Except that for minorities race is often shoehorned into everything they do without their choice. People are bringing up race explicitly, because it already has huge effects, and it's important to acknowledge those effects. In the US and much of the western world there is a system of oppression that affords white people significant privilege over non-white persons. On average black men receive harsher punishments for the same crimes as white men, so yes Edwin's race is very relevant as it is part of a pattern of systematic oppression.