Hate Crimes Prevention Act
The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act is a landmark United States federal law, passed on October 22, 2009, and signed into law by President Barack Obama on October 28, 2009, as a rider to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2010 (H.R. 2647). Conceived as a response to the murders of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr., both in 1998, the measure expands the 1968 United States federal hate-crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim's actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. The bill also: * Removes, in the case of hate crimes related to the race, color, religion, or national origin of the victim, the prerequisite that the victim be engaging in a federally protected activity, like voting or going to school; * Gives federal authorities greater ability to engage in hate crimes investigations that local authorities choose not to pursue; * Provides $5 million per year in funding for fiscal years 2010 t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. Obama previously served as a U.S. senator representing Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama graduated from Columbia University in 1983 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and later worked as a community organizer in Chicago. In 1988, Obama enrolled in Harvard Law School, where he was the first black president of the ''Harvard Law Review''. He became a civil rights attorney and an academic, teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. In 1996, Obama was elected to represent the 13th district in the Illinois Senate, a position he held until 2004, when he successfully ran for the U.S. Senate. In the 2008 pre ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hate Crime
Hate crime (also known as bias crime) in criminal law involves a standard offence (such as an assault, murder) with an added element of bias against a victim (individual or group of individuals) because of their physical appearance or perceived membership of a certain social group. Examples of such groups can include, and are almost exclusively limited to race, ethnicity, disability, language, nationality, physical appearance, political views, political affiliation, age, religion, sex, gender identity, or sexual orientation. "A hate crime or bias motivated crime occurs when the perpetrator of the crime intentionally selects the victim because of their membership in a certain group."Streissguth, Tom (2003). ''Hate Crimes'' (Library in a Book), p. 3. . Hate crime should be distiguished from hate violence, or hate incidents, which might not necessarily be criminalised Incidents may involve physical assault, homicide, damage to property, bullying, harassment, verbal abuse (which i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jasper, Texas
Jasper is a Administrative divisions of Texas, city in and the county seat of Jasper County, Texas, Jasper County, Texas, United States. Its population was 6,884 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. Census, down from 7,590 at the 2010 United States census, 2010 U.S. Census. Jasper is situated in the Deep East Texas subregion, about west of the Texas-Louisiana state line. Jasper (the "Butterfly Capital of Texas") holds an annual Butterfly Festival the first Saturday in October to celebrate the migration of the monarch butterflies. History 19th century The area, which was then part of Mexican Texas, was settled around 1824 by John Bevil. Thirty families occupied the settlement as early as 1830, when it was known as "Snow River", after John R. Bevil, a hero of the American Revolution. In 1835, the town was renamed after William Jasper, a soldier from the American Revolution, who was killed attempting to plant the American flag at the storming of Savannah, Georgia, Savanna ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Decapitation
Decapitation is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and all vertebrate animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood by way of severing through the jugular vein and common carotid artery, while all other organs are deprived of the autonomic nervous system, involuntary functions that are needed for the body to function. The term beheading refers to the act of deliberately decapitating a person, either as a means of murder or as an capital punishment, execution; it may be performed with an axe, sword, or knife, or by mechanical means such as a guillotine. An executioner who carries out executions by beheading is sometimes called a headsman. Accidental decapitation can be the result of an explosion, a car or industrial accident, improperly administered execution by hanging or other violent injury. The national laws of Saudi Arabia and Yemen permit beheading. Under Sharia in Nigeria, Sharia, which exclusively appl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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White Supremacy
White supremacy is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White supremacy has roots in the now-discredited doctrine of scientific racism and was a key justification for European colonialism. As a political ideology, it imposes and maintains cultural, social, political, historical or institutional domination by white people and non-white supporters. In the past, this ideology had been put into effect through socioeconomic and legal structures such as the Atlantic slave trade, European colonial labor and social practices, the Scramble for Africa, Jim Crow laws in the United States, the activities of the Native Land Court in New Zealand, the White Australia policies from the 1890s to the mid-1970s, and apartheid in South Africa. This ideology is also today present among neo-Confederates. White supremacy underlies a spectrum of contemporary movement ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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African American
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black people, Black racial groups of Africa. African Americans constitute the second largest ethno-racial group in the U.S. after White Americans. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of Slavery in the United States, Africans enslaved in the United States. In 2023, an estimated 48.3 million people self-identified as Black, making up 14.4% of the country’s population. This marks a 33% increase since 2000, when there were 36.2 million Black people living in the U.S. African-American history began in the 16th century, with Africans being sold to Atlantic slave trade, European slave traders and Middle Passage, transported across the Atlantic to Slavery in the colonial history of the United States, the Western He ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gay Panic Defense
The gay panic defense or homosexual advance defense is a victim blaming strategy of legal defense, which refers to a situation in which a heterosexual individual charged with a violent crime against a same-sex attracted individual claims they lost control and reacted violently because of an unwanted sexual advance that was made upon them. A defendant will use available legal defenses against assault and murder, with the aim of seeking an acquittal, a mitigated sentence, or a conviction of a lesser offense. A defendant may allege to have found the same-sex sexual advances so offensive or frightening that they were provoked into reacting, were acting in self-defense, were of diminished capacity, or were temporarily insane, and that this circumstance is exculpatory or mitigating. The is a closely related legal strategy applied in cases of assault or murder of a transgender individual whom the assailant(s) had engaged with, or were close to engaging with, in sexual relations, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or Human sexual activity, sexual behavior between people of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" exclusively to people of the same sex or gender. It also denotes Sexual identity, identity based on attraction, related behavior, and community affiliation. Along with bisexuality and heterosexuality, homosexuality is one of the three main categories of sexual orientation within the heterosexual–homosexual continuum. Although no single theory on the cause of sexual orientation has yet gained widespread support, scientists favor Biology and sexual orientation, biological theories. There is considerably more evidence supporting nonsocial, biological causes of sexual orientation than social ones, especially for males. A major hypothesis implicates the Prenatal development, prenatal environment, specifically the organizationa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Laramie, Wyoming
Laramie () is a List of municipalities in Wyoming, city in and the county seat of Albany County, Wyoming, United States, known for its high elevation at , for its railroad history, and as the home of the University of Wyoming. The population was 31,407 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in Wyoming, fourth-most populous city in Wyoming. Located on the Laramie River in southeastern Wyoming, the city is west of Cheyenne and north of the Colorado state line, at the junction of Interstate 80 in Wyoming, Interstate 80 and U.S. Route 287#Wyoming, U.S. Route 287. After 12,000 years or more of Indigenous populations living in the area, Laramie was settled by European Americans in 1868 with the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad line to the area, which crosses the Laramie River at Laramie. The river and several creeks fed by freshwater springs made the area an attractive place for settlement. It is home to the University of Wyoming, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. definitions of torture, Some definitions restrict torture to acts carried out by the state (polity), state, while others include non-state organizations. Most victims of torture are poor and marginalized people suspected of crimes, although torture against political prisoners, or during armed conflict, has received disproportionate attention. Judicial corporal punishment and capital punishment are sometimes seen as forms of torture, but this label is internationally controversial. A variety of methods of torture are used, often in combination; the most common form of physical torture is beatings. Beginning in the twentieth century, many torturers have preferred non-scarring or psychological torture, psychological meth ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Center For Independent Media
Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricity * Central tendency, measures of the central tendency (center) in a set of data Places United States * Centre, Alabama * Center, Colorado * Center, Georgia * Center, Indiana * Center, Warrick County, Indiana * Center, Kentucky * Center, Missouri * Center, Nebraska * Center, North Dakota * Centre County, Pennsylvania * Center, Portland, Oregon * Center, Texas * Center, Washington * Center, Outagamie County, Wisconsin * Center, Rock County, Wisconsin **Center (community), Wisconsin *Center Township (other) *Centre Township (other) *Centre Avenue (other) *Center Hill (other) Other countries * Centre region, Hainaut, Belgium * Centre Region, Burkina Faso * Centre Region (Cameroon) * Centre-Val de ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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James Byrd Jr
James Byrd Jr. (May 2, 1949 – June 7, 1998) was an African American man who was murdered by three men, two of whom were avowed white supremacists, in Jasper, Texas, on June 7, 1998. Shawn Berry, Lawrence Brewer, and John King dragged him for behind a Ford pickup truck along an asphalt road. Byrd, who remained conscious for much of his ordeal, was killed about halfway through the dragging when his body hit the edge of a culvert, severing his right arm and head. The murderers drove on for another before dumping his torso in front of a black cemetery. Brewer and King were the first white men to be sentenced to death for killing a black person in the history of modern Texas. In 2001, Byrd's lynching-by-dragging led the state of Texas to pass a hate crimes law, which later led the United States Congress to pass the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009. Brewer was executed by lethal injection for his part in the murder on September 21, 2011. King ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |