What's up with the "sénateur noir"

Let's do a quick Google news search. Within the last month, the term "black senator" only appears 28 times in the English press, sometimes not referring to Barack Obama, and many times coming from minor media outlets. Now search "sénateur noir" in the French version and you get 44 examples within the last month, many from mainstream press outfits, and many affixed with the adjective "jeune."

Better yet, do a general Google search for "young black senator" and you get 95 hits, whereas a search of "jeune sénateur noir" on Google's French version garners well over a hundred (not including duplicates). In English, referring to Obama as young and black is common, but because of the huge subconscious baggage that comes with speaking of young black men, the historical scars over black men treated as "boy," and the caution in always referring to someone by his race, such a phrasing is unlikely to find it into responsible journalism. The French press, it appears, has no compunction in doing so.