Tag: ku klux klan
Judge: Black men are ‘more effective’ at killing each other than the KKK
A white Tennessee judge is under fire for a courthouse tirade in which he denounced black-on-black crime by comparing it to the Ku Klux Klan.
Montgomery County Judge Wayne Shelton was overseeing the preliminary hearing for Vincent Merriweather, accused of a homicide that occurred in Clarksville last November. While addressing Merriweather last week, Shelton launched into a racially charged speech, saying he was “sick and tired” of black men shooting each other.
“I don’t understand it,” Shelton is heard saying in audio posted to Instagram. “I grew up in a time where people wore white robes and they shot at black people. And now we see young black men wearing black hoodies shooting at black men. And doing a much more effective job than the Klan ever thought about doing.”
While some on social media condemned Shelton’s words as racist, others have come to his defense. Jimmie Garland, president of the Clarksville branch of the NAACP, initially felt that the judge was “on point.”
“He’s telling the young people, ‘Stop killing yourself. Stop doing the job that, back in the early ’30s and ’20s and ’10s, they did wearing robes and wearing pointed caps. You don’t have to do that,’” Garland told WSMV.
The Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle noted that this is not the first time Shelton has invoked race, or the Klan, during a courtroom speech. In 2015, two teenage brothers were accused of gunning down a man after a high school graduation party, allegedly over a gut reaction of perceived “disrespect.”
Shelton compared that murder to Klan killings, saying KKK members would often kill black men whom they perceived to be disrespectful.
“That’s the absolute tragedy,” the judge said at the time. “It’s black men killing black men.”
“The Klan doesn’t exist anymore. Who doesn’t care about black lives now? I’ll let you answer that. I’m tired of black men killing black men. If I offended anyone … I can’t help it.”
Shelton told the Leaf-Chronicle that while he “might look like the whitest man in the room,” he isn’t — saying that his great-great-great-grandfather was a free man of color in the 1860s.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/01/08/judge-black-men-are-more-effective-at-killing-each-other-than-the-kkk/
High school class laughs as students sing KKK-themed Christmas song
DOVER, N.H. — A New Hampshire school superintendent is decrying a racially insensitive video of two high school students singing, “KKK, KKK, Let’s kill all the blacks,” to the tune of “Jingle Bells.”
Fosters Daily Democrat reports a cellphone video surfaced over the weekend of the students singing the song in class at Dover High School.
Superintendent William Harbron said in a letter to the school community Monday the incident was part of an assignment dealing with the Reconstruction period in American history, but said, “the impact was harmful.”
Harbron said the 11th-graders had to select a history event and create a jingle for it. Two students selected the Ku Klux Klan.
A decision on whether to discipline the students or teacher hasn’t been made yet.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/12/04/high-school-class-laughs-as-students-sing-kkk-themed-christmas-song/
Teacher suspended after student wore KKK outfit in class for presentation
A teacher in Missouri has been suspended after a student dressed up as a member of the Ku Klux Klan as part of a history class presentation, district officials said.
A ninth-grader at Poplar Bluff High School dressed as a member of the KKK on Friday as students in an American history class made presentations pertaining to amendments to the US Constitution. The student in question, wearing a white robe and hood, was part of a group assigned to the 15th Amendment — guaranteeing voting rights regardless of race or color, KFVS reports.
District officials have since suspended the teacher as an investigation continues, but they don’t believe the student was acting with intent to offend or discriminate against other students, according to the station.
“There’s no context for this,” Poplar Bluff School District Superintendent Scott Dill told KFVS. “There’s no point at which anyone in our public school system is going to say that this is OK. It is very obvious that this can’t happen in any setting anywhere, and so we will do our best to ensure that we do what we do best, which is education.”
District officials will now take steps to ensure teachers are providing “age-appropriate historical context” on key topics in a responsible manner.
“And we will make sure that our students, our teachers and our community understand the context, understand what is acceptable and what will never be acceptable,” Dill continued.
A letter of apology was sent by the unidentified teacher and read to students early Monday, KFVS reports.
“I made a mistake on Friday during our skit assignment,” the teacher wrote. “I let a student wear an inappropriate costume that was unacceptable and hurt many people’s feelings. As the professional in the room, I should have known better. I am sorry.”
The teacher’s apology continued: “I am so sorry for making this mistake, and I hope that you can forgive me and we can work through this together. I understand that healing and forgiveness take time, and I am absolutely okay with that.”
It wasn’t long before a photograph of the teen dressed as a Klansman soon began circulating on social media Friday. A former student who graduated from the school last year shared a Facebook post depicting the student but she had not been in the classroom at the time, the Springfield News-Leader reports.
“I’ve never ever heard of a history teacher who said it was okay to use a KKK costume for a project,” graduate Brianna Anthony told the newspaper. “Because when people walk into that classroom and see that uniform, that’s automatically a red flag.”
Costumes weren’t a part of history classes during her time at Poplar Bluff, Anthony said.
“We just got in group projects and did, like, reports,” she told the newspaper. “We used costumes in English, going over stories.”
via: https://nypost.com/2018/11/13/teacher-suspended-after-student-wore-kkk-outfit-in-class/
NRA TV depicts ‘Thomas & Friends’ characters in KKK hoods
Diversity seems to be an ugly word these days. What should be celebratory of different people and their cultures has turned into an ugly word. For example, a National rifle Association online show depicted the characters from hit-childhood show “Thomas & Friends” in white, Ku Klux Klan- style hoods on burning tracks.
Host of NRA TV’s “Relentless,” Dana Loesch went after the classic children’s character Thomas The Tank Engine after its maker, Mattel, joined forces with the United Nations in efforts to increase gender diversity and representation on the program and include new characters from around the globe.
Loesch, a conservative spokeswomen for the gun rights group, specifically called out one new character – Nia, a steam engine from Kenya.
“That’s where it gets really strange to me,” Loesch says on Friday’s episode. “Am I to understand this entire time that Thomas and his trains were white? Because they all have gray faces. How do you bring ethnic diversity? I mean they had to paint what I guess they thought was some sort of African pattern on the side of Nia’s engine.”
The program cut to an image with three trains wearing white hoods and tracks on fire. “Fair, I get it,” Loesch sarcastically says. “Thomas the Tank Engine has been a blight on race relations for far too long. Clearly this is overdue.”
The NRA did not immediately respond to USA TODAY’s request for comment.
Mattel announced Friday that “Thomas & Friends,” a Nick Jr. show, would add characters to its newest season from around the world and partner with the UN to promote its Sustainable Development Goals.
In the new season, Thomas will travel from his fictional home Sodor for the first time in the series to visit China, India and Australia, Mattel said. More female characters will also be represented, the company added.
“This change will deepen the brand’s engagement with girls who represent over 40% of the show’s viewership and provide a strong message of gender equality to the young audience,” Mattel said in a statement.
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