Ugh. Peeped this over at AlterNet. Comes from the experts over at Southern Poverty Law Center, who read the hate websites so that we don’t have to.

“There’s a real fury out there in certain quarters,” said Mark Potok, director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project.

White supremacist groups boasted of a post-election surge of new members as well as overwhelming traffic to their websites. At least two hate groups – Stormfront and the Council of Conservative Citizens – said their websites crashed because of heavy traffic. Stormfront also claimed to have gained thousands of new members immediately after Obama was elected on Nov. 4. The League of the South, a neo-secessionist group, said it saw a surge in phone calls from potential members and that its web traffic increased sixfold.

Even before the election, racial rage began to break out across the country. Effigies of Obama appeared hanging from nooses on university campuses. And angry supporters of John McCain and Sarah Palin reportedly shouted “Kill him” and “terrorist” at a campaign rally. Racist graffiti targeting Obama abounded.

Law enforcement agencies say Obama has received more threats than any previous president-elect.

[…]

The Obama era comes after years in which white supremacists have successfully exploited the immigration debate – both providing racist propaganda that seeps into the popular culture and benefiting from the vilification of Latino immigrants. Mainly as a result of the bigotry and xenophobia surrounding the immigration debate, the number of hate groups operating in the United States has risen by nearly 50 percent – from 602 to 888 – since 2000.

Now, these groups have begun to turn their attention to Obama – distributing racist propaganda, filling Internet message boards with threats and messages of hate, and, in some cases, taking more direct action against minorities.

So just to recap, not only did George Bush allow climate change to get worse, invade a country for no reason, not catch bin Laden, and destroy the American economy — no that wasn’t enough. On his watch, hate groups in America rose by 50%. He really was one of the worst things that has ever happened to America. Note indeed that the hatred spread by the McCain-Palin campaign has, sadly, had a lasting impact.

Also, um – Scary for black folk, that’s for sure: cuz you know that since they can’t get to Obama, some of the ignorant, misguided nut jobs will be taking out their frustrations on their black and brown neighbors. I check out Stormfront every so often just to keep tabs on the people that want to kill us in their “racial holy war”. They like to call Obama “Obongo”. Cute, no? They seem really worried right now, among other issues, that white women are going to find black men more attractive than ever (eyerolls) because of the powerful image of Obama, a visibly um, employed, attractive and powerful black man.

While we are basking in the inaugural afterglow, let’s be careful out there and not hesitate to report hate crimes when we see them. Be careful out there. It’s still mostly super-cool and extremely fashionable to be black right now but this? — this is the part that’s not so cool. My hope though is that the Obama era ultimately will see a decline in hate groups’ appeal not further increases. Might take a few years…

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