Let the hate crime investigations begin in South Carolina, though some say it’s not needed; they’ll push for the death penalty regardless.
But I say, if hate is present, we should acknowledge it, if we care about the truth. The hate crime route is worth it. It’s just not an easy journey.
Asian Americans know all too well about the politics of pressing for justice in a hate crime case.
We’re still mourning Vincent Chin, who died 33 years ago June 23, four days after being brutally beaten with a baseball bat.
The incident started June 19, 1982. Ronald Ebens, then a 42-year-old White Chrysler autoworker, alongside his stepson accomplice Michael Nitz, 23, took a baseball bat and bludgeoned Chin, a 27-year-old Chinese American, to death on Woodward Avenue in Highland Park, a suburb of Detroit.
Initially, all three were in a strip bar, the Fancy Pants.
Chin was at his bachelor party, soon to be married.
