This AP report is just sickening.
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.
November 15th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Sickening, yes. Surprising, no. There has been an undercurrent of this in America since its beginning. It has dominated and sickened our nation’s soul, its politics, its culture for centuries. Since the civil rights movement many White Americans have wanted to ignore it, pretend it didn’t exist any more. Sort of the Voldemort of the late 20th century.
The positive side is its a shrinking minority. “Hundreds” of incidents is their disbelief that this could really happen. America has made a statement and a choice, and as the toxins sweat out of the system they’ll be more visible for a while. As Obama said last summer, we can overcome racism but it won’t be pretty and it won’t be easy.
November 16th, 2008 at 1:20 am
We can, and we should overcome racism, but honestly I’m sort of tired of the hidden racism as well. A lot of this exists, and it’s time the cold light of truth was shone on it.
How many 24/7 stories of missing black girls have their ever been? Hispanic girls? Nope. Want to guarantee 24/7 programming, put on a story of a missing white girl. If she’s blonde, so much the better.
The idiot who carved a backwards B in her face to try and drum up racial hatred against Obama. Speaks for itself, really, doesn’t it?
How about the whispered campaign that Obama was a Muslim? Somehow if he was a white guy named John Smith, I doubt that would have happened.
Or the message that McCain and Palin sent in the final weeks of the campaign: we don’t know who Barack Obama is. He’s not like us. Oh, really? In what way?
All these are hidden racist messages, and it’s time we stopped tolerating them and stopped just shrugging and blowing them off.
November 16th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
We have similar displays of hatred against Palin (not to mention Bush). I think the inferences offered are insufficient to explain the broader pattern of behavior Americans exhibit in this political environment. What is note worthy is that many fail to see hatred if it does not come in a manner they expect to see it (or find it politically incorrect). Yes we have racists in America, but we also have people equally full of hate who openly express it as political speech (Florida as well as other “well meaning” liberals). We must respect all diversity, not just certain categories.
November 16th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Stacy – Nicely said. The whole red-blue thing makes me barf. It’s sort of like bread and circusses, actually, distracting people from the much more pressing (economic, technological, energy, etc.) issues we face. Our team has a wide, wide range of people from across the ideological spectrum. I have never asked, but I would venture that the senior people on our research and leadership team at the Institute are more weighted toward the conservative side of the aisle, while the younger members are liberal to pretty far left. But we share a joint interest in understanding how economies grow and prosper.
November 16th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
When Obama won in Iowa, it was evident that racism was finally waning in the USA. It says a lot that these events that were mentioned didn’t happen, in any large scale manner, before the election
One interestng example of racism is how “Blacks” are being blamed for the failure of propositon 8 passing in California, even though African Americans are only 10% of the population.
November 16th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Stacy, agree. The attacks on Palin that used the C-word and the like are the same source of hate.
November 16th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
I don’t agree with Stacy. There is a clear qualitative difference between burning a cross on someone’s yard and ridiculing Palin’s Alaskan twang. That should be obvious. I don’t accept Stacy’s apologies for those sorts of racism. There have been all sorts of reports out recently suggesting that Palin’s taunts of Obama during the campaign (i.e palling around with terrorists, not one of us) caused a drastic spike in threats against Obama, according to the Secret Service. Has anyone heard about increased threats against Palin due to some liberal’s tasteless mocking? Me neither. People like Stacy want to hijack the notion of tolerance so as to excuse the worst kind of social speech and behavior. We are under no obligation to do so.
November 17th, 2008 at 12:36 am
The haters with their pre-Enlightenment fundamentalist mindset are hard to convince to love thy fellow man.
November 17th, 2008 at 12:38 am
Why not condemn hatred rather than point to the “other side” and say they hate to? Statement like that are kinda like “But he started it!” And as emotionally intelligent.
November 17th, 2008 at 1:08 am
Good points and makes me re-think. All comments, whether hate-based or not, are not equivalent.
November 17th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Good comments, but every single one assumes that these stories of racism are all true.
Look at the source. The “Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center” is hardly a disinterested party. This is not the Census Bureau collecting these statistics.
Sorry, I want more proof than this. Sadly, the AP is just puffing something from a special interest group without doing any additional investigation themselves.
That’s what a lot of so called journalism is these days.
November 17th, 2008 at 11:00 am
As with Obama’s speech on race last summer (was it really just last summer?) this exchange is part of the long delayed national discussion on race. For the last 20-odd years its been swept under the carpet, now with a Black president it can’t be ignored. And until we talk about it we can’t really think about it or start to absorb the lessons.
One of which is the complexity of the subject, and all kinds of prejudice. Like gays in California — White conservatives may have been surprised that African-American evangelicals were socially very conservative; and white liberals surprised that people who had suffered so much could be prejudiced against another minority. Which will bring out the roles of famous gay Blacks like James Baldwin, Billy Strayhorn (Duke Ellington’s songwriter) or Bayard Rustin (Martin Luther King’s main strategist).
Part of Obama’s being transformative will not be his policies, or his race, but his intelligence and directness in leading Americans through thinking about many hard subjects.
November 17th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
The Southern Poverty Law Center is a highly respected institution. I have a hard time thinking they would make stuff up.
Agree with Michael about Obama.
November 18th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Swordsman’s right about the Southern Poverty Law Center, but also let’s not underestimate AP. As a co-op of hundreds of local newspapers, they have the resources to check out these stories and I’d be amazed if they hadn’t documented many incidents. The mention of local police also indicates that these aren’t rumors.
The story lists several instances around the country, which indicates that AP did the groundwork. It also credits four AP reporters and a researcher, indicating that they didn’t just print a press release.
My guess is that AP used SPLC as a national organization to get a national quote to support their research.
November 19th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
I don’t care if the SPLC is “highly respected”. Quite frankly, they make their living from documenting racial strife. They have an incentive to report this kind of thing. I’d like an audit!
As for the AP story itself, maybe I’m just a little more critical in my reading comprehension, but most of the quotes are oversensitive, second hand BS, like this, “Obama has received more threats than any other president-elect, authorities say.”
What authorities? Based on what metric? Who is collecting this information, compiling it, and doing the statistics?
Sorry, I’m just very, very skeptical. And, quite frankly, I fault the entire news media for this, not just the AP, and not just the issue of race. In general, the news media is too accepting of information from advocacy organizations. Their motives are never questioned, and they should be.
November 20th, 2008 at 12:07 am
I’ll bet the Secret Service has data on threats made against presidential candidates. But I don’t think they have been taught to share.
November 20th, 2008 at 9:09 am
I’ll bet the Secret Service has data on threats made against presidential candidates. But I don’t think they have been taught to share.
No doubt you are right. But how many of those threats are credible? For example, the widely reported story of the 2 “skinheads” that were plotting to assassinate Obama was totally bogus. The guys wrote about their plot on their Facebook page! Not a credible threat.
Considering that George W. Bush enjoyed books and movies made fantasizing about his assissination, and all the post-2000 election nonsense, I’d guess that Bush was the most threatened President Elect. But like the AP, that’s just speculation on my part.