Researcher Uses Knowledge to Fight Hate: An Interview with Mark Sherry
By Laura Hershey (LauraHershey@cripcommentary.com)
Mark Sherry recently finished his tenure as the Ed Roberts Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley's Disability Studies program. During his fellowship, Sherry continued his research into a disturbing but important topic -- violence against disabled people -- work he had begun at Australia's University of Queensland.
LH: Can you tell me a little bit about how you approached the issue of hate crimes?
MS: Okay. A hate crime involves two things. It involves, firstly, a crime such as theft, vandalism, assault or murder. And second, it involves a bias element, a hate or animosity towards a group of people, such as disabled people. I was really upset by the way that disabled people have been excluded from hate crime legislation, that our experiences haven't been recognized, and our chances for justice haven't been acknowledged. I began my work in the area of brain injury. Many brain injuries are traumatically acquired, violently acquired. In the course of that, I heard stories that were, essentially, about hate crimes -- but nobody but me was calling them that. The victims of those crimes never received any sort of appropriate responses which should have occurred due to the magnitude of those crimes. And I noticed that when there were meetings on hate crimes, disabled people were left out. I started doing research on what is a hate crime, and what are disabled people's experiences with regard to that. I found that, in America, only one case of a disability hate crime has been successfully prosecuted.
LH: Where was that case?
MS: That was in 1999, the case of Eric Crook Mallock in Milltown, New Jersey. He was a cognitively disabled man. He was kidnapped, his eyebrows were shaved, he was beaten up, he was burned with a cigarette, he was choked, he was abandoned in the forest, by a group of people who said, "Come to a party, you might meet a nice girl." The people claimed to be his friends. These people had tortured him on two previous occasions. Only on the third occasion were they prosecuted for a hate crime.
LH: Why was that case successfully prosecuted, when it hasn't happened anywhere else?
MS: Firstly, they could show the biased motivation by the repeated nature of the attacks. This was not the first time they had done it. Often hate crimes are committed by complete strangers; then police make the faulty assumption that people don't have malice, so the investigating officers don't examine the evidence of bias. Often when people report evidence of bias to law enforcement officers, those statements are not even recorded in the history of the crime by the first investigating officer. I think that case was prosecuted because they had done it to him three times before. And their campaign of harassment against him was ongoing and continuing, and so severe. And they made no attempt whatsoever to conceal their anti-disability bias.
LH: How can research help?
MS: I want people to recognize that hate exists toward disabled people. Often people's assumption is that people have condescension or pity. But nondisabled people do not want to acknowledge that they hate disabled people, that they hate our difference. I've done internet searches on hate sites against disabled people.
Here's what one website says: "Retards, I hate them. I don't care how politically incorrect it is. I fucking hate retards. I watched something on Canadian television this weekend about a mother who had her mongoloid son chemically castrated. Thank God." Another one, "I hate those drooling fucking lifeless wall-faced bastards. All they do is shit themselves, smell bad, and try to wipe boogers and pass diseases to anyone and everyone around them. Sometimes I see them. I want to take a hammer to their thick skulls."
LH: Did you say these are sites that are actually dedicated to hate? The whole site is about that? Or is this just something posted within some other kind of site?
MS: Some of these sites are specifically hate sites. Some are on general discussion lists. That's just hate speech. Now, that is not necessarily a hate crime. But a hate crime occurred in Oklahoma when a man with cerebral palsy was told, "You belong in the trash, you cripple" -- and was picked up and thrown into a trash bin where he couldn't call for help because of his speech impediment.
LH: Did you look at hate crimes internationally? Did you compare various countries?
MS: I began my work on hate crimes in Australia. [I found that] multiple identities overlap. So, for instance, I was finding a lot of queer disabled people were being victims of hate crimes. People were picking on them for being both queer and disabled. I came to Berkeley last year and researched American hate crimes, and I've had some contact with Canadian groups around hate crimes, as well.
LH: Does the Australian government, or any of the state governments there, have hate crimes legislation?
MS: They have hate crime legislation, but they don't included people with disabilities.
LH: You mentioned that in Australia you found a lot of the hate crimes were targeting people both for disability and for being queer. Are queer people protected under the Australian hate crimes laws?
MS: In some states, yes.
LH: Were those queer, disabled victims able to have some success under those laws?
MS: Yes, but all the disability dynamics had to be ignored. It's only a partial picture of what's going on. And it does an injustice to people's experience with disability. In America, 23 states have included disability as a protected category, which means more than half don't include disability as a protected category. So you can commit hate crimes against disabled people in more than half of the states and get away scott-free, without being punished for those hate crimes. Often people receive no justice whatsoever.
One of the things that has come out of my research is that there are a small number of criminals who take jobs as personal care attendants, so as to commit crimes against disabled people. Maybe that's only ten percent of the total workforce of people who work as personal care attendants. And yet, those people often engage in crimes such as theft and murder. Why am I saying that's a hate crime? It's because they're intentionally selecting their victims. They're looking for disabled victims. They're making an effort to connect with the group of people who they want to abuse and commit crimes against.
LH: And do you think they do that because of animus against disabled people? Or is it because they figure it will be easier to get away with, because they see them as more vulnerable?
MS: All of those reasons. There's a whole swag of reasons why people choose to pick on a particular individual. Things like believing that a disabled person won't be believed by the police, thinking that they've got less chance of being caught, thinking that even if they're caught they've got less chance of being prosecuted, thinking that even if they're prosecuted they've got less of a chance of being convicted, thinking that even that if they're convicted they've got less chance of going to jail. So, the whole process lets disabled people down, every step of the way.
LH: Some people contend that hate crime legislation, by tacking on additional penalties to an act of violence, is punishing thought and beliefs, and is therefore a violation of free speech. They argue that assault is assault, and people can be charged and jailed for committing an assault, regardless of their motivation. How do you feel about that in the context of hate crimes against disabled people?
MS: Hate crime legislation punishes conduct, not speech. Those websites I quoted to you before, they are all perfectly legal. They may be hateful, but they're perfectly legal. Hate crime legislation makes acts which are already illegal receive additional penalties if they're motivated by bias. So, for instance, arson is already illegal. But a hate crime involves two crimes in one act. It involves the first crime -- arson, for instance; or graffiti, or destroying property. But there is a parallel bias crime, which attacks both the individual and the community of which that person is a part. That parallel crime tells people -- say, for instance, disabled people -- "This is not a safe place for you to come; you are not welcome here." And that separate hate message is punished as well -- and so it should be.
LH: Have you done any research on the impact of hate crimes on people who aren't directly victimized? For example, when a hate crime is committed against a disabled person, how does that affect other disabled people in that same area?
MS: People avoid the area. People change their routines. People feel unsafe. It affects the whole community. People know hear about it, they are fearful. Hate crimes cause a great deal of post-traumatic stress, not just for the immediate victim, but for the community involved.
LH: Can you give a sense of how prevalent the problem of hate violence against disabled people is, both in Australia and in the United States?
MS: This is a really good question. The official statistics on hate crimes, published by the FBI, are totally flawed and incomplete. If you believe them, disabled people have less than one in a million chance of experiencing a hate crime. I think that's pure fantasy. The FBI recognizes about 45,000 hate crimes a year. It would be fair to assume that, if they're recognizing that many, a fifth of the people are disabled, so a fifth of that number, around 9,000, should be reported by the FBI. In fact, the highest number they've ever represented, of disability hate crimes in any one year, is 37, for 53 million Americans with disabilities. Ridiculous! Figures around 9,000 to 10,000 would be probably more accurate.
LH: Since the official statistics so drastically underestimate the problem, what other kinds of sources did you use to try to get a sense of the frequency of hate crimes against disabled people?
MS: There have been many, many studies on criminal victimization of disabled people. Almost every single one of these will tell you that a disabled person is somewhere between five and ten times more likely than a nondisabled person to be the victim of a hate crime. These are consistent studies. We also know, from talking to disabled people, that people continually experience anti-disability bias. I looked at all the literature on general disability discrimination, and I looked at the literature on crime victimization. I also took personal narratives from people who had been the victims of hate crimes. I also interviewed police officers, and law enforcement agencies, and said, what thought do you have on this? What's the incidence of criminal victimization of disabled people, and how are you recording it? What are the problems that you're having recording it?
LH: How did you first start exploring this area, this topic? You mentioned that you were studying traumatic brain injury, and that led to an interest in this area.
MS: One of the people in my Ph.D. study was run over deliberately, in a disability hate crime. Around the same time, conferences were being held on hate crimes in Australia, and didn't include people with disabilities. I was deeply upset by this. I'd heard so many stories of disability abuse. There's an abundance of literature on abuse and disability. We know that disabled people are more likely to experience pronounced, severe, and ongoing abuse. I wanted to make some connections between the recognition of abuse, and the personal stories of hate crimes that I was hearing.
LH: What's the relationship between hate crimes against disabled people, and public policy generally towards disabled people? Do hate crimes increase with more progressive, pro-disability rights policies? Or do hate crimes increase with more anti-disability public policies in areas like discrimination, medical care, etc.?
MS: I'd say, the more hostile the political climate is to disabled people, the more likely hate crimes are to occur. Look at the biggest mass hate crime against disabled people -- the Nazi eugenics program, a program of systemic murder of up to 250,000 people. Hate crimes are spread in an environment where intolerance and inequality and discrimination flourish.
Recently in America, we've heard about the backlash against the ADA. We've heard many complain that people with disabilities are getting special privileges. That discourse then flows on to the hate websites, where a whole lot of vitriol is poured out against disabled people.
One thing I haven't talked about, that's important, is the connection between multiple oppressions and disability. Often when the victim of a hate crime is disabled, every other status that could be examined is highlighted, but not the disability. One of the most famous hate crimes in America was the case of James Byrd, who was beheaded. He was disabled, but very few of the reports on his death recognized that that hate crime could be classified as a disability hate crime, as well as a racial hate crime.
LH: What was his disability?
MS: He had severe arthritis. So, when a nondisabled person meets a disabled person, they assume that your disability is your master status. And yet, when you're victimized, disability becomes your minor status. Anything else -- your racial identity, your sexual identity, your orientation, your gender -- is seen as a more reasonable explanation for why you might be victimized.
LH: Why are people so unwilling to believe that this bias exists?
MS: I think there are many cases of disability oppression that show that just how mean and how cruel nondisabled people can be. A freak show comes to mind in that regard. Hate crimes don't tell us very much about the individual disabled person. But they tell us an awful lot about the oppressive nature of nondisabled society. And very few nondisabled people want to recognize that.
LH: In your research, have you found any good models of the disability community responding to this problem? -- attempts to defend ourselves, if you will?
MS: One of the things queers did -- including disabled queers -- when they were experiencing significant hate crimes in San Francisco, was they developed a whistle-blowing system. If you heard people blowing whistles, they were being attacked in a hate crime, and it was a call for allies to come to their defense. Can you imagine the revolutionary impact of a whistle-blowing system like that in a nursing home? I think that's a challenge for us in the disability movement. Often, unfortunately, many disability organizations uncritically accept the public/private divide. Criminal victimization often is seen as a private matter, between certain individuals. Those disability organizations are missing the structural dynamic, the link between disability oppression and disability hate crimes. This is not a personal matter. It's a public matter of oppression. Physical violence is a really key element of all sorts of oppression, including disability oppression. And that makes it a public, political issue.
LH: Do you think that's even exacerbated among disabled people, because often these crimes are perpetrated by care providers and other people who know their victim?
MS: Absolutely. We need to throw off the shameful feelings that encourage us not to report crimes, not to name hate for what it is. We need to get rid of a lot of that internalized oppression that blames ourselves for the oppression that we experience. And, instead, we need to start saying: This violence is created by, and continued by, nondisabled society. And nondisabled society has a responsibility to address it.
LH: What kinds of recommendations do you have for nondisabled society to do that? Are there specific policies that you advocate?
MS: Yes. Firstly, I want people to recognize disability hate as a form of hate crime. Public programs have got a responsibility to include disability in their hate crime prevention programs, in their community education programs. Unfortunately, far too many are ignoring that. Police officers have a need to include disability awareness training in their programs. For instance, there's a famous case of a hate crime against a man with AIDS in New York. And AIDS is a disability under the definition of the ADA. And there was incontrovertible evidence that this man was victimized because of his AIDS status. And the police officer said, "It might be a hate crime on the basis of his sexual orientation," which tells you a lot about their assumptions about AIDS and sexual orientation. But, they didn't acknowledge that it was a disability hate crime. So, police have got a long way to improve. I guess I'd be encouraging disabled people to be more forthright, as well, in naming hate crimes as such, and in reporting. I know people are really scared, really vulnerable; I know they're often relying on those perpetrators for assistance. And yet, somehow or another, we have to smash the cycle of abuse, violence, and hate crimes. And sometimes it comes down to somebody saying, it starts with me. It's got to be the disabled people leading the way there.
LH: In your research, did you also examine domestic violence against disabled women? And how do these issues relate? Are they one and the same? Is there overlap?
MS: This is a great question. I support the position of organizations like the National Organization of Women, that says domestic violence is often a gender-based hate crime. And domestic violence is a major cause of disability, both among battered women -- something like 35 percent of battered women have undiagnosed head injuries -- and also among disabled fetuses. When women are punched in the stomach, for instance, while they're pregnant, the fetus can be damaged and the child can grow up disabled. We don't acknowledge that nearly enough. Domestic violence, and the power dynamics that perpetuate it -- the sexism, the racism, the violence, the threatened hegemonic masculinity -- all these things need to be addressed in responding to disability hate crimes as well.
LH: Have you worked with disabled women's organizations on issues of violence?
MS: Women With Disabilities Australia has been a major ally for me throughout my entire project. They are a remarkable organization. Often, in Australia, they're the only ones raising these issues. They published my first paper on hate crimes and disability; they were prepared to address issues of racism and sexism. They are an amazing, wonderful organization. While I was in California, I connected with the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault; they have a program about disability, domestic violence, and sexual assault going on right now. And that program, unfortunately, is being threatened to some extent by funding cuts. It would be a travesty if that groundbreaking work doesn't continue. While I was in Berkeley I contacted a local organization called Deaf Women Against Violence.
Disabled women are taking the lead on this. They are showing us how to respond, how to prevent, and how to educate. I'm very happy to be an ally of those disabled women. I don't want to claim their voice, but I'm very happy to support them, do whatever I can to support their fight for social justice.
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