The Skin Color of Criminals

La Shawn Barber asks, why is it that the skin color of suspected criminals is not important to the reporters at teh Michigan Daily, the school newspaper of the University of Michigan:

So why do liberal journalists go out of their way not to report a thug’s race? Are they uncomfortable with disproportionate crime rates among blacks? Are they embarrassed by it or afraid that some loud-mouth “civil rights” type will charge “Racist!”? Discomfort and embarrassment aside, isn’t it a reporter’s job to report facts? That two at-large armed robbers are black is a fact that needs to be reported. People in the community need to be on the look-out. Omitting race as a descriptor is irresponsible, PC be damned.

In another irritating episode of men-in-their-thirties style coverage, the University of Michigan’s college newspaper, The Michigan Daily reports that a man was mugged at gunpoint near campus by two men, described as “average build, about six feet tall and wearing black hooded sweatshirts with the hoods up.” Check it out: a story that includes the color of the gun — a black handgun — omits the color of the robbers.

(According to the Department of Public Safety, the suspects are black. The Michigan Daily had access to the alert, so the reporter knew the race of the suspects when she wrote the story.)

At this point in our warped society, are we simply to assume that all such criminals are black? Is the omission of race code for “black”? Whatever the practice is or isn’t, it’s certainly dumb.

An excellent question.