Are U.S. schools growing more segregated? It depends on who you ask.

It seems that Black kids enjoying their teenage years is now becoming illegal. White America has always had an irrational fear of Black displays of emotion regardless of how they manifest, whether through joy, pain or anger.

To get beyond the headlines and the squirming of the exposed ones, there are two important things to consider. First, please, let's give at least some attention to the actual operation of racial oppression, something that goes beyond words.

I absorbed the dynamics of difference, because, I, too, was different. If rights were denied to others, my rights would be denied, someday, too. That's why we should care about Ferguson. Fearing our neighbor means losing our religion.

The listening tools, consensus building techniques, and the discipline that organizing teaches will all be used by area pastors and leaders in the months to come. It's just too bad that all of these efforts can bring only justice and healing in the short and long term, instead of immediately.

The decline of Spanish Lake isn't just about white flight, it's also about de-industrialization and the weakening of organized labor. What happens to neighborhoods built for factory-workers when the factories close?