Recent Kansas City Killings Presents Us With Racism’s Latest Victims

KC victims

 

On Sunday, Dr. William Lewis Corporon and his fourteen year-old grandson, Reat Griffen Underwood, were killed by neo-Nazi Frazier Glenn Cross.

Dr. Corporon died in the parking lot behind the Kansas City Jewish Community Center. Reat died a while later in the hospital. They were at the community center because Reat was going to audition for KC Superstar, sort of a local version of American Idol.  Dr. Corporon practiced medicine in Oklahoma, before retiring in Kansas so that he could be close to his family.   Reat was an Eagle Scout.   He was a freshman at Blue Valley High School and he participated in debate and theater.

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Then Cross got into his car and drove to a retirement home, where he killed his third victim, a woman.  So far, her identity has been withheld from the media.

Three people died because of the racism that Republicans say doesn’t exist.  For all we will learn about Frazier Glenn Cross, I wanted to take a moment to say something about his victims.

Cross was heard worshipping Hitler as the police took him into custody.

Cross has a long criminal history stemming from his racism and anti-Semitism. In the 1980’s he founded two paramilitary groups, Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (where he was the “grand dragon”) and the “White Patriots Party”.

He called Jews “swarthy, hairy, bow-legged, beady-eyed, parasitic midgets.”  He was a partner of Alex Linder,  founder of the Vanguard News Network. Linder openly advocated for the extermination of Jews.

Some on the right are already pointing to the fact that this scumbag ran for Governor of North Carolina as a Democrat in 1984.  He also ran for the U.S. Senate as a Republican in 1986.  That’s a fact conservatives won’t mention in their “reporting”.  Just to complete the record, Cross also ran for the U.S. House in 2006 and for the U.S. Senate again in 2010, on a white nationalist platform.

To put it mildly, Cross had more than a few problems with the law.  The SPLC sued him for operating an illegal paramilitary organization and for using intimidating tactics against African-Americans.  Cross also plotted the assassination of SPLC founder Morris Dees.

Despite his racist and violent history, Cross owned firearms.  No doubt, Republican opponents of sensible gun regulations will argue that the gun bill they voted down last year wouldn’t have prevented this crime.

According to the SPLC, over 100 people were murdered by white supremacists like Frazier Glenn Cross in the past five years.  One of  Cross’ associates at the VNN was responsible for placing a backpack with a bomb in it on the MLK parade route in Spokane, Washington.

But according to the Republican Party, racism doesn’t exist anymore.  Tell that to the families of racism’s latest victims.

Image: NBC


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