| Online: | |
| Visits: | |
| Stories: |
| Story Views | |
| Now: | |
| Last Hour: | |
| Last 24 Hours: | |
| Total: | |
The White Knights Of The Ku Klux Klan Claim Confederate Flag Is Not Racist ( VIDEO)
The Confederate flag has been on the news and in the minds of Americans to such an extent this week that I was honestly relieved to walk around my neighborhood park in New Jersey yesterday and see that no one had replaced the Stars and Striped with the flag of secession. It’s no longer an irrational concern: over the weekend an unidentified person placed a Confederate banner on a Boston memorial to the first black regiment formed in the North to fight for union and liberty in the Civil War. Defenders of the Stars and Bars, the battle flag of an Army of Northern Virginia whose commander gave up the cause 150 years ago, are likely retaliating now because their symbol has been under attack by protestors around the nation, including Bree Newsome who took matters into her own hands and pulled down the Confederate banner from the South Carolina capitol. Apparently no one bothered to tell sympathizers with the Confederacy that their efforts failed and they are now (and in fact always were) part of the United States of America.
The Ku Klux Klan, which was already stepping up door to door recruiting efforts across the South, is now inserting itself into the national debate over the meaning of the Confederate flag. The Loyal White Knights of the Klan received a permit for a pro confederate flag rally which will take place July 18th. The event will include a cross burning, the tactic used for a century and a half to terrorize and intimidate African-Americans and anyone else standing up for justice and civil rights, at the home of the Grand Dragon.
In his excellent 1998 book “Confederates in the Attic,” Tony Horwitz explores how the Civil War is memorialized throughout the Deep South among people whose ancestors fought and died for the Confederacy. He points out that while many White Southerners who are staunchly pro-Confederate Flag and have a personal stake in glorifying the Confederacy are not sympathetic to the Civil Rights movement that fought for integration and equality for African-Americans, they nevertheless have learned to copy the language and tactics of the Civil Rights movement. Rather than speak with overt hostility about their black neighbors, pro-Confederate Southerners claim that the Confederate flag is simply a symbol of their culture and heritage and claim that support for the Confederate flag is a matter of “Equal rights for whites” rather than unequal rights for everyone else.
As Reverb Press reported on June 30th, now even the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan claim they do not represent hatred toward non white people. Rather, they are defenders of white Christian civilization who simply want to live separately from other races and to preserve their heritage in the face of liberal and Communist (used interchangeably) attacks:
It is a simple fact that whenever these races try to integrate themselves into White society, that society is damaged immensely, perhaps even destroyed altogether. Everything that we do as Klan members is in furtherance of our ultimate goal. We are not evil; hateful people as our enemies would have you believe.We are common white people from all walks of life who have recognized the problems that our race is facing. We have chosen to stand and fight for those things that we hold dear to our people. Won’t you stand with us while there is still time! It is the duty of all white Christian men and women to fight against the Communist who have stolen our Nation.
This kind of rhetoric would be very familiar to my 10th grade Global History students as they’ve encountered it many a time. In “Mein Kampf,” Hitler rails against the Zionist forces assailing the Aryan civilization which he is the sworn protector of. The architects of South African apartheid claimed that racial separation was a matter of white survival and protection of white culture rather than a system of exploitation and aggression toward South Africans who were not white.
Defenders of the Confederate flag who want to claim that their flag does not stand for a system of coercive labor and oppression of black Americans were always perpetuating a myth that dates back to the “Lost Cause interpretation of Civil War history. Now that the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan are using those same euphamisms to justify a rally rooted in the same hateful practices that the KKK used in the past to terrorize black Americans seeking voting rights and opportunity in the postwar South, it is time to let this defense of the Confederate flag go once and for all. Robert E. Lee, probably the most beloved Confederate leader, surrendered the cause 150 years ago, folded up his army’s battle flag and told his fellow Southerners to do the same. It is high time that those who still cling to a truly Lost Cause listen and join the America where the 14th amendment to our constitution is taken literally:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
In case you have any doubts about the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan’s racism, here’s one of their utterly vile videos.
Photo Credit: YouTube screen capture, White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan video
