Understanding Intolerance
Effects of Intolerance
What Can I Do?
From the American Psychological Association
http://www.apa.org/pubinfo/hate/homepage.html
What is the emotional damage?
Intense feelings of vulnerability, anger, and depression, physical ailments and learning problems, and difficult interpersonal relations-all symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder-can be brought on by a hate crime.
National Victim Assistance Academy
U.S. Dept. of Justice Office of Justice Programs
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ovc/assist/nvaa2002
....victims who experience not only physical injuries and/or property damage, but also are faced with their inevitable vulnerability as members of a targeted group and the often associated social and psychological consequences. It is this vulnerability due to membership in a specific population or targeted group that can lead to a sense of helplessness or even hopelessness for victims of hate/bias crime. In many instances, the group membership that is targeted by racists is an inherent characteristic of the victim, i.e., one that cannot be changed. To be targeted because of one's ethnicity, religion, gender--personal characteristics that should inspire only pride and should offer an individual a sense of affiliation, belonging, and support--is nothing less than an assassination of own's own sense of self. This sense of vulnerability can lead to pervasive fear that can also prevent victims of hate/bias crime from associating with other members of the targeted group for fear of increasing their odds of being victimized.
hate-crime.website-works.com/
National Criminal Justice
Reference Service
www.ncjrs.org
