What makes one innocent victim's assault worthy of harsher punishment than another innocent victim's equal assault? What the assailant was thinking?
I disagree with you...though not entirely.
I think if I dislike and fight someone AND they are black or Indian or female or Asian or whatever, all good. IF I dislike and fight someone BECAUSE they are black , Indian, female Asian or whatever THAT is an issue. The subtlety is minimal and it is a value thing, butvi there.
Same as it is with hate crimes.
The problem is what you've touched on. You can't police thoughts.
I strongly suspect the gentleman calling it a hate crime is 100% right. I suspect the hatred of white people was the core of it and it seems perfectly reasonable and rational to presume this.
But look at all the qualifiers in the above sentence.