Hate Crimes

I was listening to one of the local NPR stations the other morning, and they were reporting the results of the latest study of hate crimes in the Southern California area. The results? Hate crimes were down overall in 2005. However the most interesting of the results they mentioned was that the vast majority of hate crimes reported were committed by... minorities. More than 75% of hate crimes againt hispanics were comitted by blacks. And more than 75% of hate crimes against blacks were committed by hispanics. A large percentage of hate crimes comitted against gays, lesbians and trans-sexuals were committed by racial minorities.

Part of the reason for this may be that they included gang violence in the studies in cases where the violence was determined to be racially motivated. Since there are rival hispanic and black gangs in the area (and both are curiously insensitive when dealing with "sexual minorities"), they turned out to be responsible for many of the crimes.

I guess that makes sense. After all, gang members are already used to committing violent crimes in general, why not add one more motivation to the mix?