Wow, I thought this kind of thing was done away with years ago

[Lissa]

I suppose what I meant by that phrase was that here in California, I hardly ever seen racism of that level, and when you do, you get the LA Riots. What was so shocking to me was the justice of the peaces exclamation, lets call it his candor for irony sake, that he did the right thing. His nonchalance about the whole situation just irks me, and I don't believe thats something you would find common on the West Coast, at least not from someone of his stature.

Oh, you'll still find racism in any number of places in the US, it just not always as typical as you may think.

In the Southwest, there's a lot of racism between Latinos and African Americans. If you're not of one of those races or don't happen to be around those races a lot, you won't see it, but if you are, you do. In Northern Idaho there's still a pretty large contingent of White Supremists there. In the migrant farming areas; California, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, you'll see a fair bit of bigotry from Caucasians and Native Americans against the Latinos as well.

I know quite well all of this from growing up and living in those areas, bigotry is still quite common in the US if you know what to look for. A lot of times it sickens me when I hear friends and colleagues may bigoted comments as I've realized that just because someone's skin is different than mine, if you remove it, we look the same. Human race still has a ways to go, but slowly, attitudes are changing, just not as quickly as some people would like.