‘We are all vulnerable’

Abstract

Ironically, while scholars and policy-makers have long referred to hate crime as a ‘message crime’, the assumption that those beyond the immediate victim are likewise intimidated by the violence has gone untested. Grounded in a recent study of the community impacts of hate crime, we offer some insights into these in terrorem effects of hate crime. We present here some of our qualitative findings. Interestingly, our findings suggest that, in many ways, awareness of violence directed toward another within an identifiable target group yields strikingly similar patterns of emotional and behavioural responses among vicarious victims. They, too, note a complex syndrome of reactions, including shock, anger, fear/vulnerability, inferiority, and a sense of the normativity of violence. And, like the proximal victim, the distal victims often engage in subsequent behavioural shifts, such as changing patterns of social interaction. On a positive note, there is also some evidence that these reactions can culminate not in withdrawal, but in the potential for community mobilization.