Obama election spurs race crimes around country?
What should be done?
YAHOO-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.”
November 18th, 2008 at 7:21 am
I knew this was going to happen not matter what but Obama exacerbated this kind of thing with the way he ran his campaign.
November 18th, 2008 at 9:36 am
No, this is b.s. I had a black woman spit on my car because of a McCain sticker. She had a her Obama stickers all over her car a clearly pointed at my sticker before spitting. There are ignorant reactionaries all over the place; the author of the article could have easily told this story from the other perspctive but chose not to. Go figure.
November 18th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Oh.
My.
God.
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.
At least one physical attack?
Second graders?
Sheesh.
November 18th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
David
I find it more likely to believe that you misunderstand the article than to believe that you discount a story decrying the horrors of racism from which black Americans clearly still suffer.