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"I hate Niggers." These chilling words were spit out by one of the two
mass killers as he pumped bullets into the head of a black student in the second
floor library at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. According to an eyewitness
the killer then stepped back and laughed about his murderous handiwork. The slain
black student was one of 15 killed by Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris in the worst
high school massacre in U.S. history. To explain their rampage much of the media
and public officials quickly drug out the standard "bad kids," "bad
homes" line. But this is far to easy.
The murders were hate
crimes driven by hatred of blacks, Latinos, and Jews. The killers made absolutely
no secret of this. For weeks they and their pals defiantly displayed Hitler idolatry,
pranced around the campus with Nazi style paraphernalia, boasted about playing mock
war games, and took every chance they could to try and intimidate and harass students
especially minority students.
When students repeatedly
warned authorities and police that Harris and Klebold were a menace they did nothing.
And even after police publicly stated that the two probably had help from other students
in their murderous onslaught school authorities still remain tight-lipped about these
"other" students.
But the bigger danger
is that neo-Nazi, Aryan Nation, and Skinhead groups through books, pamphlets, and
legions of internet web sites have deeply infected thousands of young white males
like Klebold and Harris with their hate filled message. The overwhelming majority
of the more than 8,000 hate crimes reported in the U.S. in 1997 were committed by
young white males. The examples of recent hate-motivated carnage are the murders
of Sherrice Iverson, James Byrd, Matthew Sheppard, and Billy Jack Gaither. There
have been deadly assaults on gays, and minorities in Washington, Oregon, North Carolina,
California, and Colorado. In all cases the perpetrators were young white males.
A recent MTV Music
Television Survey revealed that more than 90 percent of young people aged 12-24 considered
hate crimes a "very serious" or a "somewhat serious" national
problem. One out of five young people said that they knew someone who had been the
victim of a hate crime.
The response of state
and federal officials and police agencies to the hate violence threat from men such
as Klebold and Harris still wildly varies. Under the Hate Crimes Act, 12 states submitted
no data to the FBI on hate crimes in 1997, and a dozen states still have no laws
on the books targeting racially motivated hate crimes. Some states permit the prosecution
of hate crimes only if they are committed in conjunction with another crime. Also,
only a handful of states permit judges to increase penalties when racial bias is
proven as the motive for the crime.
Even more disturbing,
more than half of all police agencies still have no hate task force units or specific
procedures for dealing with hate crimes. Littleton is a classic example of this.
Police and public officials there still refuse to call the Columbine High School
massacre a hate crime.
The proposed Hate
Crimes Act of 1999 is supposed to make it much easier to crack down on violent or
potentially violent hate mongers. It would increase the types of hate crimes prosecuted
and the penalties for them. It has been stalled for months in the Senate Judiciary
Committee. Despite the clear evidence that hate violence ignited the Columbine massacre
the measure still isn't likely to budge from there any time soon. Instead Congress
is going in the exact opposite direction and proposing knee-jerk draconian laws that
criminalize all teens.
Meanwhile Clinton
requests that the Departments of Education and Justice compile an annual "report
card" on school safety and hate crimes on school campuses. There is no word
when or whether they will comply. Even though Clinton expressed worry about the racist
remarks reportedly made by Klebold and Harris he advised parents to talk to their
children about the gruesome violence but not about how racial, religious, or gender
hate triggers it.
Klebold and Harris
killed themselves in what police call a "suicide mission." But their deaths
are no substitute for prompt reporting by school officials of hate crimes and tough
enforcement by police of hate crime laws. This is the best way to ensure that what
happened at Columbine High School does not happen again.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is the author of The Crisis in Black and Black. email:
Available through your vendor:
Middle
Passage Press
Tel: (323) 298-0266
Fax: 323) 291-6324
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