• Latest
  • Trending
The Ku Klux Klan and the Value of Shame

The Ku Klux Klan and the Value of Shame

August 7, 2017
jesus statue Christ the Redeemer

Why Is There Christianity If Jesus Was Jewish?

September 21, 2023
JoAnne Epps

Temple University Acting President JoAnne Epps Dies Suddenly on Campus

September 20, 2023
UMC Bishop Minerva Carcano in a 2008 file photo

UMC Bishop Minerva G. Carcaño Suspended, Faces Church Trial

September 20, 2023
doctors

Just 2 Percent of US Doctors Are Latina. These Women Want That to Change.

September 20, 2023
COGIC Presiding Bishop J. Drew Sheard

Head of Major Black Christian Group Backtracks on Mormon Partnership, Apologizes for Causing ‘Discontent’

September 18, 2023
Slavery memorial at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Christian Seminary Founded by Enslavers Thankful for Forced, Unpaid Labor

September 18, 2023
Kirk Franklin and Richard Hubbard

Kirk Franklin Finally Finds His Birth Father After 53 Years

September 18, 2023
Pastor Kevin Smith

Pastor Kevin Smith Is First Black Man in SBC Org’s History to Serve as Chairperson

September 18, 2023
vehicle car

Here’s How to Donate a Car to Charity and Write It Off as a Tax Deduction

September 13, 2023
Tony Evans and Carla Crummie engaged to be married

Dr. Tony Evans Engaged to Former Pastor’s Wife and Widow Four Years After Lois Evans’ Death

September 12, 2023
Haiti

Christians Plea for Prayer, Help Amid Haiti’s Surging Gang Violence

September 12, 2023
Coco Gauff prayer

Coco Gauff Talks Faith After US Open Win: I Don’t Pray for Results; I Pray for Strength.

September 12, 2023
Faithfully Magazine
Cart / $0.00

No products in the cart.

  • About
    • Advertise
    • Submit Content
    • Give Via PayPal
  • Q&As
  • Specials
  • Subscribe
  • Shop
  • Events
    • Community Events
    • FM Live Q&As
  • Black Christian Content
  • Log In
Donate
No Result
View All Result
  • About
    • Advertise
    • Submit Content
    • Give Via PayPal
  • Q&As
  • Specials
  • Subscribe
  • Shop
  • Events
    • Community Events
    • FM Live Q&As
  • Black Christian Content
  • Log In
No Result
View All Result
Faithfully Magazine
Home Uncategorized

The Ku Klux Klan and the Value of Shame

FM Editors by FM Editors
August 7, 2017
in Uncategorized
Reading Time: 4 mins read
0
The Ku Klux Klan and the Value of Shame

(Photo: Arete13, CC)

17
SHARES
ShareTweetPin It

By Richard Handler

On July 8, Charlottesville, Virginia, witnessed the value of shame. On that day, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) arrived to protest the city council’s decision to rename two public parks and to remove the statues from each that commemorated Confederate war heroes Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.

To many of us who reside in the city, the Klan’s presence was an outrage. But it was also an occasion to experience shame: the shame our country’s racist history brings on all of us. And it was an occasion to use shame as a means to denounce the beliefs of a group celebrating that history.

Founded in 1865, the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan that flourished in the early 1900s still exists as a collection of local, disjointed groups using the KKK name. Despite declines in the late 1990s, the number of KKK chapters increased from 72 in 2014 to 190 in 2015; the Southern Poverty Law Center estimates current Klan membership at 5,000 to 8,000 people. The success of Donald Trump in the recent U.S. presidential election has been used by some to grant a new legitimacy to the voices of the KKK and similar “alt-right” groups that celebrate white nationalist history.

RelatedArticles

racism is a sin sign on a lawn

Systemic Racism and the Deceitfulness of Sin

August 14, 2023
nazi germany

‘Hitler’s American Model’ Author on How the US Influenced Nazi Race Laws

October 19, 2022

Like many U.S. cities with Confederate monuments, Charlottesville has recently debated whether it should change the names of its two downtown parks, as well as remove the Lee and Jackson statues from them. While the city council voted on June 5 to rename Lee Park and Jackson Park (as Emancipation Park and Justice Park, respectively), the fate of the statues remains caught in legal limbo. The Klan came to Charlottesville to defend both the statues and the history they represent.

Local opposition formed immediately after the North Carolina–based KKK group requested a rally permit. On the day of the event, a crowd of about 1,000 counterprotestors began to assemble two hours before the scheduled Klan rally. I joined a group that included people from many walks of life: clergy, University of Virginia students and faculty, business owners, agriculturalists, military veterans, medics, legal aides, and leftist activists.

Barricades, protected by several dozen police, had been erected to maintain space for the rally. As we awaited the Klan, some of the counterprotestors marched around the barricades, chanting, blowing noisemakers, and carrying signs.

The most common signs said “Black Lives Matter” and related messages. Others were explicitly anti-KKK, or anti-Trump. One of the more imaginative read, “We’ll trade racists for refugees.”

When the few dozen Klansmen arrived and were ushered into the permitted space, it was difficult to see them through the surrounding crowd; only their Confederate flags were visible. The counterprotestors’ chants shifted from impersonal slogans to direct responses to the Klan members: “Racists go home,” “F*ck you,” and “Shame on you.”

“Shame on you” was the most powerful of these messages. “F*ck you” is aggressive and invites aggression in return, without advancing political discussion. Calling people “racists” doesn’t constitute an argument; it merely invites name-calling in response. Telling Klansmen to “go home” suggests that their messages are acceptable in the private domain. Worse, it says Klan members live elsewhere, apart from us.

But racism exists in all U.S. communities, which is why “shame on you” was the most appropriate chant. It expresses a community’s moral censure, directed at people who are part of the community. It says, “We are all in this together; your behavior brings shame on you, and by extension, on us. Your beliefs violate our collective values.”

The Klan says that the removal of the statues of their heroes “erases” history, which they equate with falsifying it. But their argument ignores the distinction between studying history—reading, writing, and learning about the past—and glorifying selected elements of it.

In Charlottesville, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation has worked for three decades to incorporate African-American history into the history taught at Monticello—the home and plantation of Jefferson, the third U.S. president. In addition to educating the public about Jefferson’s political, scientific, and literary accomplishments, Monticello presents the history of the more than 600 enslaved people Jefferson owned during his lifetime. This chapter of Jefferson’s story does not celebrate him; to the contrary, it has the potential to help us learn from history and makes it more difficult for our community to commemorate Jefferson’s legacy. Yet the foundation’s work has enriched, not erased, our history.

Charlottesville is expected to be the target, on August 12, of a larger demonstration by “alt-right” organizations that are planning to defend the statues and to “stand up for white people,” as one of the Unite the Right event organizers put it. Those of us who felt compelled to speak out when the Klan came know that we will have to speak out again. Ultimately, to take part in a debate about national history is to take part in a debate about what kind of moral order we as a society should embrace.f


Editor’s note: This work first appeared on SAPIENS under a CC BY-ND 4.0 license. Read the original here.


Share This Post

Share via

Share This Post

  • Digg
  • Tumblr
  • Flipboard
  • SMS
More
  • Report
Advertisement
Ancestry US
17
SHARES
ShareTweetPin It
FM Editors

FM Editors

Faithfully Magazine is a fresh, bold and exciting news and culture publication that covers issues, conversations and events impacting Christian communities of color.

More Features

Hyepin Im, founder and president of Faith and Community Empowerment

Hyepin Im, Gabriel Salguero, and Al Sharpton Tapped to Advise on Faith-Based Threats

October 5, 2022
anti war protest

Dying in Combat ‘Washes Away Sins,’ Russian Orthodox Leader Says

October 1, 2022
Carlos Rodriguez speaks with CBS Mornings about how The Happy Givers is helping Puerto Ricans after Hurricane Fiona

Despite Devastating Flooding, Christian Nonprofit Still Providing Puerto Ricans With Hot Meals

September 22, 2022

Discussion about this post

Most Shared Articles

  • Can Money-Making Microgrids Empower Black Churches to Close the Clean Energy Gap?...
  • Kirk Franklin Finally Finds His Birth Father After 53 Years...
  • Dr. Tony Evans Engaged to Former Pastor’s Wife and Widow Four Years After Lois Evans’ Death...
  • Coco Gauff Talks Faith After US Open Win: I Don’t Pray for Results; I Pray for Strength....
  • Newark Pastor Timothy Huff Left in Critical Condition After Being Shot in Home...
  • Churches Asked to Ring Bells in Remembrance of Little Girls Killed in Birmingham Church Bombing...

From The Archive

White Nationalist Protest
Features

Former White Nationalist Talks Movement’s Rise to Prominence, How to Lessen It

by FM Editors
October 23, 2017
Princeton
Clippings

Princeton Fellowship Group Ditches ‘Evangelical’ for ‘Christian’

by FM Editors
October 5, 2017
Latasha Lambkin fashion
Fall 2020

Model and Fashion Designer Natasha Lambkin Tells Why She Chose to Leave Skimpy Behind

by Chante Griffin
October 3, 2020
Hip-hop artist JGivens
Web Exclusives

Christian Rapper JGivens Says He’s Gay, Finds Support Among Fellow Artists

by FM Editors
June 28, 2018
White Evangelicalism
Faith

Thank You, John Piper, But White Evangelicalism Is Real and Rooted in Heresy of White Supremacy

by Rasool Berry
October 11, 2017
Facebook Twitter Youtube Instagram
Faithfully Magazine

Faithfully Magazine is a news and culture publication centered on Christian communities of color.

Recent News

  • Why Is There Christianity If Jesus Was Jewish?

Category

© 2023 Faithfully Media, LLC (Owner and Operator)

  • News
  • Opinion & Analysis
  • Inspiration
  • Web Exclusives
  • Specials
  • Shop
  • Events
    • FM Live Events
    • Community Events
  • Black Christian Content Links
  • About Us
    • Advertise With Us
    • Submit Content
    • Give Via PayPal
  • Log In to Your Faithfully Magazine Partner Account
No Result
View All Result

© 2023 Faithfully Media, LLC (Owner and Operator)

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms bellow to register

*By registering on our website, you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.
All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
Share via

Share This Post

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Email
  • WhatsApp
  • Copy Link
  • Tumblr
  • Digg
  • Flipboard
  • SMS

Add New Playlist

Log In

Sign In

Login with Facebook
Login with Twitter
Forgot password?

Don't have an account? Register

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Back to Login

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Accept

Add to Collection

  • Public collection title

  • Private collection title

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.
Are you sure want to unlock this post?
Unlock left : 0
Are you sure want to cancel subscription?
Send this to a friend