Hate crimes are a national problem - CNN.com: The security camera footage broadcast by CNN shows a grisly scene: a black man in Jackson, Mississippi, being fatally run over by a pickup truck after he was viciously beaten in a motel parking lot on a Sunday morning in June. Prosecutors say a group of white teens chose the man at random. They say the alleged ringleader, an 18-year-old now charged with murder, laughed about it afterward and boasted in a phone conversation about how he "ran that n----- over."
When we're confronted with such a shocking act of violence, we search for answers. We want to know what's in the hearts and minds of the attackers. We wonder what motivates someone to extinguish a life for no other reason than the color of the person's skin.
And, in an odd way, some people take comfort in the fact that it happened in Mississippi, with its legacy of Jim Crow segregation and terrorism aimed at the African-American community. We want to see the crime as simply a reflection of a Deep South state still haunted by its racist past -- something that couldn't happen in other parts of this country.
