The Last Lynching.

No other way to soften that title of a Discovery Channel special on race tonight by Ted Koppel. (Don’t worry, you can watch World’s Deadliest Catch the other 275 times it’s on this month.) I caught part of this on Meet The Press Sunday when he was promoting it. The voice they had on the short clip in this segment talked about voting for Obama not because of his race, but because of his qualifications.

When asked after who the person speaking was, Koppel said he was an ex-Klan member Tiger Knowles, responsible for a murder in Alabama in 1981, the last lynching known in this country. Now maybe he turned his life around to prevent getting the death penalty, who knows, but coming from Knowles, the words make you wonder if things can change.

I wasn’t sure about posting this because of how the topic would be taken, mostly because people can take things the wrong way, so if you’re offended, well, I can’t help it. But what struck me was hearing the date 1981. I had zero clue something like that had happened as recently as then. To me, maybe that stuff went on in the early sixties.

However, seeing the clips at McCain rallies where even he is now having trouble containing the raging fire his campaign stoked completely out of control, the words in that clip don’t seem like they make much difference. Because really, what’s changed when it comes to race in this race?

‘That one’ and the ones in the audience like her know the answer: Not much at all.

(TiVo alert: The show is on tonight at 10:00 pm and again Tuesday at 2:00 am.)