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Hate Crime In South Carolina

Decent Essays

South Carolina’s hands seem to be filled with a surplus of judgment and resentment for how things are run in varying parts of the country; but yet neglect the issues that hit home. While South Carolina legislation is busy worrying about letting “murderers, rapists, and criminals” through our borders, they are blind to the murderers, rapists, and criminals in our own state. Two counties in South Carolina are included in the top 30 dangerous areas in America along with holding the ranking of seventh in America’s most criminal state which has gradually climbed the rank since 2012. Causation for such a high crime rate stems from an equally as terrifying statistic. Almost 19% of South Carolina citizens live under the poverty line, nearly 1 in …show more content…

That being said, South Carolina has 21 armed extremist hate groups which is a large number for such a small state. South Carolina has had a long history of racism and violence, but it’s unclear whether hate crimes are more regular here than elsewhere. In recent years, the state doesn’t seem to have had an excessive share of the country’s hate crimes, but that may be because of the limitations of hate-crime statistics and the inconsistency or so far as lack of hate-crime legislation. The most recent crime statistics assembled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation paint a similar picture. In 2016, agencies in every state but Hawaii, and Washington, D.C., supported concrete verification of hate crime statistics to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting program. South Carolina had 51 reported hate crimes, 33 of them driven by racial partiality. That’s 10.7 hate crimes per million 2016 residents— which was the 34th largest frequent occurrence in the company of the 49 states and D.C. — and 6.9 prompted by racial bias, which was 33rd highest. It’s no secret, hate incites violence. So why can’t South Carolina break through this racist stigma and hateful stereotype that has been assigned to our state for generations? The answer is presented in our education system. There is no government funded tolerance program assigned to South Carolina schools in any way, shape, or form. There is no way to fuel our minds for the future towards acceptance and celebration of diversity. In fact, teachers are ordered to keep their tolerant opinions to themselves and let South Carolina’s history shape young minds’ opinions of the world. Anti-diversity themes have become the so called “norm” and only carve a path for the repetition of history, specifically our history, and violence will only strengthen it’s grip on our state if hearts aren’t given the time to

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