The planned show sparked a veritable firestorm of criticism when news of it got out but here’s what I’m not getting. The show was said to focus on members of the KKK who had broken free from its clutches and the resultant inter-family strife which followed. There have been a plethora of documentaries on the KKK and other hate groups, most of them not concerned with those attempting to leave but simply showing daily life among these groups, their gatherings, their hate oratory, etc. (Louis Theroux comes to mind.)
So what’s so different about this show? It seems to have a really positive message, that people can and do leave these dumb groups even if their whole famly is involved in them.
People seem to feel nominal payments to a group like the KKK is somehow assisting that group.
I personally don’t see it that way. Hearing from former members who are trying to get out seems like a story worth reporting. Especially people born into families that are KKK members. They didn’t choose to be in that group.
I’m not sure what a nominal payment is. A $200 bucks a person? $500? That’s not making anybody rich. If it’s thousands, then yes that concerns me.
Quote from article
these payments are a direct violation of A&E’s policies and practices for a documentary," the network said in statement.
The payment problem is a problem because it violates long term convention for documentary filmmaking. The idea is that if you are unbiased and documenting, you don’t influence the events by paying for access.
The outcry over the show was that many people don’t want the KKK to be normalized in any way whatsoever, and despite the stated intent, there would be viewers who would watch it and think, “Wow, that’s actually pretty cool. I should do that.”
We have the freedom to hate but people seem to hate that? People seem to hate a lot of things, member of a hate group or not. Funny how hypocrisy works. Maybe someone should try love in response to hate instead…nah, it’s fun to hate, people love to hate on someone doesn’t matter if it’s about race or not.
That doesn’t explain the protests. Initially nobody knew about the payments. A&E only announced them yesterday as their reason for cancelling the show.
But that would apply to all the documentaries that deal with hate groups. There was no outcry against those and they aired without any problem.
No, there’s something else going on here but I’m not sure what. Perhaps Trump’s election has the public (or at least the twitterati) more worried about these groups?
I think this article gives some insight, it came out before the show was cancelled.
It’s hard to say without seeing the show how things were presented, but the criticism doesn’t sound crazy. I doubt it would increase the enrollment number for the KKK, but it might make some people think that the KKK doesn’t seem that terrible.
Nicely found, Sam. I think that goes some way towards explaining the brouhaha. I can quite understand how treating the KKK like Duck Dynasty would not go down well.
The SPLC makes a lot of money by exaggerating the size and power of the Klan and other hate groups. I haven’t respected them or given them any credence in many years.
SPLC keeping quiet on how they literally litigated the ORIGINAL Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (1872-1986) out of existence in 1986 and how all current incarnations are splinter groups and wannabes …
The period you describe as when the “original” Klan was active actually covers two distinct incarnations of the organization, neither of which was the “original” one.
The "George Wilkinson " Knights of the Klux Klan (Atlanta Georgia HQ) WAS THE ORIGINAL dues receiving centrally organized Klan and ALL Leadership and Political Power in late 19th and early 20th century (Golden Age of Klan Power in America ) relied upon and participated within that group.
There have been attempts at “Militia In America” reality TV series ,that would go over bigger and have more acceptance than an “I escaped the Kluxers” series …
There were three Klans. The first Klan was in the 1860s and 1870s, founded by former Confederates, and they focused on terrorism against southern blacks and “carpetbaggers” who were trying to vote and exercise political power. They were brought down by the federal government with the Klan Act, which gave the feds permission to hold suspected Klansmen without trial or bail. Not too long after that, Reconstruction ended and the so called “Redemption” governments took over the southern states; governments led largely by antebellum politicians who passed laws that disenfranchised blacks and took away a lot of the rights that Reconstruction had given them, making the Klan pretty much unnecessary.
The second Klan was founded after the murder of Mary Phagan, allegedly (and almost certainly falsely) by Leo Frank and his subsequent lynching, and the release of the movie Birth of a Nation, in 1915. This was founded by William Simmons, and wasn’t only anti-black, but also anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant, and became a nationwide organization. It started to fall apart in the middle of the 1920s, after a bunch of scandals, most notably the conviction of D.C. Stephenson, the Indiana Grand Dragon for rape and murder, after he kidnapped a schoolteacher, raped her, and she committed suicide. Trying to avoid the death penalty, Stephenson revealed the workings of the Klan to the police, which led to a bunch of indictments for fraud and bribery. It was pretty much entirely gone after WWII (and Superman helped).
The third Klan was never a single organized unit, but was a bunch of similar organizations set up in the 1950s as a response to desegregation. That fell apart, first because of the FBI’s Contelpro program, and then, in the 80s, a bunch of civil lawsuits pursued by the SPLC. Klan groups still exist, but aren’t particularly well organized or effective.
