wesgonsin
.
If you study history for about 5 minutes you will understand why hate crimes are seen as mainly against minorities.
.
Seriously, it is 2009 and the same people being discriminated against 40 years ago are still dealing with it.
.
Please call your history teacher and tell him/her THANKS FOR NOTHING!

wesgonsin: What planet are you living on? I have passed the half-century age mark and cannot remember ever seeing anti-white words, symbols (or whatever), posted anywhere. And I grew up in a community that was nearly 30 percent minorities at the time. Most of these crimes are targeted against minorities.

7,722 hate-crime incidents were reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2006 -- an 8% increase from 2005.
2,640 were anti-black (up from 2,630 in 2005), while only 890 were anti-white. Tell me this isn't a double standard.
I think the very idea of a "hate-crime" enhancer is racist by its own merit.

After reading these comments I can only say...
Ignorance is bliss.
.
Sad and pathetic.

All I can say is all the people who think "3 letters is nothing" I hope you dont have kids and if you do I hope they are nothing like you. History repeats itself... How would you like it if they had burned it in to your lawn??

I agree, 3 letters mean nothing, the kids most likely wernt even associated with the group know as the "KKK". And the census records of the year 2000 are meaningless, thats almost 10 years old...totally irrelevant.

freebird007...You're kidding, right? Heaven help us if you're serious. The symbols these teens burned into the ground are synonomous with hatred toward a specific group of people. Do you also believe the holocaust never happened, or that the Ku Klux Klan never killed thousands of innocent blacks?

Racism in Waukesha?! You've got to be kidding me...oh, wait. Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. Lot's of gated, upper middle-class communities and very few minorities in much of that area. It's sad that in this time we still have to deal with this sort of thing.

Did the burning model car fuel even leave a mark?

Reading some of these blogs certainly lets people know why Janesville was chosen for a summit of race hate groups back in the mid 90's. Fertile ground.

What are you people saying? That it's ok to burn KKK & Nazi symbols into others' property? Are you serious? Vandalism should apply but those symbols are also hate symbols. They are anti-Jewish and anti-African American. The KKK and Nazis killed people because of their race. This is offensive to me - and I'm white just in case you're wondering. This is not just child's play. Shame on those kids.

I hate to say it but why does three letters constitute hate crime. Latin kings are spray painted all over and so is gangster desciples and when these people are caught they are charged with vandalism. Vandalism should be the charge here!!

It sounds like these overly sheltered boys from "predominately white" suburbia need to get out and see the world.

I don't condone the actions of these dopes for one minute. But my understanding of the hate crime enhancer is that you had to have a victim and prove that the crime was motivated toward that victim because of their, or the suspects belief of, the victim's race, creed, etc. Who is the victim in this since it happened in an area accessible by the entire community, which according to the story is predominantly white?

Three cheers for the neighbors who detained one of the suspects until police arrived!