A balanced and sobering review
The perpetrator was deranged and that is dreadful but may not, probably, be the last.
What is so important now is the response. That seems to have been exemplary in this event, while not knowing if the attack was coordinated terrorist action, which next time it may be.
Replying in general, I initially asked the OP, which reports heâd seen that mentioned colour, I wasnât suggesting anyone was being racist just curious as to where that bit of info had come from as I hadnât seen it on anything Iâd read. Another poster kindly told me where theyâd seen it, but by that time it was no longer reported.
Letâs get this clear, there is a time for reporting all the facts and thatâs when they are true, including colour. When the media first started reporting, the police were in the early stages of collecting evidence, including eye witness statements, which have been proven as being notoriously unreliable.
If anyone wants to see my reaction as âvirtue signalingâ, or as anything other than being concerned that one of the most important aspects of this vicious attack seemed to be skin colour, then thatâs up to them.
Personally, I think society is no where close to understanding why there seems to be a rise in these kind of, apparently mindless acts of violence and even further away from finding answers!
I wonder at the reluctance to report the single most important defining characteristic of someoneâs features and I wonder if itâs because of the polarity of the situation white v black.
For any of us who have lived in multi-cultural societies, we will have seen the nuances of shades of skin colour. This is especially apparent in Brazil where I found the sheer diversity of backgrounds a joy: âwhitesâ from Portugal, then subsequently, other Europeans , âlight brownâ Amazonian Indian, âyellowâ Japanese (big immigrant population), âblackâ Negro (slave background) and then of course the myriad shades of brown from creamy pale to almost black from the many variations of intermarriage, not to mention a society where everyone is almost always suntanned.
In the office of some 20 people I worked, with only two of us, my Dutch boss and I, were âwhiteâ, and only one of us, our accountant, was âblackâ - a tall imposing negro. All the rest were âbrownâ or âbrown/yellowâ.
In such an environment skin colour is much less of a defining characteristic and so much less contentious/triggering.
Roll on the day when all of us are light coffee coloured.
Do you not think that people will find another way to differentiate?
Quite agree Sue, canât think of anything worse than living in a monotone world, more colour shades the better.
Of course. And increasingly this is nuanced: male v female.
Itâs alright - in a couple of generations we will all be micro-chipped and everywhere there will be micro-chip readers, so this whole issue of âidentificationâ will be a non-issue. 
Sorry John - this is a slight 'hiccup; on the part of this forum. I had clicked the âreplyâ button under a post - to comment âtoâ that post - but then reply appears at the end of all the posts and hadnât realised that it would make life easier for busy people such as yourself - Iâll try to remember next time - but donât bother scrolling. Doesnât matter - wasnât important - donât waste your time.
Same in New Caledonia, so many varied ethnicities and mixtures and everyone upfront discussing theirs.
The whole of sub-Saharan Africa has this problem too,not simply because social groups are still largely tribal, but because in many cases their genetic differences and skin colour often instantly reveal their cultural origins. Despite the huge variations across the continent there is still a tendency elsewhere to lump all sub-Saharan Africans together, despite (as far as I can recall) there being greater genetic diversity in Africa than there is in the rest of the world (canât remember a source to cite, but if you think about âout of Africa DNAâ theory, the explanation is self-evident.
I went to a fascinating art exhibition in Brisbane 3 weeks ago exploring what we might see in Australian museums and on walls at home had Australia been French and not British ( no colour bar). Think portraits of Toussaint Louverture etc.
Edited to add all the museums I went to in Australia were marvellous.
Here you are, sorted.
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