On May 20, President Biden signed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act into law. The measure had received solid bipartisan support — an increasingly rare phenomenon — in both the House and Senate. The new law represents a response to the frightening rise in violence against Asian-Americans that has coincided with the coronavirus pandemic. Key provisions of the law seek to facilitate the review of pandemic-related hate crimes and assist local law enforcement agencies in identifying and reporting bias-based incidents.

I have every reason in the world to hope this new hate crimes act results in a sharp decrease in crimes against Asian-Americans. My children have close friends of Asian descent and three of my grandchildren have cousins of Korean ancestry. But there’s a cloud of skepticism that hangs over my hope. That skepticism is rooted in a grim observation about the nature of the human heart and mind. To put it simply, there is no legislation that can compel people to cast off their fears, prejudices, and attitudes; no law, ordinance, proclamation, or resolution can make someone stop hating someone else. At best, government action can deter the expression of hate and punish it when it occurs, but it cannot destroy the hate itself.  Moreover, I have a second unpleasant observation that follows from the first, specifically, when hate and prejudice are denied expression through one channel they usually find an alternative means for asserting themselves.

The case of black people in America provides a tragic illustration of the second observation. For over two centuries, millions of African-Americans suffered under the yoke of slavery, having no rights of any kind — not even a right to their own lives. The yoke began to be lifted on January 1, 1863, when President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This measure stated “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states “are, and henceforward shall be free.” A few years later, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution eliminated slavery nationwide, essentially finishing the job started by the proclamation. Unfortunately, the beliefs, prejudices, and fears that sustained slavery in the U.S. for over two centuries remained in place and found expression in new iterations: Jim Crow laws, lynchings, the Ku Klux Klan, discrimination in education and employment, and a host of other offenses. Gradually — and sometimes painfully — these other iterations began to be dismantled through court decisions such as Brown vs. the Board of Education and federal legislation such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act. More recent government actions have continued this trend, the just-passed COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act being a case in point. So it seems safe to say that progress has been made in fighting overt acts of hatred and discrimination. Yet can any rational person doubt that prejudice against racial minorities still exists? Is there any question that large numbers of Americans, perhaps millions of them, still feel alienated from and threatened by people different than themselves?

It seems clear that violence and other acts of hostility toward minorities will not stop until the prejudice and hatred behind those acts are eliminated. Wiser people than I have addressed that question without finding an answer, so it’s no surprise I haven’t found one either. Speaking generally, however, I think the solution will ultimately come from some combination of persuasion and forgiveness — two acts of outreach that are seldom seen today. In a future blog, I may — if I feel especially brave — take a closer look at these two keys to peace and healing.