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Terrorism “Vibes” or Visible Resurgence of Racism?
Obama “Haters” Attacks must not be Brushed Off as Election "Fatigue"
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WACO-When KKK night riders took to the roads to terrorize Blacks after slavery ended, no one talked about it as though it was “sour grapes” over Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.
It was the first fruits of terrorism in America that saw the Klu Klux Klan rear its ugly head of hatred and terror against Black Americans that brought suffering and death to untold thousands.
Now, incidents around the country referring to President-elect Barack Obama are raising more serious concerns about racial progress and harmony and underscoring the fact that stubborn racism remains in America.
“What we are seeing after this election is very un-American behavior at a very defining moment in our history,” said McClellan County Commissioner and Waco Black activist historian Lester Gibson. “With all this Anti-American like rhetoric over the first Black president in history, we need to ask is: Is the enemy really within?”
As we hunt for Osama Bin Laden in the mountains of Pakistan and fight to tame terrorism in Afghanistan, our greatest challlenges could be in our own back yard.
Since Nov. 4 election, the real truth has come out about racism in America with incidents spreading from coast to coast that indicate that the dream of Martin Luther King Jr. is still elusive as racism and its roots are alive and being successfully passed from Civil Rights Era baby boomers to the youth in America.
In a Maine convenience store, an Associated Press reporter saw a sign inviting customers to join a betting pool on when Obama might fall victim to an assassin. The sign solicited $1 entries into "The Osama Obama Shotgun Pool," saying the money would go to the person picking the date closest to when Obama was attacked. "Let's hope we have a winner," said the sign, since taken down.
In North Carolina State University, four students admitted writing anti-Obama comments, including one comment that called for shooting the president-elect in the head.
In Idaho, elementary children on a bus were heard chanting that called for Obama to be “assassinated”.
In another incident a Black man had racial slurs on his windshield threatening actions against his home because he supported Obama.
Also, crosses have been reported burned in the yards of Obama supporters in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and cars spray painted in New York.
In Kilgore, Texas, a 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.
“Are we producing a generation of unpatriotic folks because these actions are not patriotic,” Gibson said. “It is a symbolic terrorist act against America and to aim at the new president and making these kinds of threats should be a hate crime and taken serious.”
Also, fallout from President-elect Obama’s election is the increase in gun sales.
Between Nov. 3 and Nov. 9, the Federal Bureau of Investigation received 374,000 requests for background checks on gun buyers - 49 per cent more than the same time last year.
According to Wikipedia, after its inception in 1865, Ku Klux Klan members adopted masks and robes that hid their identities and added to the drama of their night rides, their chosen time for attacks.
The Klan attacked black members of the Loyal Leagues and intimidated southern Republicans and Freedmen’s Bureau workers.
When they killed black political leaders, they also took heads of families, along with leaders of churches and community groups, because people had many roles.
Agents of the Freedmen's Bureau reported weekly assaults and murders of blacks.
History reveals armed guerilla warfare that killed thousands of Blacks and reports of masked men who often men shot into houses and burned them, sometimes with the occupants still inside. They drove successful black farmers off their land. Others were hanged.
Generally, it can be reported that in North and South Carolina, in 18 months ending in June 1867, there were 197 murders and 548 cases of aggravated assault.
The movement to suppress attacks on Blacks, Civil Rights activists and freedom fighters had to be squelched in 1874, 1944 and again in the 1960s.
“This is not just a reaction to a loss,” he said. “Some in the South are still fighting the Civil War.”
Several incidents even plagued Baylor University, a renowned Christian University in Waco, where three disturbing incidents occurred on campus.
In one incident on campus, a single clothesline rope that had been seen in a tree on campus. The individuals who discovered it believed it had the appearance of a noose. Baylor police are now in possession of the rope and continue to speak with students who observed the rope in the tree and are gathering additional information about the origin of the rope.
Police also investigated a small fire in a barbecue pit adjacent to Brooks Flats in which it was alleged several Obama/Biden campaign signs had been burned.
Later police investigated a disturbance outside Penland Hall on the Baylor Campus, where a shouting match had occurred between two small groups of white and African-American students.
Since that time Baylor President David Garland has been working to calm flames, fears and ease tensions on and off campus over fears over possible escalation in racial attacks.
“We are committed to maintaining the safety and unity of our campus community,” Garland said in a release about the incidents. “We believe that the incidents on our campus yesterday were irresponsible acts committed by a few individuals. As a community we condemn these terribly unfortunate events that do not represent the values we share as members of the Baylor family.”
Gibson hopes that the reports and trends will decrease and that the situation will not get worse or out of hand.
“Racism exists,” Gibson said. “People acting like this are not only Anti-American, but also are no better than Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden.”
It stands to wonder whether that these acts of violence and intimidation after the election of Barack Obama are strong symbolism and could be the precursor that raises the specter that some Americans could be plotting the glorious comeback of the dark “night rider” days, but this time with a more violent flavor.