Epidemiologists have found an increase in violence when a neighborhood, housing center, or residence hall becomes more diverse, according to McDevitt. The race of the original population and the new group are not a factor. You start to see violence as a step function as new groups move into a previously homogeneous area, he said. Certain kids have a tendency to keep committing hate crimes, McLaughlin said, and there are sometimes indicators of hate before kids commit hate crimes. Forming cliques and ostracizing kids can be one early warning sign of trouble.
Hate speech can be a symptom of something much more frighteningly deep.
On the other hand, sometimes with little kids it s a mimic of something they don t totally understand. Sometimes, for example, when other students hear African American children calling one another nigger, they may use the term without understanding that it is hate speech. You try to say that none of this is appropriate at any time. Children first learn hate at home, but parents who utter racist speech at home may still come to their children s school and say that their kids are not prejudiced. Usually the most effective way of dealing with it is to concentrate on the behavior of students, McLaughlin said, and not on the family.