One of the ridiculous bits of news to come out about Wade Michael Page, the guy who attacked the Sikh temple in Wisconsin and killed several people, is that he once filled out an application to join the KKK. Wait, the KKK has applications? Apparently so.
After Wade Michael Page, the suspect in the Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting, was fired from a Harley Davidson shop in 2004, he left behind an application to join the Ku Klux Klan. What’s on the KKK application form?
Name, address, and information about membership in secret orders. Klan applications vary by chapter, but most begin with the same information required for a drugstore discount card (contact information, age, marital status, etc.). Then there’s information specific to white extremist groups. Applicants usually have to disclose whether they’ve ever worked in law enforcement or for the government in any capacity. They must affirm that they are white Christians, and that they don’t belong to other secret orders like the freemasons. (Conspiracy theorists—Klansmen chief among them—believe the masons are plotting to take over government and subvert Christianity.) Some applications include the question “Do you believe all men are created equal?” The correct answer, if you’re a prospective Klansman, is “no.” Extremist websites sometimes use the same technique, popping up this question and diverting those who answer “yes” away from the site.Most Klan applications ask the applicant’s gender. While many Klan outsiders think of the group as composed almost entirely of men, it’s probably about 30 percent female. Photos from picnics and other Klan get-togethers show a strong female turnout. (Other extremist organizations, like certain neo-Nazi skinhead groups, exclude women, but usually have auxiliary associations that accept them.)
I imagine, though, that instead of asking you what college you went to, they ask what grade school you went to.
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Michael Heath
August 17, 2012 at 10:06 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Progress even for the KKK? I figured the KKK was still arguing that non-whites aren’t fully human.
Raging Bee
August 17, 2012 at 10:08 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I can’t help but suspect that the application may have been given him by FBI agents who had either infiltrated a particular KKK group, or created one as a front. It certainly seems a good way for Federal agents to get information on potential hate-criminals.
Besides, does the KKK really still exist as a national entity? I thought it was mostly gutted, both by lawsuits from victims’ relatives and by the radicalization and fragmentation within the white-supremacist movement.
Zinc Avenger (Sarcasm Tags 3.0 Compliant)
August 17, 2012 at 10:08 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Strange, I thought the correct answer for prospective Klansmen would be to attempt to eat the test.
timgueguen
August 17, 2012 at 10:10 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Yeah, the thought that comes to mind when someone mentions the Klan in a current context is “Which one?”
Raging Bee
August 17, 2012 at 10:13 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I have this image in my head of Federal undercover cops laughing their asses off every time some sucker fills out a “KKK application form.” “You say you want to join the fight to destroy those evil gummint bureaucrats and their international Jewish Communist puppet-masters? Great! Just fill out this form in triplicate adn we’ll get you a seat at the next cross-burning!” (*chortle*)
tmscott
August 17, 2012 at 10:40 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The Klan is not the organization that it once was, but is still alive in fractured form. The Southern Poverty Law Center does a good job of tracking their efforts.
Modusoperandi
August 17, 2012 at 11:18 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The shooting is even worse than you know. The conspiracy goes all the way to the top. Dave Mustaine told me so. He’s a political pundit now. Apparently.
slc1
August 17, 2012 at 11:25 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re Modusoperandi @ #7
Link doesn’t work.
eric
August 17, 2012 at 11:28 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The proper answer to “what college did you go to” is: so far I have only firebombed Berkeley, but I plan to go to Brown soon.
Modusoperandi
August 17, 2012 at 11:32 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
slc, try this link, since you broke the last one. This is why we can’t have nice things.
Draken
August 17, 2012 at 11:51 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
If you can fill out the application in flawless English, you fail it.
fifthdentist
August 17, 2012 at 12:22 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I did some research several years ago into a Klan “group”* that formed about 50 miles from where I live in Georgia. In searching the web site I came across an application. As I remember it did include Christianity** as a requirement. Also 100 percent white blood from the time of Adam and Eve. It also required SS # and said that potential applicants would have to submit to a criminal background check.
* “Group” because apparently it was only one kook. He gained some fame/notoriety a few years ago by his counter-protest in Klan regalia of women’s groups protest of the U.S. Open.
** He was a computer repairman (so his bio claimed) and also a fundamentalist preacher. I’m guessing his church was about as successful as his Klan organizing effort.
Last time I checked his site was no longer up.
Hercules Grytpype-Thynne
August 17, 2012 at 3:22 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
F
August 17, 2012 at 3:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
They used to leave business cards on cork boards in fast food restaurants and grocery stores, which completely freaked me out as a child. With their cute logos on them.
interrobang
August 17, 2012 at 3:51 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Also 100 percent white blood from the time of Adam and Eve.
Even assuming arguendo that this weren’t completely bullshit, how could you possibly know?
timgueguen
August 17, 2012 at 4:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
That’s always a problem for racists. How can you really be sure that great great great grampa wasn’t a Jew who changed his name to avoid antisemitism?
democommie
August 18, 2012 at 8:17 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Re Modusoperandi @ #7
Link doesn’t work.”
Consider where it links to.
” It also required SS #”
The Commonist Social Security Administration or the one from the Todtenkopf Organization?
“and said that potential applicants would have to submit to a criminal background check.”
To make sure that they have one?
Was there a little box down in the corner, like on allathem volunteer forms I used to fill out, asking me what size sheet I would need?
Is there oneathem outfits like that “scrubs” company that offers pre-sewn clanrobes with a nice Emmett Till or Medgar Evers in a bullseye print?
Friday Links (7-Sep-12) | a Nadder!
September 7, 2012 at 1:31 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
[...] apparently the KKK has an application form to join. The questions are fairly standard until you get to “do you believe all men are created [...]