Readers of Michael Eric Dyson were greeted with a passionate and sharp critique of white America when they saw his essay posted on The New York Times opinion section last Thursday night.

The column appeared under a pointed headline, “What White America Fails to See,” and summary, “The police and an undeclared war against blackness.”

Dyson set the tone with this paragraph, “You will never understand the helplessness we feel in watching these events unfold, violently, time and again, as shaky images tell a story more sobering than your eyes are willing to believe: that black life can mean so little.”

He continued farther down, once again speaking directly to white America: “Your whiteness has become a burden too heavy for you to carry, so you outsource it to a vile political figure who amplifies your most detestable private thoughts.”

Not long after the column was published, however, the news took a turn. Instead of a nation focused on gruesome shootings of blacks, mostly by white police, there was a black sniper in Dallas killing five police officers, four white and one Mexican-American. The gunman said he had been provoked by the recent police shootings.

So began a clambering among editors on the Opinion desk to update Dyson’s essay with the news, and also to make some changes that would tone down the language in light of the Dallas attack. When they were finished, the piece went back online and into the Sunday Review section of the newspaper. By then it was a tamer version of its previous self.

It carried a note that said: “This essay has been updated to reflect news developments.”

Since then, I’ve heard from numerous readers who noticed substantial changes to the piece and were angry that The Times gave such a brief explanation. (See what you think. This is the original essay and this is the revised version.)

Rand Richards Cooper* of Hartford summed up the issues raised by many readers with this response:

My questions are: Is it acceptable to change an opinion piece this substantially once it has been published? Do such changes imply that the opinions originally expressed in the piece are no longer valid? That the author no longer stands by them? Did the impetus for these changes come from the writer, or the newspaper? And what about the “record,” or perhaps the imprint, made by the originally published piece? Is it simply gone forever? What are the journalistic/ethical considerations involved in making the original essay vanish in this way?

All good questions, so I took them to Jim Dao, the editor of the Op-Ed section, and also to Dyson. Dao told me that the goal in deciding to rework the piece after it had been published was twofold. First, the editors and writer wanted to reflect the shooting of five police officers — an essential news event given the subject of the essay. The second was to adjust the tone so that it wasn’t as harsh.

“We felt that to make the best argument we needed to tone it down in places,” Dao said. “It wasn’t supposed to be a bitter scolding of white people.”

Dyson, a professor of sociology at Georgetown University, told me he was fully on board with the changes. “What I said in the first one was absolutely true,” he said. “I penned a piece to white America about my feelings. But when the Dallas incident happened, I wanted to say, ‘That is horrible, too.’ ”

Dyson said he wanted to be sensitive to the feelings raised by the Dallas attack, just as he implores whites to be sensitive to those raised by the shootings of blacks. “If the first piece sounded more Malcolm and the second more King, that’s O.K. by me,” he said.

The second version of the essay was certainly less piercing in places, starting with the headline.

Here’s the original: “What White America Fails to See,” and a summary, “The police and an undeclared war against blackness.”

Here’s what it was changed to: “Death in Black and White,” with the summary, “In a week full of killings, racial justice feels elusive.”

In the text, the first paragraph I quoted above was excised completely. (The one starting, “You will never understand the helplessness we feel in watching these events unfold …”)

Here’s my take: It’s both understandable and smart to pull back an essay and give both author and editor an opportunity to rework it after such a significant news development. I heard nothing inappropriate in my conversation with Dao or Dyson about why these changes had been made.

I do have a concern, however. Any reader who saw the original version of this piece would surely recognize a gentler, more nuanced tone in the revised version. Not just the addition of news, but a piece that feels different, reads different and leaves you feeling different. On a sensitive subject like race, it can be all the more noticeable to readers.

It strikes me that there is a simple way to address the issue: Be more transparent with readers. Devise a note at the top of the piece that explains the circumstances and reasons for changing it. It shouldn’t be wrong to update a piece if there is a good reason to do so. There was no crime, just a cover-up — or at least something that struck many readers as one.

*I learned after I selected this reader comment from the many I received that Cooper is an occasional freelancer for The Times.