Implicit

A lot of the comments on NOLA.com are implicitly racist, assuming facts about people because of their race, or painting cartoonish pictures that reflect racist stereotypes.

A colleague who has been following the Betsy's Pancake House murder case in Jefferson Parish sent me this comment, about the black defendant in the case:

cityindecline January 20, 2011 at 10:02AM

I think his alibi should have been that one of his half dozen or so illigitimate children absconded with his vehicle (and toll tag) and committed the murder, this was no doubt retaliation for his abconding with the SSI check of said illigitimate child.

As ever, of course, there is racism of the more explicit sort in the comments as well:

vanricks77 January 20, 2011 at 10:41AM

He did it, with or with out help...and to the idiot saying to look into black on black crimes, tell blacks to come forward and testify and stop letting murderers walk free until they get their street justice...

***

If NOLA.com had any system of accountability for its users and their offensive comments, good old cityindecline would have gotten some attention for this January 9, 2011 ad hominem attack on another commenter, that appeared on a story about the internal investigation into a fatal car wreck that occurred during a police chase:

Some of these comments are AMAZING. Painman, etc... blaming the police, dont even mention the 12x felon, drug dealer driving the car, ...somebody posted "the police should have just let them go and catch them another time" - THEY HAVE BEEN CAUGHT ANOTHER TIME - a dozen times, for everything from murder to drug dealing, to resisting arrest. Those of you using the "opportunity" to b*tch about the police and you don't even mention the perpetrators - YOU ARE EXACTLY WHAT'S WRONG WITH NEW ORLEANS. This is not opinion, you SCUM are why these kids get 12 chances until something like this happens. You pandering cowards, sorry excuses for citizens who would use this incident to overlook a criminal rampage by three 22 year olds who have been locked up dozens of times by dedicated police officers - WHO HAVE REPEATEDLY DONE THEIR JOBS but keep having to do it over and over again because a judge who thinks JUST LIKE YOU decided they should get another chance.
Painman, and all the other posters who fall in this category - you deserve this city. you're whats wrong with it.

Posted on NOPD chief says he will investigate police pursuit that ended in fatal collision on January 09, 2011, 3:45PM