By BRIANA SPINA
Staff Writer
When you think of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) you may think of Southerners in pointy white hoods. You may think back to the post-Civil War era when it was founded, back when slavery became illegal but its legacy remained. You may recall the disenfranchisement and the lynchings and the Union county jail massacre. But you tell yourself that all that was way back in the nineteenth century, and it was not in our part of the country. This is the twenty-first century, and you say that things aren’t like that anymore, that there are laws in place and the organization practically does not exist.
You are painfully wrong.
The Ku Klux Klan is alive and well, thanks to the rise of chauvinistic populism coinciding with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign (a fact, not an opinion). Not all of them wear the tell-tale cloaks, and not all of them live in the deep South.
They are closer than you think.
A mere hour away from Albany, in Fulton County, there are reported to be 200 active members of the KKK. Concentrated in the town of Gloversville, they are actively recruiting more people to join. The local paper, The Leader-Herald, ran a three-part series about the presence of the KKK, but it was dreadfully ineffective. The paper ran two of the three parts on the front page, each of which included a picture of KKK members in their various uniforms. Those two articles contained all pro-KKK information, with only a single quote from an opposition group, the Southern Poverty Law Center. There was an uproar from community members as well as the mayor against The Leader-Herald for giving this twisted, abhorrent group a platform to spout their beliefs, gain publicity and notoriety, and evoke fear in residents who are part of the groups which the KKK targets.
Desmond Tutu, a South African social justice leader, once said “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor,” and The Leader-Herald has exemplified this point. News reporting innately requires neutrality, so even the choice of writing a story about the KKK gives the organization support. Because it was not reporting on a recent disruption or action taken by the KKK, this spread has allowed them into the public eye with no opposition. It is the job of journalists to present the facts and uncover operations like this one; however, a journalist cannot give a voice to the hateful, yet have a footnote underneath claiming that the intent of the article was “to empower the local community, to report on an issue that affects everyone.”
Empowering journalism offers solutions, not a summary of the terror that goes through the minds of Klansmen. Responsible reporting provides inspiration to ostracize troglodytes and rise against danger. It does not validate the Ku Klux Klan by plastering their presence across the community. The Leader-Herald should have been mindful of Desmond Tutu’s words before doing the KKK a favor.
Below are just a few of the points made public about the KKK as a result of the articles. According to them, their goal is to “educate people.” Their materials—radically religious and prejudiced propaganda—are too graphic and explicit to be reprinted or explained. They say that they are not Nazis, yet they openly admire Hitler. They say that they are not white supremacists, rather they are separatists. As in “separate but equal,” the doctrine in the Constitution which preserved segregation. Recall the vast inequalities that sentiment caused and still causes, how the “colored” counterparts to the whites only facilities and resources were never equal, if they even existed at all.
They say that they are not trying to scare people, but they leave ominous messages and persistent advertising in public places throughout the town, and even beyond county lines. They say that they don’t condone violence, but they rallied in Charlottesville alongside their fellow terrorists. They reported that did not care about Heather Heyer’s death and in fact would not have batted an eye if there had been more casualties.
They claim to be embarrassed to be white because of the rising power of minority groups. But they are not even in the position to be embarrassed. The KKK is the cause of the embarrassment. They are an embarrassment to all white people and Christians who don’t support their ideologies, the white people and Christians who have a shred of common sense and human decency. They are an embarrassment to New York, the state that accepted the third highest number of refugees last year, and the state that prides itself on being progressive. They are an embarrassment to our country—America, the so-called “land of the free and home of the brave.” The KKK besmirches that patriotic ideal and makes it hard to even envision a future where all Americans can wholeheartedly say that they are proud of their country.
More important than shame, the KKK instills a chilling and persistent fear into anyone who is not one of them, specifically people of color, Jewish people, and the LGBTQ+ community. Like the historic violence, the present-day KKK is still attacking places of worship and community centers as well as murdering minorities and those who oppose the organization. Over the course of a century and a half, it is utterly appalling how minorities must still live in trepidation of what should be an obsolete hate group.
Again, it is happening eerily close by, and it cannot be ignored. Through their coverage by The Leader-Herald, the KKK has tried to present that they are not dangerous. It is vital, therefore, to understand that the mere existence of a hate group is an active threat. It will not go away if we sit silently down here in the capital city. We cannot wait until these white-hooded monsters are walking through our streets and terrorizing our neighbors to decide to do something about it. We must make it abundantly clear that the KKK never will be welcome here. Not in Albany. Not in Gloversville. Not in New York. Not in America.
