"Outsiders need to stay away."

- Billy Fowler, School Board Member, Jena, Louisiana

This claim about the Jena Six protesters is one I've heard other people in the South saying when criticizing the Jena Six protesters. "Outsiders" as a code word for white supremacists has a long history in the South, and that alone makes it offensive.

However, there is another reason why it is so repugnant. I am an American. That means that I am an insider in every square inch of my country. The same goes for the vast majority of the protesters who are Americans.

The claim that Americans are "outsiders" in our own country is a legacy of a treasonous Confederacy that was created to preserve the heinous institution of slavery. It goes completely against American values.

Billy Fowler should be ashamed of himself.