AP Reports: Hate Crimes Against Gays Rise in L.A.
I would like to dedicate this post as a cautionary reminder to every gay man who tells or has told me things have changed for GLBT people, especially in our open, modern, liberal urban areas, and that the concerns surrounding GLBT oppression and homophobia are not such an issue anymore.On July 28, 2008 the AP reported “Hate Crimes Against Gays Rise in L.A.”:
“Hate crimes in Los Angeles County soared last year to their highest mark in five years even as overall crime dropped across the region, according to a report released Thursday. The annual report by the county’s human relations commission shows 763 hate crimes were reported in 2007, a 28 percent increase from 2006.”
Among the article’s discussion of the report’s findings, there is this tidbit of interest to our contemporary GLBT community:
“The commission said 111 hate crimes based on sexual orientation were reported, a 9 percent increase from 2006; more than 90 percent were against gay men.”
The article further illuminates this number by stating a very disturbing trend:
“According to the U.S. Justice Department, for every hate crime that is reported to police, as many as 28 are not reported, often for fear of retaliation or concerns about talking to authorities.”
The article aptly directs us toward one of the omnipresent fulcrums behind such changes in the rate of hate crime violence:
“When economic times gets tighter, hate crime violence goes up,” she said, adding that child abuse and domestic violence often increase for the same reason.”
And, this is not something we should ever loose site of, for progression is prone to regression.
These findings reveal the lie of the gay urban utopia myth, and they remind us to be wary of our complacent and privileged positions, and in doing so, we are also reminded to not confuse the state of our larger GLBT community with our individual lives and experiences.
As this report makes clear, hate crimes are once again on the rise, and gays are once again–as they always have been–a constitutive part of the minority class. Read the complete article at 365gay.com.
