White student attacked by blacks but Chicago police are denying that it is a hate crime

Amy Hess:

It's interesting to note that, while the Chicago Sun-Times plays it down, the four attackers were black and the attacked boy was white. This only comes out at the very bottom of a sidebar on the article, and not in the article itself. Chicago Police spokeswoman Monique Bond is quoted as saying, "There doesn't appear to be any indication that this would be a hate crime."

That's fair. The attack certainly wasn't a "love" crime, but we can't make a judgment about the students' motives based simply on the color of attackers or victim. I don't really care if the kids were black or white or Sami from Lapland.

But, I do find it interesting that the news worked hard to ignore the potential racial tones of the story. If the victim had been a black honor student and the attackers a group of white students, I have no doubt the papers would have been splashed with stories that highlighted the students' racial profiles. "Four white students throw excrement at black honors student!!" Holy crap! White humanity must still hate black humanity!

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