Election Spurs 'Hundreds' of Race Threats, Crimes

NYT/AP: Election Spurs 'Hundreds' of Race Threats, Crimes
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: November 15, 2008

Cross burnings. Schoolchildren chanting ''Assassinate Obama.'' Black figures hung from nooses. Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars. Incidents around the country referring to President-elect Barack Obama are dampening the postelection glow of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in America.

From California to Maine, police have documented a range of alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to at least one physical attack. Insults and taunts have been delivered by adults, college students and second-graders. There have been ''hundreds'' of incidents since the election, many more than usual, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate crimes....

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Grant Griffin, a 46-year-old white Georgia native (said): ''I believe our nation is ruined and has been for several decades and the election of Obama is merely the culmination of the change. ''If you had real change it would involve all the members of (Obama's) church being deported,'' he said.

Change in whatever form does not come easy, and a black president is ''the most profound change in the field of race this country has experienced since the Civil War,'' said William Ferris, senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina. ''It's shaking the foundations on which the country has existed for centuries.''

''Someone once said racism is like cancer,'' Ferris said. ''It's never totally wiped out, it's in remission.'' If so, America's remission lasted until the morning of Nov. 5....

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Obama-Racial.html

but when he is sworn in, I think he needs to address the violence and fears that are sparking up all across the nation.. AND as President, he will have the bully pulpit.

He needs a year to come to congress and address them on the state of the union. I think a year is a bit too long to wait.

AFAIK, it is in late January before the new Congress, and I always thought it was strange and a bit of baptism by fire to have a new president give the SOTU address as almost his first official action.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_the_Union_Address
The State of the Union is an annual message which the President of the United States gives to Congress, usually an address to a joint session of Congress (the House of Representatives and the Senate). It has occurred in January (except for six occasions in February) since 1934. Sometimes, especially in recent years, newly-inaugurated Presidents have delivered speeches to joint sessions of Congress only weeks into their respective terms, but these are not officially considered State of the Union addresses. The address is also most frequently used to outline the President's legislative proposals for the upcoming year. For these reasons, a State of the Union address is generally not given in years in which a new president is inaugurated.
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It appears that neither answer is completely correct. New presidents do usually address Congress in late January (I knew I hadn't imagined this over the years), but it is not technically called the State of the Union Address.

Racism is an addiction like alcohol. Hate is an addiction.

We need to address this now!!!

of black civil rights leaders -- some of them by government forces.