By Scott Scheltzer, Thanks for Listening

Fifty years ago in Little Rock, Ark., the world changed for the better. Or did it?

Did segregation and the Little Rock 9 change the way we act, believe or carry ourselves?

Did Martin Luther King change us? Rosa Parks?

Our country has done many great things together, black and white and in between.

We have won wars together, overcome major obstacles together, and we still cannot seem to conquer color together.

How far have we come as a country when color is still such a barrier?

Do you judge people by the color of the car they drive? No! Then why is skin such a huge wall?

In Jena, La., this week racial tensions continued to boil over in what has grown to be known as Jena 6.

Jena 6 is a case that started more than a year ago when a black high school student asked the principal if it was OK to sit under a shade tree that white kids claimed as theirs. The principal told him yes. The next day three nooses were found hanging from that same shade tree.

The principal, who wanted the kids that hung the three nooses expelled, was overruled by the superintendent, who briefly suspended them instead. Expulsion was excessive for this &8220;prank,&8221; he stated. Tensions and fights began to grow. Many students felt the punishment was unfair.

Jena High was set a flame on Nov. 30, 2006. The whites held the blacks responsible and the blacks blamed the whites.

Racial tension followed with brawls and when a white student named Justin Barker taunted Robert Bailey, 16 (who was beaten up previously by a group of white men at a party) about the attack, six black men jumped on Justin and beat him up.

Tit for tat, right? Wrong.

The six black students were arrested and charged with aggravated assault, and when District Attorney Reed Walters increased the charges to attempted second-degree murder, all hell broke loose. Suddenly, a local affair entered the national spotlight.

Did I mention that the night after Robert Bailey got beat up by the group of whites; he had words with another white boy, who ran and got a pistol gripped shotgun? Bailey wrestled it away from him and brought it home. Bailey was then charged with theft of a firearm, second-degree robbery and disturbing the peace. The white boy who brandished the firearm in the first place, was not charged at all.

People were outraged over inequitable charges.

So the Jena 6 are facing 100 years in prison without the possibility of parole.

It is 2007 and we still have an unbelievable fear of color. It must be fear that is driving this hatred.

Fear of the unknown.

Fear of learning something new.

Fear of embracing a new color.

Why is it that we fear and hate each other so?

More than 50 years since the civil rights movement and we still cannot get over the pigment of someone&8217;s skin.

Isn&8217;t it amazing in this day and age that humans can create amazing computers that can do everything from save music to lives, but we can&8217;t get over color.

We need to grow up.

Do you know one of the steps that were taken to calm everyone down about Jena 6?

They cut down the tree that the nooses hung from. Dumb! Why? Was it too green, too much bark on it? I think instead of cutting down symbols of hatred, we need to cut to the core of the hatred!

This color problem is just holding us back as both a country and as humans.

We have taken huge strides in what we want the world to think we are, but just baby steps in what inside our conscious we really are.

Tribune Publisher Scott Schmeltzer&8217;s column appears every Thursday.