By Michael Miner
A Royko column last month told the tale of Melvin and Frank. Melvin is a bankruptcy attorney, and Frank is the mope. Royko did Frank the kindness of withholding his last name and the further kindness of not repeating the message Frank left on Melvin’s office voice mail one night last autumn. “I very often omit names if I think there’ll be pain to the family,” Royko told me last week. As for Frank’s message, “It sounded like what it was–the rantings of an asshole who happened to be drunk.”
“The hate-crime law was written to please every conceivable minority,” Royko wrote. “It can even be applied to a boozy phone call from someone who didn’t like a TV commercial…. What’s next in our hypersensitive society? Hate crimes for yelling at a Bears quarterback or a Cubs pitcher?”
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“I saw you on TV. I guess being Jewish is all part of it, right? Why don’t you get your bags packed and get your fuckin’ ass back to Israel where you fuckin’ belong–because you are one fuckin’ parasite, one fuckin’ Jewish parasite. OK? And if you have any question as to what a Jewish parasite is–a Jewish scumbag–someone who should end up in the fuckin’ ovens in Germany, OK? You should have been fuckin’ sent into the fuckin’ ovens. So if you have any question about that, my number is ——, and I’ll be glad to explain to you what a Jewish fuckhead is, OK? I suppose you probably learned that from your mother–I bet she got fucked up the ass all the time. And your dad probably did suck a lot of Jewish dick. Right? Anyway, take care and have a wonderful Jewish Friday.”
But Melvin wants more than anecdotal evidence of Frank’s remorse. “Now, when everybody knows who he is and he’s got a felony conviction and he’s being sued, he wants to be nice nice,” Melvin says. “But it’s the old story–everybody has to be responsible for his actions.”
What if there were no Melvin? Royko wondered. What if “Melvin” were an actor? (Further suppose that “Melvin” were an Episcopalian actor.) Would Frank have committed a hate crime if he’d been talking to “Melvin” instead of Melvin?
