Here’s the story, big in Minnesota, about the Valleyfair amusement park beating. On the fourth of July, a gang of thugs brutally beat up a man who was defending his teenage daughter from unwanted attention.
After mug shots of the black suspects were made public, the case generated intense public reaction in online blogs and news sites and was debated on local talk radio shows after many callers mistakenly believed the victims were white. The Scott County attorney’s office received numerous calls urging that a hate-crime charge be filed until Ciliberto announced last week that the victims and suspects are all black.
Come on, doesn’t the “ick factor” in the following facts argue eloquently against having a special category of crimes known as “hate crimes,” in which certain cherry-picked motives and states of mind — real or perceived — mean harsher penalties?
When the public believed the victims were white, “numerous” people called for harsher penalties under hate-crime laws. When the public found out the victims were black, the calls for harsher penalties went away.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t particularly enjoy living under laws and public attitudes that mean the same guy would get an easier penalty for beating up a black family than he would for beating up a white family.
bearing blog 