Recall Madonna Constantine, the Columbia University professor who made headlines last October after claiming to be a victim of a hate crime when she found a noose hanging from her door. At the time, it wasn’t public that Constantine was also under investigation for widespread plagiarism, charged with lifting others’ work without credit in numerous academic journal articles she bylined. So then it was thought that perhaps somebody sympathetic to Constantine, or Constantine herself, had placed the noose on her door to drum up sympathy for her, boning up her defense that she was the victim — of “structural racism that pervades this institution,” according to her own words.

An investigation was launched to encompass both matters and now, it seems, a conclusion:

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• The marketing exec at Universal in charge of Ashanti's album might want to rethink his or her career path. [WAOD]

• The Wire gets some love, finally. But I'm still really dreading the Emmy nominations. [BV]

• Nas's "Be A Nigger, Too" video is out. That's all. [CL]

• A new study shows that blacks are the most frequent hate crime victims in Canada. [AFP]

• His Royal Purpleness is now 50. And still rocking the stilettos. [E!]

CHEMICAL BURNS Last month, a black family in Metairie, Louisiana, awoke to find the letters KKK and three crosses burned into their lawn with chemicals. Like a Texas man who had racist graffiti sprayed onto his garage door, they family has chosen to leave the burned-out lawn as is, to remind themselves and their neighbors of the hate that exists in their town. The family's patriarch says if the perpetrator is caught — Jefferson Parish officials are investigating the vandalism as a "possible" hate crime — he doesn't want jail time. He wants the perpetrators to be sentenced to community service in a black neighborhood. [NOTP]

DOES THE PUNISHMENT FIT THE CRIME? Karen Burton and Frankie Brewster, the two West Virginia women charged — out of a total of seven people — in the brutal, racially-motivated kidnapping and torturing of 19-year-old Megan Williams received maximum sentences for their crimes today, but Carmen Williams, the mother of the victim, said it wasn't enough. Burton, who yelled racial slurs at Williams as she stabbed and assaulted her, is eligible for parole after six and a half years. Brewster, who forced Williams to perform oral sex on her, is eligible for parole in ten years. I'm inclined to agree with Carmen Williams.

If hateful criminals beat up your girlfriend and spray paint "Die Niggers" on your garage door, is it your prerogative to leave the offending words on your property?

• Saturday Night Live's solution to it's well-documented issue about who in their cast could play Barack Obama in political skits, a dilemma that both stems from and highlights the fact that the cast is woefully in need of some diversity, was just to not worry about that whole race thing and have Fred Armisen do it. [HP]

• Hillary Clinton apologizes to the audience at the State of the Black Union for her husband's controversial comments in South Carolina, meanwhile her campaign has tied him up, gagged him, and stuffed him in a broom closet until March 4th. [CNN]

• Possible hate crimes rock a New Hampshire prep school. [BG]

• Are we afraid to talk about why black athletes dominate sports? [BA]

GUILTY Karen Burton, one of the seven men and women charged with the kidnap and torture of Megan Williams in West Virginia, pleaded guilty yesterday to a hate crime and other charges.

Authorities say Karen Burton's crimes include stabbing Megan Williams in the ankle while saying, "This is what we do to n—— down here." She is the third in a group of seven people charged to plead guilty in the case, and the only one charged with a hate crime.

Authorities say her action was clearly a hate crime (just hers?????) because she used a racial slur while stabbing Williams. She faces up to 30 years in prison. [AP]

• Beyonce won the appeal in her copyright infringement case. She also supposedly got married to Jay-Z at Giorgio Armani's house. Whatever. [EUR]

• St. Louis firefighters, the white ones, I mean, say that a stuffed monkey, which was found by a black firefighter, hanging from its neck at the firehouse was just ringing out to dry after being found at the scene of a fire. Hmmm. [NYT]

• Along with this story, whose headline reads "Does Obama's Win Show US Is Colorblind," I received about 10 links in my inbox this morning about whether the man's "blackness" is at an appropriate level. So I guess that answers that question. [NW]

• T.I. and Tiny are having a baby that probably won't really get to know its dad until its in elementary school. [People]

• Blacks and Jews in NYC need to band together to stop hate crimes, say community leaders. [NYDN]

• The Wire: Don't just take my word for it. [Time]

• Do Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton owe Barbara Jordan a debt of gratitude? [WP]

• Sad, sad reports about sad, sad trends. [CSM]

• The hate game doesn't stop. [FWT]

• It only took about six months, but the MSM are finally picking up on this Jay-Z/Apple partnership rumor. [CNBC]

Ah, hate. In one sense, it's talked about way, way too much. In another, it's not talked about enough.

In the wake of last week's march to protest the Justice Dept.'s handling hate crimes, the FBI has released a report that indicates hate crimes were up almost 10 percent.

Police across the nation reported 7,722 criminal incidents in 2006 targeting victims or property as a result of bias against a particular race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnic or national origin or physical or mental disability. That was up 7.8 percent from the 7,163 incidents reported in 2005…

Only 12,600 of the nation’s more than 17,000 local, county, state and federal police agencies participated in the hate crime reporting program in 2006 and neither Jena nor LaSalle Parish, in which the town is located, were among the agencies reporting.

This stats don't include Jena, and they also don't include any of the acts of hate that have occurred in 2007, which might win the prize for being the most hateful year we've experienced in the 21st century. Although, I'll have to check the stats on how Arabs fared around 2002-ish to be sure. [MSNBC]

Thousands of protesters flooded DC today, and, led by (who else?) Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III, marched to the Justice Department, where circled the building "seven times in a gesture reminiscent of the biblical Joshua's procession around the walled city of Jericho." Okay.

Well, the marchers are marching to protest the Justice Department's lax response to "hate crimes and hate signs" that are popping up all over, most notably since the Jena Six story hit the mainstream.

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A black Philadelphia woman was sentenced to 8 months in a halfway house for sending her Muslim co-worker an anonymous hate note using magazine clippings, although the U.S. Attorney assigned to the case wanted her to get one year in prison, the maximum penalty for a misdemeanor hate crime. The note contained references to 9-11 and threats against the victim's children. Kia Reid, the 35-year-old mother of three convicted of the crime, said that she sent the note, which she crafted while wearing gloves to avoid fingerprints, out of anger over a work dispute, not hate.

Pratter said that while Reid's crime was "very serious" and had an "incendiary quality," her remorse was "earnest."

In addition to time in a halfway house, Pratter also sentenced Reid to 200 hours of community service, ordered her to undergo anger-management and sensitivity training and not have any contact with Timani for two years.

After the hearing, an angry Timani told reporters outside the courtroom that Reid should have gotten "hard time, jail time," adding: "There's no remorse."

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• Rachel Roy and Damon Dash actually still have sex? [Bossip]

• I hope they burn, too, Megan Williams. [BV]

• Authorities are officially classifying the California fires as arson. [CBS]

• Let's hope that the contestants on College Hill: Interns keeps the ignorance to a minimum. [CL]

• Microsoft paid $240 million for a stake in Facebook. A 1.6 percent stake. [NYT]