Posted by Elaine Magliaro
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the Ku Klux Klan, which has a long history of violence, is the oldest and most infamous of American hate groups. The SPLC said, “Although black Americans have typically been the Klan’s primary target, it also has attacked Jews, immigrants, gays and lesbians and, until recently, Catholics. Over the years since it was formed in December 1865, the Klan has typically seen itself as a Christian organization, although in modern times Klan groups are motivated by a variety of theological and political ideologies.”
SOURCE
Ku Klux Klan (Southern Poverty Law Center)
Nicole Plyler Fisk
Gene Howington
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Elaine … you’ve nailed it down perfectly. I even asked a similar question on another thread…”why the masks?” The KKK is no more Christian than a rattlesnake,and I like rattle snakes far better. I’ve written of my inadvertent experiences with them here (due to our horses’ location) and never once saw anything “Christian” about them, with the collection of skinheads, Nazi’s, Aryan Nations, et al coalition…just a collection of scrawny wanna be’s with no purpose but strife…and mock bravado. I do NOT consider their gratuitous burning of a cross to be “Christian” in any way. And … unlike the fanatical Mideastern terrorists, they cite the stars & bars out of ignorance and as a weak excuse. It’s a piece of cloth and belongs in a museum, but not usually raised in contention, wherever it is, until some idiots decide to make it one when others behave civility which I am certain they do NOT understand. When I see one in the north I know what it means, and so do the rest of us…so we avoid them. I am not trying to denigrate the heritages of an ugly war, for those who are sincere, just the latter day presumptions about it. My ancestors on one side fought in both the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, as Union Cavalry up to Appomattox. Theirs is the heritage I remember most.
Whether beheading or lynching, the result is the same, and all for hate.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/04/1362325/-ISIS-Burned-a-Man-Alive-That-It-is-Nothing-Compared-to-the-Spectacular-Lynchings-of-Black-Americans#
Isis and the KKK have burned their victims alive, they have that in common too.
Just so, Aridog, you also point to the value loading of symbols. Is this symbol:
The symbol of Islam or the symbol of radical Islam? Strangely enough, it was neither until the 1950’s and 60’s when this symbol was adopted by various Islamic majority states, but before that the symbol had many other associations from the Ottoman Empire and the worship of the moon god Ay Ata to pre-Christian Constantinople and the worship of the moon goddess Hecate to even older forms of worship deriving from Mithraism. Even the modern symbol of Christianity, some form of the cross, was not always the symbol associated with that religion. The fish is much older symbolic association.
Symbols have the meaning people attribute to them but unlike words there need be no agreement on common meaning. Naturalistic language breaks down without commonly accepted meanings of words. The language of symbolism operates differently. Symbols may have a form of semantic drift but they are not constrained to have contemporaneous exclusive meaning and may in fact have conflicting meaning based on context. To the Eastern world a swastika is an ancient good luck symbol, but to the Western world it is a symbol of Nazi atrocity. Unless of course you are a Western white supremest in which case the swastika is a symbol of white power.
When a symbol is contentious and has multiple meanings, in pluralistic society where equality is a value (either realized or aspirational) it makes sense to leave such symbols off the organelles of government.
However, to flatly deny that a symbol cannot have other meanings to other people is to fly in the face of reality.
Some people think two golden arches means a good place to eat, others think it is the sign of a poison outlet.
So it goes.
Gene ….said…
However, to flatly deny that a symbol cannot have other meanings to other people is to fly in the face of reality.
I don’t think I said that. Meanings are individual, but not governmental (which represents all of us) and that we seem to agree on. To call any of them “religious” is silly, or abhorrent in some cases, but that’s just my individual opinion.
Beyond the above, “symbols” get hijacked and usually for aberrant purposes. I’m thinking the Stars & Bars” is a hijacked symbol. All I have to see is the KKK waving it to conclude that.
Two golden arches means one thing to me…the best evah French fries for road food snacking 🙂 If I have some time, add a double cheeseburger….but the fries come first.
“I don’t think I said that.”
Indeed, you did not, but what I said was intended as a general statement rather than any form of argument.
“When I see one in the north I know what it means, and so do the rest of us…so we avoid them.” Aridog I have never seen one flying at a home in the north. I did see a couple of flags flying on the back of a motorcycle in Maryland once. My daughter has an african american co worker and she reported seeing one in a rural area in the north. She was both hurt and angered, and of course wants to stay away from there.
I did not know about the history of the moon and star that is now fully affiliated with Islam, Gene.
Interesting to learn.
Good point, BK.
But yeah, that’s the reason I bristle when one is deemed a terrorist group while the other gets the pass of euphemism. The intent is the same, the action is the same and the methods are the same.
Just like, across all religions, it is men in robe telling women what they can’t do. Then again, robes are one of the symbols of patriarchy, or domination, of leasure. Working men have no need for robes..
swarthmoremom … fortunately, harsh as that is to say, Robert Miles is deceased here and his brand of idiocy is gone as well in most areas. I never knew whether to laugh at him and his cohorts or be angry…the latter usually won out. I said little to protect our horses from his morons, but remained wary none-the-less. However, the very fact he was able to blow up some school buses long ago and still gather a crowd is disconcerting. Even today, long after his demise, his home town is considered a no-go place for many here. It is very slowly shedding the reputation he brought upon them.
I posted elsewhere today…
Only a bit out of character (??) I am making this day, the 4th of July, my day of naiveté’ 🙂 … I wish everyone the best 4th possible, both for themselves and their families & children, and I intend to be angry, or even just mildly irritated, with no one anywhere for today. I’ve seen enough strife & destruction that I need to be this way today, and to fervently believe we can and will learn to stop killing each other all over the world. For at least one day of the year and this one seems appropriate. Call it my day of Hope.
Regardless of our differences, worldwide, is one day too much? I don’t think so.
Well, so much for not shooting & killing each other, since in Chicago there were 82 shot, 14 fatally, over holiday weekend in Chicago. Some reports say 16 were killed…I presume that 2 died of mortal wounds subsequent to their shooting. And that’s just one city in the safest nation on earth. What the flip??
That said, I guess it beats sun bathing on a beach in Tunisia. 😦
The “safest nation on earth”? Really? Not with all those guns out there.
Yes, really. Chicago has the toughest gun laws in the country and the fewest legal guns available. Yet it seems to have a problem…I blame the people behaving badly not the guns. Chicago is fine example of why “control” per se is folly, when what is needed is provision of means and methods for people to make something of themselves, even from the bottom tier…and THAT I support wholeheartedly. If not guns, other means can be devised to kill and maim, like 5 gallon fertilizer bombs, or larger ones, easily made. Add big knives for any use in urban environments…e.g., I support limitations on their size, just as I do the fairly strict gun laws where I live. I am vetted by the FBI on every pistol purchase I make and do not object how long that takes due to my very common name. It’s hardly a weekly shopping experience. We should be so lucky as to be able to moderate bad vehicle drivers, who kill far more people annually. Those of us, like me, who’ve been shooting firearms since 1949 and do so safely & regularly today, murdering paper targets, are not the problem however many guns we have…and I have no military clone assault weapons, (took off those fatigues and forgot about them long ago) just a few pistols and two shot guns for trap shooting…another target sport that harms no one.
We will have to agree to disagree on this subject, but I do respect your opinion. I doubt your experience is as extensive as mine and that makes a difference on what you/we fear. Mine served me well as a recruit long ago as it let me progress faster, and survive, if you will, in an ugly place.
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