The day after the George Zimmerman verdict was announced, I was at the supermarket. As always, Americans of all races went about their business. An elderly Asian lady got help from a tall Caucasian kid reaching an item on an upper shelf. A black cashier shared a joke with a white customer. A manager who might be Hispanic helped a patron of indeterminate ethnicity with a return. All was calm and composed. Let’s call that supermarket America.

There’s another America that exists on the TV, radio and the cell phone screen. There the race baiters, provocateurs, rumormongers and ratings-mad self-promoters hold court. It’s the dark underside of the nation. Let’s call it Id America. Those little computers we all carry in our pockets are in some respects the wonder of the age, but there’s a dark underside to the wired era. In addition to the profusion and normalization of pornography, the Internet has also served as a vehicle for political pornography. When an emotional story like the Martin/Zimmerman tragedy presents itself for exploitation, the complexities and nuances are buried in an avalanche of deliberate racial incitement. The Internet serves more to inflame than to inform. Rumor is in the saddle and it rides America.