Over in Page's highly recommended diary on the police killing in Britain, there's a whole little subtheme that race was a key factor in the incident.
People are throwing the "racist" word around again, evoking (in a very different context) the whole diary deletion episode shortly after the major bombing back on July 7.
But I wonder if there's not some overcompensation going on here. I mean, everybody seems to take for granted that Menezes, being Brazilian, wasn't white.
Let's look at some pics on the other side:
Here's a photo Caldonia posted of Menezes's mom and dad:
Mom is the grieving woman in the beige top, while dad is the elderly guy in the sweat jacket. To my eyes, neither one of them like they have much African or indigenous heritage -- plenty of Portuguese, but last I checked Portugal is in Europe.
Ok, maybe the kid was adopted, or the dad was really his stepdad. So, I poked around the BBC, and found this pic of Jean Charles himself:
Another BBC story includes this pic of Menezes:
Jean Charles is on the far right.
Now, according to the pics, the dude was white. My question is why do so many kossacks just assume he was brown? Because he was from Brazil? Can you always tell a latino just by looking at one? All this leads me to the following poll question: