Prosecutors are charging a New York man with a hate crime (a/k/a thought crime), after he beat someone with a baseball bat. Hate crimes are like normal crimes, except the perpetrator is motivated by hatred of his victims, unlike normal beatings. The two beatings may look the same and may result in the same injuries, but hate criminals must also be punished for what they are thinking inside their head as they thump away on their victims.

A white man faced hate-crime charges after police said he and two friends set upon three black men with a baseball bat, leaving one with a fractured skull, in a neighborhood that became infamous for a fatal racial confrontation two decades ago. . .

Nicholas Minucci, 21, was to be charged Thursday with first-degree assault as a hate crime, menacing, criminal possession of a weapon and other charges, police Commissioner Ray Kelly said.

So Minucci faces a more serious punishment, because he is white and his victim was black. If instead he had. . .oh I dunno. . .beat down a little old white lady, that's not as serious. Because he was beating a black man, he was obviously thinking something like, "I'm gonna kill this black mofo." If it were grandma and he was slugging away while thinking, "When's this old bitch gonna die", that's a lesser crime.

Now, I know what you're thinking, an assault is an assault. No! Bludgeoning someone for the $10 in their pocket is perfectly understandable. It serves them right for walking around with $10. But bludgeoning someone just because they look different than you is reprehensible, and must be punished more severely.