But it has long since gone away. Hooray.

People I work with are prattling on, still, about Paris Hilton. Meanwhile, through Atrios feeding through Campaign for America's Future, I find out about this:

In September 2006, a group of African American high school students in Jena, Louisiana, asked the school for permission to sit beneath a "whites only" shade tree. There was an unwritten rule that blacks couldn't sit beneath the tree. The school said they didn't care where students sat. The next day, students arrived at school to see three nooses (in school colors) hanging from the tree.

The boys who hung the nooses were suspended from school for a few days. The school administration chalked it up as a harmless prank, but Jena's black population didn't take it so lightly. Fights and unrest started breaking out at school. The District Attorney, Reed Walters, was called in to directly address black students at the school and told them all he could "end their life with a stroke of the pen."

Black students were assaulted at white parties. A white man drew a loaded rifle on three black teens at a local convenience store. (They wrestled it from him and ran away.) Someone tried to burn down the school, and on December 4th, a fight broke out that led to six black students being charged with attempted murder. To his word, the D.A. pushed for maximum charges, which carry sentences of eighty years. Four of the six are being tried as adults (ages 17 & 18) and two are juveniles.

Much like the ongoing domestic, Christian-based terrorism aimed at abortion clinics, the existence of ugly, practical day-to-day racism is almost totally absent from our media or national discussion. Racism is a problem that has been solved, so how could there be any meaningful discussion of it? Meanwhile, voter fraud "reform" advocates try mightily to target minorities. War supporters and other assorted wingnuts cower in fear over the inevitable brown takeover of the world.

Racism helps to feed what is left of the odious Republican "base." The people who hang nooses from trees aimed at black students at a high school are the same people who enable the corrupt modern Republican party. They must be so very proud.

ADDENDUM: Let us not forget the lovely imagery conjured up by immigration "reform" advocates. Clearly, racism is dead.