WHERE BROOKLYN STREET dead ends into SE 16th, a set of cement stairs ringed with barbed wire rises out of the asphalt. It was in this foreboding spot, after midnight on November 1, that a man perceived to be gay was beaten and left unconscious with serious head and abdominal injuries. He became just one of 55 victims of Portland hate crimes reported so far this year.
Portland is a gay haven in many ways—we boast the nation’s first out mayor of a big city, in case you’ve forgotten, and one whole tab on travelportland.com maps out trips for LGBT tourists. But after a push within the LGBT community to report more hate crimes, violence based on gender or sexual orientation has displaced race as the city’s most frequently reported bias-motivated crime.
The victim in the SE Brooklyn beating was walking home alone from a friend’s house when a man spotted him at the base of the pedestrian walkway crossing the Union Pacific railroad tracks, and started “making remarks” about his sexual orientation, as the police politely put it. The suspect, described as a 6’1″, muscular white man with freckles and blond hair, beat the victim and took off with a friend.
“He was just walking home,” says Portland Police Detective Kevin Warren, the bias-crimes detective working the case. “He was minding his own business.”
Police say they initially did not make the crime public because they thought they were closing in on the culprit. But their leads in the beating ran dry, they say, so last Thursday, December 2, police sent out a citywide alert asking for the public’s help.
The number of hate crimes reported in Portland has stayed relatively steady for the past four years, with 72 crimes reported in 2007, including 29 motivated by race or color and 28 motivated by perceived gender or sexual orientation. In 2010 so far, cops have taken reports of 55 hate crimes, including 12 motivated by race or color and 21 motivated by gender or orientation. State stats for 2010 are not available, but since 2007 statewide, hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation average 16 percent of reported bias crimes, while racially or ethnically motivated crimes make up 53 percent of reports. Because official statistics track only incidents reported to police, the actual number of bias-motivated crimes is likely much higher.
After the high-profile assault of several men in drag downtown last spring, [“Hate Comes out of the Closet,” News, June 10], local LGBT folks sounded off at law enforcement officials during a heated public forum, with many saying they felt too intimidated by local police to report crimes. The public talks eventually led the Q Center, an LGBT nonprofit, to form a downtown Queer Patrol and the attorney general’s office to create an anonymous hate crime reporting website.
Q Center Executive Director Kendall Clawson sees the stats as a success.
“We took a leadership role in something we’re not normally asked about,” says Clawson. “The days of not talking about gay bashings are over. Once our community banded together and started turning the spotlight on that in the spring, we’ve seen the number of reports change.”
Since the state launched its anonymous reporting site, it has recorded 25 hate crime complaints, including two racially motivated crimes and 11 crimes motivated by gender or orientation.
The Tonic Lounge (3100 NE Sandy) is holding a fundraiser for the Brooklyn Street beating victim December 18 at 9 pm.
Ironically, one of the men hurt in the spring assault reported another type of anti-gay intolerance this past week.
Jeffrey Darling, maybe better known as the drag persona Fannie Mae Darling, spent last week organizing an event at Mississippi Studios called Queer Quistmas, with the plan to collect coats for the Portland Rescue Mission, a faith-based homeless services center. But when Darling called the mission asking if they’d co-sponsor, he got a call back informing him that the mission would have to “respectfully decline” the offer. A mission representative first said sponsorship of the queer event might upset donors, and officials later also blamed logistics. Darling called the decision “total bigotry,” declining the mission’s eventual offer to take the coats anyway, and the story blew up online and on TV.
Queer Christmas will now benefit Our House, a nonprofit helping people living with HIV/AIDS.
I’m sure those [reported] 55 victims of hate crimes vary in race, ethicity, sexual orientation, religion, etc. However, the PERPATRATORS of these crimes surely have something in common – most if not all of them are ANGRY WHITE MALES.
Just look at the white trash who was [finally] caught after his arson attack on that mosque.
That is to true.
Uh, Damos………………..
you’re a racist.
DamosA may be full of it sometimes, but he/she is correct on this. Just calling a spade a spade.
Mr. Abandon is obviously making more than a statistical observation. He’s making an inference about the nature of white people.
Just substitute BLACK for WHITE in his comment, and see how it reads, OK?
Just look at who the victims of hate crimes are, then look at who the perpetrators [tend] to be.
Yet somehow, I’M the racist… for pointing out… racism.
And Obama is really a communist…
DamosA is a racist but he’s also accidentally correct. The way the hate crime laws are written the crime has to be against a person of a protected class by a person of a NON-protected class. Of COURSE hate crimes are always done by white males- by definition that is the only category of perpetrator allowed.
Let Freedom Ring.
Use Your Freedom Today and Every Day.
Live Free or DIE.
You weren’t “pointing out” anything. You were justifying your hate for a whole class of people — creating excuses for bigotry.
Again, substitute BLACK for WHITE in your original post, and see how it reads.
If you really wanted to “point” things “out,” you’d note that we live in an overwhelmingly white area. You might, I don’t know, actually look up the data, instead of just talking out the side of your neck.
You might even look up data for areas with fewer white people, and see their rates for bias crimes. East LA, for example. Or, you know, any warzone on any continent.
Do you really think that something about white people makes them more susceptible to hating “the Other”?
And even if there is — is that an excuse for you to hate the Other, as well?
@ jambox,
For YOU to take such a knee-jerk reaction to me simply pointing out STATISTICAL FACTS seems to suggest some potential racism on YOUR part.
Furthermore, for you to blatantly ignore such obvious facts makes you not only racist yourself, but also part of the problem!
Watching a video of abunch of White people holding up racist signs at a tea-bagger rally & calling them out as racists is not a matter of opinion – that’s simply stating a FACT.
I didn’t mean to take a knee-jerk reaction to your postings, and I’m sorry if I came on too strong.
From personal experience, feeling anger towards a whole group of people is bad and unhealthy.
That’s certainly the impression your post gave. It mirrored so many years of people saying the same kinds of things about black people, jews, immigrants, gays, et c, that it was hard for me to ignore.
Haters always say they’re “simply stating a FACT.” But the core of hatred comes through. Once again, Damos, how does your original post read when you substitute “black” for “white”? Am I really having a knee jerk reaction?
DamosA’s comment wasn’t as racist as you might think… he wrote “ANGRY WHITE MALES.”
Last time I checked, “anger” and “males” weren’t races.
I just think it’s fucking hilarious to see the “disgruntled White men” get all huffy n’ pissy over what i said here (regarding who the victims/perps of hate crimes tend to be) & immediately denounce ME as being a racist. As if i were some sort of Black Nationalist that turely depised Whites no matter what.
If only said, guilt-concious ridden White males knew who my house mates were, knew who the majority of my friends were, etc.
Well maybe i ought to be more ‘specific’ about whome i was refering to – so far as who the perpetrators of hate crimes tend to be: ANGRY, CHRISTIAN, RACIST, HOMOPHOBIC, MISOGYNISTIC, NATIONALISTIC, CONSERVATIVE WHITE MALES W/ MAJOR INFERIORITY COMPLEXES.
If YOU don’t feel that you [personally] fit most of this catagory, then i’m not talking about YOU.
It’s nice to see that you’ve walked your original statement back, to the point that instead of blaming criminality and bigotry on whiteness, you’re basically saying “bigots commit hate crimes.” I dislike bigots as much as the next guy, so its nice to see reform start to take root in your soul. I’d encourage you to look at that list you wrote and try to pick out the *real* predictors of committing hate crimes–think about it, don’t just go with your gut.
Also, here’s some indicators you may have forgotten: age and drug use.
As for me, I surely get “disgruntled” about things from time to time, you got me there. But are you really sure I’m a white man? In fairness, I assumed you were white, too.
“It’s nice to see that you’ve walked your original statement back, to the point that instead of blaming criminality and bigotry on whiteness…”
When did i do this? When have i EVER blamed criminality on “Whiteness”? I was simply specifying a statement which just happens to have been already true. Essenctially, most hate crimes ARE committed by ANGRY WHITE MALES! Whether we’re talking about arson attacks on mosques, murders of abortion providers, violent assaults/killings of Blacks/Gays/Muslims/etc. – in all these cases who do you think the criminals tend to be? Or serial murderers, for that matter?
So, what part of anything i’ve said here is NOT true?
Jamdox doth protest too much methinks.
For the last fucking time.
Go back to your original post and substitute “black” for “white.”
Why is the race of the perpetrators of hate crimes so important to you?
BTW, pork chop, take your ad hominems and shove ’em. I’m sick of sharing an ideology with a bunch of loser leftists who just want to feel superior while the planet goes to shit. Enjoy your dim-witted condescension. I’m sure it’s worth the global warming to get to call people names. Idiots.
Just to be totally clear, there is no reason for the first comment on this article to be “THAT’S WHITE* PEOPLE FOR YA HURR HURR!” This kind of reaction makes the rest of the population consider us assholes, and ignore what we have to say. This is a serious part of why this country is so much of a reactionary swamp. We need to get the fuck over it.
Putting an asterisk next to white people doesn’t change jack shit. Nothing Damos said was remotely constructive, and yet you morons are going to the mat for it. Really? Do you like to look down on “white trash” that much? Do you really think we’re going to fix this country if we keep calling people “trash”? If we keep using the phrase “white trash”?
Ohh, but it’s really really really true! And it feels so goooood….
Bigots. Keep making excuses, see where it gets you.
dude, shut up.
I apologize for calling you idiots and morons. I got angry.
@DamosA, et al.
Sorry, I should have chimed in earlier. In addition to keeping stats about the people who are victims of hate crimes, the state keeps states about the race and gender of alleged perpetrators. The stats are based on the police report about the incident, so there’s all the statistical problems associated with that, but I think it’s relevant, so here’s the stats for the past three years in Oregon. This is the number of crimes committed broken down by race and gender of offenders:
Black Male 55
Black Female 22
Hispanic Male 24
Hispanic Female 12
Native American Male 1
Native American Female 4
White Male 257
White Female 25
“For the last fucking time.
Go back to your original post and substitute “black” for “white.”
Why is the race of the perpetrators of hate crimes so important to you?”
If it were ACTUALLY THE CASE that Blacks committed most hate crimes, then yes, one would be absolutely justified in pointing that out.
But you & i both goddamn know, that’s NOT the case.
I have to ask, why are YOU taking such a huge offense to this? Any decent, open-minded White male – who’s NOT a racist fucktard – might agree with this. Perhapes YOU’VE done something fucked up before that you’re trying to over-compensate for???
“I apologize for calling you idiots and morons. I got angry.”
I rest my case.
Uh oh. Ms. Mirk was kind enough to post some actual numbers.
Now, it looks like white men are by far the most violent (257!), but what happens when we control for the racial makeup of the population?
It turns out that while white people are about 90% of Oregon’s population, they’re only responsible for 71% of the hate crimes.
Blacks, on the other hand, are 2% of the population and are responsible for 19% of the hate crimes.
2% of the population, 19% of the hate crimes. I want to see what people have to say about this.
BTW, here’s my sources/numbers:
census data: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/41…
my math based on Sarah’s numbers: https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0A…
I’ve updated the numbers a bit, as well, to examine sex effects. In the process, I noticed that the census bureau’s headline “white” number includes hispanic people. Taking the non-hispanic white population, the numbers change a bit, naturally.
So! The polished numbers show that white people sill commit fewer hate crimes per capita (0.9), but that’s just because white women are so damn non-violent (0.16 – get with it, ladies!) White men are overrepresented in hate crimes by a factor of 1.6. Black men are still tipping the scale at 13.8.
What that means is white men are 1.6 times more likely to commit a hate crime than their proportion of the population would suggest, black men 13.8 times.
Of course, I would never write the kinds of comments about black men that Damos wrote about white men. I appreciate that there’s a lot of reasons why these things happen, not that there’s ever an excuse to commit hate crimes. History is a heavy bitch.
Anyway, I found a way to share the whole spreadsheet, so you guys can actually look at my formulas and stuff, hopefully:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0A…
I didn’t mean to make it seem like the numbers are per capita – these are the “relative hate crime rate based on population” number that I made. 0.9 hate crimes per capita would be A LOT of hate crimes! I mistyped, thank Q! Really gotta slow down with this internet thing…
You can’t argue with those numbers can ya?
Clearly Jamdox is the winner here. 😀
Here’s another number for you: 2012
Clearly, jambox* wants to play a numbers games now, tossing around all sorts of “stats” in a last-ditch attempt to prove HIS point.
You can get numbers from anywhere. Everyone has their [own] set of numbers, stats, & data, finely tuned to to ride out all sorts of pre-meditated agendas. Hell, you can even make shit up as you go along. So-called “professionals” in both govt. & the private sector (the later, especially) get paid alot of money to do just that.
Thing is, all that stuff doesn’t mean a damned thing when stacked up against what’s known as HARD SOLID FACTS. It’s universally known that White males [on average] commit waaay more hate crimes – one doesn’t need numbers” to know this.
Awesome (or unfortunate) thing about numbers is, they can be easily manipulated to fit a particular agenda. Stats can be cherry-picked. One can say that such & such violent crimes have been comitted by such & such persons during a NARROW strip of time, & point to data that seems to confirm. However, this very narrow view distorts a LARGER perspective, which often shows totally different results entirely.
Without a critical & more practical analysis, people have but their own prejudices to rely upon. They see a news report of a particular crime on tv & [say] a Black male as the perp. And people say to themselves, crime is out of control & it’s THOSE people who’re behind it. When the FACT is, crime over-all is down & even if [it looks like] Blacks commit crime out of perportion of their population, critical thinking will have you take into account that ARREST/CONVICTION RATES for Blacks tend to be higher – & that this is due to an over-all racist system.
These are but afew of the details behind all those general numbers that folks like jambox* find too easy to ignore.
This is racism. This is the soft underbelly of racism, the face racism presents at coffe shops, bars, barbecues, and barber shops. This is what they’ve always said:
“These are facts about THOSE PEOPLE, everyone knows it’s true. Present me with countervailing evidence, and I’ll dismiss it, saying numbers can be fudged, but everyone knows the truth–THOSE PEOPLE ARE BAD.” That’s exactly what Damos is doing.
In post after post, I tried to get him to look more deeply at this issue, to examine context and history, and every time he refused. Until it was time to defend black people–then context is king! But–THE OTHER is still GUILTY in his mind. Nothing can change that. That’s racism.
I was going to go into a long thing about the validity of the numbers, analyzing data, context, the Enlightenment, science, rationality, etc, but it got long. I’ll try to finish it up soon and will post it at my blog, at http://interslag.blogspot.com/ .
I’d also be happy to do a teach-in about critical thinking and math. I might not be the be-all expert on this, but I definitely feel like I have something to offer.
I’d also like to apologize for my total mishandling of this affair. I should have started from a place of empathy and communication, instead of posting something that, in retrospect, was almost sure to cause a flame war. I’m sorry.
I should’ve taken a teaching approach. I should’ve looked at data myself, way earlier. Very embarrassing. BTW, Sarah, I feel like I owe you a beer.
A final note. We leftists, we say we’re into pluralism and multiculturalism, but we don’t take that approach with our fellow Americans, even though many come from very different backgrounds from us. Instead, we get frustrated when people who should be agreeing with us don’t. Well, I’ve apparently developed into a different culture from the rest of the left, and I now need to approach my fellow leftists with multicultural, pluralistic sensitivity, instead of bashing my head against the wall wondering why people “on my side” don’t get it. There are no sides, anymore. Just a vast, churning sea of confusion and ignorance. I don’t know if I’m up to it, but I’ll try.
DamosA – Way to stick to the facts. Demographics of arrests do not take into consideration a lot of other factors (racial profiling included) when compared to racial demographics. That is pretty short sighted of Jamdox to try to prove his point without looking at the whole picture.
We also need to be aware that times are changing. As the article suggests, homophobia is surpassing racism as a motivation for hate crimes. We may see that the primary perpetrators here are angry heterosexually identified white males. But that may change too – white people are quickly becoming a minority, females have taken the lead in education and are rapidly catching up in earning power, and yet it’s mostly non-white voters who vote against gay marriage. Who’s to say where this will all lead.
Perhaps it might lead to a better world with less senseless violence as we strive to put an end to hate and ignorance on all fronts.
The stats, according to Sarah, are based on the REPORTS of bias crimes. They are what the VICTIMS say the perps looked like. These are not arrests, prosecutions or convictions.
I guess Damos’ argument is that people are being victimized by white people, and saying it was black people? People who are reporting hate crimes? I agree these numbers raise many questions, but they clearly don’t say that “ANGRY WHITE MEN ARE THE PROBLEM!” They may say things about anger, poverty, any number of things.
But I’m the guy who has been saying all along that we shouldn’t have knee-jerk reactions, aren’t I?
Like i said, jambox* is clearly over-compensating for something. What else could explain why he’s taking all this soo damned personally. Maybe he thinks i was refering to HIM all this time. Maybe he feels that the honour of White people is being somehow disparaged (by eeeeevil Lefties, right) & that it is HIS duty to defend the hour of the White man – as down-trodden as he soo helplessly is.
Whatever… you win jammie. Clearly, you have waaay more free time than i do. In the interest of the honourable virtuous White man – who can do no wrong [in your blue eyes] – i invite YOU to have the last word. Which apparently, you soo desparately must have.
EVERYBODY, COULD YOU PLEASE LET JAMBOX* HAVE THE LAST WORD! WE JUST MIGHT PREVENT THE NEXT SHOOTING.
Jamdox – Who’s the angry white man now???
Seriously, you’re not even making sense anymore. You should get some sleep.
Might I add that it’s incredulous that one would even think to ask the author out for a beer after turning the comment section into a hate mongering racial tension increasing chaotic accusatory Obama-mess.
This is about hate, not race, but you took it there.
You took it there with your knee-jerk reaction to an objective observation about the perpetrators. The problem is hate. The key word is angry. When you ‘react’ to “white men” you create anger, which fuels hate . . .
I suggest you desist.
Do yourselves a big favor and just shine on what Damosa posts.She has severe hypocritical,racist,can’t get over it ANGER ISSUES !!!!!!Any response by her is pure BULLSHIT.Your just another bored aggitating whatever !!!! Oh and I’m rubber and your glue.Whatever you call me bounces off me and sticks on you.I got to wax my ass now…later.P.S.Penny for your thoughts.Love you.P.S.S.Bullshit to me is unwanted and undesireable.I got to get waxing.MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!!! [if thats not pc..fuck it]