Was the beating race-related? Probably. This is America, after all. This is Detroit. We have a history. The city has endured three major race riots. In my lifetime I remember two out-of-work white autoworkers in 1982 beating a Chinese-American man to death because they thought he was Japanese. In the early 1990s, white cops went to prison for beating a black motorist to death. Last year, a white man shot a black woman to death after her car broke down and she was wandering the neighborhood, presumably looking for help. Now this. So the circle spins on. Black mob. White fear. More guns.

Sadly, the talk after the attack on Mr. Utash wasn’t about a man who stopped to do the right thing. It wasn’t about Ms. Hughes, the gun-toting angel of mercy who saw no color except the red of his blood. It wasn’t about the use of justifiable force or the value of carrying a sidearm.

Instead white people asked: Where were the old-school civil rights advocates who usually spoke out against such beatings? Where was Reverend Al? Why did it take Jesse Jackson almost two weeks to say something? Not that any of them really wanted famous civil rights leaders coming to town and marching around. What they seemed to be demanding was an admission from black leaders that blacks harbor racial hatred, too.

But leaders nationally and in Detroit stayed curiously silent. A medical fund was established for Mr. Utash, but it took more than a week to convene a vigil for him as he lay in a coma. Until that vigil not even Mike Duggan — the first elected white mayor of Detroit in 40 years — made a public appearance about it. (Though he did put out a press release and a tweet.) Nor did any City Council person that I’m aware of. And nothing from President Obama. Rage and hopelessness are no excuses here. All Detroit, whether black or white, noticed the silence.

The fact is, it’s often hard to be white in America, too, especially in a struggling city like Detroit. Just ask the Utash family.

Three black men I spoke with at the gas station a few days after the beating acknowledged this two-way street. They called Mr. Utash an honorable man for stopping to help when too many people in this city don’t. They mocked the silence of civic leaders. They wanted to know why the mayor had not come to their neighborhood. They knew the score. They’re Americans. And they also know that we can’t expect those leaders to solve this riddle of ours called race.

If you’re looking for any hope in this story, go back to the corner of Morang and Balfour on the east side of the city of Detroit, where two very good people named Steve Utash and Deborah Hughes met one very bad day.