Bobert, sadly, you're right: "...you don't have to look to far to see that racism is so part of the American culture and society that the only issue should be, like... ahhh, what can we do to deal with it?" *More* sadly, if "deal with it" means Make It Go Away: we can't. Look at the REST of the word. Tribes R Us.

Tinker: "This is not a Southern Republican problem. Anyone who has ever spent time with census tracts knows that segregation ( racial and economic ) is a national issue." Having spent *some* time with the darling little census tracts -- and voting precincts -- (OKOK, so I don't get out much): Yes. But still, it IS *especially* -- most intensively -- a Southern Republican problem. The legacy of the D-to-R white-Southern transposition of 1964 et seq. is: scratch the public veneer off of most elected Southern R officials today, and you find: Trent Lott. Or, worse. Watch what's already starting to happen re his Shrub-anointed successor, Dr. Frist of Tennessee. / Now a NC R US Rep has said --- and then apologized for his 'stupidity' in saying (!) -- that (recently-defeated) US Rep Cynthia Jackson, D-GA, made him feel a little bit "segregationist", because "she was such a bitch". (He also said, "I talk too much." No shit, Sherlock.)

This is a Problem of Democracy, folks. People VOTE FOR these guys. So, what are ya gonna do? Shoot the voters?