While other 7-year-old boys were dressing up as superheroes or their favorite video game character for Halloween, Jackson Black went trick-or-treating as a member of the Ku Klux Klan, dressed full on in a white robe and a pointed white hood, with a red-and-white cross emblazoned on his chest.
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“It was cool,” the little boy from Craigsville, Va., told WHSV when asked why he chose to wear the robes.
Not surprisingly, Jackson’s "costume" faced backlash online, in the form of threats, and from neighbors who deemed the controversial outfit unacceptable. His mother, Jessica Black, staunchly defended the move, saying it was a "family tradition."
"My brother has [worn it] when he was in kindergarten and when he was 13," Black said, according to WHSV. "I did tell [Jackson] that if you do it, you know there's going to be people talking about you; there's going to be people saying bad things about you when you do wear it."
Nonetheless, it seems that Jackson wanted to wear the costume he saw in the movie Fried Green Tomatoes. His mother stands by his decision, saying that there is nothing wrong with what the Klan stands for.
"It's supposed to be white with white. Black with black. Man with woman and all of that. That's what the KKK stands for … " Jessica Black, said according to the news station.
Read more at WHSV.
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