Residents across the state of Virginia found flyers in or around their mailboxes sent by a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. The message on the flyers calls for “100% Americanism” and decries the number of white people who support the Black Lives Matter movement. Now, Virginia police are investigating the matter which stretches across multiple cities and counties in the state.
Newsweek reports that the New Kent County Sheriff’s Office is asking that any residents who have seen the flyers being distributed and can identify the vehicle being used or the people placing them on properties come forward with any information they have.
The department uploaded the flyers—which asks that people “pray for white Americans in 2020” because “Most whites insist on making heroes and saints of criminal blacks” because “most whites are idiots”—to their Facebook and Twitter pages accompanied by a caption warning residents not to “put yourself in harm’s way or confront anyone to do so. We would like to locate the parties involved.”
The flyers identify the KKK group the Loyal White Knights—which the Anti-Defamation League describes as “one of the largest and most active Klan groups” in the U.S., according to Newsweek—and lists the group’s contact information.
Side note: The New Kent County Sheriff’s Office was smart enough to redact the group’s contact info, which could be a lesson learned from a Virginia newspaper that in 2018, though it was exposing racism in a show of BLM solidarity by publishing a full KKK recruitment ad complete with clearly visible contact info ensuring that the ad will reach more neo-Nazis in the making than it would have without the extra promotion.
The Sheriff’s Office’s post also noted that “Similar items have been left in neighboring jurisdictions over the past six months or so.”
From Newsweek:
On Sunday, July 13, detectives from Norfolk Police in Virginia also launched an investigation after several offensive flyers were found in an East Beach neighborhood.
Just like in New Kent County, the flyers were also found in a plastic bag with birdseed and appear to be affiliated with the Loyal White Knights.
Detectives also believe these flyers could be related to a similar occurrence that happened on the Eastern Shore in June 2020.
The white supremacist flyers are similar to the ones found by a woman in a neighborhood in Newport News, Virginia.
Salty racist white people calling “most white people” idiots for supporting Black Lives Matter (which, surprisingly, that is somewhat true, according to a Pew Research study published last month) would be hilarious in an “even white people are tired of white people’s shit” kind of way if it wasn’t for the danger white supremacists groups pose to Black people by being as bold as ever in their recruitment tactics.
Business Insider reports that, in June, more than 1 million people signed a petition urging the U.S. to label the KKK as a terrorist organization. Currently, the KKK is categorized as a domestic extremist group.
Yeah, it looks like it’s long past time to upgrade that categorization.
DISCUSSION
Doesn’t matter what the note says. It is illegal to use a mailbox for anything but mail that has paid postage.
https://about.usps.com/news/state-releases/tx/2010/tx_2010_0909.htm#:~:text=By%20law%2C%20a%20mailbox%20is,of%20postage%2Dpaid%20U.S.%20Mail.&text=Additionally%2C%20the%20Postal%20Service%20has,is%20illegal%20by%20federal%20law.
Our old neighborhood had landscapers, painters, driveway finishers, etc that would leave fliers in zip lock baggies next to the mailbox with a little gravel in them to make sure they complied.
So even if you can’t get these guys for a hate crime, they still committed a Federal Crime. It may be like getting Capone on tax evasion, but that worked.