Race is Hard

Okay, so some idiot shot a bear.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/10/21/dnt.nc.obama.dead.bear.wlos

He shot a bear once in the head and left it in the center of a North Carolina campus, its neck wrapped in an Obama/Biden sign.

Quite a prank. Is this person acting like an idiot? Yup. Is this person, in fact, probably some sort of freak? Absolutely. I hope they find and apprehend this idiot.

Is this racist?

In the video, several interviewees describe this as a "racial" event. It might be - this could be an act of racial intimidation, implying that Obama will be shot for his race. But is a dead bear really racist iconography? I mean, it may be the world's most subtle "Obama is a Communist" joke, but I really don't see how you can leap to a conclusion that this is racially motivated.

Explanations for this range from simple prank to grotesque invective. It's difficult to conclude either way. We don't have enough information. Consequently, using the "R" word here seems premature. Yes, Obama is black, and there are racists that hate him because of that fact. But is this a crime of racial browbeating? I dunno. It's not like this is a historically black college. There were no words indicating any sort of racial undertone left behind.

My thought is that the media has proceeded too soon to race in this case. It may be racial, some sort of overt hate crime! But it's too soon to conclude that, and claiming racism is behind this event stokes a coal that should be left to burn out.