Cross Burnings, Brief Followups
A couple smaller points I didn't make in my last post about the Durham cross burnings, because that post was getting way too long:
*** I did a short interview with Good Morning America last night. One of the questions they asked was, "was this really the work of the KKK?" I answered that whether or not this was some official plan hatched in klavern headquarters was beside the point. I talked to someone this morning whose son works for the Durham Police Department, and they still don't know if this was an "official" KKK action. But the fact remains that someone or some people out there, either because they thought it was funny or because they thought it was a good idea, decided that associating their work with the Klan was a good idea, and that's all that matters.
*** I think Pam Spaulding is right-on in speculating that anti-gay bigotry was just as much a factor in the burnings as racism. St. Luke's Episcopal Church, where one of the crosses was burned, is known as a gay-accepting church, which is why it was recently picketed by Fred Phelps and the detestable Westboro Baptist Church. The flyers left behind by the cross-burners targeted "gang bangers," so there's reason to focus on the racial aspect, but -- unlike some progressives -- I think the hate-mongers see a clear connection between anti-gay and racist bigotry.
*** I did a short interview with Good Morning America last night. One of the questions they asked was, "was this really the work of the KKK?" I answered that whether or not this was some official plan hatched in klavern headquarters was beside the point. I talked to someone this morning whose son works for the Durham Police Department, and they still don't know if this was an "official" KKK action. But the fact remains that someone or some people out there, either because they thought it was funny or because they thought it was a good idea, decided that associating their work with the Klan was a good idea, and that's all that matters.
*** I think Pam Spaulding is right-on in speculating that anti-gay bigotry was just as much a factor in the burnings as racism. St. Luke's Episcopal Church, where one of the crosses was burned, is known as a gay-accepting church, which is why it was recently picketed by Fred Phelps and the detestable Westboro Baptist Church. The flyers left behind by the cross-burners targeted "gang bangers," so there's reason to focus on the racial aspect, but -- unlike some progressives -- I think the hate-mongers see a clear connection between anti-gay and racist bigotry.
2 Comments:
Chris, did you see the coverage on GMA ? I'm curious about how the city came off.
Unfortunately I didn't see the GMA segment. They interviewed me for some audio, and I suggested some other talking heads in the community they should do for the live video segment. The producer I talked to was very aware of the craziness that has been swirling around North Carolina the last few months, and didn't flinch when I made the comparisons that I make in the previous post.
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