| From AP:
MORGANTOWN -- West Virginia is one of the whitest states in the nation, but the lack of diversity seldom leads to overt acts of racism or bias crimes such as the racially tinged rape and torture of a black woman in Logan County.
Federal statistics show the rural state -- 95 percent white, 3 percent black -- records fewer bias crimes than comparable states. And from one region to another, residents say that where racism lurks, it is restrained, not raging.
"I work with black churches and black people. We just love one another,'' says Johnny Meade, a white pastor in the Big Creek community where six white men and women have been charged in the case.
"This goes beyond prejudice,'' says the Rev. Audie Murphy Sr., president of the Logan County branch of the NAACP. "It's actually evil in its heightened form.
"I feel it's not a direct indication of the community in its entirety,'' he says, "because there are great people here, such as the one who notified the authorities that the girl was being held captive.''
Only 3 percent of West Virginia's 1.8 million residents are black, compared with 12.8 percent nationally.
However, like other police jurisdictions, West Virginia's do not always do a good job of filling out the federal reporting forms on hate crimes.
But Deputy Attorney General Paul Sheridan says numbers may not tell the whole story because "we still see a very large number of zeros coming back, even from places where we know something has occurred.''
Communities like Huntington are either more serious about reporting bias crimes or are using different procedures to identify them, Sheridan says. Conversely, police in Milton recently said an incident "was not a bias crime because the victims and the perpetrators knew each other.''
"That's not the right analysis,'' Sheridan says. "That's not the point at all.''
This is an issue that should unite us all in expressing our outrage. On this, I stand with rightwinger Gary Abernathy, who to his credit also strongly condemned the crime on his blog.
However, there is a reason why crimes are listed as hate crimes:
Still, Marshall was disturbed Wednesday to hear talk-radio callers dismiss the racial overtones of the Logan County case by saying, "a crime is a crime.''
Sheridan believes that's because calling a bias crime a "hate crime'' muddies the point.
"If someone is selected for a crime because of something that makes them different, there's a message in that. We shouldn't deny it or cover that over, or pretend it's not important,'' he says.
UPDATE:
More from Senator Jay Rockefeller on the crime:
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS FROM SENATOR ROCKEFELLER ON VICIOUS ASSAULT IN LOGAN COUNTY
"As additional details emerge about this horrific case, I am even angrier and more disgusted that this terrible crime could happen to anyone in our state. It hurts me to my soul that a young West Virginian has suffered this appalling and awful sequence of events.
"Even as our thoughts and prayers go first to the victim, I know the West Virginia way is to reach out in our communities and protect each other, and this will help to heal the wounds left by this vicious attack."
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