A beating and racial slurs -- but no hate-crime charges

By Selwyn Duke

Ah, the left-wing capacity for rationalization knows no bounds. While we're told that even substantive criticism of Barack Obama is driven by the hatefulness the left has dubbed "racism," a racial attack by three black teenagers on two white men in Philadelphia this past Monday is, somehow, not.

Consider the scenario, and then tell me why we even have "hate-crime" laws. Wrote Stephanie Farr at Philly.com:

About 8:25 p.m., a cab was stopped at a red light at 15th and Chestnut streets when two 17-year-old boys and a 15-year-old boy approached and started calling the male passenger in the back seat racially derogatory names, police said.

The boys then threw an unknown liquid at the cab before they opened the door, pulled the passenger out and started to pummel him, police said.

The cab driver, Brian Goldman, then exited his vehicle, perhaps to lend assistance, at which point the passenger ran off and the thugs turned their racial wrath on the cabbie. Despite the three-on-one odds and having suffered some physical injuries, Goldman was able to retrieve a tire iron from his trunk, at which point the brave lads ran off. They were later apprehended by the police.

And now we have an update: The lowlifes will not be charged with a hate crime.

Writes Farr in a follow-up piece:

The teens, who are black, were not charged with hate crimes because there was no evidence that the assault had been motivated by the race of the victims, who are white, said Tasha Jamerson, D.A. spokeswoman. Just shouting racial epithets during the commission of a crime doesn't rise to the level of ethnic intimidation, she said.

"They just didn't have that in this case," she said. "If they had somebody who, two blocks before, heard them say, 'We're going to beat somebody up because they're white, brown or purple,' it might be different."

Yes, certain things might make it different. One that leaps to mind is if the races of the assailants and the victims had been reversed. Perhaps Tasha Jamerson would have needed a notarized affidavit stating, "We, the party in the first part, declare that we shall attack the party in the second part driven by egregious racial animus directed toward members of the Caucasoid race."

But, hey, we can always hope that Obama will weigh in and opine that the D.A. "acted stupidly."

I've written a lot in the past about these hate-crime double standards, but have nothing more to say here. The story speaks for itself.

© Selwyn Duke