No country will be racist free, and the US is no different. No matter what measures are put in place by governments and socially around the world, there will always be a small minority of ignorant people who can hate another human being purely on the colour of their skin.
Since Barack Obama was elected as the 44th President of the United States of America, the number of race crimes has dramatically increased.
The Telegraph in the UK is reporting that there have literally been hundreds of incidents of race related hate crimes since the November 4th US Presidential Election.
Some of the incidents reported on The Telegraph website:
- Four North Carolina State University students admitted writing anti-Obama comments in a tunnel designated for free speech expression, including one that used a racial slur and said he should be shot 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. 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 — around ages 7 to 9 — 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, New Jersey, and Apolacan Township, Pennsylvania. Cross burning has been used as an intimidation tactic by white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
- 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."
Even though Barack Obama has been elected as the next US President, does not mean that the issue of race will go away anytime soon. I find it beyond comprehension to think that there are parents out there, spreading fear and hatred to their children based on the colour of another person's skin.
But who are these people? Well... one just has to look at the John McCain and Sarah Palin Republican supporters in a YouTube clip that I posted earlier.
It is time to grow up. It is time for change. Violence just creates more violence, and Obama should be judged based on the content of his character and not the colour of his skin.
- Beju -
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