NY Subway Killing a Case of Blind Hatred?

[cbayer]

http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/guest_bloggers/6740/ny_subway_killing_a_case_of_blind_hatred/


January 3, 2013 1:19pm
Post by LAURIE PATTON

Last week we saw yet another hate crime viciously interrupt the everyday business of a world trying to come to grips with its own diversity.

On the morning of December 27, Erika Menendez pushed Sunando Sen in front of a 7 train in Queens. She told the police: “I pushed a Muslim off the train tracks because I hate Hindus and Muslims ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers I’ve been beating them up.”

A native of India, Mr. Sen had saved enough money to open a small copy shop. While he had no family in the U.S., he had friends and associates who were part of this new life. While he was a Hindu, Sen had a Muslim roommate with whom he frequently discussed matters of belief. And when they did, Mr. Sen expressed his deep disappointment that there was so much violence in the world on account of religion.

No matter Ms. Menendez’ psychiatric state, her hate crime is based on a conflation of religious and racial identities: while Sen’s religion (Hindu or Muslim) was the motivation, his racial make-up was the deciding factor for the murder.

more at link

[dimbear]

1. I haven't been able to establish Ms. Menendez' religious affiliation. One would expect some group

to come forward and mitigate her actions based on her being a good "x". It's doubly ironic that her victim was apparently not so much Hindu as ex-Hindu.

He thought religion was divisive. How literally true that was, he was to learn.

[okasha]

3. Perhaps she has no religious affiliation.

Or perhaps it's irrelevant. Perhaps her rather long history of memtal illness and her arrest record are more pertinent.

[struggle4progress]

4. +

[cbayer]

5. No, no, no. All acts of meaningless violence are caused by religious beliefs.

[cleanhippie]

6. Thats absurd. Everyone knows that all acts of kindness and good are caused by religious beliefs.

[okasha]

7. Oh, yeah. I forgot for a moment.

Obviously my current bout of "cedar" allergy is also due to the proximity of my house to "Holy Hill"-- a cluster of Episcopal, Presbyterian, Catholic and UCC churches, plus a synagogue--about half a mile away. Not to mention the nasty cold weather caused by all the pastors' having lunch together at the neighborhood eatery. (Well, nasty cold for South Texas. I realize that there are places up north among the polar bears and penguins where this would be a nice spring day.)

[humblebum]

8. ++

[dimbear]

9. That strikes me as a novel legal theory. In a religiously motivated hate crime, only the

religion of the victim is even worth mentioning. Odd.

[Bay Boy]

2. Blind and stupid...

...Hindu?