# CEO and founder quits business due to past KKK ties **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 11, 2020, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceo-and-founder-quits-business-due-to-past-kkk-ties/853608 "2020-05-11T21:57:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceo-and-founder-quits-business-due-to-past-kkk-ties/853608/21 "2020-05-13T01:42:24Z")
N/A ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceo-and-founder-quits-business-due-to-past-kkk-ties/853608/22 "2020-05-13T02:27:26Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > Amazing that no Republican was a member of the KKK! Not really. Up until the civil rights era, the Democratic Party dominated the south. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceo-and-founder-quits-business-due-to-past-kkk-ties/853608/23 "2020-05-13T03:56:51Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > Not really. Up until the civil rights era, the Democratic Party dominated the south. But the KKK in its heyday had plenty of adherents in the north, including [plenty of Republicans](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/03/15/how-social-media-spread-a-historical-lie/): > [@](#): > > The original Ku Klux Klan was founded after the Civil War to terrorize the formerly enslaved and push back against efforts to create a multiracial America. What historians call the Second Ku Klux Klan launched in 1915 and reached the apex of its power in the mid-1920s, when it exerted deep cultural and political influence around the country. […] > > Klansmen were influential inside both major parties, pushing racism, nativism, Prohibition and especially anti-Catholicism. In the South, Jim Crow-supporting Democrats made a natural fit for the KKK. But in Midwestern industrial towns full of immigrant Catholics and Jews who voted Democratic, the Klan took root largely among Republicans. The Klan was Democratic in Oregon and Republican in Indiana — two of its biggest strongholds. By the end of the decade, the organization, whose membership remained semi-secret, claimed 11 governors, 16 senators and as many as 75 congressmen —roughly split between Republicans and Democrats. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceo-and-founder-quits-business-due-to-past-kkk-ties/853608/24 "2020-05-13T13:57:18Z")
In my experience, people will forgive you for stuff in your past only if you don’t try to hide it. If you hide it, then they don’t have a chance to forgive you since they didn’t know about it, so finding out is like a fresh wound. Of course, admitting it from the beginning can result in you not being able to even get started in the first place. So I understand why people hide it. But I can’t get too upset when hiding it comes back to bite them, either. Now, public apologies and then just not actively mentioning it after you dealt with it is a different matter. Then I’d argue they aren’t actually trying to hide it. If the info is public, then it’s up to those who do business with them or work for them to look into it. ---
**Author:** ![BeagleJesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5daacb/32.png) [@BeagleJesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeagleJesus)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceo-and-founder-quits-business-due-to-past-kkk-ties/853608/25 "2020-05-13T14:22:55Z")
So the founder of Banjo, a social tech company currently transitioning into _a real-time intelligence platform for law enforcement_ was a former KKK member. To all of the folks in this thread who think the “formerly” racist piece of shit shouldn’t have to resign: why the fuck should _any_ minority feel comfortable having a police department use a piece of law enforcement software created by someone who was directly involved in a drive by hate crime? Are we supposed to think this guy and his company have the best interests of _all_ Americans in mind? I understand how white people might think this isn’t a big deal as it probably won’t directly impact them in any way. But why should a non-white person feel the same way? At what point should minorities demand that American law enforcement cut ties with any and everything that has to do with racial discrimination? ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceo-and-founder-quits-business-due-to-past-kkk-ties/853608/26 "2020-05-13T15:03:20Z")
For many years the south was almost all Democrats. Even Jesse Helms was a Dem before he ran for Senate in 72. I knew a girl in school and her mother ran for NC state house as a Republican a few times in the 70s and she was never close to winning. Of course now it’s almost the complete opposite where many rural areas a Dem has very little chance of winning in NC ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceo-and-founder-quits-business-due-to-past-kkk-ties/853608/27 "2020-05-13T15:24:15Z")
It’s a bit ironic that his company is a surveillance software business, and he’s being ousted because someone “surveilled” him. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceo-and-founder-quits-business-due-to-past-kkk-ties/853608.md?page=1)