The Ku Klux Klan has been blamed for a lot by the “Black Lives Matter” protest movement, with some even going so far as to suggest there is a hidden NYPD, KKK connection. These allegations are denied adamantly by the New York Police Department, but what is known is that the Ku Klu Klan membership is slowly creeping higher, and they allegedly are targeting U.S. veterans returning from the recent Afghanistan war and other conflicts around the world.
In a related report by the Inquisitr , the presence of Ku Klux Klan in Ferguson was blamed for the burning of the church attended by Michael Brown’s family, but others claimed the KKK were innocent of the deed, and instead, suggested the protesters in the Ferguson riots were to blame.
The presence of the Ku Klux Klan has been very noticeable in 2014. At first, the KKK leaders made waves when they suggested the KKK could partner with African Americans for the KKK fight against illegal immigrants coming in along the Mexican border with the United States. NAACP representatives were highly skeptical of these offers and apparently nothing came of them. Then later in the year, a Montana Klan leader claimed the “new” KKK wanted racial diversity, saying, “White supremacy is the old Klan. This is the new Klan.”
Ku Klax Klan recruitment plans have also made the news in the 2014. They have been using candy-grams and other methods to try and increase membership. Even this past Christmas week, neighborhoods in Rutherford, New Jersey found KKK flyers that focused on keeping Jesus Christ in Christmas.
“It’s probably from someone visiting, although I can’t determine that for certain. This was a mass distribution of propaganda in this recruitment flyer,” Police Chief John Russo said, according to Fox Philly . “They were all on the same side of the street so obviously someone was just driving down each street and throwing them.”
A report from Vice Host Rocco Castoro claims the Ku Klux Klan recruitment drive has also been targeting U.S. veterans who are returning from the recently ended Afghanistan war.
“There is a very high degree of interest on the part of Klan groups in returning military veterans with high end military skills that they think will be useful to them one day,” Potok said. “A lot of these men are coming back traumatized with serious PTSD and other problems. The economy is not good. They’re not getting jobs, so they come home to find a situation that is not very good for them. … What some veterans find in these groups is family.”
Fortunately, the Black Lives Matter protest movement has not had any direct confrontations with the Ku Klux Klan, but according to Eric Draitser, a geopolitical analyst in New York City, there are deeper problems with racism in America that have triggered the protests.
“It tells us that the protests are not about individuals and isolated events or incidents, that rather the protester reaction is against what the people perceive to be deeply rooted and deeply embedded institutionalized racism in the US, the kind of racism that is not simply the overt form practiced by Ku Klux Klan or by no-Nazis or whomever other,” Draitser said according to Reuters . “It’s rather a form of racism that is deeply embedded in the very fabric of the society in this country. I think even a cursory look at American history proves that fully – that in fact racial bias, racial discrimination and race hatred really lies at the foundation of what the US is in the modern world.”
In contrast, President Barack Obama spoke about the Black Lives Matter protests , saying they did not accurately reflect the state of the nation and claimed the racial divide had lessened during his Presidency.