White supremacists muse on the Obama campaign

In a story sure to warm your bitter jaded hearts, it seems the Klan and other white supremacist/neo-nazi movements are seeing rises in interest and membership this election season. It's not just Obama, but the sheer pasty whiteness of John McCain has brought new interest in the awesomeness of the color white.

Tom Prater, Florida spokesman for the white power group Euro and a member of the National Association for the Advancement of White People, says the Illinois senator’s success is a boon for his cause.

“I’ve gotten more calls in the last two months about interest in our organizations than I got in all the years in the past,” said Prater, who lives in Jacksonville.

August Kreis, national director of Aryan Nations, another white supremacist and anti-Semitic organization, agrees.

“Obama’s done my group a lot of good,” said Kreis, who lives in South Carolina and says he keeps a Nazi flag over his mantel. “He’s polarizing Americans, black and white. “Especially in Florida, affiliates have increased recently,” Kreis said, although he did not produce membership figures.
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“I get nonstop e-mails and private messages from new people who are mad as hell about the possibility of Obama being elected,” Black said. “White people, for a long time, have thought of our government as being for us, and Obama is the best possible evidence that we’ve lost that. This is scaring a lot of people who maybe never considered themselves racists, and it’s bringing them over to our side.”

I know, I know, a white supremacist named Black. It's too easy. But he is showing some media savvy, scrubbing his site of the n-word, removing Nazi references and paraphernalia, and generally Web 2.0'ing the shit out his website to attract today's new brand of internet racist. You know the ones that hate non-white races and are tolerant of the Klan, but are a little too sensitive to overt Nazi-imagery. Racist, but still bound by good taste.

What's somewhat funny here is the subtext of all the white racists pumping their fists in jubilation with every bit of ground Obama gains. When it comes right down to it they need the ultimate repudiation of their movement, the election of a black President, to increase their profile and relevance a tiny amount. It's not slap your knee funny, or "Oh you wacky white supremacists" funny, but funny nonetheless. They have this almost palpable need to see Obama elected so that they can make one last gasp for perceived importance. Say it with me now: Awwwwwwwww, poor racists.

I expect the "Obama Presidency will increase White Power organizations" ad out next week, John.