Viscous Racism Sparked at Home and Abroad

This is profoundly sad to me.

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.'"

- AP via ABC

7 and 8 year olds chanting "assassinate Obama"? I nearly cried this morning. How awful.

In Germany, the Berlin chapter of the American Jewish Committee protested a statement released by Juergen Gansel, a state legislator and member of the extreme-right National Democratic Party. The statement was titled "Africa conquers the White House."

According to AFP news service, Gansel asserted that Obama hopes to destroy America's "white identity" and that multiculturalists in America are trying to destroy other "pure" national identities...

An Austrian journalist said on television that Americans must still be racists to make such a big deal about sending a black couple to the White House. He went on to say that he "wouldn't want the Western world to be directed by a black man." He said, "If you say that is a racist comment, you're right. Without a doubt."

In Poland, a legislator said that the election heralds "the end of the white man's civilization" and that Obama is a "crypto-communist" who would surely prove disastrous for America. He apologized for the assertions.

-NPR

I do not understand.

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!" And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen."

-Revelation

Amen.