Per Superintendent Johnson in that video, "I am concerned that hate crimes will be met with a level of skepticism that previously didn't happen.
Bingo. Or, to put it more eloquently...
Quote:
Originally Posted by PostandIn
|
Quote:
On Monday night in London’s Soho, Maajid Nawaz was assaulted by a stranger. While Maajid wasn’t looking the stranger, who was white, called him a ‘####ing Paki’ and punched him in the face. Maajid has related the events on Twitter here and people will be able to see the severe facial injuries this has caused him. As is often the case people in real life behaved wonderfully. Passers-by heard the insults, witnessed the assault and have given their descriptions of the attack and the assailant to the police. Since there is apparently some CCTV footage, hopefully this racist thug and criminal will soon be caught.
Online, as is also so often the case, the worst of people was on show. Obviously there was crowing from the Islamists who hate Maajid for calling out their own sickness. Such people were all over Twitter blaming Maajid for the attack on himself, or otherwise glorying in this act of racist violence. A strange reminder that the extremes always meet somewhere. But the reason I started with the Smollett story is that another set of people online decided, once the story of Maajid’s assault came out, with: ‘Ah yes, here is another “hate crime” which will unravel in time.
Perhaps we shouldn’t spend too much time focusing on such crazies. But it is worth noting. Faked hate crimes do a lot of things. They increase societal distrust, they assault the truth and they inflame any existing racial or other communal tensions. But they also make people forget the fact that there are people out there who are racist and otherwise bigoted. There really are problems that need to be addressed. There really are people who perpetrate crimes in the world. Among the many reprehensible things about faked hate crimes is that they make people doubt the real thing. Which in turn makes people complacent about a real and visible problem.
|
Unfortunately, there's likely to be no nuance to the debate that occurs in the aftermath of this.