At the same time that Neal Tapio blames immigrants and Lutherans for the imminent destruction of Sioux Falls, McKennan Park residents find baggies of Klan propaganda and candy on the street:
Residents brought examples to City Council Tuesday night as proof of what’s been going on.
“Save Our Land, Join the Klan. KKK pamphlets included with lollipops in them,” as a man described them as he handed an example to councilors.
The argument that this is a free country and you can’t limit free speech falls flat on this woman, who wishes the Council could do something.
“In my case, my father is a Holocaust survivor, so what some people might see as outreach, I see as intimidation” [Mark Russo, “KKK Flyers Anger McKennan Park Residents,” KELO Radio, 2019.09.18].
The Klan Lollipop Guild was out and about last year, too, in Sioux Falls, littering the Queen City of the East with their child enticements. Like Tapio, the Klan does far more damage to our communities by sowing falsehood and division than do any newcomers seeking opportunity, liberty, and neighborly tolerance.
Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.
The Klan in my hometown? Good Lord. And the stupid nerve of ‘Save Our Land?’ Bucko it wasn’t your land to begin with.
“Like Tapio, the Klan does far more damage to our communities by sowing falsehood and division than do any newcomers seeking opportunity, liberty, and neighborly tolerance.”
Absolutely true down to the last jot and tittle. Those people are horrible.
That area of Sioux Falls is not going to be a productive area for the Klan. They are wasting their lollypops.
You have got to be kidding me. One of the liberal bastians of Sioux Falls has Klan dropping stuff off? BS. My money is on a lefty doing a hoax campaign like SO many are doing. What a load.
There is no Klan here.
https://www.ksfy.com/content/news/A-history-of-hate-the-Ku-Klux-Klan-in-South-Dakota-442066983.html
Tried to take over Sturgis numerous times. I’d worry less about the Klan and more about right wing nutjobs, white scumacysts and Drumpf and the tools that are devoted to his rhetoric of hate.
Steve, I wish it were a hoax. I wish there were no racists in Sioux Falls.
However, let’s look at the situation logically.
Klansmen seek to intimidate. If they figure, as you figure, that McKennan Park is a “liberal bastion” filled with lefty do-gooders, that’s the perfect neighborhood in which to get maximum impact from their drops. They are basically kicking those liberals in the shins, hurting them in their neighborhood safe space.
Plus, it’s not like McKennan Park is some gated community where only liberals live and where Gooney McBuckshot could never drive his pickup truck without being detained and interrogated. If I find any kind of flyer on the ground on East Park Drive, without even looking at the content, there’s as much chance it was dropped by a conservative as a liberal or as someone who knows not a thing about partisan politics or ideology but just has a hang-up on one issue.
Besides, what’s to be gained by dropping such Klan candygrams? Most people see these items for what they most likely are: signs that dirty racist SOBs who prey on children are in our community. The racist items create hope or at least visceral satisfaction among fellow racists and Trumpists (oops, sorry, redundant terms) while creating fear and sadness among sensible people and potential allies. The Klandygrams appear to achieve more to forward ugly Trumpist goals than positive community-building goals.
Even if they were part of a liberal plot, what are the liberals trying to achieve? Do they think, “Oh, folks will revile these fake Klandygrams and translate their outrage into joining our liberal protest or club or party and voting out Mike Rounds”? That’s foolish and redundant: community-minded citizens don’t need to manufacture racist hoaxes to drum up support; we can just point to the all-too-real Neal Tapio and say, “South Dakota, we have a problem. Let’s rally for liberty and justice for all.” We can achieve far more good by conducting an honest publicity campaign, without the hassle of sustaining a hoax and not being found out as liars.
Consider as an analogy this blog. I have sometimes thought about creating an alternative anonymous blog, one in which I would adopt a vile, right-wing alter ego who talks about grabbing women by the genitals, kicking inferior brown people out of our country, building a wall—basically a blog where I would espouse Trumpism in its fullest glory. I could hope that such ongoing satire would so enrage people that they would all become Democrats and vote the racist bums out. But it would be a lot of effort to sustain that fiction, to hide my identity, and to continually say things that I find personally repulsive.
Get out Occam’s Razor and shave this morning, Steve. Absent evidence to the contrary, the simplest explanation is the most logical. Having to pile secret cabals and conspiracy theories on top of plain events to make them assuage your worldview is a sign you’re trying to hard to admit a problem. There may not be a fully organized Klan in Sioux Falls, but it is far more likely that these Klandygrams are the work of some genuinely vile and racist crank or cranks than that they are the work of some secret liberal plot.