Hate Crimes Did Not Start Nor End with Ahmaud Arbery
Almost two years after Ahmaud Arbery was murdered in his Georgia neighborhood, all three men involved in the crime were found guilty of federal hate crimes.
What made this conviction a daunting task for the prosecution was proving that the defendants had racial motives for the crimes they committed. Thanks to content from the defendants’ online accounts, they made it happen. However I would imagine that not all prosecutors who are tasked with proving racial motives get so lucky.
As this case comes to a close, and the Arbery family can finally move forward, I had a thought:
HOW MANY PEOPLE IN AMERICA HAVE BEEN CONVICTED OF A FEDERAL HATE CRIME?
A google search only left cookie crumbs of potential sources for statistical data. The top searches were all headlines highlighting the Arbery case. However, I found the Uniform Crime Reporting Program 2020 Hate Crime Statistics on the U.S. Department of Justice website.
The 2020 hate crimes data, submitted by 15,138 law enforcement agencies, provide information about the offenses, victims, offenders, and locations of hate crimes. Of these agencies who submitted incident reports, there were 8,263 hate crime incidents involving 11,129 offenses. https://www.justice.gov/hatecrimes/hate-crime-statistics
The report highlighted victims (go-figure), but thankfully there was a small column highlighting statistics on offenders. Based off an analysis of 6,780 known offenders these were the reported racial breakdowns
- 55.1% were White
- 21.2% were Black or African American
- 15.7% race unknown
The report also included that the number one motivation for these hate crimes was race/ethnicity/ancestry (61.8% of the 8,263 hate crime incidents). This is not necessarily a shocker if you have spent time studying criminal justice. One thing to take into account when reading this report, and many other crime reports, is that these statistics are based off reported numbers from law enforcement agencies. Which means that the actual number of hate crime incidents are likely much higher due to all the incidents where victims are too afraid to report or do not trust law enforcement agencies.
While this report did offer some helpful data, it was not what I was on the hunt for: a straightforward number of people convicted of a federal hate crime. So I kept digging on the website. They have a few case examples from Department of Justice (DOJ) press releases, so started there. These case examples range from 2019–2021 and gave a brief synopsis of the crimes committed. It also seemed that hate crimes related to race began to sky rocket during 2021.Of the 62 published case examples, 34 were related to race or national origin (54%), which again, not a shocker.
For this article I decided to highlight two cases both related to race. One from 2019 and one from 2021.
Case Example #1 California(07/19/2019) “Three Members of California-Based White Supremacist Group Sentence on Riots Charges Related to August 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ Rally in Charlottesville”.
These member were charged for conspiracy to riot and for their violence committed at political rallies in California and Virginia. These men belong to a group that identified as “alt-right” and “nationalist” who posted messages related to anti-Semitic and white-supremacist views, which is most likely why this case was given the “race” category. These men assaulted protesters at rallies. The longest sentence given was 37 months in prison.
Case Example #2 Oregon (09/09/2021) “Colorado Man Sentenced to 16 Years for Unprovoked Stabbing of a Black Man”.
The defendant was a 27 year old man, but the snippet does not include his race. And this is something that is more than common in reporting. The publication emphasizes that the victim was a Black man, yet fails to acknowledge the race that the offender/defendant is. Besides that, what is truly wild about this case is the fact that it was unprovoked. The victim was in an adjoining restaurant while the man was having dinner in another restaurant and saw him walk in. The defendant/offender says he “decided he wanted to kill the man, because he was Black”. What makes it even more crazy are the statements he gave to police saying that Black people are “manipulative, lacking morality, and not good people”. Thankfully the man lived. The offender received 16 years in prison.
Something I want to highlight is that both these crimes were committed in what we call blue states in the world of politics, which means these states have people who vote majority democratic. Racism is woven deep into the societal structures of America and therefore can happen anywhere, so be careful not to dismiss the possibility of witnessing a hate crime because it “would never happen here” or were “so diverse”. After reading more case examples I decided it was time to be done for the night. The more I read, the more my stomach began to churn. So many examples of unprovoked attacks. Such intense actions taken against people just because of their race, religion, county of origin, etc. Some of them even involving children and teenagers, but then one more thing caught my eye.
LYNCHING ON IT’S WAY TO BECOME A FEDERAL HATE CRIME
The same day I was reading these examples, COMPLEX posted a graphic on Instagram highlighting that the House passed the “Emmet Till Anti-Lynching Act” on the last day of Black History Month, which would make lynching a federal hate crime. Initially I was surprised that it wasn’t already considered one, so of course I needed to investigate further. The bill gained traction after the gruesome details in the Ahmaud Arbery trial, comparing what happened to Ahmaud as a “modern day lynching”.However, according to USA Today “Since 1900[…] Congress has tried and failed more than 200 times to pass federal antilynching legislation. An earlier version of the bill passed the House in February 2020, but it was blocked in the Senate”. The articles posted made sure to highlight the representatives who voted against it. You can read their responses in the article here, but there really should be no hesitation on passing this. It’s sad to see that some representatives and senators still hold on so tightly and are always more concerned with the law then they are about the actual people they serve. I hope that this bill will make its way formally into law and be signed by President Biden as a mark on his administrations accomplishments.
The point of all this was to demonstrate that hate crimes are still happening across the country daily and they will continue to exist as long as we ignore the racism that was built into each and every one of our lives through socialization. With a long and deep history of slavery, racism and bigotry in America it is going to take a while to undo the past, seek justice and make reparations. Especially as white folk, we need to address our biases, educate ourselves and hold others accountable when we see discriminatory behavior or actions. Hate crimes can really only be lessened by the power of the people; by building a more equal, fair & accepting community around us. Because of Ahmaud Arbery’s death, America will hopefully come to terms with this reality. While his death is unspeakably tragic, it ignited conversations everywhere on hate crimes and for those of us that care, we will continue to seek justice. #buildcommunities #nojusticenopeace #racism #whitefragility #gunreformnow
Don’t Grow Weary,
Sharoll Damron
