Comments on: Man Arrested in Suburban New York Cross Burning

By: In case anyone was wondering about escalation… « Feline Formal Shorts

In case anyone was wondering about escalation… « Feline Formal Shorts — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 18:47:57 +0000

[…] got crosses burning. We’ve got attempted lynching “just for fun.” It is getting worse and worse and […]

By: Silenced is Foo

Silenced is Foo — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 17:11:04 +0000

E to the M - it’s actually pretty complicated, but it makes sense when you look at it.

IANAL, but I’ve had it explained to me:

Remember that there is no specific “don’t burn a cross on a black dude’s lawn” law. Hate crimes are about intent - so the idea is the’re assault, and then there’s a hate-crime version of assault, when you assault someone because of their race.

Because of the first amendment, you can’t arrest someone for hating alone, or for thinking hateful thoughts, or even for saying hateful things. There has to be a real actual violation of another human being for it to be a hate crime. A clear threat, at least.

So, for something to be a hate-crime, it has to violate a real law. And hate-crimes generally only include severe violations. When the laws were drafted, nobody really thought about hate-crime credit-card fraud or things like that.

Now, consider, beyond the hate, what non-hate crime a cross-burning represents. Assault? It’s too ambiguous for judges to clearly define it as a threat. Trespassing? Hardly a severe crime.

So the odd concept of “Giant offensive trespassing flaming statement of raw, disgusting hatred” kinda slipped through the massive hole in hate-crimes legislation made necessary by the first amendment. So it took lawmakers a while to properly plug it.

By: E to the M

E to the M — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:37:59 +0000

Wait, cross burning wasn’t considered a hate crime until 2006?

By: Zafrod

Zafrod — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 01:53:07 +0000

Oh wow… I live in Tarrytown. How did I not hear about this? Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Maybe I’ve been paying too much attention to national, not enough to local.

By: Rachel S.

Rachel S. — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 00:21:03 +0000

Yeah, there’s always a “he’s not racist” defense. I don’t know what the hell they think a racist is.

The incident actually happened in Cortland, which is probably less tolerant than Peekskill. But I tend to think that Westchester is fairly tolerant–especially compared to Long Island and even compared to many parts of New York City.

By: Jake Squid

Jake Squid — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 22:43:42 +0000

I used to live in Peekskill and I find the cross-burning there to be surprising. Although Peekskill & the surrounding towns have a long history of violent racism (see the Paul Robeson incident), these days it’s a lot more subtle.

I do like that he’s defended by friends as not being a racist. Even though he told them he intended to burn a cross. Nope. Not a racist.