Soob

One would reasonably think that a Presidential race between a white candidate and a black candidate would inflame the small but organized base of white supremacy here in the United States. Faced with the prospect of a President whose ethnicity is "inferior," the socially retarded organizations that cling to ideals of white supremacy aren't alight with new recruits and a revolutionary social resurgence. Quite the contrary, they seem faced with a comical mixture of confusion and the realization that their ideals are, indeed, socially retarded. To whit:

Some attributed the relative lack of activity so far from white supremacist groups to the same cultural shifts that led the Democrats to become the first major party to choose a black presidential nominee.

"It's not like we're finally reaching Martin Luther King's promised land," said Michael Gehrke, research director for the Democratic National Committee, whose unit monitors such activity, "but as a political force, they've been marginalized."

In one sign of shifting mores, James Knowles, a former Ku Klux Klan member who was convicted for a 1981 lynching, said in a Discovery Channel documentary by Ted Koppel that Obama was a potentially acceptable candidate. "People need to vote for him because of his ideas and the veracity that he displays in what he does, and not because he's African-American," Knowles said.

There have been only sporadic reports of racist mailings, though Democrats say they are on the lookout for more. And there has been scant evidence that Obama's candidacy has helped hate-group recruitment, unlike the recent debates over immigration policy, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

White supremacist leaders, while threatening some political action before Nov. 4, similarly attribute their relative lack of activity this year to demographic and societal changes they cannot stop. But they also point to a Republican candidate, Senator John McCain, whose liberal immigration views and staunch support for Israel are against everything they stand for.

Political racism is effectively dead, abject social racism is dying. Next will be the utopian ideal of socio-ethnic conflation, right? No. But yes... That essence is one for another post.