Never Forget: There's Still Work to be Done.

For those who think Brown vs. Board of Education is less relevant today than it was in the 20th century, take the case of "justice" in Jena, Louisiana. There's something very wrong, very unresolved here when white boys hanging nooses in a tree where black students sit get 3 day suspensions and when those same black boys get in a fight over being called racial epithets are faced with attempted murder charges. It's sick and wrong and utterly typical on so many levels.

We've fooled ourselves on thinking that because we see people of color on television, in political positions, in relationships with white people, that we've reached true racial equality. But there's work still to be done. Racism is not like a cold, but a disease - an infection with long-lasting side effects that must be systematically chased down and aggressively eliminated at many levels in order to be eradicated. Our nation's policies towards people of color have changed, but our nation's attitudes have not -- at least, not at the same rate. Things are better, sure, but the racism of today's America is much harder to nail down because there's no clear institution against which one can blame, rail or litigate against. The racism of today is against the unspoken things, the "soft" factors such as attitudes, pre/misconceptions, societal structures, and so on. They are the most insidious parts of racism, those that can and will undo all the work of 5 decades if we leave them unattended. If we're lucky, if we're committed to really stamping out this horrible disease...maybe in 5 more decades posts like this won't be necessary.