By Selwyn Duke

Last month there was a story about a black firefighter who reported finding a knotted rope and threatening note containing a picture of a noose in an East Baltimore firehouse.  But now it has been revealed that the fireman, Donald Maynard, planted the objects himself.

While the city’s mayor, Sheila Dixon, had fanned the flames of racial
unrest with her treatment of the affair, she says that the offender
will not be charged criminally.  I, for one, would like to know why.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been an ardent opponent of hate crime laws as I recognize them to be an effort at thought control; thus, I don’t believe anyone should be prosecuted simply for displaying politically incorrect symbols.  But I also know that the best way to eliminate an unjust law is to enforce it — across the board.  And we know that if the perpetrator had been white, a hate crime charge would be in the offing.

I know what’s coming.  Of course Maynard won’t be charged, as it’s obvious he was just perpetrating a hoax and that hatred had nothing to do with it.   But how do we know that?  Perhaps he hated white people so much that he wanted to demonize them through this act. 

Oh, that’s not the type of hatred we care about?  Very interesting.

Moreover, not every white person who displays such a symbol is driven by hatred.  Some also are just perpetrating hoaxes; after all, there are people who just love creating a tumult and reading about their handiwork in the news.  Yet, the hoax defense never seems to work with whites.

Without a doubt, we’re told that such an act is so "damaging to the wider targeted community" that harsher punishment is in order.  Well, wasn’t that ill-defined damage done between the time Maynard made his report and the time he admitted its fraudulence?  If the damage is the same, the punishment should be identical to that which would be visited on a white person.  Are we judging the act or the skin color?

If ever there was an invidious type of racial profiling, this is it.  Oh, I have no problem with authorities considering racial factors when constructing a profile and have often defended the practice.  I would be the first to say that if a black church is burned and swastikas are found at the scene, I would be far more likely to look for suspects among the local white population. 

But that would be a proper application of profiling: Using it to narrow down a list of possible suspects.  This, however, is far different, as we are using racial characteristics not to identify the most likely suspects, but to determine guilt.  Instead of merely operating with the understanding that certain motivations are more likely to be found among certain racial groups (i.e., Nazi sentiments among whites), we are assuming that because an individual is of a certain racial group, he must have a certain motivation. 

This isn’t just generalizing — which I defended recently — it’s a perversion of the practice.  In that defense, I mentioned a basic truth that pertains to valid generalization: While there are differences within groups, there are also differences among them.  I lamented the fact that political correctness causes us to deny the second part of that truth as we paint every group with the same brush, but this is a case in which political correctness actually causes us to paint every member of a group with the same brush.

Make no mistake, this is exactly what’s happening.  When assessing whether a white Mr. Noose-hanger should be punished for hateful thoughts, he is guilty until proven innocent.  And that proof always seems as elusive as Moby Dick, as we practically assume that he just must be a bigot.  Why, that’s just how white people are.  Don’t ya know? 

Now think about this.  We may as well say that a black defendant charged with crack-dealing must be guilty because he is black, a Moslem charged with terrorism must be guilty because he is Moslem, or a man charged with rape must be guilty because he is a man (oh, never mind; we do that already).  It’s one thing to look more closely at blacks, Moslems or men when, respectively, searching for crack dealers, terrorists or rapists, but once a suspect is apprehended it’s a different matter.  We proceed on nothing but prejudice when we charge or convict an individual based on a stereotype.  Again, profiling exists for the purposes of identifying suspects, not for the purposes of prosecuting them. 

Perhaps you’re as tired of reading this as I am of writing it, but this is the problem with hate crime laws.  It makes prosecution more subjective and the prevailing prejudices of the day the determinants of guilt and punishment.  Was hatred in the defendant’s heart, Counselor?  Is a hoax tolerable here, Your Honor?  Well, I don’t know.

Tell me the man’s skin color and I’ll tell you.

We have to ask ourselves whether a criminal proceeding is to take place in a courtroom or a sideshow.  If the former, mind-reading has no place.  It should be chilling to each and every one of us that the government is now the arbiter not only of the acceptability of thoughts, but of their existence.

The simple solution is to punish proven actions, not divined motivations.  If I wanted pretenders to clairvoyance, I wouldn’t pay taxes.  I’d just call the Psychic Hotline.