Other than that, heart breaking article.  However, Having traveled all around the rural south in TX, LA, MS, AR, FL, AL, and GA, it truly doesn't surprise me.  I've seen a lot of racism in rural Illinois and Indiana... almost more than I have seen in the south.  But in those places it is almost subtle.  Blatant but not aggressive.  In some of the rural south it is still very angry and very violent on both sides of the coin.  I have a cousin in high school in one of the poorer neighborhoods in Jackson... he tries to blend in, but gets the hell beat out of him all the time because he is a white kid.  Meanwhile, I have known blacks in similiar situations that have been beaten up because they are black.  It is a sad state of affairs and unfortunately, the violent hatred and racism seems to happen in the poorer and lesser educated communities.  I always saw this as further proof of the way the elite divide the public to retain power.  Make the poor fight amongst themselves, break the middle class and you have no competition... you break the cylical flow of the middle class turning into the ruling class that has happened throughout a lot of history.  Thus the elite stay in power.