Send to a Friend <% dim printurl Version

March 28, 2002, 4:05 p.m. Criminal-less Crime Race in 2002. By Emmy Chang

icture it: Between September and January, ten students are attacked at the University of Virginia, mostly in the Rugby Road area of campus. The assailants strike in groups of as many as eight, kicking, punching, or clubbing their victims. A few victims get away with minor scrapes; others suffer black eyes, a broken cheekbone, one concussion. One is shoved in front of a car; another has to have stitches in the side of his head.

Then ten area teenagers are arrested. And on February 3, city Lt. J. W. Gibson tells the Richmond Times-Dispatch, "Assailants did say the victims were chosen on the basis of race." The victims in the case are black. The attackers are white, Asian, or Indian.

Immediately, community leaders rally to the suspects' defense. Gibson's statement notwithstanding, police chief Timothy J. Longo Sr. insists that it's too early to assign motive, adding, "Race and everything else aside, these are our kids, on both sides, victims and suspects." UVA dean of African-American affairs Rick Turner tells NPR: "I'm not condoning this act. But I think that we have a group of high-school students, particularly whites, who are angry, and I think that anger stems from being left out, historically; the schools being poor." Later, several community meetings are held to discuss the problem. "I believe this was just kids being kids," says one resident. "I don't think they intended to hurt anybody."

Sound like it wouldn't happen in 2002 in America? Well, perhaps it wouldn't. Switch the races around, though, and it did. Events in Charlottesville are unfolding exactly as reported above — except that the suspects are black and the victims are white, Asian, or Indian.

And that changes everything.

Under Virginia law, a misdemeanor assault becomes upgraded to a felony if racially motivated. The Anti-Defamation League, a longtime backer of such policies, explains that hate crimes "demand a priority response because of their special emotional and psychological impact on the victim and the victim's community."

The advisability of hate-crime legislation can be debated, but proponents at least have an argument: We all know cross burning isn't just about destruction of property. Nor can a crime be assumed to be a hate crime solely because the victims and perpetrators are of different races. (Former mayor Alvin Edwards speculates that the Charlottesville attacks were really about class, noting that two of the teens who accompanied the attackers — but committed no violence — were white. Nonetheless, at least three of the suspects who were charged definitely stated that race had been a factor.)

The ADL has cautioned residents to remember the severity of the Charlottesville crimes, but it's not clear that anyone's listening. One of the victims has even said that being attacked gave him a new interest in improving race relations. Meanwhile, David Duke's European-American Unity and Rights Organization has accused Charlottesville of pandering to blacks — so anyone questioning the city's actions now risks being tarred as a white supremacist. Is it any surprise, then, that Mayor Blake Caravati is now describing the violent physical assault of ten people as "a teachable moment"?

The ADL's mistake is to assume that when an individual commits an act of violence, that individual is the perpetrator, and that individual's victims are the victims. They forget that Al and Jesse are holding court, and slave-reparation lawsuits about to get off the ground. At a bake sale last week, Charlottesville residents arranged for proceeds to go toward both medical costs for the non-black victims and legal fees for their black assailants. What else could they do? Blacks are victims by definition. After all, it's 2002 in America.

— Emmy Chang is an NR associate editor.