Well, the “big” case of “Fat Nick” Minucci was finally decided. Guilty of hate crimes and assault charges, he was sentenced to 15 years in jail by a judge who could have given him 25 years. Minucci is the 20-year-old from Howard Beach, New York, convicted of attacking a young black man who sought to steal cars in a predominantly white neighborhood. In New York, this was front-page news.
All the usual suspects were there like “Reverend” Al Sharpton (yes, the term is used loosely here) and all the various “civil errors” players. But even a guy like Sharpton knows that a place like New York is easy territory for a white male conviction in a “racial” case. It has become as predictable as the sunrise. Years of exaggerating some crimes and downplaying others (most) have led to a “crackdown” on the safe and politically incorrect case and a shrug of the most common and generally most violent ones without the racial / religious hype. Yelling insults against blacks, insults against homosexuals or anti-Semitic insults accompanied by the slightest action can get someone incarcerated for longer than someone who brutally beats another person of any race or religion but says very little. This is where we are and it is happening everywhere.
Some will say that this is not a big deal, as it is very wrong and harmful to do something for racial and religious reasons. First, you are punishing someone based on a scary thought and second (and most importantly) it is becoming very obvious that the “hate crime laws” are an outrageous lie and a huge violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Bottom line: white males are the target in far too many cases. This is certainly true in various cities across the country.
Despite all the hype surrounding hate crimes – it accounts for less than 1 percent of all crimes – the leveling of charges is often political. In Minucci’s case, there was some kind of confrontation and the word “black” was used. He chased after the young black men and caught up with one and proceeded to hit him on the head with a baseball bat. In fact, it is not a pleasant thing to do. Little was given to his story about an attempted chain kidnapping of a friend. He received the usual criticism from a judge in the case that could have sentenced him to 25 years in prison, fascist style. He received 15 and could be out in about 12.
Meanwhile, shortly after this case occurred, a young white man named Thomas Whitney had some kind of argument with several Muslim men near a nightclub in Manhattan. Screaming “white mother! @ # $”, They proceeded to beat and kill him. Then they robbed him. All were eventually caught and charged with robbery and murder. No hate crimes. The police mentioned something about race not being the main motive. And that was that. No pressure groups. Without politicians. Without multimedia. Any. That is the norm in countless cases.
And New York is far from the only city like this. When white tourists wandering through mostly black neighborhoods were murdered in Miami, race was hardly mentioned. The savage murder of three-year-old Stephanie Kuhen in Los Angeles, where a driver named Tim Stone made a “wrong turn” in a gang-ridden, non-white area. Animals in the area proceeded to run towards the car, block it and start shooting. Mr. Stone was shot in the back. The girl died and her two-year-old brother, Joe, was shot in the foot. Arrests were made and race became a rare mention. Imagine the other way around? The examples for any city are too numerous to list here.
Most of the convictions are government statistics. The FBI’s National Crime Victimization Survey and Uniform Crime Reports are the standard used to observe crime trends. Of the roughly 770,000 interracial crimes observed in the most recent study, a whopping 85% were in black and white. It also demonstrated the fact that blacks commit more crimes against whites than newspapers, politicians, and academia talk about black crimes over “boasted” blacks because it is safe to do so.
Why is this mentioned? Because anyone with a brain would know that some, if not many, of these crimes have a racial component, but they are simply dismissed. A serial rapist who targets women of a certain race will generally not receive hate crime rapes. A murder in which money was stolen suddenly turns into a “murder-robbery” like the unfortunate Mr. Whitney of New York and ends there. The rare white-on-black or white-on-Asian rape, murder or assault begins as a presumption that race was part of it and a thrown epithet becomes grounds for a hate crime charge. On the contrary, the use of race must be overwhelming.
Challenges to the constitutionality of hate crime laws have been raised and defeated in the past. However, the challenges were related to the vague nature of the law. Also, the challenges occurred years ago. Increasing data and a challenge based on the lack of protection for citizens on equal terms should be the direction here.
While saying something to hurt someone’s feelings based on a person’s own makeup is unpleasant and low, it shouldn’t lead to increased penalties if accompanied by an action. Why not just punish the action itself? This is particularly true with something that can get so political. Because if words become the basis of a prison sentence, even the most ardent defenders of hate crime laws can end up falling victim to it.
