Wednesday, October 22, 2008

I try not to indulge in too many outrage posts,

but honestly, this is almost more than I can take. The incident itself is bad enough, absolutely sickening in every way, but the fact that the authorities are writing it off as "just a prank" is even worse. Of course it was a threat to Obama, and of course it was racist. Who are they kidding? I was born and raised in the South, and spent 2 years working on a North Carolina college campus. Trust me when I tell you there is no other explanation for this event. Even if you credit part of their story ("We just found that dead bear. Really.") there's no way a bunch of Southern kids wouldn't have understood the racial implication of dressing the carcass in Obama signs and dumping him on campus.

For the record, I take a pretty dim view of laws against hate speech. If the students violated game regulations in shooting the bear, then by all means prosecute them for that, but I don't think there should necessarily be any legal action for the threat to Obama. Offering the culprits an official exoneration, though, is truly outrageous. I can't imagine what that chancellor thinks he's accomplishing by giving this viciousness a pass.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Race is the elephant in the room in this election. Don't be surprised if McCain wins.

BitterGrace said...

I won't be surprised. I'll be very sad, but not surprised.