Is A Hate Crime Only A Hate Crime If You Are A Black Victim?

Hate crimes are nothing more than an existing crime that is motivated by animus against a specified group of people based upon racial, ethnic, religious and sometimes sexual characteristics. There is a sentencing enhancement when a crime is adjudged to have a hate crime motivation.

Is a hate crime only a hate crime if you are a black victim? Well, through the lens of two fairly recent Southern California hate crime cases, apparently so.

At the end of 2004 in Simi Valley, white supremacist oriented white kids, totally unprovoked except by their prejudices, attacked a black youth. The young man suffered a dislocated knee and an injured shoulder. These white kids got sentenced to jail time. Not enough, but jail time nevertheless.

Now a short distance away in Long Beach, a bunch of black kids are convicted of an unprovoked hate crime attack on three white girls. One of the white girls is still undergoing surgery to repair a damaged eye socket. The sentence for the black kids is probation.

The message in California is that if you are white and you commit a hate crime against a black, the jail doors will slam behind you. But, if you are black and you commit a hate crime against a white, you will get a slap on the hand. That probably does not surprise you after the O.J. Simpson acquittal, now does it?

Racism is alive and well in California. And, the biggest racists are the institutions that don’t hold all people equally accountable for their actions. What do you expect from a bunch of damn liberals?