Hate crime
Hate crime has been going on in many countries for a long time now. Among those countries, America is one of them where hate crime has increased rapidly after its former president Donald Trump’s election campaigns. Hate crime involves harassment and violence on people from certain religion, race, sexual orientation, gender and etc.
Hate crime increased rapidly from the start of Donald trump’s election campaigns. According to the New York Times magazine, “The Scope of Hate in 2017” by anna North responds to the hate crime that is happening and how it is affecting the people in America after it’s president Donald Trump’s election Campaign. North provides evidence of some of the hate crime that occurred after President trump’s racial and negative comments on immigrants, women and Muslims. North’s presented statistical evidence to show the readers how hate comments and actions towards groups of people can mentally and physically destroy them. North talks about our president Donald Trump’s controversial racial comments on women, Muslims, and immigrants. As she states that, “The Southern Poverty Law Center counted almost 900 incidents of hate or bias in the ten days after the election, using a combination of news reports and witness testimony… group counted 1,094 incidents in the first month after the election, and 1,863 between November 9 and March 31.” This statistic reveals the point that North is trying to put across to Americans to realize how hate crime is increasing after Trump’s campaigns. She believes that if a presidential candidate who is influencing thousands of Americans to make America better by targeting specific groups of people, race, gender, then it is not surprising that those groups of people will be able to live in harmony. In addition, North also reveals “A black college student was fatally stabbed in College Park, Md., days before he would have graduated. Two men were killed and another wounded when they tried to stop a man’s hateful rant on a train in Portland, Ore.” These incidents demonstrate that there is a lot of racism in the USA and it gets concealed often and no one brings it up to the public which makes it more devastating. It is a pressing issue and needs to be addressed to the public so there is a call to action. Also, it creates fear in those people because many people get convinced by those statements and take their anger out at them regardless.
According to this article, “Suspect in Kansas bar shooting of Indians apparently thought they were Iranians” by Samantha Schmidt expresses the incident of the man aiming to kill the innocent lives over some hatred that he was carrying within himself. As Samantha states that, “Less than five hours after a man shot up a Kansas bar, killing one Indian man and wounding two other people in an apparently racially motivated attack…”. Samantha indicates killing that Indian men caused by just hatred towards a race. In addition, “The phone call recording supports witness statements that the bar shooter thought the two men, Srinivas Kuchibhotla and Alok Madasani, were of Middle Eastern descent.”. This shows that the shooters intentions were to shoot just them two men because they looked middle eastern. The shooter must have felt threatened by them in which he aimed to kill them. The shooter’s insecurity of people living in America from countries like middle east or Muslims to be specific didn’t come out of just anywhere, but the way Muslims and middle easterners has been labeled for being involved in terrorism. Moreover, Samantha also mentions that, “The FBI announced Tuesday… investigating the shooting as “a hate crime,” … Witnesses reported that Purinton hurled racial slurs at the two Indians and told them: “Get out of my country.” The shooting stirred anger and fear in India… prompting some to link it to xenophobia spurred by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.” It can be concluded that Purinton, the shooter was influenced by the comments that Donald Trump made during his campaigns because before he shot the victims, he shouted telling them to get out of his country. America does not only belong to just one race but many because people from many races, culture, religion helped build America and made it what it is today. Hence, the statements that Trump made during his campaigns about Muslims, and people from middle east put hate in many Americans which led to this guy amongst many to commit this kind of crimes.
In another news article, “Trump words linked to more hate crime? Some experts think so” by Michael Kunzelman and Astrid Galvan clarifies that hate crime has always existed however ever since his election campaigns it has brought attention and bitterness on immigrants, immigration policy and Muslims. Kunzelman and Galvan reveals that hate crime increased by “17% in 2017 which had total of 7,175 hate crime incidents motivated by hatred over race or ethnicity.” This should be a concern for people to understand hate crime should be given more attention for it to occur less not more because only the targeted ones know how scary and the mental trauma they go through because of something one person did and now the whole ethnicity are being labeled for it. The authors also stated that, “ after a terrorist shooting by a Muslim couple that killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, in 2015, Trump made a campaign trail plea for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”…Over the next 10 days, reported hate crimes against Muslims and Arabs nationwide spiked 23%.” As you can see, trump’s words and actions were the cause for the increase of hate crime because after one incident he put a shutdown on all the Muslims coming in U.S. This influence and manipulates his supporters to also believe that all the Muslims are a threat to America and shouldn’t be allowed to enter when America has multiple religion, not just one. Therefore, we should reject politicians’ harsh comments on groups of people and focus more on what they are willing to do to make the country better, not target innocent groups of people and get them killed, harassed for something they have no control over.
Hence, hate crime can occur at any place and when influential figures of our country spreading hate towards certain race, religion, gender it is bound to happen. General public and supporters would believe anything their leader would put across and they think they have the right to hurt those people. Donald trump being the president of our country should not spread hate on anyone because it affects those people mentally and physically which they do not deserve.
Work Cited
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/opinion/hate-crime-lebron-james-college-park-murder.html
