Being A Racist Jerk Is Not A Crime . . . But, In The End, You're Still A Racist Jerk

Yes, you can indeed do stupid, racist, thoughtless, and jerk-like acts and speech and still not commit a crime.

The Detroit Free Press: Grosse Pointe Park man who displayed KKK flag won't be charged with ethnic intimidation

The Detroit News: No charges against man who hung KKK flag at his Grosse Pointe Park home

In short , this is the correct result no matter how stupid and offensively people are behaving in this incident.

The story:

Neighbors are having a dispute, one is Black, one is White.   They are clearly not getting along.

So things escalate - Black homeowner aims cameras at White person's home.  

So, White person gives camera something to look at by putting up a KKK flag in view of the neighbor and the camera.   Much uproar ensues.

Is this offensive?  Heck yes.  

Probably racist in intent?  Yep.  

Clearly done to upset or to get a rise out of the neighbor in return for her offensive (yet legal) aiming of cameras at his house? Most definitely. 

Makes the one hanging the flag up look like a racist douchebag?  Why yes, yes, it does.

In short this is two neighbors behaving badly and being idiots, with lots of social uproar, but neither one is committing a crime, at least not yet.

I'm rather impressed that Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy followed the law and didn't charge the goofball, even as the elements of ethnic intimidation were not met, just to send a message and have the process be the punishment. 

But, I'm not surprised upon reading the articles to see that she's advocating criminalizing what the jerk is doing.  It is clearly First-Amendment protected behavior, no matter how very distasteful, offensive, and stupid that it happens to be.

It's not criminal to be an offensive jerk, at least not yet anyways.  But he's still got to live with the fact that he's an offensive jerk.  

Perhaps the publicity will get these warring neighbors to chill out a bit and step back from stupid, but I wouldn't bet on it.