It's hard to avoid that in a story like this, with its ready-made stereotypes -- hardworking immigrant shopkeeper versus young ghetto thugs -- clashing on a day we're supposed to be celebrating racial equality and goodwill.
I figured it would unleash a torrent of e-mail. So I opened my in-box and braced myself.
Some readers, like Ron Erdrich, pointed out that rich white kids can be just as destructive and mean. "Apathy for society and vandalism knows no color," he said, sharing an account of "bored, white suburban boys who somehow thought [it] would be fun" to set fire to their local middle school.
But then there were the e-mails like these, sent by cowards eager to make a point, but not bold enough to sign their names . . . sort of like those kids who rampaged through Bhatia's store with their jacket hoods pulled over their faces:
"Don't take it personally that a bunch of black kids robbed the 7-Eleven. They were just doing what comes naturally to y'all."
"You can take them out of the jungle but . . ."
And from a reader who called himself Johnny Rocket: "I never wanna hear another black person complain that they are being targeted because they are black. THEY ARE BEING TARGETED BECAUSE THEY'RE BLACK, and justifiably so . . . Hopefully you folks will finally get it."
Oh, I get it all right. Especially the "you folks" part.
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An honest conversation about race is always tricky -- full of minefields and mixed messages.
We tend to talk in sweeping terms, about "us" and "them." We make judgments about entire groups based on stereotypes and individual experiences. We measure the state of race relations by our own encounters.
That's why Robert S. Rodgers of Culver City believes that countless black youths will pay the price for this isolated incident of lawlessness. "The good will suffer as well as the bad," he wrote. "The owner and his family and friends can't help but harbor negative thoughts about us African Americans."
And why reader Raul Apino, "white and about 50," might tell him that racism doesn't exist. "For the last 30 years, virtually no one I speak to has uttered a racist comment. It's just not there anymore," he said.
Raul, I'd like to introduce you to Johnny Rocket.
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sandy.banks@latimes.com
