Is Racism Still Alive in America?

For people throughout the world, the election of Barak
Obama to the U.S. presidency seemed to signal in a
new era, that of the end of racism. Indeed, Obama's election was a
momentous
occasion and, one would have hoped, a milestone on the road to
reconciliation.
However, some recent, very ominous events cast a worrisome veil over the

democratic process in the United States.

There are many reasons that can explain
Obama's election
as President: his penetrating intelligence, a wonderfully orchestrated
campaign,
and a life devoted to public service in which each action was like a
brilliant
chess move by a master of the game. But there were other factors of
equal
significance.

Before Obama's election, not only was
the country
involved in wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, in what increasingly
looks like a quagmire, particularly in the latter country. The economy
was in a
desperate state, and unemployment and health costs were rising. There
was a
feeling of widespread malaise in the country believed by many to be the result of an incompetent president
manipulated by darker
forces, an opinion widely shared throughout the world.

After the initial high of Obama's
election, there is now
a changed atmosphere n the country. Violence is an inescapable companion
to
racism. And violence, or violent outbursts racially motivated, are
certainly on
the increase in the U.S. Threats against President Obama have increased
by 400%
since President George W. Bush left office, the highest numbers on
record.

What makes this situation particularly
worrisome is that
they come not only from fringe elements in society. Thinly disguised,
they also
originate from certain political leaders who seem intent on creating an
atmosphere of violence and disrespect around the President and the
presidency.

How else can one interpret this
statement by House
Minority Leader John Boehner? "There is a political rebellion going on
in
America, and what we saw last night
was just a glimpse of it," he stated after last November's elections.
One
doesn't need to be a psychologist or a linguist to understand that such
statements stoke the fires of rebellion, and are all the more dangerous
when
coming from a leader holding one of the most powerful offices in
Washington.

As if this weren't enough, Boehner
added, "Clearly it's
been a difficult year. For us it's been like standing in front of a
machine
gun--liberal ideas every single week, one after another. I think it
really has
the American people concerned. They are scared to death, actually."

Not to be upstaged, the ineffable Mrs.
Palin,
vice-presidential candidate of the Republican Party during the last
presidential
election--and an avid hunter--told her Tea Party supporters at a recent
event in
Nevada, "Don't
retreat, reload."

If to these dangerous words--rebellion,
machine gun,
scared to death, reload--one adds the recent attacks on Democratic
legislators
during discussion of the health care bill in which they were spat on and

threatened with racial and homophobic insults one has the makings of a
racially
charged--and extremely dangerous--atmosphere in the country.

Although there are other causal factors
as well--political, social, economic--there can be no doubt that racism plays
an
important role.

The country is now facing an increase
of 244 percent
increase in the number of Patriot groups (militias and other
organizations that
see the federal government as their enemy) in 2009. At the same time,
there has
also been an increase in the number of anti-immigration groups
throughout the
country. These groups grew from 173 in 2008 to 309 in 2009, a rise of
nearly 80
percent.

Are we facing a setback after so much
work done in the
last decades to overcome division and hatred in America? As Mr.
Doudou Diene, a former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Contemporary
forms
of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance,
stated
after visiting several states in the U.S., "Racism and racial
discrimination have profoundly and lastingly marked and structured
American
society.

The U.S. has made decisive progress.
However, the historical, cultural and human depth of racism still
permeates all
dimensions of life and American society."