Is The Rise In Hate Crimes Because Obama Got Elected?

Certainly more cross burnings, racial epithets being scrawled on cars and homes along with black figures hung from nooses are being reported by the media more. Hate crime incidents from California to Maine are increasing maybe in an attempt to dampen the post-election glow of racial harmony and progress. School children have reportedly been heard singing and chanting "assassinate Obama."

According to Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, there have been "hundreds" of hate crime incidents since the election, which is more than usual. The Intellgence Project monitors hate crimes.

In Snellville, Georgia a school bus mate told Denene Miller's 9-year old daughter the day after the election: "I hope Obama gets assassinated." That very same night, someone vandalized her sister-in-law's front lawn and destroyed her Obama front lawn signs. The hate crime culprits also left two pizza boxes filled with human feces outside her front door.

Change for some people will not come easy. The fact that an African American has been elected president is the most profound change in the form of race since the Civil War. Hate crimes have existed for a very long time, and getting to the root cause of them may not come easy. The election of Barack Obama has made hate crimes more visible.

There have been other hate crime incidents since the Obama election.
Four North Carolina State University students admitted writing anti-Obama comments in a tunnel designated for free speech expression. They wrote: "Let's shoot that (N-word) in the head."

Standish, Maine also had a hate crime incident where a sign inside the Oak Hill General Store said: "Osama Obama Shotgun Pool." Customers could sign up to bet $1 on a date when Obama would be killed.

Hate crime graffiti was discovered in Long Island, New York where two dozen cars were spray painted with racial hate messages. Second and third grade students in Rexburg, Idaho were on a school bus singing "assassinate Obama."

In Mount Desert Island, Maine black figures were hung by nooses from trees in a show of more hate crimes since the election. And in New York City a black teenager was attacked and beat with a baseball bat on the night Obama was elected by four white men in another hate crime incident.

With the rise of these hate crimes since Barack Obama's election, some experts are viewing racism as a type of "cancer." Believing that hate crimes and its components will never be totally wiped out. William Ferris, senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina said: "Someone once said racism is like cancer, it's never totally wiped out." Maybe the election of Barack Obama will help to eradicate hate crimes altogether and we can all just get along.