Today, President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard Act, a comprehensive piece of legislation protecting citizens from hate crimes on the basis of sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability. It is difficult to overstate what a victory this is for queer Americans. One of the most exciting features of the act is that the FBI is now required to track statistics about hate crimes committed against transgender people. Read more about it here and here.
Sorry to always be hating on the gay agenda but I think this is just one more step in the wrong direction. What do we really get out of the strengthening of hate crimes legislation? More people in jail for longer amounts of time? Will that really keep us safe?
SRLP, Audre Lorde Project, FIERCE and others recently released a statement and some suggested reading regarding hate crimes legislation in NY that I think is applicable here: http://srlp.org/genda
Let's think about responses and solutions to violence that don't provide a gay endorsement to locking up even more people.
Lastly, I just want to point out that in much of the press about this bill James Byrd, Jr., an African American victim of gender-based violence, is forgotten.
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Sorry to always be hating on the gay agenda but I think this is just one more step in the wrong direction. What do we really get out of the strengthening of hate crimes legislation? More people in jail for longer amounts of time? Will that really keep us safe?
SRLP, Audre Lorde Project, FIERCE and others recently released a statement and some suggested reading regarding hate crimes legislation in NY that I think is applicable here: http://srlp.org/genda
Critical Resistance and Incite have both commented on hate crimes legislation: http://www.incite-national.org/media/docs/7713_CR-INCITEstatement-2008discussion.pdf. Both organizations provide suggestions for how to address violence against queers, trans people and women that do not rely on strengthening an abusive police/prison state.
Let's think about responses and solutions to violence that don't provide a gay endorsement to locking up even more people.
Lastly, I just want to point out that in much of the press about this bill James Byrd, Jr., an African American victim of gender-based violence, is forgotten.
To update my previous comment, SRLP issued a comment specific to this bill. It is available here: http://srlp.org/fedhatecrimelaw