As a new CNN report shows, the Klan (and I assume other white power groups and nationalist groups) has grown these past 6 years, fed by the illegal immigration hysteria.
- 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."
"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.
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."
In addition, I saw the report filed on CNN TV, where they spoke with a Klan leader (garb and everything), and he remarked that nothing had promoted so many new recruits and sympathies as the issue of Mexicans and immigration. Not hate of blacks, gays, Jews, Catholics...Mexicans are the prime target of a new wave of racial hatred and bigotry.
What amazes me is the sheer ignorance and vitriol that escapes the mouths of people when it comes to the issue of Mexicans and illegal (and many don't like the legal ones too) immigration. Otherwise calm and thoughtful individuals can turn into these hateful, ignorant and bigoted people if the subject turns to this.
And you wouldn't believe the things they say:
"Immigrants bring crime, are violent." They paint Mexicans and other Latin American immigrants as these barbarians bringing violence and diseases to their pure clean country.
It's certainly not true. Immigrants actually commit less crime than native-born folks of all stripes.
"They take our jobs, lower our wages, and don't assimilate."
Well...not true, not true, and not true.
I find though, that the facts matter very little in this debate. There is something about the situation that just triggers this virulent knee-jerk response from certain Americans when Mexicans and immigration come up.
I know a lot of it cannot purely be racism, but the realization that I've had long ago is that at some level there is a fear and hate (at least a dislike) of Latinos:
Of "them" taking "our" jobs, of "those people" who speak a different language, have foreign customs, have brown skin. Its a bigotry of which many have not seen in awhile, and the Klu Klux Klan and others prove, that latent racial resentment and bigotry lies below the surface in certain parts of American society, just under the radar, simmering and waiting for some concrete symbol and scapegoat (a "them") to focus it and bring it to the surface.
Out and out racism is not kosher anymore, and the Klan understands that. What they do now is play into the racial resentment and bigotries of mainstream Americans, and use the issues of immigration to incite racial animosity in the guise of just being passionate about border enforcement.
While that may be true for some, I have no doubt that certain bigotry, and racial and cultural fears are part of the basis for some of the vitriol and anger that is associated with opposing illegal immigrants.
They certainly know what they are doing. And as their 60 something percent increase in membership since 2000 attests: It is working.
Really, the most frustrating part of this is when you hear the angry rhetoric from the sons and grandsons of European immigrants who came to this country and did the same thing that the current batch of immigrants is trying to do (and is doing). They find no irony in the fact that the very arguments: "Take our jobs" "Unclean", "Uncivilized", "Wont assimilate", are the very argument that the nativist Americans in the 19th and early 20th century used against those Irish, Italian, Russian, and various European immigrants.
Its sad to hear these same folks throw out the same charges at the new batch of immigrants trying to do the same thing those Europeans did all those years ago.
And a testament to how "American" those ethnic immigrants really have become.
And how wrong those Nativists were all those years ago...