We are still a long, long way from achieving Martin Luther King Jr.'s objective of a colorblind society.

After the Review-Journal reported Tuesday that a group of about 15 youths had attacked and brutally beaten a man behind the MGM Grand over the weekend, the newspaper received dozens of angry calls and letters accusing us of engaging in political correctness for not immediately identifying the ethnicity of the attackers.

Their assumptions were leaping far ahead of the facts.

Most immediately jumped to the conclusion from the grainy black-and-white video being shown on television that the victim was white, the attackers were black, and therefore it must have been a hate crime instead of a robbery.

In fact, the video was inconclusive. Some letter writers even wrongly assumed the attackers were Hispanic.

The hate crime assumption has been fueled by the subsequent revelation that the same group of youths -- yes, we now know they were mostly blacks -- may have been involved in several other violent robberies and attacks over the same weekend, even though the ethnicity of some of those other victims is still unknown.

Typical of the angry letters was this one: "My question regarding the sickening beating of the security guard (actually a landscaper) is this: Had this been a black security guard and a pack of white kids, it would be labeled a racially motivated attack by the media right off the bat, so why is this particular incident not labeled racially motivated? It makes me sick that the media and society can be so hypocritical when it comes to racism, acting as if it only happens one way."

Several people drew a comparison to the excessive cable television coverage given to the white Duke University lacrosse players accused of raping a black stripper.

(Frankly, the whole concept of hate crimes strikes me as an exercise in mind reading. Assault is assault no matter the motivation.)

Our racial prejudices still lie skin deep and rise up at the slightest prompting.

For journalists, whose stock and trade is accuracy, the use of ethnicity and skin color descriptions is often problematic.

The Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists advises: "Avoid stereotyping by race, gender, age, religion, ethnicity, geography, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance or social status."

Note that it does not call for not using race, gender, age, etc., but merely to avoid stereotyping.

The flip side of this racial coin occurred in Philadelphia a couple of years ago. The Daily News published police mug shots of 15 of that city's 41 fugitive murder suspects. There was a hue and cry from the city's minority community because not a single one of the faces was white.

But none of the 41 suspects was white.

Nonetheless, the newspaper's managing editor published an apology.

It read in part: "The front page photos from last Thursday sent the message to some readers that only black men commit murder. That was a mistake.

"In addition, the stories didn't address a key question: Why are there no white suspects on the loose? That also was a mistake.

"Our first story should have looked harder at this question. The Daily News apologizes for the error."

Racial identity cannot be totally ignored, whether in stories about crime or politics or economics. It is pertinent when Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice achieve success as secretaries of state, but neither is it necessary to parenthetically point out in every story that County Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald and Las Vegas City Councilman Lawrence Weekly are black, anymore than listing the race of every criminal suspect.

One area in which racial identity is often a problem is in the description of fugitives. It is absurd to describe a suspect as 6-foot-5, weighing 250 pounds with a thick beard and wearing a green sweatshirt, without mentioning complexion. But without those other details, complexion is irrelevant and simply provides fuel for the bigots.

Another accuracy problem arises when someone is described by police or witnesses as Hispanic based solely on skin color. Hispanic derives from language and surname. They come in all shades, from black to blond.

I doubt most people at a fleeting glance can differentiate between a Mestizo and a Pakistani.

It was not until 1983 that the Louisiana Legislature repealed the last racial identification law in the United States. It was a law that classified anyone with so much as 1/32nd Negro blood as being black. I defy anyone to make that distinction visually.

Colorblindness is still a worthy, if distant, goal that will require getting beyond assumptions and sticking to the facts.

Thomas Mitchell, editor of the Review-Journal, writes a column on the role of free speech and press. He may be reached at 383-0261 or via e-mail at tmitchell@ reviewjournal.com.