Depending on who's doing the talking, convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal is either a race-maddened psychopath cynically manipulating the gullible into helping him get away with murder, or an innocent artist and revolutionary railroaded onto death row by the racist forces of oppression.

Whatever the truth of the matter, the dreadlocked Mumia (so famous that he's now down to just one name) is a potent reminder that we're far from through with the past when it comes to racial politics in America.

Centuries of racism, and the corrupt government structures that enforced it, are still a radioactive part of our living memory and will remain so for at least another generation. That means there will almost certainly be more of these racial cause c