America Letter:As Rodney King watched the 1992 Los Angeles riots that followed the acquittal of police officers who had been filmed beating him brutally, he asked: "Can't we all just get along?" It's a question many Americans have been pondering this week as the media have been gripped by two stories that highlight how raw feelings about race remain more than 40 years after the civil rights act that banned racial discrimination.
Radio talk show host Don Imus lost his job on Thursday, more than a week after he described a mostly black women's college basketball team as "nappy-headed hos". Imus waited two days before he started apologising and received initial support from some of his regular guests from the worlds of politics and journalism.
By the beginning of this week, however, as the intensity of black outrage at the slur became clear, Imus realised he was in trouble and many of his old friends started drifting away. When big companies, including Proctor & Gamble and American Express, said they would no longer advertise on the show, CBS had a sudden fit of revulsion at Imus's remarks and fired him.
"In our meetings with concerned groups, there has been much discussion of the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of colour trying to make their way in this society. That consideration has weighed most heavily on our minds as we made our decision," CBS president Leslie Moonves said, keeping an entirely straight face.
Whatever about CBS, there is no doubt about the authenticity of the response in the African-American community to the Imus outburst, which appeared to reinforce the worst suspicions about the enduring power of white racial prejudice. If these young women, who are high achievers academically as well as athletically, can be dismissed on national radio and TV as "nappy-headed hos", what chance of a fair deal could less distinguished African-Americans hope for? Most white commentators agreed that Imus's remarks were indefensible but some pointed out that black rappers routinely refer to African-American women as "bitches" and "hos". Black community leaders have long condemned misogyny and the cult of violence in some hip-hop lyrics but they were unwilling to allow Imus to use rappers as an alibi this week.
As the Imus drama reached its conclusion, news came from Durham, North Carolina, that one of the most racially charged prosecutions in recent years had been dropped. Three students at the elite Duke University, members of the lacrosse team, had been charged with raping a black woman who had been hired to strip at a party just over a year ago.
All three students denied the charges and the accuser's account of the incident changed a number of times during the investigation but district attorney Mike Nifong, who was seeking re-election, pressed ahead with the prosecution. The contrast between the backgrounds of the accuser and the accused and the overtones of race and class that surrounded the case helped to feed a media frenzy.
Commentators rushed to judgment, with many liberals and some African-American activists appearing to condemn the students out of hand, while conservatives suggested that nobody with the accuser's chaotic lifestyle could be trusted to tell the truth about anything.
After North Carolina's attorney general announced this week that all charges were being dropped and that the three young men were innocent, one of the students said the year-long ordeal had opened his eyes to a "tragic world of injustice".
"If police officers and a district attorney can systematically railroad us with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, I can't imagine what they'd do to people who do not have the resources to defend themselves. So rather than relying on disparaging stereotypes and creating political and racial conflicts, all of us need to take a step back from this case and learn from it. The Duke lacrosse case has shown that our society has lost sight of the most fundamental principle of our legal system: the presumption of innocence," he said.
These are sentiments likely to be shared by many young black men across America, who are at least five times more likely to be imprisoned than their white counterparts - and less likely to be able to afford a good lawyer.
