For those who believe “race doesn't matter” or that we've moved into a color-blind, post-racial America, think again. Last Friday the L.A. County Coroner's office announced that the August death of music producer and rap legend Dr. Dre's son, Andre Young Jr., was due to a drug overdose. (See Christine Pelisk's L.A. Daily story.)

Almost immediately the news was greeted with derision — and cheers — in the racist blogosphere.

“Lol, it is refreshing when they take themselves out,” a Col. Cotton Fields posted to a packed StormFront.org  reader forum.

Even the more compassionate posters couldn't help themselves: 

“Psst, it's not good to mock a persons death, even one so pitiful,” posted The Patriot.

“He wouldn't have died of a heroin overdose back in Africa, though. He

would have been better off there, though he would probably never have

met his dad.”


Above: Andre Young Jr.

Putting things in perspective, one person tried to look at the big picture:

“Just remember,” Save Our People wrote, “it never would've went mainstream had it not been for their Jewish manager…….Jerry Heller….”

Worse than even these sentiments can be found at ChimpOut.com and other sites. Such voices sound as though they come from the extreme fringes of American opinion, but their influence can be heard and seen in such “mainstream” political expressions as the song “Barack Obama the Magical Negro” and in all the monkey-faced signs and dolls of Obama carried into John McCain rallies this past summer.

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