(NAME-MCE) Election spurs 'hundreds' of race threats, crimes

[Aukram Burton]

Election spurs 'hundreds' of race threats, crimes
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.
Pass this on folkes.


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Aukram Burton
Multicultural Education/Diversity
Jefferson County Public Schools
Diversity, Equity and Poverty Programs
3332 Newburg Rd.
Louisville, Kentucky 40218
Phone: (502) 485-7075
Fax: (502) 485-3630
aukram.burton at jefferson.kyschools.us
http://www.jcpsky.net/mcc
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Member of National Association for Multicultural Education
                       http://www.nameorg.org
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