Cartman’s Silly Hate Crime 2000: A Savage Hypocrisy
Twenty years ago South Park aired the episode Cartman’s Silly Hate Crime 2000, wherein the character of Eric Cartman got sent to jail for committing a “hate crime.” In true South Park fashion, everything is exaggerated and played for laughs, EXCEPT for the final sermon delivered by Stan and Kyle, wherein they argue that all crimes ought to be treated equally and that the higher severity in which hate crimes are punished actually helps segregation more than integration. With the Black Lives Matter movement and the recent protests, the episode in general, and the speech in particular, deserve a more critical eye.
Before we continue, yes the final sermon is delivered mostly to get Cartman out of jail so the boys can win a sled race. That’s irrelevant to the point the episode tried to make.
First off, we need to understand the concept of the term “hate crime.” A hate crime is a crime based on prejudice; or to put it simply, it’s a crime done because one hates the group of people the crime is being done to. To give an example of a hate crime: killing someone because they’re black. The act committed is a crime, and it was committed with a bias motivation.
But during their speech, Stan and Kyle define hate crimes as “when someone kills someone of a different color.” Kyle then proceeds to call this a “savage hypocrisy, because all crimes are hate crimes. If a man kills another man because he’s sleeping with his wife, is that not a hate crime?”
This is known as a False Equivalency Fallacy; a man killing another man for sleeping with his wife is far from the same thing as a man killing another man for being of a different race. I hear you ask “how so? They’re both a murder!” And that’s true, but one needs to also look at the motivation behind said crimes; why? Because hate crimes tend to increase over time.
To put it simply, a man who kills the man who slept with his wife will most likely not kill anyone else beside that one sucker and maybe his wife; a man who kills another man for being black will most likely go find another black man to kill if he isn’t stopped. A hate crime, then, has a potential impact on the community. Consider, for example, how people get nervous when news of a serial killer in their town becomes more frequent. Then consider how some people grow slightly more relaxed when they learn that there’s a pattern in the murders that doesn’t include them specifically; inversely, the people who do fit the pattern begin to fear for their safety more.
The peace in the community is disrupted thanks to the serial killer, so it is imperative that the killer be caught as soon as possible. Only with the killer behind bars can the community feel safe again. This is simple logic, isn’t it?
But now let’s make this more complex. Imagine that the serial killer is only targeting women; the men will no doubt feel safe, but the women will be more wary. It just makes sense; if the killer only targets women, then a woman will have no way of knowing if she’ll be the next victim or not. Only by having the killer behind bars will she feel safe again.
But how will these women feel if the killer managed to get out? Say he’s only given ten years of prison, but gets released early on good behavior; would the women in the community feel safe? No, they would not!
“Cartman’s Silly Hate Crime 2000” makes the mistake of reducing the effects of crime down to the individual level, ignoring the social impact crime has. This is first demonstrated by the ridiculousness of the A-Plot, in which Cartman gets charged with a hate crime over throwing a rock at Token Black, the one black kid in South Park Elementary. Throughout Cartman’s “trial,” there is no attempt made by the prosecution to prove that Cartman’s motive was his bias against Afro-Americans; a rather necessary step to jail Cartman for his so-called hate crime.
One could well make the argument that the episode was only trying to lampoon the process of hate crimes and how proving that bias played a factor in committing the crime just prolongs court cases when it’s enough to just convict the accused of a regular crime, but Stan and Kyle’s final sermon merely underscores that the main thesis of the episode is how all crimes are hate crimes, and therefore should not be prosecuted any differently. If the episode had Token Black defended Cartman by saying “you locked him up for the wrong reasons; Cartman didn’t hit me with the rock because he hates black people, he hit me with the rock because he’s a sissy ass pansy who can’t take an insult” then the episode would have made a strong point about how hate crimes have to be taken MORE seriously instead of just calling any negative interracial incident a hate crime. Sadly, the episode went in a more tone deaf direction.
One of the lines spoken by Token Black deserves a critical eye: “the motivation for a crime shouldn’t affect the sentencing.” There’s a logic behind that; if a man commits a murder, does it really matter if he did it out of passion or out of hate? What difference does it make if a man kills another man for sleeping with his wife or for being black? It’s damned easy to prove someone killed someone else; it’s much harder to prove that they did it because of hate.
But Token is actually wrong; motivation affects the sentencing because motivation determines the type of crime committed. Consider the difference between murder and manslaughter; although both lead to the same results (a death), the former is intentional and the latter is accidental. A murder can get you life in prison, but manslaughter can get you up to six years. That’s quite the difference; why make that distinction? Because we generally understand that there’s a difference between the man who took a gun and shot his ex-wife while she was out with her new boyfriend, and some jackass who got drunk and decided to drive home. One is an act of malice, while the other is an act of pure idiocy.
My point is that motivation helps us determine the sentencing of a crime, because not all crimes are committed with the same intentions. Think of it this way: if you accidentally killed someone while defending yourself, would you be OK being sent to jail for life? If you hadn’t defended yourself, the other person would have killed you; would you still be deserving of a life sentence for acting in self defense?
But what does this have to do with Hate Crimes? Because a hate crime is motivated by bias against people based on what they can’t control: their skin color, their sexual orientation, their nationality, etc. Just as we understand there’s a difference between waiting ten hours to kill one’s ex who’s in a new relationship and running over someone while driving drunk, there’s a difference between killing someone for sleeping with our significant other and killing them because they’re of a different ethnicity. And it’s BECAUSE that difference exists, that the sentencing must be affected; just as we don’t slap a fifty dollar fine on the man who intentionally killed his ex-wife, we don’t just give two years in prison to someone who killed a black man for being black.
The last point to be made is a rebuttal to Stan’s point, that “all Hate Crime Laws do is establish that blacks are different from whites, that homosexuals need to be treated differently from non-homos.” This last point is, if you’ll pardon a swear word, complete and utter bullshit.
Hate crime laws exist precisely because minorities are targeted for crimes for no reason beyond what they are. Because black people get attacked and killed for being black. Because gay kids get bashed and murdered for no greater reason than for eyeing someone of the same sex for more than three seconds. Because when coronavirus began to spread, Asians were blamed and beaten for it. Hate crimes happen, independently of the existence of hate crime laws. Just look at Germany in the first half of the 20th century…
Hate crime laws are a promise from the Authority to the marginalized; a promise that they will be protected under law, and that those who violate that protection will be punished. This is what South Park could never explain; not that one would expect anyone working on South Park to actually understand.
Why did I make this writing? Because twenty years later, people still cling to this one episode as their first and last stop in regards to understanding hate crimes. Because South Park is held as this “voice of reason” in a sea of dogma, even though the show is as reactionary as it gets. Because maybe the show that treated global warming as a hoax for over ten years shouldn’t be held in such high regard.
In this day and age where information is literally a click away, staying informed is no choice, it’s an obligation. Don’t let your thirst for knowledge be quenched by a dumb cartoon.
