Red Rose, Black, Words and Music By Brian McCaskill

Words and Music by Brian McCaskil

"Well, is no news is good news, then I got some bad news"
I said that.

Brian McCaskill 10/6/04 A Decade in American Culture; Prof. Hallett Re-written paper Behind the Mask of Chivalry is a study of the second Ku Klux Klan by Nancy MacLean. More specifically, centers on the Klan of Athens, Georgia, in the years between 1921 and 1927, the years when the Klan had it’s largest influence in the area and it’s largest number of members. In the study, MacLean searches for reasons why so many white, Protestant, males (over a million, and possibly as high as five million) joined the Klan (xi). She discovers that many of them were uneducated and from a middle-class background. But her thesis goes deeper. MacLean argues that because the times were rapidly changing, many of these regular citizens turned Klansmen in an attempt to help them explain and fight against the new American culture that was straying away from traditional values, such as gender roles. As MacLean states, “Klansmen displaced these conflicts onto imagined racial Others—whether African Americans, Jews, or immigrants, all of whom were conceived as biologically distinct form and inferior to “real” Americans, members of the ‘Anglo-Saxon race’” (127). This fear of the new American culture was brought on by a number of groups. Blacks were beginning to fight for their freedom and immigrants, such as Catholics and Jews, were coming to the country in growing numbers, were targets for this paranoia. Also, “new” women and men were beginning to embrace a more modern look at life that included dating and movie and the new labor movement which included unions and strikes, drove many citizens, in this case white, Protestant males from Athens, to turn to an organization that used their fears to help them organize and fight for the older, traditional values. This created reactionary populism, the idea that the people who joined the Klan used the argument of traditional values to deny the role of class in their fears. It was easier for the Klan to argue against these new groups in terms of morals than it was to admit that modern times were making it increasingly difficult to be a member of the middle class. One of the central points that the book uses to support its argument is looking at what kind of people the Ku Klux Klan was comprised of. The members were all white, Protestant, males, and were over-whelmingly middle-class. MacLean paints the Klansmen as normal southerners; “as today’s popular conceptions of the Klan would have it, ‘poor white trash’” (53). The most common occupation of a member was a small business owner, as petty-proprietors and those in managerial work accounted for 26% of the Klan (56). The fact that the majority of these members were petit-bourgeois, or non-educated workers of the middle-class, and that so many of them ran small businesses, is important because those are the types of occupations that offered the least amount of job security. As MacLean argues, “The typical Klansmen was not simply petit-bourgeois; he appeared less economically secure than the norm for his class” (58). And since the mid-1920’s brought a depression to Georgia, many of these men did lose their jobs, or at least a substantial part of their savings and income (62). This again strengthens the argument that, although the Klan never admitted it, the attitudes against blacks and other minorities were very much influenced by the increasing difficultly of supporting a family with a more traditional occupation. These people did not join the Ku Klux Klan after they began to lose their money, they joined while the prospect of losing their financial freedom was there. This point provides an important reason why people decided to join the Klan. Becoming paranoid about the well being of a family’s economical environment does not require the loss of income or savings, but rather the fear of it. These petit-bourgeois men needed a scapegoat for the fears they had, and minority groups, particularly blacks, gave them just that. However, no figures are available to compare the economical situation of Klansmen to those who did not join. MacLean writes, “Whether Klansmen suffered losses severer than their non-Klan counterparts’ is impossible to say with the data available.” (62). This presents a major problem in trying to develop a reason as to why this certain demographic joined the Klan more than others. A criticism can be made of MacLean’s work by pointing out that without these figures, one cannot say that this was a deciding factor in Klan membership, but even without these figures it is clear that these people were affected by the economy in a negative way. No matter how much you speculate upon the other members of the community, it is clear that the factors of economic instability and the need of these white southerners to blame it on something other than themselves provided an ideal atmosphere for the Klan to grow. Along with the changing economics of the time came a changing social landscape that would provide another aspect of the Klan to blame on their usual scapegoats. Strikes and the advent of labor unions reformed the way business was done in America. MacLean argues, “Among the white workers, the most obvious sign of newfound confidence was a spate of strikes and union-organizing efforts in the southern Piedmont from 1918-1921.” (25-26). Also, “new women” began to vary their style of dress. They began to go out more and take up smoking, all behaviors that those who stuck to the strict moral code of an older generation, the Klan included, detested. MacLean writes, “Whereas the new dress styles indicated a decline in female sexual modesty, female smoking threatened to dissolve gender distinctions altogether” (32). Along with these developments, MacLean also notes how the notion of a son inheriting the family business was being transformed. She writes, “More generally, the decline of independent proprietorship undermined fathers’ ability to control their children through the prospect of inheritance” (40-41). These kinds of changes would, along with the economy, make certain southerners turn to an organization like the Klan, who were strongly opposed to these issues of modernity. It is not hard to fathom that someone who believes strongly in a moral tradition would be against these kinds of revolutions. Because of the Klan’s tendency to pass blame, it is also likely that those same people would point to groups such as Catholics, Jews, immigrants, and blacks as the source of these problems; “Race, it seemed, would serve as the lightning rod for the charged relations of class and gender” (124). MacLean argues that the power struggle that these changes produced caused many of these men to use violence, and she states that the purpose of the Klan remained the same: “to enforce the private and public conduct the world of white proprietors like themselves depended on” (51). The strength of the Klan was the ability to use reactionary politics to make the fear of a failing economy and the modernizing of society a racial and religious problem. The Klan managed to tie Protestantism with American ideals. MacLean argues, “Protestantism, explained Imperial Wizard Evans, was ‘more than religion’. It was an expression of the ‘spirit of independence, self-reliance, and freedom’ of northern Europeans that promoted the rise of capitalism hundreds of years ago” (92). The Klan attacked Catholics in the same way. MacLean points out, “When ethnic Catholics made up so large a part of the wage-earning population, attacks on Rome were but thinly veiled anti-working class sentiments” (97). The Klan published pamphlets and held rallies warning that white girls would soon be having children with black men, increasing this kind of paranoia (126-127). Klan supporter Miss. A Benton helped spread these ideas, and says in one of her speeches, “Benton’s tirade illustrates how race was, at one and the same time, at the core of the Klan’s politics and a medium through which to fight other causes” (127). Since most of the members of the Klan would have the same fears, whether they were about their job or their children, the Klan could use those fears to convince members of the community to join them. This tendency for fear is a major factor in what separated those who joined the Klan, and those who did not. Nancy MacLean provides an interesting and well-thought out thesis; that the Ku Klux Klan played on the fears and paranoid state of uneducated, middle-class white Protestants and used reactionary politics to blame blacks, immigrants, Catholics, and Jews for their problems instead of the new economic landscape. However, the author does not make it clear that this study might not apply to the country at large. Since the study is mostly done in the vicinity of Athens, Georgia, the characteristics of this particular branch of the Ku Klux Klan may vary from other branches, particularly those in the North or West. To get a better view of the Klan, one would need to incorporate studies from other parts of the country and see if the same problems were evident in those groups. For instance, if in the North the economy still relied on the same occupations that existed decades before, the argument that Klansmen feared for their financial stability would not be as relevant. MacLean makes no attempt to try and relate this Klan to others, especially to groups in the North, which would be likely to have very different views on some issues. Overall though, Behind the Mask of Chivalry gives us an interesting study of the Ku Klux Klan and the reasons that some would be inclined to join: paranoia and fear about the changing times.
March 12th, 2003
After a few days of being down due to Tripod's problems, Red Rose, Black is back up and running, some updates have made their way back to the page, so look around, read the poetry, yada yada yada.

March 1st, 2003
If you haven't noticed, there is a new, quasi-member, Victor or something like that. Either way, he's Brian's issue. However, Katie has a poetry page as well now, but no poems yet. So keep checking for them and read the other poetry in the meantime.

February 27th, 2003
There's two new poems by Nico and one new poem by Brian on the site. Check them out. Also, we have a new member to the website, Vincent Wice. Vincent will now be Brian McCaskill's spokesperson, and take over the duties of updating Brian's rant page. Wish him luck and read his short bio. And check out his first poem, too.

February 21st, 2003
Archives Archives Archives. Okay, I know its not that exciting, but take it for what its worth, not much at all, either way. Don't think of them as archives though, but as classics.

February 20th, 2003
Another poem on the site by Brian. Read it.

February 14th, 2003
Yes, more red, I know. Either way, Happy Valentine's Day. As I(Josh) mentioned in my column, Red Rose Black is offering volunteer Valentines to the lonely ladies out there, conditions apply.

Febuary 2nd, 2003
Happy Groundhog Day!! It's been a while since the news was updated, but, as you can read, no news is good news. I think. Anyway, here's some new poem and a new song, and another new poem and another new song for you all to enjoy. And sign the guestbook!!

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