re: #524 buzzsawmonkey

Spare me your idealized templates. The Klan sold itself as a “Christian” organization—in other words, it tapped into the desire to worship G-d just as surely as Jeremiah Wright’s church did. And, like Jeremiah Wright, and his church, it sold a racist ideology.

Joining the Klan for political advancement would have been totally unexceptional in, say, Indiana in 1920—when the Klan ran that state. It is absolutely no different from Barack Obama joining a church with a racist ideology to advance his political career.

I’m not saying I agree with Wright. But the money quotes that pop up again and again are about 5 minutes worth of speaking culled from 20 years of sermons. He said some racist things over the course of his career. But the purpose of his ENTIRE CHURCH was not a seething hatred of white people.

The Klan beat and lynched Jews and blacks, bombed churches and burned crosses in peoples yards. If you can’t see the difference between the two, you’re either an idiot or willfully distorting the facts to stoke a disagreement.