There was some video on the news yesterday where a couple of young ladies are shown being not very nice to another lady in a fast-food restaurant. It’s definitely violent, but is it a hate crime? I suppose that depends on intent, but that’s not what I want to talk about right now. This is just the context of how the following issue came up.
What happened is, some talk show host made the point that this was a hate crime, and then somebody else said they weren’t sure, and then he said: “Well, if you’re killing someone, that’s a hateful act.” Everyone seemed to agree with that assessment, but let’s just hold our horses here. What if it’s a mercy killing? Is that a hateful act? What if you’re killing someone with kindness? Is that a hateful act? What if you “love someone to death”? Is that hateful? And what about “death by chocolate”? See the problem here? I think that you can be nice even when you’re killing someone (like when you’re, say, I don’t know, maybe, “killing me softly with his song”), so it’s not always a hate crime, especially when dessert is involved somehow. I hope we’re all clear on this, because I don’t want dessert restaurant artisans being indicted on hate crime charges. I like chocolate.
