ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 26, 1996 TAG: 9601260058
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-12 EDITION: METRO
WHAT? A cross-burning on the lawn of an interracial couple in Southeast Roanoke last weekend? In 1996? In the Roanoke Valley?
That's right.
The bad old days of racial terrorism may be over, the cross-burning night riders of the Ku Klux Klan reduced in ranks to a few dregs - forever, the just-minded of all races and political persuasions must hope.
And yet, we must never shrug off the open display of racial hatred. It can reflect, to be sure, the oddball behavior of a kook, or maybe a couple of kooks, perhaps with a personal grudge. That may be what this single act, and another cross-burning in the same neighborhood last year, turn out to be. Police are still investigating.
But cross-burning expresses the worst sort of racial animosity, with the worst sort of tradition, whether some other factor triggered its expression or not.
History teaches that it is the obligation of decent citizens to smell and denounce such malice whenever and wherever it oozes like fecal matter through the cracks of a community's foundation. Complacency or indifference can swell the virulence of racism.
So - does burning a cross or painting a swastika on a synagogue belong in a special category of mischief called "hate crimes," subject to more severe punishment because their effects can be much more devastating to society than, say, a vulgarity scrawled across a bridge abutment?
We can appreciate the good motive behind such laws. But we cannot support a governmental effort to punish the expressions or thoughts - no matter how despicable they might be - of a free people. There are other laws, not focused on the content of the expression, under which most hate crimes can and should be prosecuted.
And yet, it is all the more urgently necessary, therefore, that people who repudiate such views show their collective rejection of them.
Those who favor hate-crime laws and those who oppose them, those who favor affirmative action and those who oppose it, those who saw O.J. Simpson's acquittal as fair play and those who saw it as justice denied - all can and should come together to denounce racial intimidation whenever and wherever it appears.
All can and should come together, too, in the awareness that racism remains a more pervasive force in our society than the infrequency of cross-burnings and other acts of deranged losers might suggest. Some respectable people who wouldn't think of burning a cross on a neighbor's lawn also wouldn't think, for example, of sending their kids to a school with a majority of black children in it.
The need is not just to make clear that Roanoke is inhospitable to cross-burnings, but also to renew our commitment to fight racism in all its ugly and subtle manifestations. As economic uncertainties and cultural anxieties tempt many to see scapegoats all around, we must remind ourselves that we really are members of one race, the human race, against which bigotry and hate remain a common enemy.
LENGTH: Medium: 59 linesby CNB