After the murder of 75 year-old Mohammed Saleem in Birmingham, people came together for a vigil. Credit: ITV.
On June 4, a mosque and Islamic cultural center in Muswell Hill, North London was burned to the ground. The letters ‘EDL’, the acronym of the anti-Muslim group English Defense League, were found graffitied on a nearby wall. Hours after the news broke, EDL members took to Facebook with comments such as “Burn them all”, “love it!!” and “shoulda been full.”
hate crime
Mapping hate across U.S.Data visualization company Floating Sheep has produced a fascinating map of the mainland U.S. which charts the use of hate speech on twitter. The so-called “hate map” shows the frequency of geotagged tweets containing certain certain racist, homophobic and ableist terms, the end result being an interactive map highlighting hate hot spots across the country.
Community supports gay politician following assault
CREDIT: Advocate.com
Oklahoma’s first openly gay state politician is receiving vocal support from his community following an assault which he says was motivated by hate. Jim Roth, a Democrat who served on the Oklahoma Cortwas assaulted outside a bar by three men who called him anti-gay slurs during the attack, according to Policymic.
This is the first in a series on hate crime in the UK.
This month marks the 20th anniversary of the high-profile murder of Stephen Lawrence, a young black man who was killed by a group of white men chanting racist slogans while he was waiting for the bus in London.
Since her son’s murder in 1993, Doreen Lawrence has campaigned for better
community policing and increased opportunities for black and minority ethnic youth in Britain. CREDIT: The Guardian
At the time of Lawrence’s murder in 1993, hate crime laws did not exist in the UK, but by the time the case was tried in 2011 his kilIlers were given sentence enhancements for racial bias, and religion, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity had also been recognized as protected categories under British law.
High school students in Rochelle, GA campaign for integrated prom
CREDIT: Clutch Magazine
High school students in rural Georgia are campaigning to end the racial segregation of dances at their school, according to WSAV3. The four friends behind the campaign, two of them black and two of them white, say it is unfair that they can’t go to prom together.
Since the integration of Georgia schools in the early 1970s, racially segregated proms have been organized as private parties without funding from the school. Campaign organizers say the segregation is strictly enforced, and last year a biracial student who tried to attend the white prom was turned away by police.
Davis, CA community supports victim of anti-LGBT hate crime
CREDIT: Davis Enterprise
Three hundred people in Davis, CA attended a candlelit vigil on March 16 for Mikey Partida, a Davis resident who was badly beaten earlier this month in what police are investigating as a hate crime.
FBI to investigate murder of Mississippi mayoral candidate as hate crime
CREDIT: Alternet
The FBI will investigate the brutal murder of Marco McMillan, an openly gay man who was running to become mayor of Clarksdale, MS, following an appeal from his family and numerous civil rights groups.
Hate Crimes Charges for Woman Who Abused Mentally Disabled VictimsFor the first time, federal hate crimes charges have been filed in defense of the disabled after a Philadelphia woman was indicted for kidnapping four adults and keeping them in “subhuman” conditions, according to The Grio.
Linda Weston, 52, and several accomplices allegedly duped severely mentally disabled people into having her declared as their caretaker. Weston then kept one woman and three men, who ranged from 29- to 44-years-old, chained up in her basement with little food. Weston pocketed $212,000 over a decade from similar schemes.
Due to the shocking nature of the crimes, writers like Kristina Chew for Care2.com have reacted strongly and called for greater scrutiny of the way we take care of the disabled.
Above: The building targeted with hate speech at UC Berkeley, from Berkleyside. Below: UCLA, from KPCC.
The Not In Our Town production crew just returned from Oak Creek, Wisconsin, where we experienced one of the most moving stories we've followed. Oak Creek residents are standing up for each other, providing a powerful example of a community coming together after a devastating hate crime took the lives of six members of the Sikh community in August 2012.