Even though there have been some unpleasant incidents, you have to admit that the public reaction to the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial has been pretty mild. It's been downright somnambulant when you consider that some of America's favorite racial demagogues have spent the better part of a year basically calling for riots.
On WSJ.com James Taranto looks at some of the demagoguery (still ongoing) and the riots that didn't happen:
The News unwittingly points up how much things have changed by highlighting the case of Michael Donald: "After a black man was freed by a jury in the killing of a white police officer in Alabama, klansmen retaliated by finding Donald, who was strung up and killed on March 20, 1981, in what is often referred to as the last recorded lynching."
The last recorded lynching occurred 32 years ago--11 years earlier than the last major race riots. The Supreme Court is right and the New York Times is wrong: Things have changed dramatically. If both lynch mobs and race riots are things of the past, whites and blacks alike have made enormous progress in their attitudes toward race.
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