It's NOT a hate crime! It's, er, ACTIVISM! Right, folks?
Still, I repeat my opposition to the entire "hate crime" law thing as being utterly superflous. To be sure, people's motives matter in crimes. But they matter when it comes to establishing intent -- did A mean to hurt B.
The problem with hate crime laws is that they give disproportionate punishment to those who are legally equally guilty, just because the "bad" criminals meant to hurt others for "bad" motives -- hating their skin color -- as opposed to those "good" criminals, who merely meant to hurt others for such noble reasons as, say, wanting their wallet.
A defense against hate crimes, apparently, should go like this: "You honor, I only tortured him, chopped his head off, toasted his body in the oven, gave the meat to my dogs, and raped his wife; but as this video of the crime I took myself proves, I never said the N-word in anger to him as I did it, so..."