No Place for Hatred

Once again, San Fernando Valley residents have had to respond to a hate crime--and respond they did. This time it was a burning cross left on the lawn of an interracial family in Shadow Hills.

We may think of cross burnings as belonging to the past or to the South. Neither assumption is correct. On average of once a week, a cross is burned somewhere in the United States, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based organization that tracks hate crimes.

Last week, that somewhere was here.

Acts of vandalism and harassment are the most common forms of hate crime, far more prevalent than the horrifying shootings last August that left five women and children wounded at the North Valley Jewish Community Center and a Filipino-American postal worker dead.

But such violence is implicit in the ugly symbolism of burning crosses and painted swastikas. And law enforcement officials and hate crime experts have learned that the perpetuators often move on to more violent hate crimes, especially if emboldened by not being caught.

So the Los Angeles Police Department’s aggressive investigation, aided by the FBI, is welcome--and necessary.

An aggressive response is also important for the message it sends the victims of hate crimes. A hate crime is intended to instill fear and isolation. Its victims must be assured that they are not alone and forgotten.

Law enforcement agencies are not the only ones who can deliver this message.

In a community response guide to hate crimes, the Southern Poverty Law Center recommends letting the victims know you care. Speak up. Exercise decency.

“In the face of hatred,” the guide says, “apathy will be interpreted as acceptance--by the haters, the public and, worse, the victim.”

The six-foot-tall cross set ablaze on one Shadow Hills lawn burned into the consciousness of the tightknit neighborhood. Neighbors rallied around family members, who are longtime residents. One neighbor told a Times reporter: “Their phone has been ringing off the hook. That’s the one good thing that came out of it.”

Whoever drove that car through Shadow Hills that night and left a burning cross needs to know--as the family needs to know--that such hateful acts have no place in our community. Not here. Not ever.