Patch Blog: What I learned from the KKK, Chick-Fil-A and Facebook

Although I am not a historian, I am a student of history. I especially love the era of the sixties in America, and not just because it was the era of pot-smoking, free sex, and psychedelic music. I enjoy this period for its lessons in free speech. I’m a far cry from the sixties. I am a product of the eighties, the Me Generation, and to my knowledge, I have never had a civil right withheld from me. I grew up with plenty of freedoms in California’s Inland Empire. My parents were middle class school teachers. We even went to church every Sunday. But the recent events regarding the fast food chain Chick-Fil-A have had me reflecting about something I saw on the television news when I was a kid.

In January of 1987, one hundred members of the Ku Klux Klan chapter in Fontana, California marred Martin Luther King day celebrations by marching down one of the city’s main thoroughfares—Sierra Boulevard. Fontana had always had a reputation of being a KKK town. Fontana even has the moniker Fontucky (as in Kentucky), because of the racist views of a very vocal percentage of the town’s white citizenry. In my teens, Fontana was blue-collar, a steel mill town. The cops were white, and brown wasn’t tolerated. This was Fontana’s reputation back in the day.

I wasn’t physically at this rally. I was at home, sucking down a Mountain Dew and eating cheese puffs, watching the news televise it live, and I remember sitting mesmerized by what I thought was an absurd, yet dangerous demonstration of hate.

Local news channels were having a field day capturing video of grown men wearing hoods, walking proudly as they represented racism, a dislike for non-white culture, and perhaps even non-Christian white Americans. I thought they looked scary in their white hoods and long white gowns, parading like ghosts with only dark eye-holes to reveal anything remotely human behind the costumes.

Initially, I felt anger (hopefully for obvious reasons). Then I grew annoyed, annoyed because these men seemed like cowards. These guys weren’t walking proudly. They were walking scared. No one who believes strongly in a principle, no matter how misdirected, should ever have to hide his or her face to express to a belief. The first amendment guarantees that freedom. The marchers in this parade had to hide behind hoods and gowns in order to voice their hateful views.

At the time of the rally, I was a freshman in high school, and I’d had my share of arguments, fights, and bitter debates with classmates. Never once, though, do I remember putting on a hood in order to talk back to some jock who threatened to beat me up for my lunch, or to tell a teacher I disagreed with his or her perspective on a lesson. I spoke my mind without hiding. I wasn’t always right, but I didn’t hide. In 1987, I was a fourteen-year-old kid, and I had more courage to express my beliefs than these hood-wearing hoodlums.

So, I learned on Martin Luther King Day in January of 1987 that these particular racists were scared of their beliefs, scared of the consequences and the fallout from publicly sharing such views. Their hoods raised the question, “don’t real men and women stand proudly for their thoughts, unafraid to be recognized for them?”

Now, flash forward to 2012 and the Chick Fil-A controversy. Here’s a company that comes out against gay marriage. They support the ban on it, and they do it publicly. If you aren’t exactly sure what the Chick-Fil-A president Dan Cathy said that was so controversial, here it is:

We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that…we know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles.

I don’t agree with Mr. Cathy’s view, but I do have to give him some credit. He has a belief, a stance, a set of values. He doesn’t hide behind a corporate spokesperson. He came out publicly, spoke with confidence, and acknowledged he was not going to please everyone with his statement. He didn’t have to hide behind a white hood to do it.

During this controversy’s development, one of my Facebook friends posted a picture of Chick-Fil-A on his wall and clicked the like button. The timing of his post did not go unnoticed. My friend is an ultraconservative Christian, and he posted the picture to support Chick-Fil-A’s stance on gay marriage.

My friend made no remarks about the controversy when he posted the restaurant’s picture. All he did was click the like button, and lo and behold, an onslaught of negativity filled the comment thread. Many of his friends were angry with his like of Chick-Fil-A and said so in vociferous, even cruel ways. One would have thought my friend had posted something like “Jesus is a d–k” or “I hate Ni—-rs.” After twenty plus comments, my friend had a mini-meltdown and removed some of these people from his friend’s list because they were so angry and unsupportive of his stance.

The Chick-Fil-A controversy was a hot topic in July, and it still has a lot of people angry. I haven’t seen anything so polarizing since George W. Bush beat John Kerry to win a second term as president. My friend might as well have thrown blood to sharks, but he didn’t think of it like that. He figured he could say what he wanted on a computer screen without any negative blowback.

My friend’s response to all of the commentary was something along the lines of childish whining: I did not post this picture to receive negative criticism. Please don’t disagree with me on my wall. Please don’t call me names. I hate all of you. Aaaaahhhhhhh.

Okay, okay. I am editorializing a bit. I’d love to show some of the comment thread, and his real response, but he has hidden the post and it can no longer be accessed. He decided that he would hide his beliefs in the safety of cyberspace where clicking on a button can make anything you say invisible to everyone but you.

So, what do the KKK, Chick-Fil-A and Facebook share in the free speech debate? All three deal with individuals who demonstrate the two-sided coin of speech: to hide behind a veil of secrecy or to stand candidly when it comes to expressing a personal set of values.

My friend’s hiding of the comment thread reminded me of the KKK rally in Fontana. His computer screen is simply a virtual hood, behind which is a person afraid of public rebuke for taking a controversial stand on an important civil rights issue.

Believing in a value, right or wrong, is protected by the first amendment. If you choose to believe in something controversial, don’t hide it. Being open allows for public debate, and even a chance for resolution somewhere in the middle.

This nation was built on compromises. Sometimes these compromises are hard to swallow, but unless we are open and candid with ourselves, our colleagues, our friends, and our acquaintances, we might as well all wear a hood.