> 5/30/2008: Commentary: Obama in the "Crosshairs":
>
> This is a subject that has many concerned and is not just rhetoric but
> a genuine concern. In recent weeks, the role of race in the Democratic
> primaries has been increasingly discussed. And while racist
> caricatures and jokes about threats against Obama's life have been
> widely condemned, they seem to reflect an undeniable element of racism
> that still exists in the country and could play an unknown role in a
> general election. A quite poll among those who are watching this event
> unfold, 80%% state that someone will attempt the very thing all fear,
> an attempt on the life of Obama. It is the lone wolf that has many
> concerned.
>
> "There is no question that the possibility of violence directed at
> Obama, is the elephant in the middle of the room," says Peter Fenn,
> adjunct professor of political management at George Washington
> University, to describe the media's careful coverage of the issue.
> "There is a hypersensitivity about this issue. And in one sense, there
> should be because you don't want to put the idea out there. But you
> also get overanalysis, like with Hillary's comments about RFK."
>
> Last week, Hillary Clinton's comments about the 1968 assassination of
> Kennedy caused an uproar among those who believe that the candidate
> wanted to bring up the security issue surrounding Obama.
>
> Fenn says that he was catching a flight at Dulles International
> Airport last year when an African-American woman told him that Obama
> shouldn't run. "She said, 'They're going to kill him.' African-
> Americans are more worried about it."
>
> And polls bear out that perception. Fifty-nine percent of Americans,
> and 83 percent of African-Americans, said they were concerned "that
> someone might attempt to physically harm Barack Obama if he's the
> Democratic nominee for president," according to an ABC News/Washington
> Post poll from March 2. Twenty-four percent of those polled said they
> were "very concerned" about that possibility. That is putting it
> politely.
>
> The latest controversy centered on a depiction of Obama in the cross
> hairs of a rifle used that appeared on the cover of Georgia's Roswell
> Beacon newspaper. The controversy focused on the image, though the
> story, which included interviews with several white supremacists
> threatened by Obama's candidacy, reflected a deeper reality.
>
> Thomas Stevenson, a carpenter who lives near Atlanta, told the
> newspaper, "Some idiot out there's going to put a bullet in that
> silver-tongued devil and then there'll be a race war. There are some
> in our movement who are preparing for war, even praying for it."
>
> The Beacon was heavily criticized for the image, and the local Holiday
> Inn announced it would stop doing business with the paper. The
> newspaper's publisher, John Fredericks, defended the story, saying,
> "Good, bad or ugly, we tell the truth."
>
> As the African-American presidential candidate who has come closest to
> the nomination in U.S. history, Obama received Secret Service
> protection last year at the earliest date ever in a presidential
> campaign.
>
> After receiving information that caused him concern over Obama's
> safety in April 2007, Sen. Dick Durbin said that he approached
> congressional leaders to discuss Obama's security situation. "I knew
> the crowds were large & but some of the other information given to us,
> unfortunately, I think, raised a concern among many of Obama's
> friends," Durbin told reporters.
>
> And Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff soon authorized the
> protection, which consists of three shifts working eight hours each to
> cover Obama 24 hours a day.
>
> Mark Potok, a civil rights expert at the Southern Poverty Law Center,
> has been tracking the views of white supremacists for years.
>
> Last February, he noticed an increase in racist attacks and
> threatening remarks about Obama on the Internet.
>
> "There is plenty of unpleasant stuff out there, "N***** this, N*****
> that" and it's been going on for the better part of six months," he
> said.
>
> But since then, the level of vitriol has remained stable. "I don't
> think there's been any big increase in the kinds of things we're
> seeing," Potok says, adding that many of the white supremacist sites
> know that they're being monitored and users tend to be careful about
> posting violent threats. It is the lone wolf that is the major factor.
>
> Potok passes along violent threats to the Department of Homeland
> Security, including a recent e-mail sent to the Southern Poverty Law
> Center that warned: "ATTENTION, IF OBAMA BECOMES PRESEDANT I WILL KILL
> HIM MYSELF MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT."
>
> Prominent white supremacists, including former Louisiana state
> representative and Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke, have
> condemned Obama in subtler terms.
>
> Duke recently issued a statement denouncing Obama for his ties to the
> Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the candidate's former pastor who stirred up
> controversy with his conspiracy theories, and because his "ultimate
> loyalty" lies with "his fellow African-Americans."
>
> While previous African-American presidential candidates, such as the
> Rev. Jesse Jackson, were the target of racist threats, they were not
> campaigning in the age of the Internet and they were not nearly as
> successful as Obama.
>
> The real possibility that an African-American could win the White
> House in November, along with the anonymity of the Web, which lends
> itself to expressing extreme views, has galvanized a certain segment
> of the population, explains John G. Geer, political science professor
> at Vanderbilt University.
>
> "Is Obama being black raising security issues, the answer is,
> unfortunately, yes," he says. "Because there are more people out
> there, hate groups who are going to make certain kinds of statements
> and claims that will alert the Secret Service to be on their guard."
>
> "There is a portion of the population who will be very unhappy about
> Obama, not due to his policies but simply because he's black, and
> there will be even more of an increase in these racist views as the
> general election rolls around."
>
> In addition to the hate spouted by extremists, race has become an
> issue for the candidate in other, more subtle ways.
>
> In exit polls taken after the recent West Virginia primary, two in 10
> white voters said the race of the candidate was a factor in their
> vote, second only to the numbers in the exit poll in Mississippi.
> Sixteen percent of white voters in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, North
> Carolina, Indiana, Kentucky and Oregon say that race was an important
> factor in their vote, according to an ABC News analysis of exit polls
> from those states.
>
> Obama recognized that race had been an issue in the campaign,
> particularly after the South Carolina primary, during his speech on
> race in March. He acknowledged the country's racial stalemate but
> asserted that "Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and
> white, I have never been so naive as to believe that we can get beyond
> our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single
> candidacy particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own."
>
> One Obama supporter, the first elected African-American mayor of
> Macon, Ga., knows all too well about being targeted by racists.
>
> The day after he was elected in 1999, Jack Ellis says he "was out
> thanking voters on the street and I reached out to shake a white
> gentleman's hand. And he looked in my eye and said, 'A n***** will
> never be my mayor.' I told him, 'I will be the mayor of all the
> people, including you.' The last time that happened was in the Army,
> and I hit the guy in the nose."
>
> Ellis also received notes laced with violent threats, and racists
> threw bricks through windows of his campaign office and tossed trash
> on his lawn.
>
> "The racism was more severe than I anticipated, and it jolted me that
> it could be so blatant, that some people couldn't get beyond it," he
> says. "There are a percentage of white people in this state and
> elsewhere who cannot bring themselves to vote for a [black]
> candidate."
>
> Ellis, 62, remembers the days of segregation when he was forced to use
> water fountains labeled "colored," and he believes Obama will be able
> to bridge the gaps.
>
>
>