The KKK and Media Language

Kiese HansenI’ve spent the last few weeks trying to figure out how the events that transpired in Charlottesville on Saturday, August 12th, will impact my future and the future of our country. I have not settled on an answer. However, I have recognized that if we are to ready ourselves for the future, we must do a better job of acknowledging our past. The past is not pretty. Repeatedly, we have failed to properly characterize our country’s history with white supremacy and violence, and have failed to accurately describe and contextualize the KKK.The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is a white supremacist terrorist organization guilty of committing acts of violence and intimidation that include murder, sexual assault, lynching, arson, and bombings in the US over the course of more than a century.On July 8th, 2017, the New York Times ran a story on an earlier KKK rally in Charlottesville that began with the following: “Members of the Ku Klux Klan rallied here on Saturday afternoon in a protest meant to assail the city’s decision to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general. For about a half-hour, around 50 members of the Klan — some wearing hooded white robes — shouted “white power” at Justice Park as more than 1,000 people protested their presence by hurling insults, water bottles and apple cores.” This language would never be used to describe Al Qaeda or Boko Haram. It’s structured in a way that evokes the reader’s emotion on behalf of the KKK. Without additional context, the opening would lead the reader to sympathize with its members, targets of insults, water bottles, and apple cores. In April 2017, the Associated Press ran a story with the following lead: “White extremists, almost by nature, are seldom good at working together. Creating consensus among white nationalists, neo-Nazis, Ku Klux, and the like has always been difficult, with wide disagreements on policies and a heavy turnover of leaders and followers.” The author might as well have been discussing the politics of a school board meeting – as if the main problem here were that the groups were not “cooperating” effectively and maximizing their “potential.”Many were surprised by the attack in Charlottesville. I ask for us to not be surprised. I ask that we recognize that this happens when we refuse to admit to our own history. White supremacist groups have a history of murder and domestic terrorism. Their cooperation is a precursor to violence.Do we not remember Emmett Till, the young boy who was accused of flirting with a white woman then lynched in 1955? Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner – civil rights activists kidnapped and murdered in 1964. What about James Byrd Jr., a man dragged by a car to his death in 1988. Did the May 2017 murder of Richard Collins III by a University of Maryland (my alma mater) student not receive enough press? Till, Goodman, Chaney, Schwerner, Byrd, Collins III– these individuals are only six of thousands of victims of violence driven by white supremacy. We have allowed a particular kind of evil to persist in our country. By not confronting it directly, we have enabled this evil to fester and flourish. Until we make a conscious effort to face this head on, until we acknowledge this failure, we all share responsibility and fault in upholding white supremacy in the U.S. and facilitating domestic terrorism. We all share responsibility for the murder of Heather Heyer.While our struggle goes beyond how we choose to portray history in journalism, the media has an important role to play in setting the tone for the way in which we discuss history and current events. This brings me back to the beginning. The KKK is a terrorist organization. Every time they are mentioned, they should be described as such. News outlets need to take ownership for their influence in how we understand history. In an attempt to catalyze a widespread change in rhetoric, I ask that all news outlets do more to describe the KKK and its affiliates for what they are. [author] About the Author: Kiese Hansen is a 2015 University of Maryland graduate currently working in financial security and economic inequality in Washington, DC. [/author]