Not a hate crime: Car bombed in Chicago over "dibs" parking spot

Chicago's North Side

Chicago has a long tradition of residents digging out their own parking spots on sides streets after snowstorms and claiming "dibs" over that cleared-out chunk of asphalt, usually with an otherwise useless chair. The practice is illegal --although I've never heard of anyone getting even a parking ticket for the infraction. Motorists who "steal" a dibs spot face the possibility of having their cars vandalized. Which is exactly what happened this week when a Northwest Side college student whose car was parked in a dibs spot--someone exploded a large firecracker or perhaps even a stick of dynamite inside her vehicle.

What was done was hateful, but it was not a hate crime.

Why do I bring up hate crimes? Because on the campus of the University of North Carolina, three people were murdered over a parking space dispute--and it is being investigated as a hate crime. President Obama even weighed in. Why? The victims were Muslims--and the alleged killer is not. He's white with an Anglo-Saxon sounding name and he's believed to be an atheist. Of course murder is far more serious than car vandalism. The Chicagoan is a white woman and is presumably not a Muslim. But what if she was? Would the bombing of her car then be a hate crime?

Class...discuss.