Not the oasis that I thought?

Since we moved to Durham, I always felt it was sort of an oasis of normalcy in the otherwise um... Southern state of North Carolina. Well, the Triangle area as a whole, really. There are so many transplanted Northerners here that you can easily forget that you're in the South. However, last night we had some cross burnings! One of them was not too far from our house, on our way to work. I'm not sure I realized that this attitude towards minorities still existed so strongly here (although of course as these were probably set by a small group of morons, this probably does not represent the views of the majority of Triangle residents). We have several friends who have lived in this area their whole lives. They're aware when they have non-PC ideas or say something inapproptiate, and they do make an effort to change them. Which I can understand. When you're raised to believe something it gets ingrained in your mind, even when you don't believe it anymore. Generally I don't notice a ton of racial tension here (although, I may be oblivious), so this cross-burning really surprised me.