Stumble It!
Nov 20 2008
Change Doesn’t Happen Overnight
Unidad by Rafael Lopez, 2008
Since the election of Barack Obama to the US Presidency, many people in the media and the civilian world have obviously seen his victory as a positive step toward quelling the fears caused by racial tensions which have remained in the country since the Civil War. Obama remains a symbol of hope to those who thought they would never see a person of color take the highest office in the land. Obama election was a comfort to me In my life as a disabled man with a noticeably diverse group of friends and family (girlfriend included) in a nation which still seems to practice defacto and habitual forms of segregation on a daily basis by choosing who to befriend, whom to eat with or whom to date. So when a person of color was finally elected on November 4, I was able to smile in the hope that a more inclusive nation was rising from the ashes of so many years of division.
However, those hopes were dampened somewhat this past Saturday when I read an Associated Press report that hate crimes have risen in the hundreds nationwide. Racial tensions in the South are sprouting up graffiti, mock lynchings and even bets on how long it will be before the President-Elect is assassinated. In the North areas such as Pennsylvania, Maine, New York and New Jersey have reported several harassment incidents and even one cross burning was reported; and several incidents have sprung up in West Coast cities including some significant cases in California.
Here are just few of those cases:
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.
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.
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.
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.”
Source: Yahoo News and the Associated Press
I am of couse deeply troubled by this as a white, disabled man whose entire livelihood may not have been possible were it not for the dreams of Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln, the Kennedys, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Jimi Hendrix, Steven Hawking, Nellie Bly, Susan B. Anthony, Oprah Winfrey, FDR, the Dali Lama, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and countless others who have all done their parts to leave the world a little better than they first found it. America, the world and I owe them a great debt. Yet, often a person’s greatness is not measured by whether the past bears one’s name or one’s fame, but rather it lives on the heartbeats of those of us who wish to see a better future that bears the name of those who care for each other.
Please care for all our sakes.
A diverse group of educated individuals voted based on core issues that directly impact their lives and the lives of their children, that is why Obama was elected President on the United States. Unfortunately there will always be the ignorant racist, clinging onto that hate, radical divide and conquere mentality. That’s the way the haters do it. They can’t beat them so they attempt to instill fear. Did these people follow the campaign at all?, had they, they would know that the fear factor card didn’t even work for McCain. And boy did he try ….Had he and his “unique” running mate mentioned terrorist, muslim or losing the war one more time I would have screamed..ugh
Now, 365 versus 173 electoral votes later, we have racist cowards still running around trying to instill fear. It’s just sad :o(
It is very sad that in 2008 our world is still so racist. It is a matter of no one liking anything that is different from what they are accustomed to.
I am white. I am not a supporter of Obama. But it has absolutely nothing to do with him being half-african. I could care less about that. It is so sad that others can not see past that and they take their feelings out on other human beings just because they are afraid of someone who is different.
Kristy
www.mosaicmoments.today.com
www.rememberwhen.today.com
Great post– and you are gonna love what I am working on now! I love the Unidad poster. ~k
Good article, but it should be noted that many hate crimes are black-on-white too.
Well noted, Mark. But I don’t think that negates anything here anyway.
It is good to see that our nation voted on the merit of someone’s character than the color of their skin. I didn’t vote for obama because I don’t really agree with his policies but none the less its a great sign of progress. Hate will always exist in the world, it is a matter of how well we as a society deal with it.