An African-American is beaten up at a political rally by thugs shouting racial epithets, and after three months his assailants are charged with the moral equivalent of jaywalking. Why wasn't it a hate crime?The beating of Kenneth Gladney by people wearing the purple shirts of the Service Employees International Union outside a Missouri health care town hall meeting three months ago met all the classic definitions of a hate crime. Time was, the beating of a black man outside a protest rally, and the arrest and prosecution of the perpetrators, would be headline news.
Gladney was working as a vendor outside an Aug. 6 town hall forum called by Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-Mo., at Bernard Middle School in Mehlville, Mo., when he was punched in the face by someone in a group of people wearing purple T-shirts.
It was a summer of tea parties and growing town hall protests of administration plans to nationalize health care. Gladney thought he could make a few bucks selling flags saying "Don't Tread On Me," a flag from America's war of independence.
As Gladney recounted the incident on biggovernment.com, a person shouted: "What kind of (N-word) are you?!" Then, "he grabbed my board, so I quickly grabbed it back, then the man punched me in the face and charged at me. I put my hands up to block the second blow from the large man, when two other people from that group grabbed me and threw me to the ground and started punching and kicking me. I was kicked in the head and in the back, legs and buttocks. Then a white woman ran up to me while I was on the ground and began kicking me in my head as well. A few people came to my rescue, for which I am forever grateful."
According to Harris Himes, who also attended that town hall and calls himself an eyewitness to the attack, they were "union thugs" whose shirts read "Organizing for America" on the back and "SEIU" on the front. A video of the assault has been widely viewed.
Finally, after three months of curious delay, charges have been filed against six individuals in the incident.
The charges were announced the day before Thanksgiving, so nobody would notice. The national media weren't paying attention, and neither were the ACLU, civil rights groups or the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Gladney was the wrong kind of victim.