Apparently, the followers of Andrew Breitbart believe that being Hispanic means you can’t be white: MEDIA LABELS HISPANIC MAN WHITE IN SHOOTING OF BLACK TEEN.

On Friday night, a young African-American teenager, Trayvon Martin, was shot to death in Orlando by a neighborhood watch captain, George Zimmerman. The media immediately portrayed the death as a case of white on black racism. CBS News, on its Crimesider website, immediately called Zimmerman a “white neighborhood watch volunteer.” Martin’s parents accused the police of racism for not arresting Zimmerman.

There’s only one problem: Zimmerman is Hispanic. Within a few hours of its original report, CBS News was calling Zimmerman a mere “neighborhood watch captain,” without the racial modifier, quoting Zimmerman’s father to the effect that his son is Hispanic.

Zimmerman’s race was already well known by the time CBS News wrote its original story – Zimmerman’s father wrote to the Orlando Sentinel and explained last week that his son is Hispanic because his mother was Latino.

Wow.

The fact is that Hispanic or Latino origin is an ethnic classification based on culture and language, not a racial classification.

But it’s very interesting to see one of the worst race-baiting right wing sites on the web referring to a “racial modifier” — that isn’t a racial modifier. It reveals something about them that’s pretty damned ugly.

According to the US Census:

Since the 1970 Census, the questionnaire has asked U.S. residents whether they are of Hispanic origin, and if so, which broad Hispanic group they identify with. Hispanic origin is considered separately from race in the Census—and Hispanics may identify with any race.