How to deal with the Klan

Great Debates
1

I just saw a fascinating show on the Ku Klux Klan on the Discovery Channel (it’s gonna be repeated later tonight and I highly recommend it…fascinating and scary stuff).

It brought up an interesting question: When the Klan has a rally, what is the best strategy for dealing with it?

The A.D.L., with their heads firmly stuffed up their asses as always, suggests that if everyone closes their eyes reaaaaaaaal tight, the Klan will just go away. :rolleyes: Yeah, that strategy worked so well with the Nazis (I can’t stand the A.D.L. and as a Jew, they do not speak for me. Neither does the J.D.L. <sigh> )

The N.A.A.C.P. first suggested a LOUD counter-protest, then “came to their senses” (the show’s phrase, not mine) and had a silent rally, holding up signs and such, but not responding to the jibes, taunts and insults.

Several black and Jewish groups decided to have activities to try to draw attention from the Klan. Nice thought, but IMHO, not effective.

A group I’ve never heard of Anti-Racism Association (I’m pretty sure I’m screwing up the name, but it’s the A.R.A. I think) suggested
A) causing so much trouble that the Klan rally is cancelled, or
B) Failing that, that they shout down the Klan.

(As an aside, I know nothing about the Mayor of Cleveland Michael White, but he seems to be one smart guy, based on what I saw on the show.)

Anyway, of the four stratigies, the ADL one is simply insane and/or cowardly. Hate flourishes when ignored. History’s demonstrated that time and time again.

The ARA doesn’t quite have a grasp of the First Ammendment: trying to get the rally cancelled or shouting over them so loud that they can’t be heard just bugs the free-speech near-absolutist in me. (I sympathize, deep down, but I don’t think it’s right, a good idea in the long run (want other groups to do that to you?) or effective…it legitimizes the Klan’s claim of persecution)

The counter-activities don’t really address the problem: you don’t want the Klan to speak without protest and having cookies, holding hands and singing Kum-By-Yah is all nice, but it doesn’t really accompish the goal of responding to the Klan. It has just too much of a "fingers-in-the-ears-singing-‘lalala-I-can’t-hear-you’ " thing going for me.

I’d say that the NAACP option was the best of the choices. They made their point known, but didn’t legitimize the Klan by debating them or give them more…power(?) by fighting with them. Dignified and, judging from how pissed the Klan got at the silent treatment, very effective.

Anyone have any other suggestions? Opinions?

Fenris

2

Sorry, I didn’t quite grasp why we couldn’t just ignore them. :confused: Is it because that counts as “having one’s head stuffed firmly up one’s ass”? 'Cause I sure wouldn’t want to be accused of that. But OTOH, there are so many much nicer things to thing about…

Besides, they’re trolls, and if you feed them, it’s very bad for them. Any response other than totally ignoring them counts as feeding them.

3

Fenris you disappoint me. Don’t you know that the best way to treat a Klan rally is to hop in your old police car with a four hundred and forty cubic inch plant and scatter them like chickens.

But in case that proves infeasible, I like the NAACP idea, a silent counter-protest where you refuse to address the white supremacists directly. I would suggest the addition of a contingent of people handing out leaflets with highlights of Klan history and reasons why you should avoid being associated with the white hoods.

4

DDG:

  1. Because ignoring them gives them legitimacy. Look at the Nazis. Jews kept saying “This will pass. It’ll all blow over.”

  2. The Klan != Trolls. This can be demonstrated by the fact that Concrete, Jack Dean Tyler and Phaedrus never murdered anyone. If you ignore a troll, the worst they can do is make noise. If you ignore the Klan, they could gain political power, etc. Big difference.

Arnold, I like both of your ideas! :smiley:

Fenris

5

In the United States, do your free-speech laws extend even to the Klan?

'Cause I’m pretty sure that, up here in Canada, I’d call the police.

6

LaurAnge, as much as it may seem odd to non-americans, the right for groups like the Ku Klux Klan to hold (peaceful) rallies is considered by many to be a fundamental right, and the American Civil Liberties Union, often labelled a “liberal” organization, has defended them many times.

Sample case: ACLU Enters Illinois Klan Fight

7

P.S. Fenris, if ever you try the “scattering them like chickens” approach, let me know. I call shotgun.

8

Yup. The second half of the show was about a Klan rally (they got permits and everything) in Cleveland. IMHO, it’s correct for free speech to cover even lunatics like the Klan. Otherwise the government is in the postition of determining what’s acceptible poliiical speech and what isn’t. This is despite the fact that I’m one of the targets.

On the other hand, judging from this special, the Klan specializes in tap-dancing on the line between Free-Speech and incitement to riot.

Fenris

9

Fenris: 1) Because ignoring them gives them legitimacy. Look at the Nazis. Jews kept saying “This will pass. It’ll all blow over.”

Errrrrrrr, that’s quite an analogy you’ve got yourself there. What the Jews were worried about in pre-WWII Germany was the rise of the National Socialist Party as a major political force, its 1930 gain of 107 seats in the Reichstag, its continued encouragement of political instability and anti-Jewish discrimination and violence, its support from millions of voters and hundreds of thousands of stormtroopers, and its role in the collapse of the German republic and the dictatorship of Hitler.

What Klan opponents in America are worried about these days are some public demonstrations on the part of a racist organization which has at most a few thousand members nationwide in all its branches, including splinter groups, and which at present has lost most of its assets in lawsuits. At this point, I’m with DDG in thinking that ignoring them is a perfectly reasonable and effective opposition tactic. Don’t worry, if the Klan do start rallying thousands to their cause anew I’ll come back looking for better countermeasures. But I think this is going to stay quite low down on the “Things to Worry About” list for the foreseeable future.

10

Fenris…

There’s nothing you can do. hey have already won.

You fear them. That’s all they want you to do. They know they can’t get any of their ideas put into action. The best thing to do is laugh at them.

Here in North Carolina I’m not even sure they exist anymore. They got laughed out.

11

We have a similar problem in the UK with our extreme right-wingers.

“I do not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it” - Voltaire.

The way we deal with it is the first of the NAACP ideas - we allow them to speak but we oppose it LOUDLY.

Not so we drown them out completely, free speech is free speech after all, but enough to make them and everyone around know that most people don’t think like them.

It seems to work.

12

The only time I’ve ever seen Klan members in public was back in the mid-80’s, somwhere along I-45 just north of Houston. There was an old school bus painted confederate (primer) gray, with a masked guy standing in front, waving at passing traffic like one of those mascots they hire to stand outside a car dealership. I flipped him the bird. Yeah, immature, I know.

This would take some coordination and a bit of guts, but could be highly effective: as a Klan march approaches, everyone lining the street turns their backs, and remain silently facing away until the march has passed.

13

Until this fall I lived in Indiana, which is a big Klan hotspot. I don’t know why, but for some reason, when the Klan sprung back up after years of inactivity it really took off in Indiana in the IIRC '20s. There’s a klan rally at least once a year in my hometown.

My general strategy is to point and laugh. There are dangerous racist groups out there but the Klan is just kind of sad. For as long as I can remember the counterprotestors/come-gawk-at-idiots-in-sheets contingent has way outnumbered the actually Klansmen at the rallies. I think the police have actually had to prevent the Klan getting their asses stomped by annoyed locals.

The city government has been trying to not give out permits the past few years, because the police always have to protect the ten or fifteen dorks from the angry crowds and the city says it’s a waste of resources. So far the courts have said the city has to give permits and protect the Klansmen.

It’s my impression that the actual KKK is considered to be a joke by the big-and-dangerous white supremacist groups; I know that in American History X the skinheads got pissed when they were called Klansmen and none of the (many, many) racists I’ve met in real life were in the Klan.

–John

14

Here in New York we unmasked them. A judge here said they could march, but only without their hoods. I think 10 people showed up.

I’m searching for a cite. A free one, that is. Give me a few minutes.

15

This makes no sense to me.

Every citizen has a right to express his moral outrage in whatever way he desires provided he does not break the law. Trying to break up or shout down the rally using nonviolent, legal means is an exercise in freedom of speech every bit as much as permitting the Klan to demonstrate at all. The ARA has a perfect grasp of the First Amendment: it would be both unethical and illegal for the government to interfere in their legal activities, for they too are protected.

Why deny the outraged the ability to fight?

16

Oops, it had completely slipped my mind until i read Biggirl’s post, but my hometown has the same no masks rule. There was some court trouble and stuff about Halloween but it got resolved and it’s part of why so few Klansmen actually march. It’s a smallish town and I guess seeing the big guys in the crowd memorizing your face is intimidating.

Elkhart and environs has a huge immigrant population, primarily working in the factories and other manual labor jobs. Plus in nearby Benton Harbor I’m pretty sure whites were a minority in the last census. Throw in the big white guys who don’t like racism and the general annoyance the Klan creates, (target practice, for instance. It was meant to intimidate some black neighbors, who instead had the yokels cited for noise pollution) and you have a very scary situation for the kind of guy who wanted to wear a mask in the first place.

–John

17

It was less than two dozen.
http://www7.cnn.com/US/9910/23/klan.03/

I like the picture of them cowering behind the Confederate flag.

18

So Maeglin, it’s your view that whoever can bring the most people, or the loudest PA equipment controls the debate? That’s not the kind of country I want to live in.

19

Because outrage doesn’t justify removing someone’s right to speak.The Klan is legally there, with permits and everything. Trying to break up the rally by causing a ruckus so that the Klan can’t speak is clearly (to me) a violation of their right to assemble and speak.

Shouting down…making so much noise that the Klan can’t be heard seems like saying "Yeah, you can print your newspaper, but your can’t distribute it. It ain’t free speech if you’re drowned out. The right to free speech includes letting the audience hear the message.

I went through something like this, years ago. In the early-80s, Linda Chavez came to my campus to give a talk about…um…something…education related, I believe…I really wanted to hear what she had to say (I didn’t particularly agree with her, but I was interested in the other side of whatever issue it was).

A group of loudmouths shouted her down. Every time she started to say anything, these people would start screaming…loudly. She wasn’t talking about genocide, lynchings, race-wars. Nothing that could possibly be considered hate-speech. And she wasn’t allowed to speak. It was one of the more chilling moments of my college days.

I hate the Klan and their ilk, but I don’t think that taking away their right to be speak and someone else’s right to listen is the solution.

Fenris

20

Of course, we have posters on this very same message board attempting to defend the creeps in Afghanistan. After all, it’s just their beliefs, which they are entitled to.

Some beliefs just aren’t worth defending, IMHO.

Killing Jews, women, gays, innocent men, women, and children in the WTC, Pentagon, and Pennsylvannia, come to mind.

Taliban = EVIL

Bombing the hell out of 'em = priceless