What it Look Like?

Will wonders never cease to amaze?

I know that it's been a while since I've written, but I've been a little preoccupied. And since I've definitely been doing more than that, I haven't been able to get comfortable yet. Louisiana, not unlike Georgia, is still very much The South. While there are some areas, and individuals, that have upped the multi-culti, metropolitan quotient, there are still the mud-bogging, uncomfortable-staring individuals that just aren't use to certain people. But those folks seem to be far and few between.

So imagine my surprise, as I luxuriated in my summer break and stumlbed across this a week ago on CNN. A(n) (alleged) hate crime in Denham Springs, Louisiana? After the Jena 6 debacle? That doesn't sound right. But alas, it's real. And I'll be damned if I didn't hear about another incident here in Ruston, LA via KTVE, NBC10. This latest incident involves a young single mother that relocated to Ruston after her fiancee was killed in New Orleans, and weathering Katrina. For her trouble, she came home to find a noose swinging on her front porch last Friday.

The story is still pretty fresh, as the news just reported it today, so shades of Tawana Brawley have yet to emerge. And the Denham Springs deal hasn't been resolved as of yet either.

I honestly don't know what's worse. The fact that this possibly happened in an areas still reeling from Katrina's aftermath, and in a time this country is being redefined via the current presidential race, or that the young mother in Denham Springs appears to refer to herself as "colored" (I'm hoping that I misheard that).

Now, I'm not naive. As I said before, this is The South: big trucks, deer hunting, fried food, and 5foot Confederate flags flying behind speeding Ford 150's that bump the new Kanye West. It's a strange land - America and The South. It's a land where Barack Obama can get overwhelming support, but so many things on the ground level are still segregated. It's even more telling, for what it's worth, that one of the offenders in the Denham Springs case cited a desire to do harm to the Democratic Nominee for President of the United States.

These are the times that try both men's and women's souls. And while I don't want to put a lot on it, but I believe that these incidents not only represent things as they've always been, but a sign of things to come. The Boot Camp Clik said that Headz Ain't Redee, and maybe, just maybe they were right.

The true American Crisis concerns how to get people to acknowledge differences and discuss them with an even temper, and open mind. Misspoken or not, people are bitter, and scared, anxious, ignorant (most often willfully), and drunk. The real revolution is upon us. And yet again, notions of freedom and democracy will be tested. If we can export this things to other countries; countries that haven't explicitly asked that we deliver them, then surely we can give them to ourselves.