If anyone was suffering under the delusion that the South was shedding its racist skin, have no fear. Goodloe Sutton, editor of Alabama's Democrat-Reporter has ridden to the rescue with his February 14 editorial pleading for a return of lynchings and the Ku Klux Klan to ride on Washington, D.C. to "clean it up!" Happy Valentine's Day!
Yes, Mr. Goodloe Sutton, the man with what might be the Southern-est White-Man-est name ever (short of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions) hath bestowed upon his readers his prescription for what is surely the Southern-est White-Man-est solution to the political problem of white men everywhere - higher taxes. LYNCH EVERYONE IN WASHINGTON, D.C.!
Don't worry, though, he's not talking about BLACK people...he wants to lynch the "ruling class" of the Democrats and the "Democrats in the Republican Party" who will raise his taxes. I mean, after all, according to him, the KKK even included freed slaves. "Slaves, just freed after the civil war, were not stupid. At times they borrowed their former masters' robes and horses and rode through the night to frighten some evil-doer. Sometimes they had to kill one or two of them, but so what."
Ooooooooooooooo-KAY, then. Raise your hand if you think Ole Goodloe was just looking for a way to insert racism and terrorist threats into his complaint about the fact that his taxes were about to go up, and try to shield himself from accusations of racism by saying freed slaves were smart (they were, but beside the point) and making up some BS about them "borrowing" their former masters' horses and robes to scare some evil-doer! Because everyone knows former slave-owners were all too happy to "loan" their horses and robes to the former slaves they fought a war to keep servile so said former slaves could go on some vigilante justice rides!! ALL of you? GOOD JOB, CLASS!
Ohmygod, the stupid, it burns.
Anyhow, there was rightfully some high-profile pushback to this insanity.
From Sherrod Brown:
Well, we have just learned there are consequences to the newspaper and its editor, Mr. Goodloe Sutton. The Alabama Press Association has voted to censure him. In addition, the newspaper association has suspended the Democrat-Reporter's membership.
The APA is the state’s newspaper trade association, representing 24 daily newspapers and 99 non-daily newspapers, as well as more than 100 associate members.
Earlier in the day, Auburn University’s Journalism Advisory Council voted to revoke Sutton’s community journalism award while the University of Southern Mississippi removed him from its Journalism and Mass Communications Hall of Fame.
And, according to The Washington Post,
[T]he president of the Alabama NAACP, Benard Simelton, told AL.com that Sutton’s editorial shows he is “out of touch with reality," before adding that his comments warrant an investigation.
“I think it needs to be looked into by the FBI because in my opinion, he’s making threats to legislators and telling them that the Klan essentially needs to take care of the Democrats," Simelton said. “The Democrats as well as the Democrats that are in the Republican Party, too. So, I think that needs to be looked at as a threat and investigated as a threat and possible legal action taken against him.”
