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The
Klan leader Virgil Griffin makes a speech for members in a
North Carolina Forest. |
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Clan
leader Virgil Griffin, who was the mastermind behind the
massacre of some of my black friends in Greensboro and
managed to seize his gas station in order to burn down a
black church. |
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32.
When you, from many years experience,
realize how easy it is to help people abandon their racist way of
thinking towards “the others”, it becomes a vivid sport to try with
even the most hopeless cases. Some years ago I was planning to meet
Virgil Griffin, one of the most disrespectable Klan leaders-that I
myself had terrible prejudices against, he was actually the leader
who in 1979 was behind the massacre of an anti-Klan-demonstration
where five people were killed. One of my old girlfriends Villena
Cannon was shot at, but
my co-worker Tony Harris’s ex-girlfriend Sandi Smith, whom I
remembered from the time I spent with them in Lee College,
Greensboro, was among those killed. Tony, who was on tour with
American Pictures in Norway, was so shook up by seeing his murdered
ex. girlfriend on the TV News from his hometown, which we had to fly
him home.
Yes, not all Klan people are
angels :-) |
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Typical Klan members from the poorest groups in society.
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33. When I was to meet, the
now old Griffin, at a large Klan gathering, I decided to not in any
way let him feel my negative thoughts about him. Since I came
straight from a visit with Tony Harris in Atlanta, I wanted to ask
him why he committed the Greensboro-Massacre, His answer was the
same as what got him acquitted at the trial, “we shot communists in
Vietnam back then, why should we not fight them back home?”
Very well, the demonstration was arranged by the communistic
textile-workers union, thus I had to admit that he had acted
“political correctly” in this reactionary Southern state, were we
once again were together.
Since Griffin knew that I was an anti-racist, and therefore had the
same prejudices against him, I knew I would get nowhere with trivial
quarreling, and I decided to let bygone be bygone. Instead I wished
to attempt, as we do in racism workshops, to communicate with his
inner humanity….. assuming that he had a such
J
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Timid
introverted guy with social problems, but he flourished
whenever attention was paid to him. |
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Klan woman with baby.
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34.
Therefore I spent the rest of the day
trying to get enough courage to send him my most loving thoughts,
which is what is called non-violent communication or
“giraffe-language”. For selfish reasons this is also rather sensible
if you are standing alone among 50 stark raving mad Klan people in a
deserted forest :-)
By “raving mad” I mean precisely “Children of pain” as their entire
life has been chained by our negative distancing from them or
downright hateful thoughts towards them, and from them never
receiving any kind of love. I know from the ghettos how they really
thirst for our love and acceptance, and that is never too late for
us to show them a little kindness and humanity, But a Klan leader
must as the “nature of the beast” appear tough to the members, so
for a while he avoided me or spoke rhetorically to me, if they were
close by. I used the time to find” allied” among the members, as the
above “tough guy”, who of course was as “soft” inside as the black
gangsters I have worked with for so many years. |
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Klan members in prayer,
which seems more like a routine exercise, since none of them
seems to be very religious, and still I see them typically
join a church community when they, after a couple of years
in the Klan, leave it. |
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Klan
members during prayer. |
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35.
As the day
went on, Griffin clearly got more and more influenced by my “loving”
thoughts (thou true love is something far more).
First he started, almost
flirtingly, to smile back at me, but late in the day, he suddenly
asked me to take a walk with him alone in the forest. Here it is
important to point out that he was not the one who had burned down
the black’s church, as he had been convicted of, because in one of
the real culprits belongings was found an old membership card from
Griffin’s Klan group. “You must believe me Jacob, I am a deeply
religious man, and would never dream of burning down a church.”
Since I could see that it was extremely important to him, that
especially I believed him I ended up doing just that, as he in that
way indirectly showed that he was seeking my friendship.
He now told me how he had been in the Klan his entire life, but
lately he had had three by-pass operations and “I know I am going to
die soon, but in February I will turn 70, and it would mean the
world to me if you will come for my birthday party, will you promise
me that” he asked. I promised that I would make an attempt. |
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Raine, the Klan leader’s firm mouthpiece, makes a flaming
speech, but only two years later, he too had left the Klan. |
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After
my confidential walk in the forest with Virgil Griffin.
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36.
At the end of the
day, when I said good-bye to my new friends, I said “so I will see
you all soon at Virgil’s birthday party”, “WHAT” they said
surprised, and it dawned on me that not a single one of them were
invited to his party. With all the self loading that is typical for
the Klan members, Griffin was not interested in socializing with
“his own kind”.
“The children of pain” are so thirsty for love from us with a
surplus – us outside their mental ghetto. They will not find much
human affection in the Klan, which emotional callous members always
attend the meetings alone and lonely.
However, my small experiment with non-violent communication
demonstrated in its successfull reaching of Griffin once again for
me how easy it is for “we, the others” through an established
friendship to help even the most radical and violent racist escape
their pattern of suffering.
Only a few months later, Griffin actually left “The Cleveland
Knights of the Ku Klux Klan”, which he had ruled most of his life,
after which the the group dissolved. |
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One of the almost 10.000
lynchings that happened in USA’s past history, usually
committed by a crowd of frustrated poor whites. |
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Michael Donald after his lynching in Mobile,
Alabama. |
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37.
The present times Klan isn’t marked by extrovert
violence, but of course attracts violent types who have experienced
a violent upbringing. As Jeff told me: “80% of those seeking
memberships, are useless to me, they are violent fools.”
As the Klan is infiltrated by the FBI, no Klan leader wish to accept
memberships from such types. Still they always say in USA , about
racist attacks, that KKK was responsible, and the Klan has nothing
against that, they survive on their bad reputation, and therefore
they laugh at the naïve school kids “who think that we string up
blacks in trees”. In fact, this has the Klan never done. Most of
the 10.000 lynchings were committed by crowds of whites, the same
poor types as the Klan themselves.
Michael Donald here, lynched in 1981 by a Klan leader's abused son,
is the exception who confirms the rule. During my six years of
working with KKK, I have only experienced self-loathing Klan people
murder other Klan people.
Continue
with examples of
Love disguised as a hatred |
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