Words Continue to Have Consequences

Talk about a paradox: just days after Americans made history by electing the first black president, the AP reports that threats against a president-elect spike right after an election, but from Maine to Idaho law enforcement officials are seeing more against Barack Obama than any president-elect ever before. And in New York, seven teenage thugs in Patchogue replicated a shameful page of what we'd like to call "history" by forming what one prosecutor called a "lynch mob." Why are people bent on hate? More importantly - how do we fight ignorance and intolerance? A South Carolina Roman Catholic priest has told his parishioners that they should refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama because the Democratic president-elect supports abortion, and supporting him "constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil." A wise friend once said, "the same people who hate immigrants and immigration reform hate Latinos, and hate other races, and the people who hate these groups are the same who speak out against women's rights, and against choice, and against gay rights...." Arguing that any one group is better or worse than another constitutes hate speech, and hate speech has consequences.

A New York Times editorial this week, The High Cost of Harsh Words opens with the name of our column - words have consequences. And Steve Levy, the Suffolk County executive, is learning that the hard way. Seven teenagers were arrested and charged in the fatal stabbing last Saturday of Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorean immigrant, on a street in the Long Island village of Patchogue. Local lawmakers in Suffolk would speak out complaining about immigration, but Levy went farther - he founded a national organization to lobby for crackdowns. He went on "Lou Dobbs." He sought to drive day laborers from local streets, yet rigidly opposed efforts to create hiring sites. Even as tensions escalated in places like Farmingville, a hot spot for anti-immigrant resentment, Mr. Levy parroted extremist talking points, going so far as to raise the alarm, utterly false, that illegal immigrants' "anchor babies" were forcing Southampton Hospital to close its maternity ward. He now denounces racist hatred, yet his words have made him a hero to white supremacist hate groups, and certainly contributed to the atmosphere that allowed these men to feel angry enough to want to kill another human being, and protected enough to think that they could get away with it.

It's difficult to tell whether Levy even cares about the responsibility he bears in relation to this crime, immigrant advocates assailed him for having poisoned the atmosphere. Some called for his resignation, and with tactless self-pity, Mr. Levy complained to Newsday that the killing would have been a one-day story anywhere but his home turf. He insists that people have a distorted picture of him, but "Mr. Levy needs to realize that distortions cut both ways." Some white supremacists hide behind the alleged legal status argument - alleging Lucero was "illegal," so what if he was? If you think that his legal status excuses taking his life, then you are a racist. Then where do we draw the line? Is the life of a thief, an adulterer, or an unscrupulous wall street executive also expendable? And to further make the point - these thugs didn't stop to ask for papers before attacking, which would put you, or me, or anyone at risk. The murder is just the tip of the iceberg - it's not a "story" when Hispanics are assaulted and beaten, but don't die, or when rocks or other items are thrown at them in places like Suffolk around the country, or when a Latino family's house burns down because two teens thought it would be "cool" to throw firecrackers into the house and see the family scurry out.

Where is the outrage against the cruel murder of an Ecuadorian man? I applaud Peter Applebome, Angela Macropoulos, and Kirk Semple of the New York Times for reporting on it, but what about national news, national networks? Why isn't Lou Dobbs talking about this war by the middle class, against the Hispanic middle and poor class? Oh yes, he's against illegal and legal immigrants, I almost forgot. Where is the Hispanic Bill O'Reilly, angrily mobilizing mobs to speak out against this horrible crime? That's a rhetorical question, it would be awful for Latinos to fuel the fire by drawing additional racial divides - the idea is for no group to predicate division, but rather hold Dobbs, Beck and O'Reilly and people like them accountable for all acts like this murder, because words do have consequences.

On the day these men killed Mr. Lucero, they were identified by witnesses as having battered two other Hispanics earlier in the afternoon. What if the story had been the other way around, and a group of Latinos went out hunting for a U.S. born high school boy, or a "frat boy?" What kind of coverage would that story receive? Dobbs would have dedicated a month's worth of programming to it. And what kind of justice would those murderers get? I sincerely doubt a gang of Hispanics would get off on a first or second degree "manslaughter" indictment (only one of the seven attackers is charged with murder). A very unfair double-standard still exists, and it's appalling. Make no mistake, these weren't young kids who didn't know any better, they were a gang as defined in the U.S.: "a street-oriented youth group whose own identity includes the involvement in illegal activity." And to be clear, assault - which doesn't even involve putting a hand on someone, battery, murder, are all illegal activities.

Murder is murder - manslaughter means you didn't intend to kill. A requirement of murder is that a person acts with intent to kill and knowledge that their actions will result in someone's death. And the police reports that this gang was out to - self-describedly - "kill a Mexican," and they stabbed the guy - they beat him, and then they stabbed him - let's not confuse things, they were out to kill. And if they can do this to another man for no reason, what's not to say that these same men would be just as willing to assault a woman just because they can, or a child? They are a menace to society, as is anyone who thinks like them. One of the killers, Chris Overton, 16 years old, is awaiting sentencing in another case. He pleaded guilty to burglary in another fatal attack in May 2007 in which a 38-year-old East Patchogue man was shot dead when a group of teenagers robbed his home. A neighbor found the victim, Carlton Shaw, dead in his backyard, his 3-year-old son sleeping on his chest.

But the Lucero murder was fueled by hate, and it's up to each community to not allow these crimes to go unreported, underreported, or unpunished. Let us not forget; now Levy plans to have a scholarship for children in honor of Marcelo Lucero, and that's all well and good, but I care more about what he personally is going to do to admit his rhetoric was hateful and unacceptable, and to change the atmosphere in Suffolk. Remember Luis Ramirez? The Mexican man who was also killed by another high-school age gang in Shenandoah, PA? The picture above is of Ramirez just before he died...let's not forget, and let's not allow hate crimes to become a "fact of life," let's stay vigilant in our communities to avoid adding another name to the list of victims.