Did anyone actually see who wrote the graffiti? That is the real story. Otherwise all we saw were words written in the park to be sensationalized in the news. It was not a "hate crime" because such things do not really exist. For example, if I murder another human being of a different race or ethnicity, it is obvious I hated that person enough human-to-human to want to end their life, just as if that person were of the same race or ethnicity as me. Somebody looking at the murder from afar has no way of knowing what was in my head when I committed the act. Period. To assume that because the victim was black and I am white, making it a "hate" crime, is to commit a racially prejudiced act against me because you would be making assumptions about me based solely on my race. Furthermore, it is a statistical fact backed by the US Department of Justice crime statistics that black-on-white crime is far, far more prevalent in the US than white-on-black crime, yet there are far fewer investigations for hate crimes perpetrated on white people--even when the criminal acts are accompanied by anti-white racial epithets--and certainly not nearly the same level of publicity. I have come a long way in my own life and understanding of the relationship between the races, from being a White Nationalist to where I am now in wanting for each side to end the nonsense and racial rhetoric to learn to work together for the common good. What I see is the solution is for everyone to accept that people ARE different and different is NOT bad. The idea that everyone is exactly the same at every level is belied by unbiased science and obvious to anyone without an agenda. What we should all be doing is saying "You are different than I am in some ways, but I can learn to work together with you despite those differences." It is only when different races and ethnicities learn to accept differences and work together despite them, as opposed to the current practice of claiming everyone is exactly alike and some are not as successful because of the alleged actions of another group, that society will be able to actually move past race being an issue. Therefore, I see the news story as something that is unconsequential in the big picture and something that shouldn't even have been publicized. For anyone reading this, I have no problem dealing with the issue of race head-on because the only way to deal with the problems facing society today is to have a frank and honest discussion about it, even if that means discussing the good AND bad about everything. _______________________________________________________ "Treason doth never prosper, what's the reason? For if it doth prosper, none dare call it treason." -Sir John Harrington, 1561-1612