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HATE

Barbara Faye Waxman
Barbara Faye Waxman is an activist
and specialist in disabled people's
sexual, reproductive and family life rights.

FROM
The Ragged Edge:
The Disability Experience from the Pages
of The Disability Rag
Edited by Barrett Shaw

With the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the federal government affirmed "that disabled persons have been subjected to a history of purposeful unequal treatment" in our society. This monumental piece of civil rights legislation was the result of Congress’s recognition of a history of discrimination toward disabled workers, tenants, consumers, students, passengers, patients and citizens in this country.

Yet ironically the government has not acknowledged the presence of a deeper layer of harmful conduct which also violates the civil rights of disabled persons: violence springing from hate.

While the Bush Administration and the 101^st Congress were deliberating over the ADA, they were concurrently in the process of passing the national Hate Crimes Statistics Act, P.L. 101-275 ...

… As required by the Hate Crimes Act, the U.S. Attorney General is to "acquire data for the calendar year 1990 and each of the succeeding four years about crimes that manifest evidence of prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity …" [italics added]. Hate violence, as defined in the act, includes crimes of murder, non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, assault, intimidation, arson and destruction, damage or vandalism of property.

[Continued On Next Page: Click Here]

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