If Obama had a son, would he look like De’Marquise Elkins, Chancey Luna, James Edwards or Javon Tyrek Rogers?

“When I think about this boy, I think of my own kids… If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” When Barack Obama thus sought to inflame racial tensions during the trial of George Zimmermanfor shooting Trayvon Martin, I was appalled. If the President knew what he was doing by making this case all about race, it was an act of wickedness. If he didn’t realise how his comments would be received, it was an act of insensitivity at best – of stupidity at worst. Apart from giving rise to such obvious jokes as “If Obama had a city, it would look like Detroit”, I suspect it has meant that every time a case involving the murder of whites by blacks has been widely reported in the US, millions of Americans have automatically thought “If you had a son, Mr. President, he’d look like the killer”.

The first time I found myself applying Obama’s logic to a case was last March, when I read about a black thug in Georgia who, having been told by the white woman he was trying to mug that she had no money on her, shot her in the leg and then killed her thirteen-month old son by shooting him in the face. Thirteen months old. This almost inconceivably evil act took place just two days before Obama decided to play racial politics. (Hell, why not? It got him elected – twice!)

De’Marquise Elkins, the waste of oxygen who murdered Antonio Santiago (who I presume America’s liberal media would classify as a White Hispanic, just like George Zimmerman) has now been sentenced to life in prison, having escaped the death penalty by dint of being 17 at the time of the killing.

The case that seems to have given rise to most of the bitter parodies of Obama’s original remark was the recent killing in Oklahoma of Chris Lane, a 22-year old (white) Australian student. (For instance, a friend included the remark “If I had a son, he wouldn’t look like Chris Lane” on a postcard I received this morning.) Two black youths have been charged with first degree murder, and a third – white (well, whitish, judging by his mug-shot) – has been charged with being an accessory. The police say that the alleged killers did what they did because they were ‘bored” and “wanted to see someone die” – i.e. nothing racial to see here, folks, move along please – but, unfortunately, one of the alleged killers had a habit of posting racist tweets, one of which read: “90% of white ppl are nasty. #HATE THEM.”  Hmm.

After the murder of Chris Lane, that splendid human being, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, tweeted that such “senseless violence” should be “frowned upon”. Me, I tend to frown upon people making noise in the street when I’m trying to go to sleep. I presume that last week when Jackson heard that a 20 year-old black man had been charged with the first degree murder of a 99-year old white woman, Fannie Gumbinger, in her flat in Poughkeepsie, he went “Tsk! Tsk!”

I presume Obama’s decision to play the race card in the Trayvon Martin case was an attempt to diverrt attention from the embarrassing  fact that things in America have actually got worse for Afro-Americans since they voted solidly to ensure that “their” man got elected. All it appears to have done is to make whites even more aware of the extent – and nature – of violent black-on-white crime.

The problem with playing the race card is that you’re in severe danger of being trumped.