Finally.

When will the KKK end?

On Wednesday February 11, 2009 at Gaston Memorial Hospital, Virgil Griffin died. There is now one less KKK member, and yet it is not because he changed his ways. For those of you who do not know, Griffin was the leader of the Ku Klux Klan's North Carolina chapter. An article from Comcast News spread the word.

In class, reading about Huck Fin and the racism that lived in the South made me think of the still present racism around the country. It's easy to think of the KKK as a terrible group that terrorized people mostly during the civil rights movement. But this is wrong. The KKK, while not as common as in the past, is still very much alive, and their white-supremest views are still spoken. Not to speak ill of the dead, but Griffin's death is not one that I will be mourning. His death being in the news simply reminds people that racism is still in this country today. In the time of Huck Fin, racism was a way of life. That is not to say at all that it is excused, but in those times racial slurs were the norm. Today, people are disgusted by the idea of the KKK being around still, and yet, our society has not been able to completely rid itself of racism. That last group of ignorant people still remain, thinking that the color of their skin makes them better or worse than another human being, ranking themselves higher simply because they decide to. I don't think I will ever understand how people can think this way, think that skin color makes us any different from the person sitting next to us. The worst and scariest part seems to be that no matter who is left on this earth, people can still find a way to think this racist way, and speak this racist way. For every word spoken, there is someone to listen and someone to agree, and that scares me.