Yes, super-predators was a racialized term.
The term was coined in 1995 by John Dilulio, Jr., who in 1996 also authored My Black Crime Problem, and Ours.
In this article, Dilulio wrote: "...My black crime problem, and ours, is that for most Americans, especially for average white Americans, the distance is not merely great but almost unfathomable, the fear is enormous and largely justifiable, and the black kids who inspire the fear seem not merely unrecognizable but alien. Not that we can’t understand where they come from, when we stop to consider. After all, the child is father to the man: and think how many inner-city black children are without parents, relatives, neighbors, teachers, coaches, or clergymen to teach them right from wrong, give them loving and consistent discipline, show them the moral and material value of hard work and study, and bring them to cherish the self-respect that comes only from respecting the life, liberty, and property of others. Think how many black children grow up where parents neglect and abuse them, where other adults and teenagers harass and harm them, where drug dealers exploit them. Not surprisingly, in return for the favor, some of these children kill, rape, maim, and steal without remorse. And around goes the negative feedback loop: reasonable fear feeds unreasonable white race hostility, whose reality in turn feeds unreasonable black paranoia about the justice system..."
Thus Dilulio neatly blamed not only black youth, but black parents and the entire black community of neighbors, clergy, etc. He did not blame segregationist housing policies. He did not blame white supremacy. To be fair, although Dilullio and other proponents of the super-predator theory such as William Bennett believed that juvenile super-predators were disproportionately black, they also believed that a smaller percentage of white parents failed to instill in their children strong moral values, causing their white sons to become super-predators.
To his credit, Dilulio came to regret coining the term.
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