Sen. Barack Obama's historic victory in the Democratic primaries, celebrated in America and across much of the world as a symbol of racial progress and cultural unity, has also sparked an increase in racist and white supremacist activity, mainly on the Internet, according to leaders of hate groups and the organizations that track them.Read the whole thing.
Neo-Nazi, skinhead and segregationist groups have reported gains in numbers of visitors to their Web sites and in membership since the senator from Illinois secured the Democratic nomination June 3. His success has aroused a community of racists, experts said, concerned by the possibility of the country's first black president.
"I haven't seen this much anger in a long, long time," said Billy Roper, a 36-year-old who runs a group called White Revolution in Russellville, Ark. "Nothing has awakened normally complacent white Americans more than the prospect of America having an overtly nonwhite president."
Such groups have historically inflated their influence for self-promotion and as an intimidation technique, and they refused to provide exact membership numbers or open their meetings to a reporter. Leaders acknowledged that their numbers remain very small -- "the flat-globe society still has more people than us," Roper said. But experts said their claims reveal more than hyperbole this time.
"The truth is, we're finding an explosion in these kinds of hateful sentiments on the Net, and it's a growing problem," said Deborah Lauter, civil rights director for the Anti-Defamation League, which monitors hate group activity. "There are probably thousands of Web sites that do this now. I couldn't even tell you how many are out there because it's growing so fast."
Neo-Nazi and white power groups acknowledge that they have little ability to derail Obama's candidacy, so instead some have decided to take advantage of its potential. White-power leaders who once feared Obama's campaign have come to regard it as a recruiting tool. The groups now portray his candidacy as a vehicle to disenfranchise whites and polarize America.
Apparently Stormfront's seen an "explosion" of activity over the last year or so.
These folks are a small minority, although the Washington Post also reports today on a new survey, which finds that 3 in 10 Americans "acknowledge feelings of racial prejudice." Still, the poll finds an improvement in racial sentiment, with just 1 in 10 saying they wouldn't feel comfortable voting for a black president.
As I've noted before, we do see a miniscule extremist fringe, just a couple of percentage points nationally, that espouses the most disgusting racial supremist doctrines (see, "Barack Obama and the Political Psychology of Race").
Not only that, to the extent that bigotry's been a factor in electoral politics this year, it's been on the Democratic side, as Sister Toldjah points out in her post on Obama and the race card.
See also, "Obama Calls Out Republicans for "Campaign They'll Run."
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