Yes. It was clearly racist in intent. I hope few here come to their defense.
Give me a break. Racist? Really?
This is no different than when kids toilet paper houses. Classless for sure, but racist?
The last thing we should do is give the political correctness whores any more ammo? God knows if they had vandalized a Confederate graveyard you would see people cheering them.
It probably was. Does that still mean it’s right to charge them with federal felony charges?
I don’t have to defend them to call hate crime legislation pathetic and unconstitutional. The pathetic whiney asses who got their panties in a wad over this need to grow the hell up and move on.
I'm not going to defend the idiots, but the charge of "felony hate crime" disturbs me very much.
Yes, it was stupid and apparently intended to stir up racial sh*t. (Pranksters love to pick on people who squeal.) But I’m skeptical that it was worth calling it a “felony hate crime” (what are those love crimes, anyhow?).
Black folks should be aware, however that the cotton business, or the black nexus with it, didn’t end with the banning of slavery. Free plantations existed prior to the Emancipation Proclamation. Many former slaves stayed as paid workers when slavery was banned. Other former slaves saved money and bought cotton plantations and some became wealthy that way. Mechanized cotton picking did not come until decades later.
Stupid prank in poor taste does not equal a felony.
When I first moved to Dallas the New Black Panther Party was walking around downtown making sure prime parking spaces were filled by black drivers only. They threatened me when I parked in a “black space” and I was shocked. The police did nothing and no one seemed to care.
That should be a felony hate crime because it was a threat of violence to keep someone from a public space. Nobody cared.
This was a prank that threatened nothing and everybody cares.
Give me a break.
Really as opposed to what? The Black Culture Center?
Your hopes will be shattered.
FELONY hate crime? By definition, a felony is an offense which can carry a penalty of a year in prison or more. A year in prison for symbolic speech? Screw that.
The only charge should be littering.
It is a very rare occurrence in my experience when a minority is charged with a hate crime.
And since in my experience minorities commit a greater number of crimes of violence against whites there should be a greater number of prosecutions against minorities for hate crime.
Yep. Those cotton balls can kill.
This is exactly the same thing as lynching.
Worse, even.
i’ll hate anyone I damn well please!!!
>> I hope few here come to their defense.
Well, I will.
What they did is in bad taste, and definitely racist. I don’t condone that intent.
But it is not criminal, let alone a felony!
The free speech right protects speech you don’t like, too.
And when the NAACP tosses a bunch of boxes of crackers on a white guys’ lawn I hope you’ll be out there calling for a hate crime against them. Same thing if they toss a bunch of “GAP” bags on the lawn.
IF you’re sitting here trying to defend the concept of “hate crimes” I think you’re in the wrong place. The government may think that’s legitimate, but conservatives do not. It’s one of THE WORST legal concepts ever drafted by a liberal mind, including being right up there with “abortion and the right to privacy”.
The problem with the term "hate crime" is that people actually get to thinking that hate is a crime, it is not.
Hate is not a crime and throwing cotton balls is not a crime, but you put the two together and it becomes a felony hate crime???