After the attack on 82-year-old Piara Singh in Fresno, California, nine days ago, Preeti Kaur (on her blog The Longest There) considers the suspected perpetrator and delves into the meaning of “hate crime”:

The term hate-crime is a peculiar term. Others have discussed the definition of hate-crimes and need for such a delineation, of course, but for me its peculiarity is that in the act of describing a hate-crime as a hate-crime, the biggest offense becomes the hate, and the crime against the individual becomes a secondary source of indignation in the pursuit of justice. When I mention to my mother that there was a hate-crime against a person, my mother almost always responds, “What? Do they think this person beat this person out of love?”

Read more here.