Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Blood Red States

Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, a hate crime-monitoring group, says there have been hundreds of death threats and racial slurs hurled at the First Family-elect and those who supported them. According to Mr. Potok this mostly happens in my neck of the woods.

In North Carolina, four students at UNC wrote anti-Obama comments including: “Let's shoot that (N-word) in the head.” Mr. Obama has received more threats than any other president-elect in US history.

According to a local official in Rexburg, Idaho, second and third-grade students on a city school bus chanted “assassinate Obama.” Where do you think they learned to do that?

And it was two Tennessee geniuses who were arrested for plotting to kill African American students and then make a run on the president-elect with a shotgun.

Of course evil isn’t limited to the South. Customers at a general store in Standish, Maine were placing $1 bets on when the president-elect would be assassinated. A sign inside the Oak Hill General Store read: "Osama Obama Shotgun Pool." "Stabbing, shooting, roadside bombs, they all count," it said. At the bottom of the marker board was written, "Let's hope someone wins." Clearly these folks had been talking to the second-graders in Idaho.

These are just a few examples of the madness that is sweeping white America. It will, I suspect, only get worse. I fear for Mr. Obama’s life and the life of his family. I fear for the soul of my country. What at first looked like a moment of historical transformation of the Union may well spell the rebirth of the Confederacy and the KKK.

If you find a run on white sheets in your local Wal-Mart, it might be time to move to Canada.

1 comment:

AaronHerschel said...

Sad and distrurbing as this is, I think it was also inevitable. The run up to the election was spotted with plenty of assasination talk, too; though, of course, now the rage is trebled--having been rendered impotent (at least at the ballot box). But fear and hatred always accompany real change. Pres. Elect Obama's candidacy put to route over 200 years of racism in this country. Not to imply that racism is dead--it clearly is not. But the blase assumption of white political superiority and dominance has been dealt what I hope is a mortal blow. Even if an assasination were to succeed, the message in Obama's election would only be amplified. Martyrdom, while certainly not desirable, is an assurance of immortality. Or, as Obi-wan Kenobi said, "If you strike me down, Darth, I will become more powerful than you can imagine."