One Step Forward, Two Million Steps Back

Meanwhile, in the What The Flying Fuck Department, we have this amazing and distressing story about prevalent, pernicious racism in America in the wake of Obama's victory.

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. "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."

Seriously? Seriously, what the fuck? "Let's hope somebody wins" a fucking assassination pool? I am at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to dealing with drooling mouthbreathers like this, much as I am at a disadvantage in dealing with anti-gay bigots, because I don't understand them, and by don't understand I mean I don't have the first fucking clue of how people can actually think this way in 2008. I'm not blind to their existence--that's not the part I'm having trouble conceptualizing--but I can't begin to wrap my brain around what it means to think that way about fellow human beings. Like to the point that you think the world is ending and hope that a man, a husband and father, will be murdered just because he's black and happens to hold the highest office in the country. I freely admit to having biases of my own--Mormons are tops on that list these days--but I don't wish death and destruction on them, and still manage to evaluate individual people as people first, with my main criteria being do you treat other people well and are you honest and reliable? Utter vitriol and hatred are things I reserve for individuals I know personally and for whom I have indisputable evidence of being shithead blackguards.

Hanging effigies? Burning crosses? Leaving boxes of shit on somebody's doorstep? Encouraging little kids to chant for a murder? All because... the black guy won. And/or you suspect the person you're targeting voted for the black guy for president. All across the fucking country.

Way to go, America. At least I'm not just fixated on the gay thing when I get depressed about the state of the nation now.