RACIAL PROFILING and the D.C. sniper: John Leo joins with those who think that the press wanted it to be a white male:

We have been down this road before. The Atlanta child murders of 1979-81 were a big story, but the press dropped it quickly when the killer turned out to be black. The church burnings followed the same pattern–a big story when arsonists were assumed to be white racists, an instant media departure when they turned out to be black. The Unabomber was a disappointment–white, but (alas) a killer from the far left. But the press rallied with let’s-understand-the-Unabomber stories pointing out that he had the courage of his convictions and was not out for personal gain (a press courtesy not extended to antiabortion killers). In contrast, the Oklahoma City bombing was a pure pressroom delight–a white, right-wing bomber who could be tied to the antigovernment “climate” represented by Newt Gingrich and other conservatives.

I think he’s right about this. And Cynthia Tucker certainly isn’t shy about admitting that she felt that way:

As the newscaster read the suspect’s name, “John Allen Williams, aka John Allen Muhammad,” skeins of dread knotted in my gut, pushing back the relief that had welled up with first news of the sniper’s arrest. I waited for the inevitable mug shot to pop up on my television screen.

I stared, trying through sheer willpower to alter the suspect’s racial identity. But it was no use. A man whose mother gave him the name “John Allen Williams” and who later changed it to “John Allen Muhammad” could only be black.

Since that Thursday in October, many African-Americans have struggled to make sense of this grim note in black history: If convicted, Muhammad and his alleged accomplice, John Lee Malvo, will become America’s most notorious black serial killers, forever changing the conventional wisdom that serial murder is a white man’s sickness.

But even Tucker notes:

If convicted, Malvo and Muhammad would not be the first black serial killers. While there have been few studies of serial killers by race or gender, criminologists believe that black serial killers exist in rough proportion to the number of blacks in the population: about 13 percent.

Imagine that.

UPDATE: Several readers point out that Tucker’s statistic conflicts with this statement in Leo’s piece: “Blacks account for about 12 percent of the U.S. population and 22 percent of serial killers.” Which is right? I don’t know.