SMRs and AMRs

Saturday, July 18, 2015

The KKK is rallying this weekend in South Carolina. Here’s why.

By Janell Ross July 18 at 8:00 AM, WashPost

We've known for a few weeks now that the Klu Klux Klan has been busy.

Within days of the church shooting in Charleston, the group appears to have blanketed neighborhoods in communities as far flung as Orange County, Calif. and at least one in North Charleston, a nearby incorporated city with its own recent race-related challenges. The flyers included language "assuring" residents of the Klan's presence and protection.

But this week, the KKK has made some of its plans known when it confirmed the group will rally outside the South Carolina statehouse Saturday. At issue: Last week's move by state lawmakers to remove the Confederate flag from statehouse grounds.

And now that these plans have some shape, so too does the KKK rally's current political meaning.

The KKK has always flared or flexed its muscle at points of challenge -- real or imagined -- to a social order that puts white Americans first. Conversely, its public presence and influence has waned at moments when this dominance was most secure. And it's in that context -- rather than America's now almost reflexive suspicion about publicity seeking and empty symbolism -- that both Saturday's KKK rally and the flag removal that set it in motion should really be understood.

(More here.)

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