Chicago Hate Crime, Charleston Shooting Show How Evil Works, in Black and White

One word rushed to my mind when I saw four hoodlums brutally torturing a mentally challenged teenager in Chicago.No, it wasn't hate.It was e-v-i-l.In a fair and just world, it shouldn't matter that the victim was white and all four assailants were black, anymore than it matters whether the nine people Dylann Roof shot and killed in a South Carolina church were black.Evil is evil: It never likes what or whom it comes to destroy. That's why decent people of all stripes, no matter where you are, must call it what it is and stand lock-step against it.But in the eyes of the law, not to mention in the court of public opinion, race adds an unsettling dimension to wickedness and raises an inevitable legal question: Was it a hate crime?In Roof's case, there's no doubt that his racist beliefs propelled him to murder nine innocent people at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in the summer of 2015. He acknowledged he wanted to start a race war.  Continue reading...