Georgia state representative believes KKK wasn't racist, 'made a lot of people straighten up' [View all]

[MrWendel]

By Walter Einenkel



Georgia’s Tommy Benton has helped to introduce two bills this year, HR 1179 and HR 855. The first bill protects a Confederate veteran memorial and the latter makes sure that Confederate “memorial day” and Robert E. Lee’s birthday are both public and legal holidays. Why, you might wonder, would someone want to do that? Well, the argument is something usually about not forgetting history, wah wah, we lost a racist war being a bunch of racists. Now while that is the reason, there is something else at work, and always at work, when being involved in pro-Confederate propaganda—revising the history of racism and the Southern “way of life.”

The Klan “was not so much a racist thing but a vigilante thing to keep law and order,” he said.

“It made a lot of people straighten up,” he said. “I’m not saying what they did was right. It’s just the way things were.”

In state Rep. Tommy Benton’s defense, he’s kinda a racist. Benton’s comments and proposed legislation came in response to state Senator Vincent Fort’s (D-Atlanta) proposed bill that would prohibit Georgia from formally recognizing Confederate States of America holidays. Fenton feels that’s sort of like celebrating Saddam Hussein’s birthday every year—remember how much fun Saddam Hussein was? Tommy Benton does not like this proposed legislation.

“That’s no better than what ISIS is doing, destroying museums and monuments,” he said. “I feel very strongly about this. I think it has gone far enough. There is some idea out there that certain parts of history out there don’t matter anymore and that’s a bunch of bunk.”

And just when you think you’re done with how backwards a state representative can be, there’s this—Benton has also introduced a bill to re-rename old streets that used to be named after Confederate veterans. This includes a stretch now named after Martin Luther King, Jr. that was once named after a KKK leader.

The bill does not mention King, but it does set 1968 — the year of King’s assassination — as the time period from which renamings would be reversed.

Tommy Benton continues to fight a war lost in the 19th century.