Say no to H8

Hate is all around us, we’re told. So much so, in fact, that when the Old Bill in Kent were slapping on the revolting bodywork to their cars, they thought they’d descend to juvenile text speak. In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a red circle with a line through the word “H8”. Yes, “H8”. The Crown Prosecution Service has also jumped on the bandwagon. A press release invited us to come to the conclusion racist and religious hate crime is a “significant issue” across the South East. The truth, however, is that the more racism and homophobia and other forms of “H8” disappear from society, the more the authorities talk about it. In an attempt to prove to us how awful our county has become, the CPS listed six “H8” incidents in Kent. They include a woman who shouted racial abuse after being thrown out of a pub in Maidstone and a man who hurled racist insults at a nurse at the Kent and Canterbury Hospital. But isolating just one element of each offence is utterly dishonest. There are questions we should be asking. How many of these people were drunk or on drugs? How many have mental health issues? How many have behavioural problems which makes them prone to uncontrollable outbursts of rage? How many are of below average intelligence? How many have extensive criminal histories? I’m willing to bet that in almost all of the cases presented to us the defendants involved have a string of previous convictions or, if they are young, are on course to attaining them. If we had the answers to these questions, the crimes the CPS congratulates itself so heartily on prosecuting would not reveal some societal upsurge of “H8”, but would rather show individual patterns of offending behaviour linked precisely to specific people who find themselves dealing with law enforcement on what might be a monthly or even weekly basis. This isn’t evidence of “H8”, it is evidence that the types of people who resort to racist abuse are bad people who say bad things when enraged or off their heads. I’m willing to bet that in every case one of these or a combination thereof is a factor: substance misuse; volatile or unstable personality; mental health issues; low intelligence; lengthy criminal past; poor or non-existent employment histories. Look there for your explanations to such things rather than “H8”. We are not swimming in a sea of hate. We are becoming more culturally liberal, accepting and tolerant. That’s the real story, not the one the police and CPS would have us believe.