The county commissioners passed a law outlawing the wearing of masks at public rallies and demanded that the KKK had to have the sponsorship of two Bedford citizens. The American Civil Liberties Union came to the Klan's defense, and a U.S. district judge temporarily blocked the law, so the rally took place.
At the rally a contingent of anti-Klan youth, mostly white began to chant: "Hey, hey, ho, ho, the Ku Klux Klan has go to go!" Local newspapers estimated the anti-Klan forces to number between 140 and 200 people.
The Klan rally was organized by KKK Grand Dragon C. Edward Foster. Foster had also organized the KKK rally in Pittsburgh held on April 5 and protested by thousands. Foster claimed he was planning a cross burning in nearby Somerset County to protest a gay bar.
The Bedford United Methodist Church also sponsored a mini- rally a few blocks from the courthouse.
Nicholas Brand
Loretto, Pennsylvania
`Black' not a nationality
I am writing in response to Pete Seidman's letter in the
Militant of 3/3/97, in which he addressed the issue of upper-
case "B" in the word "Black." the Militant capitalizes the
names of all nationalities, but "Black" is not a nationality
like Italian or Russian. Senegalese and South African, for
example, are nationalities of people coming from particular
countries on the African continent. "Nationality" indicates
one's country of origin.
"Black" is no more precise than "white" at all because Black people are only guaranteed a continent in common - Africa - as all white people have the continent of Europe in common. Seidman makes it sound as if all Black people come from the same national origin and social class, that all Blacks share the same political perspective!!
Everything that Seidman writes about whites in the second and third paragraphs of his letter could be applied verbatim with the same amount of validity to Blacks.
The explanation that "white" is not "scientific and is "a social and political category that feeds a racial myth" is accurate, but those facts don't make the designation of "Black" any more scientific. In fact, neither designation could exist in the mythology of racism without the other because there is no such thing as white and black people in regard to color in the first place. Fred Dube gives a great explanation of the political/etymological roots and meaning of these terms. There is also a strong scene in Spike Lee's Malcolm X in which Malcolm in the prison library learns of the racist manipulation of language.
I write this letter not to split hairs, but to ask my fellow socialists to avoid the temptation to "bend the stick too far back the other way," to paraphrase Lenin, just to win an argument. It makes it harder for me to explain the issues to an astute reader. Isn't it better to state that "Black" should be capitalized because Blacks historically have been oppressed by the ruling class? Isn't their struggle against that oppression and exploitation for centuries what earned them their vanguard role and upper-case "B"?
Ian Harvey
Naples, Florida
Letters from inmates
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A prisoner
Jefferson City, Missouri
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Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
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Cocoran, California
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