Post by bob quarteroni on Aug 1, 2013 11:45:31 GMT -5
Opinion
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EDITORIAL: The KKK, Ted Nugent and ‘mainstream’ racism
Published: Monday, July 29, 2013
Gov. Dannel Malloy and an array of public officials and community leaders stood together recently in a public condemnation of the emergence of a KKK chapter that was distributing leaflets in Milford. The New Haven Register described “new tactics” the KKK is using in places like Milford to appear more mainstream. Violence, cross-burning and obscenely racist epithets have been replaced with “neighborhood watches,” toy drives and racist code words.
Scot X. Esdaile, president of the Connecticut chapter of the NAACP, called this “putting a pink-collared dress on a pig.” That’s an insult to pigs. In fact, an Emory University research project that made headlines Monday found that pigs are as smart and sociable as dogs and other domesticated pets. The hatred spewed by the KKK is not found in your average dog or barnyard animal.
The governor and others stood up publicly in Milford because the word “KKK” was involved. Everyone knows the disgusting history of that movement and how disgusting one’s mindset has to be to embrace the label today. And everyone should know what a “neighborhood patrol” by the KKK is all about.
Meanwhile, though, the same basic message that the KKK has promoted for 148 years is embraced by the likes of Ted Nugent, Fox News, Ann Coulter, a burgeoning array of fringe “conservative” media and members of our own community commenting on stories on the New Haven Register’s website.
Nugent will be in New Haven Aug. 6 with prominent billing for a concert at respected local music institution Toad’s Place. He has brought the KKK’s traditional message to the mainstream -- to the point of being embraced by the leaders of the Republican Party during the last presidential election campaign (against the re-election of a black president, it should be pointed out).
That message includes black people being an inferior race (note Nugent’s blanket statements that black people don’t work as hard as white people, are criminals, etc.), a fear of and opposition to immigration and expressions of disgust and hatred toward gay people.
The KKK has historically billed itself as a vigilante group, a concept that the gun-glorifying Nugent and supporters of George Zimmerman, “stand your ground” laws and the profiling of young black men in hoodies embrace as well.
Members of the KKK used to wear white robes and masks to hide their identities from their co-workers, church parishioners and friends. Today, the same message of racism and hate is advanced under the cloak of online pseudonyms.
They’d never assign a label as transparent as “KKK” to themselves, but the belief system and message of Nugent and his sympathizers are the same.
We’d like to say the tactics are different - that they are absent of the KKK violence of the 1920s and 1960s. But a young black man was killed by a gun-toting vigilante in Florida, and Nugent and company are cheering. Nugent has made thinly veiled threats of violence against our president, and has advocated “shooting illegal immigrants on sight.”