More On The Photo: The Ohio Connection

Reader J.K. writes:

FYI: Columbus (as you know the largest city in Ohio) is home to the second-largest collection of Somali ex-pats in the nation (Minneapolis is first). Columbus' Somali population is in the tens of thousands, and most estimates range from 30,000 to 45,000. As with any large influx of ethnically and nationally distinct people into a largely culturally homogenous area, assimilation efforts have been tough going. From my experience, there is definitely an underlying tension (among white and African Americans alike) regarding Somalis here in Columbus. I'm not necessarily suggesting that this was part of the calculus in pushing the image (indeed, we still don't know for sure who pushed it or why they did), but it is something to think about.

And a well-respected superdelegate is angry:

Are we now in a place in which every thing that someone does that is Obama related is viewed through a prism of racism? I I suppose that it's too much to think that maybe someone just does something stupid. What if there were a picture of HRC in a burka? Would it be sexist to circulate it? Would the press even suggest that it was -- or would it attack the Clinton campaign if it suggested it was sexist? Everyone really needs to take a big, deep breath here and get real about what things mean and what they don't mean. Or better still, why does the Obama campaign - a campaign whose candidate considers himself "post-racial" immediately play the race card? I'd like to see someone in the press ask that question.

Incidentally: here's a blog that scooped Drudge..