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The N-Word and Hate Crimes
First of all, I think that the "N-Word" is the most offensive phrase in the history of language. I cannot and will not utter it. Therfore, I will substitute other words for it in this entry.
So, is it a hate crime when someone calls a Person of Color a hoyhoo? Well, think how you would feel if you were called an ookchiv? In fact, the context does not matter. There is nothing funny, educational, instructive, or in any way socially redeeming about calling someone a rayhag.
Which brings us to the case of one Nicholas Minucci, of Queens NY, who was accused of calling a Person of Color a shizgress while incidentally fracturing his skull with an aluminum baseball bat. In short, The New York Times reported that:
A white man who uttered a racial epithet while using a baseball bat to attack a black man in Queens last summer was found guilty of hate crimes yesterday in a case that carried echoes of an infamous racial beating in the same neighborhood two decades earlier. After seven hours of deliberations over two days, on a 14-count indictment, a jury found Nicholas Minucci, 20, guilty of the racially motivated assault and robbery of Glenn Moore, 23, in Howard Beach, a predominantly white
He faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison. As a hate crime, the first-degree robbery carries the same maximum sentence but a lower minimum one. About 5 p.m. in an otherwise empty Queens County Courthouse, the ethnically diverse jury deciding Mr. Minucci's fate filed into the courtroom, none of its members looking toward Mr. Minucci.
Now, some people might say that a crime of this magnitude deserves more than 25 years in prison -- and I am one of them. I mean, let's look at all the atrocities here:
1) Mr. Minucci is white.
2) He used a racial epithet.
3) There was a different racial beating in the same area, only twenty years ago.
5) Mr. Minucci is a hater.
Yes, I know that ethnically diverse juries are infallible. And in fact, I'm thinking that perhaps Mr. Minucci's sentence was shortened because he clearly deserves sympathy as a gay man: Mr. Minucci was being charged with hate crimes because of prosecutors' allegation that he seized upon Mr. Moore because of his race. Mr. Minucci's use of a racial epithet was debated extensively during the tense three-week trial, where it was often referred to as HOYHOO. Mr. Gaudelli insisted during the trial that Mr. Minucci was convinced that Mr. Moore was in Howard Beach that morning to commit a robbery and that he hit him only in the buttocks and legs to subdue him in what was, essentially, a legal citizen's arrest.
But the most important part of the trial was this:The Queens district attorney, Richard A. Brown, differed with that explanation after the verdict, which he said sent a clear message that HOYHOO has no place in our society and should be banished from our vocabulary.
Yes indeed...and I certainly purged it from my vocabulary. No more H-word for me.
Now, lets look at some solutions. Here are some alternate ways that this incident could have played out:
1) Mr. Minucci could have silently smashed Mr. Moore over the head (or repeatedly in the buttocks) as a form of sexual expression, as opposed to racial hatred.
2) Mr. Minucci could have instead smashed the head of a vile niggardly capitalist like Dick Cheney or one of Sam Walton's heirs.
3) Mr. Minucci could have acted out his violence in a neighborhood that has no history of racial hatred.