A Correction and an Apology

In a brief post I wrote yesterday I wrote that African-Americans were treated as second-class citizens in the United States. I would now like to apologize for making such a controversial -- and flagrantly incorrect -- statement. Obviously, I was letting my knee-jerk liberal PC prejudices run wild. For as a new article in The Nation forcefully demonstrates, African-Americans are not treated as second-class citizens in the United States; they are treated as wild animals to be hunted down and shot in cold blood.

The article is a very detailed investigation of the white vigilante groups that formed, with police approval, in the white enclave of Algiers Point in New Orleans in the days after Hurrican Katrina. Although authorities had designated the area -- which had largely escaped damage in the storm and flood -- as a vital evacuation point for those trapped in the city, a group of white residents seized the opportunity to declare open season on anyone with black skin. Many African-Americans were shot and several were killed; but no one knows the exact number, because New Orleans police have refused to investigate any of the incidents, and coroner's records of the gun-blasted bodies that showed up in the area have unaccountably gone missing.

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Italy Considers Legalising Vigilante Groups

Unauthorised patrols of several northern Italian cities have been underway for the last year and authorities have turned a blind eye to them as concerned locals fight back against rising crime rates.
Under the proposals by the anti-immigration Northern League, the vigilante patrols would have the backing of the local police. The plan is now to be considered by the Italian Upper House.
Another controversial proposal by the Northern League the introduction of a referendum before a mosque or other place of worship is built.
The League is part of centre right Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's coalition. Mr Berlusconi was elected on a tough law and order campaign.

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