Obama's Election Didn't Cure Racism

Remember when, just a few weeks ago, we thought the election of Barack Obama had dealt a major blow against racism in this country, when we temporarily were swept by a tidal wave of interracial harmony? Remember how some people were actually naive enough to assume that racism was over?

Well, now it turns out that Obama's victory has ignited a series of hate crimes against blacks and other ethnic minorities, especially Latinos.

Since the Nov. 4 election, there have been hundreds of incidents of abuse or intimidation apparently motivated by racial hatred, according to representatives of seven civil rights organizations who held a news conference in Washington to denounce the abuses. Some compared the recent surge in racial incidents to the rise in discrimination against Muslims after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

"We've seen everything from cross burnings on lawns of interracial couples to effigies of Obama hanging from nooses to unpleasant exchanges in schoolyards," said Mark Potok, director of the Alabama-based Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

All the election proved is that obviously the majority of Americans are not racists. And that's not just counting those who voted for Obama, because surely there are many Americans who are not racists and voted for Sen. John McCain.

But the small minority of people who suffer from this terrible ailment — those who are consumed by racial or ethnic hatred — are not getting any better. The election didn't cure them. In fact, now there is evidence that Obama's election actually worsened their mean-spirited condition.

"In the wake of an election that sends a message to the world about freedom, it seems incongruous to raise the specter of hate in America," Janet Murguia, president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza, told reporters. "Hate did not win the election, but it has certainly reared its head in local communities across the country."

It started on election night, when two teenagers assaulted a black man on Staten Island, N.Y., as they shouted racial epithets about Obama. A few days later, a New Jersey family who supported Obama found a charred wooden cross on their lawn — a painful reminder of the intimidation tactics used by the Ku Klux Klan against African-Americans. KKK graffiti appeared along a popular walking and bicycling trail in Hallowell, Maine.

The list of these unfortunate incidents is long.

Perhaps the most blatant act of racism recently was the one committed Nov. 8 on New York's Long Island. That's where Ecuadorian Marcelo Lucero was stabbed to death — all because a group of seven youths was allegedly on a quest to hunt down and attack Latinos. Calling it a hate crime, police have charged one teenager with murder and six others with lesser crimes.

While these incidents can be attributed to resentment against Obama's election when blacks are the victims, some say the increased violence against other ethnic minorities can be blamed on the anti-immigrant climate of the recent past. They say that for immigrants who have fallen victim to discrimination, this is not a new, postelection trend but one that goes back a few years. While the total number of hate crimes reported nationally between 2003 and 2007 remained steady, according to FBI statistics, attacks on Latinos grew by 40 percent during the same time period.

"The hysterical tone of many of the media pundits and the harsh qualities of rhetoric pushed by some policymakers at a local level have created a toxic environment which is promoting violence against immigrants and immigrant communities," said Karen Narasaki of the Asian American Justice Center.

Amazingly, we are seeing a surge in not only hate crimes but also membership applications in far-right and white-supremacist groups. Obama's election reportedly has given new life to extremist groups, including the KKK, which has begun to resurface after many years of obscurity.

"I think we're in a worrying situation right now, a perfect storm of conditions coming together that could easily favor the continued growth of these groups," said Potok, whose organization monitors extremist groups.

"We have seen a fairly dramatic backlash over the last three or four weeks, since the final weeks of the campaign," Potok told a Reuters reporter. "These (incidents) are merely gut-level reactions from a lot of people. … There is a substantial subset of white people in America who are boiling angry over this."

Yet given the fact that we live in a democracy and that Obama was elected by an impressive majority of the American people, what should we call those who refuse to accept the fact that a black family is moving into the White House?

Un-American? Is that an accurate way to describe the white-supremacist extremists who would turn this country into Nazi Germany?

Of course it is! But we've known that all along, haven't we?

Unfortunately, electing Obama was not enough to cure their chronic racism.

To find out more about Miguel Perez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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