THE KKK BRINGS CHRISTIAN RACISM TO SAN FRANCISCO
Is the Bible racist? Well, some local racists say so.
The Ku Klux Klan (or maybe just a troll or a lone nut, it’s hard to say) posted fliers door to door in the Haight this week.
The archaic hate group called itself an “invisible empire” and griped about the “Negro’s” [sic. The grammatical error was consistent throughout the document] of Black Lives Matter.
They also called themselves “Christian-based” and proclaimed that they “uphold the Bible.” If you call the North Carolina phone number attached (which I don’t recommend), the recording talks about almost nothing but Bible verses.
At least the law of averages favors someone’s sheets catching on fire sooner or later.
“For too long, liberals have lied about what the Bible says,” according to the 21st century voice of 19th century racism.
The landing page of the Klan website (which I refuse to link to, on the grounds of good taste) uses the word Christian 14 times. It also calls Jewish people “the seed of the devil.”
This is an old trick. Hate groups always say god is on their side. Pro-slavery newspapers used to call Satan “the first abolitionist.” European theologians had a habit of dubbing non-white people servants of the devil. Satan was even painted black much of the time.
To be fair, I’m not sure if the acolytes of a lobotomized cult like the KKK yet have the smarts to parse the Bible. More liberal Biblephiles will reject their Christian racism and argue that the Klan gets their verses wrong.
“I’m not really bad. I’m just drawn that way.”
But that’s the problem: You can make an Iron Age holy book say anything you want it to. Translations of decrepit languages tend to have a certain elasticity. Plenty more Americans think god tells them these same things.
On the other (left) hand, there are no ancient Satanic texts to terrorize us with moldy prejudices. Even if there were, I’d tell you to throw them away. Individual Satanists might have stupid ideas, but they don’t have a dogma to give those ideas authority.
Satanism tells us that what ancient bigots called sinful and evil may be a point of pride today. And that there are no gods to condemn this tribe or that one.
We will condemn on merit, though—or the lack of it. Which finally brings us to whatever sad case hands out these fliers. I’m not a biggest fan of Anton LaVey, but he had some smart ideas. In this case:
“It’s too bad stupidity isn’t painful.”
Originally published 7.13.18
“Strictly speaking, I’m an immigrant myself.”
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