According to a disturbing Yahoo news story, there has been a significant increase in bias crimes since Obama's election. Remember, Obama won this election by over 8.5 million votes and although still unsettled by 365 to 173 electoral votes. These have been the highest margins since Bush I beat Michael Dukakis twenty years ago.
Jon Stewart on The Daily Show has coined a name for this contagious fear that is running through some white people who are buying guns at rates never seen before: Baracknophobia.
It's source: Fox News!
On November 13th, Stewart put together a series of clips coming from the sewer that calls itself "fair and balanced." Click here to watch.
With the election over, there is less reason for people to be glued to their television sets so the cable news stations--CNN, MSNBC, Fox--are drumming up news. Mostly it's who is going into the Obama cabinet: Will Hillary be chosen for Secretary of State, or perhaps Bill Richardson?
Will Governor Paterson appoint Nita Lowey, Caroline Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., or Andrew Cuomo to fill the Senate seat if Hillary is tapped?
Or where the Obamas will send their daughters to school in DC. Will it be Sidwell or Georgetown County Day?
What's happening at some of these fancy private schools is chilling. I was told about one prestigious country day school in the south where administrators had to devise a special program because administrators and teachers were hearing the echos of Fox News: Obama is a terrorist, a radical, that America is about to be radically remade into a Marxist state, that Barack Obama was just like Adolf Hitler, a comparison made by Republican Congressman Paul Broun from Georgia, and reported on Fox News. The few African American students enrolled in the school were being isolated. Things were escalating.
These children were obviously parroting what their parents were listening to and saying at home. What is this all about?
This is not the hope and change that the majority of American voters were talking about. How has it been distorted?
It seems that high school entitled are not the only ones who are experiencing outbursts of racism. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on Saturday that a fraternity at LaSalle University was suspended for shouting racial slurs at African American students on campus. In addition, St. Joseph's University has a planned vigil after racial graffiti appeared in a classroom. And African American students at Lehigh University have demanded curricular changes and a diversity officer after racial epithets were hurled.
The instances are not limited to Pennsylvania. Similar incidents were reported at North Carolina State and Baylor.
"The only surprising part about it all is that it's happening on college campuses," said Melissa Harris-Lacewell, associate professor of politics and African American studies at Princeton University. "It's not surprising that, in the aftermath of an election where there is greater political power for African Americans, we would see a resurgence of racism and white supremacy."
It might not be surprising, but it's up to all of us to make it unacceptable.
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