Residents in the Monmouth Heights development in Manalapan awoke to symbols and messages of hate that were scrawled throughout the neighborhood during the overnight hours of Sept. 5-6.
Shards of glass pour onto the street of a Jewish neighborhood after a brick smashes through a car windshield. A gay teenager purposely misses the bus in order to avoid walking the halls of his school with his tormentors. The color of a woman’s skin serves as the sole motive for an assault.
The stories are familiar, but the headlines continue to shock those who flip through the morning news. A hate crime is an act of violence, intimidation, destruction or vandalism that is intended to instill fear in a specific group of people or an individual. Perpetrators target victims based on race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation, said Jeff Salkin, the director of the New Jersey office of the Anti- Defamation League (ADL).
JAMES McEVOY But what actions can community members and social institutions take to do away with hatred and the violence that sometimes follows in its tracks?
First, it is important to acknowledge that violent acts of bigotry are not foreign to Middlesex and Monmouth counties.
According to data collected by the New Jersey State Police from 2006-10, 3,968 bias incident offenses occurred in the state. A total of 508 incidents took place in Middlesex County and 970 in Monmouth County, combining to make up more than 37 percent of New Jersey’s number of hate crimes during that time period.
The latest example of a hate crime could be seen on the morning of Sept. 6 in Manalapan at the entrance to the Monmouth Heights residential development at Route 9 north and Smallwood Lane.
Spray-painted red swastikas covered the Monmouth Heights sign and a spraypainted note said “F – – K Jews.” Swastikas and vile messages tainted surfaces in other areas of the development, which has long been home to a large segment of Manalapan’s Jewish population.
An employee of the Manalapan Department of Public Works cleans a swastika off a speed limit sign on Taylors Mills Road on the morning of Sept. 6. Public and private property in the Monmouth Heights residential development was defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti. Below: A utility box on Scott Lane in the Monmouth Heights development was defaced. JAMES McEVOY Other recent offenses in the two counties include:
In January 2012, vandals damaged a large Hanukkah menorah that was on display in a public space in Monroe Township.
In August 2010, unknown suspects carved swastikas and various symbols into automobiles at a Lexus car dealership in Edison.
In June 2010, unknown suspects spraypainted swastikas and racial phrases on property at the Helping Hands Nursery School in Edison.
In July 2007, a group of Howell teenagers packed into a pickup truck and tossed eggs at members of Lakewood’s Jewish community.
FBI statistics from 2006-10 reveal that similar burdens do not consistently weigh on the shoulders of most American communities. According to data gathered from between 12,000 and 15,000 participating law enforcement agencies, depending on the year, an average of less than 15 percent reported hate crimes in their jurisdictions.
The FBI warns on its website that analysis of hate crime data based on location could be affected by variables such as population size, demographics, and the crime reporting practices of each law enforcement agency.
Mary Swigonski, a retired Monmouth University professor of social work who coedited a book about hate crimes, said the problem stems from attitudes and values, rather than geography and economic conditions. The grounds for bias attacks may form when feelings of ignorance, resentment, greed, stress and a lack of willingness to understand others fester, she said.
“Sadly, in lots and lots of ways, the world we live in today is just a cauldron inviting the kinds of mistrust and resentment that can lead to hate crimes,” Swigonski said.
But steps can be taken to lessen the prevalence of hatred in society and, in turn, cut down the number of bias offenses.
The right influence from family members and peers, educational efforts and support from other social institutions may mold children to grow into open-minded adults, Swigonski said.
“Children do not emerge from the womb as haters,” the ADL’s Salkin noted. “They respond to that which is in their environment and that which their parents, teachers and peers teach them.”
Parents must coach their children to trust, empathize with, listen to and care for others, despite their social differences, Swigonski said.
Once in school, she said, children risk falling in with the wrong crowd. While that group could plant the seeds of bigotry within a child, educational initiatives may keep that child on track.
Programs held at schools that encourage diversity, acceptance, the celebration of cultural differences and the acknowledgement of common characteristics across different backgrounds can prove to be successful, Salkin said.
Swigonski said these programs are necessary to fend off bias.
“We have to move beyond tolerance to understanding, cherishing and celebrating, and that can happen in schools, because that is where kids first begin to interact with people who are different in all kinds of ways,” Swigonski said.
And then there is the role of religion. When leaders of different religions work together to push their followers to avoid bigotry and to strive for harmony, congregants often receive a powerful message, Salkin said.
Swigonski added that some may find it beneficial to attend services held by other religions.
For individuals, the best way to combat hatred is to get to know a person of another background, the two experts said.
“We have discovered, of course, that once you develop personal relationships with people, it is hard to hate them,” Salkin said.
The same goes for individuals who have been convicted of hate crimes. While therapy may begin the rehabilitation process, bigots undergo the most striking changes when they are forced to work with those who they claim to despise, Swigonski said.
Perhaps the simplest act in the battle against intolerance is to stand up, rather than to stand by, when somebody cracks a bias joke, she said.
“Eradicating it? That is never going to happen because we are human beings. Reducing it profoundly the way that we have reduced polio? Sure, that can happen,” Swigonski said. “… Compassion can be as contagious as hate, if only we focus on it.”
She added that a bias incident like the one that occurred on Sept. 6 in Manalapan, however disturbing and unsettling, may spur one positive outcome for a community — an invitation for people of different backgrounds to engage in conversation and to better understand their neighbors.
Greater Media Newspapers staff writer James McEvoy contributed to this story.
Additional resources:
http://www.njsp.org/info/stats.html — scroll down to “Bias Incident Reports.”
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/ucr — scroll down to “Hate Crime Statistics.”
http://regions.adl.org/new-jersey/ — ADL’s NJ office.
http://justalchemy.com/ — Mary Swigonski’s blog.
http://prosecutor.co.monmouth.nj.us/prof-bias-crimes.html