CLEVELAND, Ohio -- It's called the "knockout game." Young violent thugs play it on occasion.

The premise is simple. An unsuspecting person, someone minding their own business, usually walking down a public street, is violently attacked. The idea is to render the person unconscious with a single punch.

Robbery is not the defining motive, nor is revenge. There is no real purpose to the attack other than to put someone to sleep in a quick and brutal fashion.

During the past few days, I've heard from a number of people -- both black and white -- who are concerned that a racial version of the knockout game (sometimes called "polar bear hunting") was played in downtown Cleveland at the conclusion of last month's St. Patrick's Day parade.

At least six white adults were attacked near Public Square without provocation by roaming bands of young African-Americans described as juveniles. One of the victims, a 23-year-old man from Akron, woke up in an ambulance after being ambushed.

Cleveland police have made one arrest in connection with the assaults and continue to investigate. They are not so quick to call the attacks racially motivated, however, because none of the victims reported hearing racial slurs during the assaults. The fact that several of the victims were also robbed of their wallets or cell phones also suggests that the muggings may have been more random crimes of opportunity than deliberate racial assaults.

But at least one Cleveland councilman, Zack Reed, is convinced that possible racial animus must be part of the police investigation. His take on the St. Patrick's Day beatings is simple and, frankly, refreshing. He's calling them hate crimes.

"[Public Square] is ground zero on St. Patrick's Day for blacks to go beat up whites," Reed said in an interview with the Northeast Ohio Media Group. "I believe this is a hate crime because it is black folks purposefully going downtown to beat up white folks."

Reed added in an interview with WKYC, the local NBC affiliate: "When you go out into the streets of Cleveland to do harm to individuals based on their nationality, their gender or religion, I think those are hate crimes and I think what happened on Public Square was clearly a hate crime."

I think Reed's conclusion, while perhaps a bit premature given the ongoing police investigation, is a critically important one. Deliberately or not, he's rolling back the cover on one of the biggest hypocrisies in the discussion of crime in America.

Violent black-on-white hate crime is just as real as white-on-black hate crime. We just don't do a good job of discussing it. That's part of the dilemma. We have a problem acknowledging criminal reality. It's actually quite pathetic and regressive.

Reed sponsors a popular picnic each summer at Luke Easter Park. His Family Unity in the Park event attracts thousands of people, overwhelmingly African-Americans, who are treated to world-class music and lots of wholesome fun. The picnic has occasionally been marred, however, by the arrival of young black hooligans who see the gathering as a place to settle scores or simply to create mayhem.

Imagine now, however, if 15 to 20 young white rioters descended onto the gathering and began to violently assault random black people without provocation. Let's say they called their rampage "grizzly bear hunting." The event would make national news and every civil rights leader worth his weight in pepper would parachute into Cleveland with blaring megaphones.

The town would erupt in flames and instantly become the epicenter of America's hysterical reporting on racial conflicts and hostilities.

So what's the difference between a hypothetical attack on Reed's annual East Side festival and the St. Patrick's Day attacks that occurred in Cleveland's downtown?

Not much that meets the naked eye.

The fact that Reed is calling the attacks hate crimes is a needed evolution in this community's muted conversation on the criminal violence that continues to hamper Cleveland's neighborhood rebirth.

Hate-motivated crimes should be labeled for what they are -- regardless of race.