In 1998, the town of Jasper located in Texas became the scene of hideous crimes based on race. Three white men were charged with killing a black man named James Byrd Jr. by chaining him to the back of a pickup truck and dragging him down a rough dirt road for two grueling miles. Four months later police accused two young men of brutally beating a man named Matthew shepherd, a gay college student, and chaining him in near freezing weather. Only to die soon after being found by passing cyclists. These crimes had been built up from words that were meant to incite hatred. The men who had attacked these innocent people came from hate groups. These such groups believed in the ideals that being different was a crime punishable by death. Free speech is protected by our constitution, but there are other laws in place to protect and give everyone equal rights. Many people believe that there should be limits set on certain types of speech. Free speech may be important, but this type of free speech incites people to hate and harm others. It starts a flare that causes people to get hurt, the groups abuse the constitution, and they change children into twisted/racist beings.
Hate speech is not harmless. It causes peoples hatred to boil until they cannot contain it anymore so they unleash it in the form of violence. It generates rage in people, eventually causing them to break the law and harm others. According to the FBI database, while some states have created laws against crimes based on hate, 10 states have none. 40% of the states don’t have laws against crimes based on sexual orientation. That means that in those states killing or harming a person based on whether they’re different is treated as only assault. Don’t you think there should be some form of extra punishment? In July 1999, a gunman killed two people and wounded two others in Illinois through a series of shootings. He had started the shooting spree because of the racist beliefs that he had attracted from his church group The World Church of the Creator. If he had never met this group, they would have never had the chance to slowly poison his mind with biased ideals; to the point that he thought it was necessary to kill innocent people. Another sick example of hate groups causing suffrage is when a man named Buford fired 70 rounds of ammunition into a group of Jewish men, women, and children. Buford had been part of yet another white supremacist group. The common denominator that managed to persuade these men into committing these disgusting crimes seemed to all lead back to sharing ties with the racist groups. If there were laws placed on these groups then these kid’s minds could have been saved, along with countless lost lives.
Hate groups are not just trying to recruit older males, in fact, they are now starting to acquire the attention of children in order to reach a purer generation. There are over 11,500 sites made towards any “ism” you can encounter. Mark Weitzman, director of government affairs validates a good point saying that “the Internet is a powerful thing for hate groups; it’s cheap, instantaneous and global.” As technology advances and becomes easier to use more and more kids are getting online and being exploited to the racist ideals. As the amount of technology increases and it becomes cheaper to own, so does the amount of racist websites. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center “the amount of hate sites increased by almost 50 percent from 1997 to 1998”; an increase of over 80 sites in one year. More than ten years in the future and being more technologically advanced we can assume that there are more hate sites, including other forms of technology that host some from of racism/ biased view. Including video games deliberately made for kids that show racism towards illegal immigrants by shooting them off a fence. Knowing that hate groups are trying to reach your kids by means of the Internet should put you on the edge, especially taking in the fact that you can not always control what your children sees on the Internet. As the amount of people using the Internet inclines, so does the amount of people being “recruited”. “A 45 year old that is not tech savvy and has deep rooted political ideas is probably not as attractive to an extremist group as an impressionable 17 year old plugged into social networking.” states Jay Corzine, sociology professor of Central Florida University. This makes sense, why not go for the people who are looking for a new outlook on life.
The groups use the Constitution/Amendments stating that free speech is the basis of our country, even though they are making a mockery of it. They’re kind of speech degrades others making them less successful and isolated. Even though there is an Amendment protecting free speech, the Fourteenth Amendment states that all U.S citizens must receive “Equal protection under the law.” A professor of Georgetown University says “ Verbal and symbolical acts” such as burning the cross “keep traditionally victimized groups in a socially isolated, stigmatized, and disadvantaged through fear, violence, and degradation.” He states that because of those reasons hate speech violates the 14th Amendment and Title 7. Mackinnon, a feminist scholar also argues that “equality cannot be achieved as long as the first Amendment protects “speech of inequality.”.Along with that statement of the 1st Amendment protecting inequality speech, a 1997 poll done by the Center of Survey Research and Analysis found that 75 percent of respondents favored excluding hate speech from the protection of the first Amendment. Being more then ten years farther into the future the percentage must have increased considering our society has become more open to fighting off racism and hate. One of the biggest examples of our country becoming more race friendly, is the fact that we now have a black president.
The other side believes that doing anything against hate speech is going against the whole constitution and that hate speech does not incite violence. They also argue that other people would feel left out if only some groups were protected by law. Although we are trying to get rid of racist/spiteful talk, we are not trying to get rid of any other speech. In fact we are just trying to follow another Amendment. This type of speech makes the victims of hate crimes less outgoing, and shrinks the chances in life. Although we are trying to change a small part of an Amendment, there should not be so much arguing since each Amendment is a change to the Constitution. There is also hard evidence against most crimes that are done because race, religion, etc showing that Hate Groups have a direct correlation to the people who cause pain due to the prejudiced lies that are told to them. Another survey by the Center of Survey Research and Analysis showed that another 76 percent of people believe that hate crimes should have longer/worse sentences. The surveys displays that people want change, and that hate speech should not be included in America whether it be on the Internet, or in public. Making laws for certain groups would not be unfair to others since such laws already exist, such as longer sentences for crimes against the elderly, babies, disabled, and people who attack public officials. If making laws against hate crimes is unfair, then the other laws that protect certain groups should be unfair also.
Although the First Amendment may be the first change to the Constitution, new precautions are made in order for everyone to feel and to be treated equal. Hate groups incite hate speech, which then leads to violence, as the Internet gains users so do racist websites that target young minds, and the laws and the Constitution which is the basis of all laws have changed as well. As Richard Delgado, A professor of Law at the University of Colorado, and David Yen explain, “ allowing hate speech can increase the likelihood that minorities will become the victims of bias motivated violence.” If you allow people to go around spray painting “Kill the Jews” on synagogues, terrorizing children and adults alike, just because they have the freedom to. Soon they will feel as if they are protected by the constitution, and will keep making advances to showing what they believe in, and its just a matter of time until someone gets hurt. Then you’re supporting the racism and all that Hate Speech leads to.
