One day, a real change is coming

It was just last week that our nation ushered in a major change in leadership.

The overwhelming majority elected Sen. Barack Obama to lead America’s government, marking the first time a black man would hold the highest office in our country.

And while voters celebrated – or recovered from the vote, one man sat at his computer and set out to ignite fear among the races.

Sadly, three black Nicholls State University students would become targets of this Internet user’s hateful diatribe. In one poorly structured, racially-tinged missive, the sender threatened to murder a race to exact revenge for the outcome of the presidential election.

Equally as disturbing, the sender of the e-mail appears to have been black himself, according to a Federal Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman.

The local students were targeted not for their outspokenness or ardent support of President-elect Obama. The sender appearantely found them among the many faces on Facebook, an social Web site favored by college students.

We applaud the students who reported the crime and officials for taking the threats made in the e-mail seriously.

We can only hope that America is poised for change. We have come so far to shake our racist past … yet, words like those spewed via e-mail to three innocent Nicholls’ students serve as a reminder we still have so far to go.