Article June 18, 2001 Issue

COOLING RACIAL HOT SPOTS

Slaves arrived in America a year before the Pilgrims, and while slavery was eliminated long ago, vestiges of racism cling to American society like extra sticky glue.

Widespread, racially based disturbances in Cincinnati following the killing of an unarmed black youth by a white policeman in that city serve as strong reminders that the race issue still is with us. Indeed, the problem of racial profiling by police is so pervasive, blacks have coined the term, DWB (driving while black).

Images from the turmoil that characterized much of the 1960s resurfaced recently in the trial of a former Ku Klux Klansman found guilty of killing four black girls when he bombed a Birmingham, Alabama, church. While the bombing helped galvanize the civil rights movement, the trial is another example of how long it has sometimes taken to achieve justice where race is concerned. In Mississippi, voters decided not to remove the Confederate symbol that's been on their state flag since 1864.

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