By now I am sure that just about everyone has heard about the beating that took place on a school bus in Belleville, Illinois. A leaked video shows two young African American students attack a white student as a number of other kids look on and applaud. The attack was originally thought to be race-related, but the police quickly retracted that initial claim. This inspired quite a bit of national coverage and even caught the attention of conservative commentators like Rush Limbaugh (who, as a result, called for segregated buses). The story stayed in the headlines for about a week before it finally died out. But, here in Belleville, the impact of the fight is still being felt.
I have spent my whole life in Belleville. I am a former student of the school where the attack occurred. In my time there, I saw a lot of fights. Belleville is a strange place. Although once portrayed as the "Most Racist City in America" in a cable news documentary, Belleville is now an economically and racially diverse city. Never the less, remnants of a racist past are still alive and well in southern Illinois. This was proven today when the National Socialist Party rallied outside the court house in downtown Belleville.
Not knowing what to expect, I made my way to the rally with a few friends, and was shocked at what I saw. Police in riot gear lined the streets as a small collection of skinheads made their way to the court house screaming "White Power!" and proudly waving a hodge-podge of racist signs and flags. The National Socialist Party came here to convince the Belleville police department to treat the school bus beating as a hate crime. While the actual collection of white supremacists was fairly small, there were a great deal of white men and women throughout the crowd of dissenters who came to the racist's defense. At times, it got a little frightening.
Fortunately, something else occurred in Belleville today. Directly across the street, a significantly larger, louder, angrier crowd drowned out the racist diatribe. It was almost impossible to hear the hate speech over the taunts of the counter-protesters. The good news doesn't end there. Further down the street, another collection of protesters were making their voice heard. These men, women and children held signs championing love, inclusiveness, and peace. Together, those speaking out against the National Socialists must have easily outnumbered the racists by ten to one. It was a pretty amazing thing to witness.
Of course the beating on the bus in Belleville was brutal. But, unfortunately, those types of things occur all the time in high schools all around the country, and especially in the Belleville school district. When I went to school there, fights broke out constantly and they involved different races and genders and they were all terribly disturbing. This one just happened to be witnessed by a significantly larger audience than usual. The students were suspended and eventually expelled and they got what they deserved. But saying that the attack was a hate-crime, despite police reports and eye-witness accounts that prove otherwise, is race-baiting pure and simple. What I saw today was a town that realizes that. That's not too bad for a city that was once considered one of America's most racist.