I've understood the same thing. That's not in dispute.
If you want to draw more readers by elaborating on why they might find it interesting, you put it in parentheses.
I question why FR readers would find the race of the man relevant and/or important enough to add it in parentheses.
I’ve posted hundreds of threads that way, and have NEVER had a single complaint from anybody.
Do you identify the race of the protagonist(s) in these threads this way?
If this is your concern, don't you find it even the least bit insulting that the original poster apparently didn't trust you to find the race of the man for yourself in the body of the article?
To be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t have even opened the article. It’s not that strange or interesting to have some white Russian or Chechneyan, who also happens to have American citizenship, killed over in that far-flung corner of the world. And that’s what I would have assumed happened here, if not for his addition to the title.
The fact that he was black meant that the story was different from other stories in that regard. In the same way an Asian American spy in North Korea would be less interesting than a African American spy in North Korea. Or a white American mercenary in Zimbabwe is more interesting than a black American mercenary in Zimbabwe.
He wasn’t an American returning to his ancestral homeland to take up a cause, as is usually the case when you read about something like this. That makes the story more interesting, regarding his motives, his contacts, and his personal history. That’s why I clicked on the thread to learn more. Unfortunately, that part of the story wasn’t found on this thread.
Do you identify the race of the protagonist(s) in these threads this way?
I don’t recall doing it, but I would have if I found this story. It is the most curious part of the story. Aren't you at least a little curious what a black American man was doing in a gun battle in Chechnya’s Kurchaloi region?!
Asgard: Get yourself a lump of coal as well.