Is the Secret Service derelict in its duty due to racism?

So suggests a NYTimes piece:

The furor that led to this week’s resignation of the director of the Secret Service resonated deeply among blacks, outraged that those supposed to be guarding the first black president were somehow falling down on the job — and suspicious even without evidence that it may be deliberate.

“It is something that is widespread in black circles,” said Representative Emanuel Cleaver II of Missouri, who like Mr. Cummings is an African-American Democrat who has been approached repeatedly by voters expressing such a concern. “I’ve been hearing this for some time: ‘Well, the Secret Service, they’re trying to expose the president.’ You hear a lot of that from African-Americans in particular.”

Both Mr. Cummings and Mr. Cleaver said that they did not believe the Secret Service lapses reported recently had anything to do with Mr. Obama’s race and that they had tried to dispel the notion among their constituents. But the profound doubts they have encountered emphasize the nation’s persistent racial divide and reflect an abiding fear for Mr. Obama’s security that has unnerved blacks still mindful of the assassinations of Malcolm X and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I personally feel that so much of today’s racial divide is perpetuated by those who see the world through the prism of skin color; who conspiratorial believe that everything is due to racism; who believe that America is a racist nation.

According to Ronald Kessler, author of In the President’s Secret Service and The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents, whereas the Clintons were not very well liked by the Secret Service, the Obamas have treated the Service with respects, and agents are said to like the family.

Furthermore, some of the agents being implicated in the current scandals happen to be black.

So much attention is being drawn to the President’s skin color and it is the kind of attention that is poisonous to American society. It’s the same kind of poison that permeates the world of conspiracy theorists.

Some supporters of the president have long asserted that he has been treated with less respect by political opponents and the media, attributing that to his race. That has fueled suspicion that perhaps the Secret Service has not been as committed to him either.

Donald W. Tucker, one of the first black members of the Secret Service, who retired from the agency in 1990 and wrote a book about his experiences, said that he had no reason to believe the agency had not protected Mr. Obama vigorously but that he heard the concern regularly.

“I would say over 75 percent of the African-American community are suspicious and think that could be a situation, based on all the other things they think has happened to President Obama because he’s an African-American, politically,” he said. “They’re adding that to the pot.”