[split] PSA: Hate Speech (discussion of video etc)

[Athene]

What makes you so sure they'd "get a pass" and not be prosecuted if the dude decided to press charges?
There's video evidence.

If it had been a black guy getting beat up after calling some white guys names, it would just be so horribly racist. It would have been a big national news story. So yeah, these guys in the video are getting a free pass. People are only outraged when white guys beat up black guys because that's a big racist meme. The black guys beating up the white guy don't register on our silly meme oriented minds, so they can post several guys beating up one guy on the internet and no one thinks that there is anything wrong with that because it didn't trigger our thilly meme oriented worldview.

You're just guessing, aren't you? 

If someone answers a racial slur with physical assault, they are committing an unlawful and excessive act of retaliation....in response to a racist act.
Highly unacceptable and inappropriate, and decidedly worse than the initial act in most cases.

But the retaliatory act isn't racist in and of itself. It's a reaction.
A gross overreaction, to be precise. One that does indeed warrant charges being pressed in the minds of most reasonable people, should the person who was assaulted choose to pursue them.

If the races of the parties in the video were reversed I would arrive at the very same conclusion.