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race baiting

Is anyone else worried that all of the vituperative race baiting at the McCain rallies portends an inauguration day assassination of President Obama?

I never would have thought that I would see a viable campaign for a Black president so early in my lifetime. I never thought our country would be coming out in such strong support for a Black candidate (of course, polls mean little pre-election, but it's still promising, notwithstanding potential Bradley effects). But I shoulda been more prepared for panicky race baiting--but in a "post-racial" world order in which blatant, open racism is becoming rarer, calls of "kill him!" and "terrorist!" scare the fuck out of me, even though I am generally vigilant about racism, subtle or otherwise.

This reminds me of that Boondocks strip, in which Cesar asked Huey what he would do if he were president, and Huey asked "you mean in the ten minutes between my confirmation and my untimely demise by sniper bullet?" Can you imagine what the rest of the world must think of us, much less the fallout that would happen in the event of an assassination? Supposedly, the impetus for the dismantling of segregation was in part due to Russian propaganda at the time, decrying our hypocrisy for championing freedom and democracy when our country had de jure segregation that operated to create inherently unequal races--we had to save face by paying some lip service to our mottoes of freedom and equality for all. Imagine our hypocrisy if we can't get through an election without raising the spectres of racially motivated violence and lynching.

Lots of articles on Obama's security detail, Lewis' remarks and their rebuffing by McCain, and some supporter drew a picture of Obama with a noose. No links though, because they're really depressing and infuriating. Just get out all your hate on hate here.

Full post as published by Law and Letters on October 14, 2008 (boomark / email).