The Klan is rising again

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Justin24

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http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/06/klan.report.ap/index.html

Klan growing, fed by anti-immigrant feelings, report says
POSTED: 5:30 a.m. EST, February 7, 2007

Story Highlights• Ku Klux Klan rebounding by exploiting hot-button issues, report says

• Klan uses, stirs up anti-immigrant sentiments, says Anti-Defamation League
• Hate group watchdog says Klan chapters grew 63% between 2000 and 2005
• ADL says Klan cooperating with other extremist groups more than before
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NEW YORK (AP) -- The Ku Klux Klan has rebounded by exploiting current hot-button issues, especially immigration, according to a new report released by the Anti-Defamation League.

The Klan, and other white supremacist groups like skinheads and neo-Nazis, grew significantly more active in the past year, holding more rallies, distributing leaflets and increasing their presence on the Internet -- much of it focused on stirring anti-immigrant sentiment, according to the report.

"Extremist groups are good at seizing on whatever the hot button is of the day and twisting the message to get new members," Deborah M. Lauter, ADL Civil Rights director, said Monday. "This one seems to be taking hold with more of mainstream America than we'd like to see." (Read the full ADL report)

"Klan groups have witnessed a surprising and troubling resurgence by exploiting fears of an immigration explosion, and the debate over immigration has, in turn, helped to fuel an increase in Klan activity, with new groups sprouting in parts of the country that have not seen much activity," Lauter said.

Old Klan chapters have been revived and new ones started throughout the South, historically the heart of the group, and in other places such as Michigan, Iowa and New Jersey, says the report. (Watch how the KKK is seeing a resurgence )

Last May in Alabama, an anti-immigration rally included slogans such as, "Let's get rid of the Mexicans!" according to the document, titled "Ku Klux Klan Rebounds."

"The Klan is increasingly cooperating with other extremist groups and Neo-Nazi groups," Lauter said. "That's a new phenomenon."

Between 2000 and 2005, hate groups mushroomed 33 percent and Klan chapters by 63 percent, according to Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate crimes.

Precise data are difficult to pin down, but Potok's group counts as many as 150 Klan chapters with up to 8,000 members nationwide. More than 800 hate groups exist around the country, Southern Poverty research shows.

Hate groups were fading in 1990s
In the late 1990s, memberships in such groups was crumbling as they lost leaders and struggled to organize, said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. Many hit bottom around 2000.

"Whenever you think the Klan is down and out, they find another way to reinvent themselves," he said of the recent resurgence.

Historically, the Klan's focus had been to terrorize African-Americans -- through race riots, lynchings and other killings -- but it reached peak membership at more than 4 million in the 1920s by focusing on immigration.

Newcomers from Ireland and Germany were portrayed as Catholic usurpers invading the United States, taking jobs from native-born Americans and undermining national fabric, Levin said.

Said Potok: "It's remarkable to look back at the nativist sentiments toward Catholics -- it's very similar to what we're seeing with Mexicans now."

Today, many white supremacists blame immigrants, particularly Hispanics, for crime, struggling schools or unemployment, for instance. With many Americans already divided on how to revamp laws and practices to address the nation's swelling immigrant communities, immigration "is an issue that works for hate groups," Potok said.

A burning cross on the front lawn
Many Latinos are feeling the effects firsthand. Last September, a Kentucky family originally from El Salvador found a wooden cross burning on their front lawn just weeks after they moved in.

Earlier last year, a Latino teenager in Houston was brutally beaten and sodomized while one attacker screamed "White Power!" The victim barely survived, and one attacker was sentenced to life in prison.

"I've been doing [Hispanic advocacy work] for a long, long time and the atmosphere has never been as poisonous as it has been in the last few years," said Lisa Navarrete, a vice president at the National Council of La Raza. "The level of vitriol is new."

Increasingly, fear permeates many Hispanic communities as individuals and businesses are targeted. Last year, La Raza held a workshop at its annual convention titled "Keeping Our Institutions Safe."

"It was very well attended, unfortunately," Navarrete said.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
 
Try the 1900s, they didn't even exist until 1866 and membership peaked in the 1920s at around 4.5 million.
 
MrPryck2U said:
You just did the KKK a favor. Bad publicity is good publicity for them.

Information isn't publicity.
Especially in this forum I don't think anyone will turn into a White Supremacist-supporter.

Here in Germany they thought if no one talked about WWII it would be forgotten soon and is the best solution.
Later they found out that it was a really bad idea.
 
Precicely, like any group of idiots they should be given a sounding board to reveal how stupiud they are - and then mocked savagely to show how violent they are.
 
Vincent Vega said:


Information isn't publicity.
Especially in this forum I don't think anyone will turn into a White Supremacist-supporter.

Here in Germany they thought if no one talked about WWII it would be forgotten soon and is the best solution.
Later they found out that it was a really bad idea.

Excellent point.
 
80sU2isBest said:

Justin has the most outspoken anti-immigrant sentiment here in FYM. So I'm suprised that he would post an article shedding light on the dangers of such sentiments. That's all.
 
BonoVoxSupastar said:


Justin has the most outspoken anti-immigrant sentiment here in FYM. So I'm suprised that he would post an article shedding light on the dangers of such sentiments. That's all.

I am not anti-Immigrant I am anti-Illegal Immigrants. I support immigration as long as it's legal. These Klan Members make me sick.
 
Justin24 said:


I am not anti-Immigrant I am anti-Illegal Immigrants.

I think the vast majority of people feel the same way. I can't think of a single good reason that anyone would support illegal immigration.
 
80sU2isBest said:
I can't think of a single good reason that anyone would support illegal immigration.

The USA was founded on it, as were a lot of other countries - Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc.

Actually, if we want to go really way back, many European countries were also founded on 'illegal immigration', to use a modern day expression - I don't remember seeing any evidence, for example, of the native Irish inviting the Vikings or Anglo-Saxons to occupy their country.

This brings us to a broader issue - who owns land, who owns countries?

Of course, the USA, as with any legally constituted jurisdiction, has the right to restrict immigration, and ultimately I would see the renewed popularity for White Nationalist groups in the US as a backlash against the failure of the Bush administration to adequately put in place and enforce curtailment of 'illegal immigration'.
 
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80sU2isBest said:


I can't think of a single good reason that anyone would support illegal immigration.

I don't think it's a matter of supporting illegal immigration. It's a matter of understanding someone wanting to do better for their family, a matter of understanding how much our economy depends on "aliens", and knowing this is how our country was founded.
 
BonoVoxSupastar said:


I don't think it's a matter of supporting illegal immigration. It's a matter of understanding someone wanting to do better for their family, a matter of understanding how much our economy depends on "aliens", and knowing this is how our country was founded.

I don't think anyone would argue that with you; that's perfectly in synch with my support for hard-working, decent people who become legal residents/citizens of the USA (as long as they vote conservative, of course).
 
80sU2isBest said:


I don't think anyone would argue that with you; that's perfectly in synch with my support for hard-working, decent people who become legal residents/citizens of the USA (as long as they vote conservative, of course).

Have you not been following the debate? People are arguing those very things. It's not easy to become legal and it's not easy to feed children on the money they make...

This isn't a complicated issue, but it's not exactly black and white either.

But the truth is much of the "build a wall", "they're taking our jobs", etc crowd's sentiment is built on racism. Like it or not...

And now the Klan are benefitting.:|
 
BonoVoxSupastar said:




But the truth is much of the "build a wall", "they're taking our jobs", etc crowd's sentiment is built on racism. Like it or not...

Racism? Who's specifying a race here? This is about nothing more or less than legal as compared to illegal, taxpayers as compared to non-taxpayers. It has nothing to do with feelings of race superiority.
 
80sU2isBest said:


Racism? Who's specifying a race here? This is about nothing more or less than legal as compared to illegal, taxpayers as compared to non-taxpayers. It has nothing to do with feelings of race superiority.

Don't kid yourself. You don't see minutemen on the Canadian border.

I've read(and I'll paraphrase): "those mexicans are too stupid to fix their own country", "soon mexicans will be the majority", and many other such comments in here. And that's just FYM, it's much worse outside of FYM.

So I'm not sure where you've been participating in discussions but everywhere I turn they are laced with racism.
 
BonoVoxSupastar said:


Don't kid yourself. You don't see minutemen on the Canadian border.

Look, I don't agree with what the minute men are doing. But men who take it upon themselves to stop illegal immigration does not equal racism. Are there racist Minutemen? Probably. But there are racist accountants, racist lawyers, rascist Hollywood actors, rascist politicians. In every walk of life, there are rascists.

BonoVoxSupastar said:

I've read(and I'll paraphrase): "those mexicans are too stupid to fix their own country", .

You've read that here, on FYM? I would have to read the exact quote before I could believe that you weren't misunderstanding the person.

BonoVoxSupastar said:
"soon mexicans will be the majority",.

I don't know why you would consider that racism. It's a fact here in Texas; I've read the population projections.
 
80sU2isBest said:


Look, I don't agree with what the minute men are doing. But men who take it upon themselves to stop illegal immigration does not equal racism.
You missed my point. There's illegal immigration coming in from Canada as well, yet no armed citizens on that border. Why?


80sU2isBest said:

You've read that here, on FYM? I would have to read the exact quote before I could believe that you weren't misunderstanding the person.

Believe me, I niced it up. I don't have time to look the quotes up, but there was no misunderstanding these posters.


80sU2isBest said:

I don't know why you would consider that racism. It's a fact here in Texas; I've read the population projections.

You don't see that as racism? Why would you fear becoming a minority? This sentiment comes from a I want the status quo, white man majority mentality. It's fear, it's racism. If you considered them equal you wouldn't have anything to fear.
 
Is there a bigger bunch of cowards than the KKK? If their cause is so righteous, why do they have to hide their faces? I'd love to drop a handful of Klansmen into my neighborhood and see how they made out.

I don't think it's fair to assume that everyone who's anti-illegal immigration is racist, or even to assume that everyone who actively participates in preventing it (like the Minutemen) is racist. But I have no doubt that if you compared a random sampling of 100 Americans to a random sampling of 100 Americans who patrol the Mexican border with guns you'd find more racism in the border guys. Traditionally the most vocal opposition to immigration has contained an undercurrent of racism, why would today be suddenly different?
 
This is disgusting. They should prosecute Klan perpetrators of anti-immigrant outrages and discourage Klan activities and membership. No, I'm not advocating censorship. I just think we should do the right thing in response to this disgusting development.
 
BonoVoxSupastar said:


Don't kid yourself. You don't see minutemen on the Canadian border.

I've read(and I'll paraphrase): "those mexicans are too stupid to fix their own country", "soon mexicans will be the majority", and many other such comments in here. And that's just FYM, it's much worse outside of FYM.

So I'm not sure where you've been participating in discussions but everywhere I turn they are laced with racism.
The second statement isn't by definition racism, it is demographics.
 
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