A homeless woman was murdered today in Phoenix in what appears to be a hate crime.
A gunman opened fire on a 39-year-old woman and her friend early Saturday morning in what Phoenix police are calling a possible hate crime.
The woman, whose name wasn't released, was shot dead. Her friend, Jeffrey Wellmaker, 48, told police he and the woman were walking in Palma Park, on 12th Street and Dunlap Avenue around 1:30 a.m. when a heavily tattooed, bald White man confronted them.
Wellmaker, who is Black, said the tattooed man yelled, "What are you doing with that White woman," said Detective James Holmes, a Phoenix police spokesman. The friends, who are homeless, didn't respond and kept walking, Holmes said. Investigators don't know why the couple was in the park, police said.
The tattooed man followed the pair for a couple blocks. By the time the couple reached 4th Street and Puget Avenue, Wellmaker saw a white four-door newer model sedan with tinted windows drive past them, Holmes said. In the passenger seat was the tattooed man.
That's when Wellmaker said the passenger pulled out a shotgun and shot two blasts at the couple, Holmes said.
For some reason, probably a weird mix of racism, misogyny and misplaced jealousy, nothing seems to set off white racists like a white woman with a black man. Although these folks are against all interracial dating the reverse doesn't seem to set them off as quickly. Whether it is because of our President or what, they seem to be coming more out into the open lately.
Clearly this is a hate crime, and clearly this murderer is a menace as he tries to enforce his own views of marriage on everyone else by means of murder. Let's hope he gets caught quickly.
Showing posts with label hate crimes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hate crimes. Show all posts
Saturday, October 03, 2009
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Hate crimes up nationally, lowest in a surprising place.
The FBI released statistics showing that hate crimes rose nationally by 7% over the previous year.
Nationally, 7722 hate crimes were reported. Hate crimes are defined as crimes in which the motivation is the victim's race, religion, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation.
The majority of the hate crimes reported were racially motivated. Of these, 2/3 of them involved a black victim. 20% of them involved a white victim, and the remainder involved a victim who was targetted for being of some other race.
19% of hate crimes involved religion. Of these, nearly 2/3 involved attacks against Jews.
Approximately the same percentage as religion being the motivation were carried out against victims based on sexual orientation, with male homosexuals the most frequent targets.
There is one silver lining in all of this, and it is a most unexpected one. The states with the fewest reported hate crimes, in fact none in one and only one in the other for the whole year, were Mississippi with no hate crimes reported, and Alabama with one.
Yes, you read that right. Mississippi and Alabama.
Mississippi was the state whose racism was famously associated with the movie 'Mississippi Burning,' about the murders of three civil rights workers by the Klan in 1964. It was the home state of such notable racists as depression era Governor Theodore G. Bilbo, who liked to write books comparing blacks with monkeys.
Alabama has always been associated by most of us with racial intolerance, of the most violent and malignant variety. The home state of George Wallace was the state where marchers were brutally beaten at the Edmund Pettis bridge, the state where Bull Conner's police dogs attacked peaceful demonstrators, and the state where klansman murdered four black girls by bombing a Baptist church in 1964.
Mississippi and Alabama have always been considered backwards, racist and a hotbed of racial hatred. Hardly the kind of place you'd expect to see setting a national standard for tolerance.
But that's what we see. Let's recall the words of Dr. King in his 'I have a Dream' speech:
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice...
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I'm sure there are still some racists around in Mississippi and Alabama, as there are every place. I'm sure there are still a few klansmen there, just as for that matter there are some klansmen here in Arizona. But for whatever reason, they have become more tolerant, at least when it comes to resorting to violence, than the rest of the country.
And I call that a miracle. Maybe the rest of the country should see what has changed there.
Nationally, 7722 hate crimes were reported. Hate crimes are defined as crimes in which the motivation is the victim's race, religion, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation.
The majority of the hate crimes reported were racially motivated. Of these, 2/3 of them involved a black victim. 20% of them involved a white victim, and the remainder involved a victim who was targetted for being of some other race.
19% of hate crimes involved religion. Of these, nearly 2/3 involved attacks against Jews.
Approximately the same percentage as religion being the motivation were carried out against victims based on sexual orientation, with male homosexuals the most frequent targets.
There is one silver lining in all of this, and it is a most unexpected one. The states with the fewest reported hate crimes, in fact none in one and only one in the other for the whole year, were Mississippi with no hate crimes reported, and Alabama with one.
Yes, you read that right. Mississippi and Alabama.
Mississippi was the state whose racism was famously associated with the movie 'Mississippi Burning,' about the murders of three civil rights workers by the Klan in 1964. It was the home state of such notable racists as depression era Governor Theodore G. Bilbo, who liked to write books comparing blacks with monkeys.
Alabama has always been associated by most of us with racial intolerance, of the most violent and malignant variety. The home state of George Wallace was the state where marchers were brutally beaten at the Edmund Pettis bridge, the state where Bull Conner's police dogs attacked peaceful demonstrators, and the state where klansman murdered four black girls by bombing a Baptist church in 1964.
Mississippi and Alabama have always been considered backwards, racist and a hotbed of racial hatred. Hardly the kind of place you'd expect to see setting a national standard for tolerance.
But that's what we see. Let's recall the words of Dr. King in his 'I have a Dream' speech:
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice...
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I'm sure there are still some racists around in Mississippi and Alabama, as there are every place. I'm sure there are still a few klansmen there, just as for that matter there are some klansmen here in Arizona. But for whatever reason, they have become more tolerant, at least when it comes to resorting to violence, than the rest of the country.
And I call that a miracle. Maybe the rest of the country should see what has changed there.
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