In a comment on my post below on the fake hate crime at Claremont, Gabriel Rossman asks a good question:
In my selective perception it seems that with the exception of fraternity “ghetto” parties and other acts of hate speech that are grossly insensitive but harm nobody’s physical person nor property, a very high proportion of contemporary campus racial incidents are fake. So my question is, does anyone know of any verified hate crimes involving physical violence or vandalism on a campus? Does anyone know the ratio of fake to true serious campus hate crime accusations? How many convictions have been made in the last 5 or 10 years for this sort of thing? These aren’t rhetorical questions, I’m genuinely curious since faking a crime to create sympathy for a political cause is rather bizarre behavior, though obviously not without historical precedent (eg. the Reichstag fire).
Erin O’Connor quoted this question and is collecting answers/comments here. If you know of any “real” hate crimes, please post your responses there rather than here.
As I must have mentioned before, I am deeply skeptical of the whole concept of hate crimes. Although motive is taken into account in meting out the punishment for many crimes, I remain doubtful that a racist or sexist purpose makes a violent assault any more culpable than a racially or sexually neutral violent assault. Others, however, disagree, and it is to those others that I would like to pose a question:
If, say, slashing tires, smashing windows, and spray-painting racist grafitti deserves greater punishment if it is classifed as a hate crime, should not lying to federal investigators as part of perpetrating a hate crime fraud also be subject to greater punishment than every day, garden variety lying to federal investigators?
This is a response to your question, also posted at fenstermoop.blogspot.com
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John Rosenberg is, like Erin O’Connor, covering the ridiculousness at the Claremont Colleges over a fake hate crime. Refer to those sites and associated links for the news; here we do commentary.
Anyway, Rosenberg uses the discussion to express his skepticism over the basic idea of hate crimes. He goes on to ask this question of defenders of hate crimes: “If, say, slashing tires, smashing windows, and spray-painting racist grafitti deserves greater punishment if it is classifed as a hate crime, should not lying to federal investigators as part of perpetrating a hate crime fraud also be subject to greater punishment than every day, garden variety lying to federal investigators?”
That’s an interesting question and I’ll hazard an answer.
No, I don’t think so, at least not as a general principle. I think Rosenberg has created a false parallel.
I myself am skeptical about hate crimes. I think as practiced they reflect a certain self-righteous and overwrought sensibility, as evidenced by the goings-on at Claremont. I think they are prone to double standards, as with the incident at Cornell in which attacks on whites by blacks in which racial animus almost certainly played a part are overlooked. And I think the problem they seek to fix is nowhere near as significant as proponents believe.
But let’s not talk about hate crimes in practice. The concept is overused and abused. But what about hate crimes in theory?
Here, skeptics hold that motivation really ought not to count. A cold-blooded murder is a cold-blooded murder, whether accomplished with a racial aim in mind or for hire.
But that clearly makes no sense. A crime committed to one person with the aim of effecting a populace is quite different from a garden variety crime against an individual. No one would doubt that assassination is different from murder for hire. Or that murder can morph into terrorism and that terrorism can morph into an act of war, as we established on 9/11. It is odd that the Right is quick to consider hate crimes in narrow legal terms, but that they despair when John Kerry does the same with terrorism.
It is quite true that hate crime proponents are too quick to assume we are but one step from a return to lynching. And hate crime skeptics are correct in seeing dangers in that hair trigger, self-righteous mentality. But, even if lynchings are as remote as skeptics believe, they are still possible. They did happen and could happen again. Would a skeptic like Rosenberg deny a culture’s right to judge such a crime more harshly than murder for hire?
Looked at this way, a fake hate crime may or may not require a higher level of punishment than normal false testimony. The question would not turn on a bogus parallel construction, but on a real world question: whether the effects of faking a hate crime are dramatically more serious than simple false testimony.
There’s little question that the Claremont fake hate crime has cultural ripple effects that are negative. It is not quite as clear to me that those negative effects are quite as noxious as the difference between lynching and murder.
The answer to this comment seems pretty simple to me.
Blacks murder whites in far greater numbers than whites murder blacks. Read the FBI statistics if you don’t believe me.
Here again, a motive is read into white murder of blacks that is not read into black murder of whites. The motive is purported to be an express desire, in the godawful language of the left, to “oppress.”
I, however, have personal experience that leads me to believe that blacks also use violence against whites for what might be deemed political purposes… preventing whites from integrating or even having full access to black neighborhoods and cultural events and institutions. Without relating the entire story, I will tell you that I have faced a concerted campaign of violence from black thugs because I (a white man) dared to live in a black community.
I don’t think the respondent has elaborated at all. fenster moop has once again stated the liberal maxim: black on white violence is somehow solely criminal, while white on black violence is, per se, political as well as criminal.
This is nonsense. fenster moop is simply telling us which party he favors in a political dispute. He’s on the side of blacks. He thinks whites are guilty of a kind of original sin. All well and good, but that says nothing about the sanity or necessity of hate crime laws.
Fenster Moop said no such thing. Where did ol’ Fenster ever take the side of blacks against whites? He acknowledged that hate crimes in practice are used to advance paleoliberal views. What he said was: if a crime against an individual is simultaneously a crime of terror–even an act of war–against a people, it is entirely appropriate to judge its consequences in a larger framework than that of a simple criminal act. Fenster would say the same of blacks terrorizing whites, or of Saudis flying planes into buildings.
According to fenster moop’s theory that a crime against a populace is different than a crime against an individual, then it follows that a fake (white on black in this case)hate crime should also be considered a crime against a populace in that it slanders a whole group of people (white students at Claremont), casting suspicions that each white person is guilty, creating a chilling effect on whites to speak out against some of the “remedies” put in place as a result, etc.
Stephen wrote:
Blacks murder whites in far greater numbers than whites murder blacks. Read the FBI statistics if you don’t believe me.
This is only meaningful if you ignore that whites comprise a larger percentage of the population than do blacks and that whites should therefore make up a larger percentage of the victims.
Looking at the 2002 FBI data, and using 2000 Census data to predict what percentage of the victims of each racial group of murderers should be white and black, I see that while neither black-on-white nor white-on-black murder reaches the predicted levels, meaning that murder is being kept “within the community,” whites are 2.9 times more likely than blacks to kill someone of the opposing race.
In other words, whites appear to have more of a preference for killing blacks (6.8% of their victims, as opposed to 12.3% of the population) than do blacks for killing whites (14.3% of their victims as opposed to 75.1% of the population).
The statistics Mr. Nelson presents are a stunning indictment of black violence against whites, and yet Mr. Nelson somehow paints the opposite picture. Go look for yourself.
Blacks, who comprise less than (I’m not sure) 6% of the populace murder more whites (483) in absolute numbers than the whites, who comprise something near a majority of the populace, murder blacks (227). That’s right. Mr. Nelson, you sent me there. What in the world are you talking about? Let me repeat that. Blacks murder 483 whites. Whites murder 227 blacks. A decided minority commits more murders than the majority… and this is an indictment of whites.
The depths of the self-hatred from which white men (and I’m assuming Mr. Nelson is white, although I may be wrong) is now so astonishing that I cannot find a word to describe it. Is this some sort of group psychosis?
This discussion has become, quite frankly, insane. I gather that virtually every respondent to this post is a white man. I guarantee you that no other group, racial, sexual or otherwise would indulge in the debased self-humiliation that now seems just normal for white hetero men.
I see this all the time. Educated, white, hetero men who think that they are acting and thinking in a rationale way have, in fact, departed this earth for another universe in which they agree to universally disarm, humiliate themselves and root for anybody but themselves.
This is, I repeat, insanity. Mr. Nelson, what in the world do you think you are doing? Do you think that you will be rewarded in some way for this insanity? (Well, yes you will if you work for a university or in the right kind of corporation.)
Mr. Nelson,
I’m just blown away by the trick you’ve played… so, let’s settle this with an excusion into reality.
I know that a black man can walk in any white neighborhood in America without fear. I know this because I work with black musicians who routinely accompany me without fear into white neighborhoods.
I dare you to walk with me through Bed-Stuy at high noon. Better yet, let’s do it with a black woman walking between us.
I am so tired of this intentional dismissal of reality. Contact me if you’ve got the guts. I lived near that neighborhood and I know how to defend myself.
nobody important,
actually the Claremont professor who faked vandalism of her car is a white woman (and judging by her last name, a gentile) so technically the imaginary incident was a white on white crime, even though the imaginary motive was animosity to blacks and jews. the slurs written on her car were not supposed to have been directly about her but about her sympathies. this is not the first time a white liberal has faked a racist hate crime on themselves. For instance in February of 1998, Holly Martin, the student body of Guilford college claimed to have been assaulted by racists who were opposed her policies.
I don’t think Rosenberg has created a fake parallel here at all.
Prof. Dunn did not merely report that her car was vandalized. She represented this vandalism as a hate crime, which bumped the incident up to the next level.
If vandalizing a car just for the heck of it is not as bad as vandalizing in the process of committing a hate crime, then falsely reporting the hate crime has got to kick that offense up to the next level too.
I have a personal theory, and I’ve had it for years, that the wrongness of a particular action is a measure of the wrongness of accusing someone of it either falsely or frivolously. So if, for example, being a racist is very wrong in Joe Blow’s book, he should be very cautious about accusing someone else of being one.
If we’re supposed to take hate crimes seriously, then they have to throw the book at Prof. Dunn, and anyone else who fakes one.
I gotta say I agree with Stephen on this one. I live in a lower-class neighborhood myself. Its understood that as ‘whitey’, there are certain streets where Im not welcome, while black kids run through my yard daily. On a walk to the store I’ve been shouted at that “I’m in the wrong ‘hood” and I’d “best get my ass moving.”
Now, if I called the cops Id be laughed at and told that yes, I was in fact in the wrong neighborhood and should be more careful where I walk. Whereas if I were black in one of the white neighborhoods I’d have the entire NAACP banging on doors threatening lawsuits.
When you live in circumstances where crime (particularly violent) is a daily part of your neighborhood life and that the vast, vast majority of the perpetrators are black, its difficult to comprehend how anyone could think that white on black crime is anywhere near the level of black on white. Its PC run amok.
Stephen, I’m sorry if you misinterpreted what I wrote as an attempt to trick you. I explicitly did not dispute that “blacks murder whites in far greater numbers than whites murder blacks,” but rather said that the statement has little meaning as it ignores that the pool of potential victims is disproportionately white, and offered other statistics which I believe present a clearer picture. Here was my thinking, with calculations, so that you may better understand the argument:
According to the 2002 FBI murder statistics, there were 3386 total murders committed by blacks and 3309 by whites. The 2000 Census reported that whites comprised 75.1% of the U.S. population, while blacks represented 12.3%.
Based on these statistics, the following projections can be made:
– Of the 3386 murders by blacks, 2543 (75.1%) of the victims should have been white
– of the 3309 murders by whites, 407 (12.3%) of the victims should have been of black
But those are not the numbers reported by the FBI, which were:
– of the 3386 murders by blacks, 483 (14.3%) of the victims were whites
– of the 3309 murders by whites, 227 (6.9%) of the victims were blacks
As I stated in the earlier post, the numbers for both groups are below projections, meaning that both groups are disproportionately murdering those within their own race. (Editorializing, I assume that segregation is the primary cause of this, with less than 12.3% of the people most whites come into contact with being black, and less than 75.1% of the people most blacks come into contact with being white.)
So just how much off were the projections from the actual numbers?
– 75.1 / 14.3 = murders by blacks of whites were 5.3 times less likely than projected
– 12.3 / 6.9 = murders by whites of blacks were 1.8 times less likely than projected
And finally, what’s the difference between these two discrepancies?
– 5.3 / 1.8 = 2.9
The following is actually a much simpler way of arriving at the same number, though it isn’t what I used for my original post:
According to the 2000 Census, there are 211,460,626 whites in the United States, and 34,658,190 blacks. Again, the 2002 FBI murder statistics report 227 murders of blacks by whites and 407 murders of whites by blacks.
– 211,460,626 / 407 = 1 in 437,807 chance of a randomly selected white person being murdered by a black person
– 34,658,190 / 227 = 1 in 152,679 chance of a randomly selected black person being murdered by a white person
– 437,807 / 152,679 = 2.9
Therefore, in 2002, within the U.S., a random black person was 2.9 times more likely to be murdered by a white person than was a random white person by a black person.
Nels,
Lies, damn lies and statistics.
Didn’t the fact that blacks were over 6 times more likely to commit a murder than whites bother you when you did your calculations? You are using two different baselines in your analysis, and therefore your results are off by a factor of 6. You found that murder by blacks of whites were 5.3 times less likely than projected. However, since blacks committed murders at a rate 6.25 times higher than whites, the actual rate is 6.25/5.3 or 1.18 times more likely (see calculation below).
In other words, they made it up in volume. However, unless you know the circumstances for each of the murders, these types of calculations are meaningless. For example, what percentage of the white murders of blacks occurred in the course of a crime being committed by a black (e.g., a white policeman killing a black robber)? Should that count the same way as a white robber killing a black?
For the math challenged, the numbers are as follows. If the black murder rate was the same as the white murder rate, then if whites murdered 3309 people, blacks would commit 12.3/75.1 (the respective ratio of the populations) = 542 murders. Now if these murders were randomly distributed throughout the population, then 75.1% of them would be of whites. Therefore there should be 542 x .751 = 407 murders of whites by blacks. However blacks committed 483 murders of whites. Thus the percentage of black murders of whites is 483/407 = 118.6 percent.
Richard, your calculations are accurate but don’t address my argument. Let me try to explain my point once again, using a somewhat visual example:
Imagine a vast room in which all the white and black murderers are standing. Immediately, you notice how disproportionately represented blacks are as murderers. A headcount shows that they in fact comprise a slight majority, surprisingly high considering they account for only roughly one-eighth of the overall national population. This is interesting, but irrelevant to the argument at hand. Now the bodies of all the victims, white and black, are brought in and set at the feet of their corresponding murderers. A careful counting shows that 14.3% of the black murderers are standing beside white corpses, while 6.9% of the white murderers are standing next to black corpses. It appears that black-on-white murder is more prevalent than white-on-black murder until you remember that the pool of potential victims, essentially every person in the U.S., did not consist equally of whites and blacks. 75.1% of those black murderers should be paired up with white corpses while 12.3% of the white murderers should be standing alongside black corpses. The actual percentages are less than expected for both groups of murderers, but by a significantly larger margin for black murderers than for white murderers.
Your calculations are directed at the actions of the overall population – essentially, how likely any black person is to murder a white person (1 in 71,756 chance), or any white person is to murder a black person (1 in 931,544 chance) – which are skewed by the incredibly high overall murder rate by blacks (1 in 10,235 blacks committed a murder in 2002, as opposed to 1 in 63,095 whites, the factor of 6 you noted). As you wrote, “they [blacks] made it up in volume.” I on the other hand am looking only at the small subsets of black and white murderers in an attempt to determine if either group of murderers is disproportionately targeting those of the other race. In simple terms, blacks sure are committing an awful lot of murders, but is a black murderer more likely to kill a white person than is a white murderer to kill a black person? My finding, when the racial characteristics of the overall potential victim pool are considered, is that no, it is actually the opposite.
Without corresponding “hate crime” data, most of which I would dismiss anyway as being highly subjective, no conclusions can be drawn about whether racial bias affected this discrepancy, but I believe my calculations do at least point to the possibility of racial bias by white murderers, while your calculations instead illustrate, or rather are tied to, the bias of blacks to commit murder. My personal theory of an explanation for the 2.9 factor, however, is not racial bias. I have no data to support this, but despite serial killers and starved babies making headlines, I assume that many of the perpetrators and victims of murder are those involved in other criminal activities such as drug dealing, assault, or robbery, and the motivations or conditions for murder emerge from these pursuits (i.e., rival drug gangs fighting over turf). Blacks are disproportionately highly involved in these criminal activities and so whites who murder someone are more likely than would be expected (from blacks comprising 12.3% of the general population) to have killed a black person.
Just as an aside to something else you wrote, I would be astounded to learn of any policeman in the U.S., acting in his official capacity, who has been convicted of murder for the killing of a robber.
Nels,
I think you are making a good-faith arguement (and making it well), though I do not think your analysis is sound.
You contend that the larger pool of potential white victims accounts for the greater proportionality of black-on-white murder. You could just as well (if your political predilections leaned otherwise) contend that the larger pool of potential white assailants should result in far MORE not less white-on-black crime. And thus, the extent to which this is demonstrably false speaks to the gentility of whites vis-a-vis their black counterparts.
The true key, which you have acknowledged, is that blacks commit murder at far higher rates than do whites. That they murder each other with even greater alacrity than they do whites does not diminish the fact of their inter-racial transgressions.
Your analysis forgives the wildly disproportionate black murder rate to ask whether these many killers aren’t targeting just slightly fewer whites than statistics would project. In short, you are using the greater population of whites to support your position on one side (more victims-yes), while ignoring its implications on the other (more killers-no).
One final note/question: Where are crimes committed by hispanics in the figures you cite? If they are included within the pool of white assailants, then your numerator is extremely inflated from the outset.
Addendum to Nels:
1)What is the single greatest statistical determinant to an area or neighborhood’s violent crime rate? Hint: Not income level, section of the country, or whether a Democrat feels its pain.
2) This is purely anecdotal and it has been asked before, but I wonder at your response. You can be either a black man walking through a white neighborhood at midnight or a white man walking through a black one. Which do you choose and why?
Nels,
One again, see my comment about lies and statistics.
I on the other hand am looking only at the small subsets of black and white murderers in an attempt to determine if either group of murderers is disproportionately targeting those of the other race..
No, you cannot possibly conclude that from these numbers. Since both groups murder people of the other race as a lower rate than their percentage of the population (whites 6.9 vs. 12.3 and blacks 14.3 vs. 75.1), then by your numbers neither group is targeting people of the opposite race.
In simple terms, blacks sure are committing an awful lot of murders, but is a black murderer more likely to kill a white person than is a white murderer to kill a black person?
Wow. I didn’t believe you would attempt to make such an argument. I bet that it is comforting to blacks to know that they are being murdered by fellow blacks as opposed to “racist” whites. Basically what you are trying to argue is that blacks consciously attempt to murder fellow blacks rather than whites. Do you really believe that? If not, then why are you trying to manipulate the numbers so that you get a result that you like? And the fact that you can ignore the elephant in the room (that more than half of the murders are committed by blacks who make up 1/6 of the population of whites) is utterly amazing.
The clear implication of these statistics is that people tend to murder people from their neighborhood. Assuming that lower class people commit more murders than middle and upper class people and lower class people are much more likely to be among their own kind then one can easily explain these numbers. Think of Occam’s razor. But that result would not fit your prejudices, so you ignore it.
However, as I stated in my first post, without knowing the type and circumstances of the murders it is impossible to make any statement about intent. Simply to search though statistics until you find numbers that you like is unconscionable.
StuartT wrote:
You contend that the larger pool of potential white victims accounts for the greater proportionality of black-on-white murder. You could just as well (if your political predilections leaned otherwise) contend that the larger pool of potential white assailants should result in far MORE not less white-on-black crime. And thus, the extent to which this is demonstrably false speaks to the gentility of whites vis-a-vis their black counterparts.
Agreed, if this were a discussion of whether a black person or a white person is more likely to commit murder. I’m not certain how my political views factor into this, but I’ll nevertheless state that I’m opposed to any and all hate crime/speech laws and consider myself sort of an independent/libertarian. My issue with Stephen’s original statement (“Blacks murder whites in far greater numbers than whites murder blacks”) was not one of any personal agenda on my part, as it seems on the issue of hate crime laws he and I are in agreement, but rather that even without knowing the actual murder and census statistics, I knew enough about them (i.e., blacks commit wildly more overall murders than would be expected and whites represent about 3/4 of the overall population) to recognize that his simple comparison was misleading without additional information. I wasn’t trying to refute his statement, as even a quick glance at the FBI murder statistics (which Stephen invited us to research, contrary to Richard’s accusation that I went searching for favorable numbers) shows it to be true, nor have I at any point posited, contrary again to what Richard writes, that racism or racial bias are at work in the disparities I illustrated.
That they [blacks] murder each other with even greater alacrity than they do whites does not diminish the fact of their inter-racial transgressions.
It doesn’t diminish it as a fact, but it does somewhat diminish it as a point of note in a discussion of possible racial bias. Using extreme values, suppose blacks committed one million murders each year, while whites committed only one thousand. If 750 of those one million murders by blacks were of whites, while 500 of the one thousand murders by whites were of blacks, would you not agree that those statistics, from a standpoint of investigating potential racial bias, encourage further research into why half of all white murders were committed against blacks, even though the raw numbers actually show a higher incidence of black-on-white murder?
Where are crimes committed by hispanics in the figures you cite?
Good point. I don’t know the answer, and you’re right that if hispanics are included with whites, it probably greatly skews the numbers. The FBI murder statistics for 2002 list as racial categories only “White”, “Black”, “Other”, and “Unknown.”
This is purely anecdotal and it has been asked before, but I wonder at your response. You can be either a black man walking through a white neighborhood at midnight or a white man walking through a black one. Which do you choose and why?
With both neighborhoods being of roughly equal population, of course I choose to walk through the white neighborhood. Based on the research done for this thread, I know that regardless of my race I’m six times more likely to be murdered in the black neighborhood than in the white one. White neighborhoods are safer environments for those of all races than are black neighborhoods.
Richard wrote:
Once again, see my comment about lies and statistics.
Repeatedly quoting a quote doesn’t make it a truism. I agree with the sentiment, that statistics can be easily manipulated and then presented as authoritative, but I’d still rather work with data and research than rely on limited anecdotal evidence.
Since both groups murder people of the other race as a lower rate than their percentage of the population (whites 6.9 vs. 12.3 and blacks 14.3 vs. 75.1), then by your numbers neither group is targeting people of the opposite race.
Correct, I have noted this repeatedly. Were anyone to attempt to take the position that we are in the midst of a race war, with blacks and whites disproportionately targeting each other for murder, these numbers would help to counter that argument. However, and this is my entire argument, a mere one step beyond what you just concluded, even though both whites and blacks are murdering those of the other race less than would be expected, that doesn’t discount an examination of just how much less each group is killing the other than would be expected.
While I show that there is a disparity between whites and blacks on this figure, and that the numbers for white-on-black murders fall closer to expectations than do those for black-on-white murders, I’ll certainly concede that, in the grand scheme of just about anything, from the topic of this thread to a discussion of murder rates, this is a minor point. Any accusation against me of ignoring the big picture while harping on a tiny inconsistency, and then rolling out mind-numbing statistics to buttress my arguments thereby chasing off everyone who wanted to discuss the focus of John’s post, is perfectly valid. But if there is any forum in which it is allowable to endlessly argue over wonkish minutiae, it is surely an internet message board.
I bet that it is comforting to blacks to know that they are being murdered by fellow blacks as opposed to “racist” whites. Basically what you are trying to argue is that blacks consciously attempt to murder fellow blacks rather than whites.
Show me where I said anything along these lines, as I certainly don’t agree with those conclusions.
The clear implication of these statistics is that people tend to murder people from their neighborhood. Assuming that lower class people commit more murders than middle and upper class people and lower class people are much more likely to be among their own kind then one can easily explain these numbers. Think of Occam’s razor. But that result would not fit your prejudices, so you ignore it.
Rather than having ignored this conclusion, I beat you to it in an earlier post: “I assume that segregation is the primary cause of this, with less than 12.3% of the people most whites come into contact with being black, and less than 75.1% of the people most blacks come into contact with being white.”
Nels,
I’m happy to hear that you oppose hate crime laws. I personally consider them to be the most insidious legislative regime in the history of the republic (the Sedition Act included). It’s no tall order to conveniently categorize your opponent’s actions as “hate” and apply the full weight of legal sanction accordingly. But I digress.
You say: “If 750 of those one million murders by blacks were of whites, while 500 of the one thousand murders by whites were of blacks, would you not agree that those statistics, from a standpoint of investigating potential racial bias, encourage further research into why half of all white murders were committed against blacks, even though the raw numbers actually show a higher incidence of black-on-white murder?”
To respond simply: no. And this is solely a reflection of logical priorities and the muddying of mass numbers. If Appalachian Mennonites murdered all of two people in the last 20 years, one of whom was black, I would spend not a moment–not a nanosecond–pondering why half of all Mennonite victims were black, when less than 1% of black victims were Mennonites.
To return to your example, it would be academic star-gazing to parse the white figures when blacks were slaughtering everything in their path. Once again, I refer to my prior statement; you are leaning heavily on one side of the equation and accepting the fact of black violence as non-racially inspired simply because the black denominator (of victims) is so numerically overwhelming. Just because blacks murder plenty of blacks does not mean they follow a pristine moral compass when they murder whites.
Returning to my own pie-in-the-sky example, Mennotites are NOT the problem here–even if you subscribe to the belief that half of all their assaults are driven by “hate.”
Not to put to fine a point on this, but black violence IS the problem here. I would imagine that once hispanic crime is stripped from the white pool, that true white-on-black violent crime would start to approach Mennonite proportions. Thus, even if the percentages are unpalatable, the fact of racial bias (black-on-white), expressed through violent crime, is unaltered.
Stuart, research on 3rd-party sites shows what you suggested to be true: the FBI includes Hispanics in its White category. The FBI does not itself explain its racial classifications anywhere that I could find and so this initially escaped my notice, for which I apologize.
Unfortunately, this leaves us back with anecdotes and hunches for interracial crime in both directions, as Hispanics now constitute an unknown percentage of not only the white murderers of blacks but also the white victims of black murderers.
Going back to John’s original question:
Thanks to Laura, for writing, “I have a personal theory … that the wrongness of a particular action is a measure of the wrongness of accusing someone of it either falsely or frivolously” because I can now give the answer I wanted to, w/o being guilty of hijacking the thread in a totally different direction.
My answer is No, and does not depend on whether hate crime laws are good or not. It shouldn’t be a greater crime because lying to a federal investigator shouldn’t be a crime in the first place, for one simple reason: it’s not a crime if the investigator lies to you. The reciprocity that Laura wants in crime-fraud ought to be present in law enforcement, too. We already have the concept of punishing someone for lying in court under oath (i.e perjury) but guess what? In that case it is a crime if the government official lies. (I ignore the practical issue that it may be much harder to get the government to convict one of “it’s own”.)