Raju Narisetti’s Garage:

This has been said before (quite recently, in fact), but it is worth repeating: to those allies who want to give advice to other allies who want to expose racism in 2018 (or even 2019) think first about your tactics before you pat yourself on the back for telling OTHER allies to think first about their tactics before they pat themselves on the back! To not even consider how an article on how another publican did not even consider how their “big reveal” might affect those who experience racism the most might affect those who experience racism the most is in itself …… kind of racist.

Confused? So are we!

Recently, in an article titled “Virginia Newspaper Runs KKK Flyer on Its Front Page. Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?” The Root, supposedly trying to do the right thing, ran a full-throated recruitment ad for the Ku Klux Klan on their website, complete with disgusting things the “Negro” should “apologize for” and the telephone number to a national KKK hotline in an article in which they criticize a Virginia newspaper (with probably no more than 3,000 readers) for running the same ad on its front page!

A screenshot of the article is pictured below. (As you will see, we at The Fluffington Host, had the good sense NOT to give hate and bigotry a platform by censoring the text of the KKK recruitment ad.)

Persons of Color, who probably make up about 75% of the website’s readership of probably about 3,000,000 voiced their objections to the coverage.

“They posted the entire flyer as if they were giving the KKK free advertising,” stated Marty Jenkins, “[The flyer] even displayed the phone number to contact the head of the KKK! [I believe this poor decision on the part of The Root’s editorial staff to be] totally ridiculous!”

Ironically, The Root’s own article made almost the same objections and accusations against a local newspaper with only a fraction of their national readership of doing practically the very same thing they did in their own article!

The Root reports that Newsweek reports that there are calls for boycotts on the paper’s official Facebook page, saying that the story was essentially free advertising for the murderous hate group!

It is unclear at this time whether The Root is similarly facing calls for boycotts due to their own story which, unfortunately, was also essentially free advertising for the murderous hate group – free advertising that went far beyond any damage that could have been done by the small, local paper criticized in The Root’s article.

One thing, however, is clear. The Root displaying a full KKK ad in an article in which they reprimand a small newspaper with only a fraction of their readership for doing the very same thing is the epitome of the pot calling the kettle black.