In the above referenced editorial, Len Levitt’s “NYPD Confidential” column, he notes a few criminal legal cases where race may or may not have been a factor, and how readers responded.  Ironically, by the responses, you could safely bet your last dollar that the readers are white, maybe not for obvious reaons….  Before concluding his column, Levitt mentions the case of Amber Guyger, a white female cop in Dallas, who murdered Botham Jean, a Black male who was an accountant, in his apartment, which she said she mistook for her own.  Levitt writes how Botham’s brother asked the Black female judge for permission to give Guyger a hug, probably just what she needed.  The judge even gave Guyger a hug, and a Bible.

Levitt concludes, “These gestures, like the readers’ reactions, suggest that reporting on the criminal justice system involves issues that are more complciated than race.”

On the contrary, nothing is more complicated and contentious than race in America.