I haven't watched this yet, are these people Klan members or not? Because I'd hate to think I'm supporting the KKK if I rent it.
shareI just watched it and I didn't hear anyone say anything about the Klan.
"Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go fill my freezer with my own blood"
Nobody said anything about racism in the movie. However, if that would have been a problem for you, then maybe you should consider that you are still supporting murderers, child abusers, thieves, & junkies. That's just as bad, right?
shareWow, of all the stereotypes that are perpetuated in this movie, that's not one of them, but it does say something for your own narrow mind. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to watch Hotel Rwanda . . . it's got black people in it, so I'm looking forward to watching all that gang violence.
shareYou are aware aren't you that West Virginia seceded from Virginia and rejoined the Union during the Civil War? It wouldn't exactly have been a hotbed of Klan activity. Shees.....
shareNot then, anyway...
shareThey weren't allowed to join.
Even the KKK has minimum standards.
Also, the Whites couldn't SPELL "KKK," so that pretty much disqualified them right there.
shareWow, I don't know where to begin. First of all, I just watched this last night, and as someone born and raised the Appalachia region I kept getting the feeling that certain things had been edited out (homophobia and racism) to make the Whites more likeable. Even if you were to buy this film you're not supporting the Whites; there's no way these people had the sense to work out the contract so that they get anything from rentals. The contract was probably written in a way that they got a certain lump sum regardless of how successful the film was. But I grew up around people like this, and there's not a single doubt in my mind that they are at least ignorant biggots, if not flat out racsits. Anyway, whenever friends don't believe that Harmony Korrine's Gummo is an accurate portrayl of life in this part of America, I now have this little gem to prove it, it's like Grey Gardens with more meth and less teeth.
As for the KKK, they're very active in Kentucky and West Virginia.
"As for the KKK, they're very active in Kentucky and West Virginia."
Citation please?
umm west virginia has been a hotbead of clan activity for damn near the entire existance of the clan. and we did not succeed from virginia due to believes that slaves should be free. we left virginia for political reasons having nothing to do with slavery. if anybody bothers to look up robert c byrd the longest sitting us senator in history you will see that he himself was a clan member.
anyhow the movie has nothing to do with racism or the clan. the only thing that could be looked at as racist in it is the way one local attorny described the culture of the state as similar to a poor african nation that is run by wealthy interests from another country, west virginia is controlled by wealthy interests out of state and the damn majority of the state is so poor its terrible, its damn near third world in some parts of the state.
WV left Virginia for political reasons that had everything to do with slavery. The main reason was that WV had very few slaves because the agricultural possibilities are so limited there, and therefore West Virginians didn't see the point in fighting a war waged primarily because of rich slaveholders' interests. I'm not saying it was a moral stand that WV took (although obviously many citizens fell on both sides of that issue), but to say that it had nothing to do with slavery is incorrect.
Please cite actual evidence for your assertion that WV has been a hotbed of Klan activity since the 19th century, besides the anecdotal fact about Senator Byrd. There haven't been enough black people in WV ever for it to be a "hotbed" in the way that Tennessee, Mississippi, Indiana, etc have been. The point of the KKK has almost always been to terrorize black people, which is pretty hard to do if only 3% of your populace is black. Sure, there may be some groups of pot-bellied idiots grumbling in basements, but this is true everywhere and to label a state a "hotbed" because of it is ludicrous. This idea about WV is simply an easy stereotype. If this conversation were about incest, I'm sure people would be posting about the high prevalence of incest in WV, and it would be just as baseless and incorrect. But you'd have people swearing up and down on message boards that WV is the incest capital of the US (actually New York City has a far higher prevalence of incest, as do most big cities).
Just because people in one state talk funny and act like rednecks doesn't mean they're also racists or Klan members.
I live in the state and can attest to the fact that the klan is alive and active and has been for decades and decades. it is fact that robert c byrd was a member of the klan. and if the klan isnt good enough for you, then what about william luther pierce? may have heard of him he wrote a little book called the turner diaries that is/was the blue print for the oklahoma city bombing. you say only 3 percent of our population is black, did you consider there might be a reason for that? and living in this state i can tell you incest happens all the damn time, find our local news on the net or whatever satallite tv you have, get to know my state and our issues before talking about us as if your an expert.
shareI was born and raised in WV and have studied Appalachian history extensively, beginning with WV History class in 8th grade, as I'm sure you did. While I live in California now, I still have family and property in WV and am very familiar with the state. The Klan is "alive and active" in every state in the US. I know Byrd was a Klansman in the 1940s, but he later repudiated and apologized for his past and became one of the most outspoken racial progressives in the Senate. His views from 70 years ago do not represent any state circa 2011. William Luther Pierce is not from WV and didn't move his organization there until 1985 -- before that, it had been in Arlington, VA, hardly a racist hotbed. Pierce grew up in Georgia and Texas and has graduate degrees from Cal Tech and Boulder and taught at Oregon State -- are those places breeding grounds for racists, as you're suggesting that WV is?
Are you suggesting that WV has a 3% black population because of the KKK? That's a crazy assertion. By that logic, the low black population of Beverly Hills is also because of the KKK.
Where are these news stories about how incest happens "all the time" in WV? Where are your supporting statistics? Please provide links for your stereotypes and generalizations. I'm not trying to sound like an expert -- I'm asking you to support your baseless assertions.
For you Flem Snopes, I did research and, well, you didn't study as extensively as you claim.
If they aren't active in the state, why would they need an organizer like Byrd?
If they aren't active, then why the recruitment flyers? http://www.wsaz.com/home/headlines/13957677.html
Lynchings occurred throughout the United States; it was not a sectional crime. However, the great majority of lynchings in the United States took place in the Southern and border states. According to social economist Gunnar Myrdal: “The Southern states account for nine-tenths of the lynchings. More than two-thirds of the remaining one-tenth occurred in the six states which immediately border the South: Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Kansas.”4 Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, and Alabama were the leading lynching states. These five states furnished nearly half the total victims. Mississippi had the highest incidence of lynchings in the South as well as the highest for the nation, with Georgia and Texas taking second and third places, respectively. However, there were lynchings in the North and West. In fact, every state in the continental United States with the exception of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Vermont has had lynching casualties.
Another article: http://theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/John_Zerzan__Rank-and-File_Radicalism_within_the_Ku_Klux_Klan_of_the_1920s.html
And Another: http://www.mpassociates.us/pdf/STAIC.pdf
http://vkb.isvg.org/Wiki/Groups/Ku_Klux_Klan
http://www.moremonmouthmusings.net/2010/09/10/rush-holt-and-the-ku-klux-klan/
I just found this interesting (lost teeth stats): http://www.debbieschlussel.com/796/toothless-telling-statistics-of-the-week/
http://blogs.wabash.edu/lanelines/2007/06/06/my-summer-in-west-virginia/
Straight from W.VA encyclopedia: http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/1258
I never ever said they weren't active in WV or that they don't continue to be. I just said WV has never been a "hotbed" for KKK activity, not compared to many other states. Your links don't claim that it is. In fact, your links don't even have much to do with WV.
One link is about dental statistics. It literally doesn't mention the KKK anywhere in it.
Another link is about a KKK rally in Tennessee.
One of them centers around an anti-Klan rally in the 1990s that turned into a watershed moment of positive racial relations. It also talks about how race has never been a huge problem in WV because racial tension would have hurt the coal business. It notes that there have been 75 racially-motivated hate crimes in WV since the state began keeping track in 1992.
Another lists 27 (!) states where the Klan has an active "area of operation," but WV is not one of those 27.
The last article notes that the Klan stopped functioning as an organized entity in WV in 1944 and did not see a resurgence in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, as it did in many states.
Did you even read the articles you linked to? None of them suggests that WV is a hotbed for KKK activity.
Considering that georgia has been the home of the klan for almost a 100 years id say its a hotbed and come on texas really??? do i even have to talk about how bad texas is with race?? oregon isn't really much better with anti-government milita groups taking over a large part of the state.
Except for the fact that WV is a state where as beverly hills is a city do you know the difference between a state and a city????
"The People Of America Have Spoken THE REAL TITLE TOWN U.S.A IS VALDOSTA GEORGIA"
"WV left Virginia for political reasons that had everything to do with slavery. The main reason was that WV had very few slaves because the agricultural possibilities are so limited there, and therefore West Virginians didn't see the point in fighting a war waged primarily because of rich slaveholders' interests. "
It also helped that federal troops were able to vote in the election and secession probably wouldn't have happened if it weren't for their votes. But still, the majority of the population did live in the Wheeling area, which was more industrial than agricultural.
It's always funny to see people use the term "hotbed of Klan activity". The KKK has an estimated membership of 5000-8000 (which is probably high) out of a population of 313.9 Million people in the US. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KKK
Lets split the difference at 6,500 and divide and that comes out to about 0.0020766773162939297 % of the population.
Even if KKK members could organize themselves enough to get together in one place at one time they would make up one tiny little village.
Why even assume the Whites are KKK members? Why don't you assume they are proficient noodlers, trainspotters or soap carvers? There is probably an equal likelyhood.
it's like Grey Gardens with more meth and less teethThat's the perfect tagline for the film lol.
It is my understanding (and I expect that someone will be happy to correct me if I'm wrong) that the Whites live in a part of Appalachia that is so poverty stricken (and has been for decades) that no one wants to move there. There are no jobs to be had except by those who live there. No jobs = no emigration of anyone. Black people don't want to live there, nor do many white people who do not already have ties to the region.
If there is no Klan activitiy is is probably due to the homogenous nature of the long-term residents, not that they are racist.
But no, you won't hear lots people talking about Klan activities during the film if that's what you're concerned about.
I can't expect others to share my virtues, it's good enough for me if they share my vices.
no one in the film makes reference to the klan but one of the hags said something that made me think they were racists. She said "we're just good white, hillbilly's" and during the credits, said woman's kid had a confederate flag bday cake. So.. I dunno.
shareBeing a white hillbilly doesn't make someone a racist . . . you're thinking in stereotypes here. Confederate flags also do not mean that someone is racist. Go to the South sometime and you'll see thousands of them. These flags have certainly been used by racists, but probably not more so than American flags.
shareI know this is an old post and the responses are old but I figured I would just give you a response since no one else really did.
- Their last name is "White". It could have just as easily been "Smith" and the title probably would have been less confusing.
- The description refers to them as a "clan" but this has nothing to do with the KKK. It's just a primal way to describe a group of people that act crazy. THey could have easily used the word "gang" or "group" but clan seems to fit better since they have no organization.
So no, this movie has 100% nothing to do with the KKK or racism.