Those who still believe
Vermont law enforcement agencies reported 25 crimes motivated by bias last year, compared with eight in 2015. The 2016 figure is the highest number since 2005, according to a VtDigger story published in Friday’s Valley News. Sixteen of the incidents were racial in nature. Five were based on religion, three on sexual orientation and one was related to a disability.
Yes, the numbers are small, and could reflect to some degree an increased willingness by victims to report bias-related offenses. But they are alarming nonetheless, especially in light of comments from civil rights experts in the Attorney General’s office, the Vermont Human Rights Commission and in private law practice. All three told VtDigger that they were not at all surprised by the increased number of incidents given what they had seen and heard from Vermonters in recent months. Julio Thompson, director of the civil rights unit in the Attorney General’s office, said, “There’s a part of me that’s relieved the numbers aren’t much higher, based on what we’re hearing from the community.”
The Vermont numbers mirror the national situation. The FBI’s annual report showed a 4.6 percent rise in hate crimes across the United States from the previous year, including a 19 percent rise in those targeting Muslims. And as The Washington Post pointed out, there are so many holes in the data that the true extent of crimes motivated by bias may well be significantly understated.
As a legal matter, we have long expressed discomfort with singling out crimes motivated by bias for enhanced penalties, on the grounds that doing so essentially criminalizes a state of mind. But as a social and political matter, all people of good will must be deeply troubled when racial, religious and gender minorities are targeted for criminal acts because of who they are. It is profoundly at odds with American ideals.
Karen Richards, executive director of the Vermont Human Rights Commission, and Robert Appel, a civil rights lawyer in Burlington, both attributed the rise in hate crimes to the venom unleashed during last year’s presidential campaign. President Trump’s rhetoric “has loosened the bonds of constraint of hateful people,” asserted Appel, who noted a parallel rise in reports of bullying in Vermont schools.
Of course, the ominous progression from thought to expression to action is complex and rarely direct. But it is undeniable that white supremacists and other groups that foster hatred have been emboldened by Trump’s ascent. Social media have provided the ready means by which these groups’ odious message can be amplified so it reaches thousands of disaffected individuals who nurse their personal grievances in physical, social and psychological isolation. Horace Walpole, the 18th-century English writer and politician, recognized the dangers of such alienation long ago. “We are not made for solitude,” he wrote to an increasingly reclusive friend. “It gives us prejudices, it indulges us in our own humours, and at last we cannot live without them.” Indeed, such a person may come to regard his prejudices as his very identity.
What is to be done? Under the First Amendment, the only remedy for hate speech is more and better speech, calling out prejudice for what it is and at every turn defending those at whom it is aimed. Standing in solidarity with persecuted groups and individuals is the way people of good faith can try to make America good again.