I haven't followed much of the Trayvon Martin story but I do have this question..

[liberalhistorian]

31. That's exacty what I've been calling this, the "Emmett Till"

of the 21st century. The ONLY good thing at all that might come of this horrendous tragedy is the only good that came out of the Emmett Till murder, which was a national soul-searching and recognition of certain things that had to change. What has always interested me about that is that there were countless Emmett Tills before his murder, yet they didn't pierce the national consciousness, whites barely batted an eye, and that is if they even knew about it at all. But social and cultural circumstances intersected to suddenly open the curtain of what had been going on all along and sparked the national impetus to truly change things and lit a fire under the civil rights movement. Congress of Racial Equality and the NAACP had been trying for decades to do that with other such cases, but the social and cultural conditions, unfortunately, just weren't right.

The same with this case. There are other Trayvon Martins and every nonwhite person, especially black, is subject to become one at any time, but this particular case has hit a nerve and may very well spark a national soul-searching and consciousness. Too many people think that because we now have a black president that racism isn't alive and well anymore and that we're in a "post-racial" world. That's a bunch of yurunda (I'm a white gal who lives on an Indian reservation, I see and hear such racism first-hand all the freaking time) and people need to be made aware of that. In fact, I think racism's gotten even worse and racists even bolder since Obama's election.