Well it seems the DHS was right about hate crimes increasing in the USA. It’s a shame that the Republicans had to make the DHS report a political issue instead of looking at the facts.
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I am always troubled when such matters become politicized, for then the solution becomes legislation (as in NY): as I wrote in a couple of recent blogs, this starts to feel a lot like “The Trees” by Rush.
But this is indeed a terrible problem. I recently pulled together a pretty grotesque list that includes hate crimes, and it ia horrible. So what is the solution? I think that any solution has to include awareness and dialog. I’ve just started a discussion group on prejudice, which I think of as a larger topic including hate crimes. My need to talk about this was born of a couple of characters who lived in my head until I gave them voices in The Grace of Guilt, and if you’re interested, I’d like to forward you a pdf (it’s actually available for download on my ning discussion group).
But above all, I would love to engage in meaningful discussion about what to do to solve the problem, since I think that the more people who do this, the better off we'll all be.