Racism: prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior.
The Ku Klux Klan, or the KKK, is a white supremacist group that rose in the southern states of the United States of America in the 1860s.
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It is undoubtedly a terrorist organization, an especially insidious one. The Klan has been curbing the rights of other citizens since its beginning, as it is the unofficial paramilitary arm of the Southern segregationist governments, which allowed the clan members to kill with impunity, therefore being able to eliminate and suppress activists of any sort.
The Ku Klux Klan’s primary motive was to suppress blacks, and those in support of them, such as the Republican Party, to maintain white supremacy in the country.
They did so by demonstrating cross burnings at night, hanging bodies of black people, bombings of black churches, and other ghastly actions.
At first, their focus was only on African-Americans, but slowly, as the movement gained momentum, they partially started targeting other races such as Jews and Hispanics
In 1871, the government of the United States passed the Klan Act, one of the first actions against the group, which allowed officials to intervene and arrest Klan members on a large scale, causing the Klan to disappear over the next several years.
But the Klan revived in 1905 when Thomas Dixon, an American writer, adapted his book, “Clansmen” into a play that introduced the burning cross as the symbol for the Ku Klux Klan.
If you have watched the 1915 movie called “the Birth of a Nation”, you would agree with me about how such adaptations revived national interest in the workings of the Klan on a large scale.
In 1920, the Klan became a more public organization and expanded its platform to include Prohibition, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, anti-Communism, and anti-Catholicism. Induced by the white supremacy displayed in “the birth of a nation”, whites across the country continued to take actions against the blacks, including bombing the house of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) Florida executive director.
But then the Klan again began to disappear as its members were convicted of murder, except for those groups in the southern states, where small groups continued to operate and bombed around 25 predominantly black churches in the 1960s and the 70s.
These sickening, gruesome acts of the Ku Klux Klan have been strongly criticized by citizens of the USA, and the rest of the world, causing great resentment to rise against the Klan.
Lastly in the 21st century, one of the major heads of the Klan was convicted on manslaughter charges and sentenced to 60 years in prison, resulting in major inactivity of the KKK.
The Klan is slowly rising again, in May 2019, the Klan had plans for having their second annual “Kookout” in Dayton, Ohio, which had the entire city feeling apprehensive. This attracted nationwide attention in the USA. But only nine people from the Klan showed up for the rally, and their slogans were drowned out by 500 to 600 protesters who gathered to show their opposition to the hate group’s message.
Joining the Ku Klux Klan is as easy as submitting an online form, the requirements only being that one should be white, and a Christian.
While the Klan has terrorized minorities during much of the last century, its leaders now showcase a public front that is more virulent than violent. Leaders from several different Klan groups all said they have rules against violence aside from self-defense, and even opponents agree the KKK has toned itself down after a string of members went to prison years after the fact for deadly arson attacks, beatings, bombings, and shootings.
Personally, I feel that the Government of the United States should take, and should long have taken, severe actions against the discriminatory propaganda of the Ku Klux Klan.
In the end, freedom of expression in a democracy is one thing, but unlimited and irrational freedom of expression is another, harming another community or a race in ways of spreading your own is incorrect, especially in a country like the United States where entire population consists of migrants and no natives.
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