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| If not for canes, this Klan would be forgetable |
One
really has to have a depraved sensibility to find anything appealing about it.
WHICH
IS WHY I have a hard time taking seriously the incident that occurred earlier
this week in suburban Tinley Park, where the local police are investigating the
distribution of a few fliers touting a group calling itself the Traditionalist
American Knights.
As
in a group that uses the imagery of the white robes and hoods of the Ku Klux
Klan and tries to appeal to people who have their own irrational hang-ups about
our society based on race.
It
seems that five people living on a block in the southwestern Cook municipality
reported having found fliers placed on their driveways in plastic bags – along with
a candy cane.
How
sweet. These racist nitwits who want to stir up fear kept in mind that it was
the Week of Christmas. They gave a gift.
ON
THE SURFACE, these people weren’t making a threat to the individuals who found
the flier and candy. It seemed more to reassure people who live in the
predominantly white (but also very ethnic) community that someone would
sympathize if they’re the types who believe that all these Muslims who are
moving into the southwest suburbs are somehow a threat.
The
police may well be handling this incident properly. The candy canes have been
collected as evidence, in the event that some sort of serious racial supremacist
activity does develop in the suburb.
For
now, it’s someone with a depraved sensibility leaving a candy cane. In and of
itself, it’s not a crime.
 |
| Would these people have used candy canes? |
But
it’s the kind of thing that ought to have authorities concerned that criminal activity
can develop. Although it seems that in Tinley Park, officials are less
concerned with the Klan than the “16 and Pregnant” program of M-TV setting foot
in town.
BECAUSE
I’LL BE the first to admit the Klan, or the groups that use its imagery, aren’t
anywhere near as organized as they’d like us to believe. The Klan of old that
was fully-worthy of the label of “terrorist organization” is dead.
Instead,
we have half-wits who try to reinforce their hang-ups by using the old imagery –
as though they think everyone will cower in fear at their hooded presence.
Instead of merely causing us to snicker at how pathetic they truly are.
I
doubt this group, whatever its membership actually consists of, even bothers to
wear the hoods and robes of old. They’re probably like a group of people I once
encountered at a hot dog stand on the Northwest Side who were talking amongst
each other about how to properly erect a cross so as to try to intimidate
someone.
As
far as I know, that cross was never erected in the neighborhood. It likely was
a few meatheads blowing off some verbal steam.
NOW
THAT WE have a candy cane chapter of the Klan (how else can we think of this
latest group), it seems even more lame and laughable.
There
always will be a few people who turn to the image of the hood or the swastika
to try to reinforce their thoughts that it’s everybody else’s fault that they’re
at the bottom of our society.
And
that if things were just, someone else would rank below them. Which never will
occur.
If
anything, I have always sided with those civil rights activists who say that in
the modern era, the bigots we ought to be concerned about are those who don’t
wear sheets.
AS
IN THOSE people who actually work their way into legitimate positions of power
and authority – then use them to reinforce their racist thoughts.
I
fear a government official or police officer with a racial attitude more than I
ever will fear some clown in a hood who wants to idealize the nitwits who
resorted to terrorist tactics to try to keep black people “in their place.”
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