I can't see what happened upthread; it's already been deleted. Perhaps whoever you responded to is a racist moron, truly deserving of your ire. I'll never know.

However, I think your argument is flimsy. This response is going to include a couple of slurs. If that sort of thing upsets you, reader, probably best to skip it.

>It's sad how people refuse to acknowledge racist acts even when they're as blatant as this.

If the idiot who committed this crime is a virulent racist, and his act was motivated by a hatred of Asians, couldn't he find an Asian person who was home at the time? He is in San Francisco, after all. Even at 3:30 AM I suspect he could have found at least one person of Asian descent to intimidate directly. For that matter, he could have chosen a more prominent location, pluralized his epithet, and insulted hundreds, or even thousands of people, with the same amount of effort. This would have the added benefit of reaching many different Asian ethnic groups—a truly pan-Asian hate crime!—which would seem to be a priority for someone who would use the word "gook"—a slur against Koreans—to insult a Chinese-American man.

>I mean a white man was caught red handed writing a racial epithet on his garage and you're suggesting race isn't the logical guess?

Indeed. Allow me to propose an alternative. Justin's home was vandalized not because he's Chinese-American (or possibly Korean?), but because he's prominent internet celebrity Justin Kan. This explains Justin being targeted rather than one of the more than 250,000 other Asian people who make up a third of The City's population.

The dirtbag who vandalized Justin's home felt aggrieved by something he perceived Justin to have done (or not done, or whatever) in the way that creeps on the internet typically do. He then resolved to do something insane about it.

The article notes that Justin has, in the course of his duties, been called a faggot by belligerent strangers many times, despite not being a homosexual man himself. If this dirtbag had instead written, "Fuck off, faggot!", it would have had exactly the same effect. Or, he could have written something less inflammatory: "Go home, gentrifier!" Or simply, "NERD!" In any case, the implied threat is the same. The crime is the same.

The crimes that occurred here, in order of egregiousness, are:

1. A threat against person and property. Possible implication of violence. At a minimum, "I know where you live and am willing to break the law to get my point across"—plainly deliberate intimidation.

2. Trespass

3. Defacement of property

…and then somewhere below that…

N. Ethnic slur

As Justin himself amusingly noted, being made to look like "a lazy homeowner" due to his neighbor's misguided "help crime" might be no better than being called a "gook", which I should note is a very Chinese-American joke. We would need Justin's input, but if we were to flesh out the list, "mismatched paint" might be higher on the list than "slur."

>I was annoyed when reddit slowly descended into the racist pit it is but it's more sad when I see HNers uncomfortable with calling out racism when they see it or questioning minorities personal encounters with it.

You seem to think that a racial slur is the most objectionable aspect of this crime. I absolutely question that assertion.