Brooklyn College 'Steps Up' to Combat Hate Crimes
Community leaders, activists, advocates, business executives, educators, and citizens came together at Brooklyn College on April 9 to take part in "Stepping Up! A Community Conference to Prevent Hate Crimes."
Sponsored by We Are All Brooklyn, the Center for the Study of Brooklyn, and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York/CAUSE-NY, the conference explored best practices, tools, and resources for preventing hate crimes. "Palm cards" containing information on how to identify and report hate crimes, as well as where victims may receive services in their native languages, were distributed to conference participants. The palm cards were provided in English, Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, Bengali, Urdu, Russian, and Haitian Creole.
 |
|
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz |
"The teach-in provided a forum for Brooklyn community leaders and residents, along with Brooklyn College faculty, staff, and students, to identify current hate-crime prevention efforts in the borough, set our goals for the future, determine the resources needed and the steps we must take to achieve these goals, and consider challenges we might encounter along the way," said Gretchen Maneval, director of the Center for the Study of Brooklyn.
Charles J. Hynes, the Kings County District Attorney, said that in the wake of the fortieth anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s death and on the heels of the Jewish holiday Passover, the time was appropriate to talk about ways to defeat hatred and bigotry. "Such messages take on new dimensions now," he said, noting that statewide, hate crimes had increased 23 percent from 2006 to 2007.
He highlighted several efforts of policy makers to combat hate crimes and implored all members of the community to get involved, especially in helping younger generations understand respect and compassion for others. "Laws alone can not change the hearts and minds of racists and bigots," Hynes said. "Education is key."
Michael Osgood, commanding officer of the New York City Police Department's Hate Crimes Task Force, said that because hate crimes affect an entire group of people, they have a more devastating affect on a community than other crimes. "They exacerbate tensions in the community because of the group victimization," Osgood said. "You can see the serious effect of having a million people in the city who are angry because they don't feel that they can walk down the street without fear."
He stated that there were 117 hate crimes in Brooklyn last year, up slightly from the previous year. The majority of hate crimes in Brooklyn have been anti-Semitic crimes, while anti-sexual orientation crimes came in a distant second, followed by anti-black crimes and then anti-white crimes. He went on to note that New York City has 3.9 million foreign-born residents and some 175 to 200 languages are spoken.
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz pointed out that while the presence of such diversity may play into the prevalence of some hate crimes, it is also Brooklyn's biggest asset in fighting hate and bigotry. "We have to remember every day how lucky we are to live in Brooklyn," said Markowitz. "By exposing [young people] to the life and struggles of other groups we have an opportunity to give them a greater appreciation of the beauty of diversity."
Among the other participants were Hassan Askari, a Bangladeshi Muslim who came to the aid of a Jewish man being attacked by a gang of ten, and Devorah Halberstam, director of foundation and government services at the Jewish Children's Museum. Reverend Clinton Miller, Brown Memorial Baptist Church, served as the keynote speaker.
The conference also featured representatives of the American Jewish Committee-New York Chapter, the Anti-Defamation League-New York Region, Brooklyn College, CAMBA, the Council of Peoples Organization, the Crown Heights Community Mediation Center, the Crown Heights Youth Collective, the Greater Southern Brooklyn Health Coalition, Mt. Zion Church of God, the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project (AVP), the New York City Commission on Human Rights, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, Project REACH, United Sikhs, and YouthBridge-NY.
