The Work Of The Klan

When I responded to a recent commentator about various "ills" in African-American communities I did not respond to the portion about doing the work of the KKK. I wanted to address this because it is something bandied about by commentators of various stripes. Basically, the charge is that black boys (mainly) are doing the work of the KKK by killing other black boys (mainly). Since the KKK is best known for it's lynchings of black people (mainly but not exclusively men) then black men who kill black men have merely taken over the task. On it's face it appears like a decent argument but I don't think that it is. I think that the role of the KKK is misrepresented in regards to it's purpose. We know that the KKK rose from the various White Citizens Councils that sprang up in the wake of the South losing the Civil War and the Reconstruction era. The main purposes of these groups were to maintain white supremacy in America. To that end they enforced and when the opportunity arose passed legislation whereby they could restrict the economic, social and political freedoms of black people. Ultimately the aim was to keep black folks in check. I want to stress this point. The Klan did not exist in order to just kill off black people, but to make sure that black people did what they were supposed to or allowed to do. If we look at the Klan in those terms then who is doing the Klan's work? Is the black man gunning down another black man really doing the work of the Klan? Well let's ask it this way, does black on black violence serve to keep blacks in "their place"? If black on black violence does keep blacks "in their place" then what motivates such black on black violence? If black on black violence is motivate by poor educational opportunities, or music videos or music or TV or things largely out of the control of black people, then it would seem then that it would be those venues that are doing the work of the Klan by introducing a limited scope of black culture and therefore limiting black aspirations (in the general).

But I don't want to focus to much on street violence of black males, rather, let's look beyond them at the community at large. Again, if we look at the purpose of the Klan as being to control the aspirations of black people by "keeping them in their place" then what about institutions that vilify and marginalize certain strains of black thought, such as Black Nationalism or Pan-Africanism? Indeed one can say that by marginalizing that type of thinking among black folk that the agents of the larger society are, in fact, doing the work of the Klan. They can effectively silence thought that is not approved. Indeed we have the ability to lynch (and to be sure, lynching is not only a tool of terror but a tool of silencing) without the use of a rope. But I want to take this even furher, if black people are capable of doing the work of the Klan then in the context that we are discussing here, it is possible that blacks, not involved in violence are also doing the work of the Klan. As an object lesson, we review the ousting of representative McKinney. This happened largely at the hands of blacks. In essence, the rebellious black person that McKinney was was deemed "out of bounds" by the dominant society. Thus McKinney needed to be eliminated and she was (not that she didn't have a hand in her own defeat but thats not the point here).

Back in the day(tm), there was a cadre of blacks, usually ministers, could be counted on to back the Klan line of "knowing our place". They were the well known go betweens, the "responsible leadership" that could be counted on to reign in negroes who got out of line. Alas they are still here with us. A question that should be on the minds of those concerned with various ills in black communities is what could have been different had a different, unnapproved, approach had been taken. What if Brown v. Board had been decided differently. What if Affirmative Action hadn't been created? What if BET was black owned for black people? Questions, questions.

All of this is speculative, but I wanted to put the idea out there that the Klan was much more than a terrorist organization, it was an organization with a normative situation it wanted enforced. In looking at the Klan in that light I think we can see Klan agency in many situations many not as obvious as black on black violence.

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