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cgod  ·  2692 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Post-election spate of hate crimes worse than post-9/11, experts say

In almost all cases harassment law deals with either conduct in the schools and workplaces or behavior that you'd consider stalking.

Harsh or threatening language without physical contact or property damage is almost never a criminal offense, and if it is it's going to misdemeanor.

Go look at the SPLC and the incidents they have been tracking.

    The day after the presidential election, my friend, a black female freshman in a [Boston area college], heard a white female student say: "this is their punishment for 8 years of black people." When she turned around to see who said it, the white student laughed at her.

    In Louisiana, a woman was harassed by white men in a passing car which was a frequently reported "venue" of harassment since election day:

    I was standing at a red light waiting to cross the street. A black truck with three white men pulled up to the red light. One of them yelled, "Fuck your black life!" The other two began to laugh. One began to chant "Trump!" as they drove away.

    White males in black Ford truck were calling a black family in vehicle next to them N*ers, and yelling that it was Trump's country now. Truck sped off before I could get license info.

None of these are crimes. All of them are contemptible but none of it is criminal.

USA today is getting their information from SPLC and CAIR, both of whom have an agenda to push, neither of which is going to be especially careful in the use of the term "Hate Crime," probably because they would be more than happy to see certain types of protected speech become crimes. A few of the incidents listed could be considered criminal, mostly misdemeanor.

Many of the incidents occur in schools. There is a good chance that some of this activity could turn into some kind of civil claim, either schools being sued because they didn't protect children from harassment or getting sued because they punished students for federally protected speech. Still not criminal.

It's an piece conflating an increase in reports of racism from groups that fight racism with an increase in racist crime with no facts or figures that aren't mingled up with protected speech and real crime and has no methodology beyond "these are some reports that we've collected".

I'm sure it's good for page views.