Chicago Tribune: Old South racism lives in Texas town
"They picked up Billy Ray Johnson outside a convenience store in this East Texas bayou town, a place where Confederate flags fly in some front yards and a mural of barefoot slaves picking cotton greets patrons inside the local post office. On a cool September night in 2003, they drove the 42-year-old mentally retarded black man to a cow pasture where a crowd of white youths was having a party. They got Johnson drunk, they made him dance, they jeered at him with racial epithets. Then, according to court testimony, one of Johnson's assailants punched him in the face, knocking him out cold. They tossed his unconscious body into the back of a pickup and dumped him by the side of a dirt road, on top of a mound of stinging fire ants."You're not gonna believe the sentence those good-old boys got. (click the link, read the article.)Addendum: I'm told you have to register with the Tribune to see the article. Sorry about that; I must have done that a while ago and forgotten. The bottom line is, the 'boys' got off, it was decided, since the victim was retarded, not just black, that the Feds couldn't come after them with civil rights charges and the local town folk, interrupted during their banjo lessons, don't understand what the fuss is about.