There's No Such Thing as a Black KKK
by BAR contributing
editor Mel Reeves
"There is a difference
between racist violence and violence aimed at one's self."
Immediately after the death of former Washington Redskins
Safety, Sean Taylor, Jason Whitlock, a sports columnist for the Kansas City
Star and FOXSPORTS.com wrote an article entitled, "Tailor's death a grim
reminder for us all."
In the article Whitlock says that Taylor was "another
victim" of what he calls the "Black KKK."
By Black KKK Whitlock means the crimes committed by blacks against
blacks. Now to be fair, every sane black person is pained by the amount of
crime in our communities, but that does not give us reason to confuse racist
violence consciously aimed at the destruction of our race, with street crime
born of desperation and self hatred.
But that is exactly what Whitlock has done. He writes, "...the
traditional, white KKK lynched, terrorized and intimidated black folks at a
slower rate than its modern-day dark-skinned replacement." Dark skinned
replacement? My first response was to question Whitlock's sanity. But then I
realized that maybe he does know what he is doing; it sure got my attention.
Whitlock is guaranteeing himself a job and notoriety as a modern day Negro
basher. Black folks who publicly denigrate the race have always been popular in
this country and it's always been a well paid position.
"Black folks who
publicly denigrate the race have always been popular in this country."
W. E. B Dubois had a saying that probably best fits
Whitlock and some of our more conservative black pundits, when he called them,
"ignorant social climbers, whose sole claim to fame was the ability to kick
Negroes when they are down." Whitlock has been trotted out before. He was on
CNN denouncing Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton for their involvement with the Don
Imus flap. Now, many of us have problems with Sharpton, Jackson and that ilk,
but they didn't create the problems that they respond to.
Now Whitlock is at again, alluding to a fictitious black
KKK. We have to jump on this term with
all the outrage we can muster. We must not let this live - as they say in
church, we have to kill this "Black KKK" devil. There is no such thing and the
metaphor is inappropriate. It is as inappropriate as the characterization of
the real life phenomenon of institutional and personal racism, as a fictitious
"race card." And you know how much we hate that expression.
White folks are already beginning to eat this term (Black
KKK) up and some misled and self hating black folks are as well. If you don't
believe me, look at right wing and conservative websites. A black woman on
My-space, who continually posts self
hating and black folk bashing blogs, posted Whitlock's article and this is how
one white guy responded: "I wish you were the spokeswoman for the black
community, instead we have to put up with seeing racism continue due to
characters like Jesse Jackson."
"As they say in
church, we have to kill this ‘Black KKK' devil."
What Whitlock has done is dangerous, because most of our a
fellow citizens either don't know, or barely know, the role the KKK has played
in the oppression of black people in this country. The Ku Klux Klan is a
White Supremacist and terrorist organization formed immediately following the
Civil War, with the express aim of re-enslaving the newly freed slave. The
group was organized around the hatred and destruction of everything black:
black culture, black hopes, black progress and ultimately black people.
Later, the Klan amended its program. When they realized that
they couldn't eliminate blacks, or send them all back to Africa, they sought to
disenfranchise them and make them easy prey to the new slave masters, the
capitalist industrialists.
The Klan and its cousins the White Citizens Council and others
- with a wink and nod from the federal government - sought to keep blacks from
voting and enjoying other rights of a free citizen of this country. These
racist groups particularly made it their business to terrorize blacks and keep
them marginalized, segregated and in inferior status.
White Supremacist organizations helped push back the gains
of the Reconstruction era. The KKK was responsible for thousands of deaths and
the displacement of thousands of black households during that very important
time following the Civil War. The Klan even had the backing, in many instances,
of the power structure, or the State. They set the stage for the passing of Jim
Crow laws in the South and de facto segregation in the North.
The Klan and its kind were instrumental in fomenting race
riots, especially around the early 1900's and later during and after World War
I. These riots, we have more recently discovered, had a much more sinister
purpose than initially thought. As was the case in Rosewood, Florida and other
small communities, when blacks were terrorized and run off, the land that was
left behind was stolen.
The Klan was allowed to carry out their program of lynching,
rape, torture, murder, thievery and mayhem for over one hundred years and only
a concerted effort by the victims themselves, along with allies, put an end to
it. The federal government never saw fit to outlaw the Klan, or put them
on a "list" even though their stated aim was racist
violence and intolerance. The existence of this group and groups like them
threaten the very existence of blacks in this country, even to this day.
"The federal government
never saw fit to outlaw the Klan."
Yet Whitlock wants to compare the Klan to street crime,
which at bottom is an external manifestation of the internalized oppression we
still know and feel in this country. Please!!
There is a difference between racist violence and violence
aimed at one's self. Blacks who commit crimes are like any others who commit
crimes; they don't discriminate in who they victimize. Blacks kill other blacks
because they are in closer proximity and because of self hatred. I think it was
Paolo Friere who said
that the oppressed kill one another because they see the oppressor in one
another's eyes.
Black crime and random violence simply can't be compared to
the systematic, "on purpose" attempt to destroy us as a people. There simply
aren't any Black Supremacists in this country. There are groups, no doubt, who
have and continue to sell "wolf tickets" about eliminating "whitey." But we
know what there chance of success would be, so it amounts to aimless chest
pounding.
So please don't use this term or take it
seriously. Crimes by black people against other black people are not
committed by any so-called Black KKK, but are rather a symptom of what's wrong
not just in the black community, but in the US. The
truth be told, if there had never been a KKK and its racist underpinnings, and
if this society didn't still assign - overtly and subtly - second class
status to the black population, then there would be a whole lot less of
this violent acting out.
Mel Reeves is a journalist and activist living
in Miami, Florida. He can be contacted at mellaneous19@yahoo.com
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