• Christopher Kindinger and Brad Waite were victims of a hate crime on January 19, 1998. They were walking on the campus of Miami University in Ohio when two white men drove up in a gray sedan. Rushing from the car, they shouted racial and homophobic epithets, at Kindinger and Waite, and began beating Kindinger who is Black with an axe handle. Waite ran and sought help from a nearby house.

• In 1996, the state of Colorado reported 133 incidents of hate crime, with 10 incidents at The University of Colorado. In1998, four hate crimes involved student groups of Oyate, a Native American organization and the Black Student Alliance. 

• In 1997, a Black student at Fresno State College was beaten repeatedly on the head with a metal pipe in what many viewed as a hate crime.

America's Culture of Violence

Licensed firearms dealers sell an estimated 7.5 million guns every year, of which 3.5 million are handguns. 

There are more than 223 million firearms in the United States, 76 million of which are handguns, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. 

Seventy-five percent of people believe they have a constitutional right to bear arms, according to a 1995 U.S. News and World Report poll 

Nearly one out of every four households in the United States has at least one handgun. 

Of all firearm homicides in 1997 in which the type of gun was known, 84 percent were committed with handguns. 

Although an unpopular proposition, the assertion that America is the most violent society on earth is true. Murders, rape, arson, armed robbery and kidnapping all take place in a nation that has always been deeply rooted in a culture that creates, condones and ultimately confuses its citizens about violence. It is a nation where water guns are standard toys for children. It is a nation where our heroes' legacies of violence are ignored and their deeds glorified as being "patriotic." 

Andrew Jackson for example, is revered as "Old Hickory" and a "tough politician," but his slaughter of Native Americans goes relatively ignored in the history books. The slaveholdings of Thomas Jefferson and other "Founding Fathers" is ignored in favor of a more genteel and "politically correct" image of them being intellectuals struggling with the birth of American democracy rather than their children born to enslaved Black women.

The culture of violence continued during the slaughter of Native Americans at Wounded Knee, and as slave labor among Chinese immigrants during the time when westward expansion took the form of railroad building. It continued with the founding of the Ku Klux Klan, the disenfranchisement of African Americans after 1877, lynchings, burnings, rapes that ushered in the 20^th century, now being referred to as "The American Century."

The 20^th century continued America's obsession with guns and Hollywood's first "blockbuster" was Birth of A Nation, which featured white actors in blackface portraying the most hideous stereotypes of African Americans. President Woodrow Wilson, recommended the film to "all" (real white) Americans saying that it would provide a good understanding of how the culture of the South was shaped because of the evils of Reconstruction.

The sacredness of the gun, and deification of icons of violence in mass media such as John Wayne, helped stoke the fires of a culture burning with the desire to wreak violence on any nation that disagreed with it. Paradoxically, American government would ignore domestic terrorism in the form of lynching and ignore the suffering of Jews during the World War II. This selective critique of violence has plagued the American republic since its inception, and has led to historical charges of a double standard when it came to the condemnation of violence by victimized groups.

Perhaps the zenith of violence came when doomsday bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Never before or since, have so many people been snuffed out so quickly by two events. Effectively ending World War II, American violence was by now embedded in the soul of the republic and spread like a cancer with the availability of mass media such as radio, television and film. 

What is ironic about the American culture of violence is that mass media has limited the definition of it to deaths by handguns and other weaponry. The Native-American adolescent suicide rate, which is the highest for any group of young people in America, is not considered an act of "violence" toward that group. Neither is Doom, a popular video game with a high body count being the objective for the player. Neither is the dumping of pesticides and other toxic waste into poor white, Black, Brown and Red neighborhoods that do not possess the political influence of more affluent communities who would resist such an act. American violence is integrated into the lives of most Americans from the daily dose of violence during prime time television to the media inspired "road rage," an urban phenomenon that epitomizes "senseless violence" in the country.

Violence and Alienation Among White and Black Youth

The violence in the American culture has spawned books describing how it has taken hold of youth culture. Historically, white America has always seen violence related to color, i.e., the darker you are the more violent you were. White "violence" was hidden, considered as being occasional, a phenomenon but certainly not indigenous among white American youth. In fact, the opposite was true. Membership in the National Rifle Association, the bastion of sacred violence, is overwhelmingly white and male. The songs taught to the sons of NRA members consisted of the early handling of guns so that firing them became a rite of passage among white youth. 

The recent schoolyard killings in Jonesboro, Paducah and Littleton were with a national indulgence into the psychology of youth violence, though the causes were staring nearly all squarely in the face. No such analysis is reserved when it comes to youth of color. Indeed, the Black young "gangsta" is seen as a representative model of young Black males, whereas the young white males accused of killing their classmates in Littleton were cast as aberrations rather than representatives of their peers. 

Michael Southworth, an urban design professor at the University of California at Berkeley, believes the problem of isolation of white males in the suburbs is made worse by their layout into vast tracts of cul-de-sacs. "You can see each of these housing tracts is really an island unto itself, with very little connectedness between them," he said. Southworth goes on to say that inner-city children have a greater sense of community and thus feel less alienated from neighbors(!)

In contrast, violence among Black youth has been cited consistently as normative. The face of youth violence has been painted Black, and media images of the "gangsta rapper" reinforce this idea. Linked with this image of being violated are explanations on why alienation occurs among African-American youth. Analysis of rap lyrics and hip hop culture and discriminatory behavior are both offered as explanations as to why Black youth are marginalized in the United States. In addition to this, inner city violence is viewed as being normal for African-American youth. 

The reaction to the school killings by white youth was met with a national appraisal of how violence was being fed to our children. The White House hastily convened a conference on youth violence - something that has never been done to address this issue among African-American youth. Alienation among Black youth is either disregarded or simply not considered and more "plausible explanations" such as Black youth's genetic predisposition to violence are offered. Widespread violent behavior among Black males has led certain scientists to theorize that there is a "genetic" predisposition for violence within Black males. 

In 1993, Dr. Frederick Goodwin, former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, was quoted as suggesting that inner-city ghetto males were like "jungle monkeys" [sic] concerning violent behavior. Shortly after these statements, the National Institutes of Health announced plans for a conference with the proposed title "Genetic Factors in Crime: Findings, Uses and Implications" that caused a storm of protest from African Americans including the Congressional Black Caucus, which ultimately lead to the cancellation of the conference. It is nearly unthinkable to exclude social factors in explaining white adolescent behavior, yet explanations of Black adolescent behavior often focus on the internal pathologies of Black life in America. 

What is emerging is a picture of Black adolescent boys that ignores how racism influences their lives. Perhaps a nation weary from the media-fed notion that Black violence is rampant, prefers explanations that place the blame for this "alarming statistic" squarely on the shoulders of the perceived perpetrator. It is not Black boys who must be examined; it is the society itself that must be restructured so that these young males can grow up healthy despite the racism that assaults them on a daily basis. 

Campus Hate Crimes: Symptoms of White Youth Alienation

A hate crime by definition is any attack, physical or mental, against another human being because of race, gender, age or sexual preference. Emerging from this unholy mixture of racism, stereotypes and young people's alienation are increasing crimes of hate on American college campuses. The overwhelming number of these crimes are racially motivated and involve perpetrators who are white males and victims who are either Black males or Black females. Preliminary figures show 7,947 hate crime incidents were reported to the FBI during 1995. The incidents were reported by more than 9,500 law enforcement agencies in 45 states and the District of Columbia. Participating agencies covered 75 percent of the U.S. population. 

Under new laws, campuses must report hate crimes, a statistic many of them prefer to ignore. Campus crime in general and campus hate crimes specifically are incidents that many universities prefer not report. With fierce competition for all students and students of color in general, colleges and universities are reluctant to let it be known that their campuses are hotbeds of intolerance. According to the United States Student Association, in 1996 fully nine percent of hate crimes occurred on campuses. Most likely this figure is underreported and many suspect that campus hate crimes may be as high as fifteen percent of the total. Overwhelmingly these crimes are interracial, with the Matthew Shepherd case representing the second largest group, attacks against gays and lesbians. As table one indicates, the vast majority of these crimes are perpetrated by young white males and in only rare instances is the perpetrator African American. 

It is clear that college is a time when young persons search for identity. This takes the form of discovering and exploring issues of sexuality and ethnic identity. The exploration of both of these are displayed in popular media in the 1995 film Higher Learning, in which the white protagonist is fed a steady diet of racial hatred that eventually erupts to campus violence that causes the deaths of several students. Although fictionalized, the theme of the film is not that far from the truth of current hate crimes plaguing American campuses. Institutions are natural places for the exchange of ideas; beginning with the free speech movement at Berkeley during the early 1960s. Campuses are places for organizing politically for several causes. In the 1990s, they have often been the recruiting farms for hate inspired groups ranging from neo-Nazis to the Ku Klux Klan. In most instances, campus administrators are caught off guard when these incidents occur. There is the usual manifestation of shock and surprise, the establishment of dialogue groups, which usually ends with a discussion of "hate speech codes"--- a dubious remedy for curbing hate filled speech.

No patterns generally emerge when it comes to campus hate crimes. There is a consensus by many law enforcement agencies that these crimes are proportionate to the percentage of fraternity members on campus. Thus, the higher the percentage of fraternity membership, the greater potential for hate crimes. The culture of fraternities make them ripe for the commission of these crimes, since they often involve some daring act during the initiation period. The FBI estimates that 90% of all campus crimes involve alcohol and the overwhelming number of these alcohol-related crimes emerge from fraternity culture. A potential member may be asked to spray paint a swastika on a Hillel House, or carve "KKK" on the headquarters of the major Black student organizations as evidence of their dedication to the particular fraternity. In other cases, fraternities may act out racist stereotypes in the name of entertainment. Hate crimes do not always end with the victim being beaten. In fact, a hate crime is any attack, physical or mental, against another human being because of race, gender, age or sexual preference. 

Campus Responses to Hate Crimes: Do's and Don'ts

Campus administrations are usually perplexed when a hate crime rears its head. There is almost a knee jerk response from campus officials who declare that they will not "tolerate" such behavior on the campus, as if this lack of toleration will curb the acts. In most cases, it does not, and in nearly all cases, such statements do not ameliorate the damage done to the victims of these crimes. Here are some dos and don'ts from a survey of campuses hit with recent hate crimes:

Don't:

• Establish a short-live committee of students to "study the campus atmosphere" comprised mostly of members of the victimized groups
• Hold a campus convocation unless campus officials are willing to bring tangible solutions to the situation at hand
• Claim that racism and/or homophobic behavior are not problems at the university
• Ignore the problem as an aberration

• Establish a campus committee involving high level administrators and students from both the victimized group and popular campus organizations such as fraternities and sororities
• Establish a long-range plan of campus diversity seminars that are mandatory for the Freshman class
• Examine curricula and encourage faculty to discuss tolerance and acceptance in their classes
• Create a super-committee representative of campus organizations dedicated to issues of diversity