exist we should struggle for them to be a place that can improve the lives of prisoners and prepare them for reintegration into society, instead of just pumping out career criminals who will keep refilling the jails and hurting others.


As to your last point, the same actions mean different things in different contexts. A bourgeois state employs repression in a manner that furthers bourgeois interests, a worker's state employs repression in a manner that furthers worker's interests. This applies even if the means of repression are superficially similar.

i don't think "repressive institutions that promote more bigotry, violence and anti-social behavior and generally destroy prospects for any sort of successful reintegration to society" are in worker's interests, period, whoever is running them.

[Il Medico]

Is it just me, or is homophobic crime especially becoming more common as of late? Just my two cents, I'm not sure what is inspiring it particularly at the moment either.
It is indeed. Here in the states there has been a resurgence of campaigning for LGBT rights spurred on by the legalizing of gay marriage in some states and its banning in others. When an oppressed group starts standing up for itself the bigots usually come out in full force (i.e the Civil Rights Movement).

[Janine Melnitz]

What we (LGBTQ folks) "can't afford" is not to arm ourselves. He probably could've gotten out of that alright with just a box cutter.

[Stand Your Ground]

Why would this surprise you? Do you think there are no minority homophobes?:confused:
Well I figured there probly was but I just never heard of such a thing.

[Jazzratt]

Well I figured there probly was but I just never heard of such a thing.

Really? It was quite a big issue after proposition 8 in california where a large number of the homophobic voters were black. It's also often used by liberal whites to feel better about themselves a "sure some of us are homophobic but it's really rampant with those blacks/hispanics/arabs" mentality.