Them

by Jon Ronson

“Hi, Jon,” said Muriel. “Would you like some peach cobbler?”

  “Yes, please,” I said.

  “Muriel and me,” said Thom, “we’re always arguing. I say to her, ‘We wouldn’t fight so much if you’d just agree with me once in a while!’”

  “Oh, Thom,” sighed Muriel.

  Thom hunched his shoulders as he told his self-deprecating jokes. He is a friendly and cheerful man, with an amiable demeanour. Had he not been the Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, I’d have described him as having the humorous demeanour of a Manhattan nebbish. The door was open for me, many times, to say to him, “Oh, Thom! You’re such a nebbish!” But that would have been a mistake. Still, it was surprising to find myself in a situation where I was toning down my Jewish character traits so as not to alienate myself from a Ku Klux Klan leader who reminded me of Woody Allen.

  “What are your plans for tomorrow’s National Congress?” I asked Thom.

  “Well,” said Thom, “Anna, my daughter-in-law, is going to…Anna! Come and say hello to Jon.”

  “Hi!” said Anna, with a welcoming smile.

  “Anna,” said Thom, “is going to be holding an Individual Personality Skills workshop.”

  “Really?” I said.

  “That’s right,” said Anna.

  “…Nigger…” said somebody in the darkness nearby. Thom winced. There was a small, awkward silence.

  “Well, you see,” said Anna, “there are four types of personality. There are the Popular Sanguines, the Powerful Cholerics, the Perfect Melancholies and the Peaceful Phlegmatics.”

  “I didn’t know that,” I said.

  “Right,” said Anna. “And I bet you’re asking yourself, what on earth does that have to do with the Klan?”

  “Well,” I said, “I was.”

  “Well,” said Anna, “you’ve got to think of the Klan almost like an orchestra. You’ve got the trumpets, which are like the sanguines. They keep everyone excited and they kind of set the pace for everyone. They kind of set the tone. The melancholies are more like the bass drums. They’ve got that steady beat, and they kind of keep everyone on track, keep everything the way it’s supposed to be.”

  “That’s right,” said Thom.

  “And an orchestra only works good when everyone’s on the same page and everyone’s working together,” said Anna. “And that’s kind of how you’ve got to think of the Klan. Everyone’s got to be on the same page, and everyone’s got to be working for the same goals. And then everything’s gonna work out all right.”

  “What personality are you?” I asked Thom.

  “I’m a powerful choleric sanguine,” said Thom.

  “Powerful choleric sanguines,” said Anna, “make the best leaders.”

  “Well,” said Thom, “that’s right. But all personalities are good.”

  “You know,” I said to Thom, “you are quite different to how I imagined the Ku Klux Klan’s leader to be.”

  “And I bet you got your impression of the Klan from all those Hollywood movies,” said Thom.

  “I did,” I said.

  “We do a lot of wonderful positive things,” said Anna, “that you don’t hear about on the radio or the TV.”

  “…Nigger…” said somebody, somewhere.

  “…Jew…” said somebody else.

  There was a silence. Whenever this awkwardness occurred, these bad words drifting up to us from conversations between rank and file Klanspeople in the darkness, Thom and Anna and Muriel looked embarrassed. Nobody mentioned it. Instead, Thom told me that his intention to rejuvenate the image of the Ku Klux Klan was influenced for the most part by popular self-help books.

  “Which titles in particular?” I asked him.

  “Successful Positive Mental Attitude,” said Thom. “Think and Grow Rich, The Magic of Thinking Big by Fred Schwartz. How to Win Friends and Influence People. I’m not implying…you know…I respect these authors very much. So I don’t want to imply that they’re secret Klansmen, or that they support the Klan in any way. All I’m saying is that they continue to have a very positive influence.”

  I was struck by Thom’s choice of words. He respected the self-help authors so he didn’t want to imply that they were secret Klansmen. This was an unusually self-deprecating position for the leader of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan to take. I remembered Omar telling me that I should be proud to be a Jew, that assimilation was the worst thing of all, and I considered offering similar advice to Thom.

  Instead, I said, “In terms of your image makeover, I was wondering if you’d considered changing the name to something other than, well, Ku Klux Klan. The thing is, it carries baggage.”

  “Good point,” said Thom. “And don’t think that I haven’t considered that. But in this movement, it doesn’t matter what name you go by. You can call yourself the Western Society To Preserve The White Race, it doesn’t matter. The liberal media are going to give you the same label. They’re going to call you Klansmen, they’re going to call you Nazis, they’re going to call you pigs. And the Klan is, let’s face it, a very cost-effective way of reaching people. I can’t buy the kind of advertising that I can get free by using the name Ku Klux Klan.”

  I knew what he meant.

  “Would you have come to see me if I was the leader of the Western Society To Preserve The White Race?” he asked.

  I had to admit that I probably wouldn’t have.

  “So you see,” laughed Thom, “the name benefits us all.”

  ♦

  The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan weren’t always like this, of course. Thom’s predecessor, Don Black – a handsome and brutal Klan boss from the 1980s – was not interested in self-help books or image makeovers or personality skills. His masterplan was to overthrow the government of Dominica, a tiny island in the Caribbean, and establish it as a homeland for white racists. He engaged a small army of ten mercenaries, and told the non-Klanspeople amongst them that they were taking part in a secret government operation to combat communism in the South Seas. Their plan was to set sail from a marina in Slidell, Louisiana, and anchor two thousand miles away at Dominica’s capital, Roseau, where they’d attack the police station, depose the Prime Minister, and declare Dominica an independent haven for white supremacists.

  As they climbed into their boat, however, FBI helicopters swooped down and arrested them all. Don Black was sentanced to two years in jail. While he was inside, Thom Robb held an emergency AGM. He got himself elected Grand Wizard.

  ♦

  Thom rode high for a while, leading the Klan into an era he called the ‘Sixth Era’. I don’t quite understand the ‘Sixth Era’, but I believe it to be not unlike the Age of Aquarius – only without the connotations of free love and hippie women in flowing dresses which presumably would not sit well with the Klan. He was America’s number-one racist leader.

  But then many Klanspeople began to desert him for more outspoken neo-Nazi leaders – leaders of rival Klan groups and organizations such as White Aryan Resistance – fearsome men who cared nothing about negative connotations. And some Klansmen were going it alone: they called it Leaderless Resistance. Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma bomber, was a one-time member of Thom’s Klan who became disenchanted with the image makeover and decided to go it alone.

  The truth was many Klanspeople felt that without hatred there was no point in even having a Ku Klux Klan. Hate, they contended, was a pivotal Klan activity.

  Furthermore, across America, Klan membership had fallen to an all-time low. Seventy years ago, there were three million Klansmen in America, with Klan friendly presidents and judges and movie directors. Today there were only a few thousand left. Thom’s image-makeover was his Unique Selling Point in a declining market. If this didn’t work, his whole organization could crumble.

  These were rocky times for the New Klan.

  ♦

  Early the next morning I arrived at Thom’s compound just in time for Anna’s Individual Personality Skills workshop. There were forty or f
ifty Klanspeople crammed into the orange- and white-striped marquee. Some were dressed in old Klan T-shirts and baseball caps, some wore the Klan uniform, a white shirt and black tie. Stitched into their shirts was the Klan insignia, a black cross in a white circle on a red square. Thom’s Klan insignia looked much like a swastika, which I felt was a mistake.

  Anna was standing in front of a whiteboard marked with arrows and phrases such as, ‘Unemotional’, ‘Decisive’, ‘Goal Oriented’, ‘Artistic’ and ‘Witty’.

  “You’re probably wondering,” began Anna, “what in the world does all this have to do with the Klan?”

  There were nods from the audience.

  “Well,” said Anna, “first of all we want to see if any of you have a personality!”

  She laughed. But the ice-breaker was greeted with a stony silence. It was an awkward start. Anna changed tack.

  “OK,” she said, “if I was to give one of you a million dollars to jump out of an airplane without a parachute, would any of you do that?”

  Nobody raised their hands.

  “For a million dollars?” said Anna, scanning the marquee. “Mmm? Right. Nobody would.”

  “Um,” said a woman in Klan uniform, raising her hand sheepishly, “excuse me. What if the airplane was on the ground?”

  “OK,” said Anna. “That’s right. OK.”

  Anna consulted the printed notes that the Personality Test people supplied as a guideline for the examiners.

  “OK,” she said. “What if the airplane was on the ground? Well, then. Sure. Everybody would. You’d have to be crazy not to.”

  There were nods.

  “Well,” said Anna, “that’s what we’re talking about today. You can’t make an informed decision about something until you’ve got all the details. Right? You couldn’t answer that question intelligently until you knew that the airplane was on the ground.”

  The Klanspeople scrutinized the photocopies of their personality sheets. One or two of them began filling them in.

  “No,” said Anna, sharply. “Don’t start until I tell you how to. OK?”

  Anna smiled – a chilling cheerleader smile. The Klanspeople hurriedly put down their pens.

  “A lot of times in dealing with people in the Klan,” said Anna, “or in your marriage, we make decisions about people we really don’t have all the information about. You might meet somebody and, well, he just rubs you the wrong way. And you just say ‘I don’t like that person’. But maybe they’re having a bad day. You don’t know the situation.”

  There were nods.

  “OK,” said Anna. “Turn to your sheets. In each of the following rows with four words across, place an X next to the word that most applies to you. Are you ready? OK. Here we go. ‘Angered easily. Aimless. Argumentative. Alienated.’”

  The Klanspeople marked their sheets with an X.

  “‘Unpredictable. Unaffectionate. Unpopular. Uninvolved.” OK? These are the weaknesses. We’ll be getting to the strengths in a while. Place an X next to the word that most applies to you.

  “‘Too sensitive. Tactless. Timid. Talkative.’”

  Anna paused. She consulted her book. “You want to know what ‘tactless’ means?” she said. “‘Sometimes expresses himself in a somewhat offensive or inconsiderate way.’” Anna looked up. “We don’t have anybody like that in the Klan! Okay! ‘Wants credit. Withdrawn. Workaholic. Worrier.’”

  “Um,” said a voice from the crowd. “Excuse me. In this one here, you’ve got down ‘Warrior’. Well, I don’t consider being a warrior to be a weakness.”

  “Right,” said Anna, consulting her sheet. “Sometimes a weakness can become a strength. For some people, being a worrier may be a weakness, but for others…”

  “I think that being a warrior is a strength,” he said, emphatically.

  His name was Fred. This seemed to be something of a stand-off. Fred was articulating what many Klanspeople were thinking. The Klan were Aryan Warriors, and Aryan Warriors should not concern themselves with personality skills.

  “OK,” said Anna. “Let’s move on to the strengths. ‘Mixes easily. Mover. Musical. Mediator’…”

  ♦

  Later, during the coffee break, I asked Anna whether she’d considered changing some of the weaknesses and strengths around, bearing in mind the Ku Klux Klan’s particular perspective.

  “What do you mean?” she said.

  “Well,” I said. “Take ‘mixes easily’. For many people, that’s a strength, but for you ‘mixes easily’ must presumably be considered a weakness.”

  “Right,” said Anna. “OK. Good question. We’re talking about mixing within groups of our own people. What we don’t do is mix, in an intermarital way with, you know, ethnic groups.”

  Thom wandered over, along with Heidi and Kyle, two handsome young Klanspeople in uniform.

  “Wasn’t the personality test great?” Thom said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “What were you?” said Thom to Anna.

  “I’m a popular sanguine,” said Anna. She turned to Heidi. “And you?”

  “I’m a popular sanguine too,” said Heidi.

  “Wasn’t it great?” said Thom to Heidi.

  “Well,” laughed Heidi, “I’m a real compassionate person, but the test said I wasn’t. So I didn’t agree with that. But I do like to think I have leadership skills.”

  Anna turned to Kyle.

  “And what were you?” she asked.

  Kyle looked to the floor and mumbled, “Melancholic.”

  Thom gave Kyle a little awkward pat on the shoulder.

  “And you?” said Anna to me, brightly.

  “I’m a peaceful phlegmatic,” I said, cheerfully.

  “That’s a good one to be,” said Anna.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Some more Klanspeople joined us carrying coffee in Styrofoam cups. We sat on a bench near the children’s play area. The conversation turned to the subject of Islamic fundamentalism. This was in the news more than ever since Bill Clinton had declared Osama Bin Laden to be as dangerous as any state America faced.

  “You’ve got to respect that guy,” said Thom. “It takes some dedication to live in a cave, especially if you’re a multi-millionaire.”

  “We could work with those Islamic guys,” said Pat from Alabama. “You know, when I see those Nation of Islam guys at rallies, I go right up to them and tell them I’m in the Klan, and most often they give me the thumbs up.”

  “Do they?” I asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Pat. “They say, ‘You just keep on keeping on, and we’ll just keep on keeping on.’”

  “We’re certainly working for the same goal,” said Thom.

  “Those Islamic guys,” said Pat, “all feel the same way we do about who controls the world.”

  Thom said there was something else that the white supremacists and the Islamic militants have in common. Both had been accused of planting the Oklahoma bomb. (It was true that the newspapers had rushed to a judgement in the immediate aftermath of the attack. One British tabloid filled its front page with a photograph of a fireman cradling a dying baby. The headline read: ‘In the Name of Allah’.)

  Thom said everyone knew that government agents had really blown the building up, for the purpose of demonizing armed racists so as to implement gun-control laws. They needed to take the guns away in preparation for the day the world government would declare martial law and imprison Klansmen in secret internment camps hidden in rural America.

  ♦

  The coffee break was over and it was time for Thom’s keynote speech. A bell was rung, and a cassette of bagpipe music was played through the public address system. The Klanspeople drifted into the marquee. There was a teenage girl wearing a Calvin Klein T-shirt. Calvin Klein, a New York Jew, represented on a T-shirt here at the Klan congress. I’d noticed the girl earlier. She’d been standing by the raffle stall, studying the prizes. One of the prizes was a collection of Walter Matthau videos.

 
; Then Thom walked past me, grinning and hunching his shoulders in his nebbish-esque self-deprecating way that I guessed was unconsciously inspired by watching Jewish characters on TV. Jews make up just 2.5 per cent of the population of the US, but even out here in Harrison, Arkansas, even here at the Ku Klux Klan National Congress, we had quite a presence. I didn’t feel quite so alone. We were doing OK.

  ♦

  Thom’s speech lasted an hour. He spoke without cue cards, and at times his points were repetitive. But, for the most part, it was a mesmerizing speech, outlining his vision for the new, upbeat, happy and go-getting Ku Klux Klan.

  Thom began, dramatically, by holding up a poster with the words: “GET OUT NIGGER!” scrawled out in bold letters. It was an arresting moment.

  Thom scanned the marquee.

  “This is stupid,” said Thom, waving the poster in the air. “This is stupid, stupid stuff.”

  Thom’s son, Nathan, handed out photocopies of the ‘GET OUT NIGGER!’ poster to the audience so they could scrutinize it further.

  “When your grandmother sees this,” continued Thom, “who is she going to support? Is she going to support you? No! So we don’t want to call those black fellas the N-word, because the very people we’re trying to reach, all they’ll hear is the N-word. Right?”

  Then Thom moved on to the subject of gender politics. Specifically, he spoke of how gender politics affected the image of the Ku Klux Klan. Thom began this portion of the speech by warning the audience that this was a complicated area, and he hadn’t completely worked it out in his own mind, so we should bear with him.

  “The masses,” said Thom, “are feminine. In the area of politics, the masses are feminine. OK? And the feminine masses look to what? They look to the masculine for protection. And who is the masculine? The government. So the feminine masses look to the masculine government for protection. OK?”

  There were nods.

  “So when the feminine masses see a Klansman on TV, or a militiaman running around with a gun, or a patriot wearing camouflage, what is she going to feel? She’s going to feel that her safety is being what? She’s going to feel that her safety is being altered. And she doesn’t want her safety to be altered. So she’s going to turn to who? She’s going to turn to the masculine for protection.”