Indeed all is better but there is still a LONG way to go. The recent news of all the protests and rallies going on around the country today in support of the Jena 6 brought to light just an instance of racism and injustice that takes place today. Growing up in the southwest side of the state, I've seen parts of that injustice in terms of the relationship between the cities of Benton Harbor/St. Joe. The relationships between those cities sparked a book called the "The Other Side of the River". Even after the release of the book there was riots in Benton Harbor in 2003 over a high speed chase involving a black man and white police officer.
The Jena 6 is kind of a similar situation where a few black kids from Jena, Lousiana ended up beating a white kid who pulled a gun on them. Prior to that the kids were discriminated against when trying to eat lunch at a tree where white students usually ate at. Nooses were tied in the tree reminding blacks of lychings/hangings that took place in the south a while back. The noose incident is unrelated to the beating according to many stories that are on the internet about the Jena 6.
My stance is that while this white kid shouldn't have been beaten to death, but the black kids were exercising self defense. Its ridiculous that the black kids were faced with more sever punishment then the white student in this case.
This story in the Detroit News explains the situation
Other stories:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-jena_chicago_19_websep20,1,3515133.story
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20070919/cm_huffpost/065010
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2007/09/locals_march_to_support_jena_6.html
When I was in high school and through out my schooling, a desegragation order was in place between the school districts of Coloma, Eau Claire and Benton Harbor. As part of the order students were bused between the districts which created the diversity. With so much diversity there were student forum/human relation groups at each of the schools which helped air out differences and help people understand what is acceptable and not and how everyone can get along.
I think these kinds of things can prevent those situations from happening.
