Hate Crimes

It is a sad truth that U.S. history is enmeshed with hate crimes. One can argue that the pilgrims fled Europe and the hate felt towards them, and that turned into perpetrators of such hate by taking land from the Native Americans, etc, until we get to what is often considered the resolute pinnacle of anti-hate legislation in the U.S.: The 1969 Federal Hate Crimes Law.

 

Though the 1969 Federal Hate Crime Law was a huge step in the right direction, it was by no means the end of hate in the U.S. Unfortunately, crimes continued to be perpetrated under the monstrous mask of one group being superior to another, as is demonstrated by what happened to many victims, including Matthew Shepherd and James Byrd Jr.

Eleven years later, the Matthew Shepherd and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was signed into law by President Obama in 2009. The law had to be piggy-backed on a defense spending bill in order to reach the president’s desk due to its extensive opposition.

The majority of those in opposition to this bill came from the Republicans. Some Republicans claim they are opposed to the bill because they feel all hate crime laws favors some victims over others. Other Republicans claim they support the 1969 Federal Hate crime Law, which would then invalidate the previous argument, but do not support hate crime laws against traits that are “immutable” Others feel hate-crime laws threaten freedom of speech.

The Matthew Shepherd and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act makes crimes committed against others due to their gender, gender identification, sexual orientation or disability, all hate crimes.

Time has yet to tell if the Matthew Shepherd and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act will cause a decrease in hate crimes, including those against homosexuals, across the U.S. A subtext of this law requires the FBI to keep statistics on hate crimes. This will help us understand what may decrease hate crimes in the future.

Looking at some of the FBI’s most recent statistics from 2009, I was surprised by the striking cliché of the numbers. Let me explain that these numbers are cliché in that they are against minority groups historically disliked; a dislike I naively believed we were done with as a society. Of the 4,000 racially motivated crimes, 2,900 were against African-Americans. Of the 1,500 crimes done to people of religion, 1,100 were done to Jewish people.

Perhaps our society uses prejudice to express a solidarity that is lacking in our heterogeneous population. This type of solidarity is solid like a tumor, and though at first it may seem to bring people together in the long run it will act as a cancer and eat holes in society. The FBI statistics reflect a trend that is not new or (I fear) possibly even dying out. It is not something that is influenced by popular trends but by deep-rooted fears feeding a deadly intolerance of the type that has toppled societies for centuries.

Milgram Experiment Redo

The original Milgram Experiment took on a terrifying side of humanity. The experiment sought to explain what motivates an average person to take part in, or passively allow, mass atrocities like the Holocaust. Milgram’s haunting conclusion was sharp in its simplicity: They did it because someone told them to.


Milgram reported that 2/3 of his study’s participants thought they electrically shocked another human being at the highest possible voltage in response to the eerie line from the social scientist, “The study requires that you continue.”




It seems the question of would humanity behave the same way in a repeat experiment was a question that Dr. Jerry Burger, of Santa Clara University, decided to try and answer. He repeated the Milgram Experiment, with a few tweaks. Primary changes were that participants could not be led to believe the fake electrical shocks went above 150 volts, and he tried to make it very clear that participants could leave at any time.


Burger obtained similar results to Milgram. It does seem that Burger’s experiment was at least a little more ethical. Probably more so than the French game show equivalent where, study participants thought they were on TV, not in a social science experiment. Even the audience was full of unknowing study participants, not actors. The game show experiment found that, encouraged by the crowd, the game show contestants “shocked” another person 80% of the time (the recipient of the “shocks” was an actor).

It makes sense that some level of deferment to authority and mob mentality must be present in order to have a cohesive society. The challenge is to figure out where that cohesiveness ends and personal responsibility starts. At some point in the future we may be able to encourage free will without fear of anarchy. For now, it is the fear of anarchy that makes the line between free will and mob mentality so hard for people to navigate.

Television's Influence

Similarities:

Both the Zimbardo and the Milgram experiments sought to demonstrate an individual's capacity for, and/or ambivalence towards, hurting another human being when placed in a position of power.

Ramifications:

In the Zimbardo Experiment (a.k.a. the Stanford Prison Experiment) some of the young men playing prisoners had mental breakdowns.

No similar reports of mental issues following the Milgram Experiments were reported. 

The Zimbardo Experiment claims that it displays that the very structure of prisons denotes violent behavior.

The Milgram Experiments claims to display that people are likely to obey authority even if it means hurting another human being.

Ethics:

The mere fact that anyone had mental issues at the hands of a psychologist screams unethical. That is exactly what happened in the Zimbardo experiment.

For the Milgram Experiments one can only assumed there were psychological ramifications for the participants (if one believes that there are [psychological ramifications for hurting another human being which the “teacher” participants were led to believe they did).

How Successful:

Both experiments seem possibly skewed towards results the experimenters wanted.

Zimbardo's very verb usage implies he was biased against the guards. Using statements such as "warned of their Miranda rights" opposed to "given their Miranda rights" makes the guards seem more threatening. 

Milgram sought to understand how something like the concentration camps in Nazi Germany came to pass. Although he did stumble upon some unconscionable attributes of human nature, the experiment does seem to disregard historical context of the rise of the Nazis.

My Conclusion About These Experiments: 

Both reminded me a bit of the experiments Henry Murray, a Harvard psychology professor, performed on a group of students, including a then teenage Ted Kaczynski.

If any of the participants, in any of the above experiments, knew what they were signing up for, would they have done so? Kaczynski said he would not have.

 Experiment I would Perform:

Since I am against most animal testing, I am invariably against human testing. Though I think Ted Kaczynski was predisposed to become the UnaBomber, I also believe it is possible that Murray’s experiment pushed him over the edge. The presentation of Kaczynski’s paranoid schizophrenia did not have to take such a dramatically violent turn.

If I were to do an experiment I would like to not have it be geared towards negativity, if that is possible. Maybe grab two strangers off the street and hand one $2 and present the option of giving one-dollar to the other person. Then, of course, both would have to fill out basic demographic info. Maybe it could be used to determine which socioeconomic strata are most likely to share, or if people with kids are more likely to share, etc. Maybe an experiment geared towards having results that reflect the good in people would find positive things in human nature.

At the minimum this experiment could be done indifferent manner making the results less likely to be skewed.

Optional Blog Topic: Contradiction in Our Text?

I've got a lot to say about page 5 in our text. I believe there is a contradiction, or an error in logic, or neither and I am missing a piece of the puzzle.  All of these are possibilities.

At the end of the second full paragraph there is the sentence: "Durkheim explained the difference in terms of social integration: Categories of people with strong social ties had low suicide rates, and more individualistic categories of people had high suicide rates."

Okay, so this sentence was used to sum up the sociological explanation of why wealthy male WASPs are more likely to kill themselves than those who are not wealthy and not WASP. And it appears that this is for good reasons, like "strong social ties."

Two paragraphs down (right above the heading "Seeing Sociologically: Marginality and Crisis") the second to last sentence says something that could be a contradiction. It states "Applying Durkheim's logic, the higher suicide rate among white people and men reflects their greater wealth and freedom, just as the lower rate among women and African Americans reflect their limited social choices."

So, which is it? Is the lower suicide rate due to strong social ties or due to limited social choices? Which would Durkheim really apply?