HATE CRIME Example

HATE CRIME Example HATE CRIME â€" Essay Example > IntroductionHate crimes are actions that are criminal in nature and may harm certain groupings or intimidate them. They are usually aimed at people who come from minority groups and may be victimized on the basis of any of the following; their sexual orientationtheir racereligionethnicityother minority group factorsHate crimes have been in place from time immemorial. One moment in history was during the Nazi regime in the early twentieth Century. During that time, atrocities, killings and other forms of hate crimes were committed against people who held religious and ideological differences from the majority groups. More hate crimes were eventually perpetuated with the increasing number of blacks in The American Republic; this has been a problem that still exists up to modern day. Most recently, hate crimes have been geared towards people with an uncommon sexual orientation more commonly known as gays or lesbians. This latter group has attracted a lot of attention and has brought about a lot of psychological insights into the reasons why people engage in those hate crimes and what psychological trauma could result from those acts. (Bodenhausen, 1990)Psychological problems that underlie hate crimesInsecuritiesThe human nature is such that when it has been faced with a particular problem which it does not seem to understand very well, it may look for the nearest party to blame. Prior to the September eleven attacks on the twin towers and the Pentagon, there were numerous cases of many Arab Americans who could walk the street freely without fear or intimidation. But after the attacks, Arabs all of a sudden became the objects of scorn, suspicions, verbal abuses, threats, those who had shops had their property looted and some were even killed for the simple ‘misfortune’ of being an Arab. This scenario could most likely have been brought about by the fact that most people were now feeling more insecure. They felt that they had to do something to protect them selves since they did not feel safe within their country. They started viewing those they were unfamiliar with as potential suspects. A professor in psychology at the University of Massachusetts called Ervin Staub attributes such behavior to a reduced level of self importance. When Americans had been attacked by some other group, they felt that their senses of self had gone down and they regarded the world as a hazardous place. (Darley Gross, 1983)It must be noted that not all people are capable of acting out on their feelings of mistrust. Most of them in fact go out of their way to suppress them but there are others who may not be able to control those emotions. This could be the reason why numerous cases of hate crimes were reported at that time. There was a scenario when one driver wanted to deliberately run over a woman of Pakistani origin. Besides that, there was also another case of someone who killed an owner of a gas station in Arizona. There were other less conspicuous a cts that occurred as a direct result of the rising insecurities that Americans felt after the September eleventh terrorist attacks.