Ga. lawmaker: KKK made ‘people straighten up’

Ga. lawmaker: KKK made ‘people straighten up’

State Rep. Tommy Benton is an unapologetic supporter of Georgia’s Confederate heritage.

He flatly asserts the Civil War wasn’t fought over slavery, compares Confederate leaders to the Founding Fathers and is profoundly irritated with what he deems a “cultural cleansing” of Southern history. He also said the Ku Klux Klan, while he didn’t agree with all of their methods, “made a lot of people straighten up.”

Benton said there are two sides to that story as well. The Klan “was not so much a racist thing but a vigilante thing to keep law and order,” he said.

“It made a lot of people straighten up,” he said. “I’m not saying what they did was right. It’s just the way things were.”

He also said that Klan membership shouldn’t be an automatic reason to dispense with a historical figure.

“A great majority of prominent men in the South were members of the Klan,” he said. “Should that affect their reputation to the extent that everything else good that they did was forgotten.”

A KKK apologist in the extreme, he keeps pushing bills to make confederate symbols and markers inviolate, while maintaining the nonsense the civil war had nothing to do with slavery. Anyone that can make the statement the KKK “made a lot of people straighten up,” deserves nothing but contempt.

We have apologists on these very boards.

& I'm sure they'll be along soon to vindicate this mans words.


He should be ostracised and stripped of his position. Immediately.



Edit:

but a vigilante thing to keep law and order

An oxymoron, if ever I've heard one.

a reply to: Blackmarketeer

I'm guessing this is an example of what he means.


Or the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, where Klansmen bombed an African American church, killing 4 girls. In fact, the KKK had a policy of attacking African American churches and burning crosses in the yards of their targets.

They're one of the few groups I truly despise.

I have heard other people use this same line about the Klan before. I recall a couple of years ago overhearing a conversation between a group of men and they were talking about how when they were kids people in the Klan would "handle" wife beaters and deadbeats(welfare recipients and men who didn't support their families).

I have no idea if this is some revisionism or if this is a hidden aspect of the KKK greater culture that I was unaware of. I would like to gain more insight on this if anyone has any information.

"A vigilante thing to keep law and order" was what the KKK was originally supposed to be, but it became something much darker.

He is right about the "cultural cleansing", though. History should be preserved. Not white washed with a b.s. narrative.

a reply to: Blackmarketeer

Ga. lawmaker: KKK made ‘people straighten up’

Having a noose around your neck does tend to improve your posture.

a reply to: NihilistSanta

I wold say former. The KKK was created to terrorize free blacks and other whites who didn't agree with their views.

The first branch of the Ku Klux Klan was established in Pulaski, Tennessee, in May, 1866. A year later a general organization of local Klans was established in Nashville in April, 1867. Most of the leaders were former members of the Confederate Army and the first Grand Wizard was Nathan Forrest, an outstanding general during the American Civil War. During the next two years Klansmen wearing masks, white cardboard hats and draped in white sheets, tortured and killed black Americans and sympathetic whites. Immigrants, who they blamed for the election of Radical Republicans, were also targets of their hatred.

Link 1
Link 2

originally posted by: Teddy916
a reply to: NihilistSanta

I wold say former. The KKK was created to terrorize free blacks and other whites who didn't agree with their views.

The first branch of the Ku Klux Klan was established in Pulaski, Tennessee, in May, 1866. A year later a general organization of local Klans was established in Nashville in April, 1867. Most of the leaders were former members of the Confederate Army and the first Grand Wizard was Nathan Forrest, an outstanding general during the American Civil War. During the next two years Klansmen wearing masks, white cardboard hats and draped in white sheets, tortured and killed black Americans and sympathetic whites. Immigrants, who they blamed for the election of Radical Republicans, were also targets of their hatred.

Link 1
Link 2

Klansmen killed 2 of my great uncles in Alabama (technically, my great great uncles). They were the children of slaves and became sharecroppers, so the terrorist Klansmen wanted their land. Their sister (my great grandmother) survived and she and some other relatives fled to central Florida after that.

The KKK's nothing but a terrorist group to me.

a reply to: enlightenedservant

I'm sorry to hear that happened to your ancestors. It's unfortunate many people had to suffer and die by their hands.

originally posted by: NihilistSanta
I have heard other people use this same line about the Klan before. I recall a couple of years ago overhearing a conversation between a group of men and they were talking about how when they were kids people in the Klan would "handle" wife beaters and deadbeats(welfare recipients and men who didn't support their families).

I have no idea if this is some revisionism or if this is a hidden aspect of the KKK greater culture that I was unaware of. I would like to gain more insight on this if anyone has any information.

I always heard the same thing growing up in Georgia. Afaik, it's just a myth popular with apologists who also say dumb things like, "my ancestors were Irish and they were slaves and they had it worse than blacks."

Also this picture because no one should ever pass up an opportunity to poke fun at these clowns:

originally posted by: Teddy916
a reply to: enlightenedservant

I'm sorry to hear that happened to your ancestors. It's unfortunate many people had to suffer and die by their hands.

Thanks. Though the Klan did far worse to others. They reached their peak in 1924, when an estimated 1/4 of all Southern white men were members. Their leaders claimed they controlled half of the State legislatures in America at the time. Their members were the main party behind the Jim Crow laws which made forced racial segregation the law until the Civil Rights Act of 1964. They didn't lose their popularity until the mid 1960s when Klansmen, along with an FBI informant, murdered a white female activist named Viola Liuzzo.

a reply to: enlightenedservant

Sorry about your problems, my ancestors were forced out here in prison ships and forced to build the Country...I moved on and didn't let it affect me or play it like a card game.

a reply to: Blackmarketeer

Good ol AJC. We here in Georgia do not even use that paper in the outhouse anymore.

originally posted by: mazzroth
a reply to: enlightenedservant

Sorry about your problems, my ancestors were forced out here in prison ships and forced to build the Country...I moved on and didn't let it affect me or play it like a card game.

What do you mean by "play it like a card game"? Also, look back at the OP. A sitting lawmaker is trying to rationalize & glorify the group that did those things. It's hard not to let something affect us when people in power are still pushing that crap right now.

If there were lawmakers right now that were glorifying the treatment of your parents and grandparents, you'd probably feel a little bit differently. Especially since the klan were intimidating & threatening my own parents and grandparents during the 50s, 60s, and 70s. This isn't some long forgotten history; the klan still exists right now.

One of my particular interests in propaganda, so just as aninteresting aside to the KKK......

When the US govt or the powers that be wanted to destroy them, just as they were becoming powerful, they decided to have an episode of the popular Superman radio show (yes before TV's were widely in homes) where Superman (the epitome of American super-ness) took on the evil KKK - and of course won.

This changed public sentiment and sent the KKK into a terminal decline.

Not saying if the KKK is good or bad or if they are worthy of following or not, just that public opinion can be so easily swayed to think one way or another, so think carefully about what the gogglebox or media shows you or tries to tell you is right and is what you should think, and then make up your own minds.

This is ATS after all.

a reply to: Blackmarketeer

The KKK turned into a terrible organization, but like many extremist groups, they started for relatively righteous purposes -- arguably at least. I know; I know. The history textbooks argue a different account of their origin, but another teaching regarding their origin states that they actually formed just after the civil war in an attempt to protect women and children from former slaves who became violent and raped white women. Granted, one can understand why former slaves might behave this way. Is this true? I don't know. History is written by those in power, and I don't trust much from the history books period. Still, the primary focus of the KKK was not simply, "f*** black people." They truly did strive to keep people orderly and in line. My grandfather was a kid, but he remembers very clearly the day the KKK left a burning cross in a white protestant man's yard as a warning. Why? Because this man would get drunk and beat his wife and children. He allegedly never did it again after the KKK sent him that message. So... Like the Black Panthers, the real IRA, and many other groups, the KKK turned into a terribly disturbing piece of history, but also like those other groups, maybe they didn't begin that way. Who really knows at this point?

a reply to: JohnFisher

Ah yes, the rapey freed slaves. Methinks you've been watching "Birth of a Nation" too much.

a reply to: JohnFisher

Thing is? The mentality that stood behind the KKK was the one writing those history books for a very long time. Most clearly-expressed in the south, but that market's importance had a national impact on textbooks.

I grew up in Alabama. I learned all sorts of pro-confederate claptrap from my textbooks.

• Secession was about some non-specific "state's rights" not slavery, the books said! Of course yars later you look at the declarations of secession by these states, they are ALL specifically stating the right to practice slavery, or expressing solidarity wioth states who made that clear.

• "Scaliwags' and "Caroetbaggers" were exploiters and victimizers of a ravaged south! In reality "scaliwags" were those southerners who had never supported the confederate cause and promoted the republican party, while "carpetbaggers" were mostly teachers attempting to bring schooling to poor Southern whties and freed blacks - neither of which were acceptable targets of education.

• The KKK was a "home defense" organization, noble in purpose, even if, well, I guess sometimes they went a little overboard, at times. Yeah, they were a "defense" organization against both white southerners who embraced unionism, and freed blacks. basically they were a post-war guerrilla organization, similar to FARC or Daesh of their time. The second incarnation of the clan took a more directly racist approach, realizing they were stronger by incorporating the whites that their predecessors had targeted.

• Unready blacks were forced into government positions by Northerners to shame and degrade the south, and ruled so ineptly that it was only natural that white southerners would replace them soon after! Well, no, as it turns out when all those slaves were liberated, big chunks of the south were black-majority territory, and htey elected men from their own communities to represent themselves. And the laws they passed were generally prety damn good, as they had an intimate understanding of the needs of their constituents. The "replacement" of these black politicians came through poll-cheating efforts after reconstruction formally ended in the 1870's, as a specifically-intended attempt to remove black politicians from all offices.

The myth of the "noble cause" and its attendant garbage myths were, until very recently, a big mainstay in american education, even in the north. It created the message of "sure racism was bad, so absolutely none of this stuff with the klan or the confederacy or any of that was actually racist, so it's okay!" Which is where you get a bunch of ignorant yobs waving a flag invented in the early 20th century claiming it's "heritage."

I had a great Uncle who ran around on his wife quite a bit and stayed out late at the bars.

She just so happened to have a family member that was in the Klan. When they found out about it they whipped him with sticks and tar and feathered him.

After that pops said his Uncle did'nt go to the bars and he quit running around on her.

So I guess in this instance, they made him "straighten up".

I don't doubt that it's his perception. Reminds me of a Miller and Webb Look where two Nazi's debate whether or not they're the "baddies".

That said, I do find it hard to believe that the only reason for the Civil War was slavery. People, especially people in government, aren't that noble. Saint Lincoln and Saint Washington and all the rest...

I'm sure many other factors and motives were at play. It's definitely warm and fuzzy to think the whole thing was utterly noble and totally altruistic. But that's too good to be true.

Same things go for all wars. On some level, someone is getting something somewhere from the deal or it wouldn't happen. No one goes to war for warm fuzzies alone.

I'm pretty sure if Hitler stuck to his own borders, but was just as evil, and no major players felt an impact, it would have been a long time before anyone did a thing about it...if they ever did.

Of course the KKK think they're " good", but it is equally childish to assume the North was 100% pure in its actions. It was the bloodiest war on American soil for a reason.

Edit to add: Until people at large can dispassionately review wars, even the "feel good" ones like WWII and the Civil War, we'll be in deep doodoo. History should be warts and all...for all sides.