Old racists die, but hate-filled actions linger

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/story/371034.html

Old racists die, but hate-filled actions linger
More education, vigilance, court action needed to root it out.
Posted: Monday, Feb. 23, 2009


Virgil Griffin died this month. We had hoped he took with him to the grave the last vestiges of the hate-filled rhetoric and violence that once was as American as apple pie for many in this country.

snip//

Surely, Griffin was a relic of bygone days, his views anachronistic. Right?

Consider earlier this month in Asheville. A federal jury awarded $50,000 to a black construction worker whose white coworkers mentally and physically tormented him for months, then put a rope around his neck, threatening to lynch him.

An eyewitness at the trial of the construction company, Farrell Log Structures, testified that the victim's co-workers frequently pelted him with pieces of wood, shingles and even chicken bones. Crew members working on a roof shot nails at him while he walked below, forcing him to run as they repeatedly fired after him.

The 29-year-old victim, Michael Kitchen, made audio recordings of the abuse and the recordings were played in the courtroom. On one recording, Kitchen can be heard pleading with his tormentors to stop. His attorney said that recording was made the day workers put a rope around Kitchen's neck.

One coworker, to cheers of others, looked for a tree to toss the rope across. Kitchen escaped and never returned to work at the company.

Kitchen used a Reconstruction-era law, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, to sue for a breach of an employment agreement. The jury did not find that the company owner created the environment. But jurors agreed Kitchen was subjected to a racially hostile and abusive work environment, and was forced to resign because of it.

Sadly, the Kitchen case isn't an isolated incident. But, as his lawyer asserted, “People don't believe this stuff still goes on.”

It does. This country hasn't laid to rest the hateful views that people like Griffin espoused, or halted the violent acts. More education, vigilance and court action are needed to root that out for good.