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| Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee, 2.17 |
Note: The Following is a letter to the editor of the Press Enterprise, Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, 2.25.17. It's a response to an editorial written by Pete Kendron, editor of the PE--included in full below. Kendron's editorial is a response to criticism the PE received for having printed a Klu Klux Klan flier--including contact phone numbers as part of its new coverage. The article--sans KKK flier in also included in full below.
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To the editor:
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To the editor:
While it may be true that the
Press Enterprise didn’t publish the Ku Klux Klan flier “to promote or endorse”
white supremacism, it’s Kendron’s insistence that PE editorial decisions are
driven by journalistic integrity that’s the fig leaf—one intended to cover
crass opportunism.
Kendron knows that salacious details sell papers, and while news demands an unbiased account of the facts, obscuring the KKK phone number would neither have detracted nor altered anything of substance in the news coverage. The claim that including the number helps us “face our fears” is absurd.
Were the PE committed to that noble mission, it’d be awash in accounts
of the Trump regime’s efforts to make Big Bank, Big Gas, Big Gun, Big
Insurance, Big Pharma, Big Private Prison, Big Factory Farm, and Big Russia
great again—at the peril of civil, reproductive, environmental, educational,
healthcare, religious—and free speech rights.
Were the PE interested in news, it’d tell the truth about the relationship between the growth of hate groups, the election of Trump, and the confirmations of his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, his corrupt, climate change denying, EPA director Scott Pruit, and his anti-education, privatize it all, DOE director Betsy Devos.
Kendron knows that salacious details sell papers, and while news demands an unbiased account of the facts, obscuring the KKK phone number would neither have detracted nor altered anything of substance in the news coverage. The claim that including the number helps us “face our fears” is absurd.
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| Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee 2.17 |
Were the PE interested in news, it’d tell the truth about the relationship between the growth of hate groups, the election of Trump, and the confirmations of his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, his corrupt, climate change denying, EPA director Scott Pruit, and his anti-education, privatize it all, DOE director Betsy Devos.
But just like Trump knows his
base doesn’t give a tinker’s damn about niceties like a free press, the PE
knows its 30 Seconds readers are more interested in having their biases confirmed
than fancy notions like news. Kendron knows that printing that number
titillates the Trumplodytes who, buoyed in their bigotry by a kleptocratic
white nationalist for president, feel perfectly just calling Michelle Obama an
Orangutan (30 Seconds, 2.25).
It “justifies” a travel ban on Muslims even
though we know neither geography nor religion are reliable indicators of
terrorist affiliation. Printing that flier as if it were like any other
advertisement aligns the PE with NewsMax and Breitbart—the rags of Steve
Bannon’s alt-right. However much a fig leaf the PE story offered to decrying
racism, Kendron knows the flier confirms local bigots who support the
repression of voting rights via racist Voter ID initiatives.
Willful ignorance, moreover, is no more excusable.
Who needs the Klan when you’ve got 30 Second frequent fliers who deploy free speech to demonize everyone and everything not them? It’s deluded to defend Trump against his weakening of regulations to protect puppies; it’s demented to thank a butcher like Putin for helping Trump win; it’s daft to believe a swamp glittering in Goldman Sachs will trickle down its wealth. It’s nuts to think the “free market” can make healthcare accessible to poor folks, or that appeals to “state’s rights” will protect gay kids.
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| Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee, 2.17 |
Willful ignorance, moreover, is no more excusable.
Who needs the Klan when you’ve got 30 Second frequent fliers who deploy free speech to demonize everyone and everything not them? It’s deluded to defend Trump against his weakening of regulations to protect puppies; it’s demented to thank a butcher like Putin for helping Trump win; it’s daft to believe a swamp glittering in Goldman Sachs will trickle down its wealth. It’s nuts to think the “free market” can make healthcare accessible to poor folks, or that appeals to “state’s rights” will protect gay kids.
As for “facing our fears,” it’s
ironic that while we’ve plenty to fear from the Trumpster’s militarist,
anti-science, Islamophobic, bigotry-soaked agenda, his sycophantic followers
stand to be harmed the most when the only jobs that materialize are low wage
“right to be fired” jobs, or when education becomes just another product—the
real thing for the kids of the wealthy, and the knock-off on-lines for the
rest.
It’s hard to admit you’ve been had by hucksters.
Easier to excuse puppy
mills, trash Muslims, and defend tabloid tactics as free speech.
Kendron’s excuse-editorial for printing that number is like CPAC’s pretense that Robert Spencer is an outsider to conservative values: it forgets that the very platform upon which it would decry racism is paid for by racists.
Here’s a suggestion for the next edition of the PE: print a flier calling out Brandon Eyerly to demand its editors produce a newspaper instead of a tabloid, or fire them: 570-387-1611.
It’s hard to admit you’ve been had by hucksters.
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| Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee, 2.17 |
Kendron’s excuse-editorial for printing that number is like CPAC’s pretense that Robert Spencer is an outsider to conservative values: it forgets that the very platform upon which it would decry racism is paid for by racists.
Here’s a suggestion for the next edition of the PE: print a flier calling out Brandon Eyerly to demand its editors produce a newspaper instead of a tabloid, or fire them: 570-387-1611.
Wendy
Lynne Lee
Lightstreet, PA
595
words.
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Kendron's editorial:
We
don’t believe in fig leaves – those comforting, but useless, courtesies
that let people say they did everything they could to shield people
from ugliness while still allowing the ugliness to exist.
So on Tuesday, when we published a story about some hateful Ku Klux Klan flyers showing up in Berwick, we also printed the flyers in their entirety. But we didn’t do it to promote, or endorse, those views.
We did it because it’s news. It’s ugly, it’s dismaying, but it’s news.
Some have asked why we didn’t blur or crop the flyer so contact information for the KKK group would not have been visible. It certainly would have made our editors’ phones ring less.
But it would have been a fig leaf.
Even if we hadn’t published the phone number, a person looking for like-minded haters would have had no trouble finding the Klan via the Internet. Before even seeing the flyers, it took our reporter only about two minutes.
The vast majority of our readers – who know a white cloak and hood are about as in fashion as knickerbockers – wouldn’t be enticed into membership just because they had the Klan’s phone number. But they now have a better idea of who or what has been skulking around Berwick, trying to stir up hate.
We are not a nation of cowards. Most of us are descendants of people who uprooted their families and took huge risks in search of a better life. There were no fig leaves to hide the challenges they faced. They had to confront their fears. And so should we.
So if those flyer reprints upset you Tuesday, good.
Take action.
Get to know your neighbor who’s from a different culture.
Reach out to the family who sits alone in the church pew on Sunday.
Maybe even call the East Coast Knights of the True Invisible Empire — you have their number — and tell them in no uncertain terms that Berwick, Bloomsburg and Danville are not fertile recruiting grounds for their hateful tribe.
Managing Editor Peter Kendron supervises the reporters, photographers and daily gathering of news for the Press Enterprise newspaper and website.
So on Tuesday, when we published a story about some hateful Ku Klux Klan flyers showing up in Berwick, we also printed the flyers in their entirety. But we didn’t do it to promote, or endorse, those views.
We did it because it’s news. It’s ugly, it’s dismaying, but it’s news.
Some have asked why we didn’t blur or crop the flyer so contact information for the KKK group would not have been visible. It certainly would have made our editors’ phones ring less.
But it would have been a fig leaf.
Even if we hadn’t published the phone number, a person looking for like-minded haters would have had no trouble finding the Klan via the Internet. Before even seeing the flyers, it took our reporter only about two minutes.
The vast majority of our readers – who know a white cloak and hood are about as in fashion as knickerbockers – wouldn’t be enticed into membership just because they had the Klan’s phone number. But they now have a better idea of who or what has been skulking around Berwick, trying to stir up hate.
We are not a nation of cowards. Most of us are descendants of people who uprooted their families and took huge risks in search of a better life. There were no fig leaves to hide the challenges they faced. They had to confront their fears. And so should we.
So if those flyer reprints upset you Tuesday, good.
Take action.
Get to know your neighbor who’s from a different culture.
Reach out to the family who sits alone in the church pew on Sunday.
Maybe even call the East Coast Knights of the True Invisible Empire — you have their number — and tell them in no uncertain terms that Berwick, Bloomsburg and Danville are not fertile recruiting grounds for their hateful tribe.
Managing Editor Peter Kendron supervises the reporters, photographers and daily gathering of news for the Press Enterprise newspaper and website.
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| Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee, 2.17 |
The original story:
Woman decries KKK leaflets
Berwick activist fears rise of hate crimes
By Julye Wemple - Press Enterprise Writers
Published: February 21, 2017
BERWICK
— Another round of Ku Klux Klan flyers has hit the Berwick area, but
this time in a small neighborhood a stone’s throw from City Hall.
Bette Grey, 57, of Arbor Street says she’s lived in Berwick all her life and she’s never encountered such hateful beliefs.
And when she told council members about the flyers Monday night, council President Alvin Hill assured her such ideas have no place in the borough.
“We’re a community of immigrants, not a community of hatred,” he said. Other council members murmured in agreement.
Grey says she and her husband, Robert, found the first flyer in their yard on Friday, then another one on Sunday afternoon when they came home from church. Both times, the leaflets were tucked neatly under a bag of rice in the grass, Grey said.
At first, Grey, a former councilwoman, thought she was being targeted because of her political activism.
But at least six other neighbors got them, too. Some of them had different messages than the ones Grey received, she said.
Hers questioned the lack of a “white history month” and touted the accomplishments of white people over the centuries. It states the “technological advancements of our people — from the megalithic calendar of Stonehenge to the moonwalk of the Apollo astronauts — are unequaled.”
Grey said another neighbor’s flyer says God loves the KKK, and encourages white people to be proud of being white. None of the flyers were put in mailboxes, which would have been a federal offense, and all were weighted with rice.
The Klansmen knew what they were doing, Grey said.
The pamphlets also provided a website and hotline number for anyone wishing to join the group.
Considering the political climate in the country, Grey’s afraid these leaflets are just the start of trouble, she said.
“I think you’re going to see more of this stuff,” Grey said. “Hate crimes will start.”
Berwick Police Chief Ken Strish says he’s been made aware of the handbills. The ones on Arbor Street are the first of their kind in the borough, he added.
He urged residents who see anyone distributing the flyers to call 9-1-1.
It’s not clear the pamphleteer is breaking the law, but police at least want to talk to the person, Strish said.
Same group
The papers are the work of the East Coast Knights of the True Invisible Empire, a Klan group with a home base in Rising Sun, Maryland, just over the state line. It was the same group that distributed flyers in the 800 block of East Third Street in Salem Township in September.
Those leaflets, decrying illegal immigration, angered Hispanic families living in that neighborhood.
According to the group’s website, the East Coast Knights are a “traditional Klan” that seeks to “ensure a safe and secure future for Caucasian Americans.”
“We do not preach hate, and at no time
would we react hatefully to any man, woman or child,” the website proclaims. “We strive to cleanse the Klan name by our positive actions.”
But Grey’s not buying their “positive” message.
“It frightens me,” Grey said. “This is significantly nasty.”
Grey said that’s why she was taking her concerns to council.
“It’s not that I want to draw attention, but I want people to be informed,” she said.
Julye Wemple can be reached at julye.wemple@pressenterprise.net, or at 570-387-1234, ext. 1323. Susan Schwartz contributed to this article.
Bette Grey, 57, of Arbor Street says she’s lived in Berwick all her life and she’s never encountered such hateful beliefs.
And when she told council members about the flyers Monday night, council President Alvin Hill assured her such ideas have no place in the borough.
“We’re a community of immigrants, not a community of hatred,” he said. Other council members murmured in agreement.
Grey says she and her husband, Robert, found the first flyer in their yard on Friday, then another one on Sunday afternoon when they came home from church. Both times, the leaflets were tucked neatly under a bag of rice in the grass, Grey said.
At first, Grey, a former councilwoman, thought she was being targeted because of her political activism.
But at least six other neighbors got them, too. Some of them had different messages than the ones Grey received, she said.
Hers questioned the lack of a “white history month” and touted the accomplishments of white people over the centuries. It states the “technological advancements of our people — from the megalithic calendar of Stonehenge to the moonwalk of the Apollo astronauts — are unequaled.”
Grey said another neighbor’s flyer says God loves the KKK, and encourages white people to be proud of being white. None of the flyers were put in mailboxes, which would have been a federal offense, and all were weighted with rice.
The Klansmen knew what they were doing, Grey said.
The pamphlets also provided a website and hotline number for anyone wishing to join the group.
Considering the political climate in the country, Grey’s afraid these leaflets are just the start of trouble, she said.
“I think you’re going to see more of this stuff,” Grey said. “Hate crimes will start.”
Berwick Police Chief Ken Strish says he’s been made aware of the handbills. The ones on Arbor Street are the first of their kind in the borough, he added.
He urged residents who see anyone distributing the flyers to call 9-1-1.
It’s not clear the pamphleteer is breaking the law, but police at least want to talk to the person, Strish said.
Same group
The papers are the work of the East Coast Knights of the True Invisible Empire, a Klan group with a home base in Rising Sun, Maryland, just over the state line. It was the same group that distributed flyers in the 800 block of East Third Street in Salem Township in September.
Those leaflets, decrying illegal immigration, angered Hispanic families living in that neighborhood.
According to the group’s website, the East Coast Knights are a “traditional Klan” that seeks to “ensure a safe and secure future for Caucasian Americans.”
“We do not preach hate, and at no time
would we react hatefully to any man, woman or child,” the website proclaims. “We strive to cleanse the Klan name by our positive actions.”But Grey’s not buying their “positive” message.
“It frightens me,” Grey said. “This is significantly nasty.”
Grey said that’s why she was taking her concerns to council.
“It’s not that I want to draw attention, but I want people to be informed,” she said.
Julye Wemple can be reached at julye.wemple@pressenterprise.net, or at 570-387-1234, ext. 1323. Susan Schwartz contributed to this article.
4 comments:
Hmmm; Lightstreet. I was close enough in my recollection that it was something sounding similar to Gaslight Street, that Ad Hominem Manor is on.
You really do have a thing for me, don't you Mr. Frost? You just can't help yourself. But that's not because you have anything at all to say.
More like, everybody EXCEPT me knows NOT to pipe up here anymore because they know that they'll be gaslit.
Gaslit? Hardly. You don't deserve that much attention. And you HAVE no idea whatever with whom I correspond or how far my reach is. I do, however, think I'm done with the insipid.
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