America's remaining racists

This is indeed a wondrous time. Countless folks like myself never ever expected to see a black President of the United States in our lifetime

But we as a nation still have a long march ahead of us. .

Xenophobia and racism are constantly stoked in the national media and in some state legislatures. Millions listen to firebrands like Lou Dobbs, MIchelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage. Smooth-talking spokespersons from anti-immigrant organizations are guests on national TV shows without letting on that their patriarch is the infamous racist John Tanton. Here in Arizona, we have the showboat, racial-profiling sheriff Joe Arpaio (now under federal investigation) and the ever-ranting State Sen. Russell Pearce with his xenophobic friends Glenn Spencer, Rusty Childress, and Chris Simcox. In Congress there is Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia who said, "I'm not comparing him (President Obama) to Adolf HItler. What I'm saying is there is the potential." (AP last Nov. 10)

The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that there are at least 926 hate groups in the US. (That is more than a 50% increase in the last nine years.) And there are at least 630 hate websites. Our country is plagued by 173 nativist, anti-immigrant groups (17 of them here in Arizona.) The Ku Klux Klan, which began in 1865, presently has 186 groups and 52 web sites. There are 196 US Neo-Nazi groups with 89 web sites.

It is less than fifty years since legions of Americans listened to the call of leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez and took to the streets. Now a black family calls the White House home. In some ways, that is amazing. Maybe brushing aside the remaining racists, xenophobes and nativists won't take such a long march after all.

(For ongoing detailed information, go to the Southern Poverty Law Center's web site: www.intelligencereport.org)