Yet another unpopular opinion from me
Sep. 14th, 2012 09:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sasha_featherThere's a famous clip where Barney Frank lays out the "radical gay agenda" (wink wink that it is not radical at all), and says it consists of:
1. Marriage equality (I've already griped about this here, but to recap: it leaves asexual, poly, and single people in the cold, and privileges monogamous relationships)
2. Protection from Employment discrimination
3. Serving openly in the military
and
4. Hate crimes legislation
I actually support 2 and 3, so let's talk about 4. The reason this plank of the platform troubles me is because is about punitive justice rather than transformative or healing justice. It is about punishing bad behaviors, but not about addressing root causes of those behaviors, such as the widespread acceptability of violence and homophobia in US society, and maybe some things about masculinity, and gender policing.
Also, it feeds people into the prison-industrial complex. The US has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. In particular, black men, gender queer people, and other oppressed groups are disproportionately imprisoned. Prisons themselves are places where rehabilitation is rare. Sexual assault is a known prison problem.
Black and Pink outlines a bunch more reasons for being suspicious of hate crimes laws: They do nothing for the victims or their families, they are easy ways for states to score points with oppressed groups without actually providing any services for us, and more.
You can read more of my rants at my ideas tag!
1. Marriage equality (I've already griped about this here, but to recap: it leaves asexual, poly, and single people in the cold, and privileges monogamous relationships)
2. Protection from Employment discrimination
3. Serving openly in the military
and
4. Hate crimes legislation
I actually support 2 and 3, so let's talk about 4. The reason this plank of the platform troubles me is because is about punitive justice rather than transformative or healing justice. It is about punishing bad behaviors, but not about addressing root causes of those behaviors, such as the widespread acceptability of violence and homophobia in US society, and maybe some things about masculinity, and gender policing.
Also, it feeds people into the prison-industrial complex. The US has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. In particular, black men, gender queer people, and other oppressed groups are disproportionately imprisoned. Prisons themselves are places where rehabilitation is rare. Sexual assault is a known prison problem.
Black and Pink outlines a bunch more reasons for being suspicious of hate crimes laws: They do nothing for the victims or their families, they are easy ways for states to score points with oppressed groups without actually providing any services for us, and more.
You can read more of my rants at my ideas tag!
no subject
Date: 2012-09-15 04:18 pm (UTC)I mean, I'm really not a fan of punitive justice or the prison-industrial complex, but I think my attitude was sort of "Well, since we're not going to get rid of prisons anytime soon the punishment ought to reflect that a hate crime really can be worse than a crime with different motives."
Sometimes pragmatism is useful, but sometimes you can let slide some really bad stuff in the name of being pragmatic.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-15 04:55 pm (UTC)WOWeee!
:D
no subject
Date: 2012-09-15 04:56 pm (UTC)