This year seems to have been full of hatred, turmoil, and attacks amongst many different groups of sexual orientations, races, religion, and more. It leaves us wondering if there is any ounce of hope for changes within our society and the melting pot of thoughts and beliefs that practically make up the U.S.A. There have been a lot of shootings, most of which a majority would consider hate crimes because the victims have been Black men, women, and children and members of the LGBTQ community. The shooting that I would like to discuss is the Charleston shooting that occurred last year on June 17th, 2015.
Jacobs and Henry (1996) talk about how the media does play a major role in how other people behave. It states exactly what everyone has been thinking . . . that the media may be responsible for triggering hate crimes. For example, when two Black children reported that several Whites had sprayed them with white shoe polish, the media gave the incident tons of publicity. However, weeks later, the New York Police Department failed to investigate and completely abandoned the case and it was rumored that the accusation was a lie. Of course, the media stayed mum about it. This is what has been happening lately, the media knows exactly what will cause tension between two different groups of people and that's what they choose to report on and give a lot of attention to. The media isn't the only source that is triggering hate crimes; it's everything else around us also. The U.S.A has more issues regarding inequality than other countries do. It is common knowledge that behaviors and mentalities are learned, we aren't born with hate instilled in us. We don't know about his family history, but we do know that there are a lot of racist advertisements and comments still being made 'till this day that leads Whites to believe that they are the superior race.
It is believed that we are truly at war, or that a race war will start, because of the many attacks against African Americans and there is only so much that they can take. As many studies mention, African Americans are victimized more frequently than any other group, which is extremely unfortunate. There are a lot of motivating factors for why hate crimes happen to different groups and why it happens to one group more than another, and we can agree that it has mostly do with power and control, just like robbery, rape, assault, and other crimes that are committed against groups of people, or even individuals.
The article both confirmed what I already knew but I also learned a few things from it. I knew that media does trigger certain behaviors but I didn't know that it was as bad as people going out and killing each other and trying to justify it by blaming what they watch on television. I think some people are too old to make those types of excuses. Children are understandable but adults should know better. The rise of gun shootings has definitely called for a huge, nationwide debate on whether the second amendment should be protected or whether it should be abolished.
Works Cited
Jacobs, James B., and Jessica S. Henry. "The Social Construction of a Hate Crime Epidemic."
