Reports mount of racist election reactions

NEW YORK, Nov. 13 (UPI) -- Authorities are investigating a growing number of racist incidents reported since Barack Obama's victory in the U.S. presidential election.

Editor & Publisher Thursday published a summary of newspaper accounts of such incidents in several states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Maine and California.

Police told The Saginaw (Mich.) News a man in a Ku Klux Klan outfit brandished a gun and an American flag to protest Obama's victory.

An employee at a locksmith shop told the Traverse City (Mich.) Record-Eagle that workers flew a U.S. flag upside down as a sign of distress because "we feel our country is in distress because the n----- got in." The employee subsequently apologized for the remark, the Record-Eagle said.

Police said vandals spray-painted racial slurs and swastikas on a house and some cars that displayed Obama signs or bumper stickers in Torrance, Calif. Police told the Los Angeles Times "Go Back to Africa" was spray-painted on a house.

The NAACP has called on North Carolina State University to expel four students who spray-painted "Let's shoot that (N-word) in the head" and "Hang Obama by a noose."

In Maine, black figures were hanged by nooses from trees Nov. 5, the Bangor Daily News reported, and a high school student was suspended after using racist language in class to say Obama should not be president.