A web site called Campus Reform reports,
A conservative student at Orange Coast College has filed a civil rights violation report after a knife was found lying near hateful graffiti messages targeting him by name. . .
“I am personally appalled by the fact my case was never reported as a hate crime, even though in the state of California it is one by law,” Recalde-Martinez continued. “I wasn’t notified that the incident occurred until the case was already closed, and am also shocked [that] all evidence of the incident was destroyed by campus employees before the incident was reported to the Costa Mesa Police Department.”
“Hate crime” is a term that fits with the progressive oppressor-oppressed axis. It is meant to refer to a crime against a member of an oppressed group that appears to be motivated by hatred of that group.
Set aside the question of whether it is possible to tell when an assault/threat includes “hate” and when it does not. I want to make the point that trying to call an attack on a conservative student a hate crime amounts to appropriating the progressive oppressor-oppressed axis in a way that will not compute with progressives. They are not going to see conservatives as an oppressed class. I would advise conservatives not to bother trying this linguistic trick.
“They are not going to see conservatives as an oppressed class no matter how much they are in the genuine minority nor how oppressed they actually are.”
FTFY
If “hate crime” laws only protect groups with which the Left sympathizes but not comparable groups with which they do not sympathize (e.g., blacks but not whites, Muslims but not Christians, gays but not straights), we should get them off the books.
That an argument is not going to persuade progressive ideologues does not mean the argument is fallacious. Anyway, I don’t think the conservative student is trying to persuade his progressive nemeses but fair-minded but politically uncommitted people generally (if any exist).
Incidentally, the conservative student may be wrong about the applicability of hate crime laws to his case. My understanding is that groups defined by political orientation (as opposed to race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.) generally are not protected classes under these laws.
In light of regimes and parties all over the world co-opting and abusing the term to criticize the views of their opponents, a friend of mine has proposed a more cynical and accurate definition of hate speech. “hate speech is anything you, the person in power, hates to hear.”
One could say something similar for hate crimes.
What this shows is the conservatives should be interested in power, because power determines what is and isn’t acceptable.
Being a victim doesn’t connote the kind of power that most conservatives want. The kind of power progressivism gives its foot soldiers is very hollow and mostly is just used to destroy. That doesn’t have much appeal to those already successful.
Determining who a victim is and what should be done about it is a lot of power. That’s what progressives are after. Not to be victims, but to be advocates for victims. At least the leadership.
The question one should ask is why victimhood has holy status and is such an effective weapon against every single foe its been used against. Kling is right that claiming to be a victim yourself only reinforces the power of this meme-weapon. So does tip-toeing around victimhood as a concept.
It would be more fruitful to attack victimhood at the source, rather then arguing over whose a victim. However, there be dragons. Once one goes down the route of questioning moral precepts surrounding victimhood, who knows what one may find.
Arnold, is there nothing that you won’t shoehorn into your beloved conceptual framework? Sometimes thuggery is just thuggery.
I would advise conservatives not to bother trying this linguistic trick.
Too late! Did you watch Donald Trumps 2016 Presidential run with lots of linguitstic tricks? (The linguitstic tricks used different words from Trump.) All that hating on Illegal Immigrants wasn’t just about the criminal aspects of Illegal Immigrants. It was a safe way of complaining about all recent (last 30 – 50 years) Immigrant families. It was distinctly winning votes complaining about Hispanic-, Asian- and African-American Immigrant families.
The Japanese fed their WW2 war machine with victim rhetoric of poor Asian colonized peoples brutalized by evil whitey.
The Chinese have fed their resurgence with victim rhetoric of being beaten since 1840 first by evil whitey and then by evil japs.
Didn’t Hitler feed the Nazis with the “stab in the back” victim rhetoric of losing WW1 through treachery?
It’s pretty powerful.
>Didn’t Hitler feed the Nazis with the “stab in the back” victim rhetoric of losing WW1 through treachery?
Yes, and one of the reasons the Nazi generals gave for not trying to assassinate him earlier was that they didn’t want to reinforce that narrative. (Though that was probably more excuse than reason.)
Yeah, the linguistic trick is perfectly suitable for the goal suggested by @collin. And if (in line w/ @djf) you can use it win over, on net, 10% of the undecideds, it’s effective there too (though I have no idea if you would win, rather than lose, on net, e.g., you may turn off more people than you attract).
Truthfully, though, the real goal is often to preach to the choir and make yourself feel better. Linguistic tricks are magnificently suited for that purpose.
Also, while I don’t know the law here, yes, a linguistic trick could cause opponents to double down and hate or ignore you even more; but if he has a legal leg to stand on, I suppose he could compel his enemies to obey the bare minimum of the law (until they get it changed). Whether you’re Javert or a fever-pitched fundamentalist, or someone aggrieved by them in the past (looking for payback), many do take great pleasure in dominating their enemies, forcing them to do what they do not want to do. (Or it could be more benign. They were doing me wrong. I got them to stop.)
Calling a knife threat against a conservative student a hate crime isn’t a linguistic trick. It is using progressive language against progressives in a rather honest way. It’s not tricky at all.
Trump’s rhetoric deliberately challenges the progressive monopoly on public language in a creative way. Kling is like the conservatives who are very comfortable losing in a polite dignified manner. Trump punches back.
The thing about a hate crime law is that it’s a law, not a rhetorical trick. The police are obligated to enforce it. That’s why the left made such a big mistake passing hate crimes law, it’s primarily going to be used against the left.
It doesn’t work that way in practice though. Prosecutorial discretion gives a lot of room for maneuver, which is inevitably used in an asymmetric manner, incorporating the unwritten assumptions, priorities, and agendas of the people in power enforcing the law, which is true for a lot of laws that are written in a facially neutral manner. We still have a few remnants of a legal structure that prevents explicit articulation of these discriminatory asymmetries in legislation, but honest progressives will admit that these laws are only intended to operate in one direction, and in fact will insist on favoring extra-legal (or aspirationally legal) definitions of terms that make it is the only possible rational direction.
Indeed, the only time one seems any legally effective appropriation of these terms for groups favored by the right is when the right has taken power in a regime, and gets to play the same game with ‘neutral’ laws for the benefit of their own clients. But still, it only works if the agents in all the distinct parts of the decentralized criminal justice system play along the same way. In the US, that usually only happens when the left is in power.
This is exactly why “hate crime” laws should be junked – they are not applied evenhandedly (although, if the laws were written the way they are applied, they would run afoul of the 14th amendment).
Even if these laws were applied fairly, they would serve no beneficial purpose, since every “hate crime” is already a crime, without regard to the “hate” motivation.
Does this even pass the sniff test? A personal attack delivered in the most impersonal way, seems less a threat than an embarrassment. Whenever I hear something like this, the odds are high this is either personal enmity or self perpetrated publicity hoax.
I suffer from ‘claimed-hate fatigue’.
Anyone who has raised children through one of the typically emotionally-volatile periods knows this feeling.
Tantrums aren’t just for toddlers, and about the dozenth time you observe someone going into some pantomime of total meltdown or outrage over some frivolous and inconsequential triviality, all one can do is take a wearied deep breath and roll ones eyes.
The only rule is that you can never, ever take those incidents seriously or be seen to be giving even a single inch of extra sympathy or solicitude because of these unjustifiable displays, because that is the surest way to guarantee more of them.