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Mhm. Every year hundreds of violent hate crimes are committed against innocent people. Why is this happening? And who are the victims? Next on base sunday political activist Angela Davis speaks out about unified against genocide. Then meet a Native American who says Columbus Day should be abolished

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because it represents 500 years of brutal invasion and depression. And the U. C. Berkeley student known as naked guy goes bear in protest against cultural and sexual repression all this and more. Next on bay sunday. Mhm. Good morning. Welcome to base sunday. I'm barbara Rogers. As

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you can see our topics today all have to do with oppression but not everyone agrees about when that term should be used. Many people feel that the Bay Area is a harmonious melting pot where we don't have to worry much about oppression and discrimination. But recent

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statistics indicate that hate crimes inflicted on people because of their ethnicity, religion, gender or sexual orientation are escalating here Unified against genocide. 1992 is a new coalition comprised of people of various social and ethnic backgrounds united to combat hate crimes. Here's Angela Davis, one of the

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founders of the organization, at a forum on hate crimes held in Oakland. We have a far more developed consciousness of the fact that many communities are victimized by hate violence by virtue of ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, unified against genocide is attempting to find ways to

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heal some of the riffs that have torn our communities asunder, but at the same time to reveal the role of the state not only in promoting but also in perpetrating hate violence. Joining me now to discuss the ideology behind Unified against genocide are professor and political

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activist Angela Davis and Diane Chin, who is a member of Unified against genocide, as well as an attorney on the san Francisco lawyers committee on racial violence. Thanks so much both of you for being with me this morning when we hear this term genocide. And we've

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been hearing it a lot lately, especially as it relates to what's been going on in the former Yugoslavia. We tend to think of I think a lot of times of concentration camps, of people being taken out and marched around and shot and some people say that's

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too strong a term to use for what happens in our day to day lives here in the United States. How do you respond to that when we decided to use the term genocide and unified against genocide in order to make the connection between what happened when

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columbus invaded the Americas, the genocide inflicted on the indigenous inhabitants of this land and the hate violence that continues to be perpetrated on people by virtue of their racial background or their sexual orientation. Specifically. What kinds of things are we talking about? I mean, we do

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hear about certain kinds of crimes, You know, people burning a cross on someone's lawn or swastika being painted on a jewish synagogue or that kind of thing. What specifically are you talking about when you say hate crimes? Um, hate crimes come in all sorts of forms

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throughout the country? Um, we have seen a dramatic increase in physical assaults and batteries on the streets of san Francisco and elsewhere throughout the Bay Area. Um, people have been literally pushed out of their homes because of repeated vandalism, repeated physical attacks, threatening phone calls. Um,

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we also though, talk about, is the clip, um, that you just showed from Angela's um, speech about state perpetrated hate crimes. I mean, like what Rodney King, the Rodney King beating, for example, uh, many police crimes are hate crimes that are sanctioned by the state since

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the vast majority of uh, police who commit such crimes are never brought to justice. And as a matter of fact, even though we have been successful in achieving a number of laws and statutes on the local and state level throughout the country against hate crimes, there's

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not a single case as far as I know of a policeman having ever been tried under a hate crime statute, and you are trying to actually get the policemen who were involved in the Rodney King beating tried under a under a hate crime statutes. That that's

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one of the efforts we've undertaken. Now, that brings up another question about who can commit a hate crime. And this is a question I've been asked. When I've done stories about hate crimes, I have been, uh, someone will say to me, you always say it's a

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hate crime if it's a person of color, who is the victim. But you don't say it's a hate crime if it's the other way around, who do you include as your victims and as perpetrators? The law includes everyone. Anyone can be a perpetrator of a hate

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crime and anyone can be, um, the victim of a hate crime. I think it was extraordinarily interesting that after the verdicts were issued and the uprising started. However, um, that the san Francisco Police Department statistics increased dramatically for race, race based hate crimes because white people

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who were victims felt empowered to report them more often. I do not think that they were necessarily that the numbers actually increased. I think that certain communities feel more empowered to utilize the laws. And that's what you're saying, you would defend anyone who has attacked because

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of their race or religion or any, It doesn't, it doesn't have to do with people of color specifically, which is what people think. But it's very important to point out that there's a reason why I hate crimes are committed against people of color. There's a reason

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why I hate crimes are committed by people who are affiliated with popular religions or whose sexual orientation is different. And that is because of the role of the state. The state has not, uh, encourage perpetration of hate crimes against white people. As a matter of fact,

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it's been precisely the opposite. So although I am opposed to anyone assaulting anyone else because of their racial background or their ethnic background, I think it's extremely important to recognize that there's a history of genocidal assaults on some people who are a part of this society

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and there's not that history exactly. And we can cite slavery, the internment of japanese and many other kinds of things that have happened. What do you want to see done about it? And how do you, what's your plan of action, so to speak? Well, we are

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holding hearings against hate crimes on October 24 in Oakland at the first congregational church. It will be an all the events from 9:30 until until six. What does this do? What does a hearing like this do? I mean, do you just get the people who already

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agree with you to come and sound off or how does this get to what you want to see happen? We're encouraging a diversity of communities and individuals to come and actually present testimony for the first six hours of the hearing. One crucial thing that California is

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not doing is collecting statistics about hate crimes, even though there's a federal hate crime statistics act. Does the state and Attorney general lundgren have refused to comply with that? Um, statistics are very important. We need to know how prevalent the problem is, um, there are certain

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local agencies that are collecting statistics, but I think that our forum will provide a broader opportunity for people from very diverse backgrounds to come and actually tell us what is going on, how this is affecting their lives. And again, that's on october yes. And we're also

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inviting organizations who have established a record in the campaign against hate crimes. And I should say that what we see as different about our work is that we're really trying to bring many communities together. Generally, there have been campaigns against hate crimes in the black community

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and perhaps campaigns, and the latino community in the asian community and the gay community. But have we ever all come together? Uh, and, and this is what we're trying to do as a way of expressing solidarity with native american people who are during this columbus precisely,

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precisely, thank you so much. We're out of time, but I will tell people how they can get in touch with you for more information for that additional information on Unified against genocide. 1992 Please call 4158261 oh 54 Coming up next a native american and an italian

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american debate the relevance of columbus day celebrations.