An image purporting to show a racist, anti-Obama bumper sticker on the back of a vehicle has been garnering lots of attention on Facebook in the past 24 hours.

The bumper sticker reads, “Don’t Re-Nig in 2012.” And in smaller print below, “Stop repeat offenders. Don’t’ reelect Obama!” The sticker also features an image of the Obama campaign logo crossed out.

Several viewers have claimed the image has been digitally altered. After all, it seems shocking that someone would proudly display an openly racist image on their vehicle in 2012. So, is the image authentic?

In short, yes.

It’s still unclear is the image of the vehicle has been altered in any way, but a website called “Stumpy’s Stickers” offers the bumper sticker for sale for $3. And as The Root points out, the site also several other racially insensitive items for sale as well. The urban myth debunking site Snopes says it cannot yet determine the origins of the photo, but also points out the availability of other similar t-shirts and bumper stickers.

There is even an eponymous “Dontre-nig.com” website that appears to have crashed. Going to the page brings up a “Bandwith Limit Exceeded” warning message. I checked the domain registration service site WHOIS, which listed the site as belonging to an anonymous owner who purchased the URL through the company DomainsByProxy.com, based in Scottsdale, Arizona. The company specializes in keeping the names of Internet domain owners private.

And as one astute Facebook reader pointed out, the bumper sticker is not only offensive, it’s pretty dumb. After all, if you take the top message at its literal meaning, to not renege in 2012, would mean to in fact re-elect President Obama.

I’m not really surprised at a lot of the racist hatred directed at Barack Obama. What I am surprised at is how acute it’s getting. We’ve gotten to practically outright calling him the N word as a matter of public discourse. How much worse will it get before (or after) November?