Sympathy For Bomber Stirs Race Debate

When a law enforcement official described a cellphone recording left by the Austin serial bomber as “the outcry of a very challenged young man,” the remark caused an outcry of its own. Because the bomber was white, some people almost immediately questioned whether the same level of compassion would have been afforded a person of color. “Here you have a case of a young white male who killed and injured people of color, and we’re culturally more concerned about his story, about his life, about what led him to take these lives,” said David Leonard, professor in the department of critical culture, gender and race studies at Washington State University.