In Florida, the cars were spray painted with words like "Oboma [sic] smokes crack"
And "Oboma [sic] is a Nigger"
In Indiana, the windows were broken, more hateful words were scrawled, and an American Flag was stolen.
So what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name, you know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."
In Nevada, fliers of Obama posing like a monkey, with a noose/lightbulb hanging over his head, were on the lightpoles.
In Georgia, they made Obama is monkey T-shirts. Hate groups like them so much, [warning: hate site linked] they sell them too under the motto "Buy this shirt from us, we won't deny being racist!"
You know he's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name. You know, he doesn't look like all of those other presidents on the dollar bills.
From a church:
From a T-shirt popular with Republicans:
On Republican TV sets around the country:
And yes, even in San Francisco:
Are many of us surprised by these images? Of course not.
What surprised us, what thrilled us was this:
You know, they said -- they said -- they said this day would never come.
They said our sights were set too high.
They said this country was too divided, too disillusioned to ever come together around a common purpose. But, on this January night, at this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we couldn't do.
Obama's not playing the race card. He's playing the Hope card. Hoping that America, and its media, will just say no to the agents of fear, of intolerance, and of hate.
When John McCain's offices are vandalized, when signs in front of churches call McCain a terrorist, when hate groups make money by calling him subhuman, then maybe he'll know what the race card is. But we all know that won't happen.
They'll never convince me that Obama's campaign is a bad thing, something to be ashamed of. Never.
Crossposted at Strategy 08
Edit I originally had the New Yorker cover up here. Some protested, saying that it was "satire". Of course, that's the same "excuse" that the makers of the Monkey shirt, the Bin Ladin shirt, and others have given.
That said, I've removed it because I think the motives of the New Yorker and the motives of these racists are obviously different. That said, the New Yorker cover got much more airtime than any of this - and that is a serious problem. You can disagree with me about this. I'd prefer we didn't turn this diary into being about the New Yorker, or art, when it's obviously about something much more significant.
Update 2 Thanks to Tommy Tutone for this reminder:
You can have your Tiger Woods, we have Senator McCain
Remember, Obama is the one playing the race card.