First Amendment to the United States Constitution Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

What is the value of having a “hate crime” or terming a certain type of speech as “hate speech”? The only real distinction between a normal crime and a “hate crime” is a “hate crime” is fueled by racial or discriminatory motivation. In other words, thought. A “hate crime” is a thought crime. Just when you thought, “thought police” was something of fiction.

Definition from Black’s Law Dictionary

The original purpose of a “hate crime” was to punish racially or discriminatory motivated crime more severely than a normal crime, in order to send a message that racism would not be tolerated in America. To the contrary, the opposite effect happened. For example, when you start labeling a white police officer (who may, in fact, be racist), that murders an unarmed black man as a racist and his crime is now a “hate crime”, you’re actually being counter-productive in settling racial tensions in the Untied States. The fact the police officer may or may not be racist or his crime was racially fueled is irrelevant to the fact that a crime was committed, however now you create an idea that when a white police officer kills an unarmed black man it’s because he’s a racist. This will be the public’s perception and this is absolutely how the media portrays it, because let’s face it, “bad news” sells. Even if this was not the original intent, this is now what the public will perceive.

Lady Justice

Lady Justice is an iconic symbol of law, in her left hand she holds a balance which symbolizes weighing the evidence, in her right hand, she holds a sword to symbolize punishment and most importantly she wears a blindfold to symbolize the objectivity of the law, as the saying goes “The law is blind”. This is important because no person should be subject to different treatment based on preconceptions, previous life choices, income or current lifestyle. If we begin to label certain speech as “hate speech” or certain crimes as “hate crimes”, we are doing our society an injustice; juries may vote based on emotion (because almost everyone hates a racist) and counter to the law, which is not good for an efficient justice system and tensions will only increase between races. Racism is ugly, but racism is fueled by thought and certain ways of thinking that may have been in families or communities for generations. We can not cure racism through law. Government can not forcibly change culture, as much as it wants to. A time in history where this is particularly noticeable is during the desegregation of schools in the United States. If people had a certain set of beliefs on Monday when schools may have been segregated; on Tuesday if schools were desegregated, it’s foolish to assume they can just flip a switch and start thinking in a different way. Cultural changes can’t happen at the snap of the government’s finger, it takes time.

If a crime a is committed then that person should be accountable to the full extent of the law but, making thought a crime or treating a “hate crime” differently than a normal crime, is in my opinion counter-productive, unjust and not the way forward for a freer America. The first amendment protects our right to be able to freely think and express whatever we’d like, this doesn’t change when something someone says or thinks is ugly or offensive to another individual. As the quote by Voltaire goes: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”