CCSN campuses will host series of forums on hate crimes

Monday, March 8, 1999 | 11:19 a.m.

Has national apathy created an environment that allows hate crimes -- such as the dragging death of a black man in Texas and the beating death of a gay man in Wyoming -- to thrive?

The question will be among the issues discussed in a series of public forums focusing on hate crimes to be held this week, beginning tonight at 6 p.m. at the Community College of Southern Nevada Charleston Campus, building B106.

Other forums will be held Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the college's Cheyenne Campus, room 1430, and Wednesday at 6 p.m. at the Henderson Campus, room 207.

The panels will include:

-- Pastor Jelani Kafela of the Imani Temple, Pomona, Calif., the feature speaker at each of the forums.

-- Ricardo Orta, behavior modification therapist from Des Moines, Iowa.

-- Gary Peck, executive director of the Nevada chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

-- Jane Heenan, director of the Las Vegas Transgender Center.

Also on the panels will be community college professors Linda Foreman, Bob Manis, Michael Granata and Kay Davis.

The forum is an annual event sponsored by the community college's Sociology Club.

Rebecca Coleman, president of the club, said the brutal slayings in Texas and Wyoming last year makes hate crimes a topical issue.

Such crimes include murder, non-negligent manslaughter, rape, assault, intimidation, arson and damage or destruction of property.

Kafela, who won the 1990 NAACP President's Award, says he believes the social environment "breeds, gives license and breath to hate, indifference and oppression."

He called national apathy a major concern.

"We have an appetite to indifference," he said.