There are plenty of people out there who bemoan the term "hate crime". They ask bumper sticker questions like "Aren't all crimes hate crimes?" The answer is no. This post is for people who don't see the difference.Most murders have a motive. Money, jealousy, revenge. There's a back story to their situation that brings them to a point where they lose control and kill someone. But the target of that urge to kill is very specific. In a hate crime murder the motivation can still be money, jealousy or revenge but the pool of potential victims is vastly wider making the person A LOT more dangerous. A dozen guys who want to kill Daryl is a danger to far fewer people than a dozen guys who want to kill everyone who looks like Daryl. My apologies to any Daryls out there.
If James Craig Anderson was not black he would not have been run over by a pick up truck. Families in New York would not have been targeted for firebombing if they were not Muslim or Hindu. And Vincent Chin would not have been murdered by Detroit auto workers if he didn't look Japanese like his killers thought.
If it seems like determining something as a hate crime is giving a certain group of people extra protection that others don't get you probably don't know what it's like to feel uncomfortable or even unsafe simply for being what you are.
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