It’s been a long week.

Christopher Kernich
Multiple outlets reported early this week that 23-year-old Chris Kernich, a student at Kent State University was attacked late last Saturday night by two Akron-area college students. The Cleveland Plain Dealer, among other outlets, reported this Kernich was pronounced dead at 4:30 pm this afternoon.
Kernich is white, his two alleged attackers — Ronald Kelly Nunn, 20, and Adrian Barker, 21 — are black.
In interest of full disclosure I have to clarify something early on. I attended Shaker Heights High School with both Kelly-Nunn and Barker. The former was probably the first person I met on my first day of 8th grade at Shaker Middle School. As for Barker, I played soccer with him, had the pleasure of working with him in the Student Group on Race Relations and, since graduating, have spent a handful of weekend nights hanging out with him.
Both are great guys, an impression that I’ll always have of them, regardless of how this all plays out.
Kernich was also a great guy.
The Springfield News Sun reported Thursday:
A 6-foot-3, 185-pound senior, Kernich was a three-sport athlete at Fairborn High School, playing football, baseball and basketball.
Fairborn Mayor elect Joan Dautel, the high school’s former athletic director, said Kernich was a stand-out.
“I remember him more from baseball than anything else,” she said. “He was a pitcher for us. He was an intense kid, a good student. This just boggles me that someone would assault him like that. He was not the type of kid who would have brought anything like that on. It’s tough to hear.”
Kernich’s extensive sports skills were very unusual, she added. “Three-sport athletes are few and far between. He was just a good kid, he was real determined. I’m really shocked.”
Tom Kirsch, senior class adviser at Fairborn High, said, “Chris was a very outgoing young man who was very involved with athletics and his class in general. Our hearts and prayers go out to him and his family.”
The Kernich family has been in my thoughts are prayers all week. Losing someone you love is always heartbreaking, and my heart really goes out to Chris’ family and friends.
Last weekend’s assault and the impending trial has provoked all kinds of online dialogue about both the situation and the media coverage of the situation.
As a member of the media, I get a little defensive when people start in with the typical “don’t trust the media, they’re all full of lies” nonsense — of which there has been plenty in this case. However, I do think initial reports about this crime made a few crucial errors.

Adrian Barker
First and foremost, NO outlet, until the Plain Dealer’s article about Kernich’s death today, reported that Barker and Nunn were themselves college students. This may seem trivial, but I’d argue is a crucial distinction in the public’s perception of this case. What was a fight between two groups of college students was manipulated into an attack by two black “Akron men” on one white college student. That oversight on the part of those covering this crime has turned what should be a dialogue about the effects of alcohol on suburban college students into a tired discussion of black crime by alleged “thugs.”
The fact that Barker and Nunn are black is irrelevant. The fact that Kernich was white is equally irrelevant.

Ronald Kelly Nunn
Another problem I had with the coverage was inconsistency and a lack of clarity about Kernich’s condition. Initial reports said Kernich was taken to Akron City Hospital, although a call to the hospital produced potentially confusing reports because Akron City Hospital said, to me as well as a number of other reporters, that no one named Christopher Kernich had ever been checked in. Where the media failed the public was by not clarifying that, if they so desire, a family can have a patient removed from the hospital’s list in an attempt to control what information gets out to the public.
Rather than clarifying that, multiple outlets reported that Kernich was not listed as a patient and that his body had not been received by the county coroner — adding to speculation that Kernich was already dead.
With all of that said, I don’t think this is a black and white issue.
The fact remains, a man is dead. And, if a jury of their peers finds Barker and Nunn guilty they deserve to serve serious time. No matter what Kernich said to them, nothing justifies taking another person’s life.
This isn’t about race. I repeat, this isn’t about race.
If two white students from Kent State had come to Akron, and — after an argument — gotten in a fight and killed a black college student, there would be outrage, protests and we’d have to listen to the Rev. Jesse Jackson foam at the mouth every time we turned on the news.
The fact of the matter is we’ve yet to see any evidence that race played any factor in this case. And because of that, I have to ask why so many people on both sides of this are so quick to support or defame these young men based solely on race.
The list on blogs, online commenters and Facebook groups calling this an attack by two black thugs is disgusting. (Here are a few: Nation of Cowards, Underprivileged Journalism , Stuff Black People Don’t Like, Latest Blog, Why Blacks Suck) But with that said, I’m not dumb enough to think we live in a post-racial world. Bigots and racist idiots will always exist. They will always call for racial separation and discrimination every time a black man commits a crime against a white victim. In the four years I spent working with the aforementioned Student Group on Race Relations, one of things we often reinforced was that the only way to handle these people is to defy those stereotypes, and engage in intelligent dialogue. Unfortunately, the actions of these two men have seemingly reinforced a stereotype, but my hope is that the various communities involved will turn this discussion away from the harmful slew of racism it has turned into.
As for those who have jumped to support Adrian and Ronald, I’d ask that you don’t allow emotion and commodore with these two men to cloud your vision. Decrying the media and the judicial system because these two young men happen to be black is as ignorant as it would be to assume they’re guilty because of their race.
The black community needs to police itself. We need to stop letting the dogmatic defense of black criminals ruin our public perception and perpetuate a cycle of violence and hatred.
These two men weren’t arrested because they were black, they were arrested because they are suspected of killing a man. And, personal relationships with the two of them aside, I hope they are granted a speedy and fair trial. And, that doesn’t mean a trial that finds them not guilty.
R.I.P. Chris Kernich