The following article by Linley Sanders of Newsweek was posted on the AlterNet.org website October 11, 2017:
The Ku Klux Klan hopes to recruit future white supremacists at high school football games.
The racist group distributed propaganda fliers at a Friday night football game at Gray’s Creek High School in North Carolina. The fliers showcased racist comments about Jews, Mexicans and Muslims written atop the Confederate flag, also attacking Black Lives Matter, recent NFL take-a-knee protests, and black culture.
The fliers were left on cars during the October 6 game and criticized any removal of Confederate flags and Confederate monuments as a sign that people do not “respect the white majority of America,” providing evidence that the historic Confederate symbols fuel white supremacy.
The KKK is the oldest and “most infamous” hate group in the United States, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The group has a history of attacking black Americans, Jews, Muslims, immigrants, the LGBTQ community and other minority groups.
The Loyal White Knights of the KKK took responsibility for the fliers, The Fayetteville Observer reported. Gray’s Creek principal Lisa Stewart said the fliers were “unapproved” and violate the school’s policy against defamation and abusive language. The high school student body is 44 percent minorities.
In September, high school students in Portland, Oregon discovered stickers emblazoned with a white-hooded Klansman with the words “the KKK wants you” in a high school bathroom, Newsweek reported. It is unclear if the Oregon stickers were an official recruitment effort by the KKK.
In Iowa, five students at Creston Community High School were suspended after a photograph circulated of them wearing Ku Klux Klan hoods and burning a cross.
KKK fliers are reportedly being distributed in residential neighborhoods in Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky and Florida. KKK fliers distributed in Jacksonville, Florida on October 9 threatened African Americans who are “making eyes” at white women, reported an ABC affiliate. The KKK papers included death threats to black Americans and Jews. A criminal investigation is ongoing.
The increased visibility of the KKK follows a public march of white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, which led to clashes and, eventually, the murder of counterprotester Heather Heyer. President Donald Trump was criticized for his delayed response in condemning white supremacist hate groups.
View the post here.