When the object of hate is accused of "hate"

There have been a few “hate” crimes in Seattle recently. Last May some out-of-towners—including a young male visiting from Alabama and two from Florida—beat a black male on Capitol Hill. Before anyone thinks that he was just some gang-banger thug type, the five apparently took him to be an effeminate “gay” individual, which generally means that the “thug” stereotype only applied to the perpetrators. This month, a white male, Mitchell Munro Taylor, was charged with “cyberstalking” and hate crimes in regard to Internet postings that were racial and homophobic in nature; his targets were Seattle mayor Ed Murray (who is openly gay) and Councilwoman Kshama Sawant, who is of Indian “ethnicity.”  

Taylor also mentioned that he wanted to kill “Mexican babies.” One of the great ironies of this society is that despite the poisonous atmosphere of hate that immigrants of Latino “ethnicity” often must endure during election cycles, and via the imagery provided by the media (Lou Dobbs, Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter are just the worst “mainstream” examples), this is rarely acknowledged or even believed. The attitude that Latinos are unwanted interlopers, stealing jobs, draining public funds and—despite most being U.S. citizens—not “real” Americans but an alien presence with an alien “culture” can’t help but to have an effect on the psyche of the scapegoated group. This is particularly true of those who are native-born Americans, yet are not “differentiated” in regard to legal status—because they all “look the same.” For some reason, people think that this is “OK”—that it isn’t racist or state-sponsored hate.

In Seattle, however, there is no one who “hates” Latinos, despite the vitriol you read on the Seattle Times’ comments sections whenever the subject of Latinos (illegal or otherwise) makes it into the paper. Only Latinos “hate.” I recall an incident a few years ago in which a Latino was escorted out of Seahawks game because he was drunk. Since alcohol is a “staple” at Seahawks games, I’m sure he thought he was being “singled out” because he was Latino. He was forcibly put in a taxi whose driver was a man wearing a turban, signifying that he was Sikh, who was told to take him home. Most taxi drivers in Seattle seem to be African or South Asian immigrants, so I suppose what followed wasn’t “personal,” just “business.” The Latino male allegedly started ranting about the Sikh’s “ethnicity” and allegedly struck him. He was subsequently charged with a “hate” crime. What if anything the Sikh said that might have exacerbated the situation was not noted.

Now there is this story about how a drunken Latino male named Andrew Belasco charged with “malicious harassment” toward two Saudi Arabian college students “for no reason,” and then for “no reason” threatened to “sexually assault” one their mothers. Belasco allegedly punched one the “victims” when he was ordered off the bus. Again, I find it hard to believe that Belasco simply “went off” on these people without some personal offense being taken initially.  While I certainly don’t condone violence, I can understand where certain feelings derive.

For example, there is a convenience mart/gas station in Kent that I used to stop at on occasion, but no longer do because the proprietors always gave me the impression that they thought  I was there to steal something; they were Sikhs. Other times I encounter immigrants from other countries who speak to me in rude, contemptuous terms that leave me thinking “I am a native-born American citizen, and these people come over here and treat me like I’m something on the bottom of their shoes?” But then I remember that they assume because of my “ethnic” appearance that I am also an immigrant, and because all of the anti-immigrant rhetoric is directed at those of Latino “ethnicity,” they think that they have leave to engage in this particular brand of Americana. Things can be more complicated than that, of course; given that some Latinos are “European” whites, the societal separation between them and those with mixed or indigenous blood also is cause of a great deal of resentment.

Meanwhile, blacks are rarely—if ever—accused of hate crimes, even if some interracial crimes are racially-motivated; the assumption is that they are either just thugs, or reacting from “understood” racial grievances. As seen in the George Zimmerman case, Latinos are also “perpetrators,” although the grievance against them goes well beyond a violent encounter on a dark night whose nature is the exception and not the norm. Yet Latinos are always lumped in with blacks by bigots, with shared negative “traits.” However, Latinos are not allowed to voice opinions about the racism they encounter, and when resentment comes to the surface, it is not taken seriously, or more often, taken as “evidence” of another negative trait.

If you are Latino you can’t avoid a certain amount of self-consciousness about this. No one understands, or wants to. You have to “accept” your lot in life, or the position you have been allotted. If you complain, you are a troublemaker—or worse, accused of a “hate” crime.