Copyright 2000 The San Diego Union-Tribune
The San
Diego Union-Tribune
November 1, 2000, Wednesday
SECTION: OPINION;Pg. B-10:2,7; B-8:1
LENGTH: 831 words
HEADLINE: A
wasted effort on hate crimes
BYLINE: Arianna Huffington
BODY: With less than a week to go before the
election, the NAACP is expending a lot of capital, both political and financial,
on what at first blush sounds like a good idea: a high-profile ad campaign for
hate crimes legislation. A closer look, however, reveals that this campaign has
more to do with the sordid realities of electoral politics than with waging the
good fight for social justice.
It's like the old joke about the cop who
comes upon a drunk crawling around under a streetlight. "What are you doing?" he
asks. "Looking for my keys," the drunk answers. "Where did you lose them?" "Back
at the bar." "Well, why are you looking for them here?" "Because the lighting is
so much better." This is the same muddled logic behind the NAACP's focus on hate
crimes legislation. Like the drunk following the light, many African-American
leaders, with a political investment in the Democratic Party, follow any
exploitable difference between Al Gore and George Bush -- leaving the real
crises, like so many car keys, forgotten and far behind.
"This focus on
hate crimes legislation is stunning and virtually inexplicable," civil rights
leader and president of TransAfrica Randall Robinson told me. "How can this be
as important as incarceration rates, prison building, the inequities of the drug
war, the private prison industry? Yet hate crimes legislation is taking priority
over all these troubling trends that affect millions of African-Americans."
I asked NAACP chairman Julian Bond why hate crime legislation had been
moved to the front burner, ahead of more urgent needs. "I grant you that hate
crimes legislation is a smaller matter," he replied, "but if there had been hate
crimes legislation, all three of the men who dragged James Byrd to death would
have been put to death in Texas." "But you don't even believe in the death
penalty," I pointed out. "That's right, I don't," he answered.
Such are
the contortions of venerable political leaders when partisan politics -- in this
case, inflating the importance of an issue on which there is a clear difference
between Bush and Gore -- takes precedence over the fundamental interests of
their constituents, consistently ignored by both candidates.
Seventy-four percent of those jailed for drug offenses are
African-Americans, and we're incarcerating black men at eight times the rate of
white men. Indeed, the total number of blacks in state prisons has doubled on
the watch of a Democratic administration, and the heady novelty of being "tough
on drugs" shows no sign of wearing off. But it's hard to draw distinctions
between the presidential candidates on these injustices since both of them are
equally culpable of refusing even to address them.
It's no wonder that
young African-American activists are increasingly disenchanted with the old
guard. "We work with low-income people of color all day, every day," says Van
Jones, director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, which works to
reform the criminal justice system. "And all I hear about is
bad schools, police harassment and brutality, and the appalling racial bias of
the drug war. Anybody who came around trying to get people marching and excited
about stopping 'hate crimes' would have a really, really tough sell. I just
can't believe the NAACP is pushing so hard for this."
What is hardly
mentioned in this debate -- or the NAACP's expensive ad campaign - is that 45
states already have hate crimes legislation. And so far, these laws have been a
blunt weapon wielded disproportionately against those they were designed to
protect. Sound familiar?
"It is demonstrable," says Christopher Plourd,
a criminal defense lawyer who has represented a number of clients charged with
hate crimes, "that these laws hit the poor and minorities hardest. It wasn't
meant that way, but that's the way it is." In Los Angeles, for instance, more
than half of the hate crime charges filed in 1999 were filed against minority
defendants.
With 88 percent of blacks voting Democratic in the last
election, an increase in black turnout could be the difference between victory
and defeat for Gore. But even with this political trump card up its sleeve, the
NAACP leadership has made no demands from Gore on drug policy reform -- like
calling a halt to the wholesale jailing of young people of color, doing away
with Draconian mandatory minimums or appointing a drug czar who'll put the
emphasis on treatment rather than incarceration. In fact, the NAACP is spending
$
9 million on an unprecedented effort to get out the black vote
for a candidate who hasn't said a word about policies so clearly detrimental to
these voters.
Instead of upping the ante on issues that affect the lives
of hundreds of thousands of African-Americans, they've been bluffed into bashing
Bush on hate crimes legislation -- turning a winning hand into just another
squandered opportunity.
Huffington can be reached via e-mail at
arianna@ariannaonline.com.
LOAD-DATE: May 21,
2002