Free Republic

Mandisa likes Abercrombie & Fitch, not FUBU. She speaks proper English, not Ebonics. She takes honor classes and belongs to the Beta Club and National Arts Honors Society at Parkview High. She plays the violin and has danced and sung in area productions of “The Nutcracker” and “My Fair Lady.” Mandisa Surpris, a 15-year-old sophomore, is all this. And she’s black. Some of the other black students don’t know what to make of her. The way she dresses, the way she talks, the grades she earns. She’s an anomaly. To them, she’s more white than black. They’ve even told her...

They seem almost as if they were randomly plucked from Madison's streets - the mother of a 9-month-old baby, the National Honor Roll graduate, the 16-year-old son of a University of Wisconsin Medical School professor. Except for their relative youthfulness, the 12 people charged in a gang-style shooting Aug. 9 in the village of Oregon, WI defy easy generalizations. They are rich and poor, high- achievers and juvenile delinquents. They are black and white and Hispanic and Asian. The crime they are charged with - three vehicles full of people opened fire on a home in a middle-class suburb, wounding...

Pain has become a companion for Rafael Diaz Jr. Whether he is asleep or wide awake, he can't escape it. "There is a tremendous amount of pressure around my eye," he said. "During the middle of the night it is hard because the pain is so sharp. And when I wake up in the morning, I keep asking myself, 'Why did they do this to me?' " It has been about two weeks now, and no one really knows why a group of teenagers and young adults ambushed Diaz's tanker truck off of Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway while he was...

If and when you get into that end zone, act like you've been there a thousand times before -- songwriter Gordon Downie The lyrics of that song came to mind after reading of a multiple shooting over the weekend in Penn Hills. With another multiple shooting in Penn Hills a month ago and 14 shootings in this once-quiet eastern suburb since January of 2004, this isn't exactly rare. But what makes the growing homicide rate in Penn Hills so notable is just who is doing the shooting. Most of the shooters in recent events have been African-Americans, a group...

Young people have been running amok at Sacramento showings of "Coach Carter," the Samuel L. Jackson film about a Richmond basketball coach who straightens out wayward students. Rachel Kahan was at a Century Stadium 14 showing on Arden and Ethan when a riot broke out. "Kids were beating up a security guard, and they attacked the manager," she said. "It was awful. And what makes it worse was that the behavior was exactly what the character Coach Carter is fighting against." Other showings have been disrupted by shouts and threats from boozed up fans. Paramount Pictures, which distributes "Coach Carter,"...

PATERSON, N.J. -- Six teens who were part of a mob who beat to death a homeless man three years ago were sentenced to prison for their part in the "wilding" rampage. The six Paterson youths were sentenced Friday for being part of the crowd of 16 youths charged in the killing of Hector Robles in June 2001.

Nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh said that a November 19 brawl that broke out during a National Basketball Association (NBA) game was "hip-hop culture on parade." Limbaugh asserted that the fight -- which involved Indiana Pacers team members and Detroit Pistons team members and fans -- was "gang behavior on parade minus the guns," and that NBA uniforms are "now in gang colors. They are in gang styles." In making the comments, Limbaugh conceded that his remarks were likely to be "tagged as racist." Limbaugh also appeared to compare the brawl to the unrest in Fallujah, Iraq, suggesting that...