I don’t know how pervasive this label is in other parts of the world but in Europe, it is used all over media. From Fears over “95 per cent” of unreported hate crime in Cambridge , UK:
Crimes against gender, race, faith, sexuality or disability are all categorised as hate crimes by the police.
And here’s when I am ambivalent about the overall use of “hate crime”. From the link above:
Of the 115 hate crimes, 100 were categorised as ‘race’, nine as ‘homophobic’, three as ‘faith’, two as ‘gender – transphobic’ and one as ‘other’ sexual orientation discrimination.
See those figures? That’s when we call “racism” by another name and fail to address it as a social ill. Under the umbrella of “hate crime”, we do not need to offer a historical context to dismantle the different institutionalized ways in which racism is not just expressed but openly endorsed through policy and public discourse. Additionally, this “hate crime” narrative enforces the idea of individual behavior instead of, again, presenting the issue in a social context.
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