The Klan has visited several communities in Southern Indiana, and central Indiana reports a rise in activity as well. In a mostly black high school in Indianapolis, someone plastered the campus with hundreds of so-called KKK posters.
According to Indianapolis news reports, “Hundreds of fliers promoting a "KKK revival" were found blowing around the campus of Arsenal Tech High School on Monday, school officials said Tuesday. Officials said the fliers urged people to attend a rally at the school, in the 1500 block of East Michigan Street, on Halloween.”
The Indiana and Kentucky upswing in racial tensions mirrors what is happening around the nation, particularly on university campuses around the nation. In an editorial, which appeared in the student newspaper of George Washington University, editorial writers noted that:
No administration can force a desire for tolerance on its student population, but it is optimistic for any college community to see such an active, fruitful reaction take place. At neighboring University of Maryland, student groups reacted in solidarity and called for a week of diversity. After a noose was found hanging at Columbia University, students organized themselves to come together in pursuit of a solution. It seems encouraging that students are taking these issues to heart and are ready to work to defend the values that ultimately define their community at large. (The Hatchet, 10-15-07).
In the heart of Amish country in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, public school officials ran in to problems after they banished the Confederate flag from campus. Local newspapers reported that:
When they banished Confederate flags from school property earlier this month, Warwick school officials were making their own charge in what could be called the Civility War. Warwick School District officials acted after white Warwick High School students threw trash and racial epithets, and reportedly waved Confederate flags, at some of the school's few black students.
In that on-campus situation, reminiscent of Jena,
The so-called "Redneck Row," an area of the Warwick High School parking lot where vehicles bearing Confederate flags used to park, has been declared history. (Source: http://local.lancasteronline.com/4/210874)
Apologists continue to minimize the upswing, in many cases complaining that the “liberals” are going out of their way to support despots and dictators (referring to the campus visit of the President of Iran). A newspaper reader from Ft. Worth, Texas asked the question: “If the bigoted act of hanging a noose on a black professor's door is abhorrent - which I absolutely agree it is - why is inviting the bigoted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak okay?”
As usual, comparing apples and oranges has been a major tool in minimizing the horrendous history and current practice of racism, bigotry and racial violence in the United States. When civil rights activists point to the upswing in race-based terrorism in the US, supremacists fire back and claim whites are more at risk from blacks than the other way around. When women and “minorities” point out unequal opportunity in the workplace in the nation, supremacists and out of work white men say white men are under attack.
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