Cultural Injustices: The Role Of Hate Crimes In Schools

An elementary school student at the young age of seven did not want to go to school, because he was being discriminated against by his schoolmates for his culture. The students at school would call him “America-hater”, “terrorist”, and “Osama”; they would kick, push him down, and gang up on him on the playground. This student started having nightmares, wanted to change his name, and did not want to be a Muslim anymore. After the boy’s mother got involved and talked to the teachers, they said that he either made it up or that it was not that severe (Patel). Cultural Injustices, a real problem, affects many people in this modern day and age even with all the new, more accepting generations emerging. Different cultures, whether for beliefs, race, or religion, are discriminated against all of the time, and the problem has stemmed from past issues and continues into today. In school, at work, and in everyday life, all different cultures have been discriminated against for their personal beliefs through hate crimes; from the past to the present, the targeted groups have evolved and the problem remains
During the year 2000, the Uniform Crime Reporting Program found over 8,000 reported hate crimes (2000 Hate Crime Statistics). These crimes included a large percentage against cultural aspects and described offenses that ranged from intimidation to hate-motivated murders. Besides the startling statistics, looking at personal cases of this injustice being played out gives a face to the problem. Specifically in August of 1999 in Los Angeles, a man affiliated with a white supremacist organization opened fire on a Jewish day-care center and also murdered a Filipino-American postal worker (Hate Crimes in the United States). These tragedies of the past are not a problem that faded with time, but continued on escalating to the present