The Post-Race President

Barak Obama was supposed to be the historical president that moved America beyond race.

It doesn't seem to be so.

In fact, it seems that in the United States it is becoming impossible to criticise Obama (Joe Wilson) or do your job (Sgt. James Crowley) without being accused of racism. Now you can't commit a crime without being racist.

To be sure this is nasty if it is a crime, and with the facts I have at this stage make it seem unlikely to me to be an accident or self harm.

But the last paragraph in this report is totally unwarranted:

Some reporters have also theorised that Sparkman's work for the Census Bureau - which is a federal government agency - linked him in the minds of his killers in conservative, mainly white rural Kentucky with President
Barack Obama, the first black US president.

Is it good reporting to finish an article with the unsubstantiated theory of other journalists that this crime was racially motivated when there is absolutely no evidence at this stage that this is so?

The fact that the deceased had "Fed" written on his chest is a fairly good indicator of anti federalism, or separatists or a southern grudge, but it in no way indicates racism.

What has the racial make up of the state, or their rural nature, or their political leanings got to do with a nasty crime in the woods. If it becomes an established fact that racist right wing guerrillas perpetrated this, then report it, but until then leave out the wild theories dripping with implications and veiled allegations.

It seems to me that it is not the conservatives who cannot move beyond race, but rather the liberals who would see racism rather than report the facts or deal with the issues.

Michael Hutton,
Conservative, mainly white rural Ariah Park