We have a hard time distinguishing between hatred and utter stupidity at times.

When we sit and ponder what might be permanently lost during the horrible time we are experiencing, the one thing we know will survive is hatred.

Close behind hatred will be stupidity which, of course, often leads to hatred.

What causes two men to chase down an unarmed and innocent man and kill him?

Most will answer racism which is a pretty word for hatred. Others will offer a weak excuse amounting to nothing but stupidity. But that is what happened to Ahmaud Arbery in an Atlanta suburb in late February.

They will blame the victim for a question in his past, or maybe he acted curiously while being seen on videotape looking at a new home under construction in a neighborhood that wasn’t frequented by “his” people. Keep in mind the videotape showed the victim doing absolutely nothing wrong.

He jogged to the location where he apparently was enticed by curiosity to have a look at the progress, or maybe lack of progress, of the construction project. Satisfied or bored with his findings he continued on his jog.

Two men found his behavior and worse yet his apparent physical description to be not to their liking. He resembled the description of someone that was possibly a suspect in some burglaries.

At least one of the two men had a background in some type of law enforcement. It is probably best for the community where this took place that he was no longer was employed in that field.

The two police wannabees pursued the jogger in a pickup truck. At least one of the two men was armed with a shotgun.

Reports say they intended to arrest the jogger using the archaic law that allows for a citizen arrest if they believe someone committed a felony. The biggest crime Ahmaud Arbery may have committed that night was to enter a construction site without permission, although we haven’t heard there were any signs prohibiting it.

If that is a felony, then the women in our neighborhood should have been arrested and shot almost nightly while our subdivision was being built. It was a very regular occurrence.

But no, these guys were not acting out of any thought but stupidity and hatred.

You see this jogger had a different color skin than theirs. And they believed he and his kind could only be there to steal, rob or harm one of their kind.

Most likely the cowards will plead self-defense. But if they aren’t the aggressors, then they don’t put themselves in a position of needing to defend themselves do they?

We don’t have guns in our house because we don’t need one and would be afraid of using it wrongly. We believe anyone who can use a gun properly and safely should be allowed to have one if they choose. But using it properly and safely is a strong rule.

While it may have been legal for them to ride around with a loaded shotgun under Georgia law, it certainly raises a lot of questions about why these two men were just driving around like this in broad daylight, in a nice neighborhood, with no indication from any of the reports that they were hunting.

Had the jogger been white and maybe dressed differently none of us would ever have heard of him or his murderers. If he wasn’t black he would have finished his run and returned home to his family and another night of social distancing.

Now the state has assigned a fourth prosecutor to this case. Too many have run the other direction to avoid having to deal with modern day racism and a lynching. No one in the judicial system wants the ugliness that is bound to happen. There will be no nice or impartial way to separate this crime from racism. There is no reason whatsoever to not call this a hate crime. In fact everything about this case screams hate crime.

Everyone should sit back and let justice do her job. Trust in the system should be maintained. There should be no riots, or fires, or attacks on law enforcement because of it.

But another step has to be taken to bring an end to the killings of men of color or men who are simply in the unusual neighborhood as decided by a misguided and thoughtless fool. Education is the only answer to stopping this form of hatred. People that hate based solely on the basis of color are really the victims of their own foolish stupidity and lack of sense.

No doubt this crime will happen again. We can’t blame the minority races for reaching a boiling point and wanting to get even. But that would just be more of the same. Punishment for these crimes needs to be swift and strong.

Educators need to include the truth about racism and hatred in classes and expose all of the groups that cowardly hide the actions they take to harm the minority communities.

Churches need a far more active and visible role in demanding not justice but real reform. Peaceful protests. Again, we say peaceful protests, outside churches and courthouses where predominately white people control the masses, need to be held week after week after week.

Elected officials need to be held accountable and need to be put on the record as to how they perceive these crimes and lack of punishment.

Finally all people need to regain the vision of a child and be able to see each other as man and woman, as girl and boy, and not as an outsider. Then, and only then, we might stop killing young men because they were jogging.

Stupidity and hatred make a bad sandwich.

Ron Vodenichar is president and publisher of the Butler Eagle.