Last night, 60 Minutes II profiled a school in the south that was reaching out to inner city youth. The school was a country boarding school, and, from all appearances, really looked like a school that was trying to give opportunity to students that might not otherwise have one. And so, the faculty and staff should be commended for their efforts, or so Mike Wallace would have you believe.

Not so fast.

While I am not one to question the unquestionable worth of such a program, giving "at risk" students an opportunity to achieve in spite of their circumstances, I was struck early on in the program by the fact that this is a BLACK boarding school.

You see, this school is a place where color IS relevant. Where Plessy vs. Ferguson is still alive and well, and where the civil rights movement never happened.

A look across the ghettos and projects of this nation will show a diversity of race and of culture. Hispanics, Asians, Caucasians, Native Americans, and yes, African Americans are well represented among their number. But does it make sense to provide opportunity for the African Americans in the inner city while denying it to everyone else? Has today's African American suffered anymore than the Native American whose culture was squashed and who left the reservation and its deplorable standard of living for the hope of life and the American dream in the big city? Have they been oppressed more than the Hispanic families who are working similarly hard to make a living? And should the whites in the inner city be ignored in our quest to help the least among us simply because by accident of birth they superficially resemble the Rockefellers, the Trumps, the Waltons and the Kennedys?

I will state outright that it is my opinion that racism is an ugly, evil thing that should be exposed publicly for what it is. But when we turn a blind eye to racism out of sympathy for the color of the skin of the perpetrator, it is not only as bad as racism perpetrated by whites against blacks, it is, in fact, worse. It is worse because the black who turns to racism after having been its victim knows well the evil that is racism, and STILL chooses its practice.

If we are to place upon ourselves the mantle of being civil rights crusaders, that is well and good. And it is as it should be. But if we are to take up the torch of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, we would be well to remember ALL of his words, not just the ones we put up on the memorials to Civil Rights. You see, Dr. King saw that human nature would create just such a backlash against the white oppressors, and addressed this attitude in the following passage:

The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

But even if we ARE to go to the soundbites, let's go to his most famous soundbite, shall we?

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

If you judge my five children by the color of their skin, aren't you as bad as the monster you're trying to fight?