You keep using that word. I'm not sure that it means what you think it means.

Recently, a story has hit the news about a mother from Oklahoma who moved to Brooklyn so her children could experience "diversity." Apparently, the boys were bullied mercilessly, subjected to racial slurs, and even chased into traffic by the students from the almost exclusively minority school. The real shocker is that when the mother attempted to take action, the principal would not even take her calls.

If this same situation had happened to black students in an almost exclusively white school, Jesse Jackson would be on the scene, the principal's head would be on a pike, and all this might be big news. But alas, that's not what it's about around here.

Racism is the belief in the superiority of a race over any other. I believe that in order to combat racism (a very worthy task) in any meaningful way, it cannot be addressed selectively. We cannot continue to send mixed messages about race in this way.