Hate crimes (was Re: muggle baiting vs. muggle torture)

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 155765

Lupinlore:
> Now, both conspiracy and hate crimes are notoriously hard to
> prosecute, because motivation and intent are very difficult to
> prove. But they are prosecuted every day, and successfully, and
the
> laws under which those prosecutions take place are of long
standing.
>
> I'm afraid that laws based on motivation are a very old story,
going
> all the way back to the medieval and ancient worlds. The WW has
> plentiful historical precedent if it invokes such distinctions.

Magpie:
Yes, you're right that intention always plays a part in how
something is prosecuted (Harry's own trial focuses on whether his
illegal use of magic was okay or not based on intent--did he use it
in an emergency to protect himself?). But that, imo, is not what
this discussion is about. We have this word to call crimes
committed against Muggles, Muggle-baiting. Even if Wizards wouldn't
call something Muggle-baiting if it wasn't specifically racially
oriented (like a hate crime, which I would think would suggest a
whole class of crimes against Muggles, not just baiting them with
Magic) what's the distinction?  With something like a hatecrime, for 
instance, there's still got to be a crime committed; it's not the 
intent that's punished. Harboring racist thoughts isn't a crime, the 
murder is. If a white person murders a black person, an argument 
over whether it's a hate crime relies on "hate crime" being a word 
that describes the motivation connected to the crime.  But does 
Muggle-baiting do that?  And if it doesn't, why not? And what is 
this instead?  And why doesn't that word have weight like Muggle-
baiting?

In canon the same argument is laid out. Arthur claims this is the
kind of thing he fights against, the Twins claim it isn't since they
didn't do it because he was a Muggle and Arthur says that's not the
point. The list seems to disagree along the same lines: but they
didn't do it because he was a Muggle/that's not the point. It's
gotten focused on the word Muggle-baiting but it seems like that's
sort of a cover for the real question, which is whether or not it's,
for lack of a better word, bigotry-a subject the books are very 
interested in.  Maybe I'm wrong but it seems like that's the whole 
reason we're disagreeing over the word, because it's so clearly 
connected to something like discrimination.  

It's not like the word itself really matters since it's a made-up
word about made-up people with no connection to our lives. As has
been pointed out, if you look at what the words mean in the
dictionary (as opposed to imagining how this word is understood in
Rowling's fictional world) it fits. Dudley is a Muggle and what the
twins are doing is baiting. 

-m