Did you think the KKK was dead?

No I didn’t. Pleased though, had a very scary experience with them in the past.

I did not assume it was dead. There are still Nazis; why would there not still be Klansmen?

I think that a lot of covert racism has become more acceptable (almost always in coded language, of course, like “food stamp President”) since the election of Obama. I have been watching it since 2008; I do not think it is just “lately.”

On top of that, in harsh economic times, racism and xenophobia become more appealing—because our cave-man tribal brain is still with us. Just look at the resurgence of fascism in Europe. That is some scary shit.

I knew the KKK wasn’t dead.

I think there is a resurgence of racial tension lately, but I blame the media for this resurgence.

I’ll be honest with you, in my neck of the wood’s the election caused a lot of ‘unrest’, and since then it has seemed to escalate, but this door-to-door kind of thing is not a usual occurence here.

They (racists) generally are only outspoken to each other and like-minded people, so taking it to the general population like this is new and a little frightening. They did try to adopt a highway here, and I think they were finally able to do so. Crazy.

Of course not. They just renamed themselves to GOP.

No, not at all. Organizations with powerful causes like that, for good or ill, never die. They may take on protective coloration, go underground, disperse themselves in a larger organization, or otherwise become invisible in society, but they persist.

At a time when anyone can claim to be discriminated against, marginalized, or just offended, and seek some sort of redress from the general population (as if the general population were made up of people who are all alike), maybe we have finally created an environment in which even extremists like the KKK can come out with impunity and make public demands.

No, I knew they were alive and well and had relocated to the Coeur D’ Alene area of Idaho. Their headquarters haven’t been in the South for quite a while.

Most of their members are uneducated, living in poverty and looking for someone to blame. The KKK has lost their teeth, but they aren’t “gone”—there are many organizations with less loaded names out there, some with sweet, innocuous names, that are just as bad or worse than the KKK.

@Jeruba, are you saying that the politically correct movement has been a boon for the KKK? Interesting idea…I never would have thought of that, but you might have something there…!

@bookish1, I don’t know anything about the workings or strategies of that particular organization, other than what’s lodged in the public awareness and seeps through the media. But I think the PC movement has been a boon to all sorts of extremists and crackpots, every bit as much as it has opened the way for groups that have legitimate claims. I think many have taken advantage of society’s paralysis as soon as a loaded word such as “discrimination” is uttered to press forward with demands that may or may not actually represent some group.

If you were a hate-mongering nut case wanting to stir up trouble and mount an assault on some big, faceless Them (never thinking that or caring that Them is composed of thousands of little Usses<—plural of “Us” is what we have there), wouldn’t you enlarge and strengthen your base as much as possible by appealing to whatever group you could claim identity with and promoting their cause—making sure that your own was embedded in it somewhere?

The more afraid the general population is to say “Whoa—aren’t you going a bit overboard there? Let’s talk sense, shall we?” the more hospitable we seem to be to vocal, disruptive elements of any stripe.

Ethnocentrism is innate, so the KKK and anything like it will never go away.

No.

I live in a town that’s primarily white, I think the statistics are 90% Caucasian, 8% Hispanic, 2% African American.

The one African American kid I knew at school said the KKK put a burning cross in his front yard. Another kid found a clearing in the woods while hunting that had burned crosses in a row. He assumed it was the KKK.

We also have a gang of high-school Neo-Nazis. But this town is so sheltered, I don’t think any of them have ever even met a Jewish or homosexual (whatever they hate) person. They even fall asleep when talking about WW2 in history.

No. The KKK is alive and well, especially down here in the South.

Nope. They used to even march/do an event in Boca Raton, FL (they still might) when I lived there. Boca is over 25% Jewish. I thought that took a lot of chutzpah.

I knew it wasn’t dead. Sadly.

I always figured they are like roaches. For every one you see there are a lot more hiding under a rock.
Here’s a funny fact page page about crime in the United States in regards to race.
FBI Crime report, 2011
Funny how so many people fear black people. I’m sure a lot of KKK members have added to these statistics.

Nope. They still plan and have rallies in my state (Wis) almost annually.

This made national news earlier in the year.

They have their planned rallies listed on their site.

I knew it was still around, mostly through websites which offer their ideals and crap, and probably some group meetings. I do think that now they disguise a lot of their white pride origins through some warped idea of patriotism, but they still clearly dislike immigrants and non perfectly white people. or some shit
Hopefully they don’t go around killing blacks and burning crosses and shit. :/ But yeah, unfortunately they are around. There was a guy on AnswerBag who, while he didn’t claim to belong to any KKK organization, shared their beliefs and wasn’t shy of saying it all over the site. Was going around saying how white people must be preserved, and that American culture can’t be tainted and touched by other cultures and ideas. Creepy shit, I tell you what.

I also don’t think it’s some resurfacing thing, I’m pretty sure they’ve always been around.

No, the KKK is still among us. But, the members no longer wear hoods and robes. The KKK didn’t make this change out of any sense of conscience or decency; it abandoned the old garb because it now looks silly and makes the KKK seem ridiculous. It’s much more effective to look like David Duke in a business suit.

@Symbeline The shame is that these guys are never really educated, because if they were they would’ve learned that being white was just a genetic mutation.
My husband has a great aunt who was black when young but has become white in her 80’s, It was gradual but eventually her skin changed.

” Did you think the KKK was dead? ”

No, just greatly reduced from their high water mark.

” Does it seem to you there’s a resurgence of racial tension lately? ”

I do not put stock in ” seems to me ” so without the data I will not comment on that possibility.

@ragingloli I’m a liberal Republican and nothing could be further from the truth. That’s like saying all liberals hate asians, silly goose!

I live in North Carolina, there have been two cross burnings in the last year in and around my county. The KKK sends out fliers “For Whites ONLY” inviting them to a cross burning.

It only takes one lone ignorant fool to stir up a mess like this and he is likely very please with the response.

I live in a North Carolina, just like @Tropical_Willie.I know that there is still a group of KKK members that still meet every month down the road. The KKK is still quite active from what I have seen.

They’re fairly active around here. Never doubt stupidity lives. Just try to educate the young not to think that way. Diversity is cool.

They’re not rare in my neck of the woods, but they remain pretty much hidden and low key for the most part.

As to your question about racial tension, I think there has been an escalation recently. The best explanation I have seen for it is that whites are becoming a minority. A majority of babies born in the country are not white and it will be a short time before whites are no longer in the majority. According to the theory, no longer being in the majority results in a loss of status. This loss in status has been given as an explanation for the mass murders like those at Columbine and Newtown, done by young white males in conservative rural towns.

I gotta say this thread has been pretty depressing and scary.

Neo-Nazis and racists are still around and they often use different names. It’s all the same stupidity.

Yeah, same shit, just a different pile lol.