# Obama election spurs race crimes around country



## Lucky13 (Nov 16, 2008)

By JESSE WASHINGTON, AP National Writer Jesse Washington, Ap National Writer – 1 hr 36 mins ago

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 Clark and researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report.


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## Vassili Zaitzev (Nov 16, 2008)

Well, sh$t, not good. I think that there was going to be race crimes if Obama was elected or not.


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## 109ROAMING (Nov 16, 2008)

I've heard of numerous places in New Zealand who have bets going when obama's gonna be shot

I spose this isn't really a surprise if McCain got in it would of proberly of just been the other way round


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## evangilder (Nov 16, 2008)

Political "dead pools" are nothing new. But what I think point of this article is that those who thought racism was gone in America are naive at best. Sadly, there are people that still judge a person by the color of their skin. Me, I hate everyone equally. Douchebags come in all colors.


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## FLYBOYJ (Nov 16, 2008)

evangilder said:


> Political "dead pools" are nothing new. But what I think point of this article is that those who thought racism was gone in America are naive at best. Sadly, there are people that still judge a person by the color of their skin. Me, I hate everyone equally. Douchebags come in all colors.


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## Njaco (Nov 16, 2008)

I don't know what they're bitchin' about. I seem to remember a similar situation when Rodney King was declared guilty.

But don't think I agree with a bunch of dopes whose IQ is lower than their shoe size.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Nov 16, 2008)

The article makes it seem like the whole United States is in chaos. I can't stand press articles like this. People outside of the US read it and that is what they think.


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## wilbur1 (Nov 16, 2008)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> The article makes it seem like the whole United States is in chaos. I can't stand press articles like this. People outside of the US read it and that is what they think.


So true adler


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## GrauGeist (Nov 16, 2008)

evangilder said:


> ...Douchebags come in all colors.



Amen!


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## Lucky13 (Nov 16, 2008)

Next one will probably make it sound like you're having a revolution again....


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## Amsel (Nov 16, 2008)

Not quite yet.


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## drgondog (Nov 19, 2008)

Lucky13 said:


> Next one will probably make it sound like you're having a revolution again....



Only if the Brits somehow regain control of colony.. then we have to kick ass for the third time (just kidding, Lucky)


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## Messy1 (Nov 19, 2008)

I figured there would be some morons in the U.S. who would do stuff such as this. Makes the whole of our country look bad. Acts like these have no place as far as I'm concerned, and I'm sure all on here would agree. Sad to see our country of so many tarnished by a small number of ignorant few.


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## pbfoot (Nov 19, 2008)

drgondog said:


> Only if the Brits somehow regain control of colony.. then we have to kick ass for the third time (just kidding, Lucky)


I can figure the first asskicking out but where was the 2nd


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## Vassili Zaitzev (Nov 19, 2008)

pbfoot said:


> I can figure the first asskicking out but where was the 2nd



The war of 1812 maybe? That's the only thing I can think of.


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## pbfoot (Nov 19, 2008)

Vassili Zaitzev said:


> The war of 1812 maybe? That's the only thing I can think of.


As well but that was a draw maybe even a loss for the US as they never achieved their goals


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## Vassili Zaitzev (Nov 19, 2008)

pbfoot said:


> As well but that was a draw maybe even a loss for the US as they never achieved their goals



Well, then I'm stumped.


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## Catch22 (Nov 19, 2008)

The only thing I can think of is WWII.


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## Vassili Zaitzev (Nov 19, 2008)

Catch22 said:


> The only thing I can think of is WWII.



Maybe


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## Maestro (Nov 19, 2008)

Lucky13 said:


> Next one will probably make it sound like you're having a revolution again....



Well, ironically I was going to ask the question... But not because of _that_ article, but because of a few comments I heard coming from peoples living in southern/middle-west states (i.e. Texas, Kansas). And most of them are not even racist comments. Here is an example...

**EDIT** : No, forget it, it was the wrong YouTube video... I can't seem to find the right one...


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## GrauGeist (Nov 19, 2008)

I think the war of 1812 was a technical victory for the U.S., since we managed to clear the British out of the states and have them agree to leave our shipping alone...

But in WWII, I'm thinking that we were on the same side...


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## Maestro (Nov 19, 2008)

GrauGeist said:


> I think the war of 1812 was a technical victory for the U.S., since we managed to clear the British out of the states and have them agree to leave our shipping alone...
> 
> But in WWII, I'm thinking that we were on the same side...



May be he was refering to the Secession War ? I think I heard somewhere that the British were helping the rebels "from under the table"... Giving them weapons and ammos.

But I could be wrong. My knowledge of that war is rather limited.


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## pbfoot (Nov 19, 2008)

GrauGeist said:


> I think the war of 1812 was a technical victory for the U.S., since we managed to clear the British out of the states and have them agree to leave our shipping alone...
> 
> But in WWII, I'm thinking that we were on the same side...


Suggest you check that out ....your main goal was the taking of your northern neighbour


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## FLYBOYJ (Nov 19, 2008)

pbfoot said:


> Suggest you check that out ....your main goal was the taking of your northern neighbour


There was no "Northern Neighbor" during that period.

_"The land occupied by Canada was inhabited for millennia by various aboriginal peoples. Beginning in the late 15th century, British and French expeditions explored and later settled the Atlantic coast. France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763 after the Seven Years' War. *In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. This began an accretion of additional provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy from the United Kingdom, highlighted by the Statute of Westminster in 1931, and culminating in the Canada Act in 1982 which severed the vestiges of legal dependence on the British parliament."*_


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## GrauGeist (Nov 19, 2008)

In a brief summary of the war of 1812:

One of the main reasons why we went to war with Britain in 1812, was that the British were seizing American merchant ships and impressing the crews.

In the years leading up to 1812, the British declared that any American merchant ships trading in "enemy" ports were subject to seizure. And the British did just this on many occasions. This eventually escalated into the declaration of war by the United States in 1812.

As far as the war itself went, it was fairly even as far as victories and losses by both sides until Jackson routed the British forces during the battle of New Orleans.

Just before the battle of New Orleans, diplomats drew up the Treaty of Ghent were both sides agreed to return to the status quo from before the war. I think this was in early 1815...

It's been a while since I studied the War of 1812, so my recollections are a bit dusty


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## Maestro (Nov 19, 2008)

Oh... Thanks for the info.


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## parsifal (Nov 20, 2008)

posting wwii as the second british loss to the us is a bit ironic.....

I dont think the war was a british or american loss...it was a victory for the allies and the soviets. However the "peace" that followed combined with the terms of lend lease (basically in 1941 the brits had to prove they were completely out of cash to convince a reluctant congress to the bill) was an unmitigated disaster for british power and influence. britain was painted as the epitomy of colonialism, and all that was bad with that creed.

Under-financed, and facing huge prejudices because of that colonial past, british industry and commerce took a nose dive in the post wwii world, from which it has never recovered.

There is your lasting defeat


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## 109ROAMING (Nov 20, 2008)

GrauGeist said:


> In a brief summary of the war of 1812:
> 
> One of the main reasons why we went to war with Britain in 1812, was that the British were seizing American merchant ships and impressing the crews.
> 
> ...




Thanks for the info

Until now I had no idea of what sparked the War


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## Captain Dunsel (Nov 20, 2008)

I don't like Obama's politics, but I pray he doesn't stop a bullet. It would be a disaster for the US, showing the world that we're an immature, violence-prone country. 

CD


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