The Dark Side Of The Election

We've seen a lot of jubilation and joy as Barack Obama's historic election changed America and the world. But one of those changes has been the racism backlash against African-Americans across the country.

Cross burnings. Schoolchildren chanting "Assassinate Obama." Black figures hung from nooses. Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars.

Incidents around the country referring to President-elect Barack Obama are dampening the postelection glow of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in America.

From California to Maine, police have documented a range of alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to at least one physical attack. Insults and taunts have been delivered by adults, college students and second-graders.

There have been "hundreds" of incidents since the election, many more than usual, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate crimes.

One was in Snellville, Ga., where Denene Millner said a boy on the school bus told her 9-year-old daughter the day after the election: "I hope Obama gets assassinated." That night, someone trashed her sister-in-law's front lawn, mangled the Obama lawn signs and left two pizza boxes filled with human feces outside the front door, Millner said.

She described her emotions as a combination of anger and fear.

"I can't say that every white person in Snellville is evil and anti-Obama and willing to desecrate my property because one or two idiots did it," said Millner, who is black. "But it definitely makes you look a little different at the people who you live with, and makes you wonder what they're capable of and what they're really thinking."

Potok, who is white, said he believes there is "a large subset of white people in this country who feel that they are losing everything they know, that the country their forefathers built has somehow been stolen from them."

That's pretty disturbing, both the "more than usual" and the "stolen from them" part.

These will not be the last incidents. Like lancing a boil, all of the hatred below the surface is erupting over this. It's going to require a lot of patience on both sides to get us through this, especially with tensions so high on the average American due to the economy.

When you feel like life is spiraling out of control, there are those who will lash out. What form will these outbursts will take? Vandalism? Threats? Or will there be something far more sinister?