Can anyone please help me raise awareness for hate crimes
 

Hi i am a graphic designer and i am currently working on a campaign on behalf of the Sophie Lancaster Organisation, the young lady who was murdered back in 2007 simply because she dressed differently.
I feel so strongly about the Organisation and what it stands for i am trying to create a campaign to raise awareness of the foundation and its core aims.

If anyone has any input they would be able to give me to aid me in creating a strong and meaningful campaign to reach out to people so they can see wha tis going on in the world today, i would be extremely grateful.

Could you email me anything that you may have to show me or just feedback or input, i would appreciate anything.
kempgavin@************

Kind regards
Gavin

h o t m a i l . c o m

No. Also, you forgot a question mark.

lol, this forum is just filled with bleeding hearts, isnt it?

This may seem like a mean question...but did you pick to post in this forum just because "goth" is considered "different" style of dress,thus believing that you would find a lot of people who recieve ridocule for it. If you did, shame on you for targeting groups that you feel stick out, if not...enjoy your time here.

Yeah, come to think of it, I'm interested in reading his answer to that.

Apparently, this Sophie girl was goth.

I think the more interesting question is whether this qualifies as a hate crime. I'm a bit ambiguous on that one myself.

It wasn't a hate crime, and "raising awareness" is bullshit.

Sophie was savagely beaten to death because she was goth (and if I recall correctly her boyfriend was also beaten unconscious), from a legal standpoint it doesn't qualify as a hate crime but the way the two were targeted, the severity of the injuries, the group mentality, the exact nature of the beatings, the way that the beatings continued well after she was conscious, all together the psychology of the attack reads just like a hate crime.

So, Gavin, are you working directly with the organization or are you trying to raise awareness on your own?

No it wasn't because she was goth, it was because the guys were idiots.
It may have been because she was different, sure, but come on.
I think "hate crime" should be a term reserved for groups in a minority they can't escape, and who generally experience hatred wherever they go.

Black people can't decide to not be black, but a goth can decide to stop dressing like an asshole.

I lol'd. It's quote worthy.

I want to see how you're going to "raise awareness", Gavin. Sure, it was horrid as fuck and plenty of hate and crime was involved, but how can you make people want to take a stand on it versus "the cultural devolution of the Aboriginal man" or what have you?

"As the trial opened the prosecution told the hearing: "Sophie and Robert were singled out not for anything they had said or done, but because they looked and dressed differently."

The Law seems to believe so. One of the convicted attackers, Harris admitted it was because they were "moshers".

Yes, he was an idiot, but an idiot that killed her because she was Goth.
There is more than just Wiki on the internet that documents the police interview of Harris and his statements of why he made her "a right mess".

Now I have a problem with your last comment. If *I* were to decide that the chavs were "dressing like an asshole" should they stop dressing that way? Of course not. And Sophie should not have had to stop dressing the way she did (which was in perfectly good taste in my opinion).

I went out on Towel Day wearing a bathrobe and carrying a towel, went grocery shopping, went to Quizno's and nobody beat me up or even threatened to beat me up or even said one damn thing to me about the way I was dressed. So sure, maybe I was dressed like an asshole, but it was not a reason to die.

Humane, you know she's just going to say something on the lines of, "Them's the breaks."

Beating someone up because they're dressed differently is no excuse for bad behavior.

However, people out there ARE hateful and would kill you for less than a fishnet shirt. There's people that die because they wear a white tee shirt on the wrong street. A red or blue bandanna can get you straight murdered on the spot.

Socially, I think we should work together as a people to remove the stigmas or arbitrary meanings of pieces of clothing. That would be a better victory than just having protective legislation for those that dress weird.

This is all true.
However, my point wasn't that everyone should stop dressing like assholes, it was that goths don't deserve the same status as actual minorities.

I don't think anyone should have to dress or not dress in any particular fashion. However, if you're concerned about being beaten up or killed for wearing fishnets, maybe you'd be brighter to stop wearing fishnets.

That could be due to anything. Not many people around? You live in a relatively liberal (or too conservative to say anything) area? You were just lucky?


You're right about the prejudice working both ways though, in fact I think there was a separate incident that same week which was basically the other way round (a "mosher" killing a "chav" over those same petty aesthetic reasons). Not that it justifies any other attacks of course.

I have no idea why you think hate crime is only something that happens to minorities.

Aside from that, the sophie lancaster shit really bugs me. It's so bourgeois. So inconsequential. So insignificant compared to real problems that are in fact the underlying causes of what happened to Sophie.

I must agree with you, Jillian.
Other than that, I think Ophelia needs a hug :o
I think Gavin's case is worth supporting, really.
I must admit, I had not heard of this case until I read about it here.
But now that I have, I am disgusted.
Killing innocent people, or just performing acts of violence against any kinds of people for any reason is fucking sick.
I think that hate crimes can cover anyone anywhere, really. If you beat up a clown, it is a hate crime. If you beat up an "alternative" it's a hate crime. And if you beat up a homosexual or a person with different skin than you, it is equally a hate crime. A hate crime is really just a crime against a certain person because you hate something about them. It doesn't have to be against an inescapable minority of people, as long as it's driven by hate.
Or atleast, those are my thoughts on it.

It happened ages ago.
Most of us in the UK have heard about it- and by now, it's getting damn hard to avoid hearing about it. I contributed in my own particular way to her memorial bench at Whitby. We've done the fundraising, the issue has been raised on GNet many times before (check out the Spooky News archives for examples).
Sophie has had her funeral, her attackers have had their trial (even if their sentencing did seem a bit too lenient), and the newspapers have covered it at one point or another- even the relatively respectable broadsheets like the Guardian.

Attacking people for how they look is hateful. It is based on prejudice and a culture of violence and frustration. The answer is not to try making us a protected minority group as those with unchangable differences like skin colour or sexual orientation are, nor is it to give us special protections as we give so many cults and religions. A better plan would be to get better community integration. If you're a goth and you think goths are shunned as freaks, start doing volunteer work and show what a good person you are- get out into the community and prove the stereotypes and ugly viewpoints wrong. Encourage others, non-goths and 'chavs' included, to do so as well.


And, for christssake, please try to remember that 'i' should actually be 'I'. It's a simple thing to correct, and bugs me to no end.

That's true, I was wrong there.

What do you mean by that?

I think it is a way to belittle your comments. "she needs a hug, is not feeling well so don't mind her comments" or something like that.

I for one always appreciate your contributions Ophie because they force (sometimes) us to look at things differently, and that sometimes leads to insight about our own perspectives, that we don't always see things objectively.

Countering popular opinion, or countering "politeness" in the search for truth is a good thing, but not everyone realizes this during our discussions. They first see and react to the blunt objection, the ventured proposal that they/we could be wrong.

Thanks, Humane.

Ah, it's that time of year again, is it?

[What's an American term that's the equivalent to "chav" or "ned"? I get the general idea, but I can't think of a solid term that means the same thing. Is it like "jock", or is it more like "jerk"?]