Permission to Hate

Abstract

authorities in Wilmington, Delaware, apprehended a Black man named George White for the assault and rape of Helen S. Bishop, a White woman. The following afternoon, the charges against White were upgraded to murder after the victim expired due to injuries she sustained during the attack. White was found guilty the same day by a coroner's jury, which committed him to the newly erected state workhouse to await a formal trial in September. Despite demands that White face immediate sentencing, authorities decided that there was no need to call for a special session of the court. Over the next several days, a lynching hysteria began to build in the city. At the height of the tumult, on Sunday, June 21, the Reverend Robert A. Elwood of the Wilmington Olivet Presbyterian Church delivered an ominous sermon. Brandishing blood-stained leaves from the site of the Bishop assault, the reverend declared the city deficient in its responsibility to protect its citizens from such criminal atrocities and dilatory for not delivering speedy justice onto White. The next evening a mob stormed the workhouse. They marched White to the scene of his alleged crime, demanded a confession, and then lynched him by burning him alive.The lynching of White in Wilmington, Delaware, was typical of such occurrences in the early 20th century. Between 1882 and 1921, the United States was the scene of more than 3,405 lynchings. Most of the victims were African American men, women, and children. Described alternatively as unofficial executions, the 3

Hate Crime during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Study of the Experiences of an Ethnically Diverse University Student Population

“…Then United States (US) President Donald Trump made no qualms about blaming China and stigmatising Chinese people by publicly referring to COVID-19 as the 'Chinese virus' [2]. Tantamount to 'a permission to hate' [3,4], this kind of discourse made COVID-19 a catalyst of hate crime against Chinese people in different parts of the world. This rise in hate crime extended to other East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) minorities [5], with perpetrators mistaking members of these communities for 'Chinese' and associating their physical appearance with 'the perceived phenotype of "Chineseness"' ( [6], unpaginated.)…”