The Difference Between New York and Louisiana

Aside from the frequency of city-drowning hurricanes, it's the attitude towards Hate Crimes.

This morning, an African-American Columbia University professor found a noose hanging from her office door. New York considers this a pretty blatant hate-crime. Because, uh, a noose is a murder device that was historically used to terrorize and random innocent African Americans throughout the United States but mainly in the South. This was called "lynching" and it was considered a popular pastime for those who also like Rebel Flags and "Southern Culture."

Anyway, as you know there was a case a year ago in Jena, Louisiana where a bunch of nooses were hung in a racially divided high school that led to a year-long escalation of White-Black clashes. The people who hung the nooses were caught and were punished with the merest slap of the wrist possible. And, and, it was not considered a Hate Crime. Why? According to the Wiki:

District Attorney Walters stated that Washington had found no federal statute under which the teens could be prosecuted, just as he had found no applicable state statute."

The Bush Justice Department - whose civil rights division has been gutted in order to vigorously pursue voter fraud - was even willing to consider this a hate crime... but Louisiana does not considered it such. What's a few nooses between friends?

None of this will end well.