Do I wake or sleep?

This weekend NY1 reported about a gay performer, Kevin Aviance, who was attacked in the East Village. His jaw was even broken. I've had some discussions about hate crime legislation and I know some people are opposed to them, on the grounds that how can you punish a thought? It's the deed, the physical attack that should be punished, not the hate. I've thought about it some more in the wake of the attack on this man--I believe hate crime legislation is not about punishment, it's about deterrence. It's obvious this guy wouldn't have been attacked if he hadn't been gay--why should he be at greater risk because he's different? He was sought out because he was gay, which means he's automatically at a disadvantage for something he can't help. Hate crime legislation tries to redress that imbalance--by scaring people who would take advantage of it. BTW, I also believe hate crimes should apply to all races/genders/groups, and I also think rape should be a hate crime. The Nicholas Minucci case is an interesting look at what constitutes a hate crime--the white defendant claims even though he said the N-word, it wasn't a hate crime when he attacked the black guy in his neighborhood. It's an interesting case because the victim was not particularly blameless--he admitted he was there to steal a car. So was Minucci a thug or a racist thug? Was his use of the N-word in any way mitigated by its free currency in hip hop? It's certainly not the unheard-of term it was 20 years ago.

If Minucci's lawyers have any sense, they'll point to this case from a few months ago, where a bunch of black kids chased a white guy (a truly innocent victim in this case, he was catching a train or something) into traffic to try to rob him, yelling "get the white guy." The prosecutors tried to make hate crime charges stick but were unable to--somehow the defense laywer got them off on those, claiming "the white guy" was an indentifier, not a racial epithet. I'd say, if you cause a guy's death when you're robbing him and call him a racial term, that qualifies as a hate crime to me. Likewise, I think Minucci's crime was a hate crime. I don't care how many thug-ass rappers use that term, it's disgusting.