Hate Crimes the Trend of Media Coverage

Hate Crimes

The trend of media coverage and reporting has taken a stereotypical and racist dimension over the years and hence having a bias on some of the races. This is in particular reference to the crime rate and crime coverage. It has been an observed trend that crimes committed by African-Americans on whites are not given as much coverage and emphasis as those committed by whites against the African-Americans, though they could be of equal seriousness and driven by the same motive and produced same results.

This can be said to be some racial stereotype, which is a fixed belief or idea that most people have about a given group of people or particular person or a given thing, though it may not be necessarily true or based on reality (Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, 2011). These are social constructs that evolve over a long period of time and engrave themselves into the society among a given people about another group.

The above problem is one of the results that come with stereotyping trend in America; this is between the African-Americans and the Caucasians. This is the idea that most, if not all the problems that are faced by the African-Americans are caused by the whites, ranging from marginalization, segregation, domination to the financial problems. This has been a stereotype that has held on to the society for a very long period of time and has refused to shake off. This perpetuation of the stereotype presumably sprouts from the slave history in America where majorly the Africans were forcefully transferred to America and systematically located at the base of the social rung. Even though decades have passed, this stereotype has dogged the American society even in instances where it could be completely untrue.

The FBI look at hate crime also known as bias crime as "a criminal offense committed against a person, property or society which is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin." Further, the Bureau of Justice Administration (BJA; 1997) defines hate crimes as "Hate crimes -- or bias-motivated crimes -- are defined as offenses motivated by hatred against a victim based on his or her race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or national origin." (Religious Tolerance, 2011). However serious these crimes are, there is an apparent bias in the way they are reported in the media between those committed by whites on blacks and those committed by blacks on whites with the former given more prominence in terms of coverage and conveyance.

There are several factors that make the media and the society at large to put a lot of emphasis on the white-on-black crimes than the other way round. One factor depends on white representative of the entire population in America. It is worth noting that the black population is only 13.5% the remaining percentage largely catered for by the whites (U.S. Diplomatic Mission to Germany, 2010). With such a vast percentage, they are logically the majority hence the crimes that they commit are more outstanding than those that are committed by the blacks as the ratio will be more. This then feeds the media since they will consider it another crime by white before they encounter a black on white crime bearing the sheer fact that the statistics favor this trend.

The other factor aggravating factor to having a biased view of the crimes has to do with the active enactment of the 'Hate Crime' legislation with penalties that are more severe than there before. This is a legislation that was prompted by the rate of crimes that were perpetuated by the white supremacists and people with such mentalities that propagated hate for the blacks (Religious Tolerance, 2011). This legislation and its implementation has made the media focus so much on the crimes that are committed by the whites against the blacks to see how these cases are pursued by the legal teams and the courts to the logical end in line with the Hate crime legislation. This then gives fodder to the media that will do everything it takes to highlight such cases and if possible give them a race-based view.

The other factor is connected to the above incidence, whereas the white on blacks crimes are given comprehensive coverage, the blacks on white crimes are largely given blind eye. It is on the strength of the same legislation that the media always overlooks race as being the aggravating factor to such crimes. Such crimes are not comprehensively covered by any special crime victim laws hence the inequality in the laws is exhibited.

The statistics of crime rates is also another factor that makes it possible for the media to be tempted to focus on the crimes committed by the whites against the blacks. In 2007, the percentage of murder victims who were blacks stood at 43% (The Center for Healing Hearts and Spirit, 2011). With such high statistics, the media is tempted to concentrate where the news is at hence unintentionally ignoring the crime by blacks against the whites.

However, considering further statistics provided by The Center for Healing Hearts and Spirit, (2011), it would be right to consider the media biased and not analytical of the statistics before they do their coverage. The 2005 numbers indicate that whites committed 48% of all the murder crimes yet the blacks committed 51.2% of the murder crimes in that year. It is however worth noting that the whites outnumber the blacks in the entire population. As noted above, blacks are 13% of the entire American population, if this percentage in population is juxtaposed against the crimes percentage of 51.2% that they commit, it is only logical to see that the blacks commit disproportionate levels of crime, it is only that the numbers hide them and expose the 48% of crimes by the majority whites who make up for almost 69% of the entire population.