Could someone please explain this to me? Is it just racism?

[Garbarsardar]

SPRING, Texas (AP) -- Two white teenagers severely beat and sodomized a 16-year-old Hispanic boy who they believed had tried to kiss a 12-year-old white girl at a party, authorities said.

The attackers forced the boy out of the house party, beat him and sodomized him with a metal pipe, shouting epithets "associated with being Hispanic," said Lt. John Martin with the Harris County Sheriff's Department.

They then poured bleach over the boy, apparently to destroy DNA evidence and left him for dead, authorities said. He wasn't discovered until Sunday, a day after the attack. (Watch how a neighbor described the victim's injuries -- 1:34)

The victim, who was not identified, suffered severe internal injuries and remained in critical condition Thursday.

Keith Robert Turner, 17, and David Henry Tuck, 18, are charged with aggravated sexual assault, investigators said.
Prosecutors are considering whether to attach hate-crime charges, but unless the victim dies, the possible penalty would be the same. If the boy dies and it is ruled a hate crime, the attackers could face the death penalty, authorities said.

The case has been turned over to the homicide division, Martin said, normal procedure in severe assault cases.

Authorities set bond at $100,000 for Turner and at $20,000 for Tuck.

Spring is a middle-class, largely white suburb of 36,000 residents, located about 10 miles north of the Houston city line.

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/US/04/27....ap/index.html

How do you explain this? We brand them biggots and we push the whole incident in the back of our mind?
It is probably the easy thing to do.

[Spiff]

Im not sure what you mean, are you saying we naturaly assume they attacked him becuase of his race, when they could have attacked him equally because the girl he supposedly tried to kiss was too young?

Either way they two boys are basically scum.. unless ive missed something here. Damn you Garb making me doubt my own ability to get the gist of a story!

[gigagaia]

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/US/04/27....ap/index.html

How do you explain this? We brand them biggots and we push the whole incident in the back of our mind?
It is probably the easy thing to do.

I think that we have to look, in this situation, at class and how it relates to race.
These kids are from primarily middle-class backgrounds, and likely associate hispanics with lower-class, thus less deserving of resepct and the proper treatment that they might accord to white people. It underlies potentitally deep social tensions in the US caused by social inequality and opportunity. The fact of the matter is, hispanics are far more disadvantaged than caucasions are in the US, both socially and economically.

Questions to ask:
1. Why do we assume that it has to do with race?
1.a) What does that tell us about out prejudices?, and from that, why do we have such prejudices?

2. If indeed they were acting in a racist manner at their age, why?

3. If it was more about the association of class and race, why is there animosity towards that particular class?

This should be a wake-up call to people who believe that tensions "do not exist" in American society. The US, is indeed in many ways more successful at integrating immigrants into social and economic structures than Europe is. But they should also not be complacent in that knowledge, and remember that in this imperfect world, there are no "post-racial democracies (like Brazil :wink: )." Where there are social divisions, be them along class, ethnic or geneder lines, there will be conflict. The government should look at this matter carefully indeed...

[Tostig]

Either way they two boys are basically scum.. unless ive missed something here. Damn you Garb making me doubt my own ability to get the gist of a story!

When I first looked at this I just thought "What can I say? They're just scum. Nothing I can really contribute." Which I believe is what he is questioning. Did they do this simply because they weren't nice people, or is that just a simplistic way we can avoid the real issues? gigagaia has done a far better job than I could of spelling those out.

It's interesting to see how racism has evolved in Britain. Decades ago it was simply hooligans smashing up take aways and beating up asian people, but recently it has developed into a sort of underlying prejudice as contact with people from minority groups has increased.

[Denny Crane!]

When I first looked at this I just thought "What can I say? They're just scum. Nothing I can really contribute." Which I believe is what he is questioning. Did they do this simply because they weren't nice people, or is that just a simplistic way we can avoid the real issues? gigagaia has done a far better job than I could of spelling those out.

It's interesting to see how racism has evolved in Britain. Decades ago it was simply hooligans smashing up take aways and beating up asian people, but recently it has developed into a sort of underlying prejudice as contact with people from minority groups has increased.

It is fear of the unknown and the different. Multicultural Britain has lots and lots of different and lots and lots of different, now you have an awful lot of people distrusting other people because they don't understand the differences.

Just another example, the person I work with was considering the people next door to us. Pakistani born and very successful; living in a converted abbey and driving a range of luxury cars. The comments went along the lines of, "coming into our country stealing our jobs and our money makes me sick." I have learnt a long time ago that debating this sort of thing is futile. It did make me wonder though why is it ok in peoples eyes for a white person to do well and not a pakistani? These people work really hard and have done for many years, there business is doing so well partly because it is so family orientated. Is there a better or more ethical way to build a business than on your family? So why the racist attitude directed towards them? Especially coming from someone half as skilled and half as hard working. Jealousy, fear and avarice. Very similar to the anti-semitism from then and now.

Peter

[Last Roman]

shouting epithets "associated with being Hispanic"

it is quite clear that they were biggots and that a hate crime should be added

[gigagaia]

it is quite clear that they were biggots and that a hate crime should be added

Of course there is an element of racism and/or bigotry involved. I don't think that anyone is arguing against that.
But that being said, I think that Garb's point was that is this something that we should simply label and forget about, or something that points to greater problems and issues in soceity that are at play? All too often we label something in moral disgust and then turn our backs on it, in the hopes that it will simply go away.
It wasn't just racism. There was more at work, guiding those bigotted remarks. Something that told those kids that what they did was wrong. A long term approach is to find out what caused this and attempt to address this, instead of punishing these kids for what they believe was acceptable and thus embittering them towards our notions of justice, or even worse just throwing away youth into cells and releasing them as hardended criminals.
Justice must work it's course, no doubt, but when things like this happen, we should ask more questions and dig deepr.

Every problem does have a solution. But in order to find that solution, we need to look beneath the surface and find out what truly is behind that problem; seek to understand it at its deepest and core levels. Only then can se truly hope to solve problems such as those that this incident has highlighted.

[God]

We assume it was about race because they were 'shouting epithets "associated with being Hispanic," (according go the article)

Why? Because of the way they were brought up probably.

[Freddie]

Assuming that all the facts surrounding the cases are true (the 16 boy tried to kiss the minor and the two other teenagers beat him up and shouted abuse at him) then frankly it’s rat on rat violence.

If the Hispanic tried to kiss the minor he should be locked up and have his balls chopped of as for the other two they need to locked as well. If they beat him up purely for the fact he sexually abusing the 12 year old I might have been more sympathetic towards them but as far as I’m concerned racism has no place in a modern society.

In my opinion thought the fact the 16 year was apparently kissing the 12 year old is the bigger story here. Paedophiles > Racists

[Tostig]

For how long as kissing a twelve year old been sexual abuse, much less an act worthy of being "sodomized....with a metal pipe"?

[Garbarsardar]

In my opinion thought the fact the 16 year was apparently kissing the 12 year old is the bigger story here. Paedophiles > Racists

At least you could get the facts right:

who they believed had tried to kiss a 12-year-old white girl

A Paedophile, with a 4 year difference from the alledged victim? In many countries (correction:in most countries) they are both minors!
You cannot even bring this acusation close to a court of law...

beat him and sodomized him with a metal pipe

Business as usual I guess...

Anyway, my point was that dismissing the two boys as scum does not help at least me to understand their motive. Texas is a traditionalist-fundamentalist state, highly conservative, and still that does not give me an answer...I'll have to think more although giga made some valid points...

[Tom Paine]

Kissing a 12 year old is not sexually abusing them Freddie, not by a long shot... nor is it even paedophilia, once more, not by a long way.

[Halie Satanus]

I doubt that the motivation had much to do with race, i see two boys driven by the more basic and primal urge's of attacking a weaker victim, in an attack such as this it's common to use the simplest forms to dehumanise the victim, in this case racial debasement, had the victim been obese, tall, worn glasses or even been a good looking blonde haired blue eyed white kid, the attack would still have happened,imo, it's likely they saw this boy as an invader to thier "turf", pehaps the age of the girl was the intial trigger, but as is highlited above the boys "belived" an incedent took place, this leads me to belive that they did not witness the alleged kiss, i can only speculate that these two boys are seen as local alpha male's, and pehaps someone has incited them into this attack,

As for the attack itself, it's extreme by any standard, i don't think i'll be proved wrong if i say that it's not the first time these two have commited such violent a crime, the sodomy and attempt to destroy evidence are not something they came up with on the spur of the moment, who walks around with a bottle of bleach just in case they need it?,

So in regarding to the the title of the thread,imo, no it's not just racism, more the common behavior, seen in groups of primate's since the dawn of time, chimpanze's behave the same way whenever an outsider court's a female in thier group, sorry that maybe is a little to glib, but i think while we may think we are far removed from our more primal base instinct's, it dosn't take much to bring out the screeming and mindless violence of our not so distant relative's, i don't agree with the death penalty unless it's ..(leave hs can 'o' worms) but perhaps a nice long stint in a jail with a hispanic majority would be a punishment befitting the crime.

Spring is a middle-class, largely white suburb of 36,000 residents, located about 10 miles north of the Houston city line.

I don't know the politics of Cnn but this actually say's either, these kids are racist scum hang them, or these kids are upstanding members of a white community only doing what's right, either way it's incitement,