Charles Brown wrote:
> >>> "rc-am" <rcollins at netlink.com.au> 05/04/99 11:50PM >>>
>
> >>CB: The German and French examples are contra your general criticism on
> this thread. Their definitions of "racism" and "racial vilification" are politically correct from a left point of view. Even these reforms in
Charles,
I won't enter into the entire debate now, but you do recognize, do you not, that some people who are in pretty much agreement with your general take on racism, and the priority you give to the struggle against it, are rather vigorously against you on the topic of hate laws. The general position from which some of us condemn out of hand the NATO aggression in Serbia is inextricably linked to our general opposition to any expansion of the police power of the bourgeois state.
I will just state the point dogmatically here: Hate crime laws will *never* be used against racists. They will be used, rather, to support the death penalty for Mumia. Almost every issue of the WSJ contains a column in which the likes of you and me are branded "racist," while the proponents of the destruction of affirmative action are branded anti-racist. So it will be in the police departments and the courts if hate crime legislation is passed.
Carrol