Hatred and the Law

    We are all shaped by the experiences of our youth.  I spent part of mine in areas  where the races were segregated by law.
     I remember it as a source of anxiety and confusion.My grandmother's housekeeper, who became a beloved mother figure to me, came and went only through the back door because she was black.  I was admonished by ostensibly good-hearted adults that black people were genetically inferior, and that it was unfair or even cruel to expect them to bear the full burdens of citizenship.  I couldn't understand how all the values I was otherwise taught could be inverted on the issue of race.
    Years later we moved up north, and I learned why one writer called it the Piety Belt.  There I found Jim Crow living quite comfortably, albeit in subtler disguise. To this day  I remember our town  as the most thoroughly segregated community I have ever seen.  My friends and neighbors sheltered in the notion that racism was peculiar to the American South, and that it was therefore someone else's problem. It required of them no personal examination of behavior or conscience. Not a whit. And it received none.
     Jim's disguises would later be penetrated. One of the nastiest school desegregation battles in the country's history was fought in Boston.  Segregation of the Philadelphia public schools was contested for years -- in the City of Brotherly Love.  Fear, frustration and anger among African Americans have erupted in cities of every region.
     Fast forward to the present.  Is America a better place on issues of race? Yes. Is it the kind of place we ought to want? No. As a national columnist reminded just last week, bias still is "sadly, embedded in American culture."
    Events remind us as well.  The "N" word remains a red flag for violent boobs, and for some of them a license to kill.  Last year a group of white teens in Mississippi sought out a black stranger and murdered him for sport. They joked about it over burgers afterward.  They were, of course, people of a certain sort. But unless they came from Mars, they were nourished by a climate of attitude toward race.
    The climate is  manifest in other ways, and in other places. The New York City police department is today being credibly accused of racial profiling. The charge is so widely leveled at law enforcement that no sentient American above the age of 10 needs an explanation of the phrase "driving while black."  Elements of the immigration debate are  tinged with racial hostility. So is  some of the vitriol directed at the president of the United States.
     Bigotry is not limited to matters of race, of course. The form specifically on the mind of that national columnist was homophobia. And he was making an odd argument. He said the Rutgers student convicted of committing  hate crimes against his gay roommate should not have been prosecuted.
     The details are both sordid and grim.  Dharun Ravi videotaped his roommate, Tyler Clementi, in a sexual  encounter with another man. Ravi then invited other people to watch the video. He tweeted that Clementi was gay.  Soon afterward, Clementi committed suicide.  Ravi now faces prison and deportation to his native India.
    The columnist, a law professor, wrote in part: " ... legally speaking, Ravi did not cause the death, nor was it reasonably foreseeable.  Of the millions of people who are bullied or who suffer invasions of privacy, few kill themselves. ...
    "For his stupidity, Ravi should be shamed by his fellow students and kicked out of his dorm, but he should not be sent to prison for years and then banished from the United States. ...
    "The problem with broad (hate crime) laws like New Jersey's is that they come too close to punishing people for what they think.  Bigotry, including homophobia, is morally condemnable, but in a free country it should not be a punishable offense. ...
    "Ravi did not invent homophobia, but he is being scapegoated for it. Bias against gay people is, sadly, embedded in American culture. Until last year, people were kicked out of the military because they were homosexuals."
    These notions might suffice if life were a matter of nicely balanced abstractions. But it isn't.  In real life, certain attitudes can do real harm.
     Homophobia mimics racism in holding that some people are not worth a full measure of respect. And it can reach ghastly extremes. In 1998, gay college student Matthew Shepard was tortured and murdered in an incident so notorious that a federal hate crime statute bears his name. My newspaper last Sunday told the story of Calvin Burdine, sentenced to death in 1984 for the Texas murder of his male partner: "Burdine's court-appointed lawyer, when not dozing, referred to his client as a 'fairy.' The prosecutor, meanwhile, demanded the death penalty by arguing that gays actually look forward to the rewards of prison life." (The death sentence was later reversed.)
    Homophobia widely takes forms that are less dangerous but still offensive to a proper sense of right and wrong.. A friend with a gay pride sticker on his bumper learned to ignore the occasional shout of "faggot" as he used the public streets. (Let us note the shouters' assumption that heterosexuals within earshot would  not mind.)   Several gay friends have told me over the years of being ostracized in their own neighborhoods.  As recently as the 1970s, a Hollywood bar and grill featured matchbook covers that said "Faggots stay out." The plain fact is this: In our culture, gay people are routinely the targets of disdain, abuse, discrimination and worse.
     In this climate, Ravi cannot -- or should not -- have failed to imagine that Clementi would feel threatened.    Did Ravi cause the suicide? No one will ever know. Was his behavior worse than merely juvenile and stupid? Yes, it was.
    Any notion that some people are worth less than others is insidious and dangerous.I saw it legally inflicted on black people in my youth. It remains a fixture in American race relations today. As our columnist notes above, until last year it was embedded in the policies of the United States government.
    Hate crime statutes draw a fine line, yes. But it's an important one. As in the case of Ravi and Clementi, people who pour gasoline on embers can rightly be held accountable for what happens next.  American citizens should not have to fear their neighbors -- or their roommates.