The Klan has argued over this and generally they come to the conclusion that too many Americans have some scant (or more) Native blood in them to make a fuss about it if they want reasonable membership.
That is precisely my point: There is always some sort of political consideration or triangulation behind deciding who is white and who isn't: In the case you describe it is recruitment goals. Blacks just might be the only people who have never been considered "white" at one time or another, although guys like Justice Clarence Thomas have been giving it a shot on an individual basis. Likewise, the Patriarchy approves of abrasive, bullying women such as Ann Coulter and Dr. Laura having important, influential jobs so long as they attack feminism.
Remember that today's KKK is not the original organization.
That's like saying The American Nazi Party is not the original organization. It's a legal distinction but nothing more. If you are going to pick up somebody else's mantle by reviving their organization and using their name, you claim their baggage with it.
The KKK of today was founded in the 1920's by a capitalist opportunist who walked around America selling memberships to the Klan, which had been defunct for about fifty years.
Just because a group goes underground or gets less publicity doesn't mean they are actually defunct. Throughout the Nineteen-teens, there was a lynching epidemic. The NAACP marked every individual lynching by hanging a flag saying, "A MAN WAS LYNCHED TODAY" outside their national headquarters. That flag flew every third or fourth day during that decade. I'm not saying that only the Klan lynched, but many of the participants had Klan connections of some sort / time or other. It wasn't defunct.
Depending on who was hated (most) in a particular neighborhood, that's who this guy preached on when he sold the memberships and set up the Klaverns. Some were specifically antisemitic, anti-immigrant, anti- a particular stripe of immigrant, anti-Catholic, anti-Irish, etc.
As far as the 1920s go, yes, the emphasis did indeed shift to being anti-immigrant - by arguing that non-Anglos were not really white. And while the Klan has splintered on many occasions, the 1920s version was powerful and unified. They were organized enough to overtly elect the Governor of Indiana, so they weren't splintered, independent Klaverns. In the 1930s, their primary targets shifted to communists and labor organizers, but that doesn't mean they became a different organization.
And ideological flexibility is one of the ear marks of fascism. To German workers in the 1930s, the Nazis billed themselves as the "national SOCIALIST WORKERS Party" and to industrialists they were the "NATIONAL socialist workers Party." (How do I do tiny font again?)
Are such triangulations controversial within the organizations themselves? Of course they are, as the article sabotabby posted illustrates. My point was simply that such triangulations are nothing new.
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Re: I can already see the next step
Date: 2006-03-08 09:38 pm (UTC)That is precisely my point: There is always some sort of political consideration or triangulation behind deciding who is white and who isn't: In the case you describe it is recruitment goals. Blacks just might be the only people who have never been considered "white" at one time or another, although guys like Justice Clarence Thomas have been giving it a shot on an individual basis. Likewise, the Patriarchy approves of abrasive, bullying women such as Ann Coulter and Dr. Laura having important, influential jobs so long as they attack feminism.
Remember that today's KKK is not the original organization.
That's like saying The American Nazi Party is not the original organization. It's a legal distinction but nothing more. If you are going to pick up somebody else's mantle by reviving their organization and using their name, you claim their baggage with it.
The KKK of today was founded in the 1920's by a capitalist opportunist who walked around America selling memberships to the Klan, which had been defunct for about fifty years.
Just because a group goes underground or gets less publicity doesn't mean they are actually defunct. Throughout the Nineteen-teens, there was a lynching epidemic. The NAACP marked every individual lynching by hanging a flag saying, "A MAN WAS LYNCHED TODAY" outside their national headquarters. That flag flew every third or fourth day during that decade. I'm not saying that only the Klan lynched, but many of the participants had Klan connections of some sort / time or other. It wasn't defunct.
Depending on who was hated (most) in a particular neighborhood, that's who this guy preached on when he sold the memberships and set up the Klaverns. Some were specifically antisemitic, anti-immigrant, anti- a particular stripe of immigrant, anti-Catholic, anti-Irish, etc.
As far as the 1920s go, yes, the emphasis did indeed shift to being anti-immigrant - by arguing that non-Anglos were not really white. And while the Klan has splintered on many occasions, the 1920s version was powerful and unified. They were organized enough to overtly elect the Governor of Indiana, so they weren't splintered, independent Klaverns. In the 1930s, their primary targets shifted to communists and labor organizers, but that doesn't mean they became a different organization.
And ideological flexibility is one of the ear marks of fascism. To German workers in the 1930s, the Nazis billed themselves as the "national SOCIALIST WORKERS Party" and to industrialists they were the "NATIONAL socialist workers Party." (How do I do tiny font again?)
Are such triangulations controversial within the organizations themselves? Of course they are, as the article