THE Understanding Harmful Forms of Bias and Bigotry FOURTH EDITION JACK LEVIN Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflict Northeastern University and JIM NOLAN West Virginia University ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD Lanham • Boulder • New York • London Executive Editor: Nancy Roberts Associate Editor: Molly White Senior Marketing Manager: Karin Cholak Marketing Manager: Deborah Hudson Interior Designer: Ilze Lemesis Cover Designer: Diana Nuhn Credits and acknowledgments for material borrowed from other sources, and reproduced with permission, appear on the appropriate page within the text. Published by Rowman & Littlefield A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB, United Kingdom Copyright © 2017 by Rowman & Littlefield First edition 2002. Second edition 2007. Third edition 2011. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Levin, Jack, 1941– author. | Nolan, Jim (James J.), author. Title: The violence of hate : understanding harmful forms of bias and bigotry / Jack Levin, Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflict, Northeastern University, Jim Nolan, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, West Virginia University. Description: Fourth Edition. | Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, 2016. | Revised edition of The violence of hate, 2011. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016013460 (print) | LCCN 2016022559 (ebook) | ISBN 9781442260498 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781442260504 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781442260511 (electronic) Subjects: LCSH: Hate crimes. | Racism. | Antisemitism. | Toleration. Classification: LCC HV6773.5 .L48 2016 (print) | LCC HV6773.5 (ebook) | DDC 305.8--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016013460 ∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/ NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America Dedication From Jack Levin to Dan Steven Victoria Benjamin Max Bryson Jaden Matthew Segal Ethan Samuel Segal Gavin Finn Segal From Jim Nolan to Darrell Lamar Claybrook Dion Del Claybrook Reese Carrie Claybrook McKenna Nolan Lausch Cora Nolan Lausch Felicity Spring Thompson Contents Preface ix About the Authors xiii 1 Perspectives on Hate and Violence 1 Hate, Prejudice, and Discrimination 1 Transforming the Terms 1 Prejudice versus Discrimination 2 The Role of the Individual 3 Justifying Hate Violence 5 The Influence of Significant Others 6 From Individual to Institutional Discrimination 7 Constructing Group Identity 8 Who Controls an Individual’s Group Identity? 9 Changing Group Identity 10 The Privilege of White Identity 13 When Stereotypes Turn Nasty 15 Is Hate on the Decline? 18 Underestimating Bigotry 19 Unconscious Bias 20 The Difference Between Small and Insignificant 22 Hate Crimes are Vastly Underreported 23 It Takes Only a Few Bad Apples 25 Conclusion 26 2 Explaining the Violence of Hate 29 Environment, Heredity, and the Power of the Situation 29 The Environmental View—Blaming the Victim 29 The Hereditary View—Blaming the Victim 34 A Situationist View of Hate Violence 41 Threatening Situations Can Inspire Hate 45 Hate Crimes Against Muslims 45 Hate Crimes Against Immigrants 47 The New Anti-Semitism 49 A Continuing Racial Gap 52 The Obama Factor 54 Bashing Gays and Lesbians 56 Hate Crimes Against Women 57 Conclusion 59 v vi Contents 3 Hate Crimes 61 Motive Matters 61 The Hate Crime Statistics Act 62 The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program 62 NIBRS Hate Crime Data 63 Why Now? 66 Pros and Cons of Hate Crime Laws 67 Hate Crime Laws Today 68 Federal Civil Rights Statutes 71 The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act 72 State Hate Crime Statutes 72 Hate Crime Laws and the U.S. Constitution 75 Policing Hatred 77 When the Police Are Viewed as Perpetrators of Hate Violence 77 When the Police Are Viewed as Victims of Hate Violence 81 Explaining Bias in Policing 82 Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice: A Sociological Perspective on Police Violence 83 The Traffic Enforcement Analogy: A Sociological Explanation 86 Policing Hate Crimes 91 Seeing Hate Crimes 94 Intension and Extension of the Term “Hate Crime” 94 Classification of Hate Crime Incidents 97 Why Is This Distinction Important? 101 Hate Crimes in Europe 102 The Roma in Europe 103 Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Violence 104 Conclusion 105 4 A Typology of Hate 109 Hatemongers 109 The Role of Organized Hate 109 Hate from a Distance 110 Biblical Bigotry 111 The Militia Movement and White Supremacy 113 Expanding the Influence of Organized Hate 115 Mass Murder in the Name of Hate 117 Dabblers 118 Getting a Thrill 118 Being Defensive 121 Getting Even 124 Contents vii Sympathizers 127 Behind Closed Doors 127 An Eliminationist Anti-Semitism 128 Cultural Hate 128 Culture Transcends Generations 131 Spectators 131 The Failure to Act 132 Middleman Minorities 134 Middleman Minorities in the United States 135 The American Version of Spectatorship 136 Conclusion 138 5 The Benefits of Bigotry 141 Protest by Proxy 147 Psychological Advantages 151 Enhancing and Protecting Self-Esteem 152 Reducing Uncertainty 156 Economic and Status Advantages 157 Getting the Dirty Work Done 157 Eliminating Opponents 160 Maintaining Political Power 167 Conclusion 167 6 The Production of Rebels, Deviants, and Other Decent People 169 The Power of the Situation 169 When Normal People Do Abnormally Nasty Things 169 Fighting Spectatorship 170 Intergroup Contact 172 The Impact of Competition 172 Reducing Hostility Between Groups 173 Structuring Opportunities for Cooperation 175 Follow the Leader 177 Obeying Orders 178 The Role of Leadership 180 The Impact of Deviance 182 When Rebels Rebel 182 The Importance of Empathy Across Groups 183 Human Agency: The Ability to Create “Good” Situations 186 The Agentic Perspective 187 Collective Efficacy in Neighborhoods 189 viii Contents Neighborhood Agency and Collective Efficacy 190 Conclusion 192 Appendix A. Anti-Hate Websites 195 Appendix B. Division E—Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act 197 References 207 Index 223 Preface The fourth edition of The Violence of Hate represents a major revision. Not only have we added a significant number of pages and updated statistics and examples in many places, but we have also expanded our discourse to include a much broader range of victims and perpetrators. At the same time, we continue to emphasize the commonalities joining rather than the differences separating those in society who have been victimized because they are different in socially significant ways. Under a single concep- tual framework emphasizing the power of situations, we explore important, yet perplexing, forms of hate and prejudice, including racism in American society following President Obama’s election; the historical and present-day occurrence of anti-Semitism; anti-Muslim sentiment in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks as well as the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels; renegade Christians acting as servants of power; disenfranchised Roma—or Gypsies—systematically denied access to basic human essentials such as health care, employment, and education; gay and lesbian youths taunted and teased and victimized by sadis- tic violence; assaultive behavior directed at immigrants during periods of high unemployment; violence perpetrated against women around the world; and people with disabilities whose rate of violent victimization measures three times that of individuals in the general population. The new material in this edition includes a chapter dedicated solely to explanations of hate violence and an expanded chapter on hate crimes in which relations between the police and the Black community are explored, beginning with the crisis in Ferguson, Missouri. Along with many new and updated exam- ples, this edition also includes several new sections that pull from the disci - plines of sociology, social psychology, and psychology to develop an integrated perspective on the circumstances of hate violence and the reasons we have not always been effective in stopping it. As in earlier versions of The Violence of Hate, we take the position that support for the violence of hate originates not in the ranting and raving of big- oted extremists at the margins of society but in the tacit approval of ordinary, even decent, people who are located squarely in the mainstream. Relatively few Americans actively dabble in bigotry, and even fewer are hardened hatemon- gers. But millions of individuals who would not dream of committing a hate crime nevertheless contribute to the cause of prejudice by sympathizing with those who do perpetrate violent attacks. In addition, there are countless num- bers of otherwise virtuous people in society who remain passive spectators to bigotry because they benefit in either a psychological or socioeconomic sense from the status quo. Although lacking in virulent prejudice, these spectators also lack the courage required to pay the price for doing the right thing. For many, spectatorship is all too comfortable. Some observers have suggested over the years that blatant acts of big- otry and bias have declined to the point where they no longer threaten the ix