By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources
It was quite probably an alcohol or drug driven robbery that caused the death of a 21-year-old University of Wyoming student, Matthew Shepard. It was a crime which, unfortunately, is not particularly uncommon in these violent times, and, generally, hardly even makes the papers in most large cities around the globe.
Yet, it not only made the papers in Wyoming, which has a violent crime rate very near the bottom of the scale for the States in the Union, it literally hit newspapers around the world. Why? Because young Shepard was in a "minority group" called "homosexuals. While it is already against the law in all states of the Union to beat and rob people - all people - so they die, cries are being heard once again around our land to "toughen" laws concerning "hate crimes."
A "hate crime" is not a crime where someone hates another person enough to rob, beat or kill them. A "hate crime" only takes place when someone from certain designated "victim" groups happen to be the victim of a crime. In fact, if the victim IS a member of a special DESIGNATED elite victim class - i.e. African American, homosexual, women, - ANY crime against them may be dubbed a "hate" crime. However, even the most heinous hate crime, committed by one of the elite victim groups against, say, a white middle-class male, a landlord, or, say, a wealthy businessman, a white policeman, or a lumber company executive - anyone from a group labeled as the natural enemy to the elite victim groups - may not even BE a crime, we are being told now.
This is illustrated by a piece from "Inside the Beltway," in the Washington Times yesterday. On May 2, 1973, Joanne Chesimard, a member of the Black Liberation Army, and two of her friends were stopped in their vehicle on the New Jersey Turnpike by state troopers James Harper and Werner Foerster. While being questioned, Chesimard and the driver opened fire with automatic pistols, striking Trooper Foerster twice in the chest and Trooper Harper in the shoulder. Then, grabbing Trooper Foerster's own weapon, an additional two bullets were fired execution style into the officer's head, killing him.
Trooper Foerster left behind a wife and family. After a six-week trial, Chesimard was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in a New Jersey maximum-security prison. Until 1979, when she broke free after taking a guard and prison van driver hostage. She fled to Cuba and was granted "political asylum." Recently, residents of New Jersey expressed shock and outrage after seeing television interviews of Chesimard living freely in Cuba and portraying herself as a victim. Immediately, New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman requested federal assistance from Attorney General Janet Reno for her return. Congress, meanwhile, called on Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright to do everything in her power to have the convicted murderer returned to the United States. Finally, on Sept. 14, Congress passed a resolution calling on the government of Cuba to extradite Chesimard so she can complete her life sentence.
That said, Mrs. Waters, who also is chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, just sent a letter to Mr. Castro saying she and other members of the caucus were "deceived" by Republicans and therefore "mistakenly" voted in favor of the resolution. Grounds for the deception? "Joanne Chesimard was the birth name of a political activist known to most members of the Congressional Black Caucus as Assata Shakur,"
Mrs. Waters says. "As evidence of their deceptive intent, the resolution did not mention Assata Shakur, but chose to only call her Joanne Chesimard." As for Mrs. Waters opposing the measure? "I support the right of all nations to grant political asylum to individuals fleeing political persecution," the congresswoman writes to the communist leader. "The United States grants political asylum to individuals from all over the world who successfully prove they are fleeing political persecution. Other sovereign nations have the same right, including the sovereign nation of Cuba."
The moral to this story, obviously, is that Maxine Waters apparently didn't know that Joanne Chesimard was black. To Maxine Waters, the laws of the land only apply to white, or Asian people. She is, of course, is also leading the Black Caucus' effort to portray President Clinton as a black soulmate who should not be chastised for his lies to the American people, perjury, obstruction of Justice, abuse of power and an amoral behavior. After all, Clinton has been dubbed is the nation's "first black president," by black writer Toni Morrison.
In the case of Matthew Shepard, the Associated Press said "Police have said robbery was the main motive, but the two men accused in the bludgeoning also targeted Shepard because he flirted with one of them at a bar." While the entire world now thinks of Laramie, Wyoming as a hotbed of hostility towards homosexuals, a friend of Shepard's, who is also homosexual, Alex Trout, surprised at the episode and the claim it was a "homosexual hate crime" because "his own homosexuality has never caused a problem in his four years in Laramie."
And this brings us to what may very well be the crux of the problem for a lot of the members of the "victim" groups. There just may be problems other than your sex, race, sexual preference, national origin or creed that causes other people to dislike you. It very well could people dislike you because you are being obnoxious, not because you are in a "victim" group. In fact, you may find that people are covering up their dislike for you to keep from being called a bigot.
Back in the early 1960s my doctor, who was black, and his family were the first blacks to move into an all-white neighborhood. I dropped by one afternoon to find my friend Leslie watching her elementary school age daughter interact with a group of white kids in their new neighborhood.
"What's the problem," I asked. She responded thoughtfully, "I'm watching the kids in the neighborhood picking on my daughter and I'm trying to decide if they are doing it because she's black or because she's the new kid on the block."
Then she turned around, smiled and said, "I think it's because she's the new kid on the block." She did not react to her new neighbors with a chip on her shoulder and her white neighbors treated her no better or worse than they treated each other. In short order they were just "the Hursts" - not "the new black neighbors." .
For almost thirty years, in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s I was a building contractor - dealing almost exclusively with men in the industry. By the 1980s there were "affirmative action" programs designed to bring women into the industry and I was often asked, by younger women, about my own experiences with "discrimination against women" that the programs were supposed to be addressing. As I said in my book, Coming Home, Families Can Stop the Unraveling of AmericaI never experienced discrimination because I was the only woman in the industry at the time from construction workers - either those working for me or those I interacted with. The three times when I was told people would not do business with me in my 29 years in the industry came from a man in the Small Business Administration of the Federal Government and the wives of two male customers.
Of course, I had my share of people trying to lie, cheat and steal to get something not in their contract - and maybe they thought because I was a woman it would be easier to outsmart me. It wasn't. However, the problem was their dishonesty, not their bigotry. They did the things they did because they were basically dishonest people who could not be trusted. I often compared notes with male contractors who would warn me about certain inspectors, suppliers, or customers. The men had pretty much the same problems I had. People with no integrity who want a free ride are a problem for all - and for the nation.
The fact of the matter is, it's against the law to rob people, beat them and tie them to a fence - whatever their race, sex, sexual orientation, national origin or religion. No more laws are needed to make it MORE against the law for one group of people than it is for another. In the case of Matthew Shepard, those accused of the crime have already been arrested and are awaiting trial.
Trying to whip up hatred, anger and resentment due to a person's race, sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity or religion by making the punishment more severe should the person accused be a white, male, heterosexual, Anglo-Saxon and the victim a member of some favored group is a sure recipe for the kind of ethnic violence we are seeing in Kosovo, Rwanda, and the Congo.
Equality means everyone gets the same punishment for the same crimes - and it isn't racial or sexual discrimination if people in some groups are committing more crimes and therefore more of them end up in prison, Maxine Waters notwithstanding. It's called equality before the law.
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com