I dunno. I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt. "Let's not make it about race" may have been the best strategic move in thia case.

Here me out...

His son confronted Karmelo. This is just a fact. Karmelo is defending on self-defense. Karmelo needs to show reasonable belief of imminent danger, the necessity of using force, and the proportionality of the force used to the threat.

Had dad made racist statements, Karmelo's counsel would use that as a justification to dive into the families history and their views on race and he would use anything discovered in Karmelo's defense. Without any statement, a judge may find such discovery to be a mere fishing expedition and intrusive.

This is very different than a situation like that girl who got sodomized and murdered in the corn field. Here there was a confrontation, and dad needs to make sure Karmelo has nothing to hang racial animus on.