Bias is not a strong enough word for the hatred that a convicted rapist, Phillip Grant, expresses for what he called “someone who represented the white lifestyle.” He allegedly confessed to killing Concetta Russo Carriero in a White Plains mall, saying he did it because “she had blond hair and blue eyes” – because she was white. The Westchester County district attorney, Jeanine Pirro, has said she would charge Grant with murder as a hate crime if the grand jury “thought it was appropriate.”

I’ve been wracking my brain to think of a more cerebral expression than “duh” to her statement, but all I can come up with is “Ya think?”

I don’t blame Ms. Pirro for being circumspect in her choice of words, because bias crimes in New York are not always hate crimes unless they are determined to be so by no less a personage than the Reverend Alford Sharpton. The recent bat beating in Howard Beach summoned him from hibernation to lead an embarrassing rally of only 40 people to protest what the New York Post called the thug-on-thug crime.

For those unfamiliar with the incident: a bat-wielding white man and an accomplice yelling racial slurs accosted three black men in Howard Beach. One of the blacks, Glenn Moore, 22, has been hospitalized with a fractured skull, and his alleged assailant, Nicholas Minucci, 21, has been arrested and charged, along with Anthony Ench, 22.

But Mr. Moore has an arrest record for car theft, and his friends allegedly said they were in the area hoping to steal a Chrysler 300 for someone who promised them $6,000. Minucci also has an assault record and is an acquaintance of one of the mobster John Gotti’s grandsons.

Although the photo of the victim shows him in his Army uniform, he is no longer in the service. His mother has said that the hammer and tools he carried that night in Howard Beach were to hang up his Air Jordans as a decoration in his room. Okaaay.

Mayor Bloomberg is being credited with easing racial tensions by racing to the scene of the crime and meeting with the police commissioner, the captain of the Hate Crimes Task Force, and the Queens DA. He then addressed all New Yorkers for the 11 p.m. newscasts. He also personally contacted Rev. Sharpton later that evening.

The mayor, as far as I know, did not rush to Marine Park in Brooklyn on March 30, when 30 black teenagers allegedly chased five white girls from St. Edmund’s off a basketball court and across a Brooklyn street, punching, kicking, and screaming at them, “honky bitches,” “black power,” and “white crackers.” One girl suffered a broken nose and was kicked repeatedly in the head. Another suffered a torn muscle and had clumps of hair pulled from her scalp. No Rev. Sharpton. No Mr. Bloomberg – and it took three weeks to call in the bias unit.

Now, reasonable people can recognize a hate crime easily. So can elected officials, but they also need to consider the pulse of the city and they act to calm whatever tensions might erupt from an incident. This is not the Deep South, and I don’t recall, in my lifetime, whites rioting in New York City over an alleged bias incident – as blacks did after a horrible automobile fatality in Crown Heights.

And as for Howard Beach, it is condescending for anyone to presume that the city’s black residents can’t recognize that this latest victim is not to be compared with the truly innocent Michael Griffith, who was chased to his death there nearly 20 years ago. Believe me, they do.

Phillip Grant, a homeless man, was fueled by hatred for a lifestyle that he dreamed belonged only to the white man. Envy is a cardinal sin, but demagogues routinely incite it to further their own agenda. This is America, whose ideal is a classless society. People of all races can come here and succeed if they work hard, and that principle should be promoted. Instead, we have agitators who, for political empowerment, pit one race against another, creating hate-filled whiners.

Staten Island at one time may have been as racially divided as the Howard Beach of 20 years ago, but it’s changing. I frequently see young friends, black and white, on their way home from school, shopping, at movies, laughing together. My newspaper deliveryman is a charming black man named Bill, and his blond wife drives the car carrying the papers. They no longer are an unusual couple. Times are changing, slowly but surely. A color-blind society is possible, but only if we enforce hate laws equally and without bias.