Election Spurs 'Hundreds' Of Race Threats, Crimes
Last Edited: Saturday, 15 Nov 2008, 1:38 PM CST
Created: Saturday, 15 Nov 2008, 1:38 PM CST
This undated file photo provided by Gary and Alina Grewal of Hardwick Township, N.J., shows a charred cross that had been burned on the lawn of their home. The Grewals placed a banner congratulating President-elect Barack Obama on his election victory in their yard and found the banner wrapped around the charred cross Nov. 6, 2008. Lt. Gerald Lewis of the New Jersey State Police says they are treating the incident as a bias crime. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Grewal family)
Obama Has More Threats Than Other Presidents-Elect
or just enabling jstl so that
we can just write ${bean.property} and jsp takes care of the new lines.
-->By JESSE WASHINGTON
AP National Writer
Cross burnings. Schoolchildren chanting "Assassinate Obama." Black figures hung from nooses. Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars.
Incidents around the country referring to President-elect Barack Obama are dampening the postelection glow of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in America.
From California to Maine, police have documented a range of alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to at least one physical attack. Insults and taunts have been delivered by adults, college students and second-graders.
There have been "hundreds" of incidents since the election, many more than usual, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate crimes.
One was in Snellville, Ga., where Denene Millner said a boy on the school bus told her 9-year-old daughter the day after the election: "I hope Obama gets assassinated." That night, someone trashed her sister-in-law's front lawn, mangled the Obama lawn signs, and left two pizza boxes filled with human feces outside the front door, Millner said.
She described her emotions as a combination of anger and fear.
"I can't say that every white person in Snellville is evil and anti-Obama and willing to desecrate my property because one or two idiots did it," said Millner, who is black. "But it definitely makes you look a little different at the people who you live with, and makes you wonder what they're capable of and what they're really thinking."
Potok, who is white, said he believes there is "a large subset of white people in this country who feel that they are losing everything they know, that the country their forefathers built has somehow been stolen from them."
Grant Griffin, a 46-year-old white Georgia native, expressed similar sentiments: "I believe our nation is ruined and has been for several decades and the election of Obama is merely the culmination of the change.
"If you had real change it would involve all the members of (Obama's) church being deported," he said.
Change in whatever form does not come easy, and a black president is "the most profound change in the field of race this country has experienced since the Civil War," said William Ferris, senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina. "It's shaking the foundations on which the country has existed for centuries."
"Someone once said racism is like cancer," Ferris said. "It's never totally wiped out, it's in remission."
If so, America's remission lasted until the morning of Nov. 5.
The day after the vote hailed as a sign of a nation changed, black high school student Barbara Tyler of Marietta, Ga., said she heard hateful Obama comments from white students, and that teachers cut off discussion about Obama's victory.
Tyler spoke at a press conference by the Georgia chapter of the NAACP calling for a town hall meeting to address complaints from across the state about hostility and resentment. Another student, from a Covington middle school, said he was suspended for wearing an Obama shirt to school Nov. 5 after the principal told students not to wear political paraphernalia.
The student's mother, Eshe Riviears, said the principal told her: "Whether you like it or not, we're in the South, and there are a lot of people who are not happy with this decision."
Other incidents include:
--Four North Carolina State University students admitted writing anti-Obama comments in a tunnel designated for free speech expression, including one that said: "Let's shoot that (N-word) in the head." Obama has received more threats than any other president-elect, authorities say.
--At Standish, Maine, a sign inside the Oak Hill General Store read: "Osama Obama Shotgun Pool." Customers could sign up to bet $1 on a date when Obama would be killed. "Stabbing, shooting, roadside bombs, they all count," the sign said. At the bottom of the marker board was written "Let's hope someone wins."
--Racist graffiti was found in places including New York's Long Island, where two dozen cars were spray-painted; Kilgore, Texas, where the local high school and skate park were defaced; and the Los Angeles area, where swastikas, racial slurs and "Go Back To Africa" were spray painted on sidewalks, houses and cars.
--Second- and third-grade students on a school bus in Rexburg, Idaho, chanted "assassinate Obama," a district official said.
--University of Alabama professor Marsha L. Houston said a poster of the Obama family was ripped off her office door. A replacement poster was defaced with a death threat and a racial slur. "It seems the election brought the racist rats out of the woodwork," Houston said.
--Black figures were hanged by nooses from trees on Mount Desert Island, Maine, the Bangor Daily News reported. The president of Baylor University in Waco, Texas said a rope found hanging from a campus tree was apparently an abandoned swing and not a noose.
--Crosses were burned in yards of Obama supporters in Hardwick, N.J., and Apolacan Township, Pa.
--A black teenager in New York City said he was attacked with a bat on election night by four white men who shouted 'Obama.'
--In the Pittsburgh suburb of Forest Hills, a black man said he found a note with a racial slur on his car windshield, saying "now that you voted for Obama, just watch out for your house."
Emotions are often raw after a hard-fought political campaign, but now those on the losing side have an easy target for their anger.
"The principle is very simple," said BJ Gallagher, a sociologist and co-author of the diversity book "A Peacock in the Land of Penguins." "If I can't hurt the person I'm angry at, then I'll vent my anger on a substitute, i.e., someone of the same race."
"We saw the same thing happen after the 9-11 attacks, as a wave of anti-Muslim violence swept the country. We saw it happen after the Rodney King verdict, when Los Angeles blacks erupted in rage at the injustice perpetrated by 'the white man.'"
"It's as stupid and ineffectual as kicking your dog when you've had a bad day at the office," Gallagher said. "But it happens a lot."
------Associated Press writers Errin Haines, Jerry Harkavy, Jay Reeves, Johnny Taylor and researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report.
***Is anyone surprised at this? Is your head still stuck in the sand? Are you still suffering from denial? Do you feel all tingly inside? Giddy, perhaps? Hopeful? You wouldn't have the gads to admit it if you were anyway. Still confused as to whether or not he's Black? Still think the younger "re-educated" generation do not have racist views? Still offended by Solarman's question? What was it..."Who will be your next Oswald?" Hated to see "reggineid" banned, did you? Still wishing death on this man? Still making excuses?
SMILE THAT SMILE FOR ME...
You know the one...
It's THAT SMILE that spreaded across your face when Medgar Evers was shot. It's THAT SAME STUPID SMILE that spreads so wide across your face, that your eyes close shut and your face cracks whenever you see old footage of the Civil Rights Era....Black men, women, and children drug about, beaten with clubs, sprayed with firehoses, and bitten by dogs.
It's THAT SMILE you had on your face when the back of John F. Kennedy's head was blown off. Or, THAT SMILE you had on your face when his brother, Robert was gunned down. It's THAT SAME STUPID SMILE...the one where you showed ALL OF YOUR TEETH...when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated and four little Black girls were killed in a church bombing.
Awwwww, come on...SMILE THAT SMILE for me.
SMILE THAT SAME STUPID SMILE.
You know the one...
It's THAT SMILE that turned up the corners of your mouth when Rosa Parks was arrested. It's THAT SAME STUPID SMILE you had when James Byrd was drug behind a pick-up truck and dismembered.
It's THAT SMILE you get on your face when you read racist comments, posts, and member IDs on this site and only a handful speak out against it.
It's THAT SAME STUPID SMILE you get when you fantasize about the "good ol' days".
You know the ones...
The days where hanging Blacks was commonplace and acceptable. The days where Black people were powerless and subservient.
You know..."The Yessuh Massa Days"?
You SMILED THAT SMILE, didn't you? You know the one...THAT SAME STUPID SMILE?
So, go ahead...SMILE THAT SMILE for me.
You know the one...
It's THAT SMILE you get at the sight of the holy cross up in flames and men, women, and children standing around in white robes and hoods shouting, "N----r!".
It's THAT SMILE you perfected when three civil rights workers were murdered by members of the Klan.
It's THAT SAME STUPID SMILE that slowly spreads across your face when you see ignorant racist shouting "lynch him!"...or "I will not vote for a Black man!"......or "Bomb Obama!" while making gun gestures with their hand and shooting sounds.
It's THAT SAME STUPID SMILE you had when you saw McCain supporters pin an Obama sign on a monkey and you made excuses.
It's THAT SAME SMILE you'll have on your face if Obama is assassinated.
So, go ahead...SMILE THAT SMILE for me...
Some of you have been SMILING THAT SAME STUPID SMILE for generations and you pass it on to your children...
Come on now...you know the one...
You know THAT SMILE...so SMILE THAT SMILE!
Show me some teeth.
Why not?
Cling to your guns, your religion, and your HATRED...
That's YOUR America.
Remember this...
THAT SMILE...THAT SAME STUPID SMILE on your face is only a reflection of the hatred that germinates in your funked-up souls. So, when you SMILE...when you SMILE THAT SAME STUPID SMILE...you may as well have decaying, rotten, smelly, blacked-out teeth to match your innerself. That's the smile I see everytime you SMILE THAT SMILE.
Some of you here have THAT SMILE.
Most of you here will never admit to THAT SMILE.
Some of you here do not have THAT SMILE at all.
There is hope...
What puzzles me is how Obama is suddenly "Mixed" and NOT Black. Yet, he is voted FOR (by some) because of his being BLACK, and voted AGAINST (by some) because of his being BLACK.
I've READ where some bloggers who have "mixed" children AND/OR grandchildren consider them BLACK...(that's what they TYPED)...yet...Obama is NOT considered Black now, but "Mixed"???
Question...
Where were all the cries of bi-racial children (particularly Black/White) being "Mixed and NOT Black" during the slavery days/Jim Crow/The Civil Rights Movement? Was a "Mixed" person still a slave? Was a "Mixed" person still unable to drink from the fountain marked "Whites Only"? Was a "Mixed" person's head still split open and sprayed with fire hoses and bitten by German Shepherds?
I know it is a different day now, and TECHNICALLY he is "mixed/bi-racial/other"...but has deep-seated beliefs regarding race relations really changed where his being "Mixed/Bi-racial/Other" has no bearing? In other words, does it matter? And, who does it matter to and why?
So, tell me again...given the history of racism in this country regarding bi-racial offspring ...exactly what race does Barack Obama BASE his racial identity on? Personally, I think of him as a Black man, because that is what I have seen and/or experienced within my own family for generations and within my cultural community. A bi-racial child is welcomed, protected, and nurtured as a part of the Black race of people, and thought of as a "member" of the Black race of people. I remember when King was assassinated,...I was alive...so I've been around long enough to see for myself this particular "TRUTH" of my own.
Now, in all fairness...on the flip side of the coin...there are some Black people who REJECT the one drop rule put upon us by racist forefathers in the past and everything born of it, and to them he is NOT Black enough. He is an outcast of sorts. There are Blacks who are trying to "get back" to a so-called "purity" of the race by rejecting bi-racial bloodlines. Then you have Whites who are trying to "maintain" a so-called purity of the race by rejecting bi-racial bloodlines. The racist ball of confusion bounces on both sides of the court. BOTH races are guilty of this, and that's a fact.
Truth is, IMO...without having been raised with the man...I am almost postive that at some point Barack Obama has gone through his life ostracized and NOT finding acceptance in either race. He has experienced racism on both sides...and by visiting blogsites such as this one, watching the media...and everyday interactions with other people of other races in this country...he always will. THAT is what's a tragedy.
WHO he is and WHAT he is...is a Human Being FIRST...made in the image of God...who is a mixture of two races...yet TRULY claimed and/or accepted...based on MY OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCES ONLY...PREDOMINANTLY...by only one.
