The assault case could be a tough call, though.

Urban youth culture HAS changed the contexts of use of the word nigger, no doubt about it. It is widely used in urban hip hop, spoken word, and 'cool' urban ebonics language contexts, and truly does not carry the negative associations it once did. The African American kids have, in that sense, reclaimed the word within their own culture (though not necessarily the culture of their parents!).

But as far as the legal case goes, you have to understand that one kid of one race beating on another kid of another race with a baseball bat while screaming racial epithets, may or may not have race implications these days, especially in gang related crimes.

The real imbalance is, there isn't an equivalent word which can be used as a racial epithet against white kids. But if the fight was between a member of a predominantly African American gang and a Latino gang or an Asian gang, it wouldn't EVER be prosecuted as a racially motivated hate crime, even though a lot of racism comes into play between those cultural groups.

I figure once the dominant society decides that racism can exist in communities of color towards other communities of color, and starts using the hate crimes laws in accordance with that reality, we'll be making some true progress in race relations in this country.

Until then, I guess will just build fences on the Mexican border, and have the mayor on NO declare he intends to make his city a "No Mexicans" zone.

Hate crimes laws can be used a bit too enthusiastically by over-zealous prosecutors who feel their case may not have a good chance of resulting in conviction of assault (or whatever the charge might be, ie manslaughter, attempted murder), especially in gang related crime where witnesses aren't exactly cooperative.

The Mormons/nigger thing is a no brainer.