Mr. Furman S Class

Hate Crimes

Mr. Furman’s class

Olivia Mello

“I have a dream for change where people are treated equal and not abused or even killed because they are different. If my dream for change were a reality, the world would be a better place.” Victims in hate crimes are typically targeted because of their race, religion, disability, or sexual orientation.

Hate crimes are when people act against other people because of the above. These people do it just because they don’t like them. For example, a man at a bar found out about another guy’s religion that he was Muslim. The guy grabbed his shirt and stabbed the Muslim in the neck with his pocket knife. He was then charged with aggressive battery. I think if we start out small with including a Tolerance class in school we could see changes in the amount of hate crimes. In

2009, 2034 law enforcement agencies reported 6,604 hate crime incidents involving 7,789 offenses.

To begin with, if we included a Tolerance class in the high schools, I believe we would see a decreasing amount in hate crimes. People need to learn how to accept people the way they are, and not everyone has the same beliefs. They need to learn “How to agree on disagreeing,” said Mr. Furman. If students would at least learn how to agree on disagreeing meaning they agree that they didn’t approve with each other’s beliefs, but they were still friends. I believe if we do include this class that we would see a dramatic decrease in hate crimes.

Also, including this tolerance class in high school kids will learn about the different kinds of people and how they think. I think the class should go through all the top major reasons why hate crimes exist. For example, different genders, race, people with disabilities, people with different religions, along with people with different sexual orientations. By learning about the different topics they could understand and make them not act out on them later on in life. It would be a great way for them to learn about different people instead of automatically being prejudice.

In conclusion, education is the best defense against hate crimes. How could someone harm another because they were different? Including a Tolerance class, would decrease hate crimes, and increase people’s knowledge about different people. If high schools did not start including Tolerance class’s I would look at the school boards differently, because they could help stop hate crimes, but don’t. Regardless to their race, religion, or disability, everyone deserves to have justice.