Four middle-school students have been arrested in what police described as a racially motivated robbery and attack

Joe McGurk:

The youths — two 11-year-olds, a 13-year-old and a 15-year-old — are all black. They allegedly followed a 12-year-old white youth several blocks after the school they all attend was dismissed on Friday.

The four called the victim a "cracker" before beating him and stealing his cellphone on Veterans Avenue in Mill Basin, police said.

The boy was not hurt badly. He was able to identify his attackers when he returned to school yesterday.

They were arrested and charged with robbery and aggravated harassment as a hate crime.

It was the latest in a series of racial incidents in the area centered on Mill Basin and Marine Park.

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said the department "certainly takes hate crimes seriously."

He acknowledged that bias crimes are up in the area this year but said the number was not as high as 1996 and 1997.

"It's hard to accurately attribute cause to swings from one year to the next," he said.

But police sources who work in the area told The Post they're concerned.

One called Brooklyn "the borough of hate."

The sources said undercover cops have poured into the area in recent months and that politicians were being contacted "to try to get a handle on what appears to be a simmering problem."

Earlier incidents include:

* On Aug. 7, Alex Moore, 29, a black man, was brutally beaten on East 68th Street by a group of thugs carrying bats and pipes who spewed racial epithets, police said.

The gang was mostly white, but its leader was of mixed race.

* Last week, a group of schoolgirls was arrested for taking part in a racially charged attack on two parochial-school students on a city bus.

The four — three blacks and a Hispanic — allegedly shouted racial slurs before punching one of the parochial students, who are white.

They followed them off the bus and punched the girl again, cops said.

* In March, six white Catholic-school girls were attacked on a basketball court by a group of teens who shouted "black power" and "white crackers," according to the victims.

The gang members were not charged with a hate crime, infuriating the victims' parents.

NYC offers deal to bias attackers