Race and the Murder of Little Rock Anchor Anne Pressly

The story of the brutal murder of Little Rock news anchor Anne Pressly caught my attention right away. I try to ignore crime stories for the most part, but the slaying of this beautiful young reporter resonated perhaps because of my past profession as a network journalist and the fact that she fought her attacker with so much force and resolve.

And when police arrested a black male suspect in Pressly's case, I had two immediate thoughts. My first reaction was relief that law enforcement had taken an allegedly depraved individual off the street and hope that Pressly's family and loved ones would find some comfort in having her alleged killer behind bars.

My second reaction was a mixture of anger, sorrow and frustration that a black man may have committed this crime -- and a rape linked to his DNA -- and then that race would be an issue at all.

Here is one of the first comments I read on AOL's coverage of the arrest:

ItsaGirlThing5

02:47 PMDec 01 2008

Duh. Why are they bringing race into this? Show me the last time a white man stalked and killed a black woman. It happens, but not nearly as much as this. Why we are surprised a black man did this is what's so amazing. What a bunch of dumb asses.

Cross racial crime is tough terrain in the discussion of race relations in America. The image of "the scary black man" is hyper-propagated on sites like Stormfront and New Nations while white-centric spokesmen like David Duke use exaggerated crime statistics to spread fear of black men and black people in general. In October, NPR's Michel Martin interviewed David Duke on her show "Tell Me More." Duke quoted a statistic, that although later refuted by the U.S. Department of Justice - listen here - is the bedrock of many racist claims about "the nature" of black people and black men in particular. He said:

We have a vast disproportionate crime rate in this country, at 37,460 white women who are raped or sexually assaulted by black males, as according to the United States Justice Department.

Again, these numbers were refuted by the US Department of Justice and you can click on this link and then 'DOJ Responds' to listen to that interview.

Still, it does appear that more white women are assaulted by black men, than black women are assaulted by white men. Most crime victims overall are of the same race as their attackers. And it is an uncomfortable societal imbalance that when white people commit awful crimes against black people or other people of color, the perpetrators are seen as malevolent exceptions whereas when black people commit awful crimes against white people, that is seen, at least in some corners, as a call to action (arms?) of some sort. I don't fully understand it to be honest.

Should race matter when we discuss crime? Why or why not?