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Goth Hatecrime?

 
 
Quantum
12:01 / 28.03.08
Here's a link to the BBC story.

A goth says;

"We get verbal assaults every day, and not just from young people. But now younger teenagers have the mentality of hardened criminals and I definitely sense this violent aspect getting worse.

"Goth teenagers can tend to be bookish, quiet and thoughtful. As a result they can sometimes become distanced from the majority and become targeted.

"In my experience of over 20 years, as a general rule, you have to search hard to find a Goth who is violent in nature and even harder still to find one who has not been targeted in some way.

"These packs so often see a slightly built guy on his own, wearing make-up and to them, he is fair game, an easy target to bully. It is happening to girls now, more than ever.


What do you think? Is it any different to attack someone for their appearance as a Goth compared to attacking people for their race or sexuality?
 
 
All Acting Regiment
14:04 / 28.03.08
It's probably roughly of the same order, this agression, but I'll say this: there isn't the organised, armed hatred we see towards Muslims, Jews or black people or LGBT. No goth-hating equivalent to the National Front exists, so far as I know. There is probably cross-over on the level of teenage animosity, but I don't see the serious adult millitancy. Wearing goth clothes doesn't put you in as much serious danger as wearing a burqa, although there's a point where goth style melts into transgender.

It was disgusting that the girl was killed, but it's important to note that - and this may seem like a small difference - the drunken teenagers don't seem to have intended to kill someone. They seem to have intended to beat someone up. Nasty as that is, there is a difference.

There's also a huge difference between the killing of the girl and the kind of agressive banter between gangs of differently-dressed kids which is a part of school/adolescent life. To suggest, frankly, that any (e.g.) hip-hop styled kids who take the piss out of (e.g.) metal-styled kids are as bad as these murderers, or as bad as the BNP, is wrong in my view (it goes the other way too - I've been hassled or threatened by gangs of lads with metal t-shirts on a few times).

There's also the fact that, as I remember it, the 'goths' were getting bullied less for being goths and more for the fact that they were more or less assured of going to university after school and the kids in tracksuits were more or less assured of having no future. This is certainly anecdotal and quite possibly a misreading, but I think it's worth bearing in mind.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
14:14 / 28.03.08
Technically the OED definition of hatecrime isn't wide enough to cover Goths. The real problem is that were Ade Varney to achieve anything then it would almost certainly dilute legislation to the point of meaninglessness. Bullies want someone to bully and, yes, they may well have identified Goths as a group of people that they think won't fight back, but want about pensioners? What about kids that hang themselves because of bullies at school? What about that woman that got stabbed?

I'm not trying to pull the ladder up for minorities that are covered by existing legislation but Goths can choose not to dress like Goths. You can't not be Asian or Gay. (Okay, you might be straight-acting but still...)
 
 
jamesPD
14:27 / 28.03.08
Indeed, Lady. This conversation somewhat reminds me of the recent requests by the Muslim Council(?) for race hate laws to be extended to encompass people denoted by religion. IIRC it was largely ignored on the grounds that race/gender/sexuality needs further protection than religion because you born a certain way, whereas you can choose or change religion.

There were a number of comic writers and performers who were opposed to the legislation on the grounds that it would possibly criminalise satirising people based on their religious beliefs. If the law was extended to cover social sub-cultures, would it also give them unnecessary protection from criticism?

Also, think about all the various kinds of sub-cultures this could apply to. Every fight outside a pub on Saturday afternoon could become classed as a hate-crime on the grounds that the two parties were supporters of rival football teams. Wouldn't this perhaps undermine the severity of 'real' hate crimes such as attacks on blacks/asians/homosexuals/etc.?

In other news.. Anti Emo 'riots' in Mexico.
 
 
All Acting Regiment
15:02 / 28.03.08
This conversation somewhat reminds me of the recent requests by the Muslim Council(?) for race hate laws to be extended to encompass people denoted by religion.

The Muslim Council of Great Britain. Whose arguments I had sympathy for, in as much as one can now get away with things which are effectively racist by saying that you're making a point about religion (even though, in a lot of areas, religion maps directly on to race). Not to mention saying things about 'Muslims' which would (rightly) be unacceptable if said about 'Jews'.

To stop teenagers being fucking horrible to eachother for ridiculous reasons once and for all would take some sort of macro-evolutional quantum leap. In the mean-time I'm convinced the problems are to do with social inequality and the division/distribution of education. The fact that there are gangs of teenagers with nothing better to do than hang about on the the streets in the first place speaks volumes.
 
 
DecayingInsect
15:09 / 28.03.08
But what have the BNP and unequal access to University places got to do with this murderous attack AAR?

From the report here it appears that the killers could not have struck if they had been given custodial sentences for their earlier assault.

Is there a need for amended legislation? Would it not be more effective to deal with violent crimes against the person (and hate crime) using existing laws and tougher sentencing?
 
 
All Acting Regiment
15:32 / 28.03.08
But what have the BNP and unequal access to University places got to do with this murderous attack AAR?

My point was that the BNP - organised hatecrime - are actually on a different level to this. So they in fact don't have much to do with it.

As for university acess - which I'll expand to 'the economic situation' or 'the distribution of wealth' - this is our context. People don't just turn into agressive gangsters by dint of who they are, and groups of people, while always a little afraid of those who look different to us, won't get into vicious fights if they can help it. This isn't any sort of excuse for killing someone, of course.

From the report here it appears that the killers could not have struck if they had been given custodial sentences for their earlier assault.

Is there a need for amended legislation? Would it not be more effective to deal with violent crimes against the person (and hate crime) using existing laws and tougher sentencing?


It depends. Are we looking for a cure or a preventative? Putting these people in prison might have kept them off the streets, but it wouldn't have stopped them being there in the first place, or someone else just as violent.
 
 
Imaginary Mongoose Solutions
03:12 / 30.03.08
This seems to be a note:

Anti Emo Riots Break Out in Mexico.

A series of attacks on dyed-hair, eye-makeup-wearing emo kids began in early March when several hundred people went on an emo-beating rampage in Querétaro, a town of 1.5 million about 160 miles north of Mexico City.

The next week, shaggy-haired emo teenagers were harassed again by punks and rockabillys in the capital, prompting police protection and a segment on the TV news. Most recently, a Mexican newspaper reported that metal heads and gangsters have warned Tijuana's emo kids to stay away from the town's fair next month.

But the so-called emos are organizing, too. Last week, they demonstrated against the violence, pictured above, and Wednesday some met with police in Mexico City.

"They're organizing to defend their right to be emo," wrote Daniel Hernandez of LA Weekly on his personal blog, which has provided stellar coverage of the whole affair.

Music-based subcultures have permeated Mexico's major cities for decades, fueled by constant migration from rural cities. But only in the past year have emos begun to make their presence felt in the streets. In response, many of the established so-called tribus urbanas like punks and metalheads are responding with violence. The emo-punk battles are reminiscent of earlier subculture fights among various factions, like the Hell's Angels fighting hippies at the Altamont Music Festival or the Mods taking on the Rockers."
 
 
penitentvandal
13:14 / 01.04.08
I think there might be something that could be done here - as I see it, most aggression towards goths does map quite easily onto homophobic bigotry - they're attacked for wearing make-up, being 'perverts' etc. Certainly in my own younger goth days, that tended to be the general tone of the insults I got. So I'm not sure you need to widen the definition of a hate crime that much - I think, if guidance was given to police to treat anti-goth incidents as homophobically motivated or aggravated, that might be all you'd need. No need to change the law, no need to widen the definition of hate crime ridiculously, just a change in emphasis.
 
 
All Acting Regiment
13:30 / 01.04.08
What about people who call other people chavs or who start fights on that basis? Is this not a classist hate-crime? Or not as much of a hate-crime?
 
 
DecayingInsect
16:12 / 01.04.08
AAR, thanks for replying: I see where you are coming from vis-a-vis the BNP. However:

What about people who call other people chavs or who start fights on that basis? Is this not a classist hate-crime? Or not as much of a hate-crime?

Sorry I still don't see how the class-war angle is relevant to violent assaults conducted by gangs of youths.

Putting these people in prison might have kept them off the streets, but it wouldn't have stopped them being there in the first place, or someone else just as violent

That seems like a particularly nihilistic argument for not handing down any prison terms at all until the system can be smashed/fixed?

Would the inhabitants of communities plagued by this sort of low-level violence and intimidation concur?

Would you be more in favor of prison if the assault had been conducted by university educated BNP members?
 
 
All Acting Regiment
13:59 / 02.04.08
With regards to this:

Me: What about people who call other people chavs or who start fights on that basis? Is this not a classist hate-crime? Or not as much of a hate-crime?

D.I.: Sorry I still don't see how the class-war angle is relevant to violent assaults conducted by gangs of youths.

This all depends on what you mean by relevant. I'm not suggesting that it's okay for working-class people to beat up middle-class people; it's not okay for anyone to beat up anyone else. What I'm saying is that violence happens in a context, for a reason, which reason is by its nature relevant - and I don't see how that's very controversial. I'm also suggesting that people who commit violence are often themselves the victim of other violence.

Further, I still think that [to associate all instances of animus between 'goth' teenagers and young people by 'urban' teenagers and young people with hate of the order of racism/homophobia], but not [to associate the current trend for calling people chavs with a virulent, unpleasant classism with dangerous, circular effects - with hate, in other words] is a mistake.

To put it another way, if calling someone a goth is as bad as being racist, then so is calling someone a pram-face or a scally. We're more likely to hear about how horrible it is to be beaten up for being a goth, and I'm not happy about the other side being drowned out. We do, as Sophie Lancaster's mother said in a press interview, have an 'intolerant society', but it's not just white middle-class gothic teenagers who suffer from it.

We could talk further about how the goth dress sense signifies rebellion against middle-class politeness, a disposable income, usually consists of non-practical (therefore non-workman's) clothing and so on - in other words how it sorts rich kids from poor, and how the choice of being a goth or a hip-hopper among schoolkids nearly always parts along class lines. I think this is part of what's being reacted to by those who react to it with violence (it's the same with the bad reactions my usual glasses and bag of books have earned me). That doesn't justify anything, much less this horrific murder, but it does show that there's more to this than nasty mainstream jocks bullying those who don't fit in.
 
  
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