The KKK Is Trying to Recruit New York Racists with Snickers Bars
This article originally appeared on VICE US.
The Ku Klux Klan is taking recruitment tips from sitcom kidnappers now, apparently. The hate group has recently started including candy with its racist propaganda in upstate New York, CNN reports.
According to CNN, Ziploc bags of recruitment flyers and mini Snickers bars have recently appeared in driveways in Westmoreland, Rome, and around Oneida County, usually dropped in the early morning in what appears to be an attempt to target kids on their way to school.
“They come between four and six in the morning so the candy bars and packets are at the end of the driveway when kids are getting on the school bus,” Denise Szarek of the Westmoreland Board of Education told CNN. “The community they hit was a mobile home park so there were a lot of kids in the area, and they hit on some of the side roads, too. Our feeling was that the children [were] being targeted—at least the high school and middle school kids in that age group.”
Rome Sheriff Rob Maciol wrote in a statement last week that, while he considers the KKK to be “an organization that encourages hatred and bigotry,” it is not against the law to leave flyers, though New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Friday that he has ordered an investigation into whether the propaganda could be promoting hate crimes.
“While President Trump and Republicans in Washington sow divisiveness and hate that is spreading like a cancer across the country, in New York we say not here, not now, not ever,” Cuomo said in a statement. “I have directed State Police to investigate the appalling distribution of KKK material in several counties and send a clear message that New York has zero tolerance for intolerance.”
This isn’t the first time the KKK has tried to sweeten its racist messages with free gifts. The hate group used the same candy tactic in South Carolina and Virginia in the past, and once tried to encourage people to come to a Klan rally by giving away free kitty litter for some reason.
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