Klan is recruiting in western Kentucky
The Ku Klux Klan is amping up its activities in western Kentucky. In recent weeks, the White supremacist group has been leaving a special business card in the front of homes throughout areas of Morgantown, Owensboro and Bowling Green, according to John Johnson, who heads the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights. The cards read: “I was watching over your neighborhood last night while you slept,” says Johnson, noting that he has gotten numerous calls from media outlets across the region reporting on the increased Klan presence. A lady who got one of the cards called to tell the commission that in one neighborhood the Klan – and equal-opportunity hate group – appeared to be targeting Blacks and those who work for civil rights causes. “The KKK has historically promoted hatred and divisiveness, and this type of organization is a dying breed,” Johnson told The News Democrat & Leader in Russellville, Ky. “The overwhelming majority of Kentucky’s people are striving for understanding, tolerance and unity, and our state’s young people deserve better than the legacy a group like the Ku Klux Klan would attempt to force upon them.” He urges anyone who gets such material in the mail to contact the FBI. “If you believe you may be a victim of illegal discrimination because of your race, color, gender, age, disability, national origin or religion,” Johnson continues, “please contact the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights or our local human rights commission partners in your area to file a complaint.” The commission, which enforces the Kentucky Civil Rights Act and policies of federal civil rights laws, “initiates, receives, investigates, conciliates and rules upon jurisdictional complaints.” It has jurisdiction in housing, employment, public accommodations and financial transactions. Does the U.S. Constitution mean that the Klan has a right to exist?

Latino officers say New York Police discriminate
A group that represents Latino police officers says that a study that gave high marks to the New York Police Department’s “stop-and-frisk” policy is way off base. “This study is comprised of endless excuses, statistical justifications,” says that the National Latino Officers Association of America. “If left unchallenged, it is the justification for racial profiling, abuse and discrimination.” The group notes that in the year since the policy was instituted, officers have stopped more than a half-million pedestrians – most of whom were Black or Hispanic. Still, critics say, the RAND Corp, which conducted the study, only found “small racial differences in the rates of frisk, search, use of force and arrest.” But this was to be expected the association says, because “You get exactly what you pay for.” Police officials shot back with their own criticism of Anthony Miranda, executive chairman of the Latino Officers Association. “Not surprisingly, this statement is riddled with inaccuracies and exposes Miranda’s deep ignorance of the statistical process employed by RAND, a nationally respected nonprofit, which subjected its research to rigorous peer review,” police spokesman Paul Browne said in a statement. The study shows that most of those who were stopped – 53 percent – were Black; 29 percent were Hispanic; and 11 percent were White. Blacks were stopped at a 50-percent higher rate than their representation in the census, RAND acknowledged, but says the Census is unreliable because it did not account for higher arrest rates and more crime suspect descriptions involving Blacks and Hispanics. Do you think the policy is discriminatory? How about the study?