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.Â
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.
