Community members seek spiritual route to combat hate crimes

The FBI reported in 2016 that the state of Ohio ranked third in the nation for hate crime reports, with 442 documented offenses. 336 of these offenses were due to race, ethnicity, or ancestry.

Hitting a little closer to home, Kent was identified as the most racist Northeast Ohio city determined by the percentage of racially charged Google searches.

Hate crimes, defined by federal law, are “offenses involving actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability”, according to Kent Police Lieutenant Michael Lewis.

“Ohio does not mirror the same level of protection and is probably behind the times,” Lewis said. “We don’t really charge someone with a ‘hate crime’ under Ohio law.”

Instead, the Ohio Revised Code gives an offense called ‘Ethnic Intimidation’ as a way to enhance penalties for offenders who commit crimes based on race, color, religion, or national origin.

A first degree misdemeanor, for example, would be bumped to the next highest class of crime—a fifth degree felony—if found to fall under Ethnic Intimidation.

“Notice that it is only certain crimes, and says nothing about gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation,” Lewis said.

Putting it simply, to determine a hate crime or ethnic intimidation in Ohio, the suspect’s crime must refer to someone’s race, color, religion, or national origin.

Spelman Chapel AME Church in Kent recently became a victim of a possible hate crime last year.

The church, which serves an African-American population, was vandalized with graphic imagery like Swastikas, the number ‘666’, and white supremacy terms. This followed an incident a few months prior where the front door glass was broken.

“[The crime] was never charged,” Neil Dukes, a trustee of the church, said. “Police came by and they did a brief investigation and took some pictures but that was it.”

The church didn’t have cameras, and no other evidence was found that the police could use to figure out the perpetrators of the crime.

Of the two incidents that happened to Spelman, Dukes believes there was some connection, but there was no actual evidence there was one. 

The church suffered several damages as the result of these incidents; the broken glass cost around $200 to fix and attendance suffered slightly.

“[Congregants] did express fear because of some of the mass shootings that happened at other churches around the country,” Dukes said. “Between all of those things put together, there was a lot of fear for a while.”

Dukes cites the Charleston Emanuel AME Church shooting in 2015 as an incident patrons expressed fear about.

During that shooting, a white supremacist murdered nine African-American patrons during a prayer service. The shooter was convicted of his crimes, which included federal hate crime charges, and sentenced to death. 

After the incident, the police made routine drive-bys, but Dukes says he hasn’t seen it as much anymore.

The church does not try to let the incident slow them down. They recently held a bible school for the children, and for holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas give food and toys to the needy.

“As a congregation, we try to bind ourselves together,” Dukes said. “It doesn’t necessarily galvanize us. We just continue to try to spread our love for the community.”

To combat hate, Dukes has one simple solution.

“The only thing that can conquer hate is more love,” Dukes said. “People are different. We need to embrace everybody instead of downgrading people…God made us all unique and as individuals.”

The Kent Interfaith Alliance for Racial Reconciliation and Justice (KIFA) echoes this sentiment.

The organization, according to its mission, dedicates itself to racial reconciliation and social justice. Founded around in 2015, KIFA is “made up of lay and clergy leaders of faith-based communities and organizations concerned with racial justice in Portage County”.

The founding of KIFA came after the aforementioned Charleston shooting and the Google searches showing Kent’s racial biases.

To show support, ministers in the county held a march of support for the victims of the shooting and Spelman AME, who has connections to Emanuel AME, from First Christian Church in Kent to Spelman.

KIFA holds events at local places of worship that bring discussion of racial relations, such as film showings, round tables, speakers and prayer vigils, among other events.

“We do educational things, and that’s the key part of what we do,” Russ Buckbee, the interim executive director of KIFA, said. “But we’ve done a variety of all kinds of things.”

KIFA gets news of their events out by communicating with local church leaders, passing out flyers, sending out a mailing list and posting information of their events on their Facebook page. They’re also looking to build a database with religious official contacts , according to Buckbee.

“It was a very informal group,”  Buckbee said of KIFA at first. “After six months to a year, we formed the mission statement and only this year we formed bylaws that could be used to form a non-profit organization.” 

Now, KIFA has an organized leadership structure that includes two coordinators, an executive director, secretary and treasurer. 

Members include an organizational member, which is an organization that sends in a representative at each meeting and an individual member, who pledges a $5 due. 

Buckbee himself isn’t as surprised that Ohio ranks so high for hate crimes. 

“Historically Ohio has been, along with the Southern states, a key state with the Ku Klux Klan,” Buckbee said. “It’s not an unusual kind of thing.”

Buckbee believes Ohio, of course, can change their legislation to help ensure that people are held accountable for hate crimes. However, Buckbee also thinks it goes further than that.

“There are other deeper things about this,” Buckbee said. “The reality is, most white people don’t think of their race as an issue–they think they’re normal.”

Another issue Buckbee describes is the issue of modern segregation.

“People have to connect with each other,” Buckbee said. “Most white people don’t have any contact with people of color…people have to get over something what is called white fragility.”

White fragility is described as the difficulties white people have talking about racism and race. A journal and a book by Robin DiAngelo was published about this phenomenon. 

[pullquote]”[A white person] saying that they doesn’t have an issue about race is like saying that ‘I’m rich, I don’t care about poverty.” – Russ Buckbee[/pullquote]

“We need to get beyond this fiction of race,” Buckbee said. “We need to get to a post-racial place, but we can’t get there by just pretending that we’re there.”