When the problem isn't race...

but I'm not in the habit of just making **** up.

Kadia Sy hovered over her husband's nursing home bed Thursday, stroking his cheek and forehead, and shaking his shoulder as if to snap him back to life.

But her husband, beating victim Alassane Sy, 67, didn't respond. He suffered severe brain damage April 6 when prosecutors say a teen delivered two blows to Sy's head with a baseball bat over a parking dispute.

While the victim's wife was desperate to wake him during a visit to Covington Manor Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, the couple's son, Djibril, 17, seemed more resigned.

"He's never going to be the same," he said of his father, who immigrated to Memphis from West Africa a decade ago to improve his family's lot.

Two months ago, Djibril's biggest concern was teaming with his brother, Amir, 16, to help their Sheffield High School soccer team win its final match.

His father, a devout Muslim, bought them shin guards and wished them luck as he dropped them off at school and then headed to pray at their mosque. That was the last time they talked to their father, who no longer recognizes them.

Hours later, Alassane Sy herded two of his boys, Karim, 5, and Moussa, 12, into the car with their 9-year-old nephew and headed to a Whitehaven strip mall to pick up his wife. Kadia Sy, 41, had gone to her sister's African hair-braiding salon to help out on a busy Friday night.

Alassane Sy, a warehouse forklift driver, pulled into a parking spot next to a Jeep Cherokee driven by Tanya C. Wilkins, 33, a waitress. Moussa opened the door and hopped out of the car.

Prosecutors say Wilkins, who had parked on the white line leaving little space, accused the 12-year-old of dinging her driver's door, something the Sys say didn't happen.

Kadia Sy said her husband took the children inside the salon, and Wilkins followed and opened the store door, cursing.

The Sys and their children went back to the parking lot, where Alassane Sy examined the cars and Kadia Sy used her limited English to apologize.

While she continued cursing, Wilkins called the victim's wife a derogatory name, relatives said. He lost his temper and cursed back, Djibril said.

A security camera captured what happened next.

Wilkins' son, Mariquez Moore, 15, walked up behind the victim and raised an aluminum baseball bat in the air before striking the victim in the head with such force, Sy collapsed to the pavement unconscious.

"I yelled: 'Oh!' trying to get my husband's attention, but it was too late," Kadia Sy said.

As the camera rolled and the victim's stunned wife and children watched, the teen then struck Sy again in the head, and blood poured from his nose and ears.........