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KKK, other racist groups disavow the white supremacist label [View all]
Source: Associated Press
KKK, other racist groups disavow the white supremacist label
By JAY REEVES
Dec. 10, 2016 4:27 PM EST
PELHAM, N.C. (AP) — In today's racially charged environment, there's a label that even the KKK disavows: white supremacy.
Standing on a muddy dirt road in the dead of night near the North Carolina-Virginia border, masked Ku Klux Klan members claimed Donald Trump's election as president proves whites are taking back America from blacks, immigrants, Jews and other groups they describe as criminals and freeloaders. America was founded by and for whites, they say, and only whites can run a peaceful, productive society.
But still, the KKK members insisted in an interview with The Associated Press, they're not white supremacists, a label that is gaining traction in the country since Trump won with the public backing of the Klan, neo-Nazis and other white racists.
"We're not white supremacists. We believe in our race," said a man with a Midwestern accent and glasses just hours before a pro-Trump Klan parade in a nearby town. He, like three Klan compatriots, wore a robe and pointed hood and wouldn't give his full name, in accordance with Klan rules.
Claiming the Klan isn't white supremacist flies in the face of its very nature. The Klan's official rulebook, the Kloran — published in 1915 and still followed by many groups — says the organization "shall ever be true in the faithful maintenance of White Supremacy," even capitalizing the term for emphasis. Watchdog groups also consider the Klan a white supremacist organization, and experts say the groups' denials are probably linked to efforts to make their racism more palatable.
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By JAY REEVES
Dec. 10, 2016 4:27 PM EST
PELHAM, N.C. (AP) — In today's racially charged environment, there's a label that even the KKK disavows: white supremacy.
Standing on a muddy dirt road in the dead of night near the North Carolina-Virginia border, masked Ku Klux Klan members claimed Donald Trump's election as president proves whites are taking back America from blacks, immigrants, Jews and other groups they describe as criminals and freeloaders. America was founded by and for whites, they say, and only whites can run a peaceful, productive society.
But still, the KKK members insisted in an interview with The Associated Press, they're not white supremacists, a label that is gaining traction in the country since Trump won with the public backing of the Klan, neo-Nazis and other white racists.
"We're not white supremacists. We believe in our race," said a man with a Midwestern accent and glasses just hours before a pro-Trump Klan parade in a nearby town. He, like three Klan compatriots, wore a robe and pointed hood and wouldn't give his full name, in accordance with Klan rules.
Claiming the Klan isn't white supremacist flies in the face of its very nature. The Klan's official rulebook, the Kloran — published in 1915 and still followed by many groups — says the organization "shall ever be true in the faithful maintenance of White Supremacy," even capitalizing the term for emphasis. Watchdog groups also consider the Klan a white supremacist organization, and experts say the groups' denials are probably linked to efforts to make their racism more palatable.
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Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/b0256e138327481ebcba6e23e2d03957/white-supremacists-not-exactly-kkk-and-other-groups-claim
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