"Jena" by John Mellencamp

John Mellencamp has waded into the most loathsome case of racial discrimination since... Well, since the last one, frankly. Not exactly the best way to spend your birthday; unless, like Mellencamp, you are a gifted songwriter and passionate activist.

On the bright side, the mayor of Jena, Louisiana, has condemned the song, which means Mellencamp must be on to something. Whatever your views on the Jena 6, it was white students who hung those nooses.

Now word has come of another wilding, in which six or seven black teenagers beat a 13-year-old white boy without provocation, this time in Norfolk, Virginia. That beating, unlike the one thought to be retaliation for the Jena nooses, was caught on video; the person doing the taping, rather than helping the victim, can be heard to laugh at his misfortune throughout, which points to a promising career as a paparazzo.

Isn't it time we stopped thinking about things in terms of "race" but rather in terms of "species", or has the human species made that impossible for itself with all this nonsense talk about race?