the american dream is dead and good riddance

1/11/2015 The American Dream Is Dead, and Good Riddance - The Daily Beast

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/07/the-american-dream-is-dead-and-good-riddance.html 1/18

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Keli Goff

WAKING UP 07.07.14

The American Dream Is Dead, andGood RiddanceIt ’s time to redefine what it means to be successful in America.

New analysis confirms what many already assumed to be true: a sizablenumber of Americans can no longer afford the American Dream. Inspired bythe new book, Chasing the American Dream, USA Today calculated thatsubsidizing the American Dream costs approximately $130,000 annually,meaning the dream is only within reach for about 1 in 8 American families.

The shocking six-figure price tag generated international headlines. Butinstead of inspiring handwringing about how to make the American Dreammore affordable, I hope these numbers show us something else: the AmericanDream as we know it is dead, and good riddance.

Perhaps nothing is more responsible for the lack of contentment plaguing someAmericans today than the outdated notion of the American Dream that hasbeen peddled to all of us for as long as we can remember. I’m referring to theversion that usually involves some mention of a white picket fence.

As part of its calculation USA Today cited certain key benchmarks forachieving the American Dream, notably home ownership, educating twochildren, as well as owning a good car. But for many of us our American Dreamdoesn’t involve all of the above, and in some cases any of the above.

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Perhaps nothing ismore responsible for

the lack ofcontentment

plaguing someAmericans todaythan the outdated

notion of theAmerican Dream

that has beenpeddled to all of us

for as long as wecan remember.

Adults living alone are currently one of the fastest growing demographics in

America. Nearly a third of households now consist of one person, and the

number of Americans living alone has doubled in the last fifty years. According

to a piece in Fortune, this demographic wields notable spending power. Many

of them can splurge regularly on things that traditional families sometimes

cannot, such as theater tickets. Is it possible some of these people are killing

time until they transition into a more traditional definition of the American

Dream via marriage? Sure, but a lot of these so-called “singletons” are already

living their own version of the dream.

Moreover, the number of childfree

adults—including couples—is also on

the rise. Despite the fact that anyone

with common sense will tell you not

everyone is meant to be a parent, and

that some people are not cut out for

marriage, that has not stopped

marriage and parenthood from being

central to the most common

contemporary definition of the

American Dream.

But even as more Americans are

beginning to challenge these ideas,

there is still very potent societal

pressure on Americans to chase some

version of a dream many may not even

want, but have simply been told to

pursue their whole lives.

Similarly, while USA Today writes,

“Home ownership is central to the

American dream,” I know of plenty of

New Yorkers who might argue that a

reasonable rent is. It’s also hard not to

wonder if the mortgage meltdown

would have happened if so many

Americans had not bought into the idea that their American Dream would not

be complete without buying a house, specifically a house they could not really

afford.

When historian James Truslow Adams coined the phrase “The American

Dream” in 1931, he called it “that dream of a land in which life should be better

and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to

ability or achievement.” He added, “It is not a dream of motor cars and high

wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman

shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable,

and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous

circumstances of birth or position.”

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But over the years this definition of the American Dream has been lost.Instead, when we talk about the American Dream, we often find ourselvestalking about marriage, children, mortgage debt, student loan debt, stuff, morestuff, and even more stuff (to fill up the house you owe the mortgage debt on).

Thankfully, the tide appears to be turning back in favor of Adams’ definition ofthe American Dream. A 2011 study found “a sense of meaning” to be the mostimportant factor for Millennials in defining a successful career, even though“meaning” is not the kind of thing that always helps with a mortgage. Perhapsnow that the American Dream as we have long known it is now out of financialreach for an increasing number of Americans, more will take the time to reflecton what the American Dream means for them personally, and maybe for ourcountry as a whole in the 21st century.

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AdamBaron

NEVER FORGET 01.11.15

The Forgotten War That Spawned

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Paris’ AttacksWhile the attack against Charlie Hebdo captured the world’s attention,

Yemen continued to bleed from relentless attacks from Al Qaeda.

LONDON — The massacre at the headquarters of Charlie Hebdo was neitherthe only nor the deadliest terror attack to occur on Wednesday. Hours beforethe Koauchi brothers made their way to the offices of the French satiricalmagazine, thousands of miles away, in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, a car bombstruck a crowd of men lined up to enroll at the city’s police academy. Roughlyfour-dozen were killed as the bomb went off, strewing blood and body partsacross the street.

It’s a coincidence that has grown all the more notable—and tragic—in light ofthe emerging ties between the Charlie Hebdo attackers and al Qaeda in theArabian Peninsula (AQAP), the Yemen-based terror group that officials haveaccused of carrying out Wednesday’s car bomb. According to the AFP, SaidKoauchi, the older of the pair, traveled to Yemen multiple times between 2009and 2011, studying at Sanaa’s Iman University, a controversial institutionheaded by firebrand cleric Abdulmajid al-Zindani, prior to training with AQAPin camps in the south and southeast of the country.

Notably, Inspire, an English-language, AQAP-affiliate magazine, explicitlythreatened to kill Charlie Hebdo editor Stephane Charbonnier in its March2013 edition, and at writing time, AQAP has reportedly taken credit for theattack on behalf of the group, though the ultimate extent of the Koauchibrothers’ ties to Yemen and AQAP is still unclear. Either way, the attack hasrefocused attention to the impoverished, conflict-stricken country.

Hailed as a textbook example of a successful counterterrorism strategy by U.S.officials as late as fall of last year, Yemen has instead been riven with unrestlately. An internationally backed power transition agreement has fallen apart,and the country’s economy—to say nothing of the central government’s controlover the bulk of the country—has appeared to collapse as well. And no one inthe circles of power in the West seems to have noticed.

Indeed, last week’s violence in Paris seems to underline how little progress hasbeen made against AQAP. Despite the efforts of the U.S. and Yemenigovernments, it still appears to possess the ability to unleash horrors againstWestern targets.

Yemen had already developed areputation as a hotspot for extremismby the time Koauchi allegedly firstarrived in 2009. Many western-bornMuslim hardliners flocked to Salafiinstitutes in the country, mostfamously, perhaps, the Dar al-Hadithinstitute in the far northern town of



The worry here is

that once the

attack on Charlie

Hebdo fades from

the headl ines,

Yemen wil l return

to suffering alone

as the rest of the

world turns a deaf

ear—unti l , that is,

AQAP hits the

West again.

Dammaj. While the bulk of theseforeigners simply came to study, anumber joined up with extremists onthe ground. One of the most notoriousamong them was “Underwear Bomber”Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, aNigerian student trained by AQAP whoinfamously attempted to blow up apassenger airliner on Christmas Day2009.

But while such rare plots againstforeign targets have garnered AQAP themost attention, the bulk of activity—and the bulk of their attacks—hasoccurred on Yemeni soil. It is this

violence the West ignores at its peril.

As the central government’s control over much of the country evaporated overthe course of 2011 in the wake of the Arab Spring-inspired uprising against thecountry’s long time leader, President Ali Abdullah Saleh, AQAP quickly movedto take advantage. While the group was pushed out of its former strongholds inthe southern Abyan in a Spring 2012 military offensive, they’ve quicklyregrouped.

AQAP has continued to find safe haven in areas across country, ranging fromthe eastern province of Hadramawt—where the group’s fighters have displayedaims of establishing an Islamic emirate—to the oil and gas rich provinces ofMarib and Shabwa, to Abyan itself. AQAP has continued to unleash a steadyflurry of attacks on military and security targets, supplementing their financesthrough everything from bank robberies to taking foreign hostages for ransom,allowing the group to buy new weapons and loyalties as it aims to spread itswrit to new territories.

Only the most diligent of news junkies would be aware of this bloodshed, giventhe dearth of coverage in most Western media—a disheartening oversight,because AQAP represents perhaps the purest distillation of al Qaeda’s ideologyand ambitions outside of the core group headed by Ayman al-Zawahiri. Mostterrorism analysts consider it the most dangerous al Qaeda franchise.

The U.S. has worked to counter AQAP’s growth, gaining a comparatively freehand from President Abdo Rabbu Mansour Hadi, Saleh’s successor and aformer vice president. He has openly backed American drone strikes in thecountry.

But while the sharp uptick of U.S. drone strikes has succeeded in taking out ahandful of key figures, including AQAP deputy emir Said al-Shihri andcharismatic extremist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, the barrage of remotely operatedAmerican airpower has failed to deliver anything resembling a knock-outpunch to the terror group.



Yemenis overwhelmingly oppose the strikes, which they see as violations of the

nation’s sovereignty and the rule of law. These misgivings have only been

heightened by a series of civilian casualties resulting from the strikes. A

number of observers—including former U.S. deputy ambassador to Yemen

Nabil Khoury—have vocally criticized the strikes, arguing that they ultimately

risk creating as many militants as they kill, ironically threatening to inflame

anti-American sentiments to the point of spurring the very attacks the U.S. is

aiming to prevent.

All of this, however, fails to touch on the key factors behind the presence of

extremist groups like AQAP in Yemen. In large part, AQAP is a product of its

environment; as many Yemenis see it, the group is the fruit of a foreign

ideology that has been able to lay roots in the country due to Yemen’s

widespread poverty and the government’s endemic corruption and persistent

dysfunction. As the group’s resilience in the face of repeated U.S. drone strikes

has demonstrated, AQAP will continue to carve out a presence in Yemen as

long as its given space to do so—something that is virtually inevitable as long as

the power vacuum in the country remains—meaning the group appears

destined to retain the operating space to train operatives who can take aim at

targets in the west.

In light of the ongoing political crisis in the country, it’s rather hard to see a

way out. Paradoxically, as foreign diplomats continued to hail the country’s

supposed progress along a UN-sponsored “transitional roadmap,” things

continued to slowly spiral out of control on the ground. An ongoing

humanitarian crisis means roughly half of the already impoverished country is

going hungry. Secessionists in the country’s restive south—an independent

country until 1990—stage daily demonstrations calling for a return to

autonomy. Tensions between rival factions in the Yemeni political

establishment paralyze the government. And the Shi’a-led Houthi rebel group

finally took control of the city on Sept. 21 last year.

Despite their vociferously anti-American stance—epitomized by the caustic

“Death to America” slogans displayed on their checkpoints across the Yemeni

capital—the Houthis have made fighting AQAP a top priority. But AQAP has

fought back; the group’s military commander, Qassim al-Raymi, ominously

threatened to unleash casualties that would “make the hair of young children

turn grey.”

In the wake of Wednesday’s car bomb attack in Sanaa, appalled Yemenis,

noting two attacks on Houthi-linked targets in the central towns of Dhamar

and Ibb mere days before, worried that the group appeared to be making good

on Raymi’s word, wondering, with horror, when the violence would finally end.

And when the world would remember this war.

It’s unspeakably tragic that it took a violent attack in Paris to refocus attention

to the ongoing unrest in Yemen, a nation whose conflict has been all but

forgotten for some time. But the worry here is that once the attack on Charlie

Hebdo fades from the headlines, Yemen will return to suffering alone as the

rest of the world turns a deaf ear—until, that is, AQAP hits the West again.



Adam Baron is a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign

Relations. He was based in Yemen from 2011-2014.


Pepsico

PARTNER CONTENT

GAME CHANGERS 12.19.14

The Science of Ingredient Innovation

Industry leader rooted in smart new innovations.

How far would you be willing to go to remain a leader in your field?

For PepsiCo, anticipating and staying ahead of changing consumer demands

for healthier and great tasting products is an unwavering commitment.

Remaining a food and beverage powerhouse takes investments to expand

research, engineering, science capabilities, and new technologies to understand

consumer preferences and develop high-quality, great-tasting products that



PepsiCo eliminatedapproximately

402,000 metric tonsof added sugar from

its beverageportfolio in North

America in 2013 ascompared to 2006,and has introduced

low- and zero-calorie beverages to

that end.

consumers trust.

Sometimes it takes going to the “ends of the Earth.”

Traveling to highly bio-diverse areas like the forests and jungles of Brazil, Peru,Malaysia, China, and Taiwan, PepsiCo is discovering indigenous ingredients,thousand-year-old recipes, and their possible applications in new and existingproducts.

For example, visits to local markets in these regions have allowed PepsiCo tofind ingredients like exotic antioxidant grape-like fruits, ruby-red yumberriesand ginseng, betel nuts, seaweed, and sweet tropical longans, and allowed thecompany to observe how they are being incorporated into regional cooking.These insights and discoveries help PepsiCo anticipate, rather than react to, anever-changing consumer landscape. It’s all part of a longer-term PepsiCo planto broaden its portfolio through science-based research and development.

During the last three years, PepsiCo’s investments in R&D increased by animpressive 25%. And research and development facilities in the United States,United Kingdom, Shanghai, Germany and Mexico — to name a few — areengines of innovation, driving topline growth. The new Shanghai location, thelargest outside of North America, serves as a hub for new food and beverageproducts, flavors, packaging, and equipment throughout Asia.

The investments in science-based R&Dare paying dividends. In the UnitedStates, PepsiCo has debuted nine of thetop 50 new food and beverage productsacross all measured U.S. retail channelsin 2013. They are Mountain DewKickstart, made with 5% real fruit juice;Starbucks ready-to-drink Iced Coffee;Tropicana Farmstand beverage that’s100% juice, which includes one servingof fruit plus one serving of vegetableper 8 oz. serving; the fresh-brewedLipton Pure Leaf Tea; Muller QuakerGreek-style yogurt; Tostitos CantinaTortilla Chips, Doritos Locos TacoChips, Ruffles MAX, and Cheetos Mix-Ups.

Work on science-based strategies includes a focus on enhanced consumerexperiences and preference drivers such as taste, texture, aroma, andconvenience.

“There are a lot of clues that nature gives you,” says Dr. Mehmood Khan,executive vice president of PepsiCo and chief scientific officer, who overseesthe food and beverage company’s global R&D organization. “What’s interestingto me in the past couple of years is the merging of biology and chemistry andanalytical technology that has opened up more applications with the potential



to create more new products in our innovation pipeline. It’s exciting.” He likensthe rapid-fire changes underway to the difference between black and white orcolor TV and high-definition technology: “We can see things now we didn’t seea year ago because the technology wasn’t available.”

Less Is More

For decades, consumers generally only cared about taste and price. Now betterinformed, they want to know about the sustainability of a product and itspackaging; where and how an ingredient is sourced; exactly what is in aproduct, and how it fits their specific functional needs. Not only do they wantmore information from manufacturers producing their foods and beverages,but consumers are also more inclined than ever before to share informationand recommendations with each other. And they also expect those products toremain affordable and taste great.

PepsiCo’s science-based R&D capabilities are helping the company anticipateand meet the consumer needs on a global scale. For example, PepsiCoeliminated approximately 402,000 metric tons of added sugar from itsbeverage portfolio in North America in 2013 as compared to 2006, and hasintroduced low- and zero-calorie beverages to that end.

Within the same timeframe, nearly 3,900 metric tons of sodium was removedfrom PepsiCo’s food portfolio, and the company continues to invest in newtechnologies and recipes that even further reduce salt levels.

Working with scientific and technology partners to create, what R&D calls amore efficient salt, PepsiCo R&D scientists recently discovered how the sizeand shape of salt actually affects taste perception. A couple of years ago at aforum, says Dr. Khan, “we taught medium-to-small companies some of thistechnology so they could utilize it in their products. We believe it was good forthe industry to adopt some of this as well.” Of course, it was also good for the



consumer.

The Transformation Journey

How did this transformation happen? PepsiCo recruited scientific talent and a

leadership team with backgrounds and credentials that were unusual for a

traditional food and beverage company. Experts hailed from disciplines such as

agronomy, exercise physiology, endocrinology, metabolomics, and rheology,

among others. Dr. Khan was previously a faculty member at the Mayo Clinic

serving as director of the Diabetes, Endocrine, and Nutritional Trials unit, and

oversaw worldwide R&D efforts at the Takeda Pharmaceutical Company as the

president of the Takeda Global Research & Development Center.

With the transformation, a message of commitment was sent to the industry

regarding their new approach to product development, innovation, deep

consumer insights, and product design.

The R&D team is combing remote regions like the Amazon in South America

and parts of Asia and even Iceland, both on land and in the sea. The mission?

To find various indigenous plants that are inherently sweet or salty, have fatty

characteristics, are naturally sourced preservatives and could be useful in many

product categories. According to Dr. Khan, PepsiCo has not only taken the lead

in the industry in finding ways to reduce salt and fats, introduced lower-sugar

orange juice, uncovered new oat-based benefits for consumers, and delivered

high-protein beverages, it was also one of the first companies to come out with

high-intensity, non-nutritive natural sweeteners like Stevia in its beverages.

Part of that, Dr. Khan says, was a direct result of the global trekking PepsiCo is

doing. “We’re finding other ingredients similar to Stevia that we believe might

unlock further great-tasting products in the future.”

With more than 5,000 different species and plants R&D looks at on a yearly

basis, PepsiCo has at its disposal digitized tasting technology, which was first



used by the pharmaceutical industry for new product discovery. Says Dr. Khan,

“once we discover a plant, we can ‘fractionate’ it in order to look at it a little

more closely; each one of those fractions has eight to ten natural flavor

ingredients. Then as we drill down, our screening technology will tell us if an

ingredient is inherently sweet, salty, fatty, or could be used for another purpose

such as preservatives or energy applications.” Incorporating taste biology and

sensory biology, the technology is helping to decipher hundreds of thousands

of molecules to go further into human tasting applications along the road to

yielding a new product. The now-efficient process “once took a month by

former means and now actually takes a day,” says Dr. Khan.

“When we go out into the field, we have high, rapid analytical methods where

we can actually see inside the plants or molecules and send that information

directly to a cloud and central database in New York,” he says, referring to a

technology that has only been in place for the last two years. “The final piece is

our sensory science, where once we narrow it down to a few molecules that

have been validated for tasting going through our protocols, we have R&D

experts that can say ‘yes, this is sweet or salty or fatty and can be used in our

offerings.’ That methodology,” says Dr. Khan, “is PepsiCo’s newest. Because

these ingredients are so new, we need new methodologies just to evaluate

them. It’s not like evaluating vanilla extract, because some of these things

represent the first time humans are actually tasting these ingredients.” Or, he

says, they were only used previously in ancient recipes and “it’s the first time

we brought it back to the United States to be able to taste. The whole idea is, of

course, to ultimately explore how we can use these ingredients in potential new

products that have a tangible consumer benefit.”

Another strategy has included PepsiCo’s collaboration with chefs both in the

United States and globally who, for example, might prepare desserts that, while

sweet, are made without sugar. “We recently held an exposition at the Culinary

Institute of America in Napa, California, and as a result our internal PepsiCo

chefs recreated the same dishes these chefs did in order to capture the flavor

ingredients before, during, and after the cooking and plating process. The idea

was to identify what they are and apply them to different snacks, beverages,

and foods. “This,” says Dr. Khan, “is a way for us to explore ways to get these

flavorful ingredients into products, and offer more uniqueness and realistic

flavor in seasonings for a snack chip.” These insights also help PepsiCo

continue to expand its nutrition business, which represented approximately 20

percent of its net revenue in 2013. It’s a portfolio of good-for-you offerings that

include drinkable oats with dairy, 100 percent juice, yogurt, humus and protein

shakes to name a few.



A Global Focus

As R&D helps to drive PepsiCo’s business with state-of-the-art technology, its

solutions are offering more consumers enjoyable and nutritious food and

beverage options, while making them available to more places across the globe.

What tastes great to an American consumer may not be what folks in China or

India would choose to eat or drink. To that end, PepsiCo adapts different global

brands with products customized for specific markets. Two culturally relevant

examples are Tropicana Frutz Sparkling Drink in the Middle East and Quaker

Inner Smile in China, a dairy and oat beverage. Likewise, the company’s iconic

potato chip offerings worldwide are customized to suit local palates—from

Walkers Pickled Onion crisps in England and MAXX seafood-flavored chips in

Thailand to shrimp-flavored chips in Egypt and salad chips in China. Without

reinventing the wheel, PepsiCo is able to leverage its global scale by creating

the opportunity for great ideas to be adapted from one market to another

across the world; efficiencies that allow the company to further invest in

innovation that ultimately benefits the consumer worldwide.

For a company that began 50 years ago, PepsiCo has successfully transformed

itself into a global and diversified organization, with a portfolio providing a

considerable range of food and beverages around the world. As it grows and

continues to innovate, PepsiCo also remains committed to offering consumers

everywhere more choice and better nutrition to meet and exceed their needs

while it works to minimize its environmental impact. PepsiCo’s stated mission

of “performance with purpose” not only fuels its growth but allows the industry

leader to stay ahead of trends as it helps to sustainably shape the world in

which it operates.

For more information, visit pepsico.com.

This content is partner content, and was not necessarily



written or created by The Daily Beast editorial team.

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AnnaNemtsova

BOOM IN THE NIGHT 01.06.15

Is Putin Turning to Terrorism inUkraine?In this nervous city in an embattled country, even small explosions canhave a big impact.

ODESSA, Ukraine — On Sunday night a powerful explosion shook the heart of

Ukraine’s most elegant city. The bomb went off right on the porch of the local

Euro-Maidan Coordination Council, where volunteers store humanitarian aid

for Ukrainian soldiers fighting Russian-backed forces in the east of the country.

Authorities categorized the incident as “an act of terrorism,” the seventh

bombing targeting strategic points of Odessa in the past few weeks.

The explosion destroyed the Council’s porch, tearing the entrance door to

pieces, breaking windows in apartments on upper floors, and terrifying

pedestrians on Gimnazicheskaya Avenue.



“We areconvinced

that moneyfor

terrorismcomes fromMoscow.”

Fortunately nobody was hurt seriously. But such are the tensions here that last

week the central government in Kiev deployed two units of National Guards to

launch an anti-terror operation in Odessa.

“We are convinced that money for terrorism comes from Moscow,” says Vitaliy

Kozhukhar, a commander of Odessa’s self-defense forces. The special services

of Russian President Vladimir Putin “seem to be happily organizing explosions

in order to destabilize life in our peaceful city, which to their frustration does

not want to become a part of Russia.”

Terrorism is bad news anywhere, but especially rough on Odessa, where the

city motto seems to be “make love, not war.” It is the only tourist center

Ukraine has left on the Black Sea, since Russia annexed Crimea last spring. Its

graceful hotels and beautiful restaurants are totally dependent on the tourist

trade. But most visitors stopped coming after the tragic events of May 2, when

over 40 pro-Russian activists from the separatist movement and Ukrainian

soccer fans were killed in a fire and in the violent clashes that surrounded it.

In 2014 only a tenth as many tourists came as had come the year before.

Instead, spa hotels filled up with over 30,000 refugees from the war-troubled

Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.

The advent of terrorist bombings, even if they are targeting buildings more

than people, will lead tourists to decide almost any place is better for a vacation

than Odessa.

One bomb went off outside an office of

the Council of Public Security on Dec.

10, another one destroyed railroad

track outside Odessa on Dec. 24, right

under a moving freight train.

Thankfully there were no casualties—

the driver managed to stop the train

immediately. A few days later an as yet

unidentified man carried one kilo of

TNT explosives toward the

headquarters of Ukrainian Patriotic

Activists, but by accident the attacker

was killed by his own bomb.

Last September, according to local

investigative journalist Sergei Dibrov, a

group of five local men received an

order from their alleged strategists in

Moscow to fire at a checkpoint on the

highway outside Odessa. “They were

provided with a mortar and promised to be paid in exchange for a video of their

attack, but police detained them; on Dec. 26 all five of them were exchanged

for Russian prisoners,” Dibrov said.

For now Odessa’s terrorists do not target civilians. This week, a few days before



Orthodox Christmas, the city’s parks and squares were full of families, andnobody seemed too concerned about safety. “The terrorists’ message isaddressed to us activists but they should know that their bombs will not stopour work,” says Sergei Sarafanyuk, a member of the Odessa Euro-MaidanCoordination.


PBS

Lewis Beale

HISTORY REPEATING 01.11.15

New Documentary Shows The‘Moderate’ Klan of North CarolinaThe Tarheel State had a reputation as the most progressive in thecountry on race relations. But it also had the biggest Klan chapter inthe South.

If you were driving through North Carolina in the mid-1960s, chances areyou’d see this billboard:

“You are in the heart of Klan country. Welcome to North Carolina. Join theUnited Klans of America, Inc. Help fight integration and communism!”

Klan support in the South was not exactly breaking news. What made these



“White people inNorth Carol ina

could not count ontheir pol iticians toresist integration

l ike the pol iticiansin Mississippi andAlabama, so therewas this opening

the Klan couldstep into.”

highway signs stand out was the fact that they were fairly common in what had

long been considered the most progressive state in the region, where the civil

rights movement had been met with a minimum of bloodshed and violence.

But the fact is, by 1966 the Tar Heel State had over 10,000 KKK members,

more than all the other Southern states combined.

The reasons why are explored in “Klansville, U.S.A.,” a documentary based on

the book of the same name by David Cunningham, which will be broadcast on

PBS on Jan. 13. And although the documentary deals with events that

happened 50 years ago, it also helps us understand contemporary Southern

racial politics.

So why North Carolina? As it turns out, the strength of the Klan was a response

to the Tar Heel State’s relatively smooth transition from segregation to

integration. “White people in North Carolina could not count on their

politicians to resist integration like the politicians in Mississippi and Alabama,”

Cunningham told the Daily Beast, “so there was this opening the Klan could

step into.”

It also helped that North Carolina had a Klan organizer like Bob Jones, a

former lightning rod salesman who had been discharged from the Navy for

refusing to salute a black officer. Jones began organizing in 1963, claiming to

be a voice for poor whites who felt threatened by black progress and who were

left behind by the state’s economic upturn.

“Jones was not a charismatic figure as

we usually think of that,” said

Cunningham. “He was an excellent

people person. He was disarming, with

a sense of humor. He also knew enough

to partner with people who had more

charisma.”

The Klan’s appeal was to people leading

traditional lives in rural areas. Their

rallies, which could attract thousands,

were like county fairs and social events,

and were in many ways similar to

religious revivals of the past. Jones and

his followers also claimed they were not

a violent organization, unlike Klan

outlets in the Deep South. Their major

form of intimidation, in fact, was not

murder or beatings, but cross burning.

If the North Carolina Klan was, in its

own bizarre way, a relatively moderate

organization, this was a reflection of the Tar Heel State itself. The state was

considered the shining light of the New South, in which the “North Carolina

Way,” advocating non-confrontation in race relations, was highly praised. This



moderation was reflected in The Andy Griffith Show, set in fictional Mayberry,

N.C. A soothing vision of small town life, the popular program featured blacks,

but they were always in the background, and seemed to respect the racial

boundaries of the day. “That sense of neighborliness also contributed to that

broad complicity to maintaining this sense of racial solidarity,” Cunningham

said. “Those boundaries drawn along racial lines were very strong and very

formal.”

All this contributed to North Carolina’s relatively benign image, but also to a

sense of complacency, especially regarding the Klan.

“I think the political class saw the Klan as nothing more than an annoyance,”

said “Klansville, U.S.A.” director Callie Wiser. “They weren’t in tune with the

working class, and they either believed, or wanted to believe, that the Klan

wasn’t as scary as they thought. Their thinking was that these people were just

blowing off steam.”

Eventually, however, Jones and his Klan movement were brought down by a

number of factors. Following the violence in Selma, Ala. and the murder of

white civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo—all recounted in the current film

“Selma”—the FBI, which had been indifferent, if not openly hostile, to the civil

rights movement, was forced to take on the Klan.

That, plus a Jones confidant turned informant and Jones’ conviction on

contempt of Congress charges after he refused to turn over the Klan’s bank

accounts to a congressional committee, reduced the North Carolina KKK to a

shell of its former self. Yet racial and economic anxiety, the forces that made

the Klan a player in North Carolina and the South, still existed. In North

CarolinaCarolina, they were channeled into support for hard-right racial

demagogue Jesse Helms, elected five times to the U.S. Senate.

And nationally, they were manifested as opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights

Act, which President Lyndon B. Johnson accurately predicted would deliver the

South to the Republican Party for years to come.

“People have anxieties, and will continue to have them,” Wiser said. “There are

always going to be threats to people’s livelihoods, and when they feel unsure

about their place in the world, they will lash out. That fear has not been

exhausted.”

“In the areas where the Klan was present in the South, those areas tended to

drive the shift towards Republican voting,” added Cunningham.

“The Klan never became a political force, but they were influential in loosening

ties to the Democratic Party. This isn’t purely a historical story. We see the

resonance of the Klan’s presence continuing. ++Where the Klan was popular,

we see more violent crime (PDF).

The Klan wanted to delegitimize authority, and that vigilantist impulse

continues to have a legacy today.”




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