There’s a new KKK terrorizing black people in their communities. These violent acts going on today in Austin and other urban areas is scarily similar to the atrocities that occurred in the South and even some places in the north during the 1950s and ’60s. These acts look just like the ones in a book I read last year called Devil’s Sanctuary, which chronicled hate crimes against blacks in Mississippi during those years.
Innocent blacks were sometimes shot for no reason. Children as well as adults lost their lives to violence. Strong, positive black men were emasculated. Black women were left fatherless and widowed. Fear gripped every area of the community. Black residents knew not to hang out in certain places, do certain things or say anything critical of their tormentors – or else it could cost them their lives.
All the while, the perpetrators of this heinous and unprovoked violence lived their lives without a care in the world. They were protected. They were feared. And their crimes went on without punishment or retribution. The black residents were their playthings, their little tortured mouse running wild in its cage. Like fearful dogs beaten so much that they cower even with a glance, these predators destroyed both black communities and the black spirit. Destroyed it save for those blacks who fought back, sometimes as the expense of their lives.
Terrorism was the norm for our dead and still living black ancestors of that period. The old Ku Klux Klan is still around in some form or fashion, as are skin-heads, Neo Nazis and other hate mongers.
The new KKK has taken its cues from those groups of the present and not-too-distant past. And there’s only one real different between those groups and this new violent hate group – these terrorists are black.
We see the news everyday of innocent black men, women and children killed at the hands of other blacks, sometimes themselves children. The white KKK was and still are gangsters. For the black KKK, thuggery is a badge of honor, buffoonery a source of amusement, deviancy a lifestyle. The white KKK wears hoods as their uniform. The black KKK, in many instances, likes to wear their pants down to their butts.
In Devil’s Sanctuary – written by two white Mississippians who grew up appalled at the actions of their Caucasian brethren – the crimes are heartbreaking. Just as heartbreaking today is the fact that our elders who survived that time are now being victimized by their children and grandchildren – in the “village” we are their descendants, even if not by blood.
One of the true-life stories from the 2009 book involved an innocent black man beaten to death, tied up and disposed of in a river. Except for ditching the body in water, how is that any different than Derrion Albert being beaten to death last September by his black peers while coming home from school? Derrion was 16 years old. Emmett Till was two years younger when he was beaten to death by two white men in 1955. That punishment was in no way fitting, whatever social crime he supposedly committed. What’s the difference? There is none.
Those of us born after 1970 don’t need to imagine what it was like during the violent ’50s and ’60s. We’re living that hell today. Thugs, gangstas, Niggas – whatever they want to call themselves is their prerogative. What they truly are is the offspring of the modern KKK. Violent, ruthless, heartless and filled with hate for other human beings.
Knowing how they think – or don’t think – they’ll probably enjoy being called that. The Black KKK – yeah, that sure is the shiznit.
CONTACT: tdean@wjinc.com
