This week on Hashtag History, we are discussing Vincent Chin, a twenty-seven year old Chinese-American man that was beaten to death in Detroit, Michigan, on June 19, 1982. He was beaten by two white men that worked in the Detroit automobile industry. These men would beat Chin to death when they mistook him for Japanese and blamed him for their being out of work due to the recent influx in Japanese car imports. But the tragedy doesn’t stop there. Because, when these two men were tried for murder, they would end up instead being convicted of manslaughter and would receive only a fine of $3,000…and no jail time. The judge in this case was quoted as saying, in reference to the light sentence he had given the men, “These aren’t the kind of men you send to jail. You fit the punishment to the criminal, not the crime.”
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