Homophobic, Racist, Bigots.

Over minor playground squabbles, over 100'000 pupils have been branded racist or homophobic in 2011.

This is a poor representation of us as a world-community. children as young as five are being penalised for hate-crime using terms like 'nigger' and 'gaylord'. This begs the question as to whom teaches a five year old such words; their parents? Their siblings? Their peers? The media? Truth is, we can blame MTV (we don't have MTV in the UK but I hear American's blame them for all that is wrong with our youth today so I'll jump on the bandwagon) or each other all day long.

In 2013/14, there were 44,480 hate crimes recorded by the police, an increase of five per cent
compared with 2012/13, in the UK, of which:

• 37,484 (84%) were race hate crimes;
• 4,622 (10%) were sexual orientation hate crimes;
• 2,273 (5%) were religion hate crimes;
• 1,985 (4%) were disability hate crimes; and
• 555 (1%) were transgender hate crimes.

You should bear in mind that in some cases there was more than one primary motivation which is why some numbers add up to that greater of the amount of incidents and more than 100%

According to the UK government, much of the increase in race and religious hate crime is likely to be due to a rise in offences in the months immediately following the murder of Lee Rigby in May 2013. Additionally, the police may have improved their recording of crime and the identification of motivating factors in an offence over the last year. This means that more motivating factors will be discovered which could possibly rang from extremist religious views to extreme hatred of those with no choice over their own core 'wiring', for lack of a better word.

From the same document, the government say;

It is less clear whether the increase in sexual orientation, disability or transgender identity hate crime reflects a real rise in hate crime or improved police identification of these offences. The increase across all three strands may suggest improved identification is a factor.

Taking this into account, it also suggests that hate crime is getting worse over time. This document covers the period of 2013/14.

At the same token, on the next page the United Kingdom government defines 'hate-crime' as;

‘Any criminal offence which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to
be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards someone based on a personal characteristic.’

Therefore meaning that the previous statistics I shared could actually be false, a victim may have perceived an assault because they are gay when in reality, it could have been a random attack where the assailant may not necessarily have even known the person's sexuality or neither cared.

This definition was agreed between the government, the police and the crown prosecution service (CPS) back in 2007, since definition, hate crime has understandably rose significantly (as previous crimes wouldn't have been defined as hate-crime).

So, naturally... playground squabbles are quite harmless in many people's opinions but imagine the victim being taught from a young age that there is a problem with them because of their race which they have no control over, their religion which again they have very little control over whilst living under their parents roof or because of their sexuality; which they don't have control over according to the recent discovery of the 'gay' gene. This negative enforcement will have a negative effect later in life.

As a victim of bullying myself as a child, I understand the effect it has on an individual's views on society and the potential increase in mental health issues such as social anxiety, depression and even agoraphobia.

FIND AN INTERESTING FREE-FORM THOUGHT ON BULLYING HERE: http://andrewhil93.hubpages.com/hub/Bullying-Rant

In 2011, as I've mentioned, there was the murder of Lee Rigby who was a soldier for the United Kingdom's army. His murderers bragged about this and even tried to appeal their sentences because they thought they had carried out a 'moral' duty to the world. This was far from the case, although I respect Islam and all of their views, nowhere in the Qura'an does it tell a member of the Islamic faith to eradicate the world of anyone who isn't Muslim.

This could have been sparked by the raise in tension between the Americans and the Middle East whilst as always, the Americans problems leak into British soil due to the Paris Treaty from 1783, at the end of the American civil war where we, America and France agreed to be allies. Arguably the worse decision undertaken if we look at the result in this day and age but at the same token, arguably the best decision because if it wasn't for that treaty, we would be living under German rule by now.

It is no secret that Hitler, the advocate of the genocide of Jews, Gays and non-German's was the biggest bigot imaginable in modern-day times before (according to US government sources) Sadam Hussein (who, incidentally, took no claim in the 9/11 attacks or at least, there is no recorded evidence of this).

There is nothing. Absolutely nothing that we can do to completely eradicate discrimination, not at least whilst we have diversity between humans who walk the Earth.

What we can do, however, is raise awareness by sharing this post and telling your friends and family the implications of discrimination on the victims as a lot of people don't realise the damage they are doing. Take the bullying in my youth, for example, I don't believe for one minute the bullies hated me or wanted to cause me harm, I believe they thought it was 'harmless' fun. These discriminatory bigots may be under the same delusion so rather than fight them, advise them. Explain to them why it is wrong that they do.

Another way to deal with it is to pretend it doesn't exist and be like those who add to the problem by acting in a discriminatory way, this will only exacerbate the issue and will make you a coward. But this is the easiest way to deal with it.

So I ask you...