We stand accused by some readers of using a broad brush to paint all of Swain County as racist.

The story of Evelyn Powell and her daughter, Cassie Miles, is probably familiar to many readers. It’s been in our paper, been the subject of a news story and several opinion pieces in the Asheville Citizen-Times, and has also been covered by WLOS. I suspect some of the reporters and editors at those media outlets are stinging from the same barbs that have been hurled at us.

Cassie, a seventh-grader at Swain County Middle School, came home with a disturbing note about a month ago. It was a “license” that had been slipped into her backpack, a “nigger (excuse the insensitive word) hunting license.” Her mother, Evelyn Powell, says Cassie has endured racist remarks for a couple of years. Evelyn says she has complained to school officials but nothing has been done.

And so we went with the story after we saw the note, talked with parents and others who concurred that, yes, there is the occasional racial slur among youths who have still a lot to learn and experience.

Let me say here, as we have said in news stories and editorials, that Swain County is not some pariah singled out for criticism. Although we did criticize some of the comments made by Superintendent Robert White about the very existence of racial incidents, racism is not a problem that is wrapped up neatly in some arbitrary county border. It is a lingering and complicated social issue that affects nearly every one of us.

My own life, like that of many middle-aged Americans today, serves as an example of how racial attitudes have evolved in one generation. Many of my parents’ Southern friends and even some family members — who grew up before the Civil Rights era — used the “n” word without remorse and around children when I was growing up. It was a startling time, when television beamed home images of protests where cops beat innocent black men and women with clubs and of police dogs attacking African-Americans.

We were a military family, so we had blacks for next-door neighbors when I was only six. Still, in my own high school I remember that it was common to hear friends say, “he (or she) is pretty cool for a black guy (or girl),” or, “she’s smart for a black girl, or even, “she’s pretty for a black girl.” Today, the memory of standing in a circle of friends and listening to such remarks without saying a word leaves me feeling spineless and weak.

And though racism is nowhere near the discernible, clear problem it was, it still exists. On April 29, I picked up The Franklin Press, which is published in Macon County. Here, on the same week I was still hearing about Cassie Miles’ problems in Swain, was Danny Antoine. Antoine owns Danny Antoine’s Karate Academy in Franklin and had a guest column with the title “Time to end hateful labels.” A few days after I and this paper had been accused of unjustly accusing Swain County, here’s some of what he wrote:

“I hoped that by me becoming a leader in the community some of the terrible views on race would by some miracle change. I thought this change was necessary not just for me, but mainly for the countless young girls and boys, young men and women of different races residing here in the beautiful mountains of Western North Carolina.

“.... A young girl at the tender age of 8 was out playing with a ‘friend’ who after a slight disagreement opted to call her a ‘little half-nigger!’ Not knowing what to say, she then responded with ‘so!’”

So, one county over, a similar story to that going on in Swain.

One of our reporters also interviewed a woman who preaches at a Sylva church who spoke of the reality of racist epithets, as did a man who has spent most of his life living and working in Waynesville. It’s all around us.

We did not accuse any single school, town, county or region of being racist. I do know, though, that racism still exists. I’ve seen it first-hand and still see and hear it. It was less than a decade ago at a public event when a popular WNC legislator gave me a nod and a wink before spewing out one of the most tasteless racist jokes I’ve ever heard. Racial epithets are still too common. Bigotry is alive and well. The evidence is overwhelming, and anyone who denies its existence is simply not looking.

•••

The whole minuteman project that recently ended in Arizona reminds me way too much of vigilante justice. I know they deny being racist and promise to adhere to all laws, but when citizens take up a mission because government won’t do it, I get nervous.

Volunteers patrolled the Arizona border for one month in an attempt to dissuade illegal immigrants from coming across. They are calling for more volunteers for a future border patrol mission. I agree that we need to do a much better job of patrolling our borders, but I went to school and have worked with the guys who would volunteer for activities like this.

I only wonder how long it will be before someone makes a mistake, and we have a tragedy on our hands, a civilian shooting an unarmed illegal.

•••

Someone sent me a column recently that posed serious moral questions about the efforts of politicians and others to save Terry Schiavo. The argument was that choosing death — instead of some form of artificial life via hi-tech feeding tubes and drugs — is a pact between a living human being and their god. No one can place themselves in the middle and have any moral high ground, not parents, spouses or lawyers.

In effect, the argument is that it is moral to choose a natural death over a prolonged and mechanically-dependent life. Heavy stuff, that is.

•••

One more thought from an article I was reading in a news magazine. As Christians of many persuasions celebrated the selection of a Pope who would hold fast to Rome’s conservative ideology, the article questioned whether the church had taken several wrong turns as it dealt with the realities of modern life. What if stem cell research, birth control and the growing acceptance of homosexuality are all gifts from God to ease suffering, the writer asked? Such a proposition turns on its head the argument of many who claim to speak for God.

(Scott McLeod can be reached at info@smokymountainnews.com.)