Racism Watch - 6/12/12

Georgia denies KKK application for 'Adopt-A-Highway' In photo, From left, Knighthawk, April Hanson and her husband Harley Hanson, members of the International Keystone Knights Realm of Georgia, perform a traditional Klan salute along the portion of highway they want to adopt allowing them to put up a sign and do litter removal near Blairsville, Ga. The U.S. state of Georgia has declined to accept a Ku Klux Klan group's application to join the state's "Adopt-A-Highway" program. The International Keystone Knights of the KKK in Union County applied last month to adopt part of Route 515 in the Appalachian Mountains. In a statement Tuesday, the agency says "promoting an organization with a history of inciting civil disturbance and social unrest would present a grave concern" and could "have the potential to negatively impact the quality of life" of people in the county and state. [MORE]

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about the KKK [MORE] 

7 Racist Remarks that will Hurt George Allen in the General Election. 1) Cut off a doe’s head and asked his friends, “Where do the black people live?” and then put it in a Black family’s mailbox. Today, this would be a hate crime. 2) Used the n-word repeatedly in the presence of a nurse 3) Used the n-word around a black college teammate, who he also told that he moved to Virginia “because the blacks know their place.” 4) Used the n-word it while buying a puppy, in reference to the consumption of turtles. Excerpt: "I asked him about waterfowl landing at the lake," Taylor recalled. "He said if they hatched out into ducklings, they would all get attacked by the big turtles. I said, 'Why don't you kill and eat these turtles?' He said: 'We don't eat them. The [epithets] eat them.'” 5) Accused by respected Virginia professor of using the n-word. 6) When asked if he had Jewish ancestry at a 2006 debate, Allen “recoiled as if he had been struck” and accused the questioner of “casting aspersions.” 7) "Let's give a welcome to macaca, here," he told a chuckling crowd. "Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia." [MORE] and [MORE] 

Suit Alleges History of Racial Discrimination at Goodyear. A worker's recent lawsuit against Goodyear describes an alleged history of racism at the company's Beaumont rubber plant. The lawsuit lists the following alleged incidents as evidence of the problems at the plant:

April 2011
A noose was found hanging up between the P&L lines at unit 880

Late 2010 or early 2011
An employee found in a desk drawer a letter stating that "n------ are lazy."

January or February 2011
A Goodyear operator disclosed to other employees, including plaintiff Kenan Alexander, that he heard an employee in the Natsyn Unit that he disliked "n----- President Obama and also that all n------ thought they were running the country now." The operator claims supervisors and employees in attendance laughed at the comments.

February 2011
A white employee referred to black employees at the plant as "Negroes and colored." Plaintiff Kenan Alexander claims he told the white employee, "it's 2011 and you can't refer to them as such." Alexander alleges he reported the incident to the foreman, but the foreman took the incident lightly and did not admonish the employee.

2009-2010
Graffiti in the plant's bathroom and cafeteria depicted KKK swastikas. The graffiti was removed but is "occasionally reappeared in the same places."

2007-2008
An employee wrote on a safety card that the leaders of the Confederate Army should still be around and that slavery should still be legal. [MORE]