this is why your halloween costume is NOT funny

Halloween is a fun holiday, even if you don't celebrate it, you know about it. little kids go out to the streets to trick or treat, they dress up in fun costumes, scary costumes, cute costumes, offensive constumes? yep, those too.

Sometimes people don't even realize it, or they do, or maybe, they just don't care, but there are some costumes that are NOT appropriate for this holiday, nor for any other.

This year on halloween, i was excited to see what my classmates were going to dress up as, but when i saw two people dressed up as KKK members, my heart dropped to the ground. i mean, to be honest, i wasn't surprised, i've seen all kinds of offensive halloween costumes, but never within my own community, they even had the nerve to ask a professor if it was offensive, to which i answered without any hesitation "yes, don't do it", but did they listen? of course not.

And maybe you're thinking "come on, isn't the KKK inactive or something", "they don't do anything anymore, right?", let me tell you something, they do, and even if they didn't, why would you mock and laugh and find funny something so horrible like that? and maybe you're not actually agreeing with them or their ideology, but some people do, and if they see you dressed up like that, they'll take it as validation and they'll think its okay for them to actually do stuff.

So, here, let's see what the KKK actually does, shall we?

By definition the Ku Kux Klan is either of two distinct U.S. hate organizations that have employed terror in pursuit of their white supremacist agenda. One group was founded immediately after the Civil War and lasted until the 1870s; the other began in 1915 and has continued to the present.

Around 1867 they dressed themselves in white robes and sheets, to avoid identification by the federal troops, these clothes were meant to scare the superstitious blacks, Klansmen whipped and killed freedmen and theur white supporters in nighttime raids.

The 19th-century Klan reached its peak between 1868 abd 1870, they were responsible for the restoration of white rule in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. they were disbanded in 1869, mostly as a result of their excessive violence. some branches remained active for a while, however prompting congress to pass the Force Act in 1870 and the Ku Kux Klan Act in 1871.

When the Supreme Court declared the KKK unconstitutional in 1882, the Klan had practically disapeared, because their goal was to restore white supremacy throughout the South, and that was achived in the 1870's.

The 20th-century Klan started mostly as patriotism and by a romantic nostalgia of the "old south", but most importantly it expressed the defensive reaction of white Protestants in small-town America who felt threatened by the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and by the large-scale immigration of the previous decades that had changed the ethnic character of American society.

This second Klan peaked in the 1920's, when its membership 4,000,000 nationally, and profits rolled in from the sale of its memberships, regalia, costumes, publications, and rituals. A burning cross became the symbol of the new organization, and white-robed Klansmen participated in marches, parades, and nighttime cross burnings all over the country. To the old Klan’s hostility toward blacks the new Klan—which was strong in the Midwest as well as in the South—added bias against Roman Catholics, Jews, foreigners, and organized labour.

So, now that we know a little bit of the KKK history, let's take a look at some of the horrible things they did.

Greensboro Massacre

It took place on November 3, 1979, when a group of members of the Communist Workers Party was meeting on the streets of Greensboro, North Carolina. They were attacked by members of the KKK and the U.S. Nazi Party, killing 5 people. The police knew about the attack plans and did nothing to prevent it.

Jim Williams Lynching

The perpetrator was a post-American Civil War civil rights leader.

On the night of March 6, 1871, a group of 6 KKK members attacked his house and forced him to climb a tree with a rope around his neck. Williams clung to the branches so as not to fall and die, and then the klanes cut off his fingers with a sword.

Murder of Harry T. Moore

Moore was a black educator who participated in the civil rights movement in the 1930s and in the wage nondiscrimination struggles with Florida's black teachers. On Christmas 1951 he and his wife were killed with a bomb placed under their bed. Wyatt Outlaw LynchingHe was mixed-race, the son of an African-American woman with a slave owner. He served during the Civil War in a regiment of African American soldiers and then became the first African-American commissioner in the town of Graham, North Carolina, being targeted by supremacists.As a commissioner, Outlaw shot KKK members who were intimidating African American settlers. On February 26, 1870, he was dragged out of his house and lynched in the town square.

But, hey, this were soooo long ago, right? WRONG just this october (2018) a black man was lynched, he was a Ferguson Activist, his name was Danye Jones, he was found by his mom, hanging from a tree in his backyard, his death was ruled as suicide.

Edward Crawford was also a ferguson activist, he was famous for a photo of him throwing tear gas back in 2017, he was found dead in his car, this was also deemed as suicide.

Darren Seals, also a known ferguson activist, was also found shot to death in his car in 2016.

Deandre Joshua was a key eyewitness in the ferguson case, he was murdered in 2014, during the trial, he was shot and his body was placed in a burning car.

So, as we can see, this is not a thing of the past, so no, your halloween costume is NOT fucking funny.

Deandre Joshua

Darren Seals

Danye Jones

Edward Crawford