Mr. James Crowe

When I was young, the American South was the land of Jim Crow and lynching. As luck would have it, I went to UCLA where tuition was free for everyone, and I ended up rooming with a bunch of black football players. Those were the days. Then came the civil rights movement, which I supported, and the freedom riders, some of whom got murdered by degenerate yokels. 

I served in the army. I marched on Washington. Things seemed to be improving but Martin, Bobby and John were killed, and that's all in the textbooks now. Children study it as ancient history, but they don't really need to, because the South and some other states are once again the land of Jim Crow and lynching by yokels.

Of course the names have changed. Now Mississippi is the land of voter suppression and stand-your-ground laws. My point is that it's the same damned thing. It's still the KKK, with a new name, guarding the polls against black and brown voters, holding them down with racist laws, keeping the Robert E. Lees in power. It's an old white man shooting up a parked car filled with unarmed black teenagers, then claiming in court he was standing his ground. I think our students should be studying the present, studying the country they live in today, the new varieties of lynching and that polite old guy, Mr. James Crowe.