Hate Crime Double Standards

I am totally against hate crime laws. It is too easy to use them selectively, and selectively they are used - quite often. According to U.S. Department of Justice crime statistics, when you have a crime take place where the perp is a different race than the victim, 90% of the time, the perp is black and the victim is white. White-on-black crime is very rare, and yet those are the crimes that are considered for hate crime prosecution. When a black commits a crime against a white, police officers and prosecutors bend over backwards and contort themselves in unimaginable ways in order to not charge the black perpetrator with a hate crime.

I am sure you are all familiar with the famous case of James Byrd, who was dragged to his death behind a pickup truck by racist whites in Jasper, Texas back in 1998. Those men who committed that crime were sentenced to death for the murder. James Byrd's murder brought the issue of hate crime legislation to the forefront. First of all, I'm not sure what a hate crime charge could have done in the Byrd case; for goodness sake, they got the death penalty!

Now we have a crime committed recently where another dragging occurred, but this time, it was a white man being dragged by two black men. Were the perpetrators charged with a hate crime? Of course not. Neither were the black men who dragged Ken Tillery - a white man - to death. Yes, I know, you are right now asking yourself, "Who the heck is Ken Tillery?". Back in 2002, in Jasper, Texas of all places, Mr. Tillery was murdered by four black men who beat him then crushed him under their pickup truck. These men were not charged with a hate crime either. Nor were the Carr brothers, who in Wichita in 2000, robbed and murdered five whites in a week-long crime spree. The last four murder victims were taken to a dark snowy soccer field and shot execution-style in the back of the head. A fifth victim was also shot, but lived to tell the tale.

The bottom line is that in this country, it is not against the law to hate other people no matter how misguided or petty the reasons. What is against the law is when you act upon your hatred and cause death or injury. Ask yourself, if you are approached by a criminal who then shoots you, does it really matter why he did it? Whether he wanted your wallet, or he didn't like the color of your skin - you were shot, and the bad guys need to pay. You may not be able to prove what the criminal was thinking, but you can certainly prove what he was doing.

Good Day to You, Sir