Eugene Kane, in his Milwaukee Journal Sentinel blog, considers whether recent attacks on whites by black youths at the Wisconsin Fair should be considered hate crimes.
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In the aftermath of the State Fair Park story about black youths targeting whites for attack, many readers asked the question:
Should they be charged with a hate crime?
My response is that the authorities — prosecutors, district attorneys, police, etc. — are the ones who decide what's a hate crime and what's not. It's not always cut and dried.
Personally, I thought Jeffrey Dahmer should have been charged with a hate crime; he wasn't. Or, the Milwaukee cops who beat Frank Jude Jr. could have been charged with a hate crime; they weren't.
What I do know is that a hate crime is a very serious charge that should only be used when it's clear that racial hatred leads to drastic results.
Like a black man in Mississippi beaten to death by a white mob simply because he was black.
Read Eugene Kane's entire post at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
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