Are we moving backward on race?

racism over in america

I’ve heard the term “post racial” tossed around a lot lately, especially in light of the 50th anniversary of the march through Selma, Ala., and the nation’s first black president — the symbolism of a confident black man driving with his entourage across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, which is named for a racist former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, was indeed a powerful image (video here) — but after Travon Marton, Eric Garner, the unrest in Ferguson, Mo., this and now this, I wonder if we aren’t regressing on race in America:

The coroner of Claiborne County, Miss., said a 54-year-old African American man, Otis Byrd, was found dead hanging from a tree on Thursday. The FBI and Mississippi Bureau of Investigation are reportedly on the scene and investigating, and the local chapter of the NAACP has asked the Justice Department to join the investigation. Byrd reportedly went missing 10 days ago when a friend dropped him off at Vicksburg’s Riverwalk Casino. Authorities discovered Byrd’s body “hanging about a half mile from his last known residence.” In 1980, Byrd was convicted of murdering a woman in the same county for $101. Byrd served 25 years in prison and was paroled in 2006.

We don’t know yet whether this apparent lynching was motivated by race or not, but unless he underwent some serious personal reforms in the last eight years, he doesn’t appear to have been an angel and could have had enemies. Or it could have been motivated by racism. In any case, it goes without saying that the work of civil rights doesn’t and shouldn’t stop just because the son of a white woman from Kansas and black man from Kenya inhabits the Oval Office or gives a moving speech in the New South that’s still struggling to exorcise the ghosts of a sordid past.

Although America really needs a figure like Martin Luther King Jr. to bravely lead the nation into a new era of modernity and get us closer to completing the work of people like Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, John Brown, William Lloyd Garrison, King and Malcolm X , what we got instead were pale imitations and liberal moralizing from the Howard Schultzs of the world. So, don’t despair, coffee lovers. Tweet: Just hop down to Planet Starbucks and strike up a high-minded conversation on race with your neighborhood college student.

UPDATE: According to a report from the Los Angeles Times, the preliminary autopsy indicates that the incident involving Otis Byrd was a suicide:

Claiborne County Sheriff Marvin Lucas told the Los Angeles Times that while a bedsheet was wrapped around the man’s neck, there were no other visible signs of distress on the body. The man’s hands and feet were not tied or bound, his mouth was not gagged, there were no other outward signs of injuries.

Lucas added that no note was found on the body and authorities have not heard of any threats against the man.

The full report is expected to be released next week.