From British daily The Morning Star:
Poisoning minds
(Tuesday 15 August 2006)
EXHIBITION: Generation KKK: Passing the Torch
SS Robin Gallery, London E14
MICHAL BONCZA is saddened to see young minds being corrupted at an eye-opening photo exhibition on the KKK.
It is hard to believe that the Ku Klux Klan started as a joke when “six college students founded it in the winter of 1865 in the town of Pulaski, Tennessee.
“All former confederate officers, the six young men organised as a social club or fraternity and spent their time in horseplay of various types, including wearing disguises and galloping about town after dark.
“They were surprised to learn that their nightly appearances were causing fear, particularly among former slaves in the area.”
The group adopted the name Ku Klux Klan from the Greek word “kuklos,” meaning circle, adding the English word clan.
The rest is history. Or is it?
In a series of 40 photographs, taken between 1998 and 2002, photographer James Edward Bates records the daily lives of a group of klansmen and women of the South Mississippi Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama.
KKK policeman in the USA: here.
Ku Klux Klan today: here.
Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner: here.
US Civil War: here.
From the Google cache.
USA: Ku Klux Klansman wanted to kill non-whites
Linking: 20 Comments: 17
Date: 6/12/05 at 1:04PM
Mood: Looking Playing: We Shall Overcome
Associated Press reports:
Klansman Accused of Building Pipe Bombs
June 11, 2005
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — A Ku Klux Klansman helped build seven pipe bombs that a federal informant told him would be rigged to vehicles used by Haitians and Hispanics, a federal agent testified Friday at a detention hearing.
Videotapes of meetings between the informant and Daniel Schertz, 27, showed them making the bombs and discussing how they would be used, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent Lorin Coppock testified.
This report on the Klansman did not use the word “terrorist”. Might be contingency, and one should not read too much in a short report.
However, suppose Mr Schertz wouldn’t have been white, his name would have been Ali something, and his intended targets would have been people with, on average, more power or money than, on average, many Haitians or Hispanics: would the “T” word have been avoided as well then?
And what if Mr Schertz wouldn’t have been a racist, but an animal rights advocate? Given the tendency in US government circles to see animal rights activists as “terrorists” …
Related articles
- ‘Suspicious’ KKK flyers found in Chicago suburb: ‘The Klan is awake!’ (rawstory.com)
- Tinley Park police investigate KKK fliers (cltv.com)
- KKK Fliers Found In Chicago Suburb (huffingtonpost.com)
- London: Lecturer who compared gay teachers to the Ku Klux Klan sacked from college (pinknews.co.uk)
- Tinley Park police investigate KKK fliers (wgntv.com)
- Italian court moves to expel former Ku Klux Klan leader (uk.reuters.com)
- London lecturer sacked over recording of him comparing gay teachers to the Ku Klux Klan (standard.co.uk)
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
Posted by: “bigraccoon” bigraccoon@earthlink.net redwoodsaurus
Fri Nov 17, 2006 7:33 pm (PST)
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3002
Media Advisory
Trent Lott’s Redemption Song
Coverage of minority whip election ignores racist ties
11/17/06
Sen. Trent Lott’s return to the ranks of the Senate
Republican leadership has been broadly covered as a story
of political redemption. In this scenario, the once-fallen
Senate majority leader, having apologized and atoned for
his sins— in this case, praising the racist 1948 presidential
candidacy of the late Strom Thurmond — is restored to the
body’s top ranks with his election to the No. 2 Republican
post of minority whip. But these redemption story reports
have downplayed Lott’s association with and praise for
racists, while greatly exaggerating his atonement.
In his 2002 remarks, Lott said he was proud that his state,
Mississippi, had supported Thurmond’s 1948 presidential
campaign; he added, “If the rest of the country had followed
our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all
these years, either.” The two central planks in Thurmond’s
1948 platform were segregation and opposition to a federal
anti-lynching statute. “All the laws of Washington and all the
bayonets of the Army cannot force the negro into our homes,
our schools, our churches,” Thurmond proclaimed at the time
(Washington Post, 11/2/88).
Upon Lott’s newfound “redemption,” though, CNN (11/15/06)
recalled the incident as a “blog-driven storm. Lott was
accused of embracing Thurmond’s past. He attempted to
explain. He apologized, but it was too big and his Republican
colleagues pushed him out of the leadership.”
An Associated Press article (11/16/06), “Sweet redemption:
Republicans return Lott to Senate leadership,” passed lightly
over Lott’s loaded remarks: “At Sen. Strom Thurmond’s
100th birthday bash, Lott had saluted the South Carolina
senator with comments later interpreted as support for
Southern segregationist policies.”
A front-page New York Times report (11/16/06) employed a
similar theme of redemption, calling Lott’s story an “unlikely
study in professional redemption” and describing him as “a
man whose recent history is itself a testament to sudden
falls, unlikely recoveries and the fickle hands of fortune in
American politics” —as if Lott’s troubles were simply a matter
of bad luck.
Many other reports saw Lott’s remarks as a judgment
problem rather than a racism problem. A Times online report
(11/15/06) called them “ill considered,” while Washington
Post columnist Dana Milbank (11/15/06) characterized them
as “infelicitous,” explaining that, in his battle back into the
Senate leadership, Lott “was determined to demonstrate
that he could control his mouth.” Other reports called Lott’s
remarks a “gaffe” (Special Report With Brit Hume, 11/15/06),
“racially impolitic” (Washington Post, 11/16/06), and
“tasteless” (Los Angeles Times, 11/16/06).
Vocal enthusiasm for an openly racist campaign suggests a
bigger problem than poor taste, certainly. But much of the
coverage (e.g. New York Times, 11/16/06; Associated Press,
11/16/06) gave no inkling that Lott’s record of racism and
racist associations amounts to more than one isolated
incident. As a member of the House of Representatives in
1978, Lott was behind a successful effort to re-instate the
U.S. citizenship of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. In
1981, the year Lott became majority whip in the House, he
prodded the Reagan administration to fight for tax
exemptions for racist private schools like Bob Jones
University. (The Supreme Court turned down the
administration’s plea in an 8 to 1 decision.)
In 1982 and again in 1990, Lott voted against extending the
Voting Rights Act. In 1983 he voted against a national
holiday for Martin Luther King, Jr., and in 1994 voted to
de-fund the Martin Luther King holiday commission. In 1990
Lott voted against the continuation of the Civil Rights Act. In
2005, Lott scored 5 percent on the NAACP’s civil rights
legislative report card (NAACP.org, 1/06).
And no mainstream media outlet seems to have reported
that Trent Lott has never even motioned toward apologizing
for his long association with the Council of Conservative
Citizens, or for the lies he told denying his links to the group.
In late 1998, when it was learned that the then-Senate
majority leader had had a long-term association with the
CCC, a racist group the Southern Poverty Law Center
described (Intelligence Report, Winter/99) as “the
reincarnation of the infamous White Citizens Councils of the
1950s and 1960s,” Lott responded to questions about his
appearance at a CCC event by denying, through an aide,
any detailed knowledge of the group, and said he only
“vaguely remembered” giving a single speech to the group
more than ten years earlier (Extra!, 3-4/99
).
In fact, Lott hosted CCC leaders at his Senate office in 1997
and addressed its events at least three times in the 1990s.
As a keynote speaker at a 1992 CCC convention, Lott
heaped praise on its members: “The people in this room
stand for the right principles and the right philosophy….
Let’s take it in the right direction and our children will be the
beneficiaries!”
This earlier racism scandal was widely reported at the time
(e.g. Washington Post 12/11/98; New York Times, 1/14/99;
Los Angeles Times, 1/29/99), but in just a few short years
has been swept down the media memory hole neatly
clearing the path for Lott’s unreconstructed “redemption.”
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The ku klux klan is miss understud
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Re #2: in what sense? The photo and information here is rather clear.
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