Speak up against SB 5280

SB 5280 expands hate crimes to include “occupation as a law enforcement officer.”

The concept of a “hate crime” comes from the thousands of extralegal lynchings conducted in the West and South during settlement and Jim Crow. It has a specific historical context and significance. While it could have been written better —lynchings really implicated whole communities, not just individuals — it is what currently exists to legally deter violence against protected classes of people.

The concept of “protected class” is also one which exists because of 1960s civil rights organizing against racist violence, segregation, and discrimination. The kind of organizing which saw buses firebombed and people brutally attacked by the KKK during the “Freedom Rides,” which were just about black people riding buses into the South and testing anti-discrimination laws. This is our history, whether we like it or not.

Washington had concentration camps for Japanese American people. We had race riots, led in Tacoma by the Pierce County Sheriff and mayor, for the purpose of ethnic cleansing— forcing Chinese people out of the state. We (I use “we” to mean all settlers) brutalized and stole from and warred with Native peoples throughout settlement, allotment, and through the 1970s with the Fish Wars. Jewish temples and Islamic mesjids have been attacked, burned, and more in Washington state even as recently as the bomb threat this weekend on Mercer Island. There is much more. This is what the concept of a “hate crime” is meant to address, not someone’s chosen profession. Do not allow this meaning to be watered down.

This story was originally published March 9, 2017 at 7:01 PM with the headline "Speak up against SB 5280."