Hating, Criminally

HATE CRIMES have always been a part of American culture. Targets of opportunity have been the usual suspects: native Americans, African Americans, short people, fat people, gay people, you name it, we Americans hate it. But during the past decade have increased in number so markedly that the category "hate crime" as a seperate, discrete category of criminal activity was invented to help measure the cultural phenomenon of hurting or killing people in response to a deep seated, general hatred of a certain group of people, such as a certain race or ethnic group. Until the past decade the term "hate crime" really did not exist. What distinguishes hate crimes is that there is never anything personal involved; no personal grudges nor conflicts, just ageneralized hatred and violent behavior towards a certain category of person. The FBI just released its statisitcs on hate crimes for 2021. The news isn't good. During last year there were in the United States more than seven thousand hate crimes committed. Most of them were motivated by race, in particular African-Americans and Asian-Americans bore the brunt of the hateful violence. Evidently this is among the highets totals of the past decade, since statistics began to be kept by the federal government. The great American political divide, in which liberals and conservatives have formed iron clad communities which hate each other, began to emerge with the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, after twelve years of Republican presidents, suddenly, a liberal Democrat oppupied the White House, a develpment which conservative Americans found unacceptable. The election and eight years of George Bush II mollified American conservadom for a time, but that ended with the election of Barack Obama in 2008; another liberal Democrat, and an AFrican-American one at that. Out come the white boys from their holes in the ground, up in arms. The massive uprurge in hate crimes, as well as the election of Donald Trump, was a response to Obama. Trump's hate filled anti-immigrant rhetoric and his obvious racism enboldened and inspired the racist haters, his millions of followers, and the country is paying the price now, and will continue to do so as long as the Trump movement casts a shadow over the body politick.